Welcome and Guest Introductions

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. I'm here with my partner and co host, Margi. Hey, Margi.

Lindsay McCormick [00:00:07] Hi there.

John Dehlin [00:00:08] Today, our episode, we're live recording on location in Knoxville, Tennessee or near Knoxville, Tennessee. And this is going to be a two part series from Knoxville, Tennessee. Today's episode is about a standard, normal Mormon couple, in this case from Knoxville, Tennessee, or living in Knoxville, Tennessee, who has a faith journey and ends up being threatened twice with excommunication. So what in the world would just cause a couple not trying to make waves, just going through their own faith journey, be threatened twice with excommunication? And then also like, what does it mean to have sort of this down home, multi generational Knoxville, Tennessee Mormon family? What does it mean to be the first in a family like that to struggle with their Mormon faith? And what are the implications of that? So that's kind of what today's episode is about. For this interview, we have Lindsay and Todd McCormick. Hey, guys.

Todd McCormick [00:01:15] Hello.

John Dehlin [00:01:16] Thanks for joining us.

Lindsay McCormick [00:01:17] Thanks for coming out.

John Dehlin [00:01:19] Y' all may remember that months ago we interviewed bishop or former Bishop Nathan Hinckley to talk about his interactions as a former bishop with his stake president. Well, Nathan Hinckley is the brother of Lindsay McCormick. That's your brother.

Lindsay McCormick [00:01:38] That's right.

John Dehlin [00:01:39] So we have, as part two of this series, we have interviewed Nathan and his daughter Kaylee about their journey as kind of a father daughter couple. And the teaser or the thumbnail for that episode is my dad ruined my Mormon wedding. So that's going to be. Y' all are already laughing. We've actually already recorded that episode. We recorded it before this one, but this one's going to air before that one. But anyway, it's a two parter, a Knoxville special, but they go hand in hand because what you'll learn in next episode is that Lindsay and Todd led out in their faith journey right around the time that Nathan was bishop. And of course, this is a very close. The Hinckley family in Knoxville is a very sort of a pillar Mormon family in the branches, wards and stakes here in Knoxville area. So it's kind of a Knoxville two part Mormon story with these substories. Anyway, that's the intro. But if you're just looking for a down home couple in a Mormon their own Mormon journey, Todd and Lindsay McCormick. That's what we're here to talk about today. Thanks for coming on Mormon Stories podcast.

Todd McCormick [00:03:02] We're excited to be here.

John Dehlin [00:03:04] Anything y' all want to add or take Away or correct from my intro?

Lindsay McCormick [00:03:09] No.

Todd McCormick [00:03:10] Sounded great.

John Dehlin [00:03:11] No. Okay. All right, well, if it's okay, maybe let's start with you, Lindsay, because there's kind of this Hinckley Knoxville focus.

Growing Up Mormon in Knoxville, Tennessee

Lindsay McCormick [00:03:19] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:03:20] But can you tell us a little bit about, you know, the Hinckley family lore and history as it relates to Mormonism and Knoxville, Tennessee?

Margi Dehlin [00:03:31] Sure.

John Dehlin [00:03:31] As a starting point.

Lindsay McCormick [00:03:32] Yeah. Well, my family goes all the way back to the roots of Mormonism with Joseph Smith. And I mean, not Joseph Smith, but Hinkley's. Go back to his time. To his time.

John Dehlin [00:03:42] And we mentioned that Gordon B. Hinckley was a prophet of the Mormon Church, and he's well known. That's. It's that Hinkley line in some way.

Lindsay McCormick [00:03:50] Yeah, he's our second cousin three times removed.

John Dehlin [00:03:52] Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [00:03:52] So when I moved to Utah with the last name of Hinkley, everybody always asked me that. And he was prophet at the time, so, yeah, it was pretty fun. So, yeah, we have a lot of ancestry in the church. And Arza Hinckley, he was our direct grandpa. He was very instrumental in a place called Cove Fort. Co. Fort. Is that what it's called? It was Brigham Young's kind of in between. Fort between Salt Lake, I think, in St. George or somewhere.

John Dehlin [00:04:20] Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [00:04:21] Over in the area. And so he was kind of a. Ours of Hinckley was kind of a big deal down there, so as far as that goes. But Tennessee, My family is from Utah. My parents are from Utah. They actually went to the same high school as Todd. Not at the same time.

John Dehlin [00:04:36] Layton. Is that right?

Lindsay McCormick [00:04:37] Layton High, Yeah. And anyway, they. They started their family in Utah. My two brothers were born there, and then they ended up in Georgia and had me, and then we ended up in Tennessee. My parents are musicians, and they were. They raised us on music. So Hinkley family lore is all about music. Fun, dominoes. That's kind of what we are all about.

John Dehlin [00:05:03] I joked with Nathan that it's kind of like the Hillbilly or Appalachia Osmonds. Right. Which I'm sure doesn't fit, but I'm curious, why didn't they settle in Nashville instead of Knoxville? Any idea?

Lindsay McCormick [00:05:15] We were there. We had first went to. I think we went to Nashville first after Georgia, and they sang at the Opryland Hotel for years. And then they got a job at Dollywood. Dolly's. Dolly Parton State Park. And so my brothers and I would just go in the summers all summer long, and we would just ride the rides while my parents were singing at event picnics. And things like that for about 11 years. So that's what we did. And that's what kind of brought us to. Not to the Knoxville area. Cause it's closer to Dollywood.

John Dehlin [00:05:42] Knoxville's closer to Dollywood?

Margi Dehlin [00:05:44] Yes.

Lindsay McCormick [00:05:44] Closer to Sevierville and Gatlinburg and all that.

John Dehlin [00:05:47] Okay.

Lindsay McCormick [00:05:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:05:48] What was the Hinckley family culture like from a Mormon perspective growing up in Knoxville?

Lindsay McCormick [00:05:56] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:05:57] How many siblings?

Lindsay McCormick [00:05:58] And so three brothers and me, I'm the only girl. So two older and then one younger. We were Mormon. We were not super Mormon, but we were in. And we believed it. When I say we weren't super Mormon. We didn't do like fhe every Monday. We didn't really say family prayers, but we did say, you know, prayers at meals. And we, you know, we went to church every Sunday. We went to our activities and things like that. And, you know, back then, there were a lot of fun activities. There was softball and there were, you know, road shows and lots of music opportunities and things like that, dances and. And all that. And so we all really enjoyed it, Especially my brother Nathan. He, you know, he met his wife through the church and so growing up. So, yeah, for me, I definitely believed in. It was, you know, went and everything. Wasn't my first group of friends or anything. I had a couple of really good friends there. But I, you know, I kind of did my thing in high school and most of my friends were not LDS at all.

John Dehlin [00:07:00] So like the typical. I mean, so I think the majority of our Mormon stories, interviewees didn't have regular family home evenings. So I think that's more normal because it's hard to do.

Lindsay McCormick [00:07:10] Right.

John Dehlin [00:07:11] You know what I mean? But. But you know, in terms of like coffee. No coffee, right?

Lindsay McCormick [00:07:15] Oh, right, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:07:16] And alcohol and like rated R movies.

Lindsay McCormick [00:07:20] No, no. Well, my dad showed me one. The Jerk with Steve Martin.

Todd McCormick [00:07:24] Yes, I remember that.

John Dehlin [00:07:25] And that. That starts in the south, right? Yeah, I remember that.

Lindsay McCormick [00:07:29] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:07:30] Yeah, that doesn't count.

Margi Dehlin [00:07:31] No.

John Dehlin [00:07:33] And that. That speaks well for your dad, by the way. Yeah, I love that. I love that movie. And then. But also, like, you know, modesty, like.

Lindsay McCormick [00:07:42] Well, so I really didn't have a lot of that put on me.

John Dehlin [00:07:47] Oh.

Lindsay McCormick [00:07:47] By my family or even by my ward. I, you know, wore spaghetti strap dresses to my proms. My mom and I would lay out in bikinis on our back porch together. You know, it wasn't really like a, you know, we didn't have to wear sleeves or wear shorts to our knees or anything like that growing up.

John Dehlin [00:08:03] It's interesting because We. We. Well, Kaylee's story. Yeah, she definitely had that.

Lindsay McCormick [00:08:08] Yes.

Todd McCormick [00:08:09] So.

Lindsay McCormick [00:08:09] Well, because I believe. Yeah. Because Nathan gets passed down from Amy and Nathan. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:08:13] Okay. Yeah. Okay. But you didn't have that. That's interesting. And it sounds like Nathan didn't have that type of parents.

Lindsay McCormick [00:08:20] Right.

John Dehlin [00:08:20] Which I don't think I totally registered yesterday. But anyway. Yeah, that's. That's cool to know. Okay. But. But three hours of church every Sunday and.

Lindsay McCormick [00:08:31] Yep. And then come home for souffle German pancakes my mom would make every Sunday. And. Yeah, just. We would. We'd spend a lot of time together outside of that Monday night. You know, I think that was kind of the idea with our family. We just spent a lot of time doing other things, doing music and playing games and just having fun and going on vacations and things like that.

John Dehlin [00:08:53] So what about, like, performing music in, like, Wards and Stakes in the region all the time. Y' all were known as the. As a musical, performing, family, singing, spiritual type of things.

Lindsay McCormick [00:09:07] For sure. Yeah.

Todd McCormick [00:09:07] Still are.

Lindsay McCormick [00:09:08] Yeah. My three brothers had a. Had a band together called the Hinkley Brothers.

John Dehlin [00:09:13] Okay.

Lindsay McCormick [00:09:13] Y. And.

John Dehlin [00:09:14] And it was mostly a Mormon music, or.

Lindsay McCormick [00:09:17] I wouldn't say that my oldest brother wrote most, if not all the songs. There were definitely some spiritual songs, and I think they, you know, they probably had one album that was more dedicated to that type of music, and then they've had more country and things like that. I was a little more shy with my singing, but I always did it in the choirs in high school and things like that. And so I didn't really sing a lot with my family. I don't think as a young, you know, younger kid, like my. Like my brothers did. But as I kind of have gotten older, I've gotten more comfortable with it and love to sing.

Todd McCormick [00:09:53] And she's amazing. She can harmonize like nobody else.

John Dehlin [00:09:58] I think I remember her saying at dinner that, like, she wasn't going to marry you unless you're musical. Is that right?

Todd McCormick [00:10:02] I wouldn't have had. No. No chance.

John Dehlin [00:10:05] Like, it was.

Todd McCormick [00:10:06] Somebody just asked me a couple days ago how I landed Lindsay, and I said I wrote songs and played guitars.

John Dehlin [00:10:12] Play the bass, at least.

Todd McCormick [00:10:13] I played well, guitars. Acoustic guitar is my main thing.

Lindsay McCormick [00:10:16] And he has hundreds of songs.

Todd McCormick [00:10:17] I play the bass so I can play with Nate.

John Dehlin [00:10:19] Got it. Okay. Okay. So, you know, your outline just didn't spend a lot of time in your adolescence or young adulthood. It. It. You know. So what I took from that is a typical, happy, healthy Mormon upbringing.

Lindsay McCormick [00:10:36] Very happy. Very. Through fun through adulthood, good relationships with family and all that.

John Dehlin [00:10:41] Please.

Margi Dehlin [00:10:42] One question I have for you is just thinking about you with three brothers, you know, growing up, were there any real, like, gender maybe messages with what was expected of you? Or even, like you mentioned in performing, you felt a little more reticent or sometimes not. Like, were there different expectations in the way where there was a rub for you or living it? Did it feel like at the time you were a girl and growing up, like, a good fit? You know what I mean? Like, the gender roles and expectations for boys versus expectations for girls. You have three brothers who sound like, you know, very. I don't know, like full personalities. Yes. And doing all sorts of things. So I was just curious, growing up, if you ever, like, if you had feelings that way growing up with only brothers and being a girl?

Lindsay McCormick [00:11:36] Yeah, good question. You know, I. I think because I had brothers, I ended up having a lot of guy friends in high school and things like that. And I, you know, I would always be the one, like, at family trips, for example, that would be going and playing volleyball with the guys while, like, their wives were, you know, tending the babies or things like that. So I kind of just kind of jumped into the guy mode, I think, a little bit, maybe. But, yeah, as far as having any feelings like that, I don't think I ever felt, you know, like I was a little more shy about singing and about that sort of thing. I think it's probably just a me thing versus, like, anything about gender. But there was the expectation for the boys to go on the mission. Definitely not for me, but there was the expectation and the hope that I would, you know, get married right away in the temple sort of thing.

John Dehlin [00:12:30] So when you'll. You'll hear when we talk to Kaylee that, like, for her, going to BYU was just not even an option, not even a consideration. She had no interest in byu and she didn't want to go on a mission. So she was, you know, relieved about that. I'm giving away tomorrow, but for you, what were you wanting to go on a mission and. Or, you know, what was it? Why did you want to go to byu or, you know.

Leaving Tennessee for Utah

Lindsay McCormick [00:12:57] No, no, no, no, no. Okay. So when I graduated, I actually was thinking about going to mtsu, but again, our friends. Middle Tennessee State. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:13:05] Okay.

Lindsay McCormick [00:13:05] A couple of my friends were thinking about going there. Um, I. We're not a college family. None of us really went. I went to the most college in my. In my family until Kaylee, which was about a year and a half, but I had A cousin had. Had moved to Utah. She had graduated early from high school. We're the same age. And she had moved there in December to go to the U. University of Utah. And so she just kind of talked me into moving out there. And for me, it's like, yeah, I want to go to Utah for the Utah boys, but I don't want to go to byu. I. But that we. It was kind of a thing, like, made fun of a little bit Provo kind of Utah culture type stuff.

John Dehlin [00:13:44] Hey, that's where Margi and I met. I'm kidding.

Todd McCormick [00:13:47] I'm kidding.

Margi Dehlin [00:13:48] Which makes us totally understand.

Todd McCormick [00:13:51] And then she married a Utahan after all.

Lindsay McCormick [00:13:54] I figured I probably would, but just hoping to pull him back, you know, worked out. Yeah. So I moved to Utah. Right. Yeah, right.

John Dehlin [00:14:01] When I graduated to find a boy.

Lindsay McCormick [00:14:03] I mean. Yes, but I would never have admitted that, you know. But, you know, also just to.

Margi Dehlin [00:14:09] To.

Lindsay McCormick [00:14:09] To go on and do my own thing. I was going to say I. When you asked your question a minute ago, Margi, that I did. I feel like I did kind of carve my own little path growing up a little bit. No one in my family played soccer, and me and my friends, you know, started playing soccer in high school. And, you know, I just had a really good group of friends in high school and. And if that makes sense. And my brothers had kind of gone on their missions and so my little brother was quite a bit younger than me, so I feel like I just kind of carved my own way, kind of did my own thing and was, you know, my parents were very hands off in a way. Not in a bad way, but just like, you know, trusting. And anyway, that's. I was going to mention.

Lindsay's Photography Career and Early Life

John Dehlin [00:14:50] And did you do photography before you met Todd? No. Okay.

Lindsay McCormick [00:14:54] Well, yes, before I met him.

John Dehlin [00:14:55] Okay. Do you want to talk about that really quick? Because you were a. Yeah. Pioneering photography in Utah of all places.

Lindsay McCormick [00:15:01] Yeah. So I was at a family reunion and one of my dad's cousins had mentioned that Kitty Candace in the mall hires all the time for photographers. So I went and applied and got a job there. So that was kind of my first, like, portrait photography experience was at Katie Candid, which I don't think exists anymore.

John Dehlin [00:15:19] And then that developed into.

Lindsay McCormick [00:15:21] So then after that, it was. I moved on to another studio. And then after I was a nanny again in California for a few months, I came back to Utah after that and met up with a friend who had said he knew a guy that was a wedding photographer in Salt Lake. And so I went and Applied with him, got the job. He was great. He taught me so much. And that's where I really feel like my knowledge of, like, shooting weddings and, you know, photography really expanded. So. So I worked for him for a couple of years, and then. And then we had met while I was working for him. And so after that, when we got married, I stopped working for him and then started my own company.

John Dehlin [00:16:05] And that's relevant because I think what you told me is that, you know, now there are a lot of women who are well known photographers in Utah, but apparently you were one of the first digital photographers.

Lindsay McCormick [00:16:21] Yeah, there was. There was like one kind of popular female photographer, Portia, and she was kind of like a big name. But then all the other photographers that felt like were just old dudes, you know, just old guys with the camera, and, you know, they're fine and great. But when. When we started mine, I decided that I would use my middle name, which felt weird because I never went by my middle name. But we just decided make it very feminine. Lindsay Jane Photography. And. And then we put a slogan on it, a feminine perspective, to kind of just differentiate. Um, it. It did blow up. I hired. We hired, like, probably eight photographers and a studio manager. And. And it was. It was very successful out there.

John Dehlin [00:17:01] And you're. You're still a photographer to this day?

Lindsay McCormick [00:17:04] Yeah, I retired for a bit to have babies and to build other businesses. And then Kaylee kind of got me back into it because she asked me to shoot her wedding, and it felt good. Okay. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:17:16] All right, well, that gives us a sense for your upbringing. Todd, let's bring you in for a bit and just. Yeah, tell us a bit about yours.

How Todd and Lindsay Met

Todd McCormick [00:17:24] So I am a Utah boy, born and raised in Layton. I never know how to say that Southern drawl.

John Dehlin [00:17:30] I'm not. Well, I was. Layton. It's Layton.

Todd McCormick [00:17:33] I know there's no right way to say it. I get made fun of. Not by the mountains. Right. I always joke with Lindsay that I'm more Tennessee than she is because I have ancestors converted to Mormonism near Nashville. Oh. And not that far back. It's my. I have their piano in our house right now. My Tennessee ancestors.

John Dehlin [00:17:54] So.

Todd McCormick [00:17:55] Born and raised in Layton. I had a wonderful childhood. Loved, you know, great family. I. I feel like the 90s, that's. That's when I was in high school. I felt like it was a heyday for Mormonism. I mean, you know, Gordon B. Hinckley was such a rock star prophet and, you know, it was a lot of fun, a lot of activities and there wasn't much challenge to it either. So you could just kind of blissfully go along and. And do your thing. And I, you know, I loved it. I loved. I loved Utah. I loved Mormonism. I went on a mission to France, and that was an eye opener. You know, it was a. It was first time I had really been out of the country and started getting some different perspectives.

John Dehlin [00:18:40] Okay, so overall, a happy, sort of pretty orthodox, traditional Mormon family upbringing in Layton, which is kind of north of Salt Lake City.

Todd McCormick [00:18:50] Three minutes north, yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [00:18:52] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:18:53] Mission. Came home and then. How'd you meet Lindsay?

Todd McCormick [00:18:59] So we. We met at a party. I was getting. I was getting into that menace of society age by the time I met.

John Dehlin [00:19:08] So you were 22.

Todd McCormick [00:19:13] I was 26.

John Dehlin [00:19:14] Oh, my God.

Todd McCormick [00:19:15] Can you believe it? Terrible. I know. I had. I had a younger friend, he was like 22, who was just. Couldn't believe I wasn't married. And he lost.

Lindsay McCormick [00:19:24] He.

Todd McCormick [00:19:24] He didn't get married till later than me, so. But we met. I know. I mean, we met. It was a very momentous day in a lot of ways, because it was 2004, and it was the year of Alex Smith at the University of Utah.

John Dehlin [00:19:40] Go Utes.

Todd McCormick [00:19:41] Go Utes.

John Dehlin [00:19:42] That's Jeff's favorite quarterback, Alex Smith.

Todd McCormick [00:19:45] Oh, he was amazing. That team was amazing. And I. It was my senior year at the U, and they beat BYU in Salt Lake at rles, which made them bust the bcs. So it was a huge day. I was on the. I rushed the field. I was down there that. That day, went back to my apartment and down the street on 9th east, and my friends were talking about going to a party, and I was kind of burnt out for the day, but they talked me into it. And it was in Farmington, and we. You know, I dated a lot of girls and I had a lot of relationships, but I was really kind of shy when it came to meeting a girl, especially one as beautiful as Lindsay. So I remember seeing her at this party and being like, wow, she is gorgeous. And I'm never going to talk to her because I'm too scared of her. But thankfully, I had a. Not a really uninhibited roommate with me, and I told him, oh, one thing helped too, right?

Lindsay McCormick [00:20:41] Well, it was my birthday. It was my birthday.

Todd McCormick [00:20:43] It wasn't her birthday party, but it was your birthday.

Lindsay McCormick [00:20:45] No, it was my birthday. And I had. Some friends had taken me to the party, and they made me wear a crown that said Happy birthday on it. So anyway, they were kind of actually trying to Cheer me up from something. And so they forced me to get out of the house. I wasn't wanting to go anywhere that. That day, but they forced me to go and forced me to wear the crown. And so that kind of gave him an excuse to come over and talk to me.

Todd McCormick [00:21:08] So, yeah, my. My roommate and I kind of grabbed her as she was walking by and said, happy birthday, birthday girl. Yeah, hey, birthday girl. And then we got on our knees, held. Held her hand, each of us, and got the whole party to sing happy birthday to her. And so that was kind of a fun meeting. Yep. And then it was kind of history from there.

Lindsay McCormick [00:21:26] We. Yep.

Todd McCormick [00:21:28] There's a lot more to the story, but that's.

John Dehlin [00:21:30] Were you working? Were you in school? Were you working?

Todd McCormick [00:21:32] I was just about to graduate from the U in finance.

Lindsay McCormick [00:21:34] Okay.

Todd McCormick [00:21:35] I ended up going into real estate from. I had already started in mortgages and went that route after college.

Temple Marriage and Early Married Life

John Dehlin [00:21:43] How long did y' all date before you got Temple married?

Lindsay McCormick [00:21:47] 9.

Todd McCormick [00:21:48] It was a long time in. In some standards, we were 10.

John Dehlin [00:21:50] Nine is.

Lindsay McCormick [00:21:51] No, 10. It was 10. Exactly, right? Yeah. Yep. It was 10 to the day that we started dating.

John Dehlin [00:21:56] What temple were you married in?

Lindsay McCormick [00:21:57] Nauvoo.

John Dehlin [00:21:58] Nauvoo, yeah. Because there wasn't a Nashville temple.

Lindsay McCormick [00:22:01] Well, no, there was a Nashville temple for me. I had taken so many pictures at, like, the Sally Temple and all the places in Utah for weddings, and I don't know, I just wanted to be unique and have, like, a. I wanted a big temple for pictures. It's all about the pictures for me. And not only that, but it also kind of was representative of, like, in between Utah and Tennessee, and it was kind of in the middle, and he had an uncle and aunt that were serving a mission there at the time in the temple, so that was just kind of neat. And then we. We just wanted to make it kind of like a. A Mormon. Like. What's the word?

Margi Dehlin [00:22:39] Mecca.

Lindsay McCormick [00:22:40] Well, destination wedding. Destination wedding. Mormon destination. Nauvoo, Illinois.

John Dehlin [00:22:44] So nice.

Lindsay McCormick [00:22:45] But it was really cool.

Todd McCormick [00:22:46] So we made both families travel instead of just one. They were a little upset at us.

Lindsay McCormick [00:22:49] We didn't know at the time that they were.

Todd McCormick [00:22:50] Yeah, we. Oh, yeah. That was kind of expensive for everybody, but it was fun for us. Were you the same?

Margi Dehlin [00:22:57] Oh, we did the same. Yeah. Yeah, Both sides.

Lindsay McCormick [00:23:03] Oh, fun. See, I think it's fun.

Todd McCormick [00:23:05] Well, and I was kind of a big dreamer, and I. I didn't want to get married in Utah either, so I want. I loved the San Diego temple, and that's where I Wanted to get married, but Nauvoo worked out really well, and we did all kinds of. We were so Mormony back then, and we, you know, we did all kinds of family history and saw all. You know, we had tons of connection in both of our family. Built the Nauvoo Temple, so it felt really. You know, it felt really significant and special to get married there.

Lindsay McCormick [00:23:28] Yeah.

Early Signs of Doubt and Disillusionment

John Dehlin [00:23:29] So in terms of your mutual commitment to the gospel, I mean, you're already checking all the boxes. You're returned missionary, faithful, married in the temple. Temple worthy as much as many of us were, I guess, I'm sure. So I'm assuming when you got married, you were both committed to staying faithful, raising your kids in the church, never leaving the church, and making the celestial kingdom someday. Right. All the normal stuff.

Lindsay McCormick [00:23:55] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:23:56] And then you got married. 2005, which is the year Mormon story starts. I just. I like to get a timeline going in my brain.

Todd McCormick [00:24:03] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:24:04] And. And so let's just say, what year did your faith journey kind of begin? What year would that have been 10 years after that?

Lindsay McCormick [00:24:12] 20.

Todd McCormick [00:24:13] So 2014.

John Dehlin [00:24:14] 2014. Okay, so between 2005 and 2014, did either of you have any significant moments of doubt or questions about the church? Nope.

Todd McCormick [00:24:28] I had a good. I remember when we moved to West Knoxville, I had a friend that I had just met, and he came up to me and asked me if I. I think you could tell I was more open minded because I was open minded in other ways, just politically and some other. And he asked me if I knew what a New Order Mormon was.

John Dehlin [00:24:44] I remember that term. Heard.

Todd McCormick [00:24:46] I had never heard the term in my life.

John Dehlin [00:24:48] Okay.

Todd McCormick [00:24:49] And I was like, no, he. I think he was hoping to find some community in person, because I think he'd been on those forums and been involved in that. But, no, I. I feel like we were just not even shakable. Like, we were doing the things, and we loved it, and we had no problems with it, and. And it worked well for us. I mean, it was great. It was a great life.

John Dehlin [00:25:10] Yeah. You know, so through 2014, no significant. No shelf. No significant shelf items. Just faithful, orthodox, devout Mormons.

Todd McCormick [00:25:21] The only shelf item I can remember was at a very young age, I found out about polygamy, and I asked my mom about it, and I was really troubled, and she was able to just kind of, you know, smooth it over for me, but that was literally the only time I ever had any issues with the church.

John Dehlin [00:25:39] Yeah, because the. Yeah, because, like, we're gonna get into how y'. All. This is Unassuming, normal Mormon couple gets threatened twice with excommunication. Like, whoa. I'm just. How did that happen? So what happened in 2014? How did it start?

Todd McCormick [00:25:58] I think I'll start, you know, in our married life, we had. We had started doing our own thinking in general. I think everybody, as they become an adult, they start questioning what they. How they looked at the world. And I. You know, 2008 was a formative year for us because we had been living this really great life. You know, we were successful. Both of our careers were going really well. You know, we. We tried for a year to have our first baby, and that was kind of like that. That was our first trial. But it ended up working out. We figured out why we were. Why it wasn't happening immediately. We. So we had our first child, but then that recession hit, and we had just kind of stuck our. Our neck out on a very. For us, a very big real estate project.

Lindsay McCormick [00:26:46] Oh, and bountiful.

Todd McCormick [00:26:47] In bountiful. And, you know, 2008 was, you know, yeah, it was severe. And, you know, I had a million. I was always really conservative financially, and that was my major. I always took a lot of pride in money and how I managed it, and it just demolished our finances.

Lindsay McCormick [00:27:05] Yeah, he had so many backups.

Todd McCormick [00:27:07] Oh, I had. I had, you know, backup plan after backup plan, and I just burned through all of them within months. And then we were struggling. And so, you know, there is something we talk about a lot in Mormonism, about trials and how they humble you. And, I mean, that's absolutely true in life, right? And so, you know, it caused me to. To question my financial understanding, which was a core part of my. Like, I felt very competent, and I had. I felt like I'd really messed up. And part of the Mormon side of this is I felt like God was punishing us or me particularly, you know, so it was really complicated. For years, I struggled with why. Why am I. What did I do to deserve this financial trial? It was really, really hard. So we, you know, we thought we. We went through kind of different epiphanies with different subjects in our married life, with health and nutrition and politics and finance and education. Education. And, you know, and we were. We've always been both very independent, and so we would kind of do our own research on things and form our own opinions. And, you know, that's what I feel like by 2014, in the summer, I remember just realizing we hadn't really had a spiritual awakening of any kind. Like, we were doing all the things and it was working for us. And we weren't sinning, quote, unquote. We weren't, you know, we weren't having any issues. But I did feel a personal longing for some more spirituality, for something we. We had just had so many amazing experiences rethinking a lot of different areas in our life, and that hadn't happened spiritually. And so that I feel like that started us on a journey. And we. Go ahead.

John Dehlin [00:28:51] When did you move to Knoxville?

Todd McCormick [00:28:54] Oh, that's. That's a good story.

John Dehlin [00:28:56] Yeah, you go.

Todd McCormick [00:28:56] You go ahead.

Lindsay McCormick [00:28:57] Okay. Well, we had had Earl, this Josh in 2008, at the end of. Just 2008. And then all that happened, and then. Well, let's see. Is that right? It wasn't until 2009 that we left. Right, right. Because it was starting. Started to happen. That's right. Yeah. I had always wanted to come back. At least, you know, we had kind of talked.

John Dehlin [00:29:18] Because all your siblings and your parents were all in Knoxville area, correct?

Lindsay McCormick [00:29:22] Yep. And my oldest brother, who had come out there and lived with me, he meet his wife there, and they lived there for a little while, but they did end up back here, too, and everyone else was back here. And, Yeah, I just. I'm a Southerner. I just, you know, really like it on this side. But, you know, he had been to D.C. as well.

Todd McCormick [00:29:42] I would say France kind of ruined me to Utah a little bit. I loved the green and I loved the countryside of France and coming to East Tennessee and. Well, I had in college before.

John Dehlin [00:29:53] Gorgeous here, right?

Todd McCormick [00:29:54] Oh, my gosh.

John Dehlin [00:29:57] Covered by trees.

Lindsay McCormick [00:29:58] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:29:59] Crazy.

Lindsay McCormick [00:29:59] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:30:00] I don't think I've ever seen such dense forestry.

Todd McCormick [00:30:03] It almost feels like for so long, like a jungle.

John Dehlin [00:30:06] I've been in Guatemala. I've seen the Guatemalan jungles.

Margi Dehlin [00:30:09] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:30:10] And this rivals that.

Lindsay McCormick [00:30:11] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:30:11] Which is crazy. In 2025.

Lindsay McCormick [00:30:13] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:30:14] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [00:30:14] So I had come out to D.C. and I fell in love with Virginia and the surrounding areas. So I was very. In fact, one of the. When we met at that party, I found out she was from Tennessee, and I was really. I was interested in that. I was like, oh, that sounds awesome, and, you know, a really cool area. So I didn't have any. I didn't have any problems moving here other than our businesses were rooted in Utah and my family was somewhat there. A lot of us had already moved

Lindsay McCormick [00:30:40] out, but, yeah, so, yeah, I had always, you know, we had always planned on coming either here or, like, Charlotte or somewhere this way.

John Dehlin [00:30:48] Closer to family.

Lindsay McCormick [00:30:49] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:30:50] In the south.

Lindsay McCormick [00:30:50] Yeah, Just closer to the south. Yeah. And family and, you know, me with my mom and having babies and things like that. When we had Josh, she was trying so hard to get there for the birth because it was her only daughter's first baby, but he came, like, three weeks early and just super, super fast. So anyway, she was on the layover on her flight, and that's. So we just were on a speaker phone, and that's what I had. So she kind of experienced it. But anyway, so, yeah, I just wanted. I wanted to be closer to my mom. We were very close and. Okay, all of that.

John Dehlin [00:31:23] So 2009.

Lindsay McCormick [00:31:24] So 2009, he came to me in November, end of November, and he just said, we're. We gotta move to Tennessee, just out of the blue. And I knew, and the plan had been about three or four years from then is when we would do it. But, yeah, he just said, okay, we're moving. And he was, you know, stressed about it, but I was just like, oh, yes, like, super excited. But it was. He said, no, like. Like, when we go home to visit for Christmas, like, we're staying. We need to stay. And he felt very strongly about it. And I was like, okay.

John Dehlin [00:32:06] So between 2009 and 2014, what was the Mormon dynamic with you and your parents and your siblings in Knoxville?

Lindsay McCormick [00:32:16] Oh, I mean, we moved right in with my parents, so we had our one baby, moved right in and joined the ward. Loved the ward. Some of my friends from growing up were still in. In the ward, and they were raising their kids there. We were there for a year in their ward and in their house before we moved kind of about 30 minutes away to West Knoxville. But no, great. You know, I'm sure we had. I probably had, like, a chorister calling. I don't even.

Todd McCormick [00:32:45] Yeah, we were very active. We were. We participated in someone getting baptized. You know, we helped with the discussions. One of my best friends from Utah happened to be at UT Law School, and he and I sang a lot of. We had a acapella quartet in Utah, and we kind of did some of the same stuff here in Knoxville. So we were very active and got integrated really quickly into. You know, Lindsay grew up here, so it was easy to meet, you know, to get connected in the ward.

John Dehlin [00:33:12] How often would, like, the. The Hinckley family get together for, like, Whether Sunday dinners and.

Lindsay McCormick [00:33:18] Yeah, I mean, every. My oldest brother lives in Nashville, and so he. You know, when he would come in, of course we'd all get together. We were. Yeah, every Sunday doing dinners together. Anyone that could come. Holidays, everything. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:33:32] And I I'll just say this last part, like Nathan told us in the interview, but also just at dinner, that he would look at other families that had tension or contention and just say, I don't get that. I work with my brothers. I love my parents. We all get along. And this is foreshadowing, but he's just like, I can't imagine a family that doesn't all get along and love each other all the time. What's wrong with all those other families? Right, Right.

Lindsay McCormick [00:34:03] For sure.

John Dehlin [00:34:03] Is that. Is that also your reflection of how it was?

Lindsay McCormick [00:34:05] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:34:06] Okay.

Todd McCormick [00:34:07] And if I could give my perspective, you know, marrying into the Hinckley family, it was wonderful because I grew up a great family, but there was just drama now and then, you know, and we bickered and we. You know, there was, you know, normal

John Dehlin [00:34:22] family, I think normal family.

Todd McCormick [00:34:24] When I came into their family, it was so chill. And they even did difficult things with each other, like work.

John Dehlin [00:34:31] Yeah. Business. That's the last thing you want to do.

Todd McCormick [00:34:33] And that's a tricky thing to do with family when you involve money. But they always worked it out, and they. It's not that there wasn't ever an issue, but they worked it out, and it was fine, and they just moved on. And I always felt like they had each other's backs. They had my back as soon as I came into the family. Like, you were in the club and you're. You know, it was so fun. So fun.

John Dehlin [00:34:52] And everyone. Faithful, right?

Lindsay McCormick [00:34:54] All the siblings, faithful parents, all the guys on missions.

Spiritual Longing and Searching for More

John Dehlin [00:34:59] Okay, so back to 2013, 2014. Todd, you're starting to feel a spiritual longing to, like, where's the beef? Is that right?

Todd McCormick [00:35:10] Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Like, there's, you know, going through all the motions, but not really feeling inspired. You know, just kind of feeling stagnant a little bit.

John Dehlin [00:35:19] Okay.

Todd McCormick [00:35:20] So we had. We started having just some. I had had. You know, you're on your mission and you have deep thoughts. And I had some of those thoughts start coming back. And then, really, a big catalyst while we were just kind of in this space where we were starting to have spiritual conversations together.

Lindsay McCormick [00:35:37] And then we had three kids under, like.

Todd McCormick [00:35:40] And we had started a business. We had really, you know, the chaotic financial period with the recession that knocked us out for four years. You know, we were struggling financially. And then in 2011, we had really. What we considered. And I still do. It was a miraculous event in our lives where, you know, we were. We were kind of heading for bankruptcy. I mean, there was no. We'd been trying to write our financial ship for years and just weren't getting there. And out of the blue we have this idea to print photos on wood.

Lindsay McCormick [00:36:18] Yeah. There were some friends and family that were. Were really instrumental in kind of helping us figure this out.

Todd McCormick [00:36:23] Get connected.

Lindsay McCormick [00:36:24] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [00:36:25] But we. So that business, you know, shot through the roof overnight.

John Dehlin [00:36:29] What's it called? Can you say or do you know?

Lindsay McCormick [00:36:30] Yeah, yeah. Photo barn.

John Dehlin [00:36:32] Okay. And that's kind of a big. That was a was or is a big deal, right?

Todd McCormick [00:36:35] It is, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:36:36] It's a big national, international thing.

Lindsay McCormick [00:36:39] Yeah, yeah. National. Yeah.

Todd McCormick [00:36:41] Yeah. I mean, our second month of business, we sold 17, 000 orders like overnight. We didn't even have a warehouse or printers yet. That's a whole other story.

John Dehlin [00:36:49] A million dollar annual. Million plus dollar business overnight.

Todd McCormick [00:36:53] And we.

John Dehlin [00:36:54] Wow.

Lindsay McCormick [00:36:54] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [00:36:56] And so that was amazing. And that saved our finances, but it also was challenging and challenged us in ways we weren't expecting. We were so we had little babies. In fact, we just found out we were pregnant with our third. Right. At the same week, the same day that we found out that Groupon was going to run us nationally. And that's what really kick started us into.

John Dehlin [00:37:18] You know, I remember Groupon.

Todd McCormick [00:37:20] Yeah, it was Groupon. Oh, that's what we built our business on, Groupon. That's what really, you know, people really hadn't heard of printing on wood before. So it just shot.

Lindsay McCormick [00:37:28] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [00:37:28] You know, it really went crazy.

John Dehlin [00:37:30] So just because I don't know anything about this.

Lindsay McCormick [00:37:32] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:37:33] So they print on wood to then hang it on the wall or what?

Todd McCormick [00:37:36] What?

Lindsay McCormick [00:37:37] Well, you'll see when you.

John Dehlin [00:37:38] Oh, you brought us a gift.

Margi Dehlin [00:37:39] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:37:40] Okay. I should have opened it to hang on the wall.

Lindsay McCormick [00:37:45] Yeah, mostly kind of thing, ornaments and little magnets and things like that.

Todd McCormick [00:37:49] But yeah, big pieces, you know, you could do it. You can do it in your house. And that's what we saw, a YouTube video of how to transfer to wood. And it creates a really cool look because you can see the colors in the wood kind of coming through the image. And so that's how we start. We were doing it by hand in our little townhome. I mean, days before we sold 17,000.

John Dehlin [00:38:08] How do you sell 17,000 things from your town home with just two of you?

Lindsay McCormick [00:38:12] Well, well, yeah.

Todd McCormick [00:38:14] And it wasn't, you know, we. We were pretty successful in December. And you know, our ward was super supportive. Everybody who worked for us were members. So we were in our town home with. We were in the kitchen. You know, you had to like Use water. We were in the kitchen doing that. Downstairs in the little basement, there was staining happening and the living room was shipping.

John Dehlin [00:38:34] You know, this is where Mormonism and religion comes in handy.

Todd McCormick [00:38:38] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:38:38] Because you just go to work website, right?

Lindsay McCormick [00:38:40] Oh, that too. Yes.

John Dehlin [00:38:41] And you're giving people jobs. You're employing people, they're helping you.

Todd McCormick [00:38:46] We sold the 17,000. We got a. We got hurried and got a warehouse so we could handle this. And it was the. It was the young student adult ward that were. They all came over and were our employees and helped us get through that.

Lindsay McCormick [00:38:58] Yes. The church shines.

Todd McCormick [00:39:00] Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [00:39:00] Things like that. Yeah.

Todd McCormick [00:39:02] And we hired. We ended up hiring over years, lots of talent from the church to help us build and grow our business.

John Dehlin [00:39:08] I think your eventual stake president was an employee.

Lindsay McCormick [00:39:11] Right.

Todd McCormick [00:39:12] We'll get there.

John Dehlin [00:39:12] We'll get there. Foreshadowing.

Lindsay McCormick [00:39:14] John, you said not to foreshadow.

Margi Dehlin [00:39:17] Sure.

Todd McCormick [00:39:17] Yeah. It didn't end always great. There's cost of hiring ward members.

Margi Dehlin [00:39:23] I mean, I think something that I'm just observing in your story so far is that you have these moments of really kind of extreme things happening to you, like with your. With your finances all of a sudden. And in that case, like, like. Yeah, absolutely. It seems like a negative, stressful event. And then same with. On the successful. It's sudden and then your stress goes through the roof.

Lindsay McCormick [00:39:51] Right.

Margi Dehlin [00:39:51] Yeah. So interesting that way.

Lindsay McCormick [00:39:53] It's still happening.

Todd McCormick [00:39:55] My upbringing, my. My parents were like nine to fiverr. Engineer school teacher. I was used to.

Lindsay McCormick [00:40:01] It's given his parents heart attacks.

Todd McCormick [00:40:02] Like, give me a heart attack. We're like this. You're exactly right. You know, it's a roller coaster.

Margi Dehlin [00:40:06] That's so. That's an interesting aspect so far. And then the other thing that's really interesting, if I have it right, is it feels like the story that. That we often hear, and I think it's true to us too, is deconstruction usually starts within the faith. And then people start deconstructing things like health or the education system or that because the lens with which you start with you inevitably start applying to other things, or at least you can. Right.

John Dehlin [00:40:37] You.

Margi Dehlin [00:40:38] You deconstruct. It seems like you started elsewhere. So it started. Actually, in some ways that finance thing that happened gave a lens that then you started applying to all these different things and then inevitably you landed on the religion. Is that right?

Lindsay McCormick [00:40:55] That's right.

Todd McCormick [00:40:55] That's exactly right. And I don't think, you know, in retrospect, our path would have never gone the way it has without Learning the principles of rethinking things and, you know, doing, exercising, independent thoughts and critical thinking, maybe. Critical thinking 100. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:41:15] It's kind of dangerous.

Todd McCormick [00:41:16] It really is.

John Dehlin [00:41:17] To faith.

Margi Dehlin [00:41:18] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:41:18] Sometimes.

Lindsay McCormick [00:41:19] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:41:20] Yeah. Okay. Okay. So you business goes gangbusters.

Todd McCormick [00:41:25] It goes crazy and it's a roller coaster and it was hard and we're having little babies, so we really didn't have any bandwidth to do anything but that, raise the kids, get the business off the ground. But 2014, I think there was a, you know, we had. Our youngest at that point was probably three. So we were probably feeling a little more. The business was finally settled and we had a little time. And I think that's why probably I was like, we need to maybe think some more spiritually.

Lindsay McCormick [00:41:53] I wasn't thinking about that.

Todd McCormick [00:41:55] Lindsay is. I do want to tell this story about Lindsay because she is a great critical thinker. I feel like for me, I was a very much a go along person in a lot of ways. Kind of a people please. Not kind of definitely a people pleaser. Just kind of go along to get along. And I remember a time when Lindsay and I were in the temple and she was looking at the scriptures. This was years, like we were young married at the time and she was trying to like study them and understand something. And I would. And she was thinking kind of critically about it. Not, not in, not just like, oh, what does this mean? And why is this saying this?

Lindsay McCormick [00:42:32] And I remember, was it something in the temple that I was.

Todd McCormick [00:42:34] No, I think it was in the scriptures, but it could either way. And I remember being a little bit annoyed because I was just kind of like this at the time. Really aloof thinker about. Just like, oh, don't look at so much into the details. Just go with the feeling.

Lindsay McCormick [00:42:48] Yeah, yeah.

Todd McCormick [00:42:49] The spirit will tell you things. When you're looking at the page, it might not be on the page, but it's going to tell you things.

John Dehlin [00:42:53] Yeah, go get the weed.

Todd McCormick [00:42:55] So she is very logical, very, just like super, super smart. And she. You've probably noticed this with Nathan. Anybody who follows Nathan, they're very similar in personality in the sense of, you know, they see through things that don't make sense and then they question why it's not making sense and they want to understand what's happening.

John Dehlin [00:43:17] Kaylee too.

Margi Dehlin [00:43:18] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [00:43:18] And Kaylee, yes. So that was really helpful for me, who was a little bit shallower on a lot of those types of thoughts as we started kind of going down the spiritual side. But it was really a Sunday school lesson. That kicked us off. I would say, tell us. Want to tell that one?

Questioning the Church and New Order Mormonism

Lindsay McCormick [00:43:34] Yeah, if I can remember. Yeah. We were just sitting there in Sunday school and the teacher was getting kind of close to saying something about the prophet. You know, it's not necessarily that he can't lead you astray. Is that kind of.

Todd McCormick [00:43:51] Yeah, the Lesson was on 2nd Nephi 28ish.

Lindsay McCormick [00:43:54] I can't remember.

Todd McCormick [00:43:55] End of 2nd Nephi. Not trusting in the arm of flesh.

Lindsay McCormick [00:43:57] That's right. Yeah.

Todd McCormick [00:43:59] And it was a great. It was a great lesson.

John Dehlin [00:44:00] He did a really.

Todd McCormick [00:44:01] He was a former bishopric member. You know, he wasn't. He was kind of like, like a well respected member of the ward.

Lindsay McCormick [00:44:07] Okay, now I remember. And so, yeah, it was about not trusting in the arm of flesh. And then the. Was he the bishop at the time? I think the bishop raised his hand. He said, well, hold on. You know, he was kind of getting nervous that this teacher was saying, kind of getting close to, you know, with those.

Todd McCormick [00:44:25] He was saying, even the brethren are flesh is the point.

Lindsay McCormick [00:44:27] Because he did bring that up. And so the bishop raises him. Hold on. You know, we know we can trust the brethren. We, you know, we can trust the men in the red seats is what he said, I'm pretty sure. And we had a buddy sitting next to us and he kind of just whispered. He's like. Or sorry. The bishop said, oh, that's. It's in the scriptures, you know, it's in the scriptures that, you know, we can trust. We can trust. Can never lead you astray. And our buddy was like, that's not in the scriptures. Just kind of murmured that. And we were like, what?

Todd McCormick [00:44:57] I challenged him because I was like,

Lindsay McCormick [00:44:58] he's like, of course. That's like a pillar of our faith. Like, that's of course in the scriptures to.

Todd McCormick [00:45:04] So, yeah, so I start looking. And he was right. And that was a. For me, that, like Lindsay just said a pillar of my belief system kind of, you know, took a major hit right then. I was like, prophets are fallible of the possibility that they might be.

Lindsay McCormick [00:45:20] Oh, yeah, yeah.

Todd McCormick [00:45:21] And that it wasn't scriptural, this core belief that I held that I could just trust them. And I did. I just trusted them without thinking, you know, because I could. Because that's what the scriptures say. And it really is just in the.

John Dehlin [00:45:33] That's what you thought the scripture.

Todd McCormick [00:45:34] That's what I thought the scripture said. This is the same friend who mentioned New Order Mormon to me. But this was several years, three years later. And he's dropping little, you know, he's still trying.

John Dehlin [00:45:45] For those who don't know, there was a website called New Order Mormon.

Margi Dehlin [00:45:48] Oh, there was.

John Dehlin [00:45:49] When I was, you know, before I started Mormon stories, I was like, does anybody know anything about these truth claims problems on the Internet? Because I was reading books at Microsoft, lost my faith, had a horrible couple years trying to work through my own faith crisis. And then I'm like, we need. The Internet's out there. Can I find anyone else? And how do we use the Internet to help people going through something similar? I found New Order Mormon the website, and it was basically really ahead of its time because it was a forum. It was like an Internet forum, which is like a Facebook group, but before Facebook existed. And the website was like, there's a middle way. And I'm like, middle way? What is that? And they're like, yeah, it's not all in or all out. You can be a Mormon but not believe or do everything you're taught. I was just like, what the heck is that? That's not even a thing. You know what I mean? But it quoted from, like, Buddhism and Eastern thought. And it was. Yeah, there's a forum dedicated to helping people find the middle way. It wasn't huge. It was in any stretch, the biggest forum out there. But I started. I was. I became a member of that group, and then I joined a bunch of other forums. And weirdly, when. When I got excommunicated, somehow, even though that wasn't a really big part of what I did, the New Order Mormon stuff.

Lindsay McCormick [00:47:14] Right.

John Dehlin [00:47:14] Our stake president, like, glommed onto that. He's like, are you leading the New Order Mormon movement? And we're like, I know it's some other forum, like, but, like, it was really troublesome.

Lindsay McCormick [00:47:25] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:47:26] That someone was trying to advance a middle way. And now the Restore Movement, Patrick Mason, like, you know. You know, it's all about helping carve out a middle way.

Lindsay McCormick [00:47:37] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:47:37] Thomas McConkey. And, you know, and just all those people when, you know. So anyway, yeah, it's cool that you knew someone who was connected to that.

Lindsay McCormick [00:47:49] That's interesting.

John Dehlin [00:47:50] You know.

Todd McCormick [00:47:50] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:47:51] And they were clearly sowing seeds.

Todd McCormick [00:47:53] I. I think so.

John Dehlin [00:47:54] Maybe not intentionally. I don't know.

Todd McCormick [00:47:56] I think he was. I mean, I was. He had found value in and. And community, and I think that was helpful.

John Dehlin [00:48:02] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [00:48:02] And he was always, you know, he was super respectful. Never pushed anything on me, but he

John Dehlin [00:48:05] would drop a little hint or interesting

Todd McCormick [00:48:07] saying here and there, I want to

John Dehlin [00:48:09] know his name, but you don't have to say. You should meet him. While you're here.

Todd McCormick [00:48:12] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:48:13] Oh, he really like to meet you.

Todd McCormick [00:48:14] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:48:14] Then he would have. We would have known each other from the forum.

Lindsay McCormick [00:48:18] Interesting.

Todd McCormick [00:48:19] Well, he certainly knows who you. You're a very public figure nowadays. But, yeah, we. So after that Sunday school lesson, we. We were just, you know, we're like, well, maybe maybe these guys can make some mistakes in theory. Maybe, you know, and. And I remember we did on one of those Sunday dinners, we started talking like that because we were. We were really innocently just like, oh, this is. It's not scriptural. So maybe there's. Maybe it's not as, you know, as, you know, black and white as we thought. And that made people very, very uncomfortable, as you could assume. But we. We kept. We kept mulling that idea over, and

Lindsay McCormick [00:49:00] we're interested in it.

John Dehlin [00:49:01] We were.

Lindsay McCormick [00:49:02] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [00:49:03] And actually this. Then we had two Sundays in a row in this Sunday school where that was kind of the theme. And they brought up an Old Testament story about the prophet leading someone astray on purpose. And God testing is crazy, you know, so we were really fat. We were reading the scriptures about it. And anyway, it really kind of added fuel to this fire that was starting.

John Dehlin [00:49:25] It's dangerous to take scripture or doctrine. It's dangerous to faith to take scripture or doctrine too literally and too seriously.

Todd McCormick [00:49:34] Exactly.

Lindsay McCormick [00:49:35] Right.

John Dehlin [00:49:35] It's like pulling on a thread.

Margi Dehlin [00:49:37] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:49:37] You know, in a sweater.

Lindsay McCormick [00:49:39] And for me, I feel like, okay, growing up, for me, I didn't. I was not, like, reading my scriptures. I. You know, I was doing all the right things, and I was not doing the things I wasn't supposed to do and all of that. But I really wasn't into doctrine or into any of that. I just, you know, more like just the church. But this is really when I first started to, like, read, I think. And I mean, I didn't really. I wasn't a big reader in general, and so it just really wasn't a thing for me until this time. And then it became very fascinating and. But then I started digging into. And just being like, well, wait a minute. Being very literal about it,

Todd McCormick [00:50:18] so you won't believe the next catalyst. Already ready for this. So within a week or two, it was Ward Temple trip and we went to Nashville. And again, we're just as bought in as you can be. Although we're starting to have some deeper thinking happening. Right.

John Dehlin [00:50:36] Searching for meat.

Todd McCormick [00:50:37] We are. Yeah. Not in the context of wanting to change anything about our beliefs, just deepen them. It was just.

Lindsay McCormick [00:50:44] And it was exciting and like. Yeah.

Todd McCormick [00:50:46] And you know, we were in the temple and this one was on me, but I. I had an experience in the Mormon Temple that was really profound, but it was confusing because it was kind of challenging some of my previously held beliefs about the plan of salvation. And I was really confused by it. And. But it was. It was equal parts beautiful and interesting, but also troubling because I was like, this is odd. So the second we got into the celestial room, I said, you won't believe some of these thoughts I was just having. And I told Lyn's and we're talking about it, and. And it led to kind of like

John Dehlin [00:51:31] you felt like it was inspiration.

Todd McCormick [00:51:32] Yeah, yeah, yeah. At the time.

John Dehlin [00:51:34] Do you want to share what it was about or do you don't want to. Is it too sick?

Todd McCormick [00:51:37] A bit of a rabbit hole. But, you know, in. In short, it was just kind of looking at the plan of salvation. You know, in Mormonism, we talk about the three kingdoms, and that's really what the temple is all about. Right. Progressing through the three kingdoms. And I'll tell you the phrase that kind of just jolted me this time I was in the temple was the Telestial kingdom, or the world in which you now live. And at the time, you know, I had on my mission, I had made those graphs with spirit world, Earth. He still has death. I still have it. Yes, My French version of it. And, you know, the celestial kingdom is a kingdom of glory that you're assigned to after judgment. Right. Well, the temple just told me I'm in the Telestial kingdom.

Lindsay McCormick [00:52:21] So that was super interesting.

Todd McCormick [00:52:22] And so it just kicked this ins. This internal conversation, are we in the telescope? And it was like, well, if I'm in the celestial kingdom, then what's the terrestrial kingdom? And how does this all work? So it just started this really fascinating. They're fascinating ideas. I don't know there's any value to them or not, but it was fascinating.

Lindsay McCormick [00:52:43] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [00:52:43] And it led us, you know, again, being. We had already started kind of finding this love for the scriptures because of that prophet leading you astray thing. We found some little gems in there we didn't know were there. Like, wow, that's really fascinating. And I think for the first time, I started looking at the scriptures the way she always wanted to. And I was critically.

John Dehlin [00:53:01] Critically. Not critical. Critically to criticize them.

Lindsay McCormick [00:53:04] Right.

John Dehlin [00:53:05] Critically to take them serious. Yeah.

Todd McCormick [00:53:08] I really. I remember I would teach in my Sunday. I loved to teach, so I loved these. I really wanted to be a seminary teacher. And I would teach the kids all the time, you know, when you're reading the scriptures, it's not so much what's on the page, it's what God is telling you because you have the book open. And I know I got that from some of the other leaders, but I had experience that in my life where I felt like while I was reading, I would have inspiration. And so I didn't read them to really analyze them. I read them to. To do what I was supposed to and to have that feeling, get inspiration.

John Dehlin [00:53:38] Well, the whole Joseph Smith narrative is, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God. You give it to all men liberally and abraded not, and if it shall be given to him.

Lindsay McCormick [00:53:45] Right.

John Dehlin [00:53:45] So you're just doing what Joseph did in your mind, I'm sure. Right?

Todd McCormick [00:53:49] For sure, Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. But we had. Yeah. So we started taking the scriptures more seriously, like you're saying, and very. And it was honestly a really fun and enlightening journey because we were. We were so taken aback by the fact that we had. We had gotten a few things really wrong. Like, we had misunderstood. And we felt like even the church might have some misunderstandings, even about, like, the prophet won't lead you astray. You know, we learned that that was a Wilford Woodruff thing when. About polygamy. That's when he said that was. He was. He was doing it about face on polygamy. So he had to say that to keep everybody in, because I can't lead you astray. I know we're going against the last 40, 50 years of teachings, but I can't lead you astray, so you're safe, you know.

Lindsay McCormick [00:54:36] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [00:54:36] So we started, you know, I felt like it put a response. We were starting to feel this responsibility on ourselves for our own testimony, for our own understanding of the gospel. And so we. We started re. We actually. We made kind of this. I don't know that we ever verbalized it, but we made this decision like, we're going to forget everything that we ever believed, ever thought we knew and just kind of start over.

Lindsay McCormick [00:55:02] We started taking scripturally. We started taking subjects one by one and like, okay, why do we believe this? Or like, you know, where did the garments come from? Just things like that. And then we would kind of dive in to the scriptures or to history a little bit and just kind of. Yeah. Rethink it. But yeah, also just like, okay, let's just start fresh and see which mirrored,

Todd McCormick [00:55:25] like you said, Margi, that was the process we had done with other deconstructions,

John Dehlin [00:55:30] politics or Fighting economics, we would really

Todd McCormick [00:55:33] drill down and try to get to some solid ground, as solid ground as we could find, and then, and then learn principles and build on top of that. So that's where we're like, we gotta, we've had a few things wrong. We need to, we need to drill down just to get, you know, and we chose. Our logic at the time was we're going to use, we're going to kind of like, you know, the prophets are still prophets, of course, you know, you're not gonna let yourself not think that. But they can make mistakes. So we need to use the scriptures as our foundation. And that's really, that was. Our logic is like, we can trust the scriptures until we over even the prophets. Because, you know, the more we started looking at like they have made a lot of mistakes actually. So according to the scriptures, just following them seems like a really risky idea. And we were really hyper focused in this time, like about our salvation, about doing the right thing. We really wanted to follow God, to separate what was of God and what was of man or flesh.

Identifying Problems with Church Leadership

John Dehlin [00:56:27] Just for fun, name three of the biggest mistakes you would have identified Mormon church leaders as having made at the time.

Todd McCormick [00:56:34] At that time?

John Dehlin [00:56:35] Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [00:56:35] Polygamy number one, I would say.

Todd McCormick [00:56:38] Yeah, pretty quick. We moved really, really quickly and within a few months we started. We noticed a scriptural contradiction about polygamy where 132 contradicts Jacob 4 and in

John Dehlin [00:56:52] the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon condemns polygamy and a previous version of the Doctrine and Covenants also condemned polygamy.

Lindsay McCormick [00:56:59] We learned that and we were like, what?

Todd McCormick [00:57:01] So you concluded. Yeah, it was specifically where 132 says David and Solomon had lots of wise, which was cool with me. And in Jacob 4 it's like David and Solomon did this thing and I was not okay with it. Exactly. So there was like a disconnect. So we just started filling our. This safe belief system that we were in. We started filling it crumble. So polygamy was one.

John Dehlin [00:57:25] So you concluded the polygamy was a mistake?

Lindsay McCormick [00:57:27] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:57:28] Okay.

Todd McCormick [00:57:28] Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [00:57:29] But what was the other thing that. Oh well, there was one thing about like the ramyum and all of that in the Book of Mormon, which again, I'm not a scriptorian, but you know, it was. It basically condemns going up to a podium and talking about how great you are or how blessed you are. And it was just so weird to like read that and then be sitting in church and just kind of, you know, someone preaching to you. And it Just almost was like, the scriptures were telling you that's not what. That's not God's way to, like, have someone up in front of you preaching.

Todd McCormick [00:58:04] Yeah. I mean, that. That chapter, it was. It rocked us because it talks about you don't have to have these fancy buildings to worship in. You shouldn't be going up and having just one person speak and elevating themselves above another. Dressing nice.

Lindsay McCormick [00:58:18] Like, why do we dress so nice? We're wearing suits and dresses.

John Dehlin [00:58:20] Yeah. The Book of Mormon condemns.

Margi Dehlin [00:58:22] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:58:23] Consumerism and material culture.

Lindsay McCormick [00:58:25] Right.

John Dehlin [00:58:26] And by that point, we were. We had built City Creek Mall. I don't know if that was on your mind.

Lindsay McCormick [00:58:31] That has a. That has a little.

Todd McCormick [00:58:33] It was absolutely on our mind.

Lindsay McCormick [00:58:35] Yes, it was.

Todd McCormick [00:58:36] We'll talk more about that.

John Dehlin [00:58:38] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [00:58:39] But.

Todd McCormick [00:58:39] Yeah, and it also can. You know, the ramy uptim story. Alma. It also said they would get up and they would be like, we're so grateful to be so blessed and chosen of you. And so here we are, like, taking the scripture seriously and then starting to see in our own culture and in our own church that it felt like we're going against what the Book of Mormon is teaching.

Lindsay McCormick [00:58:59] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [00:59:00] And another. A fascinating one was Jesus. Okay. We. We had believed in the Jesus that we were taught about in Mormonism. And looking at the scriptures again, like, peeling back what we had imposed upon them and just reading them. Like, I had no idea that in. I'm getting rusty on my scriptures. I think Matthew 23, I want to say, where Jesus is condemning the church and for having these titles and for sitting in the chief seats. And our bishop had just said, we can follow the men in the red seats. You know, when we're just like.

Lindsay McCormick [00:59:36] And watching conference. Like, what are those, you know, cheap seats up there? Everyone.

Todd McCormick [00:59:40] The more we. The more seriously we. And the more seriously we took scripture and the more we read it, it just seemed like we were living kind of an opposite land where it's like, nothing. Like, we're going against all of this stuff in the.

Lindsay McCormick [00:59:53] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [00:59:53] You know, and it was equal parts fascinating for us because we were. We were eating up the scriptures. We loved it, but we were also, like, kind of horrified because we did not want to leave the church.

Lindsay McCormick [01:00:03] Yeah. We were not planning on.

Todd McCormick [01:00:04] No. We didn't want to lose our faith in Mormonism. Not at all. You know, it's. And. But it was, like, starting to.

John Dehlin [01:00:10] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:00:10] Starting to rip apart.

Lindsay McCormick [01:00:12] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:00:12] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:00:12] I was just gonna say, like, a minute ago, you were like, oh, well, let's turn to the scriptures for the, you know, that'll be the. And then as you turn to the scriptures, everything can, like, starts to crumble as you're reading it. Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [01:00:24] So ironic, right?

John Dehlin [01:00:26] There's zero question that the Book of Mormon condemns the modern corporate church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Lindsay McCormick [01:00:32] Just in your faith.

Todd McCormick [01:00:33] So many ways, very expressly, so many things.

John Dehlin [01:00:36] And there are entire conservative movements within Mormonism that are founded on feeling like believing that the Mormon Church has fallen into apostasy and that Joseph had it right. And then Brigham and beyond sort of corrupted the church and took it in a wrong direction. And now you need this new leader in 2025.

Lindsay McCormick [01:01:00] Right.

John Dehlin [01:01:01] Who's been called to put the church back in the right direction. And that's where kind of I call it Mormon neo fundamentalism. But it's a thing. It's a thing. It's a big thing. We're talking tens of thousands, if not over a hundred thousand followers of sort of this neo fundamentalist Mormonism. And I won't name the branches, but there's, you know, they're things. I mean, Chad and Lori Daybell. Oh, yes, we're going down road. And Tim Ballard was kind of going down this road, and even Ruby, Frankie and Jody Hildebrand were also going down this road. The whole visions of glory stuff is part of that as well.

Todd McCormick [01:01:34] Well, there, you know, there are some good things about taking the scriptures seriously and then there are some bad things because you start getting into Nephi's story and, you know, which played into the Lori Daybell situation.

John Dehlin [01:01:48] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:01:48] And so, yeah, there's, there's good and bad to that. And our journey was really independent. You know, Lindsay and I, for whatever reason, we have worked well together. You know, we got married before we ever owned a business together. But within a few months, we started a business together and we've been business partners ever since. And we've. We've started several businesses together and we work really well together. We challenge each other. It's not like there's a yes man or yes woman or whatever. We, we push each other and we pull at each other and we question each other and we push things forward. So that's what was happening for us with, within the context of the scriptures was, you know, this just clear thinking that Lindsay has the ability to do where she, you know, she'll quite like, why does it say this? And then it'll get me starting to think about it. And then creatively we'll, we'll come up with, well, we think it's saying this.

Conversations with Family About Faith Transition

John Dehlin [01:02:41] So, anyway, let me ask this to both of you. So you're in Knoxville, you're super close to Lindsay's parents and siblings who are adults raising kids. Nathan's a bishop. By this point, if I'm remembering right, your brother, as y' all were sort of delving into the mysteries and starting to question the modern Mormon Church, how much were you talking to your siblings or your parents about these issues here in Knoxville, or were you afraid to or.

Lindsay McCormick [01:03:08] We were at first quite a bit.

Todd McCormick [01:03:11] Talking to them.

Lindsay McCormick [01:03:11] Talking to them, yes, talking to them. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:03:14] And a lot.

Todd McCormick [01:03:14] For years.

Lindsay McCormick [01:03:15] Yeah, for years. It was going to. Not like, I, I, it felt like it was fascinating. They were having some great thoughts and

John Dehlin [01:03:22] like, they were like, stay away from the mysteries or what are you doing? You know?

Lindsay McCormick [01:03:26] No, my, my dad, when we would

Todd McCormick [01:03:28] bring up that, I mean, I mentioned the one where we brought up maybe the prophets can make mistakes. That one got shut down real quick. Yeah, but we brought up, I mean, one, you know, once the, once the blinders kind of start coming off and the, and you're open to a lot more sources and ideas, which was, which is what was happening for us. You know, we had a very strict small window of information we used to allow, and it's opening. We got into Feminine Divine, for example, and that was something we really delved into.

John Dehlin [01:03:53] And it was interesting about the Mormon teaching that there's at least a mother in heaven, if not multiple mothers in heaven.

Todd McCormick [01:04:00] Right. And we really weren't looking at it from a Mormon context. Yeah, no, not the way we went about it. Because, again, it's like we stopped looking through the Mormon lens. We have decided. Oh, we had decided we're going to look at the scripture now, that we were using the Book of Mormon to influence us. So that, yes, we were still using that as our lens, but. But we really had kind of wiped our minds clear of what all the prophets had been saying over the years. But we brought up Feminine Divine to, to her family and actually was, we had a great conversation with.

Lindsay McCormick [01:04:34] Actually amazing moment.

Todd McCormick [01:04:36] Yeah, it was.

Lindsay McCormick [01:04:37] We all kind of started crying about it, all of us, except for my dad, but that's fine.

Todd McCormick [01:04:42] Yeah, he wasn't into that one.

Lindsay McCormick [01:04:44] It was just kind of like, it felt like a very spiritual moment and kind of just like a fascinating thing that we were all kind of talking about together at that point.

John Dehlin [01:04:53] Were y' all aware that women had been either fired from BYU or excommunicated for talking about Mother in Heaven or praying to Mother in Heaven?

Todd McCormick [01:05:01] I was Aware. And I mean, I think this would have been post Kate Kelly. Right.

John Dehlin [01:05:06] The ordained women stuff would have happened in 2012, 2013. We both got our letters for disciplinary councils in 2014.

Todd McCormick [01:05:14] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:05:15] She was excommunicated in 2014. I was excommunicated in 2015.

Todd McCormick [01:05:19] Gotcha. Okay. So we were aware of. You know, it's hard to kind of. To kind of say really quickly, we kind of lost our trust in the church.

John Dehlin [01:05:33] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:05:34] Very, very quickly. So while we still viewed it as maybe even true.

Lindsay McCormick [01:05:38] Ish.

Todd McCormick [01:05:40] It was. We weren't looking at it as our source because we had kind of lost trust in its ability to be our source of truth. It kind of had. We'd already noticed they'd burned us doctrinally in some major ways. And so, you know, it wasn't. That's why I say we weren't really looking through the Mormon lens. We were looking through Mormon scripture and through the Bible, but we weren't looking from a. A Utah church.

John Dehlin [01:06:01] And you were looking into yourselves.

Lindsay McCormick [01:06:03] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:06:04] What you thought was true.

Todd McCormick [01:06:05] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:06:06] We went super dangerous from a faith. Orthodox faith perspective.

Todd McCormick [01:06:10] Well, and it is funny you say that because somewhat early on in this journey, we were warned by a family member. Oh, I mean, the second you start getting together and reading scriptures and with friends, because we did have some friends, that we would talk about scriptures. And you know, that's. That's when this other. These other couples in our ward or stake left. So caution you not to. And we're kind of like, well, if people getting together, reading the scriptures are leaving the church, that seems like that's a bad thing about the church. Not about the people exactly, but there's

John Dehlin [01:06:38] like decades long history of people starting. We're talking 80s, 70s, 80s, 90s, like in Manti of people doing these study groups and deciding that they're going to have temple ceremonies in the forest. Or like.

Todd McCormick [01:06:53] Right.

John Dehlin [01:06:53] Starting polygamy from just reading the Journal Discourses. Like one of the first people I interviewed on Mormon stories, the very first video we ever did on Mormon stories, she was married to Ogden Kraut. She was married to a normal Mormon. But then she started studying the Journal Discourses. And then she's like, we should be practicing polygamy. And so then she divorces her husband, who wouldn't practice polygamy, and then she marries a polygamist named Ogden Krause. And then, you know, but it was all through study groups. And so the church, literally the Mormon church in like the 80s and 90s, forbade study groups. They issued a Memo saying, don't have study groups. Like, how bizarre is that?

Todd McCormick [01:07:33] Right.

Margi Dehlin [01:07:33] Okay.

Lindsay McCormick [01:07:34] Yeah. I didn't know that there was an official. And so I see where.

John Dehlin [01:07:37] Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [01:07:37] The family members would have been getting that.

John Dehlin [01:07:40] That's. That's our heritage is like, don't study too much.

Lindsay McCormick [01:07:42] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:07:43] And in my mind, my brain's to going. My orthodox Mormon brain. The whole time you're telling this story, my orthodox Mormon brain is saying, avoid the mysteries. Because that's what I was told. Don't get into the mysteries because they can lead you astray.

Lindsay McCormick [01:07:55] Right, right.

John Dehlin [01:07:55] So y' all were getting.

Todd McCormick [01:07:56] We were delving into.

John Dehlin [01:07:57] Yeah, yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:07:58] Dangerous waters and wild.

John Dehlin [01:08:00] It was her name. And Wild with an E. Anyway, keep going.

Lindsay McCormick [01:08:04] Yeah, gotcha.

Todd McCormick [01:08:05] Yeah, it's interesting. We looked in one of the reasons we did a deep dive on polygamy. I mean, we were literally just going piece by piece of our belief system and say, trying to figure out why it was what it was.

John Dehlin [01:08:18] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:08:19] And so we were like, we got to know if polygamy is a thing or not. Not because we wanted to. We were hoping it wasn't. And it was very clear again, really quickly that it's. It's a mess and it's not a thing. Scripturally. And again, our journey originally was 1, 100%.

John Dehlin [01:08:36] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:08:37] Scripturally. And we had. We did. We had our friends that were doing the same thing, and we did connect online and we kind of flirted with these neo fundamentalist groups from a standpoint of, oh, they're also discussing the scriptures, they're also finding interesting things. And, you know, we never. We had. We were so fiercely independent that we never really jumped on any bandwagons, you know, because we had. Our journey was always independent and it remained that way. But it was like, oh, interesting to hear what these guys have to say. And so it was honestly a fascinating and fun journey. And coincidentally, our business had stabilized and we were burned, especially me. Linds was having the babies and I was really getting this thing as a startup and it was a mess. Lots of drama, and it was hard getting it off the ground. So when it stabilized, we took a step out of it and it ran itself. And I didn't go in for an entire year.

John Dehlin [01:09:40] You had a lot of time to

Todd McCormick [01:09:41] study, so we did. And that's while we deconstructed. That's while we were research. I mean, we were literally full time researchers. And, you know, 80% of it was scriptural. But when you start talking about Mormon ideas, it takes you to the history.

Lindsay McCormick [01:09:57] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:09:57] Because you have to figure out, okay, well, when was this idea introduced and why was it introduced and who introduced it?

John Dehlin [01:10:03] It.

Todd McCormick [01:10:04] So pretty quickly we started realizing the Doctrine and Covenants was a mess because a lot of it had been altered and a lot of it wasn't original and it was pieced together and manipulated. So where at first we had, we were just kind of like, well, the prophets are good and they're there for inspiration, but we really need to put scriptures first. When we started seeing the type of, of issues in the Doctrine and Covenants, then we started losing faith in the church.

Lindsay McCormick [01:10:38] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:10:39] And the orthodox, orthodox Mormons don't know that the Doctrine and Covenants has been changed. There have been entire sections removed, entire revelations where the meaning was reversed, and even revelations that were given that then they added a bunch of stuff later and doubled the revelations. Like we have a whole episode on LDS discussions about changes to the Doctrine and Covenants that people should check out if they don't know because it's faith destroying, just the history of the Doctrine and Covenants.

Todd McCormick [01:11:11] So we started cross checking the Doctrine and Covenants to the Joseph Smith Papers project and seeing the, you know, the revisions and the changes. And again, where we had had such implicit faith, faith and trust in the church and its leaders, it, you know, it really shook. It started shaking the foundations of our belief in the church for sure.

John Dehlin [01:11:34] Okay, so it sounds like y' all got to the point where you were just questioning the church overall, but I'm wondering how that affected both your Mormon journey, how you ended up in front of a stake president, but also how it affected, you know, Hinckley family relationship. So where, where does your story go next?

Lindsay McCormick [01:11:56] Talk about that small thing.

Todd McCormick [01:12:02] Let's, let's add this little Easter egg in and what, we're going to revisit it. But we, we had a lot of, you know, we had a great word community and a lot of friends. There were a lot of people in our same age group.

Margi Dehlin [01:12:14] Yep.

Todd McCormick [01:12:14] Young children through parties all the time.

Lindsay McCormick [01:12:17] I was kind of the hub.

Todd McCormick [01:12:18] Yeah. Lindsay's very social. So we were getting together a lot and we, you know, inevitably we started talking about some of our diverging views. You know, we weren't sure. Yeah, only if we really weren't trying to do anything with it. We were just, it was just conversation.

Lindsay McCormick [01:12:34] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:12:35] And especially my New Order Mormon friend, you know, he was loving having some in depth conversations with us. But there was one, one night where we got together for a family home evening. And this was 2014, so this was early on in our journey, fall of 2014. And I think there were three or four couples there. And the City Creek Mall came up, you had just mentioned that and we, you know, we expressed that we were kind of confused by it, that the church was building a multi billion dollar mall.

Lindsay McCormick [01:13:08] It didn't seem right.

Todd McCormick [01:13:10] Like, yeah, our kind of. I don't think, and correct me if I'm wrong, you were paying a lot more attention than I was at the time. I don't think they'd really done any quite like that yet.

John Dehlin [01:13:20] No. Never built a two billion dollar commercial shopping mall that the members knew of.

Todd McCormick [01:13:25] Right, right. It's, it's become a lot more common these days that they do these large commercial districts around temples and things. But the City Creek Mall for me was, was problematic and you know, and the funds where they were coming from was questionable. And I, you know, I'm from Utah, so I pay attention. I still follow KSL and Salt Lake Tribune. So I'm listening and I'm seeing there's a lot, I mean it wasn't just us who was, who were having an issue with it. There were members that were writing articles about it and you know, it was, it was a controversial thing to happen. So you know, we had what I, what we felt like was a pretty tame conversation about the City Creek Mall. And one was with one of our employees who was there at this family home evening also.

John Dehlin [01:14:11] Ward or stake member?

Todd McCormick [01:14:12] Yes, a ward member. And he told me the next day at work that that conversation had made his wife particularly uncomfortable. And I, you know, I apologized to me like, oh, we really weren't trying to make anybody uncomfortable. I'm sorry.

Lindsay McCormick [01:14:25] And so, you know, just thought that was it.

Todd McCormick [01:14:28] That was kind of. Yeah, moved on with life. But that plays a factor in the future. So I will just kind of bookmark

Lindsay McCormick [01:14:35] that experience in a ridiculous way.

John Dehlin [01:14:39] Okay.

Todd McCormick [01:14:41] So every month that goes by, we're getting further and further from our traditional upbringing. Right. And it's getting, and we're feeling more and more out of place. Around this time is when Uchtdorf gave his talk about there's a place for you if you're doubting or if you're questioning. And that thing just resonated with us because we were feeling more and more out of place. But we didn't want to leave. We did not want to lose our community, our family. I mean it was our everything.

Lindsay McCormick [01:15:10] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:15:11] You were becoming new at her Mormon.

Todd McCormick [01:15:12] Yeah, it's my friend's fault. He planted the seeds.

John Dehlin [01:15:16] Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [01:15:17] No, we held on to that talk a lot. And we would use it, you know, like, we're trying to carve out a space here, and, you know, we. We should be able to be here, too.

John Dehlin [01:15:27] This was also. Well, around the time Kate was excommunicated. I was excommunicated, and the gospel topics essays had come out, and the CES letter was about to come out. I don't know if y' all were.

Lindsay McCormick [01:15:39] Yeah, we didn't. I don't think I knew about any. For us.

John Dehlin [01:15:40] Okay.

Lindsay McCormick [01:15:41] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:15:41] Okay. That's interesting. This is happening. Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:15:45] Not your traditional.

John Dehlin [01:15:47] Well, most tradition. Have never heard of anything.

Todd McCormick [01:15:49] Right. We will. We were.

John Dehlin [01:15:50] That's normal.

Todd McCormick [01:15:51] Yeah. We were still very much. We weren't really on the fringes of Mormonism globally. We were in the fringes internally.

John Dehlin [01:15:57] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:15:58] And starting to be noticeable in our everyday life.

Lindsay McCormick [01:16:01] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:16:02] But we had some friends that I think noticed we were different and that we were odd, and they were also odd. You know, they were having their own questions. And so I remember one. One day, we were just in the hot tub with a friend of a longtime friend of ours, and she was kind of talking about how confusing the word of wisdom was scripturally.

Lindsay McCormick [01:16:27] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:16:28] She's also a thing.

Lindsay McCormick [01:16:29] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:16:30] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:16:30] She's like, first off, it says that it's not by commandment, and here we are making it a commandment. And then all of the instances, you know, so we noticed she was kind of on a similar journey. She was. The scripture. She was putting more emphasis on the scriptures and being confused by the church. And so naturally, you know, we're kind of commiserating together. And very quickly, she and her husband leave the church.

John Dehlin [01:16:57] Okay.

Todd McCormick [01:16:58] And they were very bold about it, public about it, and, like, ripped the band aid off about it.

Margi Dehlin [01:17:06] Yep.

Todd McCormick [01:17:07] And that her dad was in the high council of our stake.

Lindsay McCormick [01:17:10] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:17:11] And they ended up in our ward. So you can imagine that how that would look to the members of the ward and to her parents, who are very devout lds, that she starts talking to us. The next thing you know, she's out of the church.

Lindsay McCormick [01:17:29] We had been friends for a long time. She was like a little sister, like, 10 years younger than me, had nannied for us and taking care of our babies and things like that.

Todd McCormick [01:17:36] One of our first employees at Photobarn, you know, so she was. We had a lot of history with her.

John Dehlin [01:17:42] So people maybe assumed y' all were

Todd McCormick [01:17:44] about influence and the catalyst, even.

Lindsay McCormick [01:17:48] Yeah. Like the reason that they left. Here we are.

Todd McCormick [01:17:51] No, they. You know, they. They were flying under the radar. They weren't really attending very much because they were just not. They weren't into it.

John Dehlin [01:17:58] Yeah. You always got to find someone to blame when you're. Oh, yeah, right.

Lindsay McCormick [01:18:01] Yeah, for sure.

Todd McCormick [01:18:03] So that was going on and then, you know, if someone else new moved into the ward and who had married into one of the big families in Knoxville. And also she came with her own history and she was in the process of reading Planted by Patrick Mason. And you don't read that book. Right. Unless you're. You're in it, you're nuanced, and you're starting to, you know, try to deal with some of the difficult parts of Mormonism. So, you know, she really latched on to Lindsay and her friend group. And long story short, this is what starts the kind of the pitchforks coming out.

Lindsay McCormick [01:18:41] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:18:42] In Knoxville because the first witch hunt. Yeah, the first witch hunt. This, you know, people really started seeing us as a threat because of our diverging views and because people around us were also having diverging views.

Stepping Away from Church Practices

Lindsay McCormick [01:19:00] Also. I had, I had stopped wearing garments. And you did pretty soon after that. Just reading about them, learning about them, where they came from. And I was pregnant with our fourth and just never put them back on after. Had him.

Todd McCormick [01:19:14] And so you were closeted because you still wore garment worthy clothing.

Lindsay McCormick [01:19:17] Yeah, but you know, you can tell.

Margi Dehlin [01:19:20] Yeah, I think there's garment checking. People are very aware of. Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [01:19:25] If you're wearing. Yeah. Kind of trained to. To do that. So I think there was a lot of, of of that going on, like people noticing that about me.

Todd McCormick [01:19:36] And you know, in our logic, how do you justify scripturally the garment, you know, there and then you look into the history of it and that one just fell apart immediately from a. From a historical and a scriptural standpoint. Like we're just like these things are of man. And that was our. Of man or of God. Which one is it? This is of man category.

Lindsay McCormick [01:19:54] The whole temple down as well with right masonry. That was a big one for me.

John Dehlin [01:20:00] Dominoes are falling.

Todd McCormick [01:20:01] Yes, they're falling.

John Dehlin [01:20:03] I'm also gonna wonder if your financial success would generate some envy or suspicion by. By other people. Because just generally speaking, business or financial success can create either suspicion or even jealousy. I don't know if that's a thing.

Todd McCormick [01:20:21] That's very astute observation because at this very moment, at this very moment right after we had our force, we took, you know, we took this sabbatical from the business and we remodeled our whole house. It was the first time we took any money from the business to ourselves. We're like we are going to finally pay ourselves a little something for all this work we've been doing. So. And we did a lot of the work ourselves. Her brothers were involved. They're all into, you know, Nathan was there. You know, we were all built like remodeling the house and it was a fun project, but yeah, I mean, we turned it from a 90s outdated house to a really beautiful. You know, it was Joanna, Joanna Gaines at the time. We went all farmhouse with it and it was a lot of fun. But I think you're exactly right. And we let go of a bishopric member who had been working for us.

Lindsay McCormick [01:21:13] He was I up.

Todd McCormick [01:21:14] I mean he was, he was my right hand man in the business because of reasons.

John Dehlin [01:21:20] With cause.

Todd McCormick [01:21:21] With cause. Although it was a delicate situation because he's in, he's a good friend. We were friends, very close friend. And he was in our ward and he's the same one whose wife was uncomfortable with us talking about City Creek. Okay. And you know, there were performance issues and that was 100% the reason. However, I tried to be merciful and kind of made up a different. It's kind of like, oh, we're restructuring and we need to redo the physicians or whatever. So that I didn't really. I gave him severance and I tried to be merciful with the way we handled it and sensitive. I didn't say it was for cause when I did it. I didn't really go over the performance.

Lindsay McCormick [01:22:05] I get that he helped him get another job.

John Dehlin [01:22:09] Yeah. Which, yeah, I get all that.

Todd McCormick [01:22:12] It was heartbreaking. I, I put it off for an entire year because I didn't want to let go of a good friend, you know, and, and I had other people, another guy from the ward work for me. He's like, you need to let him go. He's a liability to the company. You've got to let him go. And I finally did it. But there was that, you know, that resentment you talk about. So we're remodeling our house. We've just let go of a bishopric member. And there were certainly some of those factors at play.

Lindsay McCormick [01:22:42] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:22:43] And then how does that, how does that impact your journey church wise?

Lindsay McCormick [01:22:49] We were, I think you. Were you already relegated to the primary at that time?

Todd McCormick [01:22:54] I think so.

Lindsay McCormick [01:22:55] And I had been teaching Sunday school youth, but I was kind of getting a little in trouble in there because I talked about the scriptures too much, things like that. But we were asked to give talks and I, I can't remember when this would have been.

Todd McCormick [01:23:08] January of 17.

Lindsay McCormick [01:23:10] Okay. And so we're like, okay, well, maybe they're trying to reach out to us, you know, kind of letting us have a voice again instead of just kind of, you know, they asked us to

Todd McCormick [01:23:20] do a musical number, I think, in December, and they asked us to speak. So we felt like the word was, like, kind of giving us a little olive branch, which was giving us that

Lindsay McCormick [01:23:27] space that we had been trying to form for two years. So, you know, we went really scriptural on the talks and. And literally just, you know, wrote them out and we had a topic, and we got up and read them word for word, which I always would do. He usually would just, you know, riff and do whatever for talks, but he. He read his as well. As soon as we got done, we sat down and the bishop stood up and basically, how would you say it corrected Lindsay's talk in front of the whole congregation. Yeah. Just made me feel like such an idiot.

John Dehlin [01:24:08] Do you remember what you were saying?

Todd McCormick [01:24:12] If she defers to me, it's because I have. For some reason, I have, like, different types of memory, a memory that remembers these types of details. I jumped in, she gave. You know, this really goes. You. You mentioned, you know, kind of the seeing God, and that's really the thread we were looking at the scriptures or the, you know, the lens we were looking through.

John Dehlin [01:24:30] Candy had developed a personal relationship. Personal relationship, before you could even maybe see Jesus.

Todd McCormick [01:24:35] Right?

Lindsay McCormick [01:24:35] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:24:35] And baptism of fire. A lot of times those groups get into the baptism of fire. So she gave her talk on the baptism of fire, which is in the scriptures. Absolutely. It's all over in the scriptures.

John Dehlin [01:24:44] Jesus's face is in the scripture.

Todd McCormick [01:24:45] And that was. That's more what I spoke about.

Lindsay McCormick [01:24:47] Yeah, yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:24:48] And. And so. But I think the bishop viewed her. Her talk about the baptism of fire as a threat to laying out of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.

Margi Dehlin [01:24:57] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:24:59] So he got up to say that, you know, he read some New Testament scriptures to say, laying on of hands is how we get the gift of the Holy Ghost. And it really. She wasn't saying anything about priesthood or anything, but the climate of the ward right now. It was right after this first friend left the church with her husband. And it was. The other friend was questioning and hanging out with us a lot, and they were nervous about her. And so, you know, there were. We didn't realize that we were really clueless to the bullseye that we had on us at the time. We gave our talks. We just kind of innocently gave them, and we're innocently providing support in our minds and from our perspective to people who were navigating the difficult parts of Mormonism. Yeah, we have. In fact, we told the. The second girl, we absolutely told her, you stay in the church for her and her situation. We never encouraged anybody to leave the church. You know, we were staying.

Margi Dehlin [01:25:53] Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [01:25:54] We weren't going anywhere.

Margi Dehlin [01:25:55] So. Quick question. During this time, are you. Sometimes I feel like it can be detected in a ward if you start questioning.

Lindsay McCormick [01:26:04] Right.

Margi Dehlin [01:26:04] And then, you know, your calling changes. Yes. So maybe you. You move from a more prevalent or where you have more leadership calling, maybe to primary or to that'.

Lindsay McCormick [01:26:16] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:26:16] Did you experience any changes that way as you were questioning?

Lindsay McCormick [01:26:21] Yeah, I think I got released as a Sunday school teacher for youth. I might have also. It might have been, you know, an excuse about me having a baby. I can't remember. But he definitely got.

Todd McCormick [01:26:31] I was in the Elders Quorum presidency and our Elders Quorum was awesome in those days because there were a couple other guys like me in there and we were kind of rabble rousing, if you. We were just bringing up the difficult parts of scripture and being like, how do we. They were interesting. And Elders Quorum came alive because it wasn't the stale script that we're given to read. It was interesting conversation and people were loving it. Well, not everyone. The leaders. The bishop started attending and keeping an eye on things. There was one that went over 15 minutes because the bishop was there to correct some of the worrisome ideas he was hearing.

Lindsay McCormick [01:27:08] Yeah, I wanted to be in there listening to that instead of Relief Society, though.

Todd McCormick [01:27:11] But I was. So I was released from the Elders Quorum presidency and I was.

Margi Dehlin [01:27:15] Is.

Todd McCormick [01:27:15] I spent a long time in primary.

Lindsay McCormick [01:27:17] Long time.

Todd McCormick [01:27:18] And frankly, great. At that point, that was where I wanted to be because, you know, I wasn't. The lessons were kind of irritating to me at that point because I was just like, oh, these are not very scriptural. And I was being super strict in that way. And, you know, it was just kind of. It was just more fun with the kids, you know.

John Dehlin [01:27:42] Can I note, though, because obviously Margi and I relate to this because we lost Our Faith in 2001, but stayed in the church for another 13 years, for the most part. And so we went through a lot of this and it's fine if there's a dog. So the one thing I want to note are the two things. One is three things. One is that it's not a big deal for people to lose their orthodox faith. Now the term is pimo, or physically and mentally out. But like, yeah, since the church began, there's people that actually lose orthodox faith and stay in.

Todd McCormick [01:28:21] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:28:22] That's. I don't think the church actually probably even really has a huge problem with that per se. So that's relatively normal for people to lose their orthodox faith. The second thing is it sounds like you're not going to the Internet and starting a podcast or like blogging. You know, you're. You're. In other words, you're choosing to not make your issues public with everyone.

Todd McCormick [01:28:44] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:28:44] So I want to.

Lindsay McCormick [01:28:45] We were.

Todd McCormick [01:28:46] Sorry to interrupt, but we were extremely selective who we spoke to. We had many friends in the Word. We never said a nuanced thing to ever.

John Dehlin [01:28:53] Oh, yeah, yeah. And the third thing is it sounds like you're wanting to stay in the church.

Todd McCormick [01:28:57] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:28:57] Which is you show that both by not making big deals at church, but also trying to be careful about who you talk to.

Lindsay McCormick [01:29:04] Yes. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:29:04] So I just want to say that in your defense, knowing about what's about to come.

Lindsay McCormick [01:29:08] Right.

Todd McCormick [01:29:08] Yeah, we were.

John Dehlin [01:29:09] And it was three years from your faith crisis to like this.

Todd McCormick [01:29:12] We are three years.

John Dehlin [01:29:15] Three years into staying in the church as non literal believers.

Todd McCormick [01:29:18] And honestly, just our personalities. We weren't trying to.

John Dehlin [01:29:23] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:29:23] To raise any questions during the lessons. You know, there were many times that we could have raised our hand and say, well, actually this section was changed, blah, blah, blah.

Lindsay McCormick [01:29:31] You know, but we just did a few times. Oh, yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:29:33] Lindsay's a little bit more of that.

Lindsay McCormick [01:29:34] I kind of did a couple times.

Todd McCormick [01:29:36] A couple times.

Margi Dehlin [01:29:36] Times.

Todd McCormick [01:29:37] But nothing.

Lindsay McCormick [01:29:37] It was really just bringing up the scriptures.

Todd McCormick [01:29:39] Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [01:29:40] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:29:40] And so, yeah, we were trying to play nice. We were just.

John Dehlin [01:29:42] We were.

Todd McCormick [01:29:43] We viewed it as our community and our people, and we were trying to make it work.

John Dehlin [01:29:47] Yeah. Okay. So I want to make that clear.

Todd McCormick [01:29:49] Right. So we gave these talks that Lindsay mentioned, and the bishop corrects hers. And we get a text later that day from someone in the ward who was upset about our talks and had heard us say things that we didn't say.

Lindsay McCormick [01:30:07] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:30:08] You know, Todd got up and said that the priesthood isn't needed. I'm like, I didn't even say the word priesthood or. Nor did I. You know, so there's just a heightened.

Being Watched and Targeted in the Ward

John Dehlin [01:30:18] Once you're tagged, you're tagged.

Lindsay McCormick [01:30:20] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:30:21] And then they look for any reason to make an issue. Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:30:25] And a few weeks go by and we're hearing rumors because we, you know, we've been in the ward at this point, six, seven years. We have a lot of friends in the ward, even Though we're weird, we still have a lot of, you know, different. We still have a lot of friends. We're hearing rumors that, quote, there is a case being built against the McCormicks in the stake. And, you know, that was super sad to hear. And we're confused. And I contacted the stake president and I said, can we have a meeting? And he agreed. So I think we were. We were so nervous, and we were over explaining. We went in there because we called the meeting. He didn't. He didn't invite us in. So he's like, what do you want to talk about? You know, left it open to us. Yeah. And it was weird.

John Dehlin [01:31:09] We were secretly conspiring. That's what we were hearing about it. Conspiring against you.

Todd McCormick [01:31:14] And so I went to the stake president to find out if that was happening. Yeah, I'm good. Yeah. It wasn't. It was good, solid information that there were people working on a case against.

Lindsay McCormick [01:31:25] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:31:25] Which happened to us. Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [01:31:27] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:31:29] Not fun. So what I remember about this meeting is that we went in there and it was almost like a confessional from the sense of, all right, Stake President, here's everything we've done in the past three years. We have talked to these people. Here's what we said. Like, we were really confident about what we had been doing.

John Dehlin [01:31:48] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:31:49] Even with the most controversial, the one who left the church. Like, listen, here's where she was before she talked to us. This was her decision. We're still here. We told her, there's really good reasons to stay. You know, there's. This is. It's a great community, all of those things. Anyway, he kind of listened. And it was the first stake meeting or meeting with an LDS leader that I'd ever had where I was getting a really cold vibe from him. And normally it was like Brother McCormick and really warm. And it was just like he was kind of just looking at us with a kind of a harsh stare.

John Dehlin [01:32:23] For whatever reason, they perceived you as a threat.

Lindsay McCormick [01:32:25] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:32:27] And it was really disconcerting because I'd never experienced that. I'd always had great relationships with. I'd been a leader. And suddenly we're in the hot seat, and we didn't really understand why. Right. Anyway, so we kind of blabbered on for a whole. Kind of like, here's everything we've done. We really haven't done anything bad. Don't. Don't. Don't think that, you know, we're a problem. And then at the end, he kind of let us do our thing. And then he said, is it true or no? He said, would. Would you agree that if a member of the church stands up in sacrament meeting and preaches false doctrine against the church, that that would be grounds for apostasy? And we knew the definition of apostasy. And I said, yes, that would be grounds for excommunication. And he kind of looked at us in a surprised way. And I said, oh, is that what you think that we did? And he's like, well, I'm hearing reports that your talks that you went up there and you've said some things against the church. And I said, well, we didn't. And I can clear this up very easily because I'll just email you the PDFs that we went up in church and read. And so we did that. And he wrote back almost immediately and said, you're fine. Yeah, we forgot a big part of this story, though.

Margi Dehlin [01:33:50] That's okay.

Lindsay McCormick [01:33:51] Go back.

Conflicted About Baptizing Their Child

Todd McCormick [01:33:52] To add to all of this drama happening right now, our oldest turned eight in December of 2016. Okay. And we were conflicted about baptizing him in the church. We weren't conflicted about baptizing him to Jesus. Okay. We were a little conflicted about the church. We asked the church. We didn't do it in December because our business is really seasonal and we're super busy. And we were probably stalling a little because we were just a little bit uncomfortable with the direction we were moving.

Lindsay McCormick [01:34:27] So there was a big expectation to, especially in his family and most Mormon families, I think, to have a big event for the baptisms and to travel and to go to everyone's baptism and support. And it was a definite big thing in his family culture. And so we knew that that was coming. This is our first kid. You know, we knew that that would be.

Todd McCormick [01:34:48] We had traveled to New York and Arizona for the baptisms of our nieces and nephews, and they were going to come to Tennessee for our child when he got baptized. So it was a lot of pressure. We kind of punted until after the year because of the business and other things. Well, right as we're starting to have the conversations about getting the baptism set up up, this threat of excommunication is looming. So here we are in this crossfire of are we going to be excommunicated or are we going to be baptizing our 8 year old? You know, what. What is going to happen here? And I had. We kind of, after the meeting with the stake president, we could kind of more seriously start talking about the baptism. And I met with our bishop, who is a guy that I had known very well, who I had done business with. He kind of. He helped with. Helped us get our business off the ground and, you know, lent us money and paid him back and, you know, the whole thing. So I had a meeting with him. It was, in order to give your. Your child the Holy Ghost, you have to be a temple worthy member. And I didn't have a temple recommend. I hadn't renewed it. So he said, are you planning on giving the Holy Ghost? I said, yes. He's like, well, you're have to come in for an interview and you don't have to get a temple recommend. But I have to ask you the questions. Because I told him I didn't want to recommend anyway. We spent three plus hours together.

Lindsay McCormick [01:36:19] I'm like, where is he?

Todd McCormick [01:36:22] Because I was having the hardest time answering the questions because I was very, very nuanced and I didn't want to be dishonest. And so I see John and Margi looking at each other. They've lived a lot of this.

John Dehlin [01:36:40] When Winston turned 8, I was in the exact same position and I was doing Mormon stories. So the stake president made me meet with him weekly for a year before he let me baptize Winston.

Lindsay McCormick [01:36:53] Oh, wow.

John Dehlin [01:36:54] So it was like you're saying three, this is the year. But eventually he left when Winston was nice.

Margi Dehlin [01:37:03] Oh.

Lindsay McCormick [01:37:04] So.

Margi Dehlin [01:37:05] But it was late.

Lindsay McCormick [01:37:06] Wow.

Todd McCormick [01:37:07] You have to give them the discussions at that point. If they turn that.

Lindsay McCormick [01:37:10] Yeah. I didn't know you have to have the mission.

Todd McCormick [01:37:11] Maybe they.

John Dehlin [01:37:12] I mean. What do you mean?

Lindsay McCormick [01:37:14] Like, as a. I think it's a

Todd McCormick [01:37:15] church rule if they don't get baptized when they're eight years old.

John Dehlin [01:37:17] Oh, no, no, no.

Lindsay McCormick [01:37:18] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:37:18] Yeah. But I. But I had to earn it.

Todd McCormick [01:37:20] Yeah, you really did.

John Dehlin [01:37:21] Winston had to wait a year. Wow. Yeah. Because I did not believe, literally. But I thought Jesus was a good role model.

Todd McCormick [01:37:29] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:37:30] The church has good in it.

Todd McCormick [01:37:32] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:37:32] But did I believe it was the one true church? No.

Todd McCormick [01:37:35] Right.

John Dehlin [01:37:35] You know what I mean?

Todd McCormick [01:37:36] Oh.

John Dehlin [01:37:36] I have.

Todd McCormick [01:37:37] You know, we did all this work on those questions to figure out how I could answer them honestly and authentically.

John Dehlin [01:37:43] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:37:43] And still be able to pass the interview. Essentially.

Lindsay McCormick [01:37:46] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:37:47] And I. I didn't say a single lie to my stake president. And, you know, I said I. I sustained him in his role. To be a prophet.

John Dehlin [01:37:55] Exactly.

Todd McCormick [01:37:55] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:37:55] You know how to lawyer.

Margi Dehlin [01:37:58] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:37:58] He's the leader of the church, so he has authority over the church.

Todd McCormick [01:38:02] And he knew enough about me that I disagreed with doctrines and things of the Church. And there's that question.

John Dehlin [01:38:09] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:38:10] In 2017, I think it's changed a little bit.

John Dehlin [01:38:13] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:38:14] You know.

Lindsay McCormick [01:38:14] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:38:15] I can't remember how it was worded, but basically if you disagree with the church, that's a problem. And he's like, well, I know this one's going to be hard. We talked about that one for two hours, that question. And then he got to the end of the interview, he's like, I don't know what to do with you. And I, I don't feel comfortable signing off yet. So I'm going to talk. We went, we walked down to the sick president's office. He wasn't there or available. So he's like, I'm going to have to talk to the president. Call you back. So he called me the next morning and said we would fill more. You know, he tried to do it with the most love he could, but we would feel more comfortable if you, if you don't do the Holy Ghost, if you have someone else in your. So my dad. But that, that was what added me to. Started adding me to my family. They had no idea. You know, my parents are in Utah. I'm out here in Tennessee doing my thing and starting to really change. And they're not really seeing the changes

John Dehlin [01:39:03] because they're far away and for never Mormons. Just a weird thing. You could be a 16 year old boy and baptize people because priests can baptize people and they only need the lower or the Aaronic priesthood to do it. But the gift of the Holy Ghost, for whatever reason you need to be an elder, which means you have to have the higher priest or the Melchizedek priesthood. So they were assessing your temple worthiness because temple worthiness is a proxy for worthiness to exercise the Melchizedek priesthood. But. So you were less worthy but worthy enough for priest level Iranian stuff, Right?

Todd McCormick [01:39:43] That's right.

John Dehlin [01:39:44] Yeah. So which is weird. Legalistic.

Lindsay McCormick [01:39:47] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:39:48] Mumbo jumbo.

Lindsay McCormick [01:39:49] Right. Just a waste of time.

Todd McCormick [01:39:50] I mean all of these.

John Dehlin [01:39:51] What's more sacred? The baptism or the gift?

Todd McCormick [01:39:53] I know, Yeah, I guess. Yeah. But all of this, you know, I think it was a week before my recommend interview that I was in the stake President's office about to get potentially disciplinary council.

John Dehlin [01:40:05] Yeah, yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:40:06] And then we're trying to organize a baptism. We had the baptism on the calendar because my family had tickets to fly in and I was suddenly in the crosshairs of our.

Lindsay McCormick [01:40:14] Didn't he say right when we went in there that they've set a date? Was that the first.

Todd McCormick [01:40:19] No, that was the. Yeah, not this time.

Lindsay McCormick [01:40:21] Okay.

Todd McCormick [01:40:22] So the baptism, you know, we asked if we could baptize them in the river because we felt a lot more comfortable with that. And they. They didn't. They didn't let us do that. So we did it. We did the baptism. The morning of the baptism, I woke up as almost as sick as I've ever been.

John Dehlin [01:40:40] And it was nerves.

Lindsay McCormick [01:40:41] We didn't know that.

John Dehlin [01:40:42] It wasn't food poisoning.

Todd McCormick [01:40:43] I don't.

John Dehlin [01:40:44] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:40:44] You know, psychology and I don't think I fully understood.

Lindsay McCormick [01:40:47] I was just like, oh, bad light as a ghost.

Todd McCormick [01:40:50] But 15. I remember I was in my bed and it was 15 minutes before we needed to leave. And Lindsay. Yeah, Lindsay walked in and said, are you gonna be able to do this? I'm like, I'm going to do it.

John Dehlin [01:40:59] Were you throwing up? Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. That's a stress.

Lindsay McCormick [01:41:03] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:41:04] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:41:04] And if you.

Lindsay McCormick [01:41:05] The.

Todd McCormick [01:41:05] The pictures of me at the baptism, I am frail and white as a girl. I looked very holy. But no, I was. Yeah, it was, you know, looking back on. I was so conflicted, and the stress of all that we had just been through. And as we're. I can't remember if it was as we were walking out to go to the baptism or on the way back, my mom sat me down and on the way there. I think it was on the way there and said, honey, what's going on with you and the Holy Ghost sitting on your wife?

John Dehlin [01:41:39] Are you looking at porn?

Margi Dehlin [01:41:40] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:41:41] Because I had to call my dad on Friday. That's when I found out. I found out on the Friday before the Baptist, the day before the baptism, that I couldn't do the Holy Ghost. So I called my dad and said, dad, would you. You know, this is right last second. So they knew something was up.

Lindsay McCormick [01:41:53] Yeah.

The Decision to Leave the Church

John Dehlin [01:41:54] Yeah. And for the. Never Mormons, like. Like, there are these rite of passage rituals, like, you know, getting married in the temple or give, you know, blessing your baby.

Todd McCormick [01:42:06] Right.

John Dehlin [01:42:06] As a man or giving the priesthood to your kids as a man or father, when your kids, your men, your sons advanced to the right age or baptism, where if you don't perform the ordinance, everyone knows there's something off.

Lindsay McCormick [01:42:23] Right.

John Dehlin [01:42:24] So it's a. So I'm not saying it's intended this way, but it ends up being a matter of intense public shame. Absolutely. If you don't baptize your son, but everyone sees your son get baptized by somebody else, it's immediately adultery or porn or something. But then you don't want to. So you don't want that shame. And you also, for me, I didn't want the shame of someone else baptizing my kid. Because then you're like, yeah, that was your thing. F you. Like, I'm as worthy as any of these people.

Lindsay McCormick [01:42:53] Right.

John Dehlin [01:42:53] I'm not going to be emasculated by having someone else baptize my son. So there's the public image, but then there's the pride, and then there's the integrity. You know, you don't want to lie and. And fake stuff.

Todd McCormick [01:43:06] Right.

John Dehlin [01:43:07] And you value the church.

Todd McCormick [01:43:08] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:43:09] But you don't want to leave the. You know, so you don't want to leave it, but you don't want to lie. And so it's a lot. It's nobody who's not in a high demand. Religion gets all this complexity.

Lindsay McCormick [01:43:18] Right?

Todd McCormick [01:43:19] Right.

Lindsay McCormick [01:43:19] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:43:19] I mean, even in 2017, I don't even. I don't think the thought had seriously crossed our mind that we would ever leave the church.

John Dehlin [01:43:25] It wasn't even in your radar.

Todd McCormick [01:43:27] We can make this work. The only. There was a seed kind of sowing really deep inside us, which was a concern for our children.

Lindsay McCormick [01:43:34] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:43:35] Because you don't want to be the outcast. And we were, you know, you don't want to put them into a culture where we're odd and we're not really encouraging them to do the temple stuff

Lindsay McCormick [01:43:47] or the mission, because we already knew we weren't gonna encourage them.

Todd McCormick [01:43:50] I was even nervous about young men because I know when I got into young men, it's a whole other level. Right. I mean, it was temple and missions and prophet and priesthood. Every single lesson, the real brainwashing begins

John Dehlin [01:44:04] is youth and the young men's young women.

Todd McCormick [01:44:07] Right. So that was. That was the seed that was kind of sowing. Like, the baptism was one thing, but it's like, when he turns 12, are we really gonna be able to.

Lindsay McCormick [01:44:15] He's a December birthday, and that year was the year that they changed the policy to, like, yet they could get the priesthood a whole year earlier, like the year that they turned 12. And so really, that would make him just a couple weeks after he turned 11, that he would be able. Or, you know, to get the priesthood. So, like a year earlier, as we

Todd McCormick [01:44:37] started facing the inevitability that he was going to turn 12 and he was going to be taken and he was going to go into young men's.

Lindsay McCormick [01:44:43] We.

Todd McCormick [01:44:43] We were starting to have the conversations, are we going to have to. Is that when we're going to have to bail?

Lindsay McCormick [01:44:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:44:48] And that's complex also. Let's put the Hinckley lens on it. You're all aunts and uncles, grandparents, both sides or, you know, all into the church, seeing each other regularly. You don't want to be the. You've got these kids who are hanging around their cousins, their aunts and uncles and grandparents all the time. You want them to be the first ones not baptized. The first one's not confirmed. The first one's not to get the priesthood. So that, like. Because that's just, you know, it's like you're living in isolation. It's Mormonville.

Lindsay McCormick [01:45:20] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:45:21] Even in Knoxville. Yes, it's Mormonville. And at the same time, you don't want to lie to your kids and make them orthodox Mormons, or they're going to either stop trusting you as parents because they know you don't believe, but you also don't want to put them in a. In the pathway towards brainwashing. So you're. There's this time limit of how long you can pull this off before the. It all unravels one way or another. Right.

Todd McCormick [01:45:54] And when they made the announcement Lindsay's talking about, our time limit moved up a year because suddenly we thought we had till he turned 12, and now he's gonna have to go in almost an entire year earlier. Lost a year of decision.

John Dehlin [01:46:06] And grandparents and aunts and uncles, like, when are you going to baptize? So and so.

Margi Dehlin [01:46:09] Right. Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [01:46:09] Because Luke was coming up.

John Dehlin [01:46:11] Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [01:46:11] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:46:12] This is important. It seems technical and legalistic, but this is core, you know, faith crisis problems. Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:46:22] And heart wrenching. Because you're equal parts. Like, you love Mormonism and you love your family and you would love the culture, and you don't want to leave it.

John Dehlin [01:46:32] It. Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:46:32] And you know what happens when you leave. And you know what it's going to do to every relationship you have. So you're. You know, I know at the time we, you know, we said we wanted to stay to be a support for other people a lot. Like a lot of nuanced members do. And. And most are sincere. I think I was sincere, but I also think I was putting off the inevitable that, you know, we also hadn't seen any.

Lindsay McCormick [01:47:00] Like, this is a long time ago. It's not like now. We had not really seen anyone leave the church. You know, we were warned of people that left the church, and then their marriages fell apart or they started swinging or whatever it was. And we just, you know, we looked around and we couldn't even see, like, an example of just a nice little cute family that stayed together, you know, and still did nice, cute things, you know, we just couldn't even see it. Totally different than today.

John Dehlin [01:47:26] Yeah. Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:47:27] So that was hard.

Lindsay McCormick [01:47:28] That was scary.

Todd McCormick [01:47:30] And you were super early.

Lindsay McCormick [01:47:32] Oh, yeah, yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:47:33] I'm sure.

Todd McCormick [01:47:33] Yeah, it was very scary. It's like, what. Who are we gonna even have anymore?

Lindsay McCormick [01:47:38] Oh, yeah. Like, where will you go?

Todd McCormick [01:47:40] They were literally saying that at that time.

John Dehlin [01:47:42] Where we go, lose your parents, lose your siblings, lose your. You know, even lose your children. Like, the stakes are huge.

Lindsay McCormick [01:47:47] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:47:48] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:47:49] So it.

John Dehlin [01:47:49] They feel huge.

Todd McCormick [01:47:50] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:47:51] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:47:51] So 2017, another thing of note. You know, we get through the baptism, kind of move on with life, and my mom now knows that we're nuanced, and so she's concerned. And Lindsay's starting to feel it from her side of the family, too. People know that we're, you know, we're different. And we're getting articles and things sent to us. We go to Utah, do the project.

John Dehlin [01:48:13] The project.

Todd McCormick [01:48:13] Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [01:48:14] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:48:15] Yep. We got. So it was my 20 year high school reunion. Lancers in Leighton. We go to Utah for that in the summer of 2017. And we were starting to get a little bolder. We were. You know, it took three years.

Lindsay McCormick [01:48:29] Boulder, with being authentic.

Todd McCormick [01:48:30] Boulder. Yeah. Just like, we had been hiding so much.

Lindsay McCormick [01:48:33] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:48:34] Which is not good for your mental health.

Todd McCormick [01:48:36] Really bad for Lind.

Lindsay McCormick [01:48:37] Really bad for me, because I had never. I don't think I've ever experienced anxiety in my life until this period of time. And I started like. I mean, y' all probably. It just started being this feeling right here. I could just feel it in my chest, and then it, like, actually moved up to my throat for a long time. Like, I would just have. I would just say it like, my throat, my throat, my throat, you know? Yeah. There was one day that I was feeling it pretty hard, and I can't remember what the circumstance was, but I just told Todd, I'm like, I gotta go. And I just kind of, like, walked out the door and just.

Todd McCormick [01:49:11] Just.

Lindsay McCormick [01:49:11] Just kind of took off running around the neighborhood, and I just, you know, I was just so jittery, and he was kind of freaked out. He's like, she doesn't go running. And so he was googling things and then found something about not being authentic can give you anxiety like that or a thousand percent. Yeah. Is that the word that.

John Dehlin [01:49:29] Yeah. It could be deadly. It could actually be deadly, in my opinion.

Lindsay McCormick [01:49:32] Yeah. I don't know if Nathan talked about it on his. But he. It sent him to the hospital twice.

John Dehlin [01:49:38] Yeah. Emergency room.

Lindsay McCormick [01:49:39] Emergency room, yes.

John Dehlin [01:49:40] With panic attacks, thinking you were dying.

Lindsay McCormick [01:49:42] Right. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:49:43] That's what sustained secrets or inauthenticity could do to your mental health, let alone autoimmune disorders and all depression and all sorts of. Yeah, it. It's a. Lots of things. But yeah, yeah, yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:49:58] It had a huge.

Lindsay McCormick [01:49:59] So you know, I was hiding that I wasn't wearing gar. I was trying to hide that and so I would, you know, things like that. So that's where the reunion comes into play. And so.

Todd McCormick [01:50:08] Well, yeah, like privately, Lindsay wasn't wearing. She was wearing non garment clothes for a long time. She didn't wear them but she still wore the sleeves and the long shorts. But when we were just by ourselves, she would wear shorter shorts and show her shoulders. But anytime we'd go to her parents house, it was back on with the garment type clothing to respect their house, you know. But coming into the reunion, I think we both were starting to get tired of being inauthentic and hiding. So I was leading a double life almost. We're pretending we look Mormon still.

John Dehlin [01:50:39] It's unsustainable.

Lindsay McCormick [01:50:40] Yes, it is. So I was just like, what would I just wear to this? If I were to go pick a dress, what would I choose? You know? And so we just did. We went and picked one that I just really liked.

John Dehlin [01:50:50] And showed your shoulders.

Lindsay McCormick [01:50:52] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:50:53] And it was honestly for people pleasing Todd who, you know, who was on this pedestal. I was like the golden child and all this. This was. It may sound stupid again to people who don't really understand the programming and the way that Mormons think and are raised. You know, I was like, okay, I'm sticking my neck out because I am going to my reunion that I planned.

Lindsay McCormick [01:51:13] Oh, he was, he was the student class president, right?

Todd McCormick [01:51:17] Yeah, the senior class president.

Lindsay McCormick [01:51:18] Sorry.

Todd McCormick [01:51:19] And we are going to out ourselves

John Dehlin [01:51:21] with the wife showing porn shoulders. Exactly. Which is so silly.

Todd McCormick [01:51:25] The type of dress is going to make such a statement. Yeah, but we, we said are we. You know when it was. And I also knew it was gonna because we were staying at my parents home and that was gonna be horrifying for them, which was sad.

Margi Dehlin [01:51:37] Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [01:51:37] And it's not our.

John Dehlin [01:51:39] It's like a coming out.

Margi Dehlin [01:51:41] Yes, it is.

Todd McCormick [01:51:42] It was a. Probably the first. Definitely the first time that you wore non garment clothes in a very public place.

Lindsay McCormick [01:51:48] Well, not only that, I picked that dress out because we had planned filming pictures in Utah up in that beautiful canyon. I can't think of the Name?

Todd McCormick [01:51:55] Albion Basin.

Lindsay McCormick [01:51:56] Albion Basin. And I had a friend photographer out there, and so I. We took only pictures in the same dress.

Todd McCormick [01:52:03] And she didn't. Wasn't wearing garment clothes. They were going to be on our wall. You know, this was. We're starting to own it.

Lindsay McCormick [01:52:08] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:52:09] But because she dressed like she did at my reunion, several people reached out to me that were early on.

Lindsay McCormick [01:52:16] He's like, what are they gonna say?

Todd McCormick [01:52:17] That was part of the reason we did it. Because again, it was. Oh.

John Dehlin [01:52:20] That were. Had their own doubts of questions because that's a tell to other questioning or non Mormons.

Lindsay McCormick [01:52:26] And it wasn't really the reason. I mean, it was like, let's be authentic. And.

Todd McCormick [01:52:30] Well, it pushed me over the edge because I, you know, having been through the three years we'd just been through largely alone, and knowing how hard it was, I was like, you know what? Let's do it, because it's gonna fish out people who might be in a similar situation. And there was a good friend of mine from high school who didn't even come to the reunion, but saw the pictures and she DMed me. And she's. At first, she was really Mormony online. Like, I'd been seeing general conference posts, you know, all the things she. Her first message. I thought she was judging me. I thought that she was like, coming to save us because Lindsay wasn't wearing her garments. But she's like. A week ago, my husband told me he lost his faith and my world is upside down right now. And anyway, we were able to really help her. And we got on a group chat with her and I went and visited her in Arizona. Arizona. At a. You know, I was going out there anyway. My sister lives there, so. Anyway, it's amazing how just a little Easter egg like that can help people who are going through similar things.

Lindsay McCormick [01:53:33] And that's just naturally how I wanted to dress. Just. I can't even. I have a hard time wearing sleeves now after having worn the garments for so long. It's. It bothers me. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:53:44] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [01:53:46] So.

Todd McCormick [01:53:47] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:53:47] That's big. I'm glad you mentioned that. That's big stuff.

Lindsay McCormick [01:53:49] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:53:50] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:53:51] I was just gonna say as a side, you know, for a lot, most of the women I have met where we have talked about garments authenticity, they all remember the first time they go out in a public way where they will be seen by people who are important to them.

Lindsay McCormick [01:54:11] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:54:12] And that moment where they choose authenticity.

Lindsay McCormick [01:54:14] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:54:15] Over this idea of, like, fitting in.

Lindsay McCormick [01:54:17] Right.

Margi Dehlin [01:54:17] And. And kind of staying invisible and safe.

Lindsay McCormick [01:54:20] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:54:20] And I just think it's interesting because they all remember it.

Lindsay McCormick [01:54:23] Yeah, yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:54:24] And me included. Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [01:54:26] Yeah. There was one time when I literally called or texted my family member who we were about to go meet up with for a base, like a July hot baseball game.

Todd McCormick [01:54:37] Humid, super hot.

Margi Dehlin [01:54:38] Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [01:54:38] And I'm like, I, I, I felt like, I felt like I needed to give them a heads up that I'm going to be wearing a tank top. I actually still wore the pants down to here, but I felt like I needed to tell them that I was going to be wearing tank top.

Todd McCormick [01:54:51] Warn them.

Lindsay McCormick [01:54:53] Yeah. Which is so silly if I thinking about it now. It just feel like I did a lot of that. I took on other people's feelings so much and, like, felt like I needed to soften it and apologize for and make it okay. You know, anytime someone came at me and they came at me a lot, Nathan included, he came at us pretty hard trying to save us. But, yeah, I, you know, I had a lot of respect for my family and for my brothers especially. I always really looked up to them. Really did not want to disappoint anybody in my family. And all I was doing was disappointing every single one of them, and they were letting me know.

John Dehlin [01:55:37] And you know what's mind blowing is this has been the plight of Mormons and Mormon women for 100, 150 years. And just this year, 2025, the Mormon Church comes out with sleeveless garments, which

Lindsay McCormick [01:55:52] pisses me

John Dehlin [01:55:56] because just now they come out sleeveless garments where you could wear that exact top you're wearing with garments underneath. So Mormon women. And so, I mean, on the one hand, yay, this doesn't have to be something Mormon women.

Lindsay McCormick [01:56:09] Is God really doing that?

John Dehlin [01:56:10] Yeah. Why did God have it wrong for 150 years? Right. And why did so many people have to go through this torture?

Lindsay McCormick [01:56:16] Well, it makes us very upset as those of us that had had to wear them and could not wear tank tops. And, you know, it's, it's upsetting.

John Dehlin [01:56:24] Yeah, yeah. And yay, church for the progress.

Lindsay McCormick [01:56:28] Sure. Yeah. I mean, a couple inches of fabric.

Margi Dehlin [01:56:32] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:56:34] Yeah. Anyway. Okay.

Todd McCormick [01:56:38] Okay. So, you know, we mentioned a friend who left with her husband. She's the one that worked for us and that we'd been with a long time. When they left, they were very vocal, or the husband was particularly. And it caused a rift in our life. The fact that they were vocal and that we were closely tied to them, that put us at odds with pretty much everyone in our life.

Lindsay McCormick [01:57:03] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:57:04] Our family, because they went to social and they said Some really hurtful things to active members.

Lindsay McCormick [01:57:11] We would have never said that.

Todd McCormick [01:57:12] We would never. Yeah, we wouldn't have done that. It's just. That was their style. But it was projected onto us and again, we were blamed for what they were going through. So that's when we really started. We were still attending. We were, we were trying our hardest to hang on. Frankly. We were.

John Dehlin [01:57:30] It's not fun to stay in. Attending Mormon church when you don't believe anymore. It's torture.

Todd McCormick [01:57:35] And it got.

Lindsay McCormick [01:57:36] And when people aren't liking you.

Todd McCormick [01:57:37] Yes.

Lindsay McCormick [01:57:39] And telling you.

John Dehlin [01:57:40] Oh yeah, we know.

Lindsay McCormick [01:57:41] And telling you that. Why are you here?

John Dehlin [01:57:43] So it's a real testament to how much you love the church or want to make it work.

Lindsay McCormick [01:57:47] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:57:47] That you can not just continue attending. But for years.

Lindsay McCormick [01:57:51] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [01:57:51] Well. And we had to go. You know, it, it was pretty traumatic to go. We had to. We had to go every other week.

Lindsay McCormick [01:57:57] Every other.

Todd McCormick [01:57:58] We had to go. We had to do a mountain.

Lindsay McCormick [01:58:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:58:00] That's just health management. Right.

Lindsay McCormick [01:58:02] Something similar. Okay. So it's a natural reaction to needing a.

The Stake President's Letter and First Disciplinary Threat

Todd McCormick [01:58:07] We had to go and face, you know, on the stand. And we haven't told this part of the story yet. So I guess we got to tell this part of the story. So the, the person that worked for us that was in the bishopric that we let go. I just hate even telling this part of the story. It's so sad.

Margi Dehlin [01:58:27] But.

Lindsay McCormick [01:58:32] He, he, he, he. We found out that he started a competing business with Photobar with my cousin. You know, this is a long time ago. We're, we're fine now. I'm, you know, I'm just telling the story how, how we were. Then anyway, we found out he's, you know, this guy that had signed a non compete. We had given severance to. And my cousin. Completely copied, Completely copied everything that we were doing. Started a business.

John Dehlin [01:59:09] Just.

Lindsay McCormick [01:59:09] Yeah. Completely competing in the same areas as us. Super upsetting.

John Dehlin [01:59:16] Like literally printing photos on wood.

Lindsay McCormick [01:59:18] Printing photos on wood.

John Dehlin [01:59:19] Holy.

Lindsay McCormick [01:59:20] And not very many people were doing that.

John Dehlin [01:59:23] Right.

Lindsay McCormick [01:59:23] There was actually two or three other Mormons that did the same thing. Believe it or not.

Todd McCormick [01:59:28] Early days that were like loosely affiliated.

Lindsay McCormick [01:59:30] Yeah. Or something. But this was amazing because he had a lot of contacts still with, you know, and knowledge from us. And he had a non compete agreement that he had signed and the, the non compete agreement he had to sign again to get the severance money. Because we kind of made sure like, hey, you know, we're letting you go. But like here you go. Just sign this that you signed.

Todd McCormick [01:59:55] You know, as A condition of the severance. He would, he would honor his non compete agreement.

Lindsay McCormick [01:59:59] Was it a year or two years or something? Anyway, it was well within that agreement and so we were pissed.

John Dehlin [02:00:06] Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [02:00:07] And we called my cousin first. He didn't really see a problem with it and so there was nothing else we could do with him. But we kind of let him know like, you know, he has a non compete. He's not supposed to be doing this. Oh, you know, it's not my. He kind of just washed his hands of it. So we contacted him and nothing. Nothing at all.

Todd McCormick [02:00:29] Yeah. You know, we searched for that non compete and it had been removed from our files.

Lindsay McCormick [02:00:36] Yep. All the others were there.

Todd McCormick [02:00:38] He was in charge of the files.

Margi Dehlin [02:00:40] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [02:00:41] So before he left, he removed it so we couldn't do anything legally about.

John Dehlin [02:00:47] I'll just say you suspect just.

Lindsay McCormick [02:00:49] Yeah, it was.

John Dehlin [02:00:50] Cover your tracks.

Lindsay McCormick [02:00:51] Yeah. We don't know. It wasn't there.

Todd McCormick [02:00:53] Yeah, it was not there there. Yeah, it was not there. That's a better way to put it.

John Dehlin [02:00:57] Not to doubt you just because I've been through some legal stuff.

Todd McCormick [02:01:00] No, I think that's a, that's, that's wise. And yeah. Yes, there were witnesses, but it's hearsay. Right. You know.

Lindsay McCormick [02:01:07] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [02:01:09] So yeah, that was heartbreaking. And we try, you know, he was in our bishopric in the ward we're attending and we have to face him weekly. Look at him on the stand.

Lindsay McCormick [02:01:18] And we never spoke to him again.

Todd McCormick [02:01:20] And we asked. The bishop came to our home after this happened because I reached out because the bishopric member who had workforce would not respond and would not speak to us.

Lindsay McCormick [02:01:29] We wanted to talk about it openly

Todd McCormick [02:01:31] and the bishopric or the bishop came to our home and we talked about it openly and we said what we, we just want to, we would like to reconcile, get in a room with us. We were like, you know, and we, and he's a lawyer. Our bishop was a lawyer. So I'm like, could you mediate a conversation at least? Anyway, he just told us to forgive

Lindsay McCormick [02:01:49] and gave us some scriptures.

Todd McCormick [02:01:51] Gave us some scriptures and forgive and

Lindsay McCormick [02:01:52] forget and move on.

Todd McCormick [02:01:53] But it obviously made church extremely painful and awkward for us and, and the abuses just kind of went on. They were trying to patent things that we had invented and they, you know, it was just, it was a horrific, horrific few years. You know, painful, very painful.

Lindsay McCormick [02:02:12] And you know, they're active, faithful Mormons and we're these Fringy Mormons. Right.

Todd McCormick [02:02:19] Is we were easy prey because we already had been discounted at this point. I had been Demoted from the primary to. This is a good one. This is a good calling.

Margi Dehlin [02:02:29] Oh my God.

Todd McCormick [02:02:30] The ward technology specialist.

Lindsay McCormick [02:02:31] But there were.

Todd McCormick [02:02:33] There's three wards in each ward had a war technology specialist. So every three years I might have to set up the projector once or twice for state conference.

Lindsay McCormick [02:02:42] That was his job.

Todd McCormick [02:02:42] So that was my job.

Lindsay McCormick [02:02:43] I don't think he ever did it.

Todd McCormick [02:02:45] No, I did once. I actually got to do my calling one time, so. And while I was still in the primary, you know, it was just getting. Church was just getting very painful. The primary president pulled me. She was doing kind of like ppi, I guess I didn't call it ppi, but inter check ins with the teachers to see how they were doing. In my interview, she said to me, well, how are you doing? I mean, how does it feel that everybody. Nobody wants to love this bishopric member but. But really doesn't like you guys? And I'm just like, yeah, it feels great. Thanks for asking.

Lindsay McCormick [02:03:19] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:03:19] Bye.

Todd McCormick [02:03:20] So yeah, it was. You know, and not that there are the majority of our ward honestly was super sweet to us.

Lindsay McCormick [02:03:29] I have dear friends that are still in the war today and have never blinked an eye, so.

Todd McCormick [02:03:36] Including stake president members. You know, the, the, the. The mother of our.

John Dehlin [02:03:41] Our.

Todd McCormick [02:03:42] Our previous stake president passed away and Lindsay touched up her photo and we had a. A woman Lou have a miss like a late term miscarriage. And they had a funeral and I sang at it. You know, we were. We were really trying with everything we had to be a part of this community and supporting them. And you know, at the same time, there were many who were. Would have preferred me not be around.

Lindsay McCormick [02:04:05] You know, it just felt heavy.

Todd McCormick [02:04:10] All right. Sorry. That is. That's painful.

Lindsay McCormick [02:04:13] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [02:04:15] So 2019 rolls around. We're kind of taking it on a lot of fronts. Things are difficult in the ward. We're starting to lose some friends. One example of a friendship issue. We had befriended some of the people that were our age from a few other wards that weren't loving their ward and needing friends. And so we invited them over to our house for a game night. We started connecting with. We go to dinner with them sometimes. And then we started playing volleyball regularly. And it was super fun. Fun. People never once said anything about our diverging views or anything to do with where we stood with the church. Just were hanging out with these guys, right. Lo and behold, while we're playing volleyball twice a week now, we're like really enjoying it. Suddenly the ward takes an interest in having a ward volleyball team.

Lindsay McCormick [02:05:11] Guess who's Had. Who had that up?

Todd McCormick [02:05:14] And the bishopric member who started the competing business starts this volleyball club essentially, in the ward and invites all of our. Everyone but us, all of our friends.

John Dehlin [02:05:23] Never heard of a bishop, a rogue bishopric member starting a volleyball game.

Todd McCormick [02:05:29] They were doing a rec league. They were going. But were they invited everybody but us to be on the volleyball.

John Dehlin [02:05:33] Abusive. That's full on abusive.

Lindsay McCormick [02:05:35] Right.

Todd McCormick [02:05:36] And I mean, I'm sure, you know, empathetically, I'm gonna. I know what he's trying to do. He's worried about his flock.

Lindsay McCormick [02:05:42] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [02:05:43] He's worried we're gonna pull them down. Like, in his mind, we did with some of the others who they thought we were influencing. And so how do we squash it? We'll pull them into our volleyball league and kill this thing that's giving regular. I mean, I get where he's coming from, but it just showed how much the stick misunderstood us.

Lindsay McCormick [02:05:59] Yeah. And didn't come to us and talk to us like they were never wanting to hear.

John Dehlin [02:06:03] But I'll also say he had a guilty conscience for what he did with you and didn't want to have to see your face every Sunday reminding him that he had done some really unethical things. I'm speculating, but that's my psychologist, you know. Yeah. He wanted you out of there so you wouldn't remind him of his behaviors. I. I believe.

Todd McCormick [02:06:23] I think. I think there's some evidence for that coming up because 20, 19 rolls around.

Lindsay McCormick [02:06:29] Okay.

Todd McCormick [02:06:29] We've kind of. We're at the end of our rope a little bit. That's just getting too hard. Hard. You know, we've now been doing this for four.

Lindsay McCormick [02:06:35] Four years.

Todd McCormick [02:06:36] Four years. Not nearly as long.

Lindsay McCormick [02:06:38] I don't know.

Todd McCormick [02:06:39] I mean, kudos to you.

Lindsay McCormick [02:06:40] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [02:06:40] You're our story. But times like five, you know, five amounts of time anyway.

John Dehlin [02:06:46] No, but that's a lot. Five years is a lot.

Lindsay McCormick [02:06:48] It was.

Todd McCormick [02:06:49] Yeah, it was a lot.

John Dehlin [02:06:50] Most people don't last a year, Right.

Lindsay McCormick [02:06:52] Yeah. Yeah.

Todd McCormick [02:06:53] Our second is getting close to baptism.

John Dehlin [02:06:56] Oops.

Lindsay McCormick [02:06:57] Yeah. Yeah.

Todd McCormick [02:06:57] And our oldest is getting close to priesthood, and we're getting. We're feeling more and more out of place and unwanted. Right. And so in January, we're just like, should we not go this week? We just kind of kept saying that for a few weeks and just stopped going.

Lindsay McCormick [02:07:17] Well, one week, I think it was canceled.

Todd McCormick [02:07:19] Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [02:07:19] For, like, weather or something. And so.

John Dehlin [02:07:22] Yep.

Lindsay McCormick [02:07:23] So then.

Todd McCormick [02:07:24] So we. We stopped it. We really just.

Lindsay McCormick [02:07:26] We didn't.

Todd McCormick [02:07:27] We didn't make a decision to stop attending. We just stopped that Kind of cancellation

Lindsay McCormick [02:07:30] kind of helped us. Like, we didn't go that week. Right. And so it kind of set the pace, I guess.

Todd McCormick [02:07:35] Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [02:07:35] And then we didn't. We didn't go back.

Todd McCormick [02:07:37] We didn't go back. Oh. To our surprise, on easter Sunday of 2019, I get a like, three months later. Three months later. We haven't been there for three months. I get a text from the executive secretary of the stake, who says the stake president wants to meet with us

Lindsay McCormick [02:07:55] during our Easter picnic.

Todd McCormick [02:07:56] Yeah. Literally at our home. We have our entire extended family there just celebrating Easter. And I. I was so confused. And, you know, this is a longtime family friend of Lindsay's. They were in her ward when she was younger, you know, who sent us this text. They used to babysit our kid. That was of baptism age. Now, you know, they helped us when Lindsay was doing weddings.

Margi Dehlin [02:08:15] She was my young woman's lady.

Todd McCormick [02:08:16] Sweet people. Sweet.

Lindsay McCormick [02:08:17] Yes.

Todd McCormick [02:08:18] And that's what I have to say about. Even the people who were doing harm to us.

Lindsay McCormick [02:08:21] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [02:08:22] Are otherwise really sweet. And good people.

John Dehlin [02:08:25] Totally.

Lindsay McCormick [02:08:26] And are scared and are, you know, are driven by fear.

Todd McCormick [02:08:30] Right.

John Dehlin [02:08:31] We say sometimes it takes religion to get good people to do bad things. Sometimes.

Lindsay McCormick [02:08:37] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [02:08:37] And I think, too, when this idea of being othered, it's like the minute that you're a perceived threat, it immediately just makes it. That fear kicks in. It makes it so much easier when people view you as. You're not like me, you're not like us anymore.

John Dehlin [02:08:56] Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [02:08:56] Yep.

Todd McCormick [02:08:58] So I sent a joke back to him, just trying to keep it a little light. And I said, oh, is he giving me a calling? You know? And he said, I think I counsel.

Lindsay McCormick [02:09:05] Oh, yeah, for sure.

Todd McCormick [02:09:06] And he said, I don't really know what. They don't tell me what the meetings are about.

Margi Dehlin [02:09:10] Okay. I'm sure.

Todd McCormick [02:09:12] So we really went into it very confused why they would be calling us in because we hadn't talked really, to anyone in the ward for months. We hadn't been there in months. We are really curious what we would be doing in the state with the stake president. And we go in as the same stake president that we had dealt with one other time. And he said, we have been getting some spontaneous letters from members of the stake.

Lindsay McCormick [02:09:45] Just letters coming in to the stake all at the same time.

Todd McCormick [02:09:51] I love your commentary.

John Dehlin [02:09:52] Please keep it real over here. Yeah.

Todd McCormick [02:09:55] I'm too diplomatic. I'll give the details. You get the feeling.

Lindsay McCormick [02:10:00] All right.

Todd McCormick [02:10:02] We've been getting some letters, and when we receive these letters, we have to do something about it.

Lindsay McCormick [02:10:06] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [02:10:07] And so we're going to need to set a disciplinary council. And we're just like, I mean, almost not even a hello, how are you? It's just like, like, you know, and we, you know, so he says this. I'm like, whoa, can you just back up a minute here?

John Dehlin [02:10:24] Which for those who don't know, it's an excommunication trial.

Lindsay McCormick [02:10:26] Right.

John Dehlin [02:10:27] You're being, you're on try. You're on trial for excommunication.

Lindsay McCormick [02:10:31] Right.

John Dehlin [02:10:31] Which is the most shaming, damning thing a Mormon can go.

Todd McCormick [02:10:36] And how many of the. Once a truck, once they're called, how many of those don't end in.

John Dehlin [02:10:40] Pretty much.

Lindsay McCormick [02:10:41] They made their decision that.

John Dehlin [02:10:43] For apostasy. If it's, if it's for apostasy. Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [02:10:46] We should talk for a minute just to explain to the audience what, what excommunication means. It's not just, oh, you can't come to church here anymore. Oh, you're not a member. Like the. Do you, do you want to take a minute and explain just kind of what's at stake for you and your family?

Lindsay McCormick [02:11:08] Well, I mean, I know one thing is that your temple, anything that you did in the temple, which it, you know, we were sealed in the temple for eternity. Our kids are sealed to us because they were born into our marriage when we were sealed in the temple. So we won't be with each other. We won't be with our kids in

John Dehlin [02:11:26] eternity, and you won't be with your parents or your siblings in heaven. So it's cutting you off from your.

Margi Dehlin [02:11:30] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:11:31] Believing parents and believing siblings to both

Lindsay McCormick [02:11:34] of our parents, if they had a child.

Todd McCormick [02:11:36] That was the wor.

John Dehlin [02:11:37] It's the worst thing.

Lindsay McCormick [02:11:38] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:11:39] For a parent to a Mormon parent to believe their kid for sure won't be with them in heaven. That's the whole part of the plan of salvation.

Lindsay McCormick [02:11:45] Absolutely right.

Margi Dehlin [02:11:46] And if the person who's doing it to you believes what they're doing to you, it's the most violent thing you can do to another person, really.

Todd McCormick [02:11:56] Cut them off from all of their loved ones forever.

John Dehlin [02:11:58] Yeah. And consign them to Mormon hell, basically.

Lindsay McCormick [02:12:02] Right, right.

Facing the Church Disciplinary Council

Todd McCormick [02:12:05] So we, you know, my first question is, well, are we able to see these letters? Can we please see the letters?

Lindsay McCormick [02:12:11] Yeah, of course. Like, what are you talking about, letters?

Todd McCormick [02:12:13] Yeah, because we're, we're so confused. Like, who would be? Right. Like, like, do we even get to see the letters before we have a court?

Lindsay McCormick [02:12:20] They weren't going to show them to us. They were just going to set A court.

Todd McCormick [02:12:23] Right. And so. And. And we asked how many. So. Oh, like six, seven or eight or something. Seven or eight.

Lindsay McCormick [02:12:29] Y.

Todd McCormick [02:12:30] And we're like, okay, is it.

Lindsay McCormick [02:12:32] That is. Is this one where, like, so people were just sending in letters?

Todd McCormick [02:12:37] Well, then we start questioning that.

Lindsay McCormick [02:12:38] What do you mean? Like that.

Todd McCormick [02:12:40] The spontaneous letters for letters.

Lindsay McCormick [02:12:42] We kind of started asking questions like, did you ask people to. To write letters? Oh, no, no, no. We don't do that. We do not do that. That against our policy. That's not how this works. That is not part of how the church works. They do not build a case. No.

Todd McCormick [02:12:57] And we pressed them on that. Like.

Lindsay McCormick [02:12:58] So you're telling us, you're telling me

Todd McCormick [02:13:00] seven random individuals decided right now to write letters in about.

Lindsay McCormick [02:13:04] About three months.

Todd McCormick [02:13:05] Our family that hasn't been to church for three months.

Lindsay McCormick [02:13:08] So we were just sitting there for

Todd McCormick [02:13:08] a long time, just received the letters, and we have to deal with, you know, that was kind of the answers

Lindsay McCormick [02:13:12] we were getting made my blood boil.

Todd McCormick [02:13:15] So, I mean, he did, to his credit, I guess he didn't have to let us do that, but he did. We set up another meeting in a week, and we asked for our bishop to be there too, because the bishop was a lawyer. And the bishop thought very. And this is a guy I've known for a long time, and he thought very logically. And I knew I was going to build a case for why they shouldn't excommunicate us. And I was worried the stake president wouldn't fully grasp the case I was trying to build, you know, and he would just. So I said, can our bishop be there? He said, yes, the bishop can be there. So a week later, we go back in and they present seven letters to us, folder in a folder, and they ask us to read them.

Lindsay McCormick [02:14:01] Oh, but we can't take a picture of them or we can't read them out loud even. I think.

Todd McCormick [02:14:06] Yeah, we had to read them silently.

John Dehlin [02:14:07] Were the names redacted?

Todd McCormick [02:14:09] No, the names were there, but there

Lindsay McCormick [02:14:11] were missing letters from what he had said before.

Todd McCormick [02:14:13] Yeah, there were less letters than originally. So we're thinking some people backed out when they heard we're going to read them.

Lindsay McCormick [02:14:18] And we actually.

Todd McCormick [02:14:19] We know. Yeah, we don't. We were able to confirm that we still have way too many friends in the church to not know what's going on. So we sit down and we read these letters. And I hope my memory is good. You might have notes of it.

Lindsay McCormick [02:14:34] Oh, yeah.

Todd McCormick [02:14:35] Okay. So surprise, surprise. One letter is from the bishopric member who we had let go who started the competing business. Letter number one is him. Letter number two is his wife. Surprise, surprise.

John Dehlin [02:14:49] So no sour grapes there?

Todd McCormick [02:14:51] No, not at all. Now, the content of those letters is the Easter egg we gave you earlier. So our big sin that justifies these letters and our excommunication, eternal damnation being ripped apart from our family forever is our discussion in 2014. It's now 2019.

John Dehlin [02:15:10] Five years ago.

Todd McCormick [02:15:10] Five years ago in 2014. About the mall.

Lindsay McCormick [02:15:14] The mall.

John Dehlin [02:15:15] The city creek, saying you weren't crazy about the mall.

Lindsay McCormick [02:15:18] Upsetting that they. Yeah, brought that up.

Todd McCormick [02:15:21] That is our excommunicable offense was that discussion in a home about them all,

John Dehlin [02:15:27] which is not even doctrine.

Lindsay McCormick [02:15:29] Right, Right.

Todd McCormick [02:15:31] No, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:15:31] Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [02:15:32] How can that be apostasy, if or whatever they were trying to get. Yeah. So silly.

John Dehlin [02:15:37] So silly.

Lindsay McCormick [02:15:37] We were like, I know in the world.

Todd McCormick [02:15:40] We're just kind of shaking our heads and trying. I was literally trying not to laugh because I'm just like, this is the most ridiculous thing I've ever.

John Dehlin [02:15:46] It's like you're saying same sex marriage is good, you know.

Todd McCormick [02:15:48] Right.

Lindsay McCormick [02:15:48] You know, it's just like, I don't know about this mall thing.

John Dehlin [02:15:51] Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [02:15:52] So his letter said that, and then her letter said the same thing me. Right.

Todd McCormick [02:15:56] Well, no.

Lindsay McCormick [02:15:57] Well, she hadn't too, didn't she?

Todd McCormick [02:15:58] Yeah. So then we had the best friend of the bishopric member who was also at that meeting. He also spontaneously. Yes, this is in 2019, decided to write a letter because he lives now across. He lives in Texas now and has for about three or four years.

Lindsay McCormick [02:16:17] But isn't that a miracle that he decided to send a letter at the same time? I mean, it must be from God.

Margi Dehlin [02:16:24] That's a prompting for you.

Lindsay McCormick [02:16:28] We were like, so he's. I mean, we just kept pushing that.

Todd McCormick [02:16:31] They're not building a case, you know.

Lindsay McCormick [02:16:34] You know, he was his best friend. And did he ask him. Oh, no, no.

Todd McCormick [02:16:38] So, yeah, his letter was about this horrible thing we did talking about them all. And then there was another letter, oddly, from the wife of the bishopric member. So she wrote two of the six letters. She's 30. 33% of the letters came from. You know, and if you add them out, half of the letters came from this one family. So her letter, her second letter was. Do you remember?

Lindsay McCormick [02:17:05] It was something about. So she visit taught another girl who ended up leaving the church, I think that month or months before she visit taught her. And at their visit teaching appointments, they were gossiping about me, I guess. And yeah, basically that was. She was kind of. I can't remember what she was saying, but something about. I remember. You do.

Todd McCormick [02:17:30] This is funny.

Lindsay McCormick [02:17:31] Oh, girl.

Todd McCormick [02:17:32] So, Lindsay, because she's a great social butterfly, party host, we do this really fun Halloween party every year, and it's mostly been with ward members because that's been our community. And even after we left the church, all the board members still come to our Halloween party. It's been. It's fun. It's a tradition. We raised our kids together. Trick or treated all the stuff. Well, at the most recent one, so it must have been 2018Halloween. Lindsay and this other woman were joking probably about how tired they were and how Halloween is a pain. And Lindsay joked about having needing a glass of wine. And then this friend, just innocently, because she's friends with Lindsay at the well, I mean, she mentioned that Lindsay was joking about wine to her visiting teaching. So that's what the letter was about, that Lindsay joked about wine in a private conversation.

John Dehlin [02:18:20] And I know active, faithful Mormons that drink wine. I even know of one former area authority.

Todd McCormick [02:18:27] Really?

John Dehlin [02:18:27] Drink wine as an area authority. Now, he didn't publicize that, but.

Todd McCormick [02:18:32] Wow.

John Dehlin [02:18:33] But like, drinking wine is not grounds for excommunication. It's probably not even grounds for church discipline.

Lindsay McCormick [02:18:39] Maybe joking about it.

John Dehlin [02:18:43] Yeah. The doctrine comes in that allows it, right?

Todd McCormick [02:18:46] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [02:18:47] So you're temple recommend over it now.

Lindsay McCormick [02:18:50] Right.

John Dehlin [02:18:50] But it's not grounds for a display council. Well, certainly not joking about it.

Todd McCormick [02:18:54] Right, Right. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:18:56] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [02:18:56] Side note, growing up, I would work at the steak vineyards. Did you guys have vineyards ever in any of your steaks?

John Dehlin [02:19:02] No. We had peanut butter candy.

Todd McCormick [02:19:03] Okay.

John Dehlin [02:19:04] I was in Houston. Yeah.

Todd McCormick [02:19:05] I mean, Utah used to grow and produce wine and other. Brigham had all kinds of, you know, distilleries. And Brigham put the.

John Dehlin [02:19:13] Well, Joseph died having drank wine the night Joseph Smith died for sure. Having drank wine with his colleagues the night before he was murdered.

Todd McCormick [02:19:21] Absolute.

Lindsay McCormick [02:19:22] And all the way up until Jesus.

John Dehlin [02:19:23] By the way, Jesus drank a lot of wine.

Lindsay McCormick [02:19:25] Oh, yeah. And shared it and created it. The best stuff. 900 bottles or something at the wedding, Right?

John Dehlin [02:19:35] Oh, yes, I know.

Todd McCormick [02:19:38] The Jesus of the New Testament is just. He's an awesome guy. I really like that Jesus we're totally all about. So anyway, what a ridiculous, silly, silly accusation. So the. The wife writes that letter. Okay, now get this. I just can't believe it keeps getting more ridiculous because the exact same word for word letter is presented again, this time in a different font size and

Lindsay McCormick [02:20:07] font with her best friend's name at the bottom of it.

John Dehlin [02:20:11] It's the Same letter, the word for word, word forward.

Lindsay McCormick [02:20:14] We were telling them that. We're like, this, guys, this is the same.

Margi Dehlin [02:20:17] Oh, no.

Todd McCormick [02:20:18] Yeah, yeah. They're like, no, it's not the same. Like, look at it.

Lindsay McCormick [02:20:20] Oh, my God.

Todd McCormick [02:20:21] It's the same letter.

John Dehlin [02:20:22] Same letter, but they. But they changed the font and someone else sign it.

Lindsay McCormick [02:20:28] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [02:20:29] I mean, one thing that comes up a little bit is the first time around with the threat of excommunication. It's clear they didn't even check your talks. It was just like, we heard about it. And then you present the talks, and they're like, oh. With a threat of, like, honestly, the most violent thing you can. You can do to a person. And now this time, they didn't notice a letter. Was that, did they? You know what I mean?

Lindsay McCormick [02:20:59] It's just.

Margi Dehlin [02:21:00] It's insulting.

Lindsay McCormick [02:21:01] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [02:21:01] When there's so much at stake about it.

Lindsay McCormick [02:21:05] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [02:21:05] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:21:05] And what we hadn't mentioned is social. You know, basically social homicide.

Lindsay McCormick [02:21:10] Right.

John Dehlin [02:21:11] Because when you excommunicate somebody, they lose all their friends. They lose the love and respect of their grandparents, their parents, their siblings, their nieces, their nephews, and they lose everything. It's like a social death penalty for the rest of your life. So that's very serious.

Lindsay McCormick [02:21:28] Well, and our kids still had friends in the ward, and, like, your parents got excommunicated. How would that feel? I had people saying, well, why do you care if you get. Of course I care. If I get wrongly excommunicated from all

Todd McCormick [02:21:39] of the world would be something else. Right. It's like, okay, well, I messed up according to their rules, but to be excommunicated.

Margi Dehlin [02:21:45] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:21:46] Mormon excommunication is worse than an adulterer. It's worse than a murderer. Even child molesters in the Mormon Church often don't get excommunicated.

Lindsay McCormick [02:21:55] Are you serious?

John Dehlin [02:21:56] Oh, my gosh.

Todd McCormick [02:21:57] Seriously? Right?

John Dehlin [02:21:58] All the time. The Mormon Church forgives child molesters and doesn't excommunicate them. Excommunication is worse than beating your spouse, committing adultery, and molesting a child for sure.

Lindsay McCormick [02:22:11] That's gross.

Margi Dehlin [02:22:12] Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [02:22:14] Yeah. That's ridiculous.

John Dehlin [02:22:16] It's way serious.

Lindsay McCormick [02:22:17] So. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. Are these just, like, rogue Tennessee backwoods? You know, what are they doing backwoods?

Todd McCormick [02:22:23] They're not, though.

Lindsay McCormick [02:22:24] But they're not. Yeah, they're transplants.

John Dehlin [02:22:26] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [02:22:26] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [02:22:26] They're. I mean, they're professionals. Many of them come from Western families. They are. You know, we. We. We call our area for the Knoxville area. It's kind of like little Utah over there because it's, it's flat. It's one of the, you know, Tennessee is very hilly. Our area is kind of flat. It's by the lake. It's affluent. It's. There's lots of job opportunities. It's very, very nice white collar. And so it attracts a lot of people. And, you know, I grew up in Utah, so I have a certain thing I like and I. The. The hills of Tennessee and the trees made me a little claustrophobic. Whereas where we live out here, I can see a little bit. I can't see any mountains. They're not. We don't have huge mountains like Utah. But so it attracts a lot of Western, you know.

Lindsay McCormick [02:23:13] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [02:23:14] Western members.

Lindsay McCormick [02:23:15] So it's not between like my parents word and our word is what we're talking about. And I. And I will say I don't think anyone in my parents word would have ever done this, though.

Todd McCormick [02:23:22] I don't think so either.

Lindsay McCormick [02:23:23] So, I mean, they're.

Todd McCormick [02:23:23] Yeah, they were being hardcore here.

Lindsay McCormick [02:23:26] It was.

Todd McCormick [02:23:27] Yes.

Lindsay McCormick [02:23:28] Well. And. Or is it, you know, with this guy.

Margi Dehlin [02:23:32] Okay, well, I just. Meaning the roulette from. In leadership from. That's right. From ward to ward. Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [02:23:41] Right, right. Yep. Yep.

Todd McCormick [02:23:42] Okay. So there's one more letter. This letter was really sad for us to read because we told you briefly about a girl that moved into the ward and she was. She had reading planted. She was having her own faith kind of journey crisis. And we gave her a lot of support and we told her to stay in the church.

Lindsay McCormick [02:24:04] We were like, saying, don't throw the baby out with the dress.

Todd McCormick [02:24:07] Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [02:24:08] Stuff. You know, because we were still in it.

Todd McCormick [02:24:10] We weren't, you know, we were. And definitely in a headspace at that time where we saw more value in staying than leaving, obviously.

Lindsay McCormick [02:24:15] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [02:24:16] And so we were absolutely advocating that she, you know, we weren't pushing anything under the rug. We were helping her think through it logically and thoroughly. Like you do on your podcast. I feel like, you know, you. You're not just going to hide stuff that's not healthy. Healthy. So anyway, we were really trying to help this girl. Right.

Lindsay McCormick [02:24:32] Well, throughout that time. Yeah. It got hairy with her and it got bad. And anyway, long story short, she ended up, like, coming back to me and apologizing for her behavior and just being like, very. Felt very bad because I had. We had just.

Margi Dehlin [02:24:47] It was.

Lindsay McCormick [02:24:48] It was just.

Todd McCormick [02:24:49] Yeah. That first excommunication attempt was largely a result of her. Her and her family being nervous about us.

Lindsay McCormick [02:24:56] Right, right. So she realized that it was, you Know, oh, you didn't say that I was wrong and things like that.

Todd McCormick [02:25:01] And so she begged for forgiveness.

Lindsay McCormick [02:25:03] Oh, yeah. Brought me gifts for, like, six months. And that was sweet.

Margi Dehlin [02:25:05] And.

Lindsay McCormick [02:25:06] And then I was just like, okay, yeah, I mean, we're fine. You're. We're good. And I felt good about it. And so, you know, here we are seeing a letter from. How many. Two years later, we're seeing this letter come in from her, and we're like, wait a minute. I thought we were. I thought we were good. You know, we hadn't even really interacted with her in two years.

Todd McCormick [02:25:23] So her letter was detailing some of those conversations from two years prior where we were talking about nuanced things 100%, but we always spoke of them in. In the sense of staying within the church, frankly, with her. And so that was just. That was sad because of. We had a long history with her, and it felt Her. Her letter felt really. She's a very authentic. She's like, really fun girl, but also complicated. And her letter felt almost like typewritten or something. It didn't even feel like her.

Lindsay McCormick [02:25:56] It was really strange. Yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:25:58] But it felt like betrayal to you.

Todd McCormick [02:26:00] Yeah, yeah, yeah. That. That one hurt. The rest were a joke. But that was kind of like the

John Dehlin [02:26:04] claim was that you. What?

Todd McCormick [02:26:06] Yeah. Was it.

Lindsay McCormick [02:26:07] I mean, just like, talking about things that are tricky stuff, you know, traditional, I guess. Yeah, probably. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:26:13] Which, again, is not ground.

Lindsay McCormick [02:26:14] It wasn't ever like, they did this or they did that. You know, it wasn't.

John Dehlin [02:26:18] Yeah.

The Second Excommunication Threat and Outcome

Todd McCormick [02:26:19] Okay. So this meeting. So that. It kind of. We talked about the weakness of those arguments, for one, with them, a bit, it. And we gave them.

John Dehlin [02:26:29] I had.

Todd McCormick [02:26:29] I had literally spent the entire week leading up to this meeting. I was so stressed.

Margi Dehlin [02:26:33] Oh, my gosh.

Todd McCormick [02:26:34] It is odd because, yes, we weren't attending. Yes, we didn't really feel like that act would separate us from our families however our family should. We did not want to be excommunicated.

John Dehlin [02:26:47] It's the worst. We've been through it. It's the worst.

Lindsay McCormick [02:26:49] It sounds horrible.

Todd McCormick [02:26:50] I would say, number one, I can't bear, like, our moms having to deal with the fact that we got excommunicated. That how that would feel for them. Two, we didn't do anything. And so. So just the principle of.

Lindsay McCormick [02:27:00] It's like, no, you can't do that to us. That's not fair.

Todd McCormick [02:27:03] So anyway, I. I kind of did a. I'm not an attorney, but I do have. I do read a lot, and I like to comprehend so I read their books, and I read their week off of work. Literally took a week off of work that I should not have done.

Lindsay McCormick [02:27:16] We did that so much, by the way.

Todd McCormick [02:27:17] The business was struggling a bit, and here I am spending all this time navigating church to discipline.

Lindsay McCormick [02:27:22] Well, we were, for years, friend issues. Navigating. How should I write this text to make so their feelings aren't hurt? Or, you know, just so much of our business, like, you know, our creative

Todd McCormick [02:27:34] energy that should have been put into the business was really going to. Navigating the fallout.

Lindsay McCormick [02:27:40] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [02:27:41] From our personal religious decisions.

Lindsay McCormick [02:27:43] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [02:27:45] So I had gone in there kind of prepared to say, and I can't remember exact wording now, it's been a little while. But essentially, with apostasy, they're supposed to give you a warning instead of just go for the ax, for sure. And so, you know, I was pleading with them, and I remember it was really hard because I felt like, you know, they were kind of initially presenting it like, we were given these letters and we have to act. We have no choice. We must. You know, and then I was. I had found what I felt like was a viable loophole for their predicament. And I was like, and our predicament. And I was like, well, listen, the handbook says that we should be given a warning before you excommunicate us, so can you please just give us a warning? We're. We're not attending anymore. We're not trying to do anything. I actually came prepared to that meeting with statistics from Utah, with statistics from Knoxville. I did a survey. I asked around in Knoxville how many people had left in the area. I found as many people as I could. And it was something like, in the last five years, there were 60 or 70 individuals. And of those 60 or 70, we knew 10 of them or five of them, hardly any. And so, you know, there I understood their perspective. They thought we were a dangerous mole in Knoxville, pulling people away from the flag block. And so I came in with my argument of this is a church problem. This is not a Todd and Lindsay Knoxville problem.

John Dehlin [02:29:14] Yeah. And between 2013 or even 2008, starting with Proposition 8.

Todd McCormick [02:29:21] Right.

John Dehlin [02:29:22] The church has had mass. The Mormon Church has had massive hemorrhaging.

Lindsay McCormick [02:29:27] Right.

John Dehlin [02:29:27] Between 2008 and today.

Lindsay McCormick [02:29:29] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:29:30] And it has nothing to do with the McCormick.

Lindsay McCormick [02:29:32] Right.

John Dehlin [02:29:32] You know?

Lindsay McCormick [02:29:33] No, definitely didn't.

John Dehlin [02:29:34] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [02:29:34] And so I was kind of pleading with them. I'm like, like. I mean, here's an out. Can't we just call this good, Be done with this whole charade? We'll go on our merry way, you go on yours. And the more the meeting went on, it just felt like they were trying to figure out a way to make it happen.

Lindsay McCormick [02:29:49] It was so disturbing what he was doing. He was just frantically, like, searching, like, oh, there's gotta be.

Todd McCormick [02:29:55] There's gotta be.

Lindsay McCormick [02:29:56] We're like, what the hell?

Todd McCormick [02:29:57] And I. I finally got so frustrated, and I'm not a confrontational person, but I finally got really frustrated. I'm like, it really seems like you're trying to find a way to make this happen. Happen.

Lindsay McCormick [02:30:05] Yeah, absolutely.

Todd McCormick [02:30:09] And, you know. And finally, I think, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:30:12] Jeremy Reynolds called it a kangaroo court.

Lindsay McCormick [02:30:14] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:30:14] You know, it's not real justice. It's not a sincere pursue. Pursuer of truth.

Lindsay McCormick [02:30:20] Right, right.

John Dehlin [02:30:21] It's. It's a. You know, it's just lynching.

Lindsay McCormick [02:30:23] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:30:24] It's a spiritual, social lynching.

Lindsay McCormick [02:30:26] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:30:27] And I mean that. Not. I just. As homicide, you know.

Lindsay McCormick [02:30:31] Right.

John Dehlin [02:30:31] Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [02:30:32] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [02:30:33] One little piece of the story that started this witch hunt that we haven't really said was crazy coincidence. Crazy, crazy coincidence. The week or within a week or two of us stopping attending. Another large family of the word stopped attending.

Lindsay McCormick [02:30:48] Five kids, one on a mission.

Todd McCormick [02:30:51] And.

John Dehlin [02:30:51] And again, that's because it's happening all over the world.

Todd McCormick [02:30:54] Good friends. Good friends of ours. It's actually the woman she joked about the wine with.

Lindsay McCormick [02:30:58] Yeah, just her.

Todd McCormick [02:30:59] Their family left, but so they, you know, again, the ward, the stake, they're freaking out because that makes the third large family in our ward to leave in a couple years.

John Dehlin [02:31:09] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [02:31:09] And this is a. He was in the bishopric. They were. His dad was the current elders quorum president or high priest group leader, whatever it was at the time. So it was a big blow to the war to lose another five kids and their son was on a mission. You know, it was a big deal. We had no idea they even left. We found out they left the church because I bought a car from them. We show up at their house and I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say her name. Pulls her aside.

Lindsay McCormick [02:31:38] She just said, you know, he's. He's done. And we had had a. We had had a private conversation. Private conversation, very private. In her home because she noticed that I wasn't wearing garments, and she hadn't been for a long time. And so she was.

John Dehlin [02:31:53] Was.

Lindsay McCormick [02:31:54] Because of that, she was reaching out to me and kind of wanting to confide, you know, because she was still attending and everything, but was. You know, her. Her husband was not, which was the

Todd McCormick [02:32:04] extent of all religious conversations. We ever had with them.

Lindsay McCormick [02:32:07] Literally, like, just.

Todd McCormick [02:32:08] We talked to business and we talked to kids, and I was doing a

Lindsay McCormick [02:32:11] photo shoot or something, and we had a little conversation.

Todd McCormick [02:32:14] So their whole family left at the same time. And that's why these spontaneous letters, I guess, started flowing into the bishopric, you know?

Lindsay McCormick [02:32:23] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:32:24] Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [02:32:25] So do we go back again?

Todd McCormick [02:32:29] Well, we need. There's one really critical part we need to tell.

Lindsay McCormick [02:32:31] This one.

Todd McCormick [02:32:32] Yeah. It's this one. Yeah. And so I've kind of cornered them a little bit with this idea that we need a warning. And there, you know, the. Our bishop, who's a lawyer, was kind of like, yeah, he was telling the stake president. I mean, we kind of. We're gonna have to let off the hook here.

Lindsay McCormick [02:32:47] And we had to tell the stake president. Like, do you understand the dynamic here with this guy?

Todd McCormick [02:32:52] Oh, yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [02:32:52] He didn't. He's like.

Margi Dehlin [02:32:53] So wait.

Lindsay McCormick [02:32:54] You know, we explained the whole thing to him. So he started a business, like. Kind of like yours or, you know, kind of. That whole thing. And he had no idea. Like, he.

Todd McCormick [02:33:03] Exactly like ours. Using our vendors, using knowledge.

John Dehlin [02:33:07] And he was terminated for cause. Former employee. Disgruntled former employee. Right. With an extra grind.

Todd McCormick [02:33:14] With an extra grind. Yes, exactly. And did you notice that of the six letters, five come from that family and their best friends, and they don't

Lindsay McCormick [02:33:22] even live here anymore. Like, there's no way. There's no way.

Todd McCormick [02:33:25] We were trying to help him see what was happening. He really wasn't seeing it yet, but our bishop noticed was kind of like, okay, yeah, we're not. We need to give him a warning. Until they remembered the 2017 incident. And then the stake president, he's like, oh. But There was that 2017 where Lindsay

John Dehlin [02:33:47] had given a talk they didn't like,

Todd McCormick [02:33:50] and where she was talking to these two girls, and they felt like they. They.

John Dehlin [02:33:54] So, yeah, you should tell that part of the. You told us this at dinner.

Todd McCormick [02:33:59] This is your story to tell.

Lindsay McCormick [02:34:00] No. Yeah. I mean, it pissed me off so much. Yeah. He gets his finger and he puts it in my face, and he's like, we might not be able to get him, but we can still get you. We can still get you is what his words were. Stuck his finger in my face and. Oh, my gosh.

John Dehlin [02:34:22] Twice.

Todd McCormick [02:34:23] Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [02:34:25] When we left that night, I just lost it.

John Dehlin [02:34:30] Why?

Lindsay McCormick [02:34:34] Well, I think I was just holding it all in of how that felt. Putting his finger in my face. Tell me he can get me. Who the hell does he think he is?

John Dehlin [02:34:45] In the name of Jesus, too.

Todd McCormick [02:34:47] Right?

John Dehlin [02:34:47] Right.

Margi Dehlin [02:34:47] Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [02:34:49] And Then Todd realized. He's like. He realized how much he still had in him this respect for the, for authority. Because he's like, wait a minute. I don't know if you recognize it right then or.

Todd McCormick [02:35:02] Yeah. I woke up and realized I made a huge mistake.

Lindsay McCormick [02:35:05] How did I let this man put his finger in my wife's face and disrespect her?

Todd McCormick [02:35:08] I sat there silent.

Lindsay McCormick [02:35:10] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [02:35:11] That was how strong my conditioning was that this was, was a priesthood leader and that he was to be respected. And he's aggressively coming after my wife. And I sat there silent.

Lindsay McCormick [02:35:22] So that was abusive. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:35:28] Sorry that happened.

Margi Dehlin [02:35:29] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:35:29] And. Yeah. And Margi resigned the day after our excommunication. And, you know, I don't think we had anything near that bad. But Margi, you can talk about why, even short of such an outrageous, egregious, violent communication, what was it for you, Margi?

Margi Dehlin [02:35:50] Well, I don't need to. If you want me to, I can. But like your story, I, I do feel like, you know, something similar that I was able to kind of. It was tangible. When we met with the stake president was this idea of. I think one of the first things he said was, I am going to be the one to excommunicate you.

Lindsay McCormick [02:36:14] Oh, my God.

Margi Dehlin [02:36:15] And that was like before we were able to explain anything, talk about anything, or so you get that sense. It's a bit of a done deal and there's a violence to it, there's an aggression to it. And I think that's what you were. One of the things likely that you were kind of feeling is this power. I have this power over you to destroy you. And guess what? What? I'm going to do it. I'm going to be the one. And it's so. It, it is like for my entire. For a lot of my life. And I saw this like, version of the church that was warm and you don't see it kind and service oriented and you know, even if it's passive aggressive to the person, there's this presentation and it was like I lifted up the rock and it was like there was this whole rotting underside to it.

Lindsay McCormick [02:37:12] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [02:37:13] And I couldn't unsee it from that point on. And we can go like, there's so much about the meetings. We had a few meetings as I remember so many things about those meetings. It was rotten. It was all rotten. And I couldn't unsee it. I couldn't go back, not even for. Yeah. And I think in the end that's, that's why I, I resigned in the end. But, yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [02:37:38] Yeah. Oh, my gosh.

Todd McCormick [02:37:40] Sounds heavy.

John Dehlin [02:37:42] Well, yours is worse. Yeah.

Todd McCormick [02:37:46] This is a man who is jolly and fun and funny and whose son worked for us.

Lindsay McCormick [02:37:52] Nobody would have ever believed us.

Todd McCormick [02:37:54] I. I would. Like you said, I just didn't even know that this existed in him or in the church or that they were capable.

Lindsay McCormick [02:38:00] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [02:38:00] Of people like that. It was a shock.

Lindsay McCormick [02:38:03] We kept asking them why they are trying. We. We are done going. We stopped attending. We're not going. Like, why?

Todd McCormick [02:38:11] There was no mercy. We had to corner them to get the train to stop.

Lindsay McCormick [02:38:14] It's ridiculous.

Todd McCormick [02:38:15] And they didn't agree to stop then?

Lindsay McCormick [02:38:18] No.

Todd McCormick [02:38:19] I talked them into. I mean, pleaded for over an hour for them to stop this.

Lindsay McCormick [02:38:26] Oh. To ask.

Todd McCormick [02:38:27] And I. I finally got them to agree to check with the Area Authority because I was like, you know, after laying out, literally, a case with proof and with arguments, and they agreed to ask the Area Authority. I still thought they were going to do it.

Lindsay McCormick [02:38:45] Yeah, we did.

Todd McCormick [02:38:46] And they said they were going to meet in a week after they talked to the Area Authority. And so we came back a week later, walked back into that third week in a row, sat down and shocked to find out that they were not going to go through with it.

John Dehlin [02:39:08] Which is rare.

Todd McCormick [02:39:09] Very rare.

John Dehlin [02:39:10] Once you're kind of on the hook, it's going to happen.

Todd McCormick [02:39:13] And he said the Area Authority did have one question, though. Why do you care so much about your membership?

Lindsay McCormick [02:39:20] I hate that question.

Todd McCormick [02:39:22] Which was so insulting.

Lindsay McCormick [02:39:26] Everybody is asking us that.

John Dehlin [02:39:27] Yeah. Why do you even care?

Lindsay McCormick [02:39:29] Right.

John Dehlin [02:39:30] Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [02:39:30] We can just kick you out, but

Todd McCormick [02:39:32] in a moment of kind of a little bit of justice or something, the stake president, after he told us the verdict, if you will, he. He said, now tell me again. So you're saying this bishopric member, he wanted clarity on what he did because he was clueless that everybody in the stake was clueless at what he had done. He was hiding it. It was his active job. It is what he was doing to support his family. But he kept trying to figure out if he was misunderstanding the severity of what we had just said. So he's doing something in the same industry. No, literally the exact same thing that he learned through our blood, sweat and tears. Because it took years to figure this out. We were doing something no one else in the printing industry was doing. We were pioneers at what we did. We introduced something into the market. That's why it took off. So for someone to take your proprietary blood, sweat and tears idea and steal it. Steal it? Who was. I mean, this is a Guy that was a close friend of ours. He was there when we announced the gender of our youngest. He was at our parties. We were double dating. We would go on business trips together. We were close, and we worked together for two or three years. I would have considered him probably my best friend at the time. And so the hardest thing was seeing that side of the church that you mentioned and seeing what people are capable of.

Margi Dehlin [02:41:14] Love.

Todd McCormick [02:41:15] And I can, at the same time have empathy, because I know where it comes from. I know that they are scared to death and that they are misunderstanding, but it's super painful on this side. Super painful.

Lindsay McCormick [02:41:29] Yeah. Especially with such an extra grind, though. I mean, that's the. That's the kicker in the story, because

Todd McCormick [02:41:35] for him particularly, I do believe if

Lindsay McCormick [02:41:38] it weren't him, I don't know that, you know, know, this would have even been a thing, you know, coming around.

Todd McCormick [02:41:44] Right. He was clearly the instigator.

Lindsay McCormick [02:41:46] So in our opinion.

Todd McCormick [02:41:48] Yeah, possibly allegedly.

Impact on Family Relationships After Leaving

John Dehlin [02:41:52] So I want to talk about kind of circle back to the Hinkley family kind of stuff to the extent that we were comfortable talking about it, but. So how has the membership thing and the church leadership thing played out really quickly, you know, after that moment?

Lindsay McCormick [02:42:08] Yeah. I mean, I got asked that question by family members, too, like, why do you even care? And it was, you know, things like that.

John Dehlin [02:42:17] But did you stay members? Did you end up getting excommunicated? Did you end up resigning? What happened?

Todd McCormick [02:42:22] No, so we stayed members, but we. It was known. We stopped attending in early 2019.

Lindsay McCormick [02:42:27] Well. And we can't.

Todd McCormick [02:42:28] So things came to a head with the family because it was official. We weren't attending.

Lindsay McCormick [02:42:31] Yeah, yeah. Oh, right, right. But there was a gag order.

Todd McCormick [02:42:36] Yeah, yeah. Going back to the excommunication hearing, he

Lindsay McCormick [02:42:39] was like, don't talk.

John Dehlin [02:42:41] Well.

Todd McCormick [02:42:41] And another silly part was the definition or the discussion of what is public.

Lindsay McCormick [02:42:44] Oh, my gosh.

Todd McCormick [02:42:46] You know, because the. The handbook says public opposition to the church repeated in public opposition. And our argument was, we've had a few minor conversations with folks behind closed doors in our home, and our bishop, who is a very smart guy, was saying, that's public. And we're like, are you sure?

Margi Dehlin [02:43:03] Though?

Todd McCormick [02:43:04] We probably even mentioned John de Lin. You've got people like John Delinquent, who did that for 10 years with a podcast.

Margi Dehlin [02:43:12] What?

Lindsay McCormick [02:43:12] Show me something public that I've said.

John Dehlin [02:43:15] Right. Y' all weren't Facebooking. Y' all like Nathan, right? We were not being Nathan.

Todd McCormick [02:43:20] No, we were opposite of Nathan in that.

Lindsay McCormick [02:43:22] There are people that I knew, knew that were in the church. That were. Had said things about the prophets in those few years, very negative things about the prophet publicly on their Facebook pages.

Todd McCormick [02:43:32] It's just like, we really were as quiet and honestly timid as you can possibly be and leave the church.

Lindsay McCormick [02:43:38] So.

Todd McCormick [02:43:38] Yeah, it was so confusing.

John Dehlin [02:43:40] They want to get you. They're gonna.

Lindsay McCormick [02:43:41] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:43:42] They'll find a way to just find a way.

Lindsay McCormick [02:43:43] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:43:44] So you had a gag order.

Lindsay McCormick [02:43:46] Y. Yeah.

Todd McCormick [02:43:46] And we held to that until we did resign our membership.

John Dehlin [02:43:49] What year?

Todd McCormick [02:43:50] Just recently. Last year.

Lindsay McCormick [02:43:51] Last year, I think. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:43:52] Okay. So you.

Todd McCormick [02:43:53] That's why we're here. Literally. We did keep the gag order. We did not speak, but we wanted to start. Honestly. It's when Nathan started speaking out and he gave us courage.

Lindsay McCormick [02:44:03] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [02:44:03] We grew up a little bit. I feel like we learned that it's okay to share your own story. It's okay to share your own ideas, even if your loved ones disagree with your ideas or even if they're going to be sad that you hold different. You know, that's not really an us problem. As much as I don't want them to be sad. That's really not. You know, we should speak. And we were blessed, quote, unquote, by Nathan being vocal. And so we're like, we. We should share our story. We should speak. And in order to speak, we had to resign, so we resigned. And now we're speaking.

Lindsay McCormick [02:44:34] Yeah. Because we had spoken to you years before.

Todd McCormick [02:44:37] Oh, yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [02:44:39] Yeah. On the phone. And, you know, you were like, I'll be there.

John Dehlin [02:44:43] You know, I would have come to your excommunication. Yeah.

Todd McCormick [02:44:46] You were ready.

John Dehlin [02:44:47] Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [02:44:47] But, yeah, it got shut down, and I'm glad.

Margi Dehlin [02:44:50] And then.

Lindsay McCormick [02:44:51] Yeah. Yeah.

Todd McCormick [02:44:51] It was better for.

John Dehlin [02:44:52] Because I don't wish that on anybody.

Lindsay McCormick [02:44:54] No.

Todd McCormick [02:44:54] Right.

Lindsay McCormick [02:44:54] That would have been terrible.

John Dehlin [02:44:55] Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [02:44:56] We didn't want our families to have to deal with that, you know?

John Dehlin [02:44:58] Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [02:44:59] We didn't want to deal with that. I'm traumatic.

John Dehlin [02:45:02] Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [02:45:02] You know, who wants to go through that?

John Dehlin [02:45:04] So let's. So really quickly, just to end, let's circle back to Nathan's Bishop in 2014, 2015. And y' all are losing your faith.

Lindsay McCormick [02:45:16] Yep.

John Dehlin [02:45:17] What are you comfortable sharing about how you, Lindsay, leading out as someone who no longer believes. And, you know, you, Todd, as an in law, living here in Knoxville, Tennessee, with all your family and friends, being faithful, devout Mormons, once family members, but specifically Nathan, start finding out you no longer believe.

Lindsay McCormick [02:45:44] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:45:45] What are you comfortable sharing? And you don't have to share anything about how that affected this hinkly close, connected, loving, unified family.

Lindsay McCormick [02:45:56] Yeah, no, it, it massively affected it when, When I, When I stopped going or when I, you know, stopped wearing garments and stopped going, it really caused a rift in the closeness of our family. There were, you know, private conversation, a lot of private conversations happening, and I get that too, you know, but it's hurtful, it's painful when you find out things like that. You know, Nathan told. Told me a few things. I, And, And Nathan was, He was

John Dehlin [02:46:30] rough on you guys.

Lindsay McCormick [02:46:30] He was rough, yeah. I mean, he would send us, you know, he, he can get a bit sarcastic and mean, and he would just, you know, blast us for a while. I was taking it from all sides in my, you know, how, from my perspective, everyone kind of coming at me, and so I kind of gave Nathan to him. I'm like, okay, you got to deal with him, because I'm dealing with.

Todd McCormick [02:46:51] Well, you were dealing with parents and other siblings and things.

Lindsay McCormick [02:46:54] Yeah, it was very difficult to, you know, I, I, I started really listening to, like, Julie Hanks and, and things like that and just psychology and learning about psychology in general. Right. And anxiety and all these things, and learned the term differentiation from Julie Hanks and, you know, just like, trying to have that in our family, like, trying to teach that or like to, to just kind of, you know, look at that. And, and instead of everyone feeling that, like, they had to be the same exact. To be in the club of the family, because that's just. We, you know, we always were in. We always were kind of the same. So it, you know, it's new. It was totally new. Again, no one, they didn't even know anyone that had left the church, you know. Well, I, we didn't back then. Right.

John Dehlin [02:47:46] Unity is easy when everyone does the same thing. The same thing.

Lindsay McCormick [02:47:50] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, there were, there was about a year or so that we didn't super feel comfortable, like, going to things.

Todd McCormick [02:47:59] And yeah, 2019, we felt pretty estranged. It was really uncomfortable to gather blame on anyone. You know, just everybody's processing their stuff. It was a hard time.

Lindsay McCormick [02:48:09] Again, I felt like I had to make other people feel comfortable. I took on their emotions instead of just allowing them to be like, Like, I know this is hard, and you can process that with a, you know, with someone that makes sense to process that with, you know, how about instead of having me kind of.

Todd McCormick [02:48:28] Well, the hard part, and I'm sure many of your guests share this, probably all of them, is you're going through the hardest thing of your own life. Upsetting your very foundations. And, you know, you're ripping your mother's heart out at the same time. And so you're bearing their pain and your own. And it. It's hard. And Lindsay is such an empathetic person and loving and wants, you know, wants everybody to be happy and healthy and friendly. And it was really, really challenging to watch her navigate those complex situations where people are, you know, I know it's heartbreaking for those that remain. You know, it's devastating. They never dreamed, nor did we, that this situation would happen. So it was really difficult years, but very vindicating.

Lindsay McCormick [02:49:19] When Nathan called me and texted me that day, so on, and that was just. This was two years ago, April Fool's Day. He texted me in the morning, which

Todd McCormick [02:49:28] is so Nathan, the 2023.

Lindsay McCormick [02:49:31] 2023, yeah. He texted me in the morning and he said. He said, hey, I'm sorry about how I treated you when you left the church. And I was like, gosh. Because we knew what that meant and it was huge. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:49:47] So because you were a lone Hinckley out of a church for how long? At least out of belief for.

Lindsay McCormick [02:49:54] Well, yeah, that's. That was like eight years, probably.

John Dehlin [02:49:57] But like to be the only family member in a close knit Mormon family for eight years.

Lindsay McCormick [02:50:04] And I would have never dreamed it was Bishop Nathan.

Todd McCormick [02:50:07] And we're living so close too. You know, everybody's within an hour or two, and so it's not like they're just across the country and you don't really notice. It's like in our faces.

John Dehlin [02:50:18] They're on each other's business.

Lindsay McCormick [02:50:20] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:50:20] Literally.

Lindsay McCormick [02:50:21] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [02:50:22] Yeah, literally.

Todd McCormick [02:50:23] Yes. There was a lot of literal business.

Lindsay McCormick [02:50:25] Yeah. So, yeah, it was. It was really healing in a lot of ways to just have somebody understand it, I think.

Margi Dehlin [02:50:37] Do you remember what you texted? Not to put you on the spot, but do you remember what you texted back to him? Because I was so moved by it, because it made me feel like the way you responded was the way you wish someone had responded to you. That's what it felt like to me. Okay, but do you remember the gist of kind of how you responded to him when he said that? That.

Lindsay McCormick [02:51:03] I think I just said, you know, you were in a spot, you were in a space at that time. And I. I understand that and thank you so much. That really means a lot to me. I think that it was something like that. Did. Did you read it recently?

John Dehlin [02:51:15] Kind of. I love you no matter what kind of thing.

Lindsay McCormick [02:51:17] Oh, was it? I think, yeah, it probably was me being the way That I. That I wished I had gotten. Yeah,

John Dehlin [02:51:29] yeah, yeah. And so everyone, you know, next episode is going to be Nathan's story. How would a bishop end up leaving the church and ruining his Mormon daughter's temple wedding? His daughter's Mormon wedding. Right, right. And it's. It's a powerful story. And Kaylee's really, you know, powerful communicator,

Lindsay McCormick [02:51:55] too, so she's amazing.

John Dehlin [02:51:57] Yeah. So now it's, you know, two out of four Hinckley children who are, you know, and my guess is in 2025, it's still hard on the family, right?

Lindsay McCormick [02:52:10] Oh, I'm sure. Yeah. I mean, it's hard on.

John Dehlin [02:52:12] I mean, on you and them, meaning everyone. Nathan, you. Yeah, everyone. It's hard on the Hinckley family.

Lindsay McCormick [02:52:19] Yep.

Todd McCormick [02:52:19] Right.

John Dehlin [02:52:20] Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [02:52:21] Yeah. And I just. I want so bad for. And there's glimpses and. And everyone is.

Margi Dehlin [02:52:27] Is.

Lindsay McCormick [02:52:28] Is trying, I think, you know, to have that Hinkley bond again.

Todd McCormick [02:52:34] I think in some ways, everybody's grown a lot from it, you know, everyone across the board. And it's definitely gotten better for us, you know, to time and healing and there, you know, there's been beautiful moments, which, with each of them, honestly, where we've come together and people have stood up for us or vice versa. And we have, you know, so.

Lindsay McCormick [02:53:01] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [02:53:02] And I think, you know, it's going to take some time because these things are really, really hard for it to be. But we're. We are personally in a good spot with everyone in the family. And not the same, but in a good spot.

John Dehlin [02:53:13] Yeah.

Lindsay McCormick [02:53:14] And just kind of a redefining of relationships, I guess, because we don't have that in common. But, you know, with the Hinkley family, it never was about the church, in my opinion. It was music, it was games and fun, and it. That really never was what bond. We didn't sit around and read the scriptures, you know, we didn't. It wasn't about church. It wasn't about Mormonism at all. And so really, it. It shouldn't. It shouldn't change our relationship, you know, But I get it, too. I get why it does, but it's just too bad.

John Dehlin [02:53:49] Well, I'll just never stop saying that. It's. It's the sure sign of a cult. If otherwise healthy marriage or an otherwise healthy family is divided because of religion, that's the sure sign of a cult, because a healthy religion doesn't ruin an otherwise healthy marriage or an otherwise healthy family system. It just doesn't.

Lindsay McCormick [02:54:09] Right.

John Dehlin [02:54:10] You know, so really quickly, I don't Even know if y' all have data on this. But like, it would be normal for the Hinckley family to blame the in law for being the reason why, you know, Lindsay,

Todd McCormick [02:54:23] did Nathan comment on that yesterday? He would know. Maybe he was the insider at the time.

John Dehlin [02:54:27] But I. I don't even know if you know, and it doesn't matter. You don't have to even say it. But I just want to acknowledge that

Lindsay McCormick [02:54:33] I think it went both voice.

John Dehlin [02:54:34] But I think your family, you know, Todd would. Would likely blame her. You know what I mean?

Todd McCormick [02:54:41] Well, and in all honesty, I think they're both right. Yeah, it was because I look at myself. I could have never left the church without Lindsay because of the combination of the two of us. We push ourselves in really healthy

Margi Dehlin [02:55:00] in,

Todd McCormick [02:55:00] you know, just enlargening ways. We have constantly helped each other grow. And I think I would have been stuck in my rut. And I think likewise, you know, I bring something to Lindsay that helped her process this, you know, this transition. So I think both sides are right. But we did it hand in hand and we did it together. And we challenged each other along the way and talked it through, and we took our decision very, very seriously and very slowly because we knew it was important. Important and life changing. And I'm a really methodical person. Hinkleys are super fast. But Lindsay waited for me to do my own processing. But it was, you know, it was an amazing process. And even. Even through all the hard times we've had, you know, the growth we've had has been amazing together and individually. So I wouldn't want to do it again, but I would do it again if I had to, you know. Yeah, it's been a lot of work.

John Dehlin [02:55:56] Work.

Lindsay McCormick [02:55:56] Yep.

John Dehlin [02:55:57] Well, I can't thank y' all enough for being willing to tell your story. And it's still relevant in 2025. You know, I'm not claiming any special information, but it's my perception, based on what I've seen on social media, that Julie Hanks is. Is being targeted as a potential candidate for excommunication. Again, that's just my opinion. I have no. I'm not claiming any special information. And Michelle Stone of 132Problems YouTube channel panel. It's my perception and not claiming special information that she's being targeted for excommunication. LGBT, you know, same sex married Mormons in 2025 are still being targeted for excommunication. And my understanding is that memos have been put out telling bishops and stake presidents to kind of ramp Up.

Lindsay McCormick [02:56:44] Really?

John Dehlin [02:56:45] Excommunications. Because, again, the church doesn't look at their own causes for people leaving. They just want to look at people leaving as the cause. And so what's the answer? Well, you just got to run out everyone who's questioning or leaving or talking to other people. And so. But I just think I've always said it. Excommunications are barbaric. They're medieval, and they need to stop, you know, because they're violent.

Lindsay McCormick [02:57:15] Yeah. And changing the name of it doesn't change that.

Todd McCormick [02:57:18] Change what it is.

John Dehlin [02:57:19] Yeah. No, it doesn't. So. And I know you're trying to make your family situation super healthy, so there, you know, there's risk involved in you even coming on and telling your story now, which, for me, is very laudable because it's still very courageous. Even though y' all aren't in the church anymore. They're. You know, your family's gonna learn about this the day it comes out. And. And I know you love them and you want only improved relationships with them,

Todd McCormick [02:57:49] so only a few short years ago, there is no way we would ever done this for that very reason. But we really have had a shift of perspective, which is we have a voice. We. We support them 100%, sharing their beliefs, and they have gone on some LDS podcasts, and that's great.

Lindsay McCormick [02:58:10] Yeah.

Todd McCormick [02:58:10] You know, and I. I do hope that everyone in this space, you know, Mormonism has such a tricky thing. All religion does, right? The. The kind of. The people leaving, the people staying and how we navigate that. I just hope people leave space for each other to be who they are and believe what they believe and, you know, don't. Don't. I hope that no one in our families or our friends would look at this as a us, as a violent act against their beliefs, because that's not at all what it's about. About. In fact, our very best friends are in our ward to this day. We have raised our kids together, and they're faithful Mormons. Faithful Mormons.

Lindsay McCormick [02:58:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:58:48] And you're not trying to get them out?

Todd McCormick [02:58:50] No, Never, ever have. And Lindsay texted her on her way here to tell her, you know, to remind that she already knew we're doing this, and she gave her support and love and space to have this. This, just as Lindsay would on the other side. I think their relationship is such a powerful example that we don't have to be against each other. We can have completely different perspectives.

Lindsay McCormick [02:59:14] Well, something I would always say or think the way I could think of it was I didn't leave the church at you. I didn't leave the church at anybody. It's just our path. And so that's really powerful.

John Dehlin [02:59:29] That's good. I've never heard that before.

Lindsay McCormick [02:59:31] I had to learn it for myself because, you know, it was being told that I was, you know, it was kind of feeling like I was hurting all these people, but I had to just come on, come to that. Like, no, this is my thing, and I didn't do it to you.

Reflections, Closing Thoughts, and Farewell

John Dehlin [02:59:49] Well, thank y', all. Lindsay and Todd McCormick, thank you so much for coming on Mormon Stories.

Margi Dehlin [02:59:55] Thank you.

John Dehlin [02:59:55] This is a great addition. And it's.

Lindsay McCormick [02:59:58] We're.

John Dehlin [02:59:58] We're glad we came all the way from to do this.

Todd McCormick [03:00:02] We've been wanting to do this for a very long time. Yeah, we've been talking about it.

John Dehlin [03:00:06] I know.

Lindsay McCormick [03:00:06] Yeah, we want, you know, we would love for our kids to be able to watch this someday, to kind of just know the story.

Margi Dehlin [03:00:12] It's a.

Lindsay McCormick [03:00:12] It's a good way to have it all out there and, you know, help someone out there that might.

Todd McCormick [03:00:19] And we, we love what you two do and appreciate it. It's, you know, I remember when Lindsay first got into Mormon stories and how healing it was, was she was having to deal with a lot more of the iny face realities of leaving because of the proximity of family and where we live. And so it was really, you know, what you do is so invaluable to people that leave. And I hope that was part of our motivation, is maybe us finally stop hiding under a rock, stop pretending like we're still Mormon when we're not. Just own it and be authentic. But I, you know, we've been. We've been watching others be vocal, and that's helped us so much for a long time. So it was time for us to finally stick our neck out a little bit, I guess.

John Dehlin [03:01:02] Yeah. Well, thank you.

Lindsay McCormick [03:01:05] Thank you so much.

John Dehlin [03:01:05] Thank you. Super powerful. Appreciate it. And this isn't all. Tune in for next Episode where Lindsay's brother, Nathan Hinckley, Bishop Nathan Hinckley, you know, who is as faithful and as devout as they come in Tennessee.

Lindsay McCormick [03:01:21] Yep.

John Dehlin [03:01:22] Right along with his daughter Kaylee, have their own faith journey that ends in Nathan ruining his daughter's Mormon wedding. And they, they. It's a great story. So check that out. Come back, and I'll just end by thanking our donors. You know, we flew here and we, you know, we had to help. Of course, thanks to Nathan for helping us sell this up, but thanks to our donors that allow us to do things like fly here to Knoxville to record these episodes and just support us and our staff. Thank you. If you're a donor, we appreciate it. If you're not a donor and you value this type of content, if you want to see it continue, just go to MormonStories.org, click on the donate button. Become a monthly donor. We don't do product placement or sponsorships. Our ad revenue is relatively minor compared to our donations, so we live on your donations. So if you value this content, please become a monthly or an annual donor. And also other ways you can support us is by liking this episode, subscribing on all the different channels to our content, sharing it, commenting on it. We love your emails, so email us@mormonstoriesmail.com and if you want to be a guest on Mormon Stories Podcast, all you gotta do is go to MormonStories.org, click on the button to apply Record a a direct three minute video telling us why you want to be on the show. Don't just link to some other random video that isn't directly related to why you think you'd be a good fit for our show. Fill out the application and we'd love to consider you to be on the show. Right. Anything else, Margi? All right, well, thanks again for joining us today, all the way from Knoxville, Tennessee. Thanks again, Lindsay and Todd. God, be good to each other. Be kind to each other. We'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories Podcast.

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.