Introductions and Revisiting Stages of Faith

Part 1 of 3 · Ep. 419

Tom Kimball [00:00:00] 1, 2, 3.

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John Dehlin [00:00:29] hello and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin, and today we have a new special feature of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm done with a bunch of tough stuff for the semester. I've got my clinical comps and all sorts of PhD requirements out of the way. I am working on my dissertation, but I do have time to sort of rejuvenate my contributions and ormondstories. I'm grateful to all our supporters who have held on as there have been some feast and famine days in terms of podcasts. But recently up at the Mormon Stories Facebook group, I put out a request to have listeners sort of provide some feedback as to what types of episodes they'd like to hear going forward.

John Dehlin [00:01:17] Because we've covered a lot of stuff and one of the ideas that we had, somebody said, hey, why don't you bring on some of the people that you've interviewed before, sort of a where are they now? Kind of feature.

John Dehlin [00:01:31] And so that's what we're doing today. Some of you may remember back in January of 2006, if you can believe that. So that's seven years ago, more than seven years ago. Seven and a half years ago, almost. I interviewed for episodes 15, 16 and 17, Tom Kimball and Dan Wotherspoon.

John Dehlin [00:01:55] And the topic was James Fowler's Stages of Faith. And we kind of got an overview of the Stages of Faith by Fowler. And then we went a little bit into Tom's story and a little bit into Dan's story, and it was a fascinating time. Maybe I'll just give a little bit of a reminder and an overview. First of all, we'll be having links to these old episodes that you can go up to Mormon Stories and click on them, or you can just go to the itunes podcast feed, scroll down episodes 15 through 17 and listen. I went ahead and listened to them today while I was exercising.

John Dehlin [00:02:34] It was fun. But, you know, I'm going to just give a really brief overview of what we talked about and then we're going to. And we're going to ask you guys, you know, recommend really that you go back and listen. But if you don't, if you don't remember but the basic gist is this. James Fowler was a.

John Dehlin [00:02:56] A psychologist who borrowed from the works of people like Piaget and Eric Erickson and others and developed, based on stage theory, this idea that when people are religious, they go through. And even when they're in other paradigms, they go through what they call these various stages of faith. And stages one and two are basically childhood stages that we won't talk about today, and we didn't talk about a lot then. What we talked about were stages three, four, four, five and six.

John Dehlin [00:03:29] And just to give a really brief review, three was sort of a traditional literalistic belief in doctrine and theology. Not really reflective on one's own personal opinions or views, but instead reflecting what the believer's been taught, what their parents taught them, what the church teaches, et cetera. Then we talked about a stage four, which is sort of when one beliefs often unravel and they face what we referred to in the episode as the dark night of the soul, where you have to sort of watch your faith fall to the ground in pieces.

John Dehlin [00:04:12] And it can be sad, it can be hard, it can be exhilarating, it can be exciting. Sometimes we can be angry. And it's a stage that some go through. Not all do, but some go through it. And then there's a stage five, which is sort of where both sort of Dan and Tom were aspiring towards in the episode. Both had sort of been through a stage four at the time of the interview.

John Dehlin [00:04:42] And stage five is sort of where you pick back up the pieces that make the most sense to you. It might involve less of a literalistic faith. It might be a much more personal approach where you, you know, some might call it a buffet approach, some might not. But where you take the pieces of faith or belief or practice that make sense to you, sometimes you rediscover value in the myth or symbolism, or even you take a very pragmatic approach that the church just kind of works. But at the time, I think Tom kind of characterized himself as a stage four guy with a hand in three and his body in four and a hand in five, and he was stretching towards five.

John Dehlin [00:05:24] And Tom was generous enough to sort of describe Dan as being a stage five Mormon, if I recall correctly, which I'm sure Dan in his humility would have eschewed. But quickly, there is a stage six that we talked about, which they basically labeled as Jesus, where you're kind of radical and extreme in your love and empathy and compassion for mankind.

John Dehlin [00:05:46] Mother Teresa, you know, Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Jesus are sometimes put in that category. And then, you know, a couple of the other things that were kind of interesting. You know, Tom took us through his faith journey and when he struggled, and then he talked about a time when his bishop wouldn't allow him to baptize his son for a while. And Tom talked about his journey through working with the bishop and ultimately the stake president, and the sort of happy ending where Tom was able to have a series of discussions and some meaningful prayers that ultimately led to Tom being able to baptize his son and feeling really good about it.

John Dehlin [00:06:32] And it ended with Tom talking about, you know, how he considered himself a bridge for, you know, non members in his ward and how he felt like he was there to help make the ward better. And we'll talk a little bit about that.

John Dehlin [00:06:46] And then, and then there was Dan that also went through sort of his dark night of the soul. He got his PhD in religion at Claremont University and he also got his master's at asu and he went through a lot of that stuff.

John Dehlin [00:07:02] And there was also an interesting story that Dan told about when his son turned 12, how his bishop had some concerns about Dan's faith and how Dan ended up actually not being able to ordain his son, 12 year old son, to the priesthood. How that was a difficult thing for him and his family, but how he handled it in a really mature way, let the ward members know that it wasn't because of any sin or transgression that he committed and was able to come out the other side in a more positive way, such that, as I recall, he was able to ordain his son at ages 14 and 16.

John Dehlin [00:07:45] And, you know, Dan was squarely in the aspiring towards 5 and 6 camp at the end of the podcast. So that is a really long introduction, but I'll just end, I'll just end my beginning by saying that now we've got a little bit of a twist. And the twist is that Tom, Tom and his wife Paige, have sort of moved on from active church participation and belief. And we'll talk about that. And Dan remains in the church, but he has sort of gone from the editor of Sunstone magazine to running his own podcast called Mormon Matters, where he has become sort of someone that many people struggling in their faith reach out to and, and try and get support for.

John Dehlin [00:08:39] And I'm guessing that even though Dan played that role at Sunstone, he's continued playing that role now, and he probably has a lot of perspective on his attempts to try and help those who are struggling. And he might have some Battle scars and some, you know, maybe some happy stories about his experiences there. So that is a very long introduction. But, Tom Kimball, welcome back to Mormon Stories.

Tom Kimball [00:09:08] Thanks, John.

John Dehlin [00:09:10] I should add that you also are still working with Signature Books as their sales and marketing kind of guru, as I. As I remember. Is that right?

Tom Kimball [00:09:19] Yeah, yeah, still there.

John Dehlin [00:09:20] All right. And Dan, welcome to you as well to back. Welcome back to Mormon Stories podcast. You've also been on talking about faith and atheism and those sorts of things, but people can also hear you at Mormon Matters. But welcome back.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:09:35] Thanks, brother. I blame you for everything that's happened.

John Dehlin [00:09:39] I'll gladly accept the blame. So the format we're going to have is I'm going to interview Tom, just sort of 30 minutes on where he is now and how he's gotten to where he is and his reflections, and Dan's going to be silent during that time. Then we're going to interview Dan, same thing. And then at the end, we're going to give Dan and Tom the chance to kind of, you know, talk to each other, and I'll kind of moderate that discussion if anything interesting comes out of that. We've also put this out on Facebook, so we've got some questions that we're monitoring on Facebook that some of you have posted. So we'll do our best to get to those as well. But before we do, Tom or Dan, is there anything you want to add to the setup that you guys think is important before we dive into the individual stories?

Seven Years Later: Where Tom and Dan Stand

Tom Kimball [00:10:33] Well, Dan, do you have anything initially?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:10:36] Well, yeah, it probably can come out in either my portion or the one together. There was a lot of emphasis from you, John, in describing the stages as if they were all about beliefs. With Fowler as well as I brought some new materials with me tonight, the historical background of that is that faith was always oriented towards trust and sort of faithfulness. And belief in its early phases was beloving rather than believing. In other words, it was sort of an orientation to the universe. And all of Fowler's stuff is that rather than, you know, you know, obviously the literalism or the more symbolic or mythically that you do things that sort of comes.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:11:26] But that's really not what a stage of faith is. A stage of faith is sort of an orientation to life. And so the different ones there and then, despite you mentioning the dark night of the soul a couple of times, I just wanted to scream. It's way more than a night. It's a decade more typical than that. So I just wanted to throw those things in and I can fill it

Tom Kimball [00:11:49] out a little bit more later.

John Dehlin [00:11:50] Okay, great. Tom, how about you, before we dive in? And we want to give Dan a chance to respond, if there's something you want to say now?

Tom Kimball [00:11:58] Well, I thought maybe I'd talk about I can do it now or I can do it as part of mind about, you know, the setup of how we got to the original conversation, how we'd gotten there. Do you want me to do that now?

John Dehlin [00:12:11] Yeah, sure, if you feel like that's okay.

Tom Kimball [00:12:13] Yeah, I think it's kind of. It's kind of interesting anyway, you know, Dan. Dan and I were working together at a bookstore, and I heard Dan telling a story about how he had met Fowler on an airplane. And he began, over a series of weeks and months, talking to me about these stages.

Tom Kimball [00:12:36] And I became very interested in. And, you know, I started to tell other people about it, and they were also really interested in it. They liked, like, what I had to say. And so I decided to see what had been done within Mormonism on the subject. So I actually tracked down that Fowler had spoken about a decade before at Sunstone. So I tracked down the audio, and I listened to it, thinking, oh, this would be great. He'll, in his own words, talk to a Moran audience about stages three, four, and five.

Tom Kimball [00:13:10] Well, he didn't manage his time very well, and he was also speaking in a very erudite way. And he only got to the very beginning of stage three when his time ran out. And so here I was, all hungry for information, and it ended. And I started looking around to other people who had been speaking about it, Mary Beth Raines. And I even found, I think, the earliest reference to stages of Faith in Mormon in a Mormon context was actually Janice Allred in one of her essays, that she'd been wrestling with it. And so anyway, I began, like I said, talking to people.

Tom Kimball [00:13:51] And the ways in which it had been presented to Mormons up to that point, I felt were kind of inaccessible to the average Latter Day Saint. They were very technical. And even Fowler, when he talks, he's very technical. And so I had this idea that I would try and present it in a way to somebody that they could wrap their arms around. And I felt that doing that, I would just tell my own story, my own journey.

Tom Kimball [00:14:23] And in the process of doing this, I also thought that I would learn stuff, and I did. I think I learned a lot more by giving these papers at Sunstone than anyone ever got out of my papers at Sunstone. But I gave it two or three times at different symposiums. And I always had Dan, usually had Dan as the.

Tom Kimball [00:14:45] As the response, since he has the doctorate in the philosophy of religion, and I'm just a bookselling hack, and so. And I think that's how you found us. And by the time that we did the podcast, you know, I think that you and Dan did really well. And I think even in my own clumsy way, I think I did okay. And maybe that's even the charm of it all. But I think you can tell that Dan and I, even though we don't see eye to eye on a lot of stuff, he and I had been having this discussion quite a bit, and, you know, we could flow, you know, from his ideas to my ideas pretty well.

Tom Kimball [00:15:28] And, you know, there was. Even though we had disagree, I think he already knew I disagreed. And we could, you know, we kind of have this friendly conversation. So that's sort of how we. I think we got to there in the first place.

John Dehlin [00:15:40] All right, well, good. A little bit of history. Dan, do you want to add anything to that?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:15:43] No, it's just crazy. It's been 15 or so years with Tom on this, so it's. It's fun.

John Dehlin [00:15:49] So it's not just a night. Is that.

Tom Kimball [00:15:51] Is that.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:15:51] Well, well, the discussion. But yeah, definitely, definitely faith journey. Not a quick and easy thing, that's for sure. There's a lot of danger. A lot of it's hard work.

Tom Kimball [00:16:03] All right.

John Dehlin [00:16:03] All right, well, Dan, we'll have you listen in, but go silent, and we'll bring Tom on, and then we'll bring you back, and then we'll have a discussion.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:16:13] Great.

John Dehlin [00:16:13] All right.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:16:13] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:16:14] Okay, thanks. Well, good. All right, well, Dan's going to go silent then, and we'll pick up with Tom. So, Tom, it's been, I don't know, seven years or so. And what I'd like to do is if you can pick up from where we left off. Since I went and listened today, I'm just going to tell you the things that were sort of most interesting to me.

Tom's Journey Out of Active Belief

John Dehlin [00:16:39] You know, you were talking about again, you had come to a place that you described as feeling sort of at peace. You described feeling happy and kind of hopefully. You seemed really kind of positive and optimistic about your membership in the church, that you felt like you were playing an important role. You even talked about how you felt like, you know, it was your tribe and that you didn't want to leave your tribe, that you wanted to stay and make things better. You talked about blazing a trail for maybe even your son.

John Dehlin [00:17:14] And, you know, like, like you mentioned being a bridge for ex Mormons and other members, and that's where you were. So talk about your path since then, you know, for five, ten minutes.

Tom Kimball [00:17:26] Sure. You know, I think for some time after we had that podcast, I was in a pretty good place and I was pretty proud of my navigation through the church. And, you know, I was teaching elders quorum, I was working with the, the scouts.

Tom Kimball [00:17:50] And that time comes in all wards when the bishops transition. And. It's hard to talk about, and I'm not going to get into a lot of the specifics of it, but we got a new bishop and it didn't go well. Paige went in, she was sort of going through that transition herself, and started, went in and talked to the bishop, had some questions, and that sort of opened up the, the dialogue again, and it went very badly and it was really messy.

Tom Kimball [00:18:44] And my closest friend in my ward is the first counselor. And I remember looking at his face. I had made sure that he was in the room. I remember looking at his face as Paige and I walked out of there for the last time and the shell shock look that he had. And as we spoke later, he sat there and just said, how in the world did we just lose the Kimball?

Tom Kimball [00:19:13] And he's right. And I think, you know, one of the things I learned and that just occurred to me in the year afterwards or so afterwards, I just, you know, I just found that the church wasn't a safe place for my family anymore.

Tom Kimball [00:19:40] And I think had there been a different bishop, I think the outcome certainly would be different. But now that it's been about four years that Paige and I have been gone, and our four little ones, the four younger ones went with us, and we joined a Unitarian church at the south end of the Salt Lake Valley, and we found fellow travelers, fellow transitioning Mormons there who wrapped their arms around us and told us it was going to be okay.

Tom Kimball [00:20:11] And it's interesting, you know, in the LDS Church, I was viewed as suspect and not trusted. I knew I would never be trusted enough to be a leader in the church just because I was. Had doubts and so forth, expressed doubts. And I get to the Unitarian Church and, you know, the differences in the Mormon Church tore us apart. And the differences in the Unitarian Church bind us together.

Tom Kimball [00:20:40] And they wanted me to speak and they wanted me to teach class. And I'm presently on the board for the church there. And those people come and tell me that my kids are the best thing ever and how grateful they are to have their kids associating with my kids, and, you know, I've really found a place, a peaceful place for myself to reside, and, you know, and that's sort of where we're at in that sense.

John Dehlin [00:21:19] Dang, Tom, I'm really sad to hear you guys went through. Went through some tough times. So it sounds like you were able to hold on another two or three years, and then around 2009, is that right?

Tom Kimball [00:21:32] Yep, that's right.

John Dehlin [00:21:33] You got a new bishop. So was it hard at the time for you to go, or was it more. You were happy, happy, happy, and then the bishop changed and. And was disruptive, or was it that you were trying to make it work and then slowly things that you thought were resolved started popping up and bugging you again?

Tom Kimball [00:22:00] No, no, no, no, nothing like that. It was. It was abrupt. You know, one minute I'm teaching others quorum lessons. You know, I'm in the middle of scouts. I'm right at the center of the. Of the activities in. In my ward and in my neighborhood, large. Largely to do with Randy, you know, the guy who was the first counselor. He's what might say my closest friend in the neighborhood. Still is. And, yeah, it was. It was abrupt, it was quick, and it was really, really ugly.

John Dehlin [00:22:41] Now, I remember. I remember in the podcast, you talking about how you were feeling better about the church, but Paige was starting to struggle a little bit. Did. Did her path or trajectory affect things at all? Like, was she on the path more towards struggling in her dark night or month or years?

Tom Kimball [00:23:03] Yeah. Yeah. You know, and that was the cool thing, is that we were. It was. It was good timing because she and

Dan Wotherspoon [00:23:12] I,

Tom Kimball [00:23:14] we're finding ourselves at the same place generally. And when the bishop told us that we were. That I wasn't allowed to take the sacrament anymore, I wasn't allowed to pray, I wasn't allowed to do anything in the church because I had said no to him.

Tom Kimball [00:23:33] And he turned to her, and she had my back. And, you know, we thought that there could be some. Some reason we thought that he'd bring his. I tried. I begged him to bring his counselors in, you know, because I knew that they were pretty decent guys, and I knew him pretty well, and, you know, like I said, just really ugly. He refused to do that until, you know, right towards the end.

Tom Kimball [00:24:00] And I'm not gonna. I don't really want to go into a lot of it because it's. It was because of how ugly it was. But like I said, I think Randy kind of summed it up was in that he Was just sitting there going, how did we lose you guys? If we lose the Kimball, we could lose everybody kind of thing.

John Dehlin [00:24:28] Did your stake president get involved at all?

Tom Kimball [00:24:31] Oh, that was really ugly.

John Dehlin [00:24:34] So the state president got involved, too?

Tom Kimball [00:24:36] Yeah. Randy ran it up the line, and there was really bad behavior on a lot of people's part. And when I finally. I finally lost my top, and I was pretty ugly, too, so.

John Dehlin [00:24:51] But you wouldn't describe it as sort of this pressure that was building and building and building?

Tom Kimball [00:24:55] No, no, no. It was abrupt.

John Dehlin [00:24:56] Wow.

Tom Kimball [00:24:57] I was perfectly happy until, you know, I really. Yeah. It's as if the basketball was yanked out of my hands.

John Dehlin [00:25:08] Right. Well, that's. That sounds. That sounds so awful. And I'm.

Family Tensions and a Son on a Mission

Tom Kimball [00:25:19] The hard part is with my son. My son's on a mission right now, and, you know, I think he feels kind of betrayed by us over the whole thing and didn't understand it. And, you know, he had already. The younger kids. As we went to the Unitarian Church, they kind of migrated right into the Unitarian Church and, you know, sort of made it their own. And James didn't. He was Mormon and wasn't interested in. Really interested in talking to me. And. And I. You know, it's not a nice thing to say, but maybe he's His. His mission is maybe even a rebellion. You know, this. This will upset my dad. Let me go do this. Which I guess is, you know, kids are going to rebel. That's not a bad thing to do, I suppose.

John Dehlin [00:26:14] Right.

Tom Kimball [00:26:15] But, you know. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:26:18] Yeah. I'll just say that in my experience, there's this formula. Everyone has a formula for, you know, whether they're going to be able to stay and make it work or not. And ecclesiastical leadership, for some, can be a really important variable. And it sounds like, in your case, that knocked you out.

Tom Kimball [00:26:38] Yep. That was the knockout punch.

John Dehlin [00:26:41] So did you. Did you try and convince. Did you or Paige try and convince your son to stop believing? Did you try?

Tom Kimball [00:26:49] No, no, no, no. Try. You know, this. This is what he. This is his path, and he's chosen it. And there's been some bad moments along the way. You know, I. In the end, I told our bishop he wasn't allowed to speak with my children and that he wasn't.

Tom Kimball [00:27:07] That was one of my biggest concerns in our exit, was that this guy would take over because of his personality, that he would take over and try to be the papa to my family. Oh, the dad's. Dad's, you know, apostate, evil disbeliever. I'm going to Take over. I'm the dad. I'll be the dad and do all this stuff. And I told him he wasn't allowed or the stake president allowed to talk to my children ecclesiastically or, you know, casually. And so, you know, James went to college shortly after that and, you know, had his own bishops and so forth up there and, and was ordained a priest and later an elder.

Tom Kimball [00:27:52] And those were really tough for me because I had always anticipated my whole life being the person that did those things. And it was really hard to see these guys. I just got this notice that James is being ordained a priest down at school. So I was kind of upset that no one said anything to us. I mean, I'm the dad, you know, Paige is the mom. And none of these guys thought in their head that it would be, hey, this kid's getting be ordained. Maybe we should call the parents and, you know, maybe there's a little difficulty there or maybe there's something going on there.

Tom Kimball [00:28:31] Maybe I should call the parents and say, hey, we'd like to invite you down to this thing. And I know there's some, there's something going on, but, you know, we wanted to have just the best feelings and all that kind of stuff, none of that, you know. So I showed up there and I, when I met the bishop, I just said, you know, I'm his dad and I just would have appreciated the phone call.

Tom Kimball [00:28:53] And the bishop, you know, got in a huff and said, well, he's 18 years old, he's an adult, he can do whatever he wants, he can make his own choices, you know. And I looked at him and said, no, he's an 18 year old kid and he's my son and you're an adult and I'm an adult, we're adults.

Tom Kimball [00:29:11] And you know, he got all upset and went huffing down the hallway and I wrecked the atmosphere of my son becoming ordained a priest over that. You know, Randy went down there with us, he did the ordination and I caught him, I caught him out of the corner of my eye as I'm walking down the hallway. And he'd grabbed the bishop and all I could see was Randy's fingers, you know, wagging at his face and him just giving him an earful. And he told me that when he came up, he said, tom, you taught me a really valuable lesson today on how not to treat people.

Tom Kimball [00:29:49] And he said, he said, he told that bishop that all he had to do is say two words that was I'm sorry. And he didn't know how to do that, and it kind of wrecked him. So anyway, when James was ordained an elder, I chose not to go, not to not support James, but out of respect for him having a peaceful ordination.

Tom Kimball [00:30:24] And. We decided to attend as a family, his setting apart as an elder. And so we went and Randy and his wife came and, you know, there's a stake president, I don't know there to do it. And you know, just.

Tom Kimball [00:30:51] It had a kind of an epiphany there, you know, when it was time, the stake president got up and looked over, Randy said, come on up, Randy. There's no glance at me. There was no, you know, hey, parents, would you like to say something? You know, anything like that. They just got up there and they ordained him and they sat there and counseled him in that ordination, the kind of stuff that a dad's supposed to say.

Tom Kimball [00:31:22] And it dawned on me that these guys were, you know, it's not their fault, it's the culture's fault, but they felt that they were the dads now because of, because we weren't in the church. They were the parents and they can counsel and advise and all that without any nause at all.

Tom Kimball [00:31:43] And that's when I realized that it was done for me. I'm done with them. And I heard John, John Larsen say something this week. It kind of resonated with me. You know, they say that the church is perfect, but the people aren't.

Tom Kimball [00:32:03] And he said that it's the opposite. And I agree. You know, there's really, really good people in the church. Really, really good people. And it's the church that's really screwed up. And even these bishops and stake presidents, I think they normally are pretty decent guys, but they're put in this, in this machine that gives them the wrong kind of power and the wrong kind of understanding and they behave very badly. They can behave very badly and very thoughtlessly. And anyway, that's kind of where I'm at. Sorry.

John Dehlin [00:32:46] No, don't apologize. I'm so sorry and I'm so glad you'd share that, but I'm so sorry you've experienced it. As you know, I went through my own year where I wasn't allowed to baptize my son and I had to sit out.

John Dehlin [00:33:02] You know, the worst I had was, I mean, other than having to wait a year, which, you know, was hard in many ways, but I had a brother and sister in law baptize their daughter and I had to sit out while all the family got up and ordained.

John Dehlin [00:33:21] And it's just, you really can't understand that type of thing until you've. Till you've experienced it. But when it's your own child, it's even more devastating or impactful or significant. So hearts out to you and Paige, and hats off to you guys. And I'm just kind of shaking my head at how this can happen.

John Dehlin [00:33:50] So real quick, you said what part again, did you miss and what part did you attend? I think I missed. What part you missed? Did you sit out of some.

Tom Kimball [00:33:59] Say that again.

John Dehlin [00:34:00] Was there some part of James Process that you didn't attend and then another part that you did?

Tom Kimball [00:34:04] Oh, yeah, I chose not to be. When he was ordained an elder, my friend and neighbor Randy did both the priest and the Melchizedek priesthood ordination.

John Dehlin [00:34:15] So the one that you did attend was what?

Tom Kimball [00:34:18] His priest ordination.

John Dehlin [00:34:19] So you attended his priest. That was the last time.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:34:23] And.

John Dehlin [00:34:23] And then you didn't attend the. So that. That story you just told about them kind of ignoring you and doing it in front of you was.

Tom Kimball [00:34:29] That was his being set apart for his mission.

John Dehlin [00:34:31] Oh, being set apart for.

Tom Kimball [00:34:32] That was the night before he went on his mission.

John Dehlin [00:34:34] Okay. Oh, okay. Wow. Okay. Do you know if normally dads are allowed to be part of that circle? My dad was in mine when you were set apart.

Tom Kimball [00:34:46] You bet. Yeah. Okay.

Stereotypes About Leaving and Community Loss

John Dehlin [00:34:49] Well, Tom, so, you know, this is one of the tropes, one of the sort of insensitive and maybe I'd even say ignorant stereotypes that people make about people who leave the church is that they leave because they were offended. And in your case, that's. It's actually kind of true. But I'd like you to talk about why that's not something.

Tom Kimball [00:35:24] I didn't leave because I was offended.

John Dehlin [00:35:26] Okay. Talk about that.

Tom Kimball [00:35:27] Talk about that. I felt like I was chased out. I felt that they were not going to make room for me, and they were not going to. You know, Mormonism is like an echo chamber, and as long as everybody's saying yes, everybody's fine. The second someone says no and means it and says this, I am not comfortable with this. The answer is no. The answer will never be yes. You need to find a way to work with me on this. That's when everything went bad. And Paige and I sat there for a while and talked about it, and we just realized that the church was not going to make room for us. And if they're not going to make room for us, why are we still here? And that's when we started looking around.

John Dehlin [00:36:33] And what about the. And I'm not saying this to throw it back in your face. But. But I. But I want to process it. Sure. You know, the comments you had made about this being your tribe and wanting to stay and make things better.

Tom Kimball [00:36:45] Still love Mormonism. Still my tribe. I still consider myself Mormon. That's the cool thing about Unitarians. You know, you show up and they're all Mormons or they're all, you know, transitioning Mormons, transitioning Lutherans, transitioning Evangelicals. You know, I can still be Mormon there. And when I. The handful of times I've spoken, I've spoken about my mission experiences, you know, I've spoken about my Mormon experiences and what they meant to me and how. Why they meant so much to me.

Tom Kimball [00:37:13] And they loved it. You know, for some reason they didn't in the LDS Church, they didn't appreciate it. And I know it sounds like I got offended by one guy, but you knew that I was transitioning through belief and disbelief. I mean, I didn't really believe that Mormonism was the true church. I just felt it was my tribe and it was my home, and it was the thing that I was in, and I was trying to make it work.

Tom Kimball [00:37:51] If you listened to the earlier podcast, you knew that I was trying to make it this work, and still, you know, it didn't. And. And that's not on me. That's on them.

John Dehlin [00:38:07] Right.

Tom Kimball [00:38:14] And it wasn't about being offended.

John Dehlin [00:38:16] Right. Was it about feeling rejected then? Or not wanted

Tom Kimball [00:38:23] in Mormonism to be a Mormon? The normal Mormon prays. They participate in church. They're allowed to talk. They're allowed to answer questions in class. They're allowed to ordain their sons if they're worthy. I was all of that, and all of that was ripped from me.

John Dehlin [00:38:45] Right. Yeah. So, Tom, I'm gonna. I'm gonna kind of go back to a question I asked you a little bit before. I asked you if you've ever tried to dissuade your. Your son James from staying in the church, Whether you've ever tried to inform him about the difficult aspects of the church, you know, whether you had the heart to heart sitting down before he goes on his mission and say, hey, son, before you go, just let me at least tell you my perspective.

John Dehlin [00:39:20] Or even when you were talking about how maybe the bishops didn't tell you about your son being ordained. You know, what went through my mind was, why isn't your son telling you? And so talk about that relationship a little bit. And if it's just been this big elephant in the room that you guys wouldn't Talk about or how it. Were you close before and this just wrecked it or were there issues before that made it so you guys weren't communicating? You know, just talk about whatever you're comfortable talking about there.

Tom Kimball [00:39:54] Okay?

John Dehlin [00:39:54] Just because it's a common thing people experience.

Tom Kimball [00:39:56] That's, that's, it's tricky stuff, you know, because I'm talking about my son and he's an adult and he has, you know, a view of things and I have a view of things. You know, my son is a great kid. He has a huge heart and you

John Dehlin [00:40:17] know,

Tom Kimball [00:40:20] he is the kind of kid who's the friend, the friendless and you know, I just, I just think he's just, you know, the best. But you know, all fathers and sons have their, their stuff. And you know, when any kid, even my oldest daughter who's, who's leaving, graduating in two weeks and moving on, even she, you can see her getting cabin fever, you know, it's time to stretch my legs kind of thing. And we're having to get on her to, you know, we're still here and we still need you to do your chores kind of thing. You know, there were some, there were some of those kind of conflicts that are kind of normal fare for between parents and stuff.

Tom Kimball [00:41:02] I think that, I think he felt very somewhat betrayed that here he was a teenager, he was 16 at the time, and this conversation was about ordained. You know, part of this conversation was about ordaining him to be a priest.

Tom Kimball [00:41:20] And when I told the bishop he wasn't allowed to talk to my children anymore, that was essentially not allowing him to become a priest. And like I said, we moved on somewhere else and he didn't, I didn't prevent him from continuing as a Latter Day Saint.

Tom Kimball [00:41:44] That being said, you know, we get these great letters from him right now and he's so happy he's having such a great experience as a missionary. Significantly different, at least so far different experience than I had as a missionary. And.

Tom Kimball [00:42:06] I think it's great. You know, I'm not the anti Mormon dad who's sending him pamphlets and tracts every week in the mail. I just write him and I tell them about my own mission and the cool things I experienced. And you know, I read to him from my oldest brother's oldest brother's past, but I read from his biography of the mission adventures he had down in Bolivia. And you know, I've tried to be a good dad, you know, and supporting him in this decisions that he, that he's making. And I'd love to have an adult conversation with him, but I don't think he's an adult yet.

Tom Kimball [00:42:51] I mean, I guess I kind of got to wait for him in a way. I don't know, John. I don't know all the answers.

John Dehlin [00:42:59] No, it's all right. I was just. But you haven't had that. Come on, son. I just want to be able to tell you what's in my heart. Yeah.

Tom Kimball [00:43:07] I mean, what do I do for a living right now? I'm researching a paper for William Law, for crying out loud. This is what I do. He's had this stuff in the house. I remember having this conversation before he left, you know, while he was at college, and we're talking about polygamy or something. And I remember pulling out my trump card, and I said, you know, oh, you know, even. Even Rick Turley at the church, you know, history department would confirm what I'm telling you, son. And he turns me and says. He says, oh, Rick Turley, he's just one of your guys,

John Dehlin [00:43:43] you know, so,

Tom Kimball [00:43:44] you know, he's just not. He's not prepared to. He's not emotionally or whatever prepared to have the critical conversation. And he just thinks it's grumpy dad, you know, oh, there goes dad again. You know, kind of thing.

John Dehlin [00:44:02] I guess he's in stage three if we want to bring him back to the stages. Right?

Tom Kimball [00:44:05] Yeah. And that's, you know, like I said, it's kind of okay. Like, the thing that I'm. That bothers me is. And this is a cultural thing, like I said, I don't think it's really these people's fault. But the second that Paige and I left, there's this instinct.

Tom Kimball [00:44:26] There seems to be this instinct that, oh, we're in the church, and, James, you're in the church, and let me give you advice that a father would give, you know, somewhere else, you know, there's this, like, this maternal lecturing and giving advice, and it's the kind of advice the dad should give. Not neighbors and not, you know, not neighbors. And I would appreciate it if they talked to me first kind of thing, because I don't think it's really all that great advice.

Tom Kimball [00:45:05] So, you know, that's what's sticking in my craw. And I. You know, I don't want to see that from my other kids, either. I don't want other people. Like I said, the second. The second we were gone, other people started viewing, and in the process of us even leaving, the bishop started looking at my son. Oh, I'll ordain Him, I'll give him the advice, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, no, it's no good, you know, I'm not mentally handicapped and I'm not a criminal.

Tom Kimball [00:45:37] I'm a pretty decent guy, and I'll advise my son, you know, on this stuff. And if I want your opinion, I'll come and knock on your door.

John Dehlin [00:45:49] Right?

Tom Kimball [00:45:51] So I don't know. I don't know if you've experienced that yet. It's the weirdest thing, dude.

John Dehlin [00:45:58] Yeah, no, no, I.

Tom Kimball [00:46:00] It's this weird, you know, I was the believer. I was the true believer. I was probably the guy doing all these bad things, and now that the shoes on the other foot, it's the weirdest thing to witness. And, you know, it's weird to see kids being banned from my house because we're not Mormon.

Tom Kimball [00:46:20] It's weird to see people not being okay with their. Their kids associating or dating my kids. You know, it's just the irony of all ironies, you know, and you wouldn't have thought that it was real until it actually happens to you. You know, we hear this as Latter Day Saints, the non Mormons, all saying, we feel alienated, we feel ostracized. We feel like we're outside the club. Holy cow, dude. I feel outside the club, you know, and it's weird because I love everybody in this neighborhood except for a couple of leaders. And I still. I had foot surgery just, you know, a couple weeks ago, and I had to finally get off my butt and walk through the neighborhood.

Tom Kimball [00:47:02] As far as part of the therapy, I had a cane. I get four or five houses down and someone come out, hey, Tom, you know what's going on? And, you know, I have to sit for a while and talk to people and get four more houses down and talk to more people and four more houses. And that's the way this neighborhood is, and it's great. I love these people.

Tom Kimball [00:47:19] You know, I'm there. I'm there for them, and I'm sure that they're there for me when stuff goes down, but that's just being neighbors, and that's different.

John Dehlin [00:47:31] Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, we could do a whole episode on this, but just really briefly. A lot of people who contemplate leaving the church just have all this fear. It's like the neighbors will mistreat me. I'll lose all these friends, you know, my kids. It'll mess up my kids.

Tom Kimball [00:47:52] It's absolutely true. All of it. You'll lose family. One of my nephews contacted me and Says, I can't believe my uncle is, Is you. Right? Because he's, he's figuring it all out, right? And the first thing I said was, don't tell your dad. And whatever you tell your dad, it wasn't me. You know, I mean.

John Dehlin [00:48:18] Yeah.

Tom Kimball [00:48:19] Suddenly you have like, like I said seven years ago, you know, you, you know, you're sort of this bridge between the people who are out and the people who are in. But now I'm out. And, you know, there, there's all these, there's this new world that you're walking through. And, you know, it's not bad. I mean, it's what it is, you know, but, you know, but, but yeah, all the stereotypes are true.

John Dehlin [00:48:48] Well, what about ruining your kids, though? What about how come? Or will my kids be moral? Will they be ethical? I'm not saying that I buy into that, but I'm just.

Tom Kimball [00:48:58] I think you, I think you have to find something for them. Like I said, we found the Unitarian Church. And, you know, God, we, these kids, the first year we were there, the high school class, no, the junior high school class, went and visited all of the. Visited about seven or eight different churches in the Salt Lake Valley that have a Sunday school class about the Baptists. And then the next week they'd go visit a Baptist church. And the next week they'd learn about the Muslims and the mosque. And then the next week they'd go and to the mosque and they'd visit them and do the services with them.

Tom Kimball [00:49:35] And they, they met great kids. Boy, they have this. The next year they had this OWLS program. It's our whole life, which is a very intense sex ed class that, you know, I'm, I'm a repressed Mormon and stuff. And, and, you know, I watched my, my repressed son walk out of this class with his head down thinking, oh, my gosh, I can't believe I just heard all this. You know, and then the day they, they hand out the condoms and they don't blow them up like balloons, he came out of the class swinging his condom around and, and, you know, it's cool because these kids were kind of given a no holds barred sex ed class.

Tom Kimball [00:50:11] And now my two oldest kids are kind of resources to all their Mormon kids for, you know, the questions that kids have. And, you know, the community is my kind of community. They're liberal, they're accepting, and, you know, they care for the environment. And, you know, like I said, I have these people come up to me and just tell me how great my kids are. And how they appreciate us attending services with them and having our kids interact with their kids and that their kids are finding friends.

Tom Kimball [00:50:53] I think there's plenty of communities out there and, you know, away from the Mormon church that you can find, you know, Unitarian is tough because they don't talk about God a lot. Some people need Jesus, discussions of Jesus. I don't, or we don't. But I think there's plenty of stuff out there for you to find apart from Mormonism. And if it's really eating at you, you should act on what your conscience is telling you.

John Dehlin [00:51:26] Some people, when they attend non LDS churches, the hymns don't feel quite the same. The prayers don't feel quite the same. They don't feel like they walk away with the same spiritual edification, purification, nutrients, uplift, even if they've lost their belief completely. Did you ever experience that? And has it gotten better? Is it even better now than it was before? Like, what about the spiritual.

Tom Kimball [00:51:55] Great comment. It's a great. It's a great comment.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:51:58] Yeah.

Tom Kimball [00:51:59] The first year at the Unitarian Church, I hate the hymnal they have. I hate it. I love the Mormon hymns. The Mormon hymns are great. They're fun. And all the harmonies, I know them all. You know, I was. I was a madrigal in high school. Singing was my thing, right? But our little Unitarian church has a choir and they're good and they play, you know, the bass guitar and they play rock. And, you know, this, this guy, David, this guy gets up and as part of the service, he gets up and plays Blackbird. And it was the coolest thing. And I just had tears in my eyes, you know, and it never would have happened to me at the LDS Church.

Tom Kimball [00:52:35] And I've become liberal. I'm an Obama fan. I'm an Obama voter. And these people give these talks about themselves, about liberal ideals. And I walk away from them just with my heart bursting of thinking, oh, I found a home, you know, and instead of walking out of some Sunday school class where they were, you know, bashing gays and stuff, and just, you know, having this puff of smoke walking behind me as I'm walking home from church, you know, it's different. I'm having a different experience. I'm having a really good experience.

Tom Kimball [00:53:16] And the weird thing is I'm still kind of Mormon, you know, and I kept calling them the ward that used to laugh at me, you know, so, you know, there's. Don't be afraid and go and dive in and try and find what works for you and it'll Be okay.

Remaining Beliefs and Mormon Identity

John Dehlin [00:53:39] Any beliefs left? Any Mormon beliefs, distinctive Mormon beliefs, religious, theological beliefs left?

Tom Kimball [00:53:46] Well, you know, okay. More practices. You know, I'm. I really am. I'm sort of embracing my atheism, you know,

Dan Wotherspoon [00:53:57] but

Tom Kimball [00:53:59] in the evening for dinner, we sit around our kitchen table and we all hold hands and we take turns giving the prayer. You know, we're liberal Mormon hippies, so we pray to Heavenly Father and Mother. But I find this is one of the things I treasured about ordaining my sons and blessing my daughters was that it forced me to sort of take on the feminine. When I put my hands on their head, I said things to my children that I don't find occasion or the courage to say otherwise.

Tom Kimball [00:54:36] When I would ordain my son, I would tell him how proud I was of him and how his parents loved him unconditionally and how cool it was that he was, you know, the friend to the friendless, and that, you know, the. You know, when I was giving the priesthood, that this was his right to go out and serve people. This was your charge to go out and serve people. And I don't have that anymore. But, you know, at the dinner table, I still have a hard time walking to my daughters, my. One of my daughters and saying, hey, you're. You're really a great girl, and you're.

Tom Kimball [00:55:08] You know, and I love what you're doing in the marching band, and I love what you're doing here. I don't do that. I mean, I just come home and we talk and we cook food and stuff. But at the dinner table, when we say prayer, you know, I can say, you know, father and Mother in Heaven, thank you for our family.

Tom Kimball [00:55:26] Thank you for, you know, please bless Shad in his tuba and please bless Rachel in the color guard and, you know, look after James there in the east. And, you know, and I can say these aspirations, you know, maybe have peace and love in our home.

Tom Kimball [00:55:47] And I think those are important things to find a way to say. And I think that people who pray in their homes have that advantage over people who don't. And so, you know, yeah, I mean, our prayers are very Mormon of. And we're still praying to Heavenly Mother, but, you know, because we're trying to be inclusive.

John Dehlin [00:56:06] But.

Tom Kimball [00:56:08] Yeah, and I still got an entire library of Mormon books because of what I do for a living. And I'm still very interested, you know. Yeah, there's tons of residuals.

John Dehlin [00:56:23] Okay. But, like, not belief in God, not belief in Jesus as Savior, not belief

Tom Kimball [00:56:28] in parables of Jesus. I think that they're important. I think that the Mormon this,

Dan Wotherspoon [00:56:35] there's

Tom Kimball [00:56:35] this new Mormon idea of obedience that is really problematic in the church. There used to be these beliefs of Jesus and Satan being brothers in the pre existence and how they presented plans. And one was to be everyone would be obedient and we would all be forced back to heaven. And the other plan was that we would come down and make choices and, and we would struggle and we would fail. And through those failures we would become more like our heavenly Father. And that was always really beautiful to me. And that, you know, gave me the courage to forgive people and to ask for forgiveness and to think that it was kind of okay, that people were kind of broken and screwed up and that those were kind of the people that had a lot of information, a lot of knowledge and a lot of experience and people and wise.

Tom Kimball [00:57:24] And there's this idea in Mormonism that if you just stay home and are just obedient and don't go anywhere and don't do anything and just be obedient, you'll be just fine. And it's absolutely wrong. And that's something I hold very dear from my Mormonism is this idea that, you know, that life is about screwing up and becoming imperfect and that that's how we learn. And that's definitely a Mormon thing I've taken with me and treasured, including, like I said, the parables of Jesus and stuff.

Stages of Faith Framework Revisited

John Dehlin [00:57:54] So a couple quick questions about stages of faith. You know, I don't know that stages of faith really envision someone leaving their faith tradition and you know, maybe we can go back and correct this.

Tom Kimball [00:58:10] Oh, I totally think that it's about leaving your faith tradition. You know, stage three is when you're in the inside of your tradition. Stage four is when you're finding yourself looking out and looking in on your tradition. Stage five is where you stand and you see multiple traditions around you and you see value in all of them. And I totally see that and value that, that there is good in all kinds of places and there's bad in all kinds of of places and that there's things to be that you can learn from and are successful in almost every tradition.

John Dehlin [00:58:52] So for you, stage five, within a Mormon context doesn't mean returning to activity in the church.

Tom Kimball [00:59:01] I think it could involve activity in the church. You know, you look at, we talked about Jane England last time and Dan said, well, why would anyone want to be Gene England? And that's exactly right. That would be me going through what I went through with these guys and then just still staying. And it was, for me it was intolerable.

Tom Kimball [00:59:23] I couldn't do it. Gene did. He stayed with those guys and they were worse back then. They were worse people. And no, I think that you totally can go back towards your faith. And like I said, even though I'm an atheist, I think that had that stuff not gone down the way that it went down, I think I still could have found a home in Mormonism. But that whole interview process forces you to pick sides in Mormonism. It forces you to do stuff or say things or it pigeonholes you.

Tom Kimball [01:00:04] And I think if they got rid of a lot of that, they'd find a lot less abuse and a lot more people sticking around.

John Dehlin [01:00:13] Right. So this is a tricky sort of semi final question to ask. I guess there'll be two. But you know, I remember one of the first times I met you. Tom, I don't think you're going to remember this.

John Dehlin [01:00:28] I think the first time I met you you were at a bookstore in the Logan and I don't know which book you were. It might have been sotherton's book. I don't know which book you were there to promote. I think it was at Borders Books.

John Dehlin [01:00:41] And I remember you talking to someone about the stages of faith. And at the time I thought, I don't know, I don't know if I felt like you were kind of angry or what, but I remember thinking that, you know, when people leave and sort of they do stage four and then they lose their faith, let's say in the LDS church and then they, let's say, start following Dawkins or Hitchens or Harris or the new atheists or whatever back then used to envision this scenario, which I don't. Oh, what's that?

Tom Kimball [01:01:16] Which I don't.

John Dehlin [01:01:17] Right. No, no, no, the question's coming. So what sometimes they do is they, they sort of just swap scripture where it used to be LDS scripture, now it's whatever the latest thing Sam Harris wrote is. They swap prophet, where it was Joseph Smith, now it's Dawkins or Hitchens or Harris or whatever. And they often can become just as fundamentalist, just as dogmatic, just as close minded. And it's almost as if they start over in their stages and now they're just adhering to a new secular religion instead.

Tom Kimball [01:01:54] What do you think of a person that switches from being a Lutheran to a Baptist? Was that an upgrade? What if they transition from being a Lutheran to Mormon or a Mormon to an evangelical Christian? Is that an upgrade? Or is that a lateral shift?

John Dehlin [01:02:10] Yeah, that's kind of my. That's kind of what I'm. Or a downgrade. You know, I think it could be different for different people. But. But I guess what I'm saying is, do you feel like you're on the cycle again where you've dropped back into stage three, Unitarian, for example, and you're euphoric about Unitarianism right now, but then if you get the wrong minister or the wrong person does the wrong thing or you have an awful experience there.

Tom Kimball [01:02:38] Oh, I don't view myself as a Unitarian. I'm Mormon. I'm just, I'm just. This is just where I'm hanging.

John Dehlin [01:02:46] Right.

Tom Kimball [01:02:48] I don't. I understand where you're getting with it that you're asking me if I'm laterally transferring. And I'll be honest with you, the whole thing about stage three is you can't self diagnose.

John Dehlin [01:02:58] Right?

Tom Kimball [01:02:59] You can't. And you know, I've been thinking about this all day. You know, I have not thought about stage theory much in the past five years. It isn't important to me now. It was very important to me then because I was trying to quantify what my experience was.

Tom Kimball [01:03:20] Now I have a sense, you know, I'm not trying to quantify my experience. I'm just trying to live my life and get my kids through college and, you know, have a good marriage and find beauty where I can find it. And I don't know if that's three or four or five.

Tom Kimball [01:03:48] The whole quantifying, pigeonholing yourself into someplace, it's no good in the sense that it gives you a sense of superiority over other people. I don't have any of that. I don't care. I think that all my neighbors who are Mormon, they're doing the best that they can.

Tom Kimball [01:04:06] And even the leaders that I felt were abusing me, I think that they're a product of the environment as opposed to the kind of character that they have generally. We talked about last time, the center of gravity and Mormonism being stage three. I feel like the Unitarian Church, the center of gravity is a little higher, but you bet if you try to shoot past that center of gravity, they'll try and drag you back down. I mean, they're not perfect people, right? They're just, they're wanderers. I mean, they're just trying to figure it out.

John Dehlin [01:04:39] Right? Right. So it's funny, at the end of, at the end of my podcast with you and Dan, you know, seven years ago, or however long it was, it's funny because I ended and you were talking about some of the intellectual reasons why, you know, you're sticking around. And you talked about the tribe and making things better. And Dan's interesting was really. Dan's answer was really interesting. Dan said, you know, you know, Tom can talk about all these intellectual reasons why he's staying, but Dan said, for me, it's not a head thing, it's a heart thing and it's a spirit thing. And he's not staying for a bunch of intellectual reasons.

John Dehlin [01:05:19] He talked about, about feeling called by God to stay in the LDS Church, and he felt like that's where God was calling him to go. And it was more of a heart and a spirit thing. Are you feeling more led in the way that Dan described last time? Now for you, is it more of a heart and a spirit thing for you than a head thing?

John Dehlin [01:05:43] That kind of sounded like what you were saying. You're not thinking about stages anymore. You're not thinking about excuses. You're just, are you going with what feels right?

Tom Kimball [01:05:57] I have kids and I'm worried about. Their futures. And I became uncomfortable with my children's future within the LDS Church. And I have found a new home, I suppose. Yeah, I mean, I think that's right. You know, I like Dan. I like the idea of being a agent for discussion and reconsideration and stuff. In my ward. I thought that was kind of a cool thing to be until the nonsense went down and I was kind of the last person. I thought that I would spend my life as this liberal wanderer in Mormonism, and I'm just not. It just didn't happen.

Tom Kimball [01:06:53] And, yeah, I don't know where I'll be when Paige is in grad school, when she's done, the kids are graduating. I don't know if we move away, if we'll still go to the Unitarian Church or if we won't go to church at all. Unitarians are kind of cool in the sense that, like, they take the summers off from church.

Tom Kimball [01:07:11] I mean, they're really groovy in that way, you know, and, you know, so I, like I said, I kind of find a kindred spirit there. But I don't know anything, hardly anything about their history. And I hear them talk about it, I think, oh, that's pretty cool. But I don't self identify with it. But when people talk about, well, our pastor, her name's Patty. She's a great granddaughter of Patty Sessions, who's a plural wife, Joseph Smith. When she talks about that, I totally connect with her.

John Dehlin [01:07:41] I'll ask it really concisely. Do you feel like you're led now more by your heart and your emotion than you were by your intellect, let's say, for seven years ago?

Tom Kimball [01:07:55] I've been sitting here for a few minutes trying to. Trying to think that through while I'm here. So, yeah, I think. I think that Dan's right. I think at this point, I'm sort of being led by my heart, and I feel good about where I am and what I do and. Yeah, there's no real intellectual thing about it. Yeah, I think that's right.

John Dehlin [01:08:22] All right. And so, you know, a Mormon's going to call that the spirit. You probably aren't going to call it that, right?

Tom Kimball [01:08:29] Oh, no, I think it's. That's. I think it's your conscience, you know, it's your, you know, your chemistry. Who. You know, it's just your personality.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:08:41] Right.

John Dehlin [01:08:42] Okay. All right. Well, Tom Kimball, you've been wonderful. I'm just fascinated. I'd love to hear the update, so thank you.

Tom Kimball [01:08:51] Hey, John, you. You're a really good friend, and I haven't really been a great friend to you. I suppose I haven't really done a good job of. Of keeping in track. Keeping track of you and stuff, but just wanted to send, you know, send some good vibes at you and just tell you're a terrific guy.

John Dehlin [01:09:10] Thanks, brother. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Tom Kimball [01:09:13] Sure.

John Dehlin [01:09:14] One, two, three. Come, come, ye saints no toil nor labor fe

Tom Kimball [01:09:41] but with joy when you're.

Dan's Faith Journey and Sunstone Years

Part 2 of 3 · Ep. 420

Dan Wotherspoon [00:00:00] 1, 2, 3.

John Dehlin [00:00:07] Mormon Stories podcast is a production of the Open Stories Foundation. All donations to Mormon Stories are fully tax deductible and go directly towards keeping the podcast alive and towards building a community of support for Mormons like you. To support the podcast or to join the community, please become a monthly subscriber today@mormonstories.org all right, so let's. So, Tom, thank you. Let's switch over now. We're gonna. We're gonna switch over and talk about Dan's story. So, Tom, if you don't mind, mutin. And we'll listen to Dan talk about his story, and then Tom will bring you back in once we're done with Dan and have a final discussion. So, Dan, you've been sitting patiently listening, and I'm just thrilled to have you on to tell your story as well. I get the sense it's going to be a bit of a different story than Tom's.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:01:02] I'm not sure mine has as much plot. Tom's got conflict and resolution and at least coming towards resolutions and a little more action going on with him. All my action is like, I was teasing there at the beginning. I blame you.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:01:20] It was interesting when we interviewed before, it was 2003. I was just in Sunstone a couple of years, and really that was my first job. You know, I was going through grad school and things like that. I'd give papers, and I had even presented at Sunstone a time or two, but I wasn't really public at all. My tendency is to listen, to sit back, to analyze. You know, there's ego going on inside my head a lot of times, like, well, if I were up there giving that talk or if I was given that paper, here's what I'd be saying. But I didn't really say things, you know, so you inviting me after we did that, that one that we're talking about here on stages of faith, a few years later, you had me, you know, you invited me to do a few Mormon matters interviews, and I did Richard Dutcher and, you know, Kurt Bench and Alan Roberts about the Mark Hoffman bombings and things like that.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:02:09] So you are. You're a person who's brought me out of my shell. So I think there's been that sort of evolution for me. But in terms of, you know, faith and relationship with the church, I've, you know, my trajectory has simply been deeper commitment, far fewer freakouts, you know, after a bad Sunday, you know, for whatever the things that would trigger me, and they were still triggering me, you know, back in 2003, with frustration at the level of discourse within church or something like that, I tell you even more. So I'm just at peace with people having their own journey, being where they are.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:02:53] You know, unless you get leaders like Tom's that deliberately got were to get into my face and interfere with me. You know, I have just had good, good luck finding my way into conversations in my ward, you know, letting them know my wild and crazy ideas when the time came. And it's just been such a great experience now. My wife and I are in a new experience of six months now into a new war. You know, we'd kind of trained everybody about who we were in Tooele. Now we've moved to Bountiful, Utah. And so there's a new getting to know you period. And I'm certainly quieter and feeling my way into it, but every week I just feel more and more at home there and that they see, you know, who I am, that, you know, I want good things and, you know, they're getting the sense that there's some depth and some, you know, some.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:03:53] Some knowledge behind some of the things I say. And so I'm finding more and more people coming up to me and talking to me about things that are fun and interesting. So my church life and my Mormon life are all great. And then just like I say with now that I'm hosting Mormon Matters podcast. And it was interesting. I was an editor and now I'm a host. And both of those things are still the more comfortable roles for me, where you're like, asking other people to, you know, share their ideas, and you're, you know, you're. You're doing your best to help them give them fullest expression, whether written or verbal.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:04:27] But I'll tell you, it's been weird for those who've really listened to Mormon Mattress for a couple years. I bet you're hearing me and my takes a lot more often now. So for whatever reason, you started, you unleashed the beast, and now I'm ready to rock.

John Dehlin [00:04:40] Well, let me try and go back a little bit in your timeline, and it may be that it falls flat, it's a dud, but I think there might be some things we can draw out of it. So is that okay if I ask you a couple questions about that?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:04:55] Sure.

John Dehlin [00:04:55] Okay. So you were the editor of Sunstone for a while, and I tried to help you out a little bit, and then I got weak in the knees and bailed. But you carried on for a little bit longer after I bolted. And then you Kind of, as I remember, kind of went off and went to work for Randy Paul, and we're trying, you know, working on some books and. And doing some other things. And it's funny, I remember one of the things I remember when, during you contemplating your life when Sunstone was over, I do remember you saying, we'll see. I think I remember you saying, we'll see if I even remain active or not.

John Dehlin [00:05:42] And you may not remember that at all, and it may be that I'm making that up. Do you remember towards the end of your Sunstone time having some questions about whether you will take some time off or stay or not? Do you remember any of that, or am I just making that up?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:06:02] Yeah, no. Towards the end of my Sunstone time, I was really even happy. We ended up in two wards in Tooelen, and the end of my Sunstone time was in one ward moving into the next, and I was feeling great. Then I remember there were some thoughts. Some people would say is, once your children are raised, raised, why would you stay? Why would you go and hear, you know, Religion 101 or, you know, Joseph Smith 101 over and over again. And so I remember to some degree, you know, talking about the usefulness of the church and, you know, in some of those, Those socialization reasons, maybe I could see those fading away from me. They haven't. But yet, you know, at that time, I may have been thinking out loud on those lines. It seems like for about six months I was pondering that kind of stuff

John Dehlin [00:06:49] out, whether the church would still have the same utility for you and Laurie once the kids had flown the coop.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:06:55] Right.

John Dehlin [00:06:55] Okay. And I remember you saying that. I remember you referred yourself as something like sort of the stake president of the disaffected while you were at Sunstone. Right. I mean, you would play that role of counseling people who were struggling occasionally as part of your Sunstone role. Right?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:07:13] Yeah, that was the big surprise to me, you know, and maybe it was a surprise to you with doing your podcast and, you know, I guess it wasn't quite as big a surprise that it's happened with my podcast. But, yeah, there's, you know, one of the big things, I think when people begin to orient in a different way, you know, a truth claim becomes a little bit less solid or something happens emotionally or a crisis or something, and you find, you find, you know, formulas that used to have not working anymore. I think one of the things that happens is that you, you know, you don't know who right around you, you can talk to you, feel alone.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:07:55] So. So when he had a sun, when I had a public role at Sunstone, and now with Mormon matters and all that stuff, people are like, oh, man, this is the least person I could talk to. And so they did. So I was surprised that, you know, five hours of my week or something at Sunstone were probably just fielding random calls from folks. And I'm guessing now it's five to ten hours a week in emails and various things that I'm doing right now, you know, just in sort of this informal, you know, listening ear, you know, you know, don't, don't jump off the cliff. I guess that's my main thing.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:08:32] Takes time to work through these things. It's, it's completely, truly leaving one sort of orientation to the world, to truth claims and things like that and moving into another. And it is, you know, it's, it's an adjustment period. And your eyes and your heart and everything are going to be all over the place.

John Dehlin [00:08:50] Right. And I remember at the time when I was trying, you know, when I thought I was going to try and lead Sonson in new directions, I remember, you know, I had used this analogy of having a safety net so that if people were falling out of the church, they could fall into a safe place. But then I remember that for a certain period of time, my goal was to get them back into the church. And I remember receiving a lot of pushback from sort of the traditional Sunstone crowd. That. That's not what Sunstone's about. Sunstone is destination neutral. And Sunstone is never going to be the place that's encouraging people to get back. And you probably didn't run Sunstone with that motive either, right?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:09:33] Yeah, not consciously. You know, I'll say it now, and I say it on Mormon matters periodically, if you can. I think your life's a lot simpler, you know, to stay in the religion that you were raised with, that your family and all your connections are. You at least know the language. You've, you know, you've got all the shorthands down and things like that. So if you can stay, do it. But, you know, you know, don't, you know, don't think that God's worried whether or not you're a Mormon. At the end of the day, you know, even Mormon theology will tell you that it's who you've become that determines.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:10:12] You know, that's basically the whole thing is. And if so, if certain systems and, and teachings and mythologies, and for me, you know, Mormon theology with it's such expansive stuff. And then it's, it's, you know, encouragement. I mean, right from Joseph Smith. Hey, I've got a question. I'm going to God myself, Nephi. You know, I want to see the vision that my dad saw. You know, even just the, just the, the unspoken modeling for you is go get it yourself. And if people will just do that, my sense is they'll be able to stay in Mormonism. They'll be able to thrive within Mormonism. It has powerful stories, it has powerful myths, it has powerful things that if we just trust in them and really get going on them, I think they're as good as any other religion out there.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:11:04] And, you know, and all of them are pointing to the same thing, which is not believe this, it's experience this. You know, instead of getting in your head, get there with your soul and feel the energies that, that are beyond just sensory perception, that are the ones that just feel at the base of your soul, you know, if you have a soul. Of course, we always have to do those qualifications, but it's that, that deepest core of yourself says these are, these feel like the, the important questions that there's, that's an important one. And I've got to wrestle with those things. And so there's, there's just.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:11:43] To me, Mormonism has plenty of those things. But of course, there's all the crap that comes with an organization and it comes with leaders. And, you know, we're talking lay leaders with Tom's things. But obviously there's terrible, you know, authoritating, authoritative, Napoleonic, you know, types of leaders in every religious tradition and what is the nature of all human beings whenever they get a little power to go crazy and all that stuff. So I don't think Mormons better or worse than that. I do think sometimes it's, you know, the fact that we're lay and we don't get specific training and counseling, there's not as much exposure to, to the kinds of things that a bishop would face with a Tom Kimball coming in and saying, you know, I'm changing the normal rules.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:12:28] You know, I think, I think somebody with, with wider training would have been able to handle that certainly better. But for the most part, I'm, I'm not destination neutral. But I certainly, I mean, in terms of if you at all can stay. Heck, there's not a bone in my body that says that the kingdom of God is Mormonism. Mormonism is supposed to embrace everything that's true and everything that's good. And that's the kind of Mormonism I try to inhabit.

John Dehlin [00:12:58] Right. And as I contrast Tom's experience with what I knew about your Tooele ward, is it the Ethingtons who were there?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:13:10] Elkington.

John Dehlin [00:13:11] Elkingtons, yeah. Wonderful family in Tooele. Also, you know, there's Adam Jacobson. Like, these are longtime Mormon stories listeners. You know, some of these men have served in the bishoprics there. Like, one of the things that I always felt, you know, that you had as a luxury was having been part of a ward where there were so many liberal, progressive kind of people, even in the leadership. And then of course, when you contrast that with Tom's experience, it's a real bummer. But do you feel like that was a real luxury for you and that that maybe made it so that you could do what you've been doing?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:13:54] Boy, I'd love to let them tell their own stories of the chicken or the egg kind of business on that. I mean, the most beautiful thing that happened to me as we moved to Tooele was I was working at Sunstone just a few weeks after we were there, and Adam and the bishop came over to meet, you know, the new people in the ward. And you know, my wife is talking with them and no, Dan's not here. And eventually it comes up, well, what does Dan do for a living? And Laurie goes, well, I don't know if you've ever heard of this Sunstone. And the bishop didn't know what the heck it was.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:14:28] And Adam goes, what? Your husband is the editor of Sunstone? The editor of Sunstone, you know, and so he had been a dialogue reader. And Tyson, his brother has been on a few of your podcasts and I think it's pretty common knowledge it's okay to say this, but his, his brother had committed suicide shortly after his mission with a certain amount of months within his mission. And, you know, Adam, there was some. There was some evidence, I think they found out later it was much more secure evidence than at the time, but. But there was a same sex attraction. It was a piece of this, you know, his feeling like he couldn't go on and feeling stuck or whatever.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:15:08] And so Adam at least been alert those kinds of questions. But, you know, as soon as he and I met in person for the first time, we just began to go to lunch every once in a while, you know, he would be the first person to always go talk to, you know, in the halls and all that stuff. And so we just became friends. And so more and more, you know, that I think I might have been as gateway to Actually, to these conversations, the online stuff. And then the same thing with Elkington's. We were just in a book club together, and then they stayed late one night and for the first time, kind of shared some of the things that were going on.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:15:41] And again, it was. It was through Christine and a friend, a lifelong friend, who'd come out as gay, and she was wrestling with that. And just, you know, we sat there for a couple hours after the book club ended, and that became our friendship and sort of, you know, this free flow of ideas. But obviously, they're great people. They're service oriented, they've wonderful hearts, they have super big brains who are thoughtful people. But I don't know if they were ready to deconstruct Mormonism. It kind of comes slowly but surely.

John Dehlin [00:16:15] Are you sort of saying a little bit that maybe you helped crack open some openness and some thoughtfulness in the ward as much as the ward was sort of that way for you, that. That you're staying, maybe helped some people weather some difficult storms and get to a bit of a more progressive place? Maybe.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:16:39] Again, like I said at the beginning, I want them to tell their own stories, but for me, I know that it happened. By the time I left there, there were probably seven or eight that subscribed to my podcast.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:16:50] One of them is, for instance, I won't say her name, but it's the Relief Society president. And her thing was, you know, and I was like, oh, wow, you're doing this. And she was actually even sending money. And I know she was downloading and she talked about it. And early on, I'm going, I don't think that you're. I think you're gonna hear some things in here that you never have even considered or wrestled with or something. And here's this lady's heart. She says, well, I'm Relief Society president, and I want to know about this stuff because it might come up as I serve the women in my ward, you know, as I serve.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:17:23] Serve the sisters. So. So for her, the one on suicide, the one on, you know, abuse and forgiveness, and the different. The different things that were more, you know, tire meets the road, Christianity, counseling, you know, what's the best practice, obviously attracted her the most. But, I mean, you know, I obviously didn't create this woman's huge heart, but, you know, in some ways, you know, certainly that she's heard a lot of things that she probably never would have heard of before, just by the fact that she downloads the podcast.

John Dehlin [00:17:54] Yeah.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:17:55] So those kinds of things.

John Dehlin [00:17:56] No, you know, since I've returned to church. You know, when I go to Elders Quorum, which is most Sundays, I think it's more common than not that at least somebody in the room mentions a podcast, mentions my podcast, which, to be honest, is really uncomfortable for me because I don't want that attention. I just want to fit in now. I have no desire to disturb anybody or to cause tension now. I just want to have a good Sunday experience. So I kind of wish they wouldn't. But it is weird when the ward starts becoming a place where, you know, I had a member of the high priests group end a combined Elders Quorum high priest group meeting bearing his testimony as the high priest group leader that we as a church need to be more loving and supportive of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters.

John Dehlin [00:18:48] And it's weird when a ward, even in the heart of Cache Valley, becomes kind of progressive in some ways. And it is a very different experience again than to what Tom experienced. And part of me just wonders, and I don't want to talk about this now, but part of me wonders whether the more wards get like this, whether the easier it's going to be for people who want to stay to be able to.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:19:14] I think so. One cool thing I just found out a couple days ago is Laurie had mentioned to somebody that we'd be missing church on June 2nd. I think they were asking if she would take her turn teaching in the Sunday school cycle. And she goes, well, no, we're going to be marching in the Mormon, you know, in the gay pride parade in the Mormon Buildings Bridges group. And she just said it out loud. And I guess nobody really reacted right

John Dehlin [00:19:38] then in the battlefield.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:19:40] Yeah, yeah. Just a couple days later, we got a call and Laurie just let me know that now one of the people that were in that meeting, she and her daughter are going to march with us. And this is like a 62, 63 year old woman who, you know, you wouldn't know from anything outside that, you know, obviously this is an issue that's somehow important, important to her. And she and her daughter are now going to march.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:20:04] So you just never know. You just got to open your mouth, not be afraid to say who you are. But again, I remember, you know, I did listen to the previous podcast, too, and there was that idea of, you know, do you calculate I'm going to stay because I'm going to do more good and change the church from within or without? You know, again, there was no. I don't think there was any sense when Laurie said, this is where we're going to be on June 2nd.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:20:28] There wasn't any calculation on her part that I'm trying to change the word or change a heart here. She was just saying it out loud, and look what happens.

John Dehlin [00:20:36] I'll never forget when I was in Beijing, China, at some random Chinese branch, and some member of the congregation turned to me after soccer meeting and said, oh, hi, welcome to our branch. What's your name? And I said, oh, I'm John Dehlin. And then she said, are you the John Dehlin? And. And it's. You know, I'm not saying that to brag. It's just this weird. It's this weird thing you experience. I'm wondering if when you went to bountiful, whether anybody goes, whoa, Dan Wotherspoon's in my ward. Did anybody know?

Being Known as a Questioner in the Ward

Dan Wotherspoon [00:21:06] No, no, not so far. Here. Like that. You know, here's what happens to me, though, is because I have this really strange voice and stuff, and I tend to, you know, when I meet with friends, you know, I go out to lunch, you know, kind of things a lot. And obviously I Fat boy, too, so that you can tell that I'm not eating salad. But I'll tell you, every five, six weeks, someone will like, I heard this voice, and I. I had to come see. Are you Dan Wotherspoon?

John Dehlin [00:21:35] Right, Right.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:21:35] It's like, holy crap. I'm. You know, I'm in people's lives somehow, and it's. It's an honor and a privilege. But. But no, I. My fame didn't precede me in this ward.

John Dehlin [00:21:46] That's cool. Okay, so here's a question. I kind of the meat of what I wanted to get to, and that's that, you know, I've been through, you know, my ups and downs. You know, Tom had his ups and downs. And, you know, I've been able. I've been privileged and in some ways burdened by having, you know, a lot of, you know, probably at least a couple thousand people, you know, to counsel with them over the past eight, nine years and to try and kind of shepherd them. At times I wanted to keep them in. At times I was fine if they left, you know, at times I was angry, and I've been back and forth a little bit.

The Human Cost of Faith Transitions

John Dehlin [00:22:31] But, you know, I've tried to be mindful of what I'd call the body count from the church's perspective, you know, and that's, you know, how for those who want to see the church stay successful or for those who want to. Want to see the church evaporate it's interesting to think about whether more people are leaving than staying, whether the stages of faith concept is really winning people over, or whether it's cyclical, like with Tom, where, you know, maybe they're struggling for a time and so they find stale DS or they, you know, they find more room matters or whatever and they're able to hang on.

John Dehlin [00:23:16] But I remember time and time again these, you know, people when I wanted everyone to stay in the church, where they would stay for a while, but then they would ultimately say it's just not sustainable. And so many people, it felt like, would drop like flies.

John Dehlin [00:23:31] But then you look at, you know, so many things the church has tried to do to, you know, accommodate. Whether it's the gays and Mormons website, whether it's the Joseph Smith papers project or rough stone rolling or the historical stuff with Marlon Jensen and now Elder Snow.

John Dehlin [00:23:49] It just seems like it's such an exciting time where the church is constantly changing. Now they're going to be okay with boy Scouts who are gay. That was an announcement that was made today. As long as they don't act on it, or at least the church doesn't know that they're acting on it.

John Dehlin [00:24:04] Tell me how you view sort of from the battlefield, the body count. Are more people leaving than staying? Is your message really hitting people? Do you feel like you've come up with a pitch that's really compelling? If you could even come up with the percentage of what percentage of people are able to make it work versus not? Do you even have a sense for the number? Talk about what it's like to be on the battle lines of trying to keep people in or at least those who, or at least making the pitch to people to, to let them know that staying is possible. What's the body count,

Dan Wotherspoon [00:24:42] boy? No clue. I mean, there's definitely been some, some people that my heart's broken a little bit that, you know, they've, they've decided to step out. But I don't know that I have much of a sense of a body count.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:24:58] I, you know, one thing as, I never consider anybody as has having finished a journey. So, you know, so, you know, so stepping in, stepping out and things like that, I don't see any periods. You know, I simply just say this is, this is a, you know, somewhere on a spiritual journey. And I do think that, you know, Tom was trying to say there at the end, whether it's. It's just your conscience or just chemicals or whatever it is that make up your personality. I have I have a sense that what, whatever that personality is, and you call it a spirit or not, I have a sense that it is, you know, always attuned to the deeper things.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:25:40] And there's wisdom and, and there's different things that you can access. And so I, you know, and we actually just finished a podcast with the chaplains on pain and suffering and, and we talked a little bit about how it's, it's extreme moments of stress or, you know, pivotal events or, you know, often tragics type stuff that, you know, you finally quiet, you know, the chatter in your head and you, you find yourself in a contemplative moment. And I do. I sense the, the depths of the universe and whatever connectedness we have, you know, to each other. Whether it's collective wisdom, whether you want to go Jung or archetypal, you know, collective unconsciousness or just, you know, I tend to go, well, now, I won't, I won't say where I go, but anyway, whatever it is, you know, know, I don't think anybody's done because I think your spirit's gonna, gonna constantly be nudging you.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:26:34] So, so. But again, inside the church, outside the church, ultimately doesn't matter. Again, I think it's, it's nice when people can stay where they, where they can, and especially if they're growing larger and more, you know, more deep, deeper in touch with, you know, this core, you know, hugeness or divinity or whatever you'd want to call it, that I, that I sort of sense that, that people have, you know, I want them in my church, but, but I don't worry about salvation. You know, there's, you know, who did you become? There's no, there's no, there's no test of answers. It's simply like, did you become loving and stuff?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:27:12] And, and I'll let you know, I, when I, I can practically tear up almost every time I think hard about Tom. And it has nothing to do with his Mormonism and stuff. It's just, I am so grateful that he is such a huge heart. I mean, I've been friends with Tom for 17, 18 years now, and he is the most loyal, big hearted, I'm there for you, service oriented, you know, kind of guy. And whether he's Mormon or not or whatever he thinks or not, there's been no change in Tom from that. And I don't have any worries.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:27:48] I never think about salvation. But, you know, there would be nothing in any part of me that says that he's, that he's on a bad journey.

John Dehlin [00:27:58] Right.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:28:00] So. Yeah. So body count.

John Dehlin [00:28:03] So your ministry isn't about minimizing the body count? You don't think of it that way?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:28:08] No, I mean, you know. Okay, here's key pieces of my autobiography that have just become more and more clear to me as Blessings were number one, those years from 17 to 22 and a half or so when I was lost and I was broken. And, you know, at first, obviously I wasn't, you know, because I was still king of the world. I knew it all and I was gonna, you know, do all that stuff and I could drink and I could do all these different things and not be caught up with it, you know, and there was even sort of a sense those first few years of my partying that.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:28:45] Yeah, I'm. I'm. You know, you hate to say there's an arrogance there. I was like, I'm kind of different than these part of yours. I have more going for me and I'm still holding it together and. I don't know, is this the thing? It's so funny just, you know, that last year and a half of just like not being able to will myself out of this, you know, and just experiencing brokenness and brokenness and brokenness, whatever it is, you know, I have a tendency still towards ego, but there's always that.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:29:19] That part of me that, that, you know, knows that I, you know, you know, under my own power, I'm. I'm pretty, you know, I'm in danger of slipping, you know, and, and really crashing and burning. So I had that.

John Dehlin [00:29:36] Yeah. And to be honest, I didn't have that until the past year or two. That was. That's been an important thing for me. I. I never really had a crash and burn, you know, until the past year or two. And I can relate to that because I've experienced it. Yeah.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:29:50] Yeah. And then. And then part of it, because of this brokenness, there's a humility and things like that and, you know, my faltering attempts to, you know, regain spiritual connection and things like that ultimately worked. And I had powerful experiences in the run up to my mission. I had some crazy, you know, powerful things happen to me on my mission. And, you know, when somebody talks to me now about, well, like, I haven't had those powerful experiences or things like that, I don't know what to say because.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:30:29] Or they'll try to argue, you know, sort of the model of, you know, we are just our genes and we're, you know, the evolutionary things within our genes. And, you know, survival has coded in for us that we, you know, look for patterns where they may not be, you know, and people try to explain all of life for it. And yet somehow or other in these, you know, these big moments, and even just now, it's almost like background light and things that sort of warm the rest of it for me.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:31:02] You know, like, they'll tell me their theory and I don't know what to do. And I find them earnest and I honor their experiences. That is different than mine. But, you know, it's almost like Moses and Satan in, you know, Moses chapter one, where, you know, at a certain point, you know, you know, Moses is visited with God and then Satan comes, says, you know, here is less. And again, you know, those who listen to my podcast know that I don't take this literally at all. You know, this is just a. This is just a great story that illustrates some good things there. But, you know, at a certain point, Moses says to Satan, you know, who are you?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:31:42] You know, I don't recognize any glory in you. I don't, you know, I know that I'm a son of God and you're wanting me to worship you, you know, and there's sort of that the. The character of the universe for me is different than the character of the universe for those who haven't had these experiences. And it's almost like, You know, I'm not trying to argue, like, away in your head to think about it. I'm just trying to stand as a person that says, you know, you're bigger than you think you're giving yourself credit for. You know, you're powerful.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:32:25] And, you know, and the thing is, through my studies with religion, you know, not only did I study myth and ritual and the different sorts of things and the way religion works on our mind, but I saw that all of those things were designed to get you out of your brain, out of that monkey mind, out of that, like, centering everything in its true or false or right or wrong or logical or not logical. And those are all important, powerful tools, of course. But, you know, religion is like, quiet that or totally unite with a mythic figure. And, you know, consider yourself as if you are Adam and Eve, an archetypal man or an archetypal woman.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:33:10] And they're trying to get you out of, you know, the individual concerns, your own mind and your own worries and stuff like that, and let you go to a place where something else can bubble up than this very noisy, you know, set of things. And so all those things together for me is like, what I try to Convey to folks is there's a. There's a.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:33:33] These were real invitations, and I know that. And many of them will come back and say, I think I've worked as hard as possible, and there's just no there, there. And I just. I just have to stand as a witness of somebody whose life is better because I feel like I'm in touch with these energies. I hope they come through, through, you know, what I share, how I am in the world.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:33:58] I know that it was the Eugene Englands, it was Armin Moss, it was Lowell Bennion, it was, you know, Randy Paul, most up close and personal. For me, that it was more of, like, there was just a calmness and a peace about them that I found attractive and said, you know, I'm not where they are, but I can tell that they have been through the fricking wars and they've asked the questions that I'm asking, and they've managed a piece. And then slowly but surely, I feel like I've become more like those kinds of guys.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:34:30] And, you know, it's weird to say, hey, you know, if anything else, I'm modeling this. But in some ways, that's almost what I think. I write to people, and when I talk over the phone with them, it's more like I'm just being somebody that isn't thrown by their questions, that doesn't doubt their goodness, their hearts, and just saying, you know, that's not how the universe feels to me. And. And here's maybe some things that I did to do it, or here's a thought, but I'm not mostly, like, trying to give them the answer. I'm just trying to say, here's an area that you might go explore yourself.

John Dehlin [00:35:06] I see. So kind of a fellow traveler, but not a guru.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:35:11] Yeah, man. I certainly don't like. I say, I don't even like being a public figure. It's kind of happened to me. But, yeah, I don't. I never think of it that way. But I'll tell you, I always have something.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:35:29] I don't know. There's always something in me that. There's a piece right now. It just feels like. For whatever my wide reading, my own practices, whatever it is, I feel pretty oriented in most conversations. And, you know, you know, I just, like. I'm just happy to be what I'm doing. But I hope, you know, when people see me screw up and stuff like that, that's not like a cause for faith. That's just we're still humans, you know, no matter what And I have good cycles and bad cycles and sometimes I feel closer, you know. It was really interesting. I was just thinking the other day about President Kimball's quote about whenever I feel my, you know, falling away, you know, a little bit, losing my spiritual.

Dan's Ongoing Engagement with Scripture and Community

Dan Wotherspoon [00:36:24] I reimmersed myself in the scriptures, you know, and I used to kind of think, oh, that's kind of weird because he's just kind of going back to the same old stories. And now what I really think he was doing is like he's diving back into, you know, these books that sort of have this feel of, you know, going after the deep questions of, you know, people sharing their best experiences from the past, you know. You know, I don't know where he is versus where I am. I don't tend to feel like their experiences are binding on me. It's just more like I recognize in them that they've had authentic religious experiences too, because they resonate with some things in me.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:37:09] So the re immersion in the scriptures or to me, the re immersion in my contemplative practices or things like that get me going. It's never a matter of I'm now thinking again, you know, I mean, I'm not going after it in study. I'm going after it in simple, you know, quieting my mind, opening myself up to the potential of being taught, you know, or having. Having something new come my way. I don't. I'm just rambling crazy stuff.

John Dehlin [00:37:44] So I. I've been thinking this is a theme you've already touched on, but I want to. Maybe I'll touch on this as the final thing we talk about before we bring Tom back on. But I was thinking how kind of worthless or useless or even damaging some of these distinctions are.

John Dehlin [00:38:04] And what I mean by that is Person A believes in a literal anthropomorphic God and some design specific design and structure and meaning in the universe. Person B is the liberal person of faith that God doesn't have any specific form necessarily for them, but they feel energies and they feel called to be a part of something. And they frame things more in terms of goodness or pragmatics than they do in truth.

John Dehlin [00:38:42] But they're oriented towards something. And then there's the total secularist scientist, you know, type person who, you know, loves their kids and loves their world and loves humanity and maybe has a humanistic streak that still believes that we as a race can do positive things and can move the world forward in positive ways and is just trying to do their best to be the best parent or spouse or citizen that they can be.

John Dehlin [00:39:11] And they act in so many ways in a way that's congruent to faith, in that they put their energies and efforts towards things that they aren't sure are going to come to be, but they put their efforts towards them anyway. And good things come from it and they feel good and they're following their heart and their soul.

John Dehlin [00:39:33] And I've been thinking these days, why the hell does it matter how, how they tend to describe those things? Isn't there so much in common between those three people, so much more in common than is meaningfully different? And do these distinctions even really matter?

John Dehlin [00:39:53] Or should they matter? Or should we find a way to get beyond them where we can all unify on the billions of things that unite us from our DNA, which is 99.999% the same, to our love for humanity, to our love of service. Do you ever feel those types of impulses

Dan Wotherspoon [00:40:14] not to get rid of distinctive beliefs or practices and things like that? Certainly on projects and cooperative endeavors. Part of the problem maybe that I'm. This is one of the books that Randy and Paul and I have been working on. We both need to write one more chapter and get this thing out, but other things are coming up. But, you know, I shared it, I believe, when you and I did our, you know, in depth interview for Mormon stories, you know, later on. But, you know, I have, I'm really convinced that, you know, the universe is, you know, like pure potentiality and you know, and we call forth and it manifests to us, you know, in a certain way because of the way we orient towards it.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:41:05] And so, you know, the whole idea is if is, you know, only one person or one tradition can only really hold this, you know, they can only refocus on this much of all the potential truths or, you know, they can only.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:41:23] You can't live all religions, you can't live all truth, you know, as a single person. And so it's important that, you know, for truth to be served for, you know, the aspect of things that you sort of feel about the universe through the Taoist, you know, approach to it, through the Buddhist approach, through the Muslim approach to it, through the Mennonites, you know, through every, through the Mormons and things like that. We're all concentrating on something and we're, we're loving that piece of stuff and there's this animating life that that kind of, you know, led to each religion being created. So, so I'm all for everybody, you know, pushing and loving and holding and, you know, champion Their peace.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:42:07] Now, what I do think happens is when true champions come together of different traditions and they share their stuff. The magic transformation is that you recognize, number one, the integrity of the other person's position. You know, there's no way that you can just think of them as dumb or evil or deceived or something. At any point, you really see that there's this core of beautiful truth that's animating, you know, their life and all the different things they're doing. And so you look at that and they look at you, and now all of a sudden, truth has gotten bigger for both of you because you were wrestling and champing it yourself and concentrate mostly on yours.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:42:48] So the idea of just like. Let's just tone down any particularity that doesn't strike me, and that's actually at the heart of the book that Randy and I are working on, is called Fighting About God, why We do it, and how to do it Better. The whole point is, you know, your differences, but then have better conflict, have the conflict that produces good results. You know, two ideas rubbing together send you into a third idea. You know, those kinds of, you know, the arches, the arch of a. You know, the levers that hold up a ceiling are basically pushing against each other, and yet that's creating the space.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:43:24] So those are the kinds of things that we're trying to say is that conflict and difference isn't bad. And so that's why I wouldn't go with you there. But if you're. You know, maybe I've overdone this because I just. So much of the people, you know, so much stepping outside the box. Is fear about salvation?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:43:43] Hell, no. Again, I would almost have that be the first thing that I would hope anybody would go, is that, you know, to fear, to think differently, to fear, to explore, you know, and you might lose your salvation, that just. That's. That's, like the worst idea out there.

John Dehlin [00:44:07] So I feel a little bit of sort of the Elder Wirthlin. We've got the orchestra. We need the tuba, we need the piccolo, we need the violin.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:44:16] Well, as long as we're not thinking that Mormonism is the full orchestra. Yeah, right.

John Dehlin [00:44:20] No, no, no, no, no. Yeah. The atheist, the agnostic, the Jew, the Buddhist, the Hindu, the Muslim, the orthodox, the unorthodox, that somehow you're saying we all are playing part of this beautiful orchestra of humanity. Even within faiths, there are these divisions, and there's beauty in the particular, and there's beauty in the harmony when they're working together. And we shouldn't run away from the distinctions. But maybe you can be a violinist and then switch and become a tuba player. And there's beauty in that. And there's beauty in the harmonies, too.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:44:53] Yeah. Or the real beauty is that I'm both a violinist and a tuba player. You know, I'm sorry so much. I'm so much trained. I'm bilingual, you know, in almost both traditions. And then, you know, really what happens inside you is fantastic. But again, I just don't think we can blah ourselves out. We just can't. You know, I don't want to get rid of distinctiveness. I want us to champion, you know, hey, man, this is the energy that drives me to, you know, want to be all that I can be. And, you know, when yours is a different energy, I'm saying, wow, obviously those things both work.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:45:32] And I guess I just don't want to back away, John, from the idea that, you know, that there would be any idea that would attract people that wouldn't have some sort of truth at the core of it. So, for instance, you know, I'll quote DNC93, all truth is independent. It acts for itself. I can't remember the exact words, but somewhere in the verses 20s or so of section 93 of the DNC, I really feel like that there is a. There. You know, there was. There was.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:46:02] There's this thinker named Fritz Stahl that introduced this idea to me that, you know, what precedes. What is it the myth that precedes the ritual or the ritual that precedes the myth. And his whole idea is somebody's had an experience.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:46:16] They don't know what the heck it means or anything like that, but they know that now their life is bigger and stronger and more energetic. People around them see what it is. And so the person simply says, well, here's what I did to try to get this going, you know, to try to. Here's what I was doing when this happened. And so to me, it's the ritual. The ritual. The ritual that, you know, the practices that lead to the experience that then, you know, people get centered in that experience, and then they begin to build the theology and the reasoning that it works and all the stuff around of it.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:46:49] So I'm always primarily about experience. So I. What is it? David Stendel Ross? I think it was. Yeah. David Sindleross talks about, you know, like, the origins of religions being like the lava of a volcano. It's boiling hot, it's impressive, it's live and things like that. So what Happens, it then begins to roll down the mountain and it's still hot and shimmering and things like that. But by the time it gets, you know, pretty far down, you look at this lava rock and it's all cooled and things like that, and you'd. You'd almost forget that there was ever fire, you know, at the heart of this stuff.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:47:27] And so I think so many of us look at religions and we're just looking at the stuff that's got codified, that's got, you know, the lifeblood of it sort of taken out of it. You know, it's sort of the dead remnants. And so my whole thing is like, go back, you know, and try to feel the fire again. Well, I think that every religion, every philosophy, everything sort of has this fire, this unique sense to it of, wow, here's an insight. And, man, I can feel how energized I am by this. And I can. I can feel that this is an important truth and there's that natural wanting to share it and stuff like that.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:48:05] And so I. Every religion has that. Every, you know, everything has that. And so the more people that they mine whatever that piece was for them, and they try to show others that this is living fire still burning bright within all these. These other things, that's the better for it. So, yeah, I'm willing to call them all truths, but I'm not worried about them like being correspondence truth. In other words, the world is literally run by a personalized God and things that you said, but certainly these energies are alive and starting these things to me.

John Dehlin [00:48:44] So you're saying, wherever you are, find the fire.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:48:47] Yeah. And again, when we talked in the last podcast, the thing with, with Fowler is every religion teaches you to go right to the fire, to align yourself with the fire. The full universalizing faith of stage six for him is you're so alive, you know, in connection with, you know, the churning heart of the universe, the universal will or whatever it would be that, you know, it's hard to. It's hard to distinguish your will from. From that, you know, and that's again, what I think Moses, Isaiah 3:19 is teaching about the natural man. Unless you put off the natural man and submit yourself to the will of God.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:49:22] And, you know, it's basically you becomes aligned with it, and that's what the whole goal is. And so all the religions teach you to go to the fire yourself, to become prophets yourself, to become Buddhas, yourself, to become, you know, purified, you know, whatever their language would be. And yet, you know, most religion is kind of downstream from that or down the mountain if we want to keep the volcano thing going. So, yeah, I survive and thrive in the Mormon community because I'm trying to touch the fire every day.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:50:08] You know, I don't always succeed. I go weeks or months without feeling much connection. But once I kind of know this depth of. Of stuff below the surface of me, and once I kind of hear it as a song around everybody, I can meet somebody in my ward who completely I disagree with and somehow or other still, you know, want to be in association with them.

John Dehlin [00:50:35] Beautiful. Beautiful.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:50:57] Come, come, ye saints. No toil nor labor fear. But with Jo.

Reactions to Tom's Story and Shared Values

Part 3 of 3 · Ep. 421

Dan Wotherspoon [00:00:00] 1, 2, 3.

John Dehlin [00:00:07] Mormon Stories podcast is a production of the Open Stories Foundation. All donations to Mormon Stories are fully tax deductible and go directly towards keeping the podcast alive and towards building a community of support for Mormons like you. To support the podcast or to join the community, please become a monthly subscriber today@mormonstories.org all right, well, we're back for a final segment of this podcast with Tom Kimball and Dan Wotherspoon. You know, the original episode seven years ago was on the stages of faith, but in reality at Mormon Stories, you know, it's often the story that really matters. And I just, I thought that both of your guys stories were so interesting that I didn't really feel like it was necessary and it felt a little cliche to just try and retrofit the discussion all back to the stages of faith. So we haven't talked a ton about the stages of faith.

Tom Kimball [00:01:06] I have to say. As Dan was talking, I kept thinking about the old guys in my ward and I can just see them saying, the hell. What the hell is that, man? Talking about lava rolling down the mountains. I might as well just pour manure down that mountain. Call that religion.

John Dehlin [00:01:23] That's what dudes at your Unitarian church would say.

Tom Kimball [00:01:26] No, at the Mormon Church.

John Dehlin [00:01:27] Oh, the Mormon Church. Okay. They wouldn't like Dan's framing, you're saying.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:01:33] I've used the lava analogy at church plenty of times. At least nobody said that to my face.

John Dehlin [00:01:42] That's good. All right, well, let's do this. Dan, do you have. Let's. Because, Dan, we've been talking for a while. Let's get Tom back in. Do you have a question or two for Tom, you know, that you have. Or a concern or praise or, you know, you said some really beautiful things about Tom at the end of that segment, and I love that. But, you know, any questions or thoughts or concerns with Tom or praise?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:02:10] No, I was super moved. I'm sure as everybody listening to, there's. There's such a depth of emotion and there's such a purity of, you know, good desires that Tom has. And, you know, clearly, you know, there's pieces of his personality that, that he could say to a bishop or a stake president. No, the system that you have been, you know, that you're trying to apply unthinkingly, that doesn't work for my family. And I, you know, I'm going to put my foot down and create some rules. And so there's pieces of his personality that in some ways, you know, probably, you know, just the wrong mix of Tom and.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:02:50] And these particular leaders are those kinds of temperaments that they had that, you know, were a piece of this. But I haven't seen anything in Tom that feels like he's gone backwards in a spiritual journey, you know, and it's interesting. Tom and I are part of a group that meets together once a month, and we've been doing it for 10 or 12 years. And you were in it, too, for a while there, John, when you, you know, were down here more down here more.

John Dehlin [00:03:16] Back when I was cool, back when I was.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:03:18] But. But, you know, we get together every month and there. And there's a few guys that, you know, in their. In their journeys and things like that. They. They did not. They were kind of not super social beings to begin with. And, you know, we can all tell that Tom is just this gregarious, outgoing person. He thrives in human relationship. I've never met anybody who knows more people than Tom Kimball and who's more willing to. To simply say, you know, I've got another friend that's interested in that too. And I'm. Right now. So I've seen Tom whip out his cell phone and hit that button to call somebody.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:03:51] He says, I'm introducing you to you right now. And he's. So it doesn't surprise me at all that he went from Mormonism and found another religious home and a community and that they're welcoming him and all of his gifts and things like that. So there's none of this thing that feels like a loss for me with Tom.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:04:07] My remaining with Tom and I, whenever we get together or something like that. And he's more comfortable saying he's an atheist now and things like that. And I, of course, try to draw him, you know, like, what do you really mean by that? And you, you know, we kind of play with that. But my. My whole thing is it actually brought, you know, was reminded of it in the. In the Fowler discussion that we'd had in the other podcast.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:04:33] Tom, when. When, you know, whatever I say, you know, the fact that I'm open to a God, and I don't know how you would claim whether you're open to God or not or something like that. You know, my. My whole, you know, are you doing what James Fowler told you or encouraged you recently to do? You know, I don't have to worry about you joining another church or another congregation, but are you working the metaphysical at all?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:05:00] Are you on the train? For those of you who don't know, Tom was basically saying, I Feel like I'm stage four and I really want to move into it. And Fowler, you know, in person to Tom said, well, are you praying? Are you doing these different practices?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:05:13] And he says, you know, it's pretty hard to get hit by the train if you're not on the tracks. And so are you doing anything to, you know, put yourself into ritual space, you know, quiet mode, you know, the depths of your soul, yearning for something? That would just be. My question, is that a piece of your life at this point?

Tom Kimball [00:05:32] You know, John, you're at a disadvantage because, you know, Dan watched me go through the transition at church. He watched me, you know, if not weekly, at least monthly, as. And heard about one bad encounter after another, after another after another. And, you know, so he got to see that all up front and in detail. But having said that, you know, and I appreciate the kind words that Dan says. You know, Dan and I just don't look at the world the same. You know, I can't wrap. As I think about the universe and the sun and the stars and the constellations and the. And the. And the expanse of space and science. You know, I just can't wrap my mind around the existence of a supernatural being. You know, Dan, Dan, Dan will say,

Dan Wotherspoon [00:06:44] no, I don't believe you have an

Tom Kimball [00:06:46] interconnected connectedness of energy and so on and so forth. And, you know, you know, that stuff doesn't just speak to me. It doesn't speak to me at all. But with regards to, you know, metaphysical and so on and so forth, I'm really more comfortable in the idea that our bodies are chemistry and our emotions are chemistry.

Tom Kimball [00:07:10] And, you know, having said that, I think that there are religious practices that I think that are certainly valuable. Like I said, I think I found prayer to be a significant and thoughtful way of communicating among the family and being able to put something out there without directing it at a specific person.

Tom Kimball [00:07:35] You know, there's practices like that that I still think are viable and thoughtful, which would be. Which most atheists would say, you know, no good. You know, no bueno. But, you know, if you're asking me if I meditate or if I pray to a deity or something like that, my impersonal time, you know, yeah, I have my meditations, but they're my own thing, and they're certainly not Mormon in nature or whatever.

Tom Kimball [00:08:06] I certainly don't expect to make contact with a deity of any sort. But on the same token, I think that there's sort of a gift that comes along with, you know, like the tears for Fear song says, you know, I find it kind of funny. I find it kind of sad. The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had, you know.

Tom Kimball [00:08:34] Yeah, there was this, you know, this hope that I've had my whole life of an afterlife and family and all that, and I had to walk away from that. But finally doing that, there's certainly an actual gift of knowing that you've got, you know, now to deal with it.

Tom Kimball [00:08:56] And if you're having something that's really bad going on, you don't get to just dump it off on a deity. You actually have to deal with it yourself. And by dealing with it, you know, directly and right at it, that, you know, healing begins so much, so much faster. And, you know, it's just the way I approach the world now.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:09:23] Well, and that's a deep spiritual principle. You know, you still have to work through it yourself, and you, you know, you take it right to the other person, and everything is face to face in a relationship. And, you know, that's. That's just. That's. It's actually almost just, you know, it's certainly a more mature human being. It's more. It's the pat to be an integrated person and all that stuff, too. But you're right, there are certainly. There are some folks that say, well, I'll give that over, or I'll just endure this and not try to wrestle with it now, because I know God will work it out in the end. So you're right. There's that negative part of religions. But I don't think religion's anathema to. In general, it's not anathema to also doing what you're saying there.

John Dehlin [00:10:07] In other words, Dan, you would see the world very similarly to the way Tom just described, right?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:10:14] Yeah, I mean, I do. I mean, again, like I said, there's not a single thing about Tom's journey that makes me feel like he's not on a good path. And, you know, when it comes to specifics about whether there's a God or not, you know, I choose to believe it, but it's mostly because I write myself large, you know, into. You know, I feel like I have a personality. I've had these experiences that make me feel larger than my body, that make me feel that some core of me is in touch with whatever it is that binds the universe together. I don't know if it's a personal God or not, but as I imagine. Are you guys familiar with transhumanism?

John Dehlin [00:10:55] A little bit, yeah.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:10:56] There's this idea that at some point in the human evolution we're going to get to the point where the future being is going to look to today's being. They're going to look like a different species and you'd be tempted to call them a God. So to me, this idea that, you know, on the, on the idea that I might exist into the future, you know, I'm trying to use every experience anyway. I guess the whole thing is I don't know that there's a personal being, but I do know that in, in my meditations and in some of these, like you know, take my breath away, you know, turn my world upside down for 10 day kind of, you know, spiritual experiences I have with their resonance that become so powerful.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:11:40] I don't know that it's ever. I'm getting that it's a God doing that, but it's felt personal to me. So it almost feels like I'm interacting with a personality. But on the other hand, I, you know, I can't assert that, but I

Tom Kimball [00:11:54] just feel that, you know, it's up to us to heal each other, to forgive each other, to seek forgiveness and to mend our lives.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:12:09] All things Jesus does. Yeah, yeah.

Tom Kimball [00:12:13] You know, as well as looking after the poor and all of those things. And. Yeah, I mean, I'm just, I'm more comfortable in that than I am with the idea of seeking a God again. You know, in history or in any kind of study, there's this issue of debate. And in debate you pick a side and you defend that side. With regards to arguing, you're actually putting a thesis out there. You're letting everybody kick the crap out of your thesis. And what emerges, the other end is probably a little bit closer to what is truth of what actually happened. And I'm trying to live that life, the life of putting a thesis out there, putting an argument out there, living a certain direction and seeing what comes and whatever comes out of that is probably a little bit more pure and a little bit more valuable.

John Dehlin [00:13:24] So let me ask a question. So, Tom, did you have a thought or a question you wanted to ask back towards Daniel before I ask you both a question?

Tom Kimball [00:13:35] Well, like I said, the disadvantage you have is that he and I interact, you know, quite a bit. I think that the main thing I feel about Dan is it's not fair. You know, he goes out to Tooele and he has a Democrat for a bishop. You know, I get a Tea Party guy, you know, it's not okay. And that's one of the Great things.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:13:59] Did you pray before you moved into your neighborhood? Total there. All right, guys, I'm just playing, you

Tom Kimball [00:14:11] know, but it's, you know, my journey isn't. Isn't unique either. I mean, you know, I put the good mojo out there that I'm going to go out here and try and find a. Carve a place for myself in this community. And, you know, I got kicked in the teeth. Eventually Dan goes out there and, you know, has people that are in leadership positions that know who the hell he is. You know, no one knows who I am in my neighborhood. You know, there's probably nine books in the other houses in the neighborhood, you know.

John Dehlin [00:14:49] You mean they don't sell out your signature books kind of stuff?

Tom Kimball [00:14:53] Only what I tell them. And, you know, you say, hey, where do you work? Signature books. Oh, nice. Is that. Is that here in American Fork? What do they do? You know?

John Dehlin [00:15:03] Right. Yeah. It's not fair. And that's, you know, some call that ecclesiastical roulette, but it really is a real factor that really can turn lives inside and out.

Tom Kimball [00:15:13] Right, right.

John Dehlin [00:15:14] Yeah. It's not fair.

Tom Kimball [00:15:15] It is.

Missing the Old Ward and Social Belonging

John Dehlin [00:15:16] Tom, I didn't ask you this, but is there. How much of you misses the old ward and the old experiences?

Tom Kimball [00:15:26] We had to go to the old ward and when James went on his mission, well, he didn't have to, but we went. The bishop was out of town and Randy told me to come. So we went and had an interesting couple of interesting experiences. One is as we sat there and we talked about this afterwards, and it's been four years since we've pulled ourselves out. And almost all of us commented that it was very cold and that there wasn't anything there for us.

Tom Kimball [00:16:04] Interestingly enough, you know, I brought all the kids. The young woman's, one of the young women's leaders, seized the opportunity and had all the young women send my oldest daughter a big stack of envelopes. And they had gotten all the young women together to write her a letter and say, gee, we miss you.

Tom Kimball [00:16:24] Right. Well, the leaders didn't read them before they sent them over here because several of them of the young women said, the second I'm old enough, I'm out of this church, too.

John Dehlin [00:16:34] Wow. Oh, my gosh.

Tom Kimball [00:16:41] So, no, you know, I don't miss. I'm finding the things that I. The little morsels I was finding over there in my struggle, and I don't regret my journey at all, but the morsels of goodness and inspiration I was finding over there. I find whole feasts out here in the world. And, yeah, I'm glad that I've made that separation now, and I'm taking more care of myself and my family in that sense.

John Dehlin [00:17:25] And, Dan, do you feel like you're experiencing feasts as well?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:17:29] Yeah, yeah. More and more. You know, it's just that weird. That weird. I'm putting my. Yeah, what is it? I was. I was editing. Not editing. I was excerpting from a Laurel Thatcher Ulrich essay called Lusterware for something I was doing. And she talks about one bishop after she. She was, like, lodging her complaints about this or that or the other thing. And he goes, you know, the thing about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is this is a good place to practice those Christian virtues of forgiveness and tolerance and boom, boom, boom. And she's like, oh, I never quite thought of that, that it would be, you know, that you need to really be with other people, that it can't be an echo chamber and all that stuff, because you really need, you know, this is you.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:18:17] You grow from practicing those different things. And like I kind of said at the beginning, I'm not having as many bad weeks as I used to. You know, I would say probably. I would guess around the time of that other podcast, you know, every six or seven weeks, I'd probably come home a lot more upset than. Than, you know, if I hadn't gone. You know, in other words, it was. It was not good for me to go as much as it was good for me to go. Now, I. It's. It's super rare that I would. That I would say that, you know, somebody got to me or some statement was so terrible or trigger, you know, it just doesn't trigger me anymore.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:18:53] And the only thing I can say from that is it's a peace and a calm that sort of comes from feeling like I'm on a good path, I'm plugged in. I've, you know, I'm striving every day to be in alignment. I. You know, the stage three to stage four shift, it's not about ideas. It's about, you know, who's the authority for you? Others, or have you become your own authority? And somehow or other, this, this, you know, 18 years or so since I really began to pull things apart and kind of have them finally come back together. I've shifted that to. To my own confidence in my own, you know, feeling of the universe and me, you know, kind of doing some things.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:19:39] And it. Seriously, it, you know, Tom thinks it's all New Agey, and I know it sounds that way when you talk about energies, you know, but it's. It's like, man, I've got light flowing through me. I've got love throwing, throwing through me. I, you know, if I spot somebody saying something, I see it as fear. I don't see it as, you know, anything other than that. And Phil McLemore kind of gave me language for this 10 years ago or something, but it was like, when you see fear, when you see pain, when you see, you know, worries, don't you naturally want to nurture?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:20:12] Yes, you would. And yet, you know, our tendency is to like, oh, they're small, they're. They're evil, they'll never come around or, or something like that. Man, I just want to be with them now. And so for whatever reason, I hardly ever worry anymore.

John Dehlin [00:20:29] So real quick, wait. Tom.

Tom Kimball [00:20:30] Just wanted to hold on, hold on. You know? But then I got tired of being the guy that was doing all the growing and I got really tired of not having control of my trajectory and

John Dehlin [00:20:45] that

Tom Kimball [00:20:49] my participation within the community was based on the whims of a small minded.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:20:55] Oh, totally, dude. I'm not saying you chose wrong.

Tom Kimball [00:21:00] I know. I'm just saying that it's what you encounter. And, And I'm just not Gene England, you know?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:21:15] Well, and you're 30 years. You're 30 years younger than Gene England. You know, there's a sense of, you know, patience that I think I would love to convey to folks is cut yourself slack, cut others slack. This is a long thing. This is a hard thing. This is an entire new orientation from other people telling you what the world is to your own discovery of what the world is. And so be patient with it. But if I was getting kicked in the teeth the way you were, Tom, I very likely would have, you know, jumped away, too.

Tom Kimball [00:21:51] I just, you know, if it had just been Paige and I, it might have been a different scenario, but it wasn't. I had kids and I had, you know, people I'm responsible for. And, yeah, it just became unsafe for everyone involved. And it was just best that I left. Best for our family that I left.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:22:13] Yeah, Sounds good to me.

John Dehlin [00:22:15] Yeah. Amen. Amen to that.

Tom Kimball [00:22:21] Anyway.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:22:22] Well, there are.

John Dehlin [00:22:27] There are a bunch of questions. There are a couple things that I want to end with, but there are a bunch of questions here that people have posted. We're not going to get to them all, but I guess there's a couple that I'll ask just because they're interesting and just because I like the interaction of listeners asking questions. Glenn Fulmer asked them both if they think that the middle way is possible, where they think they differ from the mainstream believers. So I don't know about the second part of that question, but. But, Tom, what do you think is the middle way possible? Glenn Fulmer wants to know.

Tom Kimball [00:23:05] My advice is to run.

John Dehlin [00:23:08] Gosh. Really?

Tom Kimball [00:23:10] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:23:11] Are we trying to be enlightened here and say everybody's journey is their own journey?

Tom Kimball [00:23:19] I think that the journey within Mormonism is really great to wrestle with. You know, if you were raised in it, I think it's really important to wrestle with it for a while, not just, you know, run away. And you see people behaving really badly when they leave. You know, they cheat on their spouses. They, you know, they get fake temple recommends and go to the temple and spy on their family. I've seen really awful, you know, really bizarre behavior. I think that if, you know, do this in a mature way, do it in a thoughtful way. But my experience is you need to get away from these people. The way the community is right now, this is a wasteland.

John Dehlin [00:24:02] So you don't see things getting better?

Tom Kimball [00:24:05] No, no, no. We sat there and watched Mitt Romney and we, you know, we went through the whole debacle of Mormons inventing waterboarding and Mormons pitching waterboarding to the president and justifying it and, you know, really egregious bad behavior. And we had no leadership by the church saying this is bad or that this is, you know, dangerous or this is, you know, a bad path. This is. This is. It's gone amok. And they're chasing, you know, thoughtful people like the Kimbels who tried really hard to stay. You know, there's no hope. There's nothing good going on over there. You have Prop 8, you have all these bad things coming out of the church, and we all tried to stay. We all tried to be an agent for good. And for me, in my case, it didn't work.

John Dehlin [00:25:09] Okay, so you don't see progress?

Tom Kimball [00:25:13] No.

Middle Way Mormonism and the Church's Future

John Dehlin [00:25:14] All right. I'm actually a little bit surprised because the tone of our first hour, it seemed like you were saying, you know, this is my journey and it's still my tribe. And I'm glad I went through what I went through. But now this is where I feel called. I was going to ask you whether at the end of your segment whether you would. If you could destroy the church, you know, if you could destroy it, would you?

Tom Kimball [00:25:40] It's not my place. People have to make their own decisions. They have to go through their own journey. You asked what I thought.

John Dehlin [00:25:48] That's what I think for you, it's a bad. It's rotten to the core.

Tom Kimball [00:25:52] Well, I don't see good things coming out of it. Like I said, you have Glenn Beck, Mitt Romney torture Prop 8, but not Harry Reid.

John Dehlin [00:26:03] And

Tom Kimball [00:26:05] Harry Reid is involved in this scandal with the attorney General here in this state.

John Dehlin [00:26:13] Yeah, yeah. Okay. No, I. I think. I think I know a lot of people who feel that way, so I'm. I'm not even going to try and push back or argue. I'm just going to say I think I can totally see that perspective.

Tom Kimball [00:26:24] And I. I think that there is beautiful things in Mormonism. Beautiful. And they're tossing them.

John Dehlin [00:26:33] Okay.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:26:34] And our podcasts are bringing them back, bringing them forefront.

Tom Kimball [00:26:37] Come on. That would. I'm just really pessimistic about it, you know, and.

John Dehlin [00:26:47] Yeah, you broke up a bit, but you said pessimistic. Is that right?

Tom Kimball [00:26:51] Yeah, I'm pessimistic about it.

John Dehlin [00:26:53] All right, Dan, what do you think? Do you like the term middle way? Do you like other terms?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:26:59] It was interesting because I don't know if you remember, but weren't you. I know. I was on the receiving end. We did a Mormon Matters podcast on it. Scott Holley actually hosted that one, and I was a panelists with Andrew Ainsworth, and I can't remember who else it was. And. And so. And I was there. I was arguing. I don't like the term, and I don't like anything that sort of feels like, you know, it's a thinking kind of thing. Even when Buddha, you know, talks about the middle way, and it's sort of this. It's not asceticism, and it's not, you know, you know, extreme indulgence and things like that.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:27:33] It's a. It's a middle way, but it's always. It's always tempered with these, you know, for instance, he's got the eight. The noble Eightfold path, which is right attention, you know, right attitude. Right. I can't remember the words anymore. It's been too late, too long. But it's the. You go about things in the right pace and whatnot. And it's sort of. And so instead of the middle way being a thought category, it's simply like a. It's, again, it's an orientation to the universe category. And so I don't like middle way because it sounds like you're thinking your way through it, or you're kind of like, oh, if I only thought of this concept wider.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:28:12] To me, it's more like if you, you will naturally think these things the further you go on your spiritual journey, you'll naturally like embrace the both and ness, you'll naturally not become an extremist this or that. You'll become an extremist, I think for justice and things like that. And so I totally agree with Tom that you know, I miss, I miss what would be the true prophetic voice of. And I see a Hugh Nibley and I see a Eugene England more as prophets than what we currently have at leadership because they're more presidents of the church, they're more the board of directors running an institution and things like that.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:28:52] Whereas I like the Old Testament prophets calling people to repentance left and right and the society is going to hell and things like that. And we kind of do that, but we don't, but we're not consistent. I love, you know, John Paul, Pope John Paul and I love Francis and from what I'm learning about him here now because, you know, at least the Catholics are consistent in terms of we value life. And so they're consistent on abortion, they're consistent on no contraception, they're consistent on no capital punishment. You know, it's like, you know, I don't, you know what Eugene offered in Eugene England offered in some of his things when he, when he would talk about war and reconciling and he would say, let's practice Christian values, let's give them food mood, let's do these things that, you know, I don't know how practical they are, but I don't think the role of the prophet is to be practical.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:29:43] I think it's to speak truth, you know, in this broad way. And so I'm with Tom. I'm not seeing, you know, that there is no abhorrence of torture. And to me, you know, to this day I can't say one positive thing about them all.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:29:59] I just can't even imagine that anybody could have read the Book of Mormon and think it's a good thing to do to build luxury, you know, living, you know, out priced living accommodations, you know, and basically try to think that the church should be involved whatsoever in consumer culture. You know, it's like, you know, so I'm 100% there but in terms of like, you know, this church isn't the leaders, it isn't the, you know, it's, it's the people and I love these people and there's some things that have happened in my heart that lets me love these people. And, and I'm here if you need Me.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:30:43] And I don't need to force my opinions on you, and you don't need to change right now. I really constantly remember myself as being fat, dumb and happy, you know, accepting the world as presented to me.

Tom Kimball [00:30:57] And you're absolutely right. And the people, the Mormon people are good people. You know, you lose your wallet in Salt Lake, there's a real chance you're gonna get that back. You know, here in American Fork, you know, someone breaks down on the side of the road, people stop and hey, can we help? You know, and that's, and that's the Mormon people. But the Mormon people aren't what's broken.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:31:28] Yeah, but that. Why is the church the leaders and you know, the fact that institutions, in order to survive, sort of, you know, would rather have, you know, worker bees than more, you know, independent, you know, minded folks. I mean, why identify that with Mormonism? You know, that's the church. That's not necessarily Mormonism. Mormonism, you know, Mormons is a people, a community. And, you know, it's a school, like I was saying about practicing Christian values, it's a school of love. I love that. From Eugene, England. You know, where else are you going to be confronted with people that you have to, you know, learn to see them in their brightness and not just their smallness?

John Dehlin [00:32:14] I don't know.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:32:15] That's how it works for me, you

Tom Kimball [00:32:18] know, Dan, have you had to tell someone no. A leader? No. And just say no, we're not going to do that. I'm not going to participate with you in that way or, you know, something like that. Not say no to a calling, but to speak out and say no, that is not okay.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:32:42] No, I haven't confronted that. We just did a proactive parenting podcast at Mormon Matters, you know, sort of what to do. And I really think, you know, John, it was at, it was at the Houston conference and you were moderating that panel with parents with the Beals on it and Pfeffer and others.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:33:04] You know, this idea of, you know, perhaps speaking to a bishop about, you know, my daughter's not going one on one room with any adult without me present with behind closed doors. I'm not gonna have, you know, I don't want her being asked about this, that or the other thing she had already, you know, reached. You know, she's 19 and a half now, so I miss that opportun. But I absolutely would have done those things. You know, now that I'm alerted to that the way I am, I think that I would absolutely speak up and I have when bishops and things have tried to get to know me, you know, when people have tried to get to know me, I'm pretty.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:33:44] I'm pretty guarded, you know, in terms of initial things. It's going to be a feeling out process, you know, for me to fully share, you know.

John Dehlin [00:33:55] Okay.

Tom Kimball [00:33:56] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:33:56] Okay.

Tom Kimball [00:33:57] I'm just. I'm just curious. I mean, it's. You know, everything was cool for me until I said no. And I said, you know, if you're gonna deal with my family, you know, you will abide by my decision of no. And that was, you know, immovable force hitting immovable rock, you know, in this situation. And, yeah, the only. The only place, the only way for me to continue with my no was to leave. And I'm just curious about other people who've had to experience that, where they've had to stand up and stand up for themselves and stand up for their. Their loved ones and how that went. And mine went very badly.

John Dehlin [00:34:53] Yeah, yeah. I'll just say there have been times where I've, you know, when I was struggling, I told the bishop, you can't meet alone with my daughters. And in my case, he was cool with it.

Tom Kimball [00:35:04] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:35:04] Yeah.

Tom Kimball [00:35:05] Well, if he's cool with it, that's great. But what if he says no, I will.

John Dehlin [00:35:08] No, no, no. I mean, when my stake president said,

Tom Kimball [00:35:10] you're not, what do you do then?

John Dehlin [00:35:12] Well, my stake president said, no, you can't baptize your son. That was. And you can't perform any priesthood ordinance. And, you know, that was. It's awful. It's totally awful.

Tom Kimball [00:35:23] But in the end, he said yes.

John Dehlin [00:35:25] Yeah, no, I know, I know. I think the randomness of the ecclesiastical roulette is something that. It's tragic in many ways. Good things can come from it, but it can also be very tragic.

Tom Kimball [00:35:41] Oh, you know the bishop we spoke about in the old podcast? I walk over there and he still comes out of the house, gives me a big old bear hug and asks me about the kids. And I just thank the world of that guy and the bishop before him. Same thing. I walk over there and give him a big old bear hug, and he did some shirts for us at Signature Books and Great friends.

John Dehlin [00:36:07] Yeah, no, it's. But yeah, you know, let me ask you a slightly different question. This comes from David Hymas. He asks about, you know, who gets to be Mormon in the 21st century? Who gets to call themselves Mormon? I mean, Tom, you called yourself still a Mormon even though you're practicing the Unitarian Universalistic Church. I know that yeah, I'm Mormon. I know. Dan Peterson just made a post on his blog at Patheos in response to an interview that was done with Adam Miller, where Adam was seeming to try and say, hey, we want atheists in the pews, and Dan Peterson was sort of seeming to say, if we water down too much, who gets to be in and who gets to be a member, and who gets to be a member in full standing, the term becomes meaningless at some point.

John Dehlin [00:37:02] So I'll ask each of you maybe first, Dan, that Do you guys have a concern about the use of the term and whether it weakens the church if there are more people like Dan who stick around, whether it weakens the church to have people like Tom leave, you know, and whether we should be concerned about who's laying claim to this term Mormon? Dan, you first.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:37:26] I'm not worried about it. You know, whoever wants to. I mean, whoever identifies with the people, whoever wants the best for the people. I think at some point, if you quit, you know, wanting. Wanting it to succeed or you want it to be the best, that it can be there. There'd be some point where you've. You've maybe made a shift that,

Tom Kimball [00:37:49] you

Dan Wotherspoon [00:37:49] know, I probably wouldn't want somebody with that, you know, I'm in such pain. I'm going to, you know, blow everything up, as, you know, everyone's going to feel a taste of my pain. I wouldn't want that regularly, you know, in my congregation. I would want to, you know, counsel with those people privately and things like that. So it's not, you know, happening in every. In every meeting.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:38:16] But, you know, I don't have any problem with anybody claiming themselves Mormon. You know, I'm great friends with Ann Wilde, and I know, you know, and like her a lot, John, and she's, you know, and Tom, too. Yeah, we're all, you know, and Mormon. For me, even though, you know, there's no such thing as fundamentalist Mormon, she loves Mormonism, and so she's good with me. You know, to me, John, what happens with those questions is, you know, because people are always, like, saying, dan, are you worried about being so out of the mainstream and whatnot? And they're just trying. I think in some ways they're asking it for, like, is there a possibility for me to claim Mormonism when I'm not, you know, you know, at the same sort of, you know, attitude towards obeying leaders or what it means to sustain or, you know, to have a profit and all that stuff.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:39:08] I think they're more asking it for themselves than any sort of objective thing. And so for me, it's like, absolutely, you know, dive in and meet God. God will tell you the comp. God will give you the confidence to stand on your own, you know, but it still take five years of practice, you know, of learning how to join the conversation and, you know, put things in new language.

Tom Kimball [00:39:35] All right, Tom, what do you think if someone's. If someone's gonna try and say that I'm not Mormon, you know, my ancestors brought. Your ancestors.

John Dehlin [00:39:48] Brought them what? What did you say? Your answer. Your ancestors brought my ancestors what?

Tom Kimball [00:39:52] Into the church.

John Dehlin [00:39:53] Oh, okay. Okay, got it. So you're still irretrievably Mormon.

Tom Kimball [00:39:58] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:39:58] All right, all right. And do you think there's danger or risk to the institution to have the dam stick around? Do you think it's immoral or unethical or bad for people or good for people or what?

Tom Kimball [00:40:17] Oh, it's the healthiest thing in the world to have diversity. I mean, you don't want terrorists in your church by any means, but you certainly want to have a wide breadth of people. You know, Mormons keep talking about how the church is the hospital and the members are the patients or those kinds of analogies. Well, you know, I think that the members are the cure. And as they learn to take care of each other and learn to take care of the diverse people, that's so much more healthy than what's going on now.

John Dehlin [00:40:57] Okay. All right. So, Dan, a quick question. Somebody asked if Mormon matters sort of wears you down that just talking about controversies or different issues if. If you ever just get tired of it all and kind of wish that stuff would stop and go away. Any quick responses about that?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:41:24] No. I mean, I probably have 50 shows I still want to do and another five ideas every week. You know, sometimes it's hard. You know, there's the drudgery of, like, finding people that could meet up on the same day. You know, your ideal panel, you know, and doing that and then having to postpone things and whatnot. And then, you know, I'm editing myself. I think you still are, John. Or have you got somebody that helps the post production? So that's, you know. You know, for every hour of podcast you hear, you've probably two and a half hours of, you know, you know, some kind of tweaking and, you know, so there's the mechanical parts of it, but no, I love having these discussions, man. I saw somebody asked about Uncle Albert and Mary Poppins because I seem so jovial and stuff like that, and that

John Dehlin [00:42:13] was Daniel Singer, by the way.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:42:15] Okay. You know, I don't know if that's my personality, you know, when I'm excited about ideas, when I think there's good ideas, when I think there's something to say, I'm pretty animated about it. And again, you've helped me do that by starting me and encouraging me to do this. But, no, I'm not worn down at all.

Tom Kimball [00:42:37] As long as there's people, there's a story, and everybody's got a story, and I think that every story is valuable and important and deserves to be explored.

John Dehlin [00:42:49] So do either of you have a critique of the other's story, or are both of you in the place where you say, bless Dan and bless Tom? Dan, is there any part of you that wants to say to the listeners, hey, be careful. There's danger in Tom's path? And Tom, is there any part of you that wants to say, hey, there's danger in Dan's. We'll say Tom first this time.

Tom Kimball [00:43:17] Okay? No, Dan's harmless.

John Dehlin [00:43:26] No, but people following Dan's example is

Tom Kimball [00:43:28] my question of staying.

John Dehlin [00:43:30] Yeah. Yeah.

Tom Kimball [00:43:35] No, I just think that people need to think through what it means to stay. I came to Dan, like, 15 years ago, 17 years ago, with my fears, my concerns, and Dan took me under his wing. And we've been. We've been pals ever since. We had jazz season tickets together for a decade. You know, we've. We've traveled, We've been in hotels together for unbelievable amount of nights, going to symposiums and shows and so forth.

Tom Kimball [00:44:17] You know, Dan's a good, good, good man, and I think he has the best of intentions for. For everybody and for me. And we don't see eye to eye, but that's the beauty of diversity, is the wide swath of opinions and trying to find a respectful way to have these conversations where you can respectfully disagree and wrestle with each other's other's ideas and allow your own ideas to be beaten up and reconsidered. I think that stuff's all really healthy, and Dan's been way, way above and beyond the call of duty. In the case of Tom Kimball, and

John Dehlin [00:45:10] you don't have big concerns about people sticking around in the church because of Dan's influence,

Tom Kimball [00:45:17] I think that everybody's on a trajectory. I wasn't ready to leave Mormonism seven years ago. I was carving out a place for myself, and I think that people should be allowed to do that and have that opportunity and wrestle with that stuff. It's the people that aren't Wrestling, those are the people you need to be worried about. They're the ones that are getting abused. People who are wrestling with it and sticking up for themselves and considering things and reading and doing something with their lives and with their Mormonism. Those guys are gonna be fine.

John Dehlin [00:45:52] All right? Okay. So the people that are. You're saying, just like Dan, you're saying, just be awake. Just like Dan was saying, find the fire. You're saying, be awake and you'll be okay. Just don't. Don't be asleep at the wheel.

Tom Kimball [00:46:05] Yeah. You know, the tricky part is your family is your marriage. And that's the really hard part because you come up, you come at these things at different times. And boy, I got the luck of the dice that Paige and I are still together because things just sort of fell together. I talked to hundreds of people over the past 17 years where that wasn't the case. You know, I'm just lucky and, you know, I don't know. And I've seen also bishops tear our families apart.

John Dehlin [00:46:46] Right.

Tom Kimball [00:46:47] It's no good, right?

John Dehlin [00:46:48] No bueno.

Tom Kimball [00:46:49] No bueno.

Concerns About Leaving and Conditional Love

John Dehlin [00:46:51] All right. Dan, any, any concerns about people being persuaded by Tom's path and, and following him out?

Tom Kimball [00:47:01] Not.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:47:02] Not really a concern. You know, I, I just wanted always say wisdom and order, patience and. Absolutely. Tom's cup was full. He lasted longer than I think most people would have. You know, his heart is so open and genuine and, you know, he's gone to healing in this new community.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:47:27] And I, who's. Who's to say so if that's, if it's just like what Tom's done. Absolutely not. On the other hand, you know, this instant gratification society and, you know, the avoidance of pain, you know, and things like that, like as soon as it turns bad, I'm out of here. As soon as it's not the story that I was raised with, you know, it's all crap.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:47:53] Those are, you know, those are the perspectives that come when you truly have, you know, been so other people's authority, you know, had been. Had been so dominant in your life that when that breaks down. But if you've all along been sort of preparing yourself for, you know, developing a grown up relationship. So for instance, if you're able to make that transition from, you know, in your parents home to still loving and honoring and valuing your parents and yet becoming your own person, you know, independent of them, you know, this is my family. This is how I'm going to run it. You know, those kinds of.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:48:30] Of things that you're Anticipating your whole life. And some people don't anticipate that. And so they have that trouble when it comes to, you know, differentiation, you know, healthy boundaries with their parents. I think if you sort of see that the church is, you know, that you need to do the same thing with God or if there is a God, or, you know, why is Scripture privileged above other texts? You know, why is it so taboo? And as soon as you begin to say, why can't I look at scripture the way, way I look at somebody else's spiritual writing as this person's best attempt? And you begin to hear a song sort of being sung here of, you know, light and truth and, you know, love having the following gifts that come with it, you know, But Dan, you're

Tom Kimball [00:49:20] absolutely right about this avoidance of conflict. You're absolutely right. You're 100% right. But the problem I see is that, that the LDS Church is becoming a community of obedience. And you're not given the latitude to grow to a point where you can make that decision for yourself. And so when that breaking moment where the basketball is yanked from your hands, these people aren't prepared to go wandering. And so they do foolish things. They do self destructive, impetuous, immature things. Because the community that we were raised in has abandoned this idea of. Personal accountability and being allowed to make mistakes and making healthy mistakes and that you can make a mistake and still journey on. It's just a thing that you have to be obedient. You have to find a way to be completely obedient and not make decisions for yourself. The church will make them all for you.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:50:31] See, that's so extreme to me. You know, if somebody talks obedience a little bit too much and I'm sitting in the room, I'll say, well, now it isn't obedience to leaders, it's obedience to God. Right. You know, all you have to do is like, it's obedience to your own conscience. And your conscience is supposedly this light of Christ that, you know, you've got all that wonderful stuff in section 88 talks about that stuff. So, I mean, when you hear about

Tom Kimball [00:50:56] Russell Nelson's speech on, you know, conditional love, in my mind, you know, he was pitching, you know, God will only love you if you're obedient. And who are you going to be obedient to? Obviously, church leaders.

John Dehlin [00:51:11] I'm going to, I'm going to jump in. I'm going to jump in just for a second because, Tom, I gave you a chance to kind of answer uninterrupted, and I want to give Dan the same thing. But the only thing I'll say, Tom, is that I'm sometimes feeling different vibes right now in the church. Like it's, you know, Uchtdorf and the influence that he has of just whenever he gets up, it's like the perfect sermon. And, you know, I don't. I personally don't. I choose to believe that it was not a coincidence that when Packer gets up this last conference and says there's this tolerance trap, and then the very next day, in his closing remarks, Thomas S.

John Dehlin [00:51:52] Monson says, we need more tolerance in the church, not less. I don't think that's a coincidence. I think that. And even when Holland gets up and gives his talk, even though there are a lot of people who felt like it was condescending when he's getting up and saying we do make mistakes, and I think he did say that.

John Dehlin [00:52:12] You know, I don't know that you can quote any one general authority anymore and say that that's the way the church experience is. I wonder if we're seeing a bit of a dawn of a new age where you can have Dan's perspective and it's legitimate. I guess I shouldn't be refereeing, but that's just what I'm seeing, Tom. And I don't know if you're just seeing it differently or if those things even ring true to you a little bit, but that's just how I'm feeling, you know.

Tom Kimball [00:52:45] Well, you know, I think that's. That's cool and that you're having that and that you feel that that's the trajectory. That would be very cool if that is really the case. I'm just a skeptic of that. You know, I thought that we were on a different trajectory with President Kimball and giving the blacks the priesthood, but what have we done since. For African Americans in the church? You know, probably the best thing we ever did was get rid of. Since then is get rid of Mormon doctrine, but we really haven't openly debunked the racist ideas. And yeah, you can sit and say, well, there's rumbling under the table, but let's get all the cards out. All right, well, let's really do it.

John Dehlin [00:53:29] Well, that's important and I'm glad you spoke up, Tom. But, Dan, why don't you go ahead and finish the points you were making? And then I've got just two more quick questions for.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:53:37] Yeah, I mean, I think people feel the thrust of what I think and stuff, but yeah, I'm optimistic. Like I say I feel more at home in the church every day. I feel more comfortable speaking. I feel people respond. You know, all you got to do is, you know, point in a. In a slightly deeper direction and you can take the worst Sunday school class and turn it into, you know, something where people really bear their heart. Hearts. And it's just like this amazing. What is it? A little leaven for the whole loaf type thing. And I don't need much other than just we have such good principles and the gospel, every doctrine, every idea kind of has some good motive behind it. And if you can just point to that and focus on that, then I think good things happen.

John Dehlin [00:54:30] What would you say to John Larsen, who I've heard say all the good in Mormonism isn't uniquely Mormon and all the unique in Mormon is uniquely awful.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:54:42] What would you say about that, boy, as far as. Is there anything new under the sun in Mormonism? Well, what's new under the sun is the combination of the various pieces that may have resonance in other places and they've been brought together and there's a mythic, you know, structure and stuff that's given it and a narrative. And so, yeah, that's absolutely unique in that way. But, you know, all the ideas of, you know, eternal progression and, you know, you know, deification and things like that, there's at least echoes, you know, out there. And so whatever he'd consider unique. And if he says it's uniquely bad in Mormonism, I can't think of anything in Mormonisms that, you know, what's unique about Mormonism that would be bad. I mean, I can't even fathom what he would say. What would. Oh, well, that's not unique. Oh, that's not unique to Mormonism. Okay. So, yeah,

John Dehlin [00:55:44] all the bad in Mormonism is humanity. It's just they're human problems that are manifest in Mormonism, but they're also manifest outside. That's what you're saying, right?

Tom Kimball [00:55:54] Sure, yeah.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:55:55] I mean, that's fine to stop now, but yeah, have John and I on.

John Dehlin [00:56:03] I'd be happy. Okay. All right, John Larsen, all your listeners go tell John Larsen there's going to be a rumble in the jungle. But also, Dan, what about the argument that all the good that's in Mormonism you can find outside. You don't need religion or Mormonism to have good people loving each other, serving each other, that kind of stuff.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:56:26] Mormonism, if I'm going to put it again, I've said it enough times and I don't want to beat it up. Mormonism was a structure set of stories, but mostly it was invitations to me that I took serious enough. And somehow or other I was one of the lucky ones. And again, I don't know if it was my drug stuff and sort of that brokenness, if it created a crack or something, but somewhere along the line in those processes. And then when I was outward focused on my mission, when I had a purity of intent to love and be of service to other people, man, I felt what I can, I can only call spirit.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:57:06] You know, I felt huge. I felt oriented. I felt, you know, everybody had this glow about them and, you know, the, the person that, that, you know, you want to turn away from in everyday life when you're sort of just like, you know, I only want to find the quality people. Everybody, you know, kind of sang, sang out to me as, as, as deep and beautifully. So you get that sort of idea from the east of Namaste. You know, I, I, I see the God in you. You know, Joan Osborne, what if God is with us? The stranger on the bus, you know, just naturally you were able to see, you were just able to see beautiful things.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:57:46] So again, I'm just, I'm like, mormonism got me there, but absolutely, Buddhism gets people there, Hinduism gets people there, Daoism gets people there. And I think, really, I've loved, every time I've, you know, heard the Harvard, you know, atheist chaplains or the humanist chaplains, I guess it is speak, I love de baton the, the religion for atheists. I see that this guy totally gets it, that there's those issues and whatnot that are sort of the key things that would lead to healthy life and whatnot. And so anything that puts you in that conversation, that encourages it, man, I'm all for it.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:58:30] If somebody is a secularist or I'm only chemicals, and if they're being aggressive about it and really saying you are only this big and this is the biggest that you could ever be and, you know, xyz, you know, here's the box. Anybody like that, I'm just going to quickly say, well, you know, yeah, don't go with them because they're not trying to point you to a larger vision of yourself or the possibilities for what a rich life would be. So other than that, though, man, Mormonism just does a great job. And I'll tell you, I, yeah, I've read scriptures from other traditions and I've read our scriptures and you know, other than, you know, there's certainly, there's these quirky anachronisms and Things like that in our scriptures.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:59:17] But, but the song that our scriptures sing is beautiful. You know, it lines up, just went wonderfully well with others. And so, man, I like our religion. I'll. I'll stack it up against any.

John Dehlin [00:59:32] All right.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:59:33] And at least in its potentials, we're 200 years in. You know, you get a couple thousand years and you get a monastic tradition and you get all those different things, you know, I love. You know, I do foresee the day where not that the church will do it, but you will be able to recognize somebody and says, oh, that person has more mystical or contemplative temperament and that person has more of a scholarly temperament. And, you know, those are both valid approaches to God and thank goodness for them. And I want to hear from. You know, I think we'll see that. But so somehow or other it feels like other traditions are at least have well worn grooves for people that go that way.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:00:11] But, you know, but our tradition certainly wouldn't reject it in terms of its teachings. It's only, you know, habit and, you know, this wrestle with what's God and what isn't. You know, the fact that Jesus didn't ordain any women, you know, why are we still worrying about that 2,000 years later? I don't know. But that discussion is going to continue to be. And I think people will be again to separate and I'm optimistic we're going to see full flourishing.

Where Tom and Dan See Mormonism Heading

John Dehlin [01:00:38] All right, well, that was my next question, so I'll throw it to Tom first. Real quick. Tom, you know, I can just think about, you know, seven, eight, nine years ago. We were all like the Internet was coming on and we're all looking at Google and how the church is going to be trembling in its boots and, you know, mass, Mass predictions of major apostasy and weakening of the church.

John Dehlin [01:01:07] And, you know, those are things that a lot of us have been speculating about and thinking about and predicting for a long time. And I'm just curious, Tom, where you are in terms of, you know, I would have never guessed that the church would come out with a statement like they did today and say, yeah, you can be a gay and a boy Scout and a Mormon and that's okay as long as you don't act on it or sexually moral. But what do you think? Where do you see Mormonism in 5, 10, 15, 20 years? Do you have any predictions?

Tom Kimball [01:01:39] You know, I don't have the doom and gloom that the church is going to implode by any means. I think that you have a Healthy missionary force. You have a lot of people coming in. You know, you do have a mass exit. I mean, you have. You have. You do have people leaving because of the Internet, but you've always had a problem with retaining foreign language converts, more so than the English language converts. And, you know, no, I don't think that there's going to be. I don't predict like I've heard other people predict that the church will be gone in 50 years or 100 years. I think it's just going to keep rolling along. It'll be fine.

John Dehlin [01:02:28] Okay, Dan, how about you? Any predictions?

Dan Wotherspoon [01:02:34] Yeah, I think we've hit a spot in our community culture and stuff where more and more people are embracing, you know, their voice, I think the Internet and that anybody gets to speak and they get to, you know, say their stuff, it's going to be. It's hard to, you know, pretty soon that I can say it out loud here on Facebook, but I can't say it in my ward.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:03:00] Enough people will stay and begin this speaking process, and they will. And if they're saying something that's true and constructive and that resonates with spirit, they're going to attract people to them, and more and more folks will start to ponder at a different level. And I think we're going to be exponentially great. I mean, it's possible that they'll have a retrenchment and we'll have a real crackdown again. I can't see it. John, could they throw you out of the church now without.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:03:35] I think they'd be afraid to. You know, they'd probably be afraid to go after me or just. I don't know if I really want to say those things. Maybe we can cut this last bit.

John Dehlin [01:03:47] That's okay.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:03:48] But, you know, don't you think that we've reached this point where, you know, there's going to be several thousand people, you know, marching in the Pride Parade, and these will be people who are active in the church and are saying that, you know, this is just. These are my brothers and sisters, and I embrace them and I love them.

Tom Kimball [01:04:07] That's pretty cool.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:04:09] It's. It's. I don't know.

John Dehlin [01:04:12] So you're optimistic?

Dan Wotherspoon [01:04:13] I'm optimistic. And yeah.

John Dehlin [01:04:15] Yeah.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:04:15] Okay. I won't. I won't go longer, but, yeah, I am. That's good.

John Dehlin [01:04:19] Good, good. Okay, so here's the last question I had for both of you. You know, I. If you had asked me a year and a half ago, I was on my way out of the church and I was never going to come back.

John Dehlin [01:04:33] And I felt like my post mission life was just one long arc pointing out of the church. And I think there was a part of me that really just felt like that was the inevitable conclusion. And yet just surprise. Of all the surprises to me, here I am happy in it. And, and you know, you look at Maxine Hanks, who was one of the September 6th, she's back.

John Dehlin [01:05:00] Don Bradley, you know, resigned and now he's come back. And you know, you can also just flip that around. And there's a ton of people who were former bishops and former elders, quorum presidents, relief society presidents, returned missionaries, you know, stake presidents, even the general authority maybe, you know, mission presidents. There's people that you would have never guessed would leave, who are leaving. And so this whole idea that it's not a dark night of the soul, but it's like a lifelong journey is just really real. And it's real in ways that you or I, sitting here, aren't smart enough to predict, even for ourselves.

John Dehlin [01:05:39] And so with all that huge buildup, I'm going to ask each of you first, Tom, what do you think? Do you think in seven years, in 10 years and 15 and 20 years, you think it's possible you might come back? Do you think, do you think you'll be a lifelong Unitarian? Do you think you'll find Jesus and become a born again? Like, what do you think?

Tom Kimball [01:06:03] No, I don't. You know, you never say never, but I just really like the path that I'm on and the journey that I'm on, the healing that I'm finding. And like I said, my Paige and I went back just for that one visit and the really small minded stuff that they were talking about during the service, I just sat there and thought, you know, God, do I really want to go back to that?

Tom Kimball [01:06:36] And the answer just was a resounding no. And you know, it doesn't mean that I'm going to become a Unitarian. I like where I'm at now. I, and that doesn't mean that I don't love many of the things that I learned and have and hold dear of my Mormonism. It's just, I don't feel, I mean, if you had an entire ward of Lavina Felding Andersons and John Delins and Dan Wotherspoon, that would be a hoot, you know, but there wouldn't be a

Dan Wotherspoon [01:07:11] lot of home teaching going on or at least assigned. You know, I mean, we would all, we would all just naturally care for each other.

John Dehlin [01:07:18] Yeah.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:07:18] Which is what the ideal is.

Tom Kimball [01:07:20] Yeah, I would go back to something like that even as a non believer, just because I think that would be cool. But that's not what the reality of. I mean, good grief. Okay, let's say I moved to Berkeley. Okay. And when visit and it ends up being kind of cool, I could probably be convinced, you know, to go back to sitting through church. Church. But as things are generally and universally through the church, I don't see that there's anything compelling there for me to come back to.

John Dehlin [01:07:55] All right, well, that's good. We got it recorded. We're going to bank it and we're going to come back in seven and 10 years and see in 20, 20 and 30 years and see where we are.

Tom Kimball [01:08:05] That'd be awesome.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:08:06] Seven and a half from our other

Tom Kimball [01:08:08] shaved head and I'll be a prudence.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:08:10] Well, you're already Mr. Hare Krishna, at least on Festival of Colors, man. You're the most enthusiastic guy on that.

Tom Kimball [01:08:19] Yeah, that's good fun.

John Dehlin [01:08:21] So, Dan, I'll ask you the same thing. What if Tom's bishop moves to your ward and starts a bloody reign of terror and really makes life miserable for you? Do you think you're so strong and confident that you are impervious to such a. A twist of fate?

Dan Wotherspoon [01:08:41] Well, I certainly think.

Tom Kimball [01:08:44] Let me back up one. One point on that, and that is, Dan, if. If someone moves into your ward and they target your spouse.

John Dehlin [01:08:56] Yeah.

Tom Kimball [01:08:56] Would you be willing to put up with any of that?

Dan Wotherspoon [01:08:59] A leader targets her. How or what do you mean, however?

John Dehlin [01:09:03] Just. Yeah, if it's personal, like not just with you, but with someone you love. Like your son comes out as gay and, and now he's persecuted in the church or, or commits suicide, you know, because he believed this stuff. You know, something where.

Tom Kimball [01:09:17] Or starts advising your spouse to things that, that you're really uncomfortable with or, you know, anything deeply personal.

John Dehlin [01:09:23] It's deep personal.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:09:24] I'd certainly withdraw from fellowship. I don't know that I'd withdraw from Mormonism. You know, I, I think I would just find another congregation to, to hang out with or, or something. But yeah, I would. Wouldn't, you know that. That doesn't feel at all totalizing to me in the church if it came to my spouse or my son, you know, relationships first, you know, and, you know, I've had that sort of theoretical question of, you know, if your son says you actively participate. You know, if my son were gay and he were to say your active participation in Mormonism because of the Prop 8 stuff and because they're not, you know, where they should be on this thing that wounds me every second of the day.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:10:11] I would absolutely not actively participate in Mormonism. My guess is that my son would be saying thank you for sticking up for me in the pews, you know, because they would know that. But whatever would be, I would let them. And their. They're telling me what it feels like, like either choice to be the determining thing for me. So I can only go scenarios, but I would absolutely say relationships first. I'm all about getting out of the way of the knife thrusts, you know, if you're. If you're getting wounded, you know, protect yourself. But again, I don't know that I make. I would make full and big decisions on Mormonism, you know, over those things, you know, because I've met enough. You know, even bad leaders have grown. You know, they're redeemable, too.

Tom Kimball [01:11:03] But I think that that's true.

John Dehlin [01:11:08] All right, well, I love you both. I hate living in Logan because I can't hang out with you guys, but I still consider you guys brothers, and my affections have never waned. So thank you for joining us today.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:11:22] You're welcome. Thank you so much. John, you're a force for good in the world. I know you sometimes wonder, and even when you wrote Sunstone, you know, it

Tom Kimball [01:11:30] was like, is this really.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:11:31] Are we causing more harm than good? But it just shows that your heart's already always in the right place. And, you know, your openness is just. It's always neat. So thank you.

John Dehlin [01:11:44] Thanks, brother.

Tom Kimball [01:11:45] It's always fun. Take care.

Closing Thoughts and Podcast Support

John Dehlin [01:11:46] Okay, real quick. If you like Tom, then go up to Signature Books and buy a bunch of books. And if. And if you like Dan, then go up to Mormon Matters and download his podcast, tell people about it and donate some money to his podcast.

Tom Kimball [01:12:01] You bet.

John Dehlin [01:12:02] And if you like, if you like this episode and if you want to see Mormon stories keep alive, you know, consider throwing some donations our way, because donations have been kind of going down recently. And if you want to see this continue, please consider Supporting us@mormonstories.org Other than that, please go up to mormonstories.org and give your comments. Dan and Tom, I'll ask you guys to kind of monitor that for a while, and maybe people have your question, have some questions for you. So do you guys mind participating in that conversation after the podcast?

Tom Kimball [01:12:35] Sure.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:12:36] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:12:36] Absolutely. All right, brother. You guys take care, and thanks so much for joining us.

Tom Kimball [01:12:40] Take care.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:12:40] Good night, friend.

John Dehlin [01:12:41] Take care.

Tom Kimball [01:12:42] Take care, Dan.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:12:43] You too. Come, come. You say no toil nor labor fear, but with joy.

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.