Introducing John Larsen and the Episode

John Dehlin [00:00:01] Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I am your host, John Dehlin. It's April 24, 2023 and we are live streaming tonight for another amazing episode with the John Larsen of Mormon Expression podcast. For those of you who don't have the background, back in around, I would say 2009, 2010, an important voice emerged within Mormon discourse. His name was John Larsen and he did a several years series of Mormon themed podcasts called Mormon Expression Podcast. And while he, he shocked the world when he went into retirement because of your generous donations, we were able to bring him out of retirement where he does a monthly episode on Mormon Stories Podcast.

John Dehlin [00:00:48] You can donate to the John Larsen Mormon Expression Mormon Stories collaboration and prop project@mormonstories.org Mormon expression all one word. You can also check out the entire back catalog of John's Mormon Expression episodes either on Spotify or on Apple podcasts under the Mormon Expression moniker. But we are back with John Larsen today.

John Dehlin [00:01:14] Want to thank those who are the super chats are already coming in. LP Cat says John Larsen's worth this before the show even starts. John, you're. You're bringing in donations before the podcast has even started. RB has already sent a super chat as well. Welcome back to Mormon Stories Podcast, John Larsen.

John Larsen [00:01:35] Thanks, John. It's my pleasure to be here. My, my monthly waiting in the swamp.

John Dehlin [00:01:42] Wait, I, I object to that characterization. Now Norm, we have never done, I don't think a John Larsen episode maybe really early on, but traditionally we have the amazing Kara Burrell or Nuance Ho joining us. Kara is traveling with family in Ohio, so we send her our love and we express our regret that Kara Burrell can't be with us today. Anything you want to say about that, John?

John Larsen [00:02:09] Yeah, a little bit of magic is gone, but we'll just have to white mail it up here a little bit.

John Dehlin [00:02:16] All right, well, we've got several people in the live stream already. We want to let you, let you all know in the live stream that we will welcome your comments. We'll show them or we'll pose your comments or questions or post them as they as they show up.

John Dehlin [00:02:33] And we always welcome in and we always appreciate those super chat donations as well. So John, do you have some pretty pre topics for discussion or announcements before we launch in? I will say one thing second. Our heavenly Father has blessed us with moisture along the Wasatch front. You. You.

John Dehlin [00:02:55] You did a really important episode about the. The talks. The toxic nature of the Great Salt Lake. I don't know, last year, sometime and the New York Times took note and, and did some reporting as a result. The. The thing that we're noticing is this massive historic snowpack which so far has increased the levels of precipitation or of water in the Great Salt Lake. I think we're ahead of schedule. And one thing I noticed is Sugarhouse park here in Salt Lake is actually shut down to passing cars because there's so much runoff from the snowpack melt that they're trying to control the, I don't know, the irrigation flow. Otherwise, Salt Lake City is going to be in peril with flooding. So, John Larsen, your secular prayers have worked too well, I think.

John Larsen [00:03:53] Well, it's good. I mean, I'm really happy that there is more water. This is a, this is a tragedy on multiple levels with the lake and with other places. However, you know, we're not out of the woods. This, you know, having high rain and temperature fluctuations like we have are all kind of predicted by many climate scientists with climate change. So, you know, in the, in a couple of decades ago, they used to call it global warming. And that, of course confused people because every time it snowed in the winter, they'd say, see, there's no such thing. So we still have a long way to go. But thank you to the. Yeah. The sky gods of Salt Lake City for sending the rain.

John Dehlin [00:04:42] Yeah. All right. Well, you've got some pre. You got at least one pre topic for discussion that you want to address. So what. What's the pre show? What we got for the pre show.

John Larsen [00:04:53] Yeah. To kind of level set. We haven't said this for a while, that I am only interested in what is true. I'm not part of any club. So I don't have a vested interest in a particular outcome of truth.

John Larsen [00:05:10] And my journey, my voyage through faith and through trying to understand things like Mormonism is really about trying to arrive at what's true, which is a really hard thing to do. And part of that is I put out the challenge. If there's anything that I'm saying that's wrong, I would like to know that so that I can fix it. Because just because I said it 2 minutes ago or 10 days ago doesn't make me invested in it. I want to know the truth. And as a reminder, you can all reach me if you want to. My email is John johan larson, johan larsen.org and I read all the emails and I eventually respond to them.

John Larsen [00:05:53] Sometimes it takes me a month or so before I sit down and, and, and answer. But please, you can send me your feedback of Course, you're always welcome to send feedback to Mormon Stories, John. Where should they send feedback if they want to?

John Dehlin [00:06:06] With me, it's just mormonstoriesmail.com okay, well, fantastic.

John Larsen's Rhetorical Style and Anger in Deconstruction

John Larsen [00:06:10] Well, one of the probably the biggest complaint that I have registered over the years, the biggest issue that people have with me is about my rhetorical style, particularly my use of profanity and my use of non even tempered emotion.

John Larsen [00:06:34] And every so often I address this issue and I think it's time for me to address it again. This, my podcast, and my interaction with the ex Mormon world of which John has so graciously carved out a little space inside Mormon Stories. So before I say what I'm going to say, this applies to me and not to all of Mormon Stories. I think John has done a brilliant job over the years of giving voice to all sectors and all views on faith, from the most faithful to wingnut weirdo princess prophets to people like me.

John Larsen [00:07:09] John lets us all talk. And I think that's been the brilliance and beauty of your project, John. So what I'm about to say really applies to me. And my rhetoric on Mormon expression quickly evolved into basically the analogy I'm going to use. It's like a support group for people who've declared bankruptcy due to medical bills. Bills. Forgive the kind of belabored metaphor, but you'll understand in a minute.

John Larsen [00:07:39] So we're sitting here talking, all of us, because we've suffered this bankruptcy because we had medical bills, right? And we're mad at the medical billing system. We're mad at the state. We're mad at the fact that we have to pay so much money. We're frustrated by the fact that we're out of money. We're frustrated by the fact we had bankruptcy.

John Larsen [00:08:02] And we constantly get people who come sauntering into our little support group and say, well, I'm perfectly healthy. I don't know what's wrong with you guys. Or they say, hey, my shirts been great. I haven't had any financial problems. Or my favorite, I have gobs of fucking money. Why are you guys complaining? Because I'm okay, I get it. I get that there are people who are happy in the church and who it works for.

John Larsen [00:08:27] I'm super, super pleased that you guys have not had any problems. But I'm not talking to you. I've never been talking to you. And you're here as a matter of courtesy. I of course, choose to do this on Mormon stories. I don't lock the doors, so I allow anybody to listen in on what we're saying. But this is a conversation between people who have been hurt by the church. The fact that you have not been hurt or your experience has been completely positive does not invalidate the pain, suffering and anger of others.

John Larsen [00:09:07] I am speaking as one who has experienced that trauma and I'm speaking to others who have experienced that trauma. Our language, me and my friends that I'm talking to, is the language of anger. It's the language of hurt and it's the anguage of. It's the language of outrage. I'm 50 years old.

John Larsen [00:09:30] I've spent the last 18 years out of the church. Last time I went to the church was 2005. I spent 32 fucking years in a cult. That is like a murder sentence. 32 years of my life. I was in an organization that practices a high degree of all sorts of unhealthy practices. And that made me mad when I discovered the truth.

John Larsen [00:09:59] And the truth being that the church wasn't what they said they were. And they were actively lying to me and others to preserve their own status and their own whatever. You have a church that is full of fantasy and manipulating liars who serve a status quo to protect their own finances, their own status, their own jobs, their own careers and their own family. I get it. I get why you're doing it. But you have to understand that we're pissed off because doing so, protecting this church because it benefits other people who come in and listen and then cancel their donation to John Dehlin.

John Larsen [00:10:46] That you need to respect the anger of the marginalized community, those who have suffered because they left the church. I am the voice of anger. I am the voice of trauma. And to do this, I channel the anger that I once felt. John mentioned at the beginning I stopped doing Mormon expression. And one of the biggest reasons I stopped was to preserve my own mental health. It's not healthy to wallow and roll in anger all the time. But anger itself is a healthy emotion when it's expressed at the right time.

John Larsen [00:11:20] And when you found that you have been fraudulently played, that you have had money that you didn't have to give taken away from you. When you find that there are people who are lying actively and covering up actively the sins of other people in order to preserve their own thing, it pisses you off.

John Larsen [00:11:42] So the good news is that the anger doesn't spill over for me, it's contained. I come here once a month and I get kind of pissed off and then I go and do other things. But this sucks. I mean, not being here with you, John, I mean everything about the church and how false it is and how much pain. Pain it causes and the suicides and the suffering and the billions of dollars hoarded and just everything about it.

John Larsen [00:12:09] And you, my dear listeners, the ones that I'm talking to, you were done dirty. And that's me telling you that. That I am giving voice and expression to the anger of people who have been told, oh, you know what? If you're really a good person, then you just go away quietly. You don't make a fuss.

John Larsen [00:12:30] You let religious people do their religion because they're all good. And the fact that they might be sticking it to you doesn't matter. It does matter. And that's why I talk this way. I'm not a dummy. I know how to code switch. I don't talk like this all the time. Actually, in my house, we do swear quite often. And actually, in 2023, I'm surprised how many people complain about us swearing, because when I watch regular tv, I hear the F word every. Every six words. Nevertheless, that's why I talk the way I do. And that's why this is. This is a support group for people who felt angry. It's not for you kittens who've had a wonderful time in the church.

John Dehlin [00:13:09] I love it. I love that you're addressing it. And John, is it okay if we. If we maybe talk a little bit more just while you're talking about it?

John Larsen [00:13:18] Yeah, sure.

John Dehlin [00:13:19] Okay. So, you know, I. Every single episode that we. Okay, so first of all, I'll just say this. If I. When I started Mormon Stories, I mean, I started with the whole. I mean, some of the. Some of the goals that I started Mormon Stories for very much still persist. There was always an informed consent element to Mormon stories where I just felt like people needed to know the truth so that they can make informed decisions. That's never changed.

John Dehlin [00:13:49] I also, I also wanted Mormon stories to be as respectful as possible so that a newly doubting or questioning member would feel safe. You know, because even. Even Mike Norton had. Was doing a Mormon themed podcast before Mormon Stories. He called it the Church Is Not True podcast. Right? And he would swear and get angry. And that was fine. I listened. It was entertaining to me and informative. But I said, okay, well, I want to help people. I want to give people the help that I would have appreciated having when I went through my faith crisis. And I would have wanted something to not have swear words, to be even keeled that kind of felt Mormonish, but that talked about things that I was uncomfortable talking about.

John Dehlin [00:14:41] And so, you know, that's what, that's, you know, those things have carried through to now in many ways. Now, of course, I've struggled with my own anger over the years. I've struggled, you know, I've sworn a time or two.

John Dehlin [00:14:57] But generally speaking, and like you mentioned John so gracefully, I've tried to always have a variety of voices on Mormon stories. When I, every time I do a episode with you, John Larsen, I, I usually get at least one to three to five people who basically say, you know, John Dehlin, I wish you wouldn't have John Larsen on. He, you know, he. The swearing's unnecessary or his tone, the anger isn't good and you know it. You're going to be scaring off the. You know, usually it's not. For me, John, it's not like believing Mormon that says, I don't like potty words. Usually it's non believing or ex Mormon that says, what I valued about Mormon stories was that it was calm and collected and balanced and felt safe.

John Dehlin [00:15:52] And when you bring someone on who's angry or use. Uses bad words, um, it makes me sad because I know that people are going to turn it off who otherwise would tune in, who are, who need the support but are going to turn it off because they can't deal with swear words and, or with anger.

John Dehlin [00:16:14] John, I'm just going to share with you my reasons for why I still do this and then I want to hear your response. Is that okay?

John Larsen [00:16:21] Yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:16:22] So I brought, I brought John Larsen back on Mormon stories for a couple reasons. The first and foremost is I love John Larsen and I respect John Larsen and I value his, his wisdom, his experience and what he has to say.

John Dehlin [00:16:42] And so when John came back and said, hey man, I'd be willing to come out of retirement, I'm like, let's make this work. So that's the first reason it's born out of a respect for John. A second reason that I've kept John on is because he resonates with people. There is a large, I mean it. There is a large group of people within my listenership that tune into Mormon stories or that donate to Mormon stories purely for John, because John reflects an important part of my community. And why shouldn't they have content that's directed specifically towards them? Why should we only on Mormon stories cater to a certain group of people, newly questioning people, newly doubting people, people fresh in the struggle?

John Dehlin [00:17:29] Why can't we also have some content that caters to just the people who are in it that are struggling, that are sad, that feel broken, that feel disturbed, that frankly need reminders that they're not crazy, they. That they're not alone and that reflects what they're feeling. And John, I do think it's an act of service for you to continue staying behind, so to speak, and re exposing yourself to issues and to emotions that I think you've probably largely processed. But I almost think if there's proxy work, you're sort of, you're sort of channeling proxy rage as a way for my. A chunk of my listenership and viewership to feel validated.

John Dehlin [00:18:19] And in that sense, I think it's an act of charity. And I think a chunk of my viewers and listeners, a significant chunk, really value it. So that's the second reason. A third reason. John, you've already said it. If you've watched the movie Inside out, you'll know that the person that the movie was about was not well, because they were trying to push down an emotion. In the case of Inside out, they're trying to push down their sadness. Well, pushing down emotions just leads to more problems. So, John, I love it that, just like with Inside out, showcasing a buffet of healthy emotions, all, all emotions are healthy.

John Dehlin [00:19:04] John, I love it that you are channeling anger as a valid and healthy emotion. Another reason that I have John Larsen on is because you don't have to listen to every episode of Mormon Stories. You literally cannot listen or watch the episodes that don't appeal to you. So if you are a active, faithful, believing Mormon or a Mormon with sensitive ears, or, or a questioning Mormon who doesn't want to experience anger right now or, or swear words or anything like that, don't listen to this episode. Please keep listening to Mormon Stories if you find value in it, but don't feel like you have to listen to or view every episode.

John Dehlin [00:19:46] Realize that even though this episode isn't for you, there's a lot of people that are finding value in these episodes and you can always just turn it off or fast forward. So, so those are some of the reasons why. And, and most importantly, I think we, we need the, we need the types of things that you share, John Larsen. So anyway, those are, those are the reasons why I keep supporting John Larsen and the Mormon Expression Project. And I just hope that those who, those who were worried about believing Mormons or questioning Mormons can simply understand that we'll do our best to give disclaimers so that people can opt out if they don't want it.

John Dehlin [00:20:31] But even if this content for you isn't. Even if this content isn't for you, I hope that you can. You can understand that it's important to a lot of people. All right. And I'm sure the current viewers and listeners are like, why are we taking the time to do this? You preach to the choir. But I think it's important to remind people. John, what do you want to say in response to what I said?

John Larsen [00:20:53] Well, thanks. I agree with everything you say. And again, I think the most important point that you reiterated was it's okay to be angry. And oftentimes the church, as a last parting shot, will try to dictate how you actually leave their damn church. They don't get to do that. And you get to process through how you will. And I invite that. A lot of people can benefit from talking to somebody, from talking to a therapist or whatever, and because there's a lot of anger and there's a lot of resentment that needs to be processed through. So thank you, John, for, you know, there's a lot of people who can't afford therapy or whatever, and I think this is probably the closest thing. So I appreciate being a part of your menagerie.

John Dehlin [00:21:42] My pleasure. And Nuance Hoes in the house. She says that she just got home from a funeral in Ohio. We love you, Kara, and we hope you'll join us next time. Please like this episode. Please subscribe to the Mormon Stories Podcast YouTube channel. Our growth has been amazing, and the more we grow, the more YouTube recommends us. Also, please support Nuance Ho, her YouTube channel and her Patreon account, because she's doing great work.

John Dehlin [00:22:09] All right, John, what's. Oh. Oh. And then the last thing I'll say is we've had a few super chats. Again. Power. Power Line Safety Guy said, my favorite family home evening is learning from John. Thanks for that donation. Power Line Safety Guy and ann Wilcoxon donated 20 bucks. Thanks to everyone who donates to this, this series. And if you really want to support John Larsen and Kara Burrell Specifically, go to mormonstories.org mormonexpression Become a monthly contributor to the Mormon Expression Podcast. And for as long as we can pay John Larsen and Kara, we'll have them on. All right, John, what's next?

Framing the Mormon Church as Unhealthy Organization

John Larsen [00:22:52] All right, well, let's jump in this. We're going back in the wayback machine about 10 years ago or more. I wrote the thing that we're going to be talking about. It's published out there on the Internet. It's on several different sites.

John Larsen [00:23:05] But, well, I came up with a list of unhealthy and controlling organizations, sort of what they have in common and things to look out for. And so we're going to go through that list and talk about these items, especially in relationship to the Mormon Church. There's really two deconstructions that happen or that need to happen when one leaves the church. And unfortunately a lot of people only do the first one and then they stop. They don't go and do the second one. The first deconstruction is the realization that church is not only wrong, but they are lying and it's intentional. So this is the whole house of cards shelf falling down that everyone talks about.

John Larsen [00:23:49] And I want to emphasize, because this is part of the rage, it's not just that people are mistaken. The further you dig in, the further you realize how much has been cover ups and rewrites and all this kind of stuff. So most people kind of go there and then they're free from the church and that's where they stop.

John Larsen [00:24:10] The second question, which, when I was deconstructing my faith back in the early 2000s, was once I realized, okay, this isn't true, this isn't real. But the more important question for me is what's going on here? Why does this keep happening? Meaning that people keep getting involved in these religions that have all sorts of problems for the participants, for the people who live next to them, for their family, for everything.

John Larsen [00:24:39] Why do we keep, as humanity keep falling into the same framework? What is that framework that Mormonism is built upon? Because the core beliefs of Mormonism that are distinct from say mainline Christianity, if you take the differences, those things really are kind of loopy and weird. They're things like Kolob and the Book of Mormon and the Pearl of great price and you know, wearing Mr. Mac suits, dressing like a banker, you know, like all these little weirdo things like white shirts and tags and not using your first name, you know, like they're all just like crazy stuff. But the framework that Mormonism is built on is common to not just Mormonism and other religions, but actually wider than that. So what is happening there? And that's the more interesting question to me.

John Dehlin [00:25:35] Yeah, yeah, the framework. And when you say framework, do you just mean that this idea that usually a man will claim to have some sort of theophany with God and then want to tell the world what, what that man says God is thinking, and then a church gets built around it and then the church starts to claim exclusive authority and the way, and the only way to get to Heaven and that you got to give them money and time and your reputation and your lives basically, along with your children, to. To be able to end up in the good place. Is that the framework that you're talking about, John?

John Larsen [00:26:17] And.

John Dehlin [00:26:18] And that the organization is likely going to be hiding its truthful history, hiding its money, and in some ways seeking money, sex and power secretly under the guise of helping everybody get back to a good place? Is that what you mean by the framework or something?

John Larsen [00:26:35] All of that. But even more core, even more fundamental, you have everything you need to dismantle the Mormon Church by the time you have a 9th grade education in public school. You have been taught the science that contradicts the church and shows that what the church believes is not real. You've been taught the basic methods of inquiry and scholarship that would allow you to deconstruct that.

John Larsen [00:27:04] And I had that when I was ninth grade, when I was 13 or 14. So why did I. I went and graduated high school and I was a good student and went and got an undergraduate degree and was a really good student. In fact, I was really interested in evolution and I took every evolutionary course from every department that they had at BYU because I was trying to understand it. So I knew fundamentally that the narrative of the church just didn't stand up. And yet I persisted.

John Larsen [00:27:41] I stayed a believing member of the church for another decade after that. What in the world is going on there? Why is seems that in an abstract sense you should look at the church and say, oh, that's just ridiculous, and then just walk away.

John Larsen [00:27:59] And I mean, that goes for you. Look at the Catholic Church. How many kids have to be molested by priests before people say there's something really scary wrong here? Look at what happened with the Dalai Lama like a week or two ago.

John Larsen [00:28:16] What is going on that we keep falling for this? And what is going on that we keep. That some of the worst of us keep getting promoted to lead these organizations. And that question is the one that led to what we're going to talk about tonight.

John Dehlin [00:28:33] Okay. All right. So. But this is still slightly different than the episode we had recently, which is why. Why people kind of stick around even. It sounds like it's a cousin to the episode we recently had about why people stick around even, you know, even though, you know, they're. It's so problematic.

John Larsen [00:28:51] It's almost John. Like I'm, I'm. Each episode I'm taking the same question and doing a different approach to it every time.

John Dehlin [00:28:57] It's almost like there's some song in my brain that's like, is there a better way to get this point across or something like that? Yeah.

John Larsen [00:29:04] So I want to give a call out to. I want to do a podcast soon on great books out there that will help you understand these things. But this list is not. I don't want to take credit for the list I put together. I was doing wide reading in a lot of things and a lot of, you know, online essays and academic journals, but I narrowed down to six books that were key for my understanding that that you all might might be interested in the first. Combating Cult Mind Control by Steve Hassan, who was on just a few weeks ago and he's written several books since I think there.

John Larsen [00:29:41] I haven't read his other books, but I'm sure they're all just as informative and inaccessible. And by the way, these books are all pretty fairly easy to read with a one or two. I'll give you a disclaimer on so Combating Cult Mind Control by Steve Hassan. Why People Believe Weird Things by Michael Shermer. It's about. And again, I did. I will apologize. I did my research on this about 20 years ago and I have not stayed up with the latest in, you know, psychological dark psychology and cognitive science. So I'm sure there's people out there who can post that there's better books out there now.

John Larsen [00:30:14] But these are the ones that I read. Why People Believe Weird Things by Michael Shermer the Manipulated Mind by Denise the Manipulated Mind is a fantastic book that talks about brainwashing and spends a lot of time focusing on like states like China and North Korea. And the conclusion of the book that'll scare the pants off you is you can't resist. No one can stop it. If you're gonna get brainwashed, you're gonna get brainwashed. No one can resist.

John Larsen [00:30:44] An amazing book that I would recommend to everyone is the True Believer by Eric Hoffer. And we probably need to do a breakdown on that book in particular, but that book more than anything helps you understand why there's no difference between politics, government, religion, clubs, all these things that exhibit the same harmful patterns over and over again.

John Larsen [00:31:07] This is probably the most difficult book to read. So those of you who are advanced, but I would highly recommend it the Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Kuhn, which really kind of explains how we kind of group think as human beings and how it invades even things like the scientific inquiry. Really fascinating delve into the human mind. And the last one I'll recommend is called the Lucifer Effect. Understanding how good People Turn Evil by Philip Zimbardo.

John Larsen [00:31:39] This book is a tiny bit controversial, but I think it's still worth the read. Zimbardo did the famous Stanford Prison experiment and this book is all about his recounting that experiment. Just in brief, he divided the Stanford students up into guards and to prisoners. I think the experiment was supposed to go for two weeks down the bottom of a building and it only took like 48 hours before they were torturing each other and they had fully adopted those roles and it just spun completely out of control. Very fascinating. Delve into human psychology.

John Dehlin [00:32:13] Love it. Maven, one of our viewers and listeners asked if we can capture John's book list in the show notes. Maven is definitely going to capture these books and put them in the show notes. John. If it's okay, I'm going to add a couple books. But first I'm going to say we've actually landed Michael Shermer to come on Mormon Stories next month and he's going to talk about his new book Conspiracy. He has a new book out about conspiracy theories and we think it's important, an important topic to discuss. So hopefully we're going to actually have Michael Shermer on Mormon Stories next month. Those of you who want to participate, that's part of the Mormon Stories Book Club with Rebecca Biblioteca.

John Dehlin [00:32:53] So grab, grab that book now. Maybe, maybe Maven can paste an Amazon link to Shermer's book Conspiracy in the show, in the, in the comments right now and we can, we can purchase that. I'll also say John Larsen two, two other books. Well, three books that I would add. Luna Lindsay Corbden has a book called Combating no called Recovering Agency. That is an amazing book that identifies 31 tools that cults are high demand religions use to control people. So it's kind of a, it's basically taking Robert J. Lifton and Stephen Hasson and, and others and applying it to Mormonism in a really effective way. So check out and we've done a whole series with Luna Lindsay Corbden on, you know, is Mormonism a cult?

John Dehlin [00:33:45] It's like a five part series. It's so good. So please check that out. We'll make sure Maven includes that in the show notes. Two other books that I'm actually surprised you didn't mention, but I think you may have even done an episode or two on these. One is called the Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan, which to me is probably the best book I've ever read about why people have beliefs and religion and science and superstition. And then the other book is Mistakes Were Made, but not by me. And I think, John Larsen, you did a Mormon expression episode on that book, is that right?

John Larsen [00:34:21] Yeah, I was trying to keep the list low, but. Luna, brilliant. Absolutely recommend their book. Mistakes Were Made is an absolutely fantastic one. It's a little bit outside of what we're talking about here. That's one of the reasons I let it and the Demon Haunted World. If you were just going to read one book, if you left the church and you're only going to read one book, read the Demon Haunted World and it'll give you chills because at the end, he predicts everything that's happening in our world right now. He wrote it. It was published in 1996, right before he passed away. And he foresaw our day.

John Dehlin [00:35:00] Yeah. Anyway, I wasn't trying to one up you, but I just had to share a couple.

John Larsen [00:35:04] No, that's great contribution. Thanks, John.

John Dehlin [00:35:06] A lot to me. Okay. All right.

Is the Mormon Church a Cult?

John Larsen [00:35:08] All right. So let's talk a little bit about the word cult. I've already used it twice, I think, which is kind of funny because I don't like the term. And there's a couple reasons I don't like the term, but it's important to get this out.

John Larsen [00:35:22] One, I think that the term is primarily used by evangelicals, even some of our friends, like Utah Lighthouse Ministries. I've enjoyed my association with them, I enjoy talking to them, but I never get past the fact that they have the same problems they point to in the church. So oftentimes it's weaponized in a way to make Mormonism seem like an illegitimate version of Christianity. And that I fundamentally disagree with. When I read the New Testament, I would say they're all fundamentally in disagreement with Christianity. So Mormonism is not in a particular way outside of the mainstream of Christianity, in my view. Now, those who accept the Council of Nicaea and the Council of Trent and stuff will disagree with me, but, oh, well, it's my show.

John Larsen [00:36:16] The second one. Is it's getting bantered around a lot and it's basically used to describe any organization where a leader or authority manipulates a small group of people.

John Dehlin [00:36:34] And

John Larsen [00:36:37] the problem is, if you define it so loosely, if everything's a cult, then nothing's occult. But, you know, because. So that's why I'd rather see lists like this to tell you there's healthy and unhealthy things and say categorically, Mormonism is a cult, or it's not a cult. Because the word cult in the common usage is really a plastic word.

John Dehlin [00:37:05] Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that Stephen Hassan likes to do, and we actually, you know, those of you who recently checked out Mormon stories will, will remember that we had them on. I'm just going to go ahead and share. The way Stephen Hasson likes to talk about it is, is through what he calls an influence continuum.

John Dehlin [00:37:27] And so I'll just share, I'll just share the link and I'll try and explode it a little bit. But the idea is that all organizations, if you want to have a little bit more of a nuanced conversation about this, it's that all organizations fit along kind of a spectrum from healthy and constructive to unhealthy and destructive. And what he likes to do is put on the healthy side, you know, things to look out for for a healthy organization. And I'm sure a lot of these, John, you're going to cover. So I'm not going to read them all here. And then on the other side is destructive.

John Dehlin [00:38:05] So whether or not we call Mormonism a cult or the Catholic Church a cult, or the US Military occult, or the Republican Party a cult or a Democratic party a cult or Mormon stories podcast occult, that's a distraction from us learning sort of healthy organization literacy such that we can put our marriage, our someone we're dating, our employer, our yoga instructor. We need to be able to figure out just where to put them on the continuum of healthy, unhealthy, constructive or destructive. And, and that's probably a little bit more useful than just this binary in or out, cult or not cult that can sometimes not get us, get us where we need to go.

John Larsen [00:38:49] Right, right. And some of these need to be kind of a wake up call because they don't pull out the branding iron on your day. One in a cult, you know, that comes down the road. Of course, I'm referring to Nexium. So I would invite even the believers who are listening to really listen to this list and question. Well, maybe with no further ado, let's jump in.

John Dehlin [00:39:14] Okay, let's jump in.

John Larsen [00:39:15] And I wrote this. Sometimes we find ourselves in organization, governments and communities that might be psychologically unhealthy to us or to our communities as public servants. I've written a few points you can use to check to see if an organization might be considered dangerous or unhealthy, hence the title of the podcast. And I gave you kind of where I got this. And let's go. Number one, there are elections with only one candidate for each office.

John Larsen [00:39:39] Okay, I think that one is so funny because it would obviously growing up in the Mormon corridor, the Morador as we call it, and you'd go to class with a whole bunch of Mormons and they would laugh at Soviet style elections where you could only vote for the Politburo as it's presently constituted. And we would use that as a de facto proof that that Soviet government was incorrect and danger in the enemy. And then we'd go to conference and we'd all vote with a single candidate. Which also ties into my number two, which is all members are expected to vote in unison in public.

John Larsen [00:40:26] Those two things work hand in hand. The reason is when you have to vote in public and there is a moment where raise your hand to the square and whatever and everybody bow your head and say yes, whatever it is they're doing, there is such pressure put on people to conform that non conformity is basically completely unheard of that hardly anybody, unless they're trying to make a particular point and they always get escorted out by the, the church police who carry guns and do some other shady things.

John Larsen [00:41:10] If you go to conference and vote no, you will in fact be escorted out by a couple of thugs who are fully armed. So that's the reality of it.

John Dehlin [00:41:22] You should be able to have choice about your leadership and you should be able to vote in secret such that no, there's no intimidation or coercion to choose, quote, the right candidate. I mean, I'm thinking about China, I'm thinking about Russia, and yeah, I'm thinking about General Conference basically.

John Larsen [00:41:43] Well, or even the political parties in the United States, you know that we sometimes have two people to choose from, but not really, those are chosen. And I'm not, I'm not saying that means the United States is a cult. I'm saying that's unhealthy.

John Larsen [00:41:56] And the reason it's unhealthy is cause it takes the trappings of democracy. It takes the trappings of that this is a community choosing its leaders. It is looking at what a healthy organization does. And it is, as the church likes to talk about, it's a false priesthood, it's a false election. And then they can say, well, it looks like all the votes are in the affirmative. We are reigning in complete unison again. And it's all a complete lie that nothing ever happens in unison. In fact, in the Bible if what was the Sanhedrin, the Council of elders. If they all voted together, then the vote was considered a no vote. It was like if everybody agrees then something's going on. There's shenanigans. This is not truth.

John Dehlin [00:42:46] Yeah, okay, those are good indicators. What comes next?

Criteria One Through Three: Leadership Dynamics and Silencing Dissent

John Larsen [00:42:51] Okay, the term beloved is applied to a living leaders, by other leaders of the organization. I cannot imagine a bigger ass kicking, ass kissing, suck up, brown nose, toady, bootlicking term than calling your superior beloved. Jesus Christ. I mean, if you were at any organization and you heard like a manager refer to his beloved. I'm talking about not somebody who retired. You know, like a beloved old man who used to run the company. I'm talking about referring to the current line leader as beloved. Something's going on that is not right.

John Dehlin [00:43:29] Okay, so tell in the Mormon context, when do we do that? Tell us when we do that.

John Larsen [00:43:34] They do it all the time. If you listen to the 70, you listen to the 12, they'll talk about our beloved prophet, they'll talk about our beloved leader. And you know who else uses the term beloved every time they're referring to their leader like fucking North Korea does. It's, it's just, it's one of those things that when you're an outsider and you hear the insiders talk about their beloved leader. If you don't believe me, just go do a text search on, on, you know, on. I'm not saying you don't believe me, John. Just on, on conference talks, they use the term beloved all the time.

John Dehlin [00:44:07] Yeah, it seems like when somebody's, you know, if you're talking about your grandma, that's fine. If you're talking about your grandpa, even your mom once she's older. I think what I hear you saying, John, is that if it's somebody wielding massive amounts of power with a lot of wealth, then, then forcing everyone or developing a culture to view and refer to someone as beloved is giving, is giving them way too much power. If somebody has super amounts of wealth and power, they should probably be referred to with checks, with balances, with suspicion, with skepticism, because, you know, when they sneeze, people die. Right, right. And so, and so I. Is that, is that what this is about, John? Is that calling someone beloved when they're wielding power just gives them disproportionate power?

John Larsen [00:45:03] Well, yeah, yeah, I agree with all that. And also just is based on the term love, right? You love your grandma. Your grandma has been there for you. She changed your diapers probably. She's helped them. She's helped calm you when you had a skin knee. She's given you presents and cards that have $5 in them. Everybody loves grandma. Like, like their love is a true emotion. And Grandma loves everybody.

John Larsen [00:45:25] But when we're talking about these, these guys in Salt Lake City who, who are so far removed. How many people do they claim are in the church these days? I don't know. It's all made up numbers. 17 million, 22 billion or whatever. 17 million.

John Larsen [00:45:41] That there is anything akin to an emotion or a state of being that can be described as love between that leader and the people going to the church is a farce. It's a misuse of the term love. I can't love somebody who I've never even met and who is, you know, the king is dead. God save the king. It's just the next person fulfilling the same role. Fulfilling the same role. And all characteristics and anything that would be lovely or lovable about the person are erased. You are just forced to state and forced to act like and forced to be as if you're in a loving relationship with this guy and you're not and he's not. You don't know him, he don't know you.

John Dehlin [00:46:24] Yeah, and I guess, I guess that that's part of it is, it's a, it's a carefully curated image. There are massive armies of PR people that are, that are filtering and, and buffing up the image of this prophet. He's not allowed, you know, we're not allowed to look behind the scenes. He's intentionally kept removed from us. We don't get to see where the bodies are buried. There are massive levels of non disclosure agreements and secrecy behind whatever body trail he may have of how he's behaved and how he's acted. There's a culture of terror about speaking out about what people might really know about them. And so you don't, like you said, John, you don't really know him. You just know the image that the, that the PR people in the, in the $250 billion organization have, have allowed you to have of them through, you know, through decades of curation.

John Larsen [00:47:29] Right, Absolutely. Well stated.

John Dehlin [00:47:32] Yeah.

John Larsen [00:47:33] Okay, the next one. Loyal members calling for reform or change are purged or otherwise silenced. And you know, John, you and I have been doing this long enough that we know personally people who have been excommunicated for things that are allowed now, even not just in our lifetimes, in our broadcast times since we started doing this. And how many of those people, John, has the church gone back and said, you know, we excommunicated for this and it's now legal, we're going to reinstate you in the church? How many cases do you know of that'd Be zero.

John Dehlin [00:48:13] There have been a few like Avram Gileadi or Maxine Hanks, that were allowed to get re baptized. But there's never been like a public apology. It's more like they had to recant and or ingratiate. Re ingratiate themselves and repent for what they did. But the Church would never apologize. In fact, devoted Galilee churches on record saying we neither seek nor offer apologies. So like even the Catholic Church, what they would apologize for what they did to Galileo. What in the 14th or 15th century. The Mormon Church is still too immature to do something like that, right?

John Larsen [00:48:53] Yeah. There's a great example and I've used it before. If you go down to the Mountain Meadows Massacre site, the church owns the main site and then the state owns owns the hill up above it. And if you go down to the main site, you'll see this big omphalic penis pagoda thing and you read the plaque and the plaque will tell you a story about how Gordon B. Hinckley dedicated this pagoda.

John Larsen [00:49:22] But if you go up top where the church doesn't have influence, you see this stone wall that has the names of all the victims carved into it. And I think that's telling here. One of the worst massacres that came from this time period.

John Larsen [00:49:49] And there is no apology from the church, even though it's been demonstrated again and again and again that the Church ordered this and the church had people take fall. But that's just an example of the fact that they never apologize. But my statement is that loyal members calling for reform. There has never been an organization on the face of the earth that is not needed to reform and change. As new knowledge comes to light, as things happen, no organization stays completely static.

John Larsen [00:50:21] And the fact that the Church has no problem silencing the loyalists who oftentimes want change for things that are problematic, that the first instinct is always to go for blood. It's always to purge people, even when it's known that they are right, that what they're saying is right. Good. The church will stay with the church before it will ever stick with any kind of moral position.

John Dehlin [00:50:49] Yeah. And for those who are kind of new through. For the half of you who have never been Mormon and don't know the history, or for all of those who are new, I can just rifle off a bunch of names. I. I was excommunicated in 2015 for Mormon stories podcast and for advocating for the LGBTQ community. Bill Real was excommunicated. He's another fellow Mormon themed podcaster. Leah and Cody Young were excommunicated Carson and Marisa Calderwood were excommunicated. Kate Kelly was excommunicated for advocating for feminism. Natasha Helfer was excommunicated for advocating for sexual health and, you know, ethical, empirical, medical based, you know, mental health practices within the Church.

John Dehlin [00:51:35] Jeremy Runnels would have been excommunicated if he hadn't have resigned for just, for speaking truth about the Church's history that the Church had covered up for almost two centuries. Grant Palmer was disfellowshipped and was going to be excommunicated for writing his book, that was a factual book about the problems with Joseph Smith and his history. Not to mention the September six. Michael Quinn, Paul Toscano, Margaret Toscano, Maxine Hanks. I mean, there's just dozens and dozens and dozens of thoughtful critics who were right, who were on the right side of history, who the Church excommunicated because they didn't want to hear any criticism. They just don't tolerate public criticism.

John Dehlin [00:52:16] And just recently I had, you know, Patrick Mason or Jenna Reese, you know, in a, in a news show on Mormon stories podcast. And I'll just, I can just tell you they're terrified to criticize the Brethren because they know that they'll be punished for it and marginalized and, or excommunicated for directly criticizing church leaders. And it's, it's a real deal in Mormonism.

John Larsen [00:52:39] Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So that is the sign of an unhealthy organization that can't take any insider input into things that need to get better. Okay. There are no means for membership to appeal a decision. This is absolutely a sign of an unhealthy organization.

John Larsen [00:53:02] If you, if your stake president is terrible and this gets the Church in trouble all the time because they have stake presidents and bishops who are molesting kids. But there is no mechanism. And there have been multiple times where the brethren have bragged from conference that if you write a letter to them, they just send it right back to the stake president.

John Larsen [00:53:25] Never. The thought being that the stake president or the bishop might be the one having a problem. Bishops can single handedly excommunicate females on their own volition. And of course bishops can ask females whatever they want. And they do ask them whatever they want. And whatever it is you're thinking, it's worse than that.

John Larsen [00:53:49] I know questions I've been asked by bishoprics and they involve like, I know I'm crude, but I don't even wanna get that crude. But there's absolutely zero recourse. There's no way. And of course, famously, we found out this last couple years that even if you call the helpline to report abuse, you're just ringing Curtin and McConkie, you're just talking to the church's lawyers.

John Dehlin [00:54:18] Yeah, absolutely. And you know, and I should have mentioned Sam Young is someone who is excommunicated. What was he excommunicated for? He had served as a Mormon bishop. He knew that what Mormon bishops were doing asking 12 year old girls about their sexual, you know, you know, behaviors behind a closed door. One on one, he tried every other way he could think of to get the church to just change.

John Dehlin [00:54:46] And of course they excommunicated him literally for fighting to end a sexual abuse of children and young adults and ecclesiastical abuse within the church. And I'll just say for those who don't know, how the church complaint system works is you're supposed to go to your bishop, but if your bishop doesn't like your complaint, he can punish you in the ward. But if you go over the bishop's head, you go to the stake president, the stake president is more often than not going to back up the bishop. And then you're stuck back being railroaded and marginalized because you went over your bishop's head. If you go over your stake president's head and you, for heaven forbid, write an area authority or a general authority or an apostle of the church, tell them, John Larsen, what the church's policy is. If you complain above the level of

John Larsen [00:55:38] a stake president, what is their official policy? I'm not certain.

John Dehlin [00:55:42] They send the letter back to your stake president.

John Larsen [00:55:44] Oh, yeah, I knew they did that, but I didn't know that was their policy, you know.

John Dehlin [00:55:47] Yeah, yeah, that's, that's officially how it works. Stake, you know, above. General authorities will not address grievances except in super rare cases. All they do is send your letter back to your stake president who then is super pissed off that you went over their head because they're, you know, oftentimes gunning for a better leadership position later. So there's no real way to appeal any abuse that's happening on your local level. You're just caught in this, in this cycle of, of patriarchy where you get stepped on if you just keep speaking up. And I can't tell you, John Larsen, I'm sure you've seen this as well, how many people were noticing sexual abuse cover ups in their ward or their stake.

John Dehlin [00:56:36] And when they tried to get these things solved because, because it was the bishops or the stake presidents who were covering up the sexual abuse. The church do not want to hear the appeals. They want you to follow whatever your bishop or stake president say, which is keep it quiet, don't go to the police. Let's deal with this internally, which means not deal with it at all.

John Larsen [00:56:58] Yeah. In my local area, I've lived out here long enough to meet some of the ex Mormons and some of the Mormons. It was over a decade ago, but a scoutmaster working for the church was abusing boys and the local congregations covered it up, but it got exposed and they lost a lot of membership and a lot of goodwill. There's a lot of people around here who the only thing they know about the church is that they cover up for molesting scoutmasters. But they do. They circle the wagons.

John Dehlin [00:57:29] Yeah. Really quickly. John, I just want to share a couple super chats. Daniel John Kerry said thank you for having John Larsen on. He speaks what former members, Mormons feel. The anger is valid. He covers issues TBMs need to consider. People are dying from false beliefs. The LDS suicide rate is high. Truth must be told. Thank you, Daniel John Kerry, for that donation. Brett Norquist Nordquist writes, I always enjoy listening to John Larsen. Thank you for having him on Mormon Stories regularly. Thanks to everyone who's donating because your donations through YouTube, the stars feature on Facebook and your direct donations, recurring donations@mormonstories.org Mormonexpression Help keep this podcast alive and help help us be able to compensate John Larsen for his good work. All right, John Larsen, what do you got next?

Breaking Up Families and Controlling Social Structures

John Larsen [00:58:19] All right, thank you. Let's see. The group is willing to break up families or other social structures to. To further or preserve its own organizations.

John Dehlin [00:58:30] Okay, that's the next unhealthy thing.

John Larsen [00:58:32] Yeah, that's the next unhealthy thing. And this one is particularly pernicious for the church because they devote so much rhetoric to the family that the family is primary. And what's funny is if you can give money to the church all the time, day in and day out, fast offerings and tithing and fundraisers and blue and gold banquets, and on and on and on and on. And the church brags on the news about the big screen silos. There's one up in Davis county, there's one in Salt Lake county right next to the freeway. And they're supposedly part of the church welfare program.

John Larsen [00:59:15] But if you actually need something from the church, the first thing they'll say is, well, go to your family first. Go ask your family members first for support, even though you've probably never been given your brother, you know, a $20 check every four weeks.

John Larsen [00:59:30] So the church hides behind this shield of family all the time. But the church will go after the family first. And it was one of their missteps from not that long ago, within the last decade, where they started to say, unless you turn on your parents or you can't get baptized, they actively in full frontal attack the family unit, which is of course a sign that happens in almost every cult and every unhealthy organization in Pol Pot in Cambodia. Encourage people to turn in their family members. The Third Reich sent people after their family and neighbors.

John Larsen [01:00:18] And virtually every cult does this. We can go on and on and on and on where if you're an organization that uses one of its chief tools, trying to break people away from their parents, from their spouses, you're not a healthy place.

John Dehlin [01:00:36] Yeah, absolutely. I think it's either Lifton or Hassan who calls it doctrine over the individual or theology over the individual, or the church's well being over the individual. And that's really a crucial component. And this is a hard one because organizations are always going to tend to look after their own health. And so you almost can't be a part of any organization without falling prey to the organization operating under its own best interests. But I guess in the spirit of the spectrum, the more that an organization's willing to step on people to protect its own best interests, the less healthy it is.

John Larsen [01:01:22] Right, John? Well, yeah. And specifically targeting, you could argue that if you're working for an unhealthy company that's wanting you to spend 60, 80 hours a week and is impacting your family. But that's different than them saying, hey, you know, your husband's ugly and he smells bad, you need to come be here.

John Larsen [01:01:43] And the church does the equivalent of that all the time for marginalized groups, and it encourages breakups. Matter of fact, the church in the last 10 years shot itself in the foot in a major way with millennials and with Gen Z, they went on a big campaign to try to villainize pornography. Of course, pornography usage, depending on your attitude about pornography, is epidemic. It's, you know, the numbers are the majority of women and almost every man looks at pornography on a regular basis.

John Larsen [01:02:16] But the church used that with young people and they spent a whole lot of time teaching women to police men. You can hear a lot of stories about Relief Society meetings where they would show how to break in and see the search history of their husbands and all this kind of stuff. Well, what it did is it Alienated a whole bunch of people from marriage because you've got these 24 year old men who are obviously jerking off because that's what God intended, so they don't go rape everything in the world.

John Larsen [01:02:53] And then you've got these women who may want to get married to them, but. But both these two have been socialized to. Unless there's no pornography anywhere in the relationship that they can't have a relationship. That's just one example where the church targets what could otherwise be healthy, normal relationships to accomplish its own means. And what are the means? It wants everybody to feel broken so that they have to constantly be asking for the church. Because the church says, well, well, the forgiveness or salvation comes through the atonement of Jesus Christ. And we are the gatekeepers of that. We are the only ones who can administer that. No, I don't remember any place in the New Testament where Jesus said that.

John Dehlin [01:03:37] Got it. Okay. All right, what's next? This is good.

John Larsen [01:03:42] All right. Members are encouraged to look and dress the same. Uniformity is encouraged or required in clothing. Hair, haircuts, jewelry, et cetera. This is particularly stark when you're on a mission. You're not allowed to use each other's names. You can't use each other's first names.

John Larsen [01:04:03] If you skip shaving for a day, if you don't cut your hair, if you don't dress exactly the same as everybody else, then you're ostracized or you're questioned about your loyalty to your organization and righteousness. And Mormons have a lot of these. There's a great old talk by Boyd K. Packer called the Unwritten Order of Things. I would recommend everybody go Google that thing right now and read it.

John Larsen [01:04:30] And of course, always, always, always, this stuff goes after women much more than men. Women are policed much more. And the fact that the Church has opinions on all sorts of things from from underwear to earrings to necklaces to makeup to hairstyles to tattoos, none of it have any reason or bearing on the Book of Mormon or Joseph Smith's doctrine or Christian theology. It's just another layer of control.

John Dehlin [01:05:00] Yeah. And I think organizations are highly successful when they have kind of a brand and a brand identity. And because if you're visually identifiable, you know, then you start becoming more memorable. And, you know, there's no clearer artistic rendering of this concept than the Book of Mormon musical that starts out with these Mormon missionaries literally taking a page from the IBM of the 1950s playbook with the white shirts and the ties and the. And the suits and the, and the slacks and the clean cut hair, no facial hair. It's literally the church is like, we got to get rid of this polygamous identity with beards and, and hats and canes.

John Dehlin [01:05:47] Let's adopt the American IBM identity. And then fast forward 50 or 60 years and that's part of our brand. It's recognizable and there's brand value. It's why McDonald's has uniforms. It's why, you know, so many different, you know, entities have uniforms. But the other thing is behavioral control. Stephen Hassan talks a lot about the bite model. That cults are going to control behavior, information, thoughts, and then manipulate you with emotions. But if they can get you to cut your hair, to not pierce your ears, to not shave your beard, to not show your shoulders, to put on the holy underwear, to dress with the white shirt, what they're doing is they're conditioning you to behave, to conform and behave.

John Dehlin [01:06:40] And that's why they need to have such harsh and strict appearance and behavioral controls so that you become conditioned to comply, to obey and, and to do whatever you're told and to help lift up the brand. That's kind of how I see it. That probably sounds a little bit cynical, but that's kind of how I see it.

John Larsen [01:07:05] No, I think you're spot on. Yeah. And then it also allows, and you're implying this. I just wanna riff on a little bit. It also sets a tight culture where you're not actually looking in the manual to figure out what to do. You're looking to your left and to your right, that you're really, you don't want to stand out, you want to be conformative, you want to talk like other people talk. You want to bear your testimony like other people bear your testimony. And then what's actually written in the books doesn't matter. Which gives, of course, the organization power because they can call an audible whenever they want and do whatever they want.

John Larsen [01:07:42] But what really is happening starkly is you're giving up your identity. That's a reason why they don't allow missionaries to use their first name. Because in our culture, we use their first name. If you want people to give up their identity, first thing you do is get them to give up their name. That's why the first thing they do in basic, you know, when you go into the military is they stop calling you by. They don't call you David or Mary or whatever, they'll do something else.

John Dehlin [01:08:11] Yep. Yeah, it's important.

Controlling Life Events, Media, and Information

John Larsen [01:08:14] Okay, life events, on to the next one. Life events are controlled by the organization. For example, you cannot marry women without leadership approval. So the organization will take all the major milestones in one's life and they will not just. When you're talking about a cult, they won't just officiate at them like most religions do. They will put condition on them and they'll do it in ways that are very controlling and very cruel. My ex wife and I, before we got married, we had fooled around a little bit. We hadn't actually had penis in vagina sex, but we had kind of played around a little bit, as people do, and I think we did like once. So we went to the bishop brokenhearted and confessed. And the bishop said, well, I've got to think about it. Now what he has to think about is if he's going to actually let us get married.

John Dehlin [01:09:19] Right.

John Larsen [01:09:20] We had invitations that were out, we had halls that were booked, we had thousands of dollars on the line. And he just let us swing there until about five or six days before the wedding, ensuring that if he had decided to tell us we couldn't get married, which many bishops do, it would ensure the absolute maximum humiliation for us. Right?

John Dehlin [01:09:49] Yeah. And that's, you know, that just puts the fear, literally the fear of God into you. And it's not just about that wedding, which they were clearly controlling. And by the way, there are bishops or stake presidents that say, you're not getting married, you're not going on your mission, you're not going to have a temple recommend, you're not going to be able to go to your sibling or your parents or your children's own wedding as well. Right. You're not going to be able to sit, stand in the circle where your baby's blessed. You're not going to be able to ordain, you know, when my, when my, when my dad was disfellowshipped, he wasn't able to ordain me a deacon and how shaming that was to my dad.

John Dehlin [01:10:30] Right. You know, because they didn't like certain behavior of his. And so, you know, not only does it put the fear of God into you, not only does it control those life events, but it just makes, you know that you gotta, you gotta conform, you gotta behave or the church has power over you. Much like with Scientology and auditing, they learn all these secrets about you so that they are free to use them against you later if you ever step out of line.

John Larsen [01:10:57] Right, Right. And this is a pernicious one. I want to pause on a little bit for ex Mormons because I talked in the beginning about how they try to break up families. This is one of the ways they do it.

John Larsen [01:11:11] I've met with and talked to multiple ex Mormons where you have this dilemma when it comes to baby blessings or baptisms. If you're a male, you're going to be expected to participate. And I have actually been in ward meetings where, where the men got up to form the circle to bless the baby and one of the fellows stayed sitting down and they're like, come on, they're pausing the meeting, like signaling them up, come on, come on up here, come participate.

John Larsen [01:11:43] And on a personal level, that happened to me. There was a baptism, but I was in deep faith crisis. I did not feel comfortable participating. But. But they're going to call you non participatory and creating problems in your family by not going. They will cause problems and accuse you of things if you go and participate and they later find out you didn't believe or more likely you don't feel comfortable participating and you're going to be forced into it, which makes you feel kind of terrible. Or an even third example is they have somebody participate and then they later find out, oh, this person had lost their faith.

John Larsen [01:12:22] How dare you invalidate the baptism of my children. How dare you bring your filthy soul to this baby blessing. So it's this trap that a lot of people just throw their hands up and say, I can't leave the church because it'll be too much social and familial damage.

John Dehlin [01:12:42] Yeah. And that's real. And especially real along the Wasatch front where if you're, We've talked about this on, on our episodes with you, John. If you're a dentist or an attorney or, you know, you've got any business dealings at all that are, you know, where you rely upon the business or the support or even partnership with fellow Mormons, which is very, very common, then the stakes are even higher and you can't afford the public embarrassment. And so you either pay the money or obey the rules just to keep the peace, or you learn to lie, which in some cases can even have worse mental health and familial and social and personal outcomes in the long run.

John Larsen [01:13:28] Right, okay, next one. There is organizationally controlled media, including television, radio and newspapers. All outside media is cast as suspect. And this is absolutely true for the church. It owns a lot of media, a lot more media than it just serves its content on. But it owns the major newspaper, you know, the Deseret News, of course, KSL tv, KSL Radio, Bonneville International, and A lot of people are surprised how many radio stations, like even pop music radio stations, they own both in Salt Lake and in the West. I know a few years ago, about 10 years ago, they announced they were gonna divest of a lot of those, but I haven't seen any sign that they have.

John Larsen [01:14:16] But frankly, I haven't kept up on it. But they definitely control the media inside, inside the Mormon corridor. And there are a lot of people who refuse to read anything, who will not look at the Salt Lake Tribune. They believe the Salt Lake Tribune is evil and a vehicle of Satan. And they will only basically look at the Deseret News and Fox News, unfortunately.

John Dehlin [01:14:41] Okay, so you're saying, you're saying that they do their best to control the information that the members have access to. Would you add to that Deseret book, for example, and telling members to buy books, you know, if you can try and buy approved books from Deseret book or the BYU Bookstore, etc.

John Larsen [01:15:01] Of course. And we could tell the dark, dark story that needs to be told, John, of how 20 years ago the Church did a campaign to put every private LDS bookseller out of business and did Bookcraft and Covenant and all these.

John Dehlin [01:15:18] Siegel book.

John Larsen [01:15:19] Right, Siegel book. There used to be this rich tapestry of publishers who would publish this and the Church would systematically and form forcefully force them out of business in dirty ways. I've talked to some of these guys. Somebody needs to write the book about this.

John Larsen [01:15:35] It was a gross part of Mormon history. And yeah, they don't have any problem using all of this stuff. And people might say, hey, the Church has never told me I can't read USA Today or Pravda or whatever it is.

John Larsen [01:15:52] And that's true that they do it in different ways. They put a different spin on things. But a lot of members of dangerous organizations like this just kind of look to it and say, well, you know, the smart people, there's all those scientists at BYU who still believe. So I should believe the Church has a television station and they're broadcasting the news at 10:30. So. So I guess they're not a cult, you know, so the media is used as a way of soft pedaling or kind of whitewashing what's going on behind the scene.

John Dehlin [01:16:32] Yeah. And this is in the bite model. This is the eye, this is the information control. And within Mormonism. What I've found to be interesting, John, you know, you could have argued that Fawn Brody's no Man Knows My History Has Been around, which is a. Which is probably the best biography of Joseph Smith ever written. You know, it's been around since the mid-1940s. But you had to go to a library. You had to know that the book exists, and then you had to go to a library to check it out. It probably wasn't. There was no Amazon and it probably wasn't available at a local bookstore.

John Dehlin [01:17:05] So, you know, but. But it was still available. What I've been impressed by in a dark way, you know, over the past 20 years, is how effective the church has been at sort of surrounding Mormon minds with a bubble of information protection and prohibition during the Internet age.

John Dehlin [01:17:28] Because there are all sorts of very popular and well known Internet resources. Podcasts, PDFs, the CES letter, YouTube channels, TikTok channels that many, many, many, the majority of active Mormons today still have never heard of, even in 2023.

John Dehlin [01:17:50] And it has nothing to do with KSL or the Deseret News. It has to do with the learned helplessness that the Mormon Church has programmed into the minds and hearts of its members, telling them to free fear any unofficial source, regardless of where it comes from.

John Larsen [01:18:10] Well, if you talk to librarians in Utah, they will tell you that oftentimes books like no Man Knows My History are stolen from the libraries at regular intervals. So here is. That's one of the Ten Commandments, right? But the members get so twisted in their thoughts that the church doesn't have to do anything. All the church has to do is just let it happen. And those sort of things usually don't get condemned. All right, Moving forward, the organization is overly focused on winning over vulnerable populations, such as the youth, those who are grieving or those in financial distress. And anybody who's honest with themselves, who's been on a mission, know that missionaries actively target and go after vulnerable populations.

John Dehlin [01:19:07] If we're, if we're thinking about like Scientology, you know, they literally start out with, or not just Scientology, but Nexium, right? They start out with, with just like self help. And they usually like Scientology has an amazing drug, drug abuse, addiction and recovery program.

John Dehlin [01:19:29] They often, they do, they target the vulnerable. And who knows, who knows whether in their heart of hearts they want the best for people and for them it's just a way to serve. But whether it's the impoverished people of Africa or Latin America or the Philippines, in terms of the Mormon Church, whether it's drug addicts, whether it's poor people, whether it's, whether it's Catholic missions to, you know, developing countries as a part of colonialism or even imperialism, you always start by targeting the vulnerable. You get them in, you get them part of the social network. And then slowly they become so grateful to the institution for helping improve their lives that they'll give the rest of their lives and their children and their grandchildren to the organization.

John Dehlin [01:20:18] Now, John, here's the. Here's one glitch that I'm sure you know of, which is that. Is that there. There are many people who would say on their deathbed who converted to mormonism in their 20s or 30s in Guatemala or Mexico. I'm super glad that I joined the Mormon Church because it lifted me out of poverty. I'm sure a lot of these people converting to the Mormon Church in Africa are going to die super grateful, saying that their life got better the moment they joined the Mormon Church. Isn't that a paradox or a conundrum that vexes you sometimes, John?

John Larsen [01:20:53] Never. You can go down to the south and go to these beautiful plantations that are still spoken of in hushed terms, and they have tours and how wonderful plantation life was if you were part of the family at the top. It was. It was a. A great, but great way to live, I guess, if you like wealth and riches and being waited on and all that. But it's built literally on the blood and backs of an enslaved population in the lands that were taken from an indigenous people. Like you can point out with any organization, be it like the Luftwaffe, the ss, had beautiful homes in Bavaria, you know, and what a.

John Larsen [01:21:43] What a. And Bavaria is a beautiful country and what a beautiful way of life. It was fantastic. It was built on fucking blood. So the fact that some people benefit, hell, somebody always benefits from every Ponzi scheme, and the fact that the idea that it should be some kind of moral conundrum that there's a group of people who are taking from another group of people and their lives are better for it.

John Larsen [01:22:10] Like, I would be embarrassed to make the argument that, well, I can see there's problems with the church, but it was really good for me and my family. Fuck you. Like, what is that? You know, it's like, hey, there's been a rash of robberies down this street. Well, I've got a bunch of new stuff in my garage, but things are a lot better for me, so I guess it's okay. Taking from people who are forced to give, like native populations, like those who are literally enslaved, like those who don't have money but are forced to pay 10% of their tithing. This is nothing to be proud of. This is nothing to brag about. Your riches are built on blood. Stop pointing to them. It makes you look like a dick.

John Dehlin [01:22:55] Did you just call me a dick? John Larsen?

John Larsen [01:22:58] No, not you, John.

John Dehlin [01:23:01] Really quickly, let me just thank a few of our Super Chat donors who are loving what you do. John Larsen, Mike Patterson, thanks for that donation. Emily M. Writes, I really appreciate all the research and passion John Larsen brings to each episode. Thanks for the super chat. MLM and LJ writes, thank you both for enlightening us and sharing truth about Mormonism. Mormonism is frightening and oppressive. You are blessed to, to have gotten out. Yeah. And everyone who is using that YouTube feature to support this program financially, we really appreciate it. All right, John, what's next?

Church Finances and Business Entanglements

John Larsen [01:23:39] All right, let's see. The group is involved in many businesses or monetary transactions wholly unrelated to the central mission of the organization.

John Dehlin [01:23:49] This is a sign of an unhealthy organization.

John Larsen [01:23:52] Absolutely. Because what does the church do? Like there's a, when I, when I have an mba, which is kind of funny, when I get in all these arguments about socialism and stuff, there is an exercise that a good healthy business does, which is they take their core mission and then they draw a connection line. Like I'm the one who makes the widgets. I'm the one who makes sure that the people who make the widgets get paid. I'm the one who supervises. The person who makes sure the people get the widgets gets paid. I'm the one who's the director over, the person who manages the person who pays.

John Larsen [01:24:32] And you can start taking out from that core mission and seeing how much an organization has excess, how much it needs to cut. And when you start having things that people do in the organization that have no relationship whatsoever.

John Larsen [01:24:50] The Mormon Church has the largest single cattle operation in the United States in Florida. Why the Mormon Church has outside of up by Randolph, up in the north east corner of the state, up in the little tab. They own these huge sections of land and I know this from personal, personal firsthand account. And they have a herd of docile elk. Okay, this is the church owns, these are domesticated elk. And then what they do is they fly bigwigs up there who meet with some guides and then they release these elk out of the pens and they make sure that the rich people don't see and then they go and they shoot an elk so that they can mount it on their wall and tell the story about how they're the big old elk killer.

John Larsen [01:25:44] That's an operation that the church runs right now, today. Why? Because the church's core mission is not anything to do with the Beatitudes or what Jesus taught. The church's core mission is making money, and they will do what they need to do to make money.

John Larsen [01:26:04] So if you want to see what people actually believe, just look and see where their money is. And that's true with the church. So if you have a core mission that you're telling everybody that you do, but where you actually invest your money and your time and your resources are in other places, that's a sign that this is not a healthy organization.

John Dehlin [01:26:25] Okay, so are you saying that where your treasure is, there will your heart be also? Is that what you're saying?

John Larsen [01:26:35] Yeah, absolutely. Somebody said that once.

John Dehlin [01:26:37] Forget who. Okay. Yeah, yeah. And. And for those of you who haven't checked out our widows might episodes recently, there's this amazing report that's come out called the Widow's Might Report that is reporting on the assets of the Mormon Church, the investments of the Mormon Church, the deceptions in the investments of the Mormon Church, the real estate holdings. John, I don't know if you. John Larsen, even if you know this, but they're actually now going to every single state to see where the Mormon Church ranks in terms of being the top real estate owner of the state. And I'm going to get this wrong, but it's. I think it's. Don't quote me on this, but I think it's looking like the Mormon Church is anywhere between the first and the third top real estate owning entity in, like, almost all 50 of the US states.

John Larsen [01:27:37] It doesn't surprise me. And there's. There's a lot of stories. You can look in the archives of the Tribune. You can read about the church engaging in all sorts of practices to get properties condemned by people who own them. There's been lots of stories where some elderly woman is living in a house and her husband, unknown to her, bequeathed. Is that the word? The property to the church. And the church just goes in and hardcore evicts her. The Church is as much of a landlord as anybody else is. They do the same thing. But the reason that's important here is because it's just off of the core mission. And when you're writing your check and all the guilt and shame and things they put on that, that's the Lord's money, but they don't have any qualms whatsoever spending the Lord's money on, you know, 30 06ammunition for rich guys.

John Dehlin [01:28:40] All right. Yeah. And the Mormon Church has a serious problem with this, and so does Scientology and the Jehovah's Witnesses. Some of these churches are. You know, the Mormon Church is estimated to be a $250 billion organization at this point. And we've been able to show, and others have shown that it spends less than 1% a year of its revenue or profit doing charitable or altruistic causes. Check out inside and Peak and the whistleblower, David Nielsen.

John Dehlin [01:29:11] The only things that we know the Mormon Church has spent its massive investments on in the past, I don't know, five or 10, 20 years, have been bailing out City Creek Mall at. Giving in an extra billion or two for cost overruns and bailing out a failed insurance company, Beneficial Life, that the church used to own that went under. Other than that, we have it from inside sources of the people that manage the church's money that it just doesn't spend its money on charitable purposes other than these small little piecemeal efforts that appear to be mostly PR campaigns at this point.

John Larsen [01:29:44] But, you know, it's. You're exactly right, but it's always, like, dirtier than it even appears on the surface. City Creek was not just the church investing $2 billion into a mall. It was predatory and aggressive actions to put the. To put Gateway out of business. Like. Like. Like. Like that. There. There was. And you can talk to. For. Have you ever had Rocky Anderson on?

John Dehlin [01:30:12] No, I've met him. And you know what? He's running. I think he's running for mayor again.

John Larsen [01:30:16] Did you know he knows where all the bodies are buried and. Yeah, you should get him. And you know, he and Dede Corradini can tell you some stories, too. The church is. The church plays dirty. And you just wouldn't believe how dirty they get with their money. It's just. It's just. It blows my mind.

John Dehlin [01:30:40] Yeah. Okay, so follow the money. Follow the money. That's what you're saying? John Larsen. Always, always follow the money.

John Larsen [01:30:46] All right. Unfortunately, we still have more of these.

John Dehlin [01:30:49] All right, let's keep going.

Prohibiting Criticism of Leadership

John Larsen [01:30:50] All right. Members are encouraged or required to never say anything negative about the leadership. Yeah, I.

John Dehlin [01:30:57] That's a cousin to the. One of. It excommunicates critics, Right?

John Larsen [01:31:00] Yeah, I heard that one time, and this has stuck with me. This is years ago. There's a. There's a quick. There is a quick test to see if you're in a cult. You ready? Okay. Listener out there, you take whoever is the leader of your organization. Now, quick, say something negative about them. If you find yourself unable to do that, you're probably in a cult.

John Dehlin [01:31:24] Yeah. Yeah. And that's. That's one, one reality in 21st century. Well, in the history of Mormonism, no one ever gets up publicly and criticizes any leader, ever.

John Larsen [01:31:38] Right.

John Dehlin [01:31:39] And if they do, they're toast, period. Like full stop. And every Mormon knows that. And just try it sometime if you don't believe me. Try it. And if you think we're lying, I welcome any viewer or listener to record a testimony meeting where they get up and fast in testimony meeting and criticize the prophet, criticize Joseph Smith and criticize their bishop. And you show me if you're a member in two months.

John Larsen [01:32:06] Yep. And there might be people saying, well, why would any church, you know, encourage or allow people to criticize? Well, that's the way organizations run. Like most CEOs are not obsessed that every last employee, you know, down to the entriest entry level position, never say anything negative. The only ones who do that are lunatics like Elon Musk. Right. Normal organizations know there's always a healthy amount of dissent. And that's just the way humans, humans work. And when. And when you get obsessed with that dissent, especially dissent from people who have no power, you're probably a cult.

John Dehlin [01:32:46] Yeah. Yeah. The best opposite example of this that I've been able to think of is Abraham Lincoln with his book by Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals, where he literally brought into his cabinet people who ran against him or who were vocal public critics of him because he knew he would be a better manager if he had people willing to criticize him. He knew the dissent was crucial for. For good governance. Right.

John Larsen [01:33:14] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:33:14] That's a sign of a healthy organization. Yeah.

John Larsen [01:33:17] Yeah. Agreed.

John Dehlin [01:33:18] Yeah.

John Larsen [01:33:18] Okay. The organization uses litigation as a means to silence dissent, to silence dissident members or outside organizations speaking against the group. So, yeah, it uses slap, what's the acronym? Strategic Lawsuit against Public Participation or whatever. The church has been caught doing this sort of things. Mostly it does. It's dirtier. It uses NDAs. There's been a lot of people who've been molested.

John Larsen [01:33:48] I've joked over the years, just half kiddingly, that if you are a woman between the ages of 14 and 30 and you want $30,000, all you basically have to do is accuse. You shouldn't do this, but all you have to do is accuse the church. And they'll send their lawyers in, Curtin, McConkie, they'll write you a big check, oftentimes about $30,000. I have it on good authority. And then you'll sign a big NDA that'll make sure you'll never talk about it. Again, yeah.

John Larsen [01:34:17] That's not what good healthy organizations do. Your local knitting circle doesn't use lawsuits and NDA. Matter of fact, anybody using an NDA starts getting a little dicey. I understand that sometimes they're required, but they're overused.

John Dehlin [01:34:38] Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And, and we all know that, that one of the most prominent features of the whole City Creek mall redesign was the erection of, of Kurt McConkey's, you know, law offices, which is the church's blessed and set apart and confirmed official law firm. Which is probably a hundred million dollar law firm, wouldn't you say, John Larsen?

John Larsen [01:35:05] Oh, they, they've got their hands in, in a lot of stuff. Yeah. And remember we brought this up in a podcast a few months ago. They're heavily involved in lobbying and writing litigation or writing laws even. And they're heavily involved in conservative politics. I don't want to talk about politics today, but I just want to point out that the church is heavily involved in conservative politics.

John Dehlin [01:35:31] Yeah. Yep. So. And Christ was, if he was condemnatory of anyone, it was sort of the scribes and the Pharisees and what we would call the lawyers. So again, on the spot, everybody, there's this famous saying, you know, we love Mark Pugsley. There's this famous saying, everybody hates lawyers until you need one. I respect good attorneys, but the more cozy an organization is with armies and armies and armies of lawyers and most importantly, to do deeds of COVID up, to cover up misdeeds or to lie or cheat or steal, like in the case of the securities and Exchange Commission, kind of denunciation of Ensign Peak in the church's financial practices. That's a sign of an unhealthy organization. All right, John, what's next?

John Larsen [01:36:25] Yeah, I was going to go more.

John Dehlin [01:36:27] You can, you can.

John Larsen [01:36:28] No, no, I was going to talk about litigation and slander laws and why I'm not afraid of the church, but that's irrelevant. Okay. Okay. Community leaders are chosen by the central organization. Local communities have no say in who their representatives will be.

John Larsen [01:36:48] We had talked about stake presidents earlier, talking about, you know, the. What if they're wrong? What's your recourse if they're abusing their power? I happen to know how stake presidents used to be picked. I assume the church still does it the same. But I'm not part of the church anymore. So what would happen is about on either Thursday or Friday, a member of the 70 would come to a stake when there is going to be a new stake president. This individual most likely has never been in the stake knows nobody in the stake and is just parachuting in from Salt Lake City.

John Larsen [01:37:25] They will begin to then interview down a set list that's given them by the church. And that list includes everybody in the stake presidency, including like the stake clerk. It includes all members of the high council. It includes all of the bishops and there's a couple others they throw in the area authority has at his discretion and remind you these are always he's everybody we're talking about are he's here. Women are completely boxed out of this process that at discretion to interview other people.

John Larsen [01:38:03] This individual is supposed to pray and then wait for inspiration to pick who the leader is. So, and then by Sunday there will be a conference in which, and it's usually Sunday evening in which, in which, like the contestants on some weird reality TV show, they announce who the new stake president is and then the stake president has a short and then move from there.

John Larsen [01:38:30] That's lunacy because there is no God telling these guys who to pick. It's not only are stake presidents imbued with a lot of power, they're not picked by any sort of real mechanism. Well, okay, so I'll push back on myself, John.

John Larsen [01:38:48] Well, then why do we see so many characteristics that are common in the stake president? I'll tell you what I've seen over and over again in my life and I've talked to a lot of people seen the same is the stake president almost always, I would say with 80% frequency, comes from the most expensive, the highest valued neighborhoods that the state covers.

John Larsen [01:39:11] And the stake president will usually be really well connected because they'll not only they'll ask like the high council who they recommend being the stake president. So they'll look for the people who are already in that circle. And you know, a stake can be if you've got 10 or 12 wards of 300 to 500 people each. Back in the heyday, you're talking about 3,000, 3,000 men.

John Larsen [01:39:39] There's no way for anybody to know all of them. So you're doing this thing to these people and it's completely controlled by a central organization who knows nothing about your local, your going ons, your local needs, et cetera.

John Dehlin [01:40:00] Yeah. Now, I have heard if we want to try and give the church a little bit of credit, I have heard that one of the things they do is they keep a list of people who have stolen money or who have been involved in apostasy and or some sort of sexual indiscretion. And they sometimes will vet names against some centralized list that they have.

John Dehlin [01:40:23] But I also think there's a lot of nepotism that goes on where nephews or sons in law of church leaders will often be designated from on high as the next people to lead the wards or stakes. I also think there are oftentimes interests that the church has in terms of punishing dissenters, silencing people. In my case, literally my stake president that refused to excommunicate me was, as I understand it, terminated early. And then another stake president was put in who would excommunicate me. These are some of the reasons, I suspect, why the church controls. But most importantly, we know that they pick doctors and lawyers and successful businessmen overall as the top leaders.

John Dehlin [01:41:19] It's because the church wants bureaucrats who they know are going to obey and follow, follow the instruction from on high. And they, they basically want to curate those leadership positions accordingly.

John Larsen [01:41:35] Well, they're running a giant corporation and the product the corporation is selling is basically whatever they have to tell you to get you to pay tithing. And so they, they pick corporate people. They pick corporate, corporate lawyers and corporate MBAs.

John Larsen [01:41:52] If you go look at the degrees of the quorum of the twelve apostles, those who are supposed to be prophet seers and revelators and representative of Jesus originally 12 disciples, they're just chock full of MBAs and JDs and from Ivy league white power schools. I don't mean white power.

John Larsen [01:42:17] I mean the old guard hierarchy that has been running the United States and giving deference to Anglo culture for 300 years. That's where these guys come from. So it's not crazy that they act the way they do. That's how they were selected. There's nobody in there with a degree in theology. There's, there's, there's, you know, it's, it's. They get what they're fishing for and no one should be surprised.

John Dehlin [01:42:46] And what's super rare? Well, women are never called. But what's super rare? Of course it would be a school teacher, would be a plumber, would be a carpenter, would be a social worker, a therapist, a psychologist, you know, any sort of mental health professional, you know, any of those, any of those sorts of things.

John Larsen [01:43:08] Right. The last school teacher that I know of was Boyd K. Packer. And I would also call him the last, the old gen. So yeah, there's a. I. Because we're on the topic, I want to give kind of a public service announcement.

John Larsen [01:43:23] The Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the federal agency BCI will do background checks. And I think every state does this. And if you're checking on people for your local, whatever, your scout troop or your clergy or anybody who's going to be around kids.

John Larsen [01:43:44] I attend a local Unitarian congregation and I volunteer to watch kids. And I had to submit myself to a background check. Right. The state does this at a discounted rate for like nonprofits. So you can get a good background check for the kind of things that you talk about. But John, I think it's, I think it's interesting. You defend the church and you say, well, they have this back end, weird walk around process where they vet people in their own way that they won't tell anybody. When there is a public vetting, and I know there is in Utah where they can vet everybody, every scoutmaster, every bishopric, every Relief Society president, every person in the young men's and young women's if they wanted to. It's a resource that is available to them and they choose not to engage it.

John Dehlin [01:44:29] Yeah, that's fair. Really, really, really quickly. Let's just go ahead and give. We're really grateful for the, for the support we're getting. MJ writes. Suicides from those who don't believe in the church or those who leave it are a major issue. These videos save lives. I agree, mj. I'm told all the time that Mormon Stories podcast and even John Larsen's work has been instrumental in saving lives. So thank you. Without a Crystal Ball writes, thanks for your amazing work. Love your channel. Allison Young gave us a super chat and Emily M is sad that her first super chat was missed. We apologize for that, Emily. We try and thank everyone who who donates to support us. So thanks to everyone who is using the super chat feature to support us. John Larsen. Larry, let's continue. This is good stuff.

Hidden Governance and the Obedience Paradox

John Larsen [01:45:17] All right. The governance structure of the central organization is ambiguous, hidden or unknown. All you have to do is talk to anybody who works at the cob, anybody who works at the Turf office building. And I don't care how believing they are, they will tell you horror stories about the organizational control. They'll tell you about projects that went on for a couple years and then somebody with a red chair came in and diverted it or derailed it. Can anybody really explain what the governance of the church is? There's that big 27 story building downtown. I don't how much of a believer you are. What's going on in that building?

John Larsen [01:45:55] Who's calling the shots? If you work for a company, you can get an org chart and we know that there's the 12 up here, but there's really 15 of them. And, and there's a first presidency, but the 12 has authority, but the first presidency calls all the shots. And it's not really clear what the 12 does outside the First Presidency. And then there's the 70, but there's multiple quorums of 70s, then there's the presiding bishop over here. That's just the stuff we know about the church is full of all sorts of shadowy sort of things. You know, we find about these investment arms or the management of this. Does anybody have any idea how the church actually runs?

John Dehlin [01:46:35] Yeah.

John Larsen [01:46:35] Anybody?

John Dehlin [01:46:36] Yeah. And the, and the first best step that any healthy religion or organization would do would be to publish their budget annually, publish their finances annually. Because any self respected budget is going to have line items and you can see how much real estate, how much in administrative overhead costs, how much in investments. You would just be able to see the breakdown how much in books or communications or transportation, meals, you know, just things that every, any 501c3 nonprofit has to do. Including Mormon Stories of the Open Stories Foundation. Even just a simple 990 form that a 501C3 has to fill out gives you a good sense of where the money's going and where it's not going.

John Dehlin [01:47:22] But the Mormon Church does the flip side, which again came out in the sense sign peak SEC ruling where the church was so worried that people would learn how much money it had that it created like 12 or 13 fake shell organizations, named them ambiguously so that no one would know, no one would know to identify them with the corporate church. And then they picked fake fund managers with indistinguishable non typical Mormon names to, to have their names associated as heads of the fake shell organizations and then create the appearance that each of these 13 shell organizations were managing their own allocated funds, when in reality the church was managing all the money at central headquarters and was asking these employees to sign their name as the, the controllers and as the managers of these funds in these fake shell corporations fraudulently.

John Dehlin [01:48:33] And all of that has been admitted by, by the securities and Exchange Commission and in effect by the Mormon Church. And that's, you know, that's just the tip of the iceberg of how much we don't know. When has there ever been sort of like a PowerPoint presentation or a general conference talk that's like these are the different organizations that run the church. These are the apostles that sit on the various committees. These are the names of the managing directors. These are the major aspects of the church that are run and operated under these Organizations, and these are the basic annual budgets of these organizations. And then here's where we keep all the money and invest it. That information doesn't exist anywhere.

John Larsen [01:49:21] Yeah. And there's organizations, you know, take something like Union Pacific Railroad, the church, and I don't know if they're still a controlling stake. I assume they are. For a lot of years that was a church run company and you went on the board of directors and it was full of apostles. Because up until the 90s, that was one of the ways they paid apostles is you would get one of the red chairs and then you'd be rewarded with all these paid board seat members. But there's still companies where the church has not necessarily a majority stake, but a controlling stake. And all of that is very shadowy.

John Larsen [01:50:02] We know if there is an entity that controls 30% of the stock in a company, you know, it's really pushing the rest of the stockholders around. But who does that in the church and what interest are they representing and why are they doing this? My point is it's all in the shadows.

John Dehlin [01:50:21] Yeah, yeah. And members deserve to know where their money's going, just plain and simple. And how it's being administered.

John Larsen [01:50:29] Right, yeah. And we've inadvertently skipped where the one we just gave was the governing structure of the central organization. The next one I had on the list is all finances are kept secret. So obviously we've just, we've just been belated in some ways.

John Dehlin [01:50:41] Those two go hand in hand.

John Larsen [01:50:42] They really do.

John Dehlin [01:50:43] Yeah, yeah. Because, because you, you know, you don't just list the money, you list where the money's where and how the money's being spent. Right?

John Larsen [01:50:50] Yep. Yep. Okay. Obedience to the central organization is encouraged over all other values.

John Dehlin [01:50:57] Right.

John Larsen [01:50:57] And again, you can read the New Testament, you can read the Gospels nowhere. Jesus never talks about obedience to an earthly authority. He might talk about obedience to God or God's law, but we're talking about, in unhealthy organizations like the Mormon Church, flat out, obedience is always emphasized. Which brings us to, and this should be a podcast in and of itself, the central paradox of the church, and I've brought this up more than once, that the church is a restoration of the gospel that fell into apostasy because the previous church taught false things. That is the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church crept false teachings into the teachings which led them into apostasy.

John Larsen [01:51:57] But now we're told that if you obey the leaders, even if they're wrong, you are in a state of grace and you're not in apostasy, which is it? If all you have to do is obey whatever the Church says, then the Catholic Church is still not in a state of apostasy, because we can prove that there have been hard hundreds of millions of people, if not billions of people over the last 2000 years who have a genuine, honest, sincere belief in the teachings of the Catholic Church. So if all it takes is obedience, then the Church has never fallen into apostasy. But if obedience is predicated on the teachings actually being true, we have the problem of polygamy and all the rest of the bullshit that Brigham Young and.

John Larsen [01:52:44] And so you can't have it both ways. You can't have an apostasy and a restoration and also be able to insist that members today have to be obedient.

John Dehlin [01:52:57] Right? Yeah, yeah. And, and we're taught in, in the Mormon Church, this, this phrase, it's like six or eight words. Obedience is the first law of heaven. Is it? Isn't that. Have you heard that, John Larsen?

John Larsen [01:53:15] I've heard it. Obedience to the first law of a cult is what right.

John Dehlin [01:53:19] And what also people don't understand is that while you look at these Mormon missionaries and you see that, you know that they do their best to convert people to Mormonism all throughout the world, and you just assume that they're there to bring people unto Christ, anyone who's inside the church knows that the main function of the Mormon Church missionary program is to train and nurture the Mormon identity, the LDS Church identity within the missionary. And it's within the Mormon mission where exact obedience is emphasized very, very heavily. Story after story after story of, of how exact obedience brings blessings and disobedience brings the wrath of God or a lack of blessings or even sometimes bad things. And yeah, so obedience is, is the first law of Mormonism. And you say, John, it's the first law of occult.

John Larsen [01:54:23] Okay, but I, and I think we talked about this last episode. It's not just obedience, but it is going to be obedience to a set of rules that you're never given. And that's a key factor too, that no one has ever written down all the rules.

John Larsen [01:54:38] Even as I was a missionary, I got out there and I decided I was going to be strictly obedient. And like four months in my mission, I was absolutely exhausted. The rules, they didn't even make sense. They were impossible to obey. We only were given like, P day to do our laundry, but we also had to go to zone meetings on P Day. Like, if your apartment complex had the washer and dryer full of other people's laundry. What were you supposed to do? They didn't care.

John Larsen [01:55:12] We had a rule in our mission that you were supposed to detail the engine once a month. I'm not kidding you. With what? Like, they didn't buy us any like engine soap or brushes. We didn't even have fucking vacuums in our apartments. We were supposed to keep the apartment clean. It had carpet. But did the church actually buy missionaries vacuums? Oh, no, sir. So you were just set up to fail from the beginning. And that is one of the key elements of Mormonism and other cults like it is. You are never going to be able to do what they ask you because you need to be broken.

John Larsen [01:55:48] You, sir, are not doing it. You're not doing it hard enough. You're not doing Mormonism. Right. You're not obeying all that. Did you do your genealogy? Did you do. Did you pay a generous fast offering? Is that a generous fast offering? Did you pay a generous fast. What about tithing? Is it gross or net? Well, did you sell some stuff on ebay? Did you pay tithing? It's just this endless menagerie of nitpicky little bullshitty rules that can never be done. And, and that's the point. That's a feature, not a bug.

John Dehlin [01:56:17] Yeah. And of course the most gripping in the 21st century are. Did you have a dirty thought? Did you masturbate? You know, to even think an impure thought is akin to actually doing the bad thing. And so even if you are able to write in your journal and say your prayers and read the scriptures and do family home evening and go to all your church meetings and serve in the temple and fulfill your callings and, and, and have babies and have a successful career and manage your finances and pay your tithing, you still, you're still a loser if you have the bad thoughts. You know what I mean?

John Larsen [01:56:53] Right. Well, there's always going to be something that's. That's impossible, you know? Yeah. And that's the point. That's what a point I'm trying to make.

John Dehlin [01:57:00] Yeah.

Intimate Intrusion into Members' Personal Lives

John Larsen [01:57:01] Okay. And this kind of leads into the next one. The leadership of the organization is preoccupied with the most intimate details of members lives and including finances, sex and personal relationships. Yeah, and we've kind of hit on this one. That it's, it's. But, but they are. That you have to juxtapose it with how opaque they are with how little information we have about how the church runs. But they want to know everything, absolutely everything. And you know, because you think even the simple question of if a bishop asks which. Which a lot of do, are you paying gross or net? Well, once they ask if you're paying gross, then they know exactly what your income is. Right. And that's why. What's one of the reasons they want you to pay gross? Church doesn't need an extra $700 from you. They want to know everything about you because that makes it easier to control you.

John Dehlin [01:57:55] Yeah. Yeah. And again, this was made clear to me in Scientology with their practice of auditing, where they, they say they're here to help you with your mental health. And then they have you disclose some of your most private, intimate secrets. And this is how they get to know you well enough to then be able to shame you or manipulate. Manipulate you or make you feel not good enough or, heaven forbid, extort you and punish you if you ever dissent. And you know, there's no healthy boundaries in an unhealthy organization. And in Mormonism, it's just absolutely factual that a 12 year old girl could be asked by a grown adult man behind closed doors, one on one, whether she touches herself.

John Dehlin [01:58:42] Fact. Happens every week in Mormonism across the world. Happens every week. And it's absolutely factual that a Mormon bishop can ask you if. If you. What underwear you wear. Absolutely factual. And if you don't wear the right underwear and answer that question correctly, you can be prevented from attending your own child's wedding. That's absolutely factual. I'm not making it up.

John Dehlin [01:59:14] The Mormon Church can ask you the most. The Mormon Church can ask you if you engage in oral sex with your partner. And there are bishops and stake presidents who will punish you and condemn you if they find out you're engaging in oral sex with your partner. Am I making this up, John Larsen?

John Larsen [01:59:35] No, you are not. I have met more than one woman. We usually talk about underwear and we're always thinking about the garment. I have met more than one woman who, when they were a young woman, we're talking, you know, under the age of 16. The bishop ask him what type of panties they wear. There is no check and balance on this. And there are a lot of weird dudes in those seat getting their rocks off talking to, Talking to people about things that they really have no interest in talking to.

John Dehlin [02:00:05] Yeah. And my teenage children, some of my teenage children were literally asked by a 35, 40 year old man whether they masturbated. I'm Talking about a 16, 17, 18 year old young woman. The bishop pulling them into their office alone and saying, do you masturbate not making this up. It happens all the time.

John Larsen [02:00:25] I'll, I'll tell you from my own past. When I was 11, this, I wasn't even 12 yet. They had a special meeting with, with the boys in the ward and they brought in this guy I'd never seen before and they gave this talk, but it was all completely in euphemism. As an 11 year old, I did not know what they were talking about. I mean, if they had said like jerking off or something, I would have known I knew what that was. But they didn't. And I remember the speaker was talking about the production speed of factories. I am not making this up. And if you're taking a lot of things off the conveyor belt, the factory is going to gear up its production and produce more widgets.

John Dehlin [02:01:15] And he was talking about sperm and nocturnal emissions.

John Larsen [02:01:18] I would assume that now, but that's not. And I just remember having this sense of dread and panic for the whole meeting and carrying that with me for weeks, months or years later because I didn't know what the fuck he was talking about.

John Larsen [02:01:35] And so I could very well be violating any of those things at that time. And I knew that when I looked at girls or whatever, I had funny feelings that were kind of tickly, but I was told that that was a sign of wickedness. Right, but the fact that they never actually defined what they were talking about was part of the control because then you're always assuming you're doing something wrong, especially if you say, you know, you know, you know what? If you, if you think any kind of sexual thought.

John Larsen [02:02:08] The only people who can go without thinking sexual thoughts are basically asexual people. So, so it's just this weird broken thing. It all, all this is gross. I have to wash after we do these things, John.

John Dehlin [02:02:22] Yeah, and we have to, we have to also mention teenagers who make out in the Mormon Church and, or engage in any sexual behavior. Bishops all across Mormonism feel like they're allowed to say, whoa, oh wait, you aroused your passions. Did he touch you over the clothes? This is a young woman, a young man.

John Dehlin [02:02:45] Did he touch you over the clothes? Did he touch you under the clothes? Did you get an erection? Did you not get an erection? Did you orgasm? Did she orgasm? Did he orgasm? Was there oral sex involved? What type? How far did it go? Were clothes off? It is absolutely happening every week in Mormonism where bishops feel comfortable and feel empowered to ask teenagers and young adults, and even grown, grown ass adults explicit questions about their sexual behavior. And then another example would Be, you know, let's just say a widow, a divorced mom, or a man who lost his wife, who then starts dating as an adult.

John Dehlin [02:03:31] Divorced or single, gets involved in some sort of sexual behavior. They get thrown before a bishop or a stake president. They get threatened with the disciplinary council, and oftentimes the disciplinary council is held where in the disciplinary council you're sitting in front of three or five or 15 or 18 men, whether you're a woman or a man, and they get to ask you these questions about did you orgasm when he touched you? And, and did it feel good? Right. They will even ask, did you enjoy it? And I'm, again, I'm not making any of this up.

John Larsen [02:04:07] Oh, it's, it's, it's gross and it's, it's disgusting. I, it's like, listen, all you out there, I feel like we need a little bit palate cleaner. Masturbation is good and happy. And if there's a God, that's the one proof that God loves us. Right? Go flick your bean. Go polish your pole. Enjoy it. It's God's gift to you. All right. Okay, we're down to the final four.

John Dehlin [02:04:36] Polish your pole. Polish your pole. Oh, John Larsen said it here.

John Larsen [02:04:42] All right. The final four leadership tends to speak of the victimhood of the organization, even endeavors where the organization has a majority or controlling influence. This is one of the myriad reasons I left Utah. But the fact you have a full on super majority of people in control of every aspect of the government walking around at the same time thinking that they're somehow the victims of this tiny minority that is a hallmark of these organizations. The Mormon Church holds disproportionate number of seats given its population in the United States. It holds disproportionate power both on a federal and local level. It controls and influences virtually everything. You won't find sports played on Sundays. You know, they just, they just get their hands in everything and win all the time, meanwhile telling them the selves they're the victims of everybody else.

John Dehlin [02:05:41] Yeah. And you'll get this with the, with the free religious freedom kind of argument that the church is now, now that the church is being held to account for its discrimination, specifically around its ability to discriminate against LGBTQ individuals. The church hides behind this, this mantra of religious freedom. And what they're really asking for is, is the right to continue discriminating on, on the grounds of things like sexual orientation or gender identity. But they do it in this sort of pathetic posture of being discriminated against as as the poor victims who have $250 billion. A recent, you know, Republican party nominee for president and multiple senators and members of the House of Representatives and governors and mayors and bureaucrats all throughout, not just the government, but corporate America, etc.

John Larsen [02:06:41] This has been, this has been. I need to do a podcast about it. This has been a rhetorical element of Oaks since he left the Supreme Court where he constantly frames out that if you criticize, you don't even have to do anything. If you just criticize the church for discriminating against other people, you are somehow encroaching on his religious freedom. That for them, religious freedom for the Mormon Church is the ability to discriminate and do whatever they want with no objection from anybody, because they frame that as being victims. It's just the most pathetic thing I think about these type of organizations and any organization, be it political, whatever, that is constantly screaming about victimhood.

John Larsen [02:07:31] It's just. Stop. You're not. Listen, we're all victimized to some degree in this world because human beings are assholes. But you're not special. You. You don't get a special dispensation. You know, when, when, when they screwed up Prop 8, which by the way, read your recent history. The reason gay marriage is legal in the United States is because of the fucking Mormon Church. But when, when, when they screwed that up and got caught doing things that they, they lied and said they weren't doing, they played the hugest victim card ever. Oh, well, you guys even pointing out that we're operating illegally, they. That's because you don't like us for religion.

John Larsen [02:08:11] Boo fucking who. Stop playing the victim. All right, all right, final three. The organizational history is overly sentimentalized and unflattering information is edited out of official documents. This is so common with the Mormon Church, it's even like, yeah, duh, but we're talking about unhealthy organizations when they have a preoccupation with their history. And, and they're constantly sanitizing it and rewriting it and rewriting again and reshuffling it. And they have to have new manuals and new this and new that. That's, that's just a sign you're not in. In something that's, that's, that's worthwhile or healthy.

Sanitized History and Obsession with Appearances

John Dehlin [02:08:48] Yeah, healthy organizations are honest with their past and honest with their history.

John Larsen [02:08:52] They are. And, and you could, you could model it. I remember when I, my, My ex. Wife and I, you know, we got tired of, of the church stuff and we moved to North Carolina for A while. And that's where the podcast started, by the way. But you'd go to the museums and they would full on embrace the history of slavery. It was very unseemly and a black mark on North Carolina's history, but it was openly spoken of. It was openly addressed. They had artifacts of it. They didn't try to cover it up. And to me, that was such a refreshing thing to actually deal with, with. With their own history and not just pretend it didn't happen, just make these things go away.

John Dehlin [02:09:35] Yeah. Yep. That's refreshing.

John Larsen [02:09:37] Okay.

John Dehlin [02:09:38] Honestly, the church is trying to do that a little bit more these days, but it's shrouded in propaganda and apologetics and it's been done at the gunpoint of Google in the Internet.

John Larsen [02:09:50] Yeah, yeah, I would agree with that. They are doing more, but not. Not voluntarily. Right. You know, and.

John Dehlin [02:09:56] And not with full disclosure.

John Larsen [02:09:58] Not. And still not with full disclosure. And still with a lot of spin on it, you know, and they're still blacking out names of people who've been dead for 170 years. Why? Who are we trying to protect now? Well, we're trying to protect them that we're trying to. Church.

John Dehlin [02:10:11] Yeah.

John Larsen [02:10:12] Okay. The final two. The organization insists that it has primacy or is more important than every other organization in the world. And you say, well, duh, but not duh. Like we live in a pluralistic society of many different people who have many different views about certain things. And to walk around and insist that Nielsen or whoever is the president today is receiving revelation for everybody, all 8 billion of us, no matter what their upbringing, what their cultural values are, what their costumes, what their language, what, anything. It's just this weird, bizarre belief that God chooses to isolate a small group of white people in the Intermountain west and then do all of his dealings right there in a way that is not going to break through.

John Larsen [02:11:09] Let's face it, if the 8 billion people on this planet, I would say easily 707 billion, 500 million, have never heard of the Mormon Church, the vast majority have no idea that this even is there. And the idea that they can walk around thinking that the creator and great God of the universe is telling them whether or not they should visit Sister Monson, it's just crazy. It's just lunacy.

John Dehlin [02:11:40] John Larsen, I'm going to jokingly call you out. You just mispronounce the prophet of the Mormon Church's name. And what I want to ask you is how does it feel to get so far away from day to day Mormonism, that you actually don't know the name of the church's prophet.

John Larsen [02:11:53] It feels fan fucking tastic, that's what it feels. I can. There was a time, John, in the height of Mormon expression, where I could rattle off the names of everybody who'd ever been in the quorum of the 12. I probably don't know. I. I don't know a majority of them.

John Dehlin [02:12:09] Yeah, I think you called him Nielsen.

John Larsen [02:12:12] Yeah. What's his name? Russell M. Nielsen. You gotta get that M in there. That's. That's the most important thing. Yeah, see, listen, dear listener, there is hope. Even somebody who's wonkily studied the church as much as me doesn't give a shit. So someday you. You're just not going to care.

John Dehlin [02:12:36] Don't you love it when people say, john, I'm so sorry, I don't listen to your podcast anymore, as if we're, like, mad when they move on.

John Larsen [02:12:42] No, I love it.

John Dehlin [02:12:43] It's.

John Larsen [02:12:44] You should. You should. We're like methadone. It's fantastic. But you only take it for a little while to get off the heroin.

John Dehlin [02:12:54] That's good.

John Larsen [02:12:56] All right, and the last one. The group has an almost obsessive focus on the outward appearance of organizational buildings and properties. Grass is meticulously cut. No litter is ever found. Grounds are always perfect. A great deal of time and effort is spent on this resource. And, you know, my partner Kimmy and I, we were driving by the Stake center local here in town, and you just see just how meticulous the yard is, and it's like, well, who even does that? You know? Like, do any of the. Do any of the members know who is keeping that thing up? You know, and you look and say, wow, that's got hundreds of thousands of dollars of landscaping.

John Larsen [02:13:42] And, you know, all these temples that are lit up just like crazy. Like, Washington, D.C. is an example. San Diego is an example. San Diego, the fucking temples in La Jolla, some of the most expensive property in the whole United States. And it's there with these great big, huge floodlights that are on all the time and just this obsession of appearance. And the only other organization I can think of that is as obsessed with their appearance in the same way the church is, is again, North Korea.

John Larsen [02:14:14] You know, when you see the official palaces, I've read that they have people with scissors who go and cut the grass. When they have diplomats and people come in and, you know, you go to a temple square, and it's just a ridiculous obsession with material things. I think there's A whole section in Isaiah about this being this sign of the apostasy church. But no, no, it's always, it's the top. It's teak and mahogany and rare Corinthian marble and every other finery that they can get their hands on.

John Dehlin [02:14:47] Yeah. And what that speaks to is just the primacy of appearance that, you know, you don't show the, the wizard. It's wizard of Oz. Right? You, you go to Oz, it's majestic. You go in to visit the great Oz and there's this huge projection of the super powerful mystical leader. What they don't want you to see is what's behind the curtain.

John Larsen [02:15:09] Right.

John Dehlin [02:15:10] And so there's a, there's a heavy emphasis on appearance. There's also a heavy emphasis on never showing any flaws because if there are flaws, that means it couldn't be led by God. If you're going to claim that God is at the head of what you're doing, you can't show imperfection. And of course that leads to toxic perfectionism and to fraud and to deception and to the hiding of abuse and all sorts of terrible things.

John Dehlin [02:15:42] You know, but, but it looks good. And that's, that's the, you know, that's the rub. And, and organizations will spend a whole lot of money to make things look good. But, but what really counts is what's going on behind the scenes. And I think maybe what's most poignant here is Christ's admonition, something about whited sepulchers. How, you know, how, how there are organizations or people who look white and pure on the outside. But I think what Christ was most concerned about is the, the corruption and the corrosion within.

John Dehlin [02:16:20] And you need whistleblowers and accountability and transparency to, to be able to see that, that corruption and, and an organization that's unhealthy is going to do everything it can to never let you see behind the curtain.

John Larsen [02:16:34] Right, right. Which is why, you know, I brought up, you know, when it comes to water conservation in the west, the church is still struggling frantically with this because they have invested so much of their own sense of self and sense of worth both as an organization and individual, as members in, like, these, these heavily fertilized, heavily manicured, very select cultivars of grass, you know, like, like, and, and, and in ways that use way too much water and are not healthy for the local environment. They're not healthy for bees or other things. And they're, they're putting fertilizers on that are in, that are coming into short supply.

John Larsen [02:17:18] But they just can't stop. They just can't stop. And, and, but it's because they're so obsessed, like you're saying about this outward appearance and this belief, and I remember being part of it, this belief when a temple opens up that people are just going to say what a gorgeous building.

John Larsen [02:17:37] People are going to want to join our church. And if that were true, we'd all be Catholic or we'd all be Hindu. Actually it makes purdier buildings than the Middle Ages, I think. Anyway, it's just an outward sign of nothing. It doesn't mean anything. If you got a well manicured lawn, you know this from your own neighborhood. The people with the most beautiful yard are probably the people with the most resources, not the kindest or the most friendly or the people you really want to say. I want to find out what that guy believes about the nature of the universe.

John Dehlin [02:18:14] I mean, the wealthiest, wealthiest, wealthiest among us who can afford the most pristine buildings and grounds are probably the ones who have been engaged in some sort of exploitation, right? Because how do you get fabulously wealthy? How do you become an organization that's worth a quarter of a trillion dollars? It's not just from doing good and it's not just from like helping the people that are a part of your organization. It's through some sort of imperialism, colonialization and, or exploitation and it often comes through deception and through an unhealthy wielding of power and influence that allows you to exploit the resources of, of your members.

John Dehlin [02:19:04] Right. And that's really what this whole list of yours, John Larsen, comes down to. It's undue influence, it's having too much power and the, the ability to amass power to manipulate and exploit the people within your organization and then to use the money that you extract from the members who you're exploiting to enrich yourself in very corporate, commercial ways. And I don't have anything against, you know, I think capitalism can be corrupt. I think any sort of economic system can have problems. I'm not against all forms of capitalism per se, but I am against coercion, unhealthy influence and exploitation through, especially through coercion or deception.

John Larsen [02:19:57] Yeah, I agree. There's been many wonderful things that have happened in this world due to capitalism. There have been many wonderful things due to every ism, like things can be abused. And I think that kind of belabors your point, is that these all point to signs of the way they treat the members as opposed to being an intrinsic evil in and of themselves. The fact that they're obsessed with grass doesn't mean grass is evil. The fact that they're obsessed with money doesn't mean that money is illegal. But. But as Jesus taught us, render under Caesar what is Caesar and you have your reward if that's what you go after.

John Larsen [02:20:39] So it's the dark heart that resides underneath these covers, and it shows why we have to be careful and look at the whole bag. Cause you can wander in a church and have lots of good, lovely, friendly people trying to build a community, trying to the best they can, trying to be generous parts of the community. Mormons are generally good people, or they're at least as good as everybody else.

John Larsen [02:21:07] And that means that there's a certain amount of them. About 1 in 20 seems to be the number that are rotten. But like I explained in the previous podcast, the people who are rotten systematically get raised up to the top.

John Larsen [02:21:24] And then you have an organization that knows how to get money and keep money and lawyer money up, but it doesn't really know how to give it away. It's lost sight completely of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. And I'm not a Christian, but I'm a fan and I sure would love to see more people who profess such a love for this man who they think is God to follow what he said.

John Dehlin [02:21:49] He yeah, it reminds me of that famous Gandhi quote. You know, I've got no problem with Christianity. It's the Christians that I struggle with, and I have a lot of really good Christian friends. So this isn't a condemnation of Christians.

John Larsen [02:22:04] Yeah, agreed.

Closing Reflections on the Church's Greatest Irony

John Dehlin [02:22:05] But I do think one of the greatest ironies, and this is maybe how I would close my thoughts today. John Larsen One of the greatest ironies of the modern Mormon Church is that it's become the fulfillment of Jesus Christ. And ironically, the Book of Mormon's prophecies of what a corrupt church in apostasy ends up looking like. What does it look like? Check out Lehi's dream. It's a great and spacious building with people who are prideful, wearing costly apparel, who are pointing their fingers and mocking everybody else who are in the midst of darkness.

John Dehlin [02:22:47] Christ himself said that it's more difficult for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to enter the eye of a needle. Basically, what he's saying is it's hard to be good and to be super wealthy and powerful, and that's what the church has become. And then Christ condemns the people who, who have massive wealth, but who hoard it. And if there's any organization I'm aware of that is most guilty of hoarding their wealth. It's the Mormon Church because it has larger cash and stock and bond and real estate reserves than like the top five Ivy League endowments put together.

John Dehlin [02:23:31] And yet there's no evidence that it's using any, any significant percentage of its massive wealth to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to give shelter to the, to the poor and the homeless. It's literally investing in Coca Cola, in Starbucks, in Tesla, in GameStop. Pick your corporate stock and the Mormon Church is buying it, along with 2 to 4% of the publicly available real estate in every state in the union. It's this massive wealth, corporate empire of power and money while it's, it's, it's become a mockery of what, what Jesus claimed a Christian organization should sort of be and represent.

John Larsen [02:24:22] Hey, it's Levore. Hey, Lavor, how the hell are you?

John Dehlin [02:24:26] Who's Lavor?

John Larsen [02:24:27] He's a longtime fan of, of, of, of Mormon expression. He used to send me, he used to send me donations with a tithing slip. Good to see you.

John Dehlin [02:24:39] Hey, Levor, thanks for the super chat and thanks to everyone who has been donating to, to the podcast. John, any, any final thoughts?

John Larsen [02:24:48] I, I, I agree with, I agree with what you're saying. And the only thing I'd add is if you take all the teachings about the church on apostasy or every criticism they have of other religions, they have become exactly what they hate.

John Larsen [02:25:05] And you're exactly right. I mean, no judgment on capitalism, but if you take a sum of money and you give it to GameStop, the whole system is that we're gonna give you this money that you can use and, and then you're gonna pay us back that plus more in whatever way you're gonna do it. Like you cannot serve God and Mammon, that you cannot serve God and money.

John Larsen [02:25:32] Can Jesus get any more clear than that? And as you're pointing out, we're not making a statement on the markets, but if the church uses the markets, that's who their God is, that's who they're serving. And every, everything they've ever said about the Catholic Church, about, about non Christians, they have become every single criticism they've ever made. It's, it's really lunacy.

John Dehlin [02:25:57] Yeah.

John Larsen [02:25:58] All right, all right.

John Dehlin [02:25:59] Well, we, we did have one question somebody asked that they thought within the widow's mite report that the church didn't invest in places like Coca Cola and Starbucks and Pepsi. And I don't remember the total details. What I do Remember is that according to the widow's might report, when the church felt like it was successfully able to hide its investments, it was investing in what are known as sin stocks. It was investing in things like gambling in caffeinated beverages, which is a Mormon sin. In, in. In things like hotel chains that, that sponsor adult entertainment.

John Dehlin [02:26:50] You know, go to the widow's might report if you want to see details on the sin stocks that the Mormon Church has a history of supporting. I don't have them all top of mind, but you would be surprised at the things the more not to mention war stocks, stocks that, that violate, you know, Jesus's admonition for peace. You'll find all sorts of interesting things that the Mormon Church has invested in over the years.

John Larsen [02:27:15] Even if they don't. I'm going to one up you, John. I'm sorry, I don't mean to be a 1 upper. I have known one of these sellers. What I'm about to tell you, I know from firsthand account the church gets given a grundle of stock every single day. They have people in the church. I don't know if they're in church office building or they're in India or whatever they are. But what they do is they just sell, sell, sell, sell. As far as I know, the church does not prohibit you giving them any stock from any company.

John Larsen [02:27:51] But here's where it's pernicious. Okay, I'm going to explain to you how rich people launder their money and their taxes a little bit. So you buy a stock at $10, right? And this stock has inflated value. Even though you spent $10, you did nothing to inflate the stock.

John Larsen [02:28:12] So you go ahead and give that stock that you spent $10 on $10 of your money to the church. The church just got a donation for $40 which they will convert to cash. And they will do that rather than have you converted to cash so you don't have to pay taxes. So now you didn't pay taxes on the $30 and you don't have to pay tithing on that. You're taking stock and you're giving it to the church so they can flip it and you're actually paying less tithing because you're using the markets to take a dip and give them something that's of higher value to them even though you actually didn't pay it.

John Larsen [02:28:53] So if tithing is all about the sacrifice and not the actual getting wealth by the end of the church, the church would disallow this activity completely. They would say no you need to pay an honest tax on that money. Convert it to tithing, convert it to your income, and then pay on your gross income, pay on your increase. But no, they allow members to work that loophole. So even if the church doesn't hold any of the stock, they're using it as a game to allow wealthy people to. To actually pay less in tithing.

John Dehlin [02:29:27] Okay, that's good. That's good, John. Thank you. I'm going to just add. I pulled up the widow's might report and I'll share. I'll share the link. It's their discussion of what's called sin stocks. And what they show is that before a lot of their shenanigans got leaked, they were investing. This is prior, I guess, to 2019, they were investing in things that either you would consider a sin stock or that they would consider a sin stock. So like Netflix.

John Dehlin [02:30:01] Now they, they consider Netflix to be something that they won't invest in because I guess it has dirty movies that show naked bodies. But, but prior to 2019, they invested in things like Netflix, Urban Outfitters, Take Two Interactive. I don't know what that is. Vici Properties, I think that's gambling.

John Dehlin [02:30:20] Abercrombie and Finch, which I think is sexy advertising. But there you have it. Dr. Pepper, Philip Morris and Laura Lynn Tobacco. So these were investments of, of the Mormon church prior to 2019, where the church got caught with its hand in the cookie jar before. Before they knew that people were. Were watching. So, anyway, not to neutralize the good point you were making, but.

John Larsen [02:30:49] No, no, it's. It's good. It's good information. Yeah. By their fruits, you shall know them. I think we've done a good list. I'll send it to Maven, have her put it up on the, on the YouTubes and wherever else we do things. So if you want to read it yourself and, and yeah, thanks. Thanks, John. And thanks to everyone who's.

Farewell, Final Thanks, and Preview of Next Episode

John Dehlin [02:31:08] Well, John Larsen. Another amazing episode, and a testament to it is that two and a half hours in, we're still at 800 live viewers on the live stream. So I want to thank you, John, for always bringing such informative and passionate commentary and analysis. And I want to thank all the viewers and listeners who either are joining us here on the live stream, but also all those who join us at home. Thanks for all the super chats. Your donations make this possible, make John Larsen's appearance possible. A shout out to Kara Burrell, Nuance Ho. Who couldn't join us. Please like and share this episode today.

John Dehlin [02:31:45] Please subscribe to us on YouTube or on Facebook. We're also on TikTok. We're on Instagram. We're wherever we kind of are on Twitter. Please subscribe to us wherever you can. Please become a monthly donor. You can donate directly to the Mormon Expression series by going to MormonStories.org Mormon expression. That's how you keep John Larsen on for weeks, months, and years to come.

John Dehlin [02:32:12] Please just go there and become a monthly donor. Also, please support Kara Burrell at Nuanceho on Patreon and on YouTube and she's got a donor box link as well. We love Kara and we wish the best for her and John Larsen. Any final words before we go?

John Larsen [02:32:28] No.

John Dehlin [02:32:29] Oh, and thank you to Maven. Thank you to Maven for moderating the chats and for all the post production work that Maven does behind the scenes, as well as Gerardo and Brooklyn and Julia, who chops up our shorts. Gerardo does our thumbnails and is a strategic advisor to me. Brooklyn does our video editing, and of course, our board of directors, Clint and Carrie. We couldn't do it without all that support.

John Larsen [02:32:54] It's a lot of work and. And they're doing this stuff that's thankless and they do a great job, and I really appreciate it. No, just remember, hey, if it pisses you off, if you're feeling angry, you're my people. You're okay. They're. They're the ones. They did you dirty and you. And you're good.

John Dehlin [02:33:13] All right, John Larsen, do you want to give us a preview for what's next? Or do you even know yet? Or is it a secret?

John Larsen [02:33:17] I'm not sure. So I got to figure out. We got some good ones coming up. I got the list I need to. I need to see, and I. I think I'm. I think I'm a little bit behind. I owe you an extra bonus episode, too. So. So it'll be some. It'll be something that's enraging me at the time, I'm sure.

John Dehlin [02:33:32] Well, that's been my. My problem for you, getting behind, so I'll. I'll do my best to fix that.

John Larsen [02:33:37] No, it's. It's all good. And. And, you know, you guys, this labor of love you have regular lives and all the other stuff going on. You know, I think sometimes there's undue pressure on people in this space, like they're somehow supposed to be saints, which they are. They're good people, and they're supposed to be eschewing money and somehow paying the bills and all that kind of stuff. But we all have regular lives. So, John, I appreciate how much of your own life and your own person that you sacrifice for the benefit of so many. Thank you, brother.

John Dehlin [02:34:08] All right. Thanks, John. Thanks to everyone. Thanks to everyone who's been with us today. Thanks for joining us. Please come back next month or sooner for another John Larsen episode. Check out Mormon Expression Library on Spotify or on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to 300, I think, ish episodes of Mormon Expression, some of the best stuff you'll ever find in Mormon podcasting. Check that out. And thanks for supporting us today on Mormon Stories. Please be good to each other, be kind to each other, and we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories Podcast. Take care, everybody.

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.