Welcome and Introducing Today's Guests

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. Call in live Q and A edition. This is John Dehlin. It is June 14, 2025. We're live streaming for those who are on YouTube. And we are continuing our experimentation with a format that we've tried a few times now, which is a live call in show where we prepare some initial thoughts and an initial discussion with an expert panel or at least a panel of cool, thoughtful, smart people. And then we invite you all to be a part of the conversation. And that way we can have a dialogue, we can hear from you. And that's kind of what today is going to be about. For those of you who want to join the live stream, what we will do is we'll put a link to the stream pinned to the top of YouTube comments. And then what we're just going to ask is that when, if and when we bring you on that you keep your comments very short. This is not the place to tell your mini Mormon story. We're going to ask you very targeted questions and we'll ask you to give very brief responses. And then if, if any of the panelists want to engage you a little more, we will, but we'll kind of proceed in that way. Thanks again for joining us today. The topic that we're going to be covering is what caused you to leave Mormonism or the Mormon Church. And we're going to be giving kind of an overview for those who are never Mormon or who are orthodox believing Mormons. And you haven't really learned about or spent enough time thinking about why so many people leave Mormonism these days. We're going to give an intro to that and then here for some live callers. And to join us in this discussion, we have Kolby Reddish. Hey Kolby, welcome back.

Kolby Reddish [00:01:56] Hey John, thanks for having me back again. Excited to see you.

John Dehlin [00:01:59] Tell us a little bit about yourself really quick.

Guest [00:02:02] Sure.

Kolby Reddish [00:02:02] I am a practicing attorney in Boise, Idaho that left the church several years ago. My wife and I kind of entered this space when we appeared on your podcast almost three and a half years ago, the first time. And since then I've done some, some work for you or some work with you on different episodes, including the first couple episodes of this call in show and as well as some work with Radio Free Mormon breaking down some really bad apologetics over the last couple months and excited to talk about this idea of why people leave the emotions they experience as they go through it and really just talk about, you know, how meaningful people's lives can be. On the other side of Mormonism. So looking forward to our discussion today.

John Dehlin [00:02:46] All right, well, thanks again for. And Kolby kind of organized today's episode. So Kolby, thanks for that. And then Britt Hartley. We have Britt Hartley back. She won't be a stranger to those of you who follow what we're doing or who are connected to the Mormon Internet. Britt, welcome back and please introduce yourself to our audience.

Britt Hartley [00:03:08] Yeah, I'm Britt Hartley. I'm an atheist spiritual director. In fact, just a few days ago, I was with Kolby's wife, Cammie on a women's panel over on the Mormon discussion side of things. But always glad to hop on for a fun conversation with friends.

John Dehlin [00:03:23] All right, excellent. Well, it's so great to have you. So. All right, well, we've posted the link, so those who want to join us and to be a part of of our conversation, you can now click on the link and join us. And Kolby will turn it over to you and you can lead our panel for the next little bit. Great.

What Causes a Faith Shelf to Break

Kolby Reddish [00:03:45] Well, when we originally started talking about a third episode of the Collin show, we talked about different things that we could talk about that really help people understand this space. One of the things that's really interesting about your platform, John, and Mormon Stories is you do have so many never Mormon listeners that are interested in Mormonism more as a topic and maybe were never part of the faith. And so I thought this would be a good way to help introduce people to why Mormon Stories has been so meaningful, meaningful to so many in the post Mormon community. And that really starts with this, this concept of a shelf breaking or a shelf breaking moment or shelf breakers. You'll hear those a lot if you're around ex Mormons. And that idea comes from actually one of the wives of one of the Mormon prophets, Spencer W. Kimball, who was the 12th president of the church, his wife, Camilla Eyring Kimball, who is related to Henry B. Eyring, who's currently in the First Presidency. I think she was his aunt. She actually, in a 1975 Ensign article written by Lavina Fielding Henderson, who's also a famous, famous Mormon historian, wrote about, she wrote about Camilla Kimball's life in this piece called A Lady of Constant Learning. And that's really where this first, the first place I've ever seen at least offered this idea of a shelf where you put doubts. Britt, would you mind reading Camilla Kimball's words there as she describes her shelf

Britt Hartley [00:05:13] at the bottom there, the middle two paragraphs? I've always had an inquiring mind. I'm not Satisfied just to accept things. I like to follow through and study things out. I learned early to put aside those gospel questions that I couldn't answ. I had a shelf of things I didn't understand. But as I've gotten grown older and studied and prayed and thought about each problem one by one, I've been better able to understand them. She twinkles. I still have some questions on that shelf, but I've come to understand so many other things in my life that I'm willing to bide my time for the rest of the answers.

Guest 2 [00:05:45] Yeah.

Kolby Reddish [00:05:45] And so I thought, since we're going to talk so much about shelf breakers today or how people feel as they're going through those moments, I thought it was important to really talk about where this idea comes from of a shelf breaking moment. Britt is someone who spent so much time working with not just post Mormons, but other people who are maybe exiting religion or looking to change their relationship to religion. What do you think of Camilla Kimball's discussion of this shelf? Have you seen people discuss that in sessions with you?

Britt Hartley [00:06:13] Yeah. Just like so many aspects of deconstruction in general, sometimes we talk about Mormon deconstruction as if we're the only people that deconstruct their religion. Right. And so even though we may have this phrase that we use a lot, shelf breaker, that has kind of come into the culture, it's very common in religion, religion in general, to have things on a shelf. And what you have in religion are things called thought ending cliches, which are things that turn off the cognitive dissonance of things not perfectly making sense. And the more your brain is accepting of those thought ending cliches like it'll happen in the next life, or God's ways are not our ways. We hear that one a lot in Christianity. Then you're able to kind of keep enough internal coherence to, you know, participate in your religion. And what happens is over time, usually something will happen where those thought ending cliches are no longer able to kind of hold that shelf up. So that could be your kid being gay, that could be reading scripture, that could be watching Christian nationalism in the. In, you know, in the US but something, there seems to be some catalyst usually that happens where the thought ending cliches that are keeping the cognitive dissonance at bay will then just not be enough. And then you'll have this kind of psychological collapse called a shelf breaking moment where it's just not good enough that God's ways are higher than our ways, like that's not good enough for whatever catalyst you're experiencing.

Kolby Reddish [00:07:45] Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. And I think that goes hand in hand with at least my personal experience, for sure. So would it be fair to say the way that Camilla Kimball shared about the shelf is basically one of those thought terminating cliches that it was essentially just don't think about it.

Britt Hartley [00:08:00] Yeah. And, and it, it, there's like a personality type difference there that some people can handle. Like the I, I'll worry about it in the next life. Some people psychologically can handle that better than others and some like that's just not enough. Like they're going to keep studying and learning and then usually they'll hit some kind of catalyst that will break that shelf.

Kolby Reddish [00:08:21] Yeah. Yeah. And I think, John, if you'll go to the next slide, I kind of did a cute little claymation illustration that kind of shows exactly what Britt was talking about here. Here are common ones, at least on the doctrinal side or more on the doctrinal side, I guess that we see, you know, kind of replete throughout the post Mormon space. So we've got our creaking shelf here. Who's breaking under the weight of issues relating to the Book of Abraham, the first vision account, contradictions, polygamy and gender equality, which is some history, some contemporary issues. Obviously Ensign Peak, which is the church's investment army, which came to light in late 2019, is obviously a more modern, modern issue. And then the priesthood and temple ban relating to black members of the church until 1978, which John, you've done a recent exploration with Matt Harris on really all of those, all of those things relating to the priesthood and temple ban. John, as you've been in this space a lot longer than either Brett or I, do those feel like the most relevant or the most prevalent shelf breaking doctrinal issues that you've dealt with over the course of your history with Mormon stories.

John Dehlin [00:09:32] Did you just call me old Kolby?

Kolby Reddish [00:09:35] Experienced.

Britt Hartley [00:09:36] Experienced,

John Dehlin [00:09:39] yeah. No, no. This is exactly for those who don't know anything about me or why I started like I. This all happened to me around the year 2000, 2001, where I'd been raised Mormon. Loved it. I loved everything about it. Didn't really have a lot of problems with it. And then in my, you know, mid to late 20s, started learning about historical things that I'd never been taught before. And, you know, it's, it started, you know, finding out things about Joseph Smith, you know, that the story that he told about seeing God and Jesus was, was different depending on when he told it and who he told it to. Learning that the Book of Mormon, you know, had a lot of problems in terms of its scientific foundations, DNA, you know, historicity, anthropology, archaeological evidence that questioned the underpinnings of the Book of Mormon along with the Book of Abraham. Those were all things that started it for me. But then I got kind of awakened to social justice issues like conversion therapy for LGBT people and the suicide epidemic amongst LGBT people in the early to mid to late 2000s. I started being awoken to feminist issues and the way women were second class citizens. So I started out with historical issues and truth claims issues. I moved into social justice issues. I always was concerned about the ban on, you know, black African Americans or, you know, people of African descent within the church, the temple ban, the priesthood ban. That bothered me from the time I was a kid. So I started grouping things into kind of historical issues, truth claims issues. Then I got into some social justice issues. And then I learned that there was also this bucket of kind of administrative or policy issues, cover up of abuse, leaders being abusive and wielding power and authority in abusive ways, policy questions around church leadership and the way they talked and sometimes the way that they punished people who had doubts and questions, those sorts of things. And that seems to be the main buckets or categories that people tend to have. Historical issues with Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, mainly truth claims issues with foundational church scripture and with doctrine and theology issues around science bumping up against those, and then social justice issues mainly around women, people of color, and LGBTQ people and intellectuals, and then kind of modern church policy issues. And that's why I started Mormon Stories. And those are the main groupings that I've found. I would love to hear you guys either disagree or share other perspectives around that framework.

Britt Hartley [00:12:54] Yeah, I'll go there. Something that I notice in the data when we're looking at what causes a shelf to break and whatnot is how much you need the religion to be true at the time. So, like, when I was 18, I very much needed Mormonism to be true in order to just function in the world. And so I worked a lot harder at what we call mental gymnastics to keep that shelf up. And so what you'll see that's really interesting is there'll be someone whose shelf is operating just fine on the wall, and then their kid is gay. And then all of a sudden these issues are more problematic. And it's like, well, why? Because the doctrine is the same. Everything that you knew about the church was the same. What changed and what happens with shelf breaks is something else becomes more important than the church being true. And that could be like your child's health and wellness. That could be truth itself. That could be like goodness or morality. And so if you only need, if you need the church to be true, and that's your highest priority, you're more than likely to end up doing the mental gymnastics needed in order to make it true. And you won't know until you take a step back how much mental gymnastics you're doing to keep that shelf up.

Kolby Reddish [00:14:08] Yeah, that's such a great comment, Britt, because I think that was very much my experience. So as I shared already, and I'll talk about it a little bit more in depth here in just a moment, but my personal shelf breaking moment kind of started as a catalyst that we discussed with John on Mormon stories in 2022. And what I really recognized is exactly what you said, that I was able in my mind to come up with these really elaborate apologetics that essentially excused many of the issues inside of Mormonism, whether they were doctrinal issues, some of the social issues that John talked about, or these historical issues that I started to learn a little bit more about when I was in seminary and then when I served a full time mission. But they, they really didn't have top of mind priority as I was going through law school, raising a family, starting my career. And so I think I just connect so much with what you were saying that we basically have this hierarchy of competing priorities and it really depends on where you're at in that particular, particular point in your life, how much you need the church to be true versus how willing you are to really, really look critically at it like you would any other organization.

Types of Mormons and Poll Data on Leaving

Britt Hartley [00:15:19] That's a great point that goes with a comment that I think is worth bringing up from the comment section from Ellen saying, asking us, do people ever ask us that as intelligent people, however not. Or are we. Or intelligent we are. How could we have believed that stuff? Like, because I've written articles for Fair Mormon, like I, like all three of us at some point in our Mormon journey had gold medals in mental gymnastics. And so looking back, like, how could we have done that? And it all comes back to what you just said, Kolby, that when the motivation is there, when you're too afraid of what it would mean to your identity and your belonging and your purpose and everything about your life that's built on Mormonism, then your brain is incentivized to find these ways to make it work for as long as it can. Even Very intelligent people, even very skeptical people, even very educated people. If you need that church to be true, your brain will find a way.

Kolby Reddish [00:16:18] In fact, I would say that more intelligent people are able to come up with more elaborate apologetics and do more impressive mental gymnastics.

John Dehlin [00:16:28] Yeah, agreed. Jonathan Haidt talks about that in the righteous mind that so many people. Yeah, there's no correlation between faithfulness and intelligence or education level necessarily. And in fact, sometimes highly, highly intelligent people are the most adept at rationalizing and using motivated reasoning to maintain their beliefs. One thing that I'll say that I learned early, that is also a good framework to keep in mind in addition to what Britt just shared is there, there oftentimes are two types of believers. One is, is people who are, are what we call validity Mormons. In other words, they're Mormons because they believe it's true or the truth claims hold up or they believe it's logical or it makes sense. We, you know, I learned from Dr. Dave Christian early in the Mormon stories time frame that, that some are validity Mormons. And in my experience, y' all can tell me if you feel differently on average, men on average tend to a little bit be more commonly validity believing Mormons than what I'll call utility Mormons. Although it, you know, both, both types of groups are, are amply supplied with both women and men and you know, every other types of groups. The other type of group that I just mentioned is utility Mormons. And a lot of these utility Mormons, they really don't care if the church is true or not. I mean they probably, if you ask them, they'd say of course I believe the church is true, but that's not really what their belief is about. That's not what it's anchored to. It just, it's more that the church works for them, it makes them happy, it gives them an organizing structure, it gives them meaning and purpose and it's a way to raise your kids and it helps them feel more secure in their marriage. So you know, they haven't really studied Joseph Smith or Brigham Young. They really don't care about DNA or Egyptology in the Book of Abraham. But what they will say is it helps me be a better person, it helps my marriage, it helps me raise my kids, it brings me joy and meaning. So sometimes that utility versus validity versus validity distinction has been really helpful to people in the past.

Kolby Reddish [00:18:57] Yeah, and I was, I was hoping that you would talk about that distinction, John, because I've heard you talk about that for years and it's actually Something that I thought connected a lot with Britt's experience and what she's trying to do with no nonsense spirituality because it's seeking. I don't want to, I don't want to put things on you, Britt, but it seems like you're seeking to teach people how to take the benefits that they can get on the utility side without necessarily having to continue through to the validity side. Is that fair?

Britt Hartley [00:19:24] Yeah, that's fair. I think it's going to be more stable ground for people to not wrapped, you know, what the good life is, quote unquote, this philosophical idea of the good life onto historical truth claims. That seems to be very unsteady ground to build a life on. As Mormon Stories podcast is a great example of how that's unsteady ground to build a life on. But John. Yeah, you bring up for me a really good distinction. And John Vervake, who's the leading expert on the meaning crisis, talks about this, how there's different ways of knowing. And so there is that kind of like historical validity kind of knowing, but there's also experiential knowing. And we do know from the data, especially more like 10 years ago, that the people who were leaving that the men were a little bit higher in historic. In historicity issues and the women were a little bit higher in. I just don't feel like I belong. I don't feel like this is good for me. I don't think this is anything for me. I just don't feel like I fit in here. And so that seemed to play out in the data that historicity knowing versus experiential ways of knowing. And it's interesting how that will play out in a shelf break. I don't know about this, but do you think that if you were putting it on the historical truth claims, that shelf breaks a little bit more sharply than. Because I, I don't know, this may just be my own personal experience, but like with my husband, he was

Guest 3 [00:20:50] didn't

Britt Hartley [00:20:50] care about historicity, couldn't care less about Joseph Smith. He was just there because it felt like it was his community and his neighbors. It helped remind him to be a good person, that kind of thing. And so like finding out things about the church was just not devastating to him where it was much more devastating to me. Would you say that that is fair or is that just me?

Kolby Reddish [00:21:09] When you say finding out things about the church, you mean finding out historical things.

Britt Hartley [00:21:12] Yeah, historical things. Yeah. Because then that just seems to be a sharper shelf break if you've built it on that. Whereas for my husband, the church not being true didn't affect him because he wasn't really even there for that. He was just there because it helped, like John said, helped him be a good person kind of thing.

Kolby Reddish [00:21:30] Yeah, I can speak for my experience, which is I was absolutely a validity Mormon. Like I only wanted to be part of the religion if it were actually true. And that was in part because I grew up just not really feeling like I fit completely, completely inside Mormonism's bubble. For example, I remember once when I was a teenager, I was on seminary council here in the Boise area and I invited other kids on seminary council with me to like a local coffee shop for our meetup and like discussion, just because that was where all the other teenagers hung out. Like, you can go to a coffee shop and not order coffee. But I remember being confronted in the parking lot of this coffee shop by two or three of the other kids who were on seminary council with me. And one of the, one of the girls was like literally in tears that she wouldn't go inside because she didn't want to give the appearance even of evil. And I think I just look at that now and it just seems so silly. And stuff like that did hit me as silly, even though I believed in the truth claims of the church. So for me, I was absolutely like a 100% validity Mormon. And I don't know if I would say it necessarily came like more drastically, Britt, or whoever you asked about it, but I will say that when the validity piece fell for me, Cami and I continued to try and attend for about a month and it felt like torture to try and go and hear things that I just knew were not true or I knew there was a lot more to the story. Example, the Book of Abraham is one of my. Was one of my bigger shelf breaking items like as I researched it. And of course the first Sunday lesson in Sunday school when we went back for that month was on the Book of Abraham and there was like no mention of the controversy. I'm not necessarily expecting Sunday school to like get into that level of historical detail because it is kind of like a devotional space. But there wasn't even a recognition that the Gospel topics essay existed. And so when you've done like a really, you know, several dozen hours deep dive on an issue like that and then you hear kind of like the same rote presentation of this devotional version of the story that's just whitewashed and carefully correlated, it just felt so gross to me. So I guess that's the way I would describe it more. Does that kind of go hand in hand with what you're seeing in your work?

Britt Hartley [00:23:58] Yeah, I just see that people who were there because it was good for them seem to have a little bit better of a transition because then they just find other air, find other places that are then good for them if Mormonism wasn't that place. And so I just feel like I, I've at least, at least in my work, I, I see that transition maybe be a little bit easier because if you're one of the truth claims person persons and you have then no anchor and no sense of truth at all because all of your truth just bottomed out, that's when you start hitting. You know what I talk about a lot, which is like the void, existential depression. Because you've built your life on truth and you don't know what's true. And that tends to be really damaging psychologically. Whereas like if you were there because when it was working and now it's not working, so you go where somewhere else where it is working better, that that tends to be a little bit more psychologically stable, at least in my experience.

Kolby Reddish [00:24:54] Yeah, that's really interesting. And I think it goes hand in hand with the poll data that we collected in advance of this episode. And I was kind of impressed. So we posted polls on several different platforms, both John and I did. And altogether on Reddit, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, we had around 6,000 responses to this poll. The poll was the same thing every time. And so it's not necessarily talking about the reason that people leave because we can absolutely have that discussion as we talk to some of our live callers, but we were also talking about the emotions that people feel as they leave. And your comments, Britt, about this difference that people process this, I think really hooks into this very well. So total, we had about 6,000 responses. And we were asking people which of these feelings they felt more than others. The first bucket was betrayal or anger. And that of the 6,000 ended up at about 43%. Grief and sadness ended up at about 21%. Freedom was 23% and confusion ended around 13%. Of course, with any poll, it's not perfect. There are people who experience a whole range of emotions. And we'll talk about some of those comments on the polls and posts themselves. I think the biggest one was people saying one of the comments that really connected with me at least was one individual talking about actually a number of different individuals talking about how they felt all of these feelings at various times. Minute to minute, day to day, hour to hour, it could change between each of these different feelings. And so Britt, does this kind of connect with what you're talking about, the differences you see in how people process from a shelf breaking event?

Britt Hartley [00:26:30] Definitely. And the only thing that comes up for me that I think is just worth adding there is that the people who feel freedom are the people who tend to do the best, at least in kind of the aftermath of a shelf breaker. Because these are people who felt like they had like a nest period with Mormonism of like right and wrong and a community and identity and belonging and then they felt outgrew it. So now that nest was kind of like holding them back. And then if they find out that the church isn't true and they feel freedom, that tends to be the kind of personality that's just ready to fly outside of the church. And so they tend to do very, very well. The ones who feel anger and betrayal and confusion and sadness, it tends to take a little bit longer to grieve or process what happened, what happened to you and how to rebuild. But those, the freedom people tend to do the best in that, in that aftermath period because they seem to be more ready to fly outside of that nest because they felt it was limiting them quite a bit.

Kolby Reddish [00:27:35] That's interesting. Other comments, and we don't have to pull them up, John, but other comments I thought were interesting were many people offering other emotions that they felt as their prime emotion, including negative emotions. And I know Britt, that's something that you've talked about a lot of on your work in the nihilism space or helping people avoid nihilism. Many people said terrified, you forgot terror, you forgot fear, you forgot, you forgot the feelings of. Well, we did talk about betrayal, but there were other people who, who connected with that more feeling like betrayal, maybe at their, their parents, feeling like they were betrayed by their parents or by the family system and people in their community. So a lot of those comments I think were interesting to me. John, how about for you, as you've worked with people in this space over the last, I won't call you old again or experienced, but as you've worked with people in this space for as long as you have, you've probably seen a wide range of emotions as people respond to an event like shelf breaking.

Hosts Share Their Own Faith Crisis Stories

John Dehlin [00:28:34] Yeah, I can say in my case, I was both a validity and a utility Mormon. When Margi and I lost our faith in 2001, we basically stayed active in the church for another 13 years. And so even though Validity was deeply important to me and I felt angry and shocked and felt betrayed when I discovered that so much had been withheld from me or hadn't been taught to me overtly and directly and that the church had a history of punishing people who talked about these difficult things. I still felt like there's no way to have a healthy marriage without the church. There's no way to raise healthy kids with the church. And frankly, in my situation, I really loved going to church and I really valued the community and thought it was going to help me raise really healthy, good kids. And so the utility aspects of it caused us to stay for another 13 years after we stopped believing. But yeah, I think when we talk about emotions, one framework that has been really helpful to me, and we talk about this in our podcast, the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis. Margi and I, along with Natasha Helfer, a marriage and family therapist, we did like a 70 part series for free on the Internet where we basically provided free coaching and Support as a YouTube channel and a podcast for those in Faith Crisis. I highly recommend it. And one of the episodes talks about the stages of grief. That one way to think about this is if you think about the basic stages of grief, shock, denial, anger, depression, and then of course, bargaining and acceptance. And I'm probably missing some other important steps. You're going to feel all of those things and you might feel them, many of them, at the same time, and you may feel them in different orders and you know, some, maybe you may skip some steps, it's possible, but you're going to feel all of those things and many, many more and just get ready for a roller coaster ride. The one thing I'll say is, you know, anger of course showed up as the top, you know, emotion that people initially feel. At least most mental health people that I talk to call anger a secondary motion. And that anger is usually this primary motion that we feel. And then once we dig under the surface, we find that what's under the anger is sadness or, or fear. And you know, once we process that anger, we let it out, we deal with, we try to deal with it in constructive ways. Sometimes we aren't angry in healthy, constructive ways. And often we pay the price for unconstructive, unbridled anger. But once we get our anger out, process it, we find the fear or the sadness underneath. And then if we give it time, we start accepting that our belief system has fallen apart. This is where secular Buddhism comes into play, is really handy. We accept that it wasn't what we thought. We accept that our belief framework has shattered and fallen to the ground. And then once we kind of hit that point of nihilism that Britt Hartley often likes to talk to us about and wondering what the meaning or purpose is for anything, and do I have any morality now, and do I have any friends in any community, and do I even know about spirituality? Once we've hit that point of acceptance, that's when we can start the reconstruction process and rebuilding. But you really have to just lean in to an emotionally volatile ride sometimes for many years before, after we process those emotions, we can get in a healthy place to start rebuilding. Now, I know we just, we're tackling a lot here today, but that'd be my first attempt at responding. Kolby and I think you're muted. Kolby I am.

Kolby Reddish [00:33:07] Oh, man. Nobody tell rfm because I get to tease him about that constantly when we shoot together. No, I really appreciate that and I appreciate that framing John. And I think if it's all right, I'd like to kind of share as I've reflected on this the last couple weeks, as we've been getting for this episode, you know, I've kind of looked at my own personal shelf breaking moment. So people who've heard my first episode with you will know, and I'll just give kind of a brief overview of what happened and then talk about why that event actually isn't my shelf breaking moment or what would need to change for me to potentially believe in Mormonism again. So in episode 1550, my wife and I on Mormon stories, I mean, my wife and I appeared and we talked about in detail a situation that we dealt with where our former bishop, a man that we had served with, trusted and seen praise from the pulpit, had been arrested and later convicted for sexually abusing children, starting a decade before his calling as bishop and continuing during his time as bishop. And yet his release, when he was released, was quiet and unexplained. There was no disclosure to the ward or to the stake because this individual had been involved in state callings dealing with children as well. There was no notice given to anyone. For months, this man remained a presence in the ward, appearing at youth activities and featured in ward Facebook posts, while no warning was given to the families whose children were exposed to him while he was in this position of trust within the church. And one problem for me dealing with that was that I was a former criminal prosecutor at the time. And so I knew enough about the criminal justice system to understand kind of where it was at and what the charges meant. And the thing that's kind of surprising to me as I've reflected on this over the last three years, is as disturbing as the crime itself was, it was actually how the church handled it that taught me things about the church that I could never unsee. The leaders deflected, minimized and protected the system. At one point in our discussions, our stake president literally looked me in the eyes and bore testimony to me that God had called the abuser to be the bishop, saying, well, the Lord works in mysterious ways. As if a child molesters placement in a leadership position with closed doors, with potentially my children was part of some divine plan. I think it's important to say that I wasn't a fringe member that was looking for an excuse to leave. I really, really believed it was true. I was a returned missionary, temple married. I had taught the last four years of gospel doctrine for my ward. I had worked at the MTC and for BYU's religion department. And while I had doubts about aspects of church culture, I trusted the doctrine and I trusted the leadership and I trusted the structure. And when it mattered most to me, when children needed protection, when parents needed transparency, when the truth demanded moral courage, moral courage that I felt like I learned inside of Mormonism, the system closed its ranks and turned its back on those principles. So what shattered my faith wasn't just the abuse. It was watching good people defend the indefensible, staying silent to protect the Church's image. We even had a ward sacrament meeting on forgiveness. That was really just the final insult. There had been no real acknowledgment, no accountability, just pressure to move on. And it was then that I realized that I'd given my lives, my life, to something that functioned in a way I really didn't understand. And here's the crazy thing. Never Mormons are going to hear that and think, who wouldn't walk away at that point. But the reality that I've had to confront about myself is I that really wasn't what did Mormonism in for me? What did Mormonism in for me was the fact that when this individual was called as the bishop, he was so young, he was 31, that I didn't believe he was ready to be a bishop. And so I prayed specifically about his calling as bishop, exactly like I was taught and exactly like I prayed about the Book of Mormon, about Joseph Smith's role as a prophet and everything that I had received as a confirmation of truth through the Holy Ghost. That's really a function inside of Mormonism, is that the role of the Holy Ghost is to teach people truth. And so the reality I've realized as I thought about it and reflected with the benefit of hindsight is that my shelf breaker is that the witness of the spirit, this idea that I can know something through a feeling that I get in my heart, was an idea that I couldn't believe in anymore because I didn't believe that God would call that individual as a bishop, given his history and given what he'd done and given what he admitted to when he served his sentence. So that for me was the Humpty Dumpty that I could not put back together, and I still can't put back together is believing that the spirit could confirm something to me and recognizing that when it had, when I had had that experience, it had been completely wrong. Britt, as I've. Britt, as I've shared that, would you mind, since John's kind of talked about what his shelf breaking moment was and how it felt for him, would you mind sharing yours as well and then we'll get to some.

Britt Hartley [00:38:04] Yeah, you want to go to my slide real quick? I think I have a slide on this. But so my. It's very common that the shelf can break in different pieces. So for me, it was not all at once. It kind of fell in three pieces. So it was around 2009, 2010 that I did a deep dive into Joseph Smith's polygamy. And it wasn't kind of like you were saying, it wasn't Joseph Smith's polygamy directly that caused the shelf to break. It was the catalyst. And the catalyst was that here we have God talking to Joseph Smith all the time and he seems to just not care about the women in Joseph's life. And so it wasn't just that Joseph Smith was doing these things because you can do a fair amount of mental gymnastics to just like make him a man or whatever. And I had been doing a fair bit of that. But it became this catalyst moment where when I look at how much God is talking to Joseph Smith and the prophets throughout Mormonism, I came to this place where I realized the Mormon God doesn't care about women. The Mormon God could have said many things about polygamy, about how Joseph was practicing polygamy. Even Patrick Mason will say, hey, some of this really looks like sin. And God is telling Joseph all kinds of things, minute little things all day long. He's having revelations all day long, but seemingly does not did not care about women. And then when I look at, you know, the next prophet and the next Prophet and the next prophet. It seems to be that this Mormon God just really does not care about the sacrifice and feelings of women in polygamy especially, but also just in general. And that was enough for me to say, I just don't believe in this Mormon God anymore because he just doesn't care about women. And I see this through Joseph Smith's polygamy. So that was my shelf breaker then. And then I just figure I just have the wrong God, right? I just, I, I was born in Mormonism. I just have the wrong kind of Christianity. So I go to Christian theology school.

Kolby Reddish [00:40:07] Many people, based on my experiences leaving the church. Brett, many Christians agree with you because I was told that so many times

Britt Hartley [00:40:15] and, and I kind of like accepted that, like, oh, I'm just in some weird fringe part of Christianity. So I'm going to go to Christian theology school. I'm taking these questions very seriously. I'm not just like wanting to sin or whatever. So I still believed in God and Christianity after Mormonism. Then I go to Christian theology school. I get my master's degree. I almost get my, my doctorate. I'm at all but dissertation still to this day. And, and I lost my faith in Christianity in theology school, which is actually very common. It's a very common thing to happen because once you really dig into the Bible, especially as a morm understands how religions come to be, you see that like, there is, there is no, there's nothing here to hold on to. Like, eyewitness testimony is the lowest form of evidence. Eyewitness testimony from people not even there, decades later, writing something down that was a story and a legend and by then, you know, had some time to develop as a story is the lowest form of evidence that we have. And so I looked for something to hold on to with Christianity. But the, the more that you look, the more that you find man. And when you're Mormon, you're also more likely to be skeptical of what's going on, because we know how a story will turn into a myth, will turn into a manual. Like, as a Mormon, I know how the Brigham Young story of him looking like Joseph Smith, I know how that myth happened by people. The person wasn't even there telling that story. It becomes this legend in Mormonism and then it gets put into manuals. I know how that process happens. And so when you see that happening 2,000 years ago, there's just not enough there to hold on to. So then I lose my faith in Christianity and then in the end, I end up losing my faith in God when I realized that all of this is human, all of this is human, and we create God and we change God and we make new gods based on whatever our needs are. And so I had this thought that I think we're the ones creating God rather than God creating us. So for me, it was a shelf break in three sections. And I think I worked so hard, hard, I'm going to bring up Jacob Hansen here, too. I think I worked so hard to try to find a way to make Christianity or God or any kind of God work. Because I think subconsciously I knew that I would struggle without God. And I did. And so I think there was a reason that my brain was working so hard to make something true. And this came out recently when you look at Jacob Hansen talking to Alex o', Connor, where they're talking about Mormonism and Alex o' Connor is an atheist. And eventually, after a while, when he's not really able to, when Jacob Hansen's not able to ask or answer Alex's questions, he said, well, if you believe this, that there's no inherent meaning in the universe, like, how can you live? How could you? How could you possibly live? Like, why wouldn't you just kill yourself? And so what he revealed in this moment, Jacob Hansen, very famous LDS apologist, shock jock, whatever you want to call him, is that he's doing the level of mental gymnastics he's doing because he's really, really afraid of the other side of that. And that was what I was doing, too. I was working really hard to find a way to make God real because I was really scared of the other side of that because it was really difficult for me. But there are tools and resources that can help that I wasn't aware of then.

Kolby Reddish [00:43:39] Yeah, I think that's fantastic, Britt. Thank you so much for sharing that. John, did you have anything about your shelf breaking moment you wanted to share before we move to color?

John Dehlin [00:43:47] Yeah, I'll just say, just to go into a tiny bit more depth and I'll keep this super brief. Mine was definitely a shelf metaphor when the priesthood and temple ban on black people was lifted when I was, oh, I don't know, nine years old. I did wonder why. Why was it ever there to begin with? But then I put that on my shelf when my parents, who had been temple married or eternally married within Mormonism for 25, 26 years, got temple divorced when I was in sixth or seventh grade and eventually their ceiling was canceled. That made me wonder, well, now they're both getting remarried. Who am I With Am I with my mom and my stepdad? They're still in the church. Am I going to be with my dad or my stepmom? They're still in the church. What does it mean to be with your family in heaven if your family splits up? You know, so that was a shelf item because it became meaningless once you started thinking about, am I with grandma? Am I with great grandma, Am I with great, great, great grandma? Are they with all their kids? And there, you know, that whole thing started unravel about what does it really mean to be with your family in heaven? But then I put that on the shelf. I started to talk to many of my evangelical Christian friends, Baptist friends, Pentecostal friends. They all thought their churches were true. And I thought about this epistemological problem. You know what? How can I know that just because I felt good things that Mormonism's true when I know that my other Christian friends in other denominations in high school also got strong feelings and felt like their churches were true? That became a shelf item in high school that I put on the shelf. Then I. And then I literally did the math where I took the total number of Mormons in the world and divided it by all the people in the world, and I came up with like less than 1/2 of 1%. And I started thinking about in high school, man, God's really inefficient. If he wanted the maximum number of his children to get the one true church and the one true baptism and the one true marriage, if he can only get less than 1/2 of 1% of his kids on his preferred plan, wow, is he really all powerful? Is he really all knowing? Is he really ethical? So then I put that on my shelf. So I had a lot of shelf items going into my mission. And then I had a corrupt mission president in my mission in Guatemala that I won't get into. Why? But just trust me, it was a very corrupt mission experience, which left me just realizing that priesthood leaders, Mormon priesthood leaders could be abusive. And then I put that on my shelf. And then many, many years later, when I was working for Microsoft, I was married with kids. I learned that the Book of Abraham text that Joseph Smith produced did not match based on Egyptologists, did not match the papyrus that it was allegedly translated from. Not only did I learn when I was about 31 that the book of Abraham wasn't a translation, but that the church had known that for decades and it lied to me and withheld that. And that's when I learned about polygamy and Polyandry, which was Joseph Smith marrying women who were already married. That had all been withheld from me. Then I learned about Book of Mormon historicity and the first Vision. And then I started learning about again, LGBT suicides and mixed orientation marriage. And just all the way that the church started excommunicating apostates and punishing their truth tellers. And that's when my faith completely unraveled, around 2001. So that's just a tiny bit more detail, but it definitely was a shelf building and building and building and then collapsing.

Kolby Reddish [00:47:49] Yeah. And I think a lot of people in the comments that I had polled, a lot of people expressed that same thing, that it was basically like death by a thousand cuts.

Sloan [00:47:57] Cuts.

Kolby Reddish [00:47:57] And there is some truth as I look back again with the benefit of hindsight, there is some truth to that for me as well. Like, I remember, Britt, you talking about the way the Mormon God treated women inside polygamy. The first time I ever read DNC132, like, without someone holding my hand and telling me which part to read was on my mission. And I remember reading it and immediately just like closing the book and being like, that is not the God I believe that in. Like, I don't know what has happened. I don't know if Joseph Smith just got this one wrong. I don't know if his, you know, if his sexual urges took over. I don't know exactly how to explain this, but that's the thing that's also kind of, as I look back, unique about my experience is towards the end of my time in the church, if someone would have really pressed me on do you believe this event literally historically happened? I probably would have kept that answer very constrained, almost like to Jesus and nothing else. It felt like eventually, over time, it had just gotten chipped away as I dealt more with reality. Same thing with issues regarding race. I was taught explicitly about the Curse of Cain doctrine in seminary in like the early 2000s, 2003, 2004, and immediately said, I do not believe that at all. I do not believe that that is the truth. So it was kind of odd to be in that position as someone who remained active for, you know, 10, 15 years after that fact. But you talking about, you know, looking at your friends that came out of other faith systems, John, is exactly kind of that. That thing I look at today that really is the biggest problem that would ever keep me from believing again is if I'm willing to trust my feelings to believe in Mormonism, because I was raised in Mormonism. If I'm really honest with myself. I would be willing to believe any other system that I was raised in on the basis of those same feelings.

John Dehlin [00:49:50] Excellent.

Kolby Reddish [00:49:52] I think, to go hand in hand, John, with your comments about Book of Abraham and some of the more, you know, the more controversial issues in church history. If we want to bring on our first caller, Sloan, in the comments, she had shared that the Gospel topics essays were a big part of her.

Live Callers Begin: Church History and Gospel Topics Essays

John Dehlin [00:50:07] Yeah, and let me just. Let me just give people a bit of instruction before we jump in. So. So we've got several viewers or several callers who have joined us. We want to make sure anyone who joins us, there's a place where we can chat within Streamyard, chat with each other. Those of us who have been added to this conversation, we need each of you, when you join to share a brief blurb about what you want to say. That's kind of a way we filter and screen the comments. Make sure to have your video turned on when you enter the chat. And, yeah, you're only going to be added if you have your video turned on and you've already told us ahead of time what you want to say. We are going to be able to get to everyone, so please just know you may join us and we won't be able to get to you. And then the last thing I'm going to say is, please err on the brief side. Try and keep your prepared comments to, like, a minute, a minute and a half, and then we'll make the decision as panelists whether we want to ask you more questions or go a little bit more in depth. But part of our goal is going to be to bring on as many people as possible. So this is not the place to tell an extended or even a moderate Mormon story today. The question is, what were the main things that caused you to leave? All right, so without any further ado, we'll bring on our first guest. It is Sloan. Hello, Sloan.

Guest 2 [00:51:36] Hello.

Guest 5 [00:51:36] How's it going?

John Dehlin [00:51:38] Why, thanks for joining us.

Guest 5 [00:51:41] Thank you for having me. Happy Flag Day. It's my birthday, so happy birthday.

Guest [00:51:47] Thank you.

Kolby Reddish [00:51:47] Happy birthday.

John Dehlin [00:51:49] Oh, go ahead, Kobe.

Kolby Reddish [00:51:50] Oh, sorry, I was just going to say Sloan. So in the comments, you talked about the Gospel topics essays and specifically Fanny Augur, who I think is my fifth or sixth great grandmother on my mother's side. How did those impact your faith journey or how did those serve as shelf breakers for you, and how did that make you feel?

Guest 5 [00:52:08] Yeah, so I always had a question when I was, like, in seminary the year that we did, like, church History. Why did Oliver Cowdery leave? Why did Sidney Rigdon leave? They were like the next person next to Joseph Smith. And so I was always told it was because they had. They left over personal reasons, but they never denied their testimony. And so when I found the Gospel Topics Essays 1, I felt they were disingenuous because they said things like with Helen Markimbell a few months shy of 15, Joseph Smith, when he lied publicly, they said he used carefully worded denials. So that disingenuousness of the Gospel topics essays made me think, oh, not only are all these things that I was taught were anti Mormon lies growing up, up true, but they're still lying to me even with what they're admitting to. And so that kind of gave me permission to actually look into non church approved things. And that's when I found out about Fanny Alger and how what Sidney Rigdon had written about, you know, the dirty, filthy, nasty scrape and then also Stephen or Jonathan Streeter's thing about the, the happiness letter. And so with those two things I was like, oh, Joseph Smith was like Keith Ranieri, like Warren Jeff. I had watched all those documentaries and that broke my shelf. I was like, Joseph Smith was not a prophet. Like that's not who I was raised with. That wasn't the Disney prince that I was shown in Sunday school and that I taught on my mission.

Guest 6 [00:53:46] Right.

John Dehlin [00:53:47] And for those who don't know, the Fanny Alga thing is basically Joseph Smith had a teenage girl in his home who was doing, I don't know, domestic support, domestic duties. And he was caught allegedly having sex with her in a barn by Emma. It's. The church lists her as likely his first polygamous wife. But that was even before the polygamy revelation had been given. So to everyone around him it just looked like a plain old affair, but an affair with the teenage girl who was living with him. So that's the fadiography for those who don't know. And then what was the other topic that you mentioned?

Guest 5 [00:54:26] Happiness letter.

John Dehlin [00:54:27] Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, if you had to describe what the happiness letter was. For those who have no idea what you're talking about. Yeah, go ahead and explain it really quick.

Guest 5 [00:54:36] Yeah, so the happiness letter is essentially a letter that was quoted by apostles from the pulpit. I remember hearing those in General Conference. I also remember hearing it from my religion professor at byu without giving any context, but essentially the context is it was a letter that Joseph Smith was writing to Nancy Rigdon, Sydney Rigdon's daughter, to try and convince her to be one of his polygamous wives. And it's basically like, oh, things that are sin in one case are not a sin in another. Sometimes God says thou shalt not kill, other times he says utterly destroy. Jonathan Streeter had a great video that I think he did at Sunstone or whatever. That was one of the first like anti Mormon things that I was, I allowed myself to watch. And yeah, it, it was crazy that yeah, if, if one of my friends was trying to convince my 17 year old daughter to be with him to be a polygamist wife, I probably would leave too. And that was kind of my, again, one of my shelf breaking moments. I couldn't see Joseph Smith as the prophet, as a person, as. And you know, people will say, oh, but you know, profits aren't perfect. They're not, they're not infallible. And I'm like, I'm not looking for perfection, I'm looking for decency. And to me, he just didn't even seem decent. Again, like a Keith Grenieria, Warren Jeffs is kind of how I saw him. And that's when it broke.

John Dehlin [00:55:56] You're not looking for perfection, you're looking for a non sexual predator.

Guest 5 [00:56:00] Basically, essentially, right. If he had lied, if he had, like, I have no problem with them being human. It's them being just not somebody I would ever associate with. Not somebody I would, you know, raise my right arm to the square to sustain, to be a bishop or a stake president, so.

John Dehlin [00:56:18] All right, any questions for Sloan before we move on?

Britt Hartley [00:56:21] I have, I have one question. I have to set this up a little bit, but about, I don't know, a few weeks ago Terrell Givens and Patrick Mason got together. And what they're talking about recently in Faith Matters is that maybe 10 years ago with the big Internet wave, people were leaving because the church isn't true. And they feel like there's been this shift where now people are leaving because the church isn't good. And so my, my question for you, Sloan, is if, if, if those church essays had been honest and said like this was wrong, or we don't approve of this, or we don't condone this, if they would have been more honest and, and even said some things like that, maybe they would have been troubling to hear but, but were more standing up for some morality in these, in these church history essays, would that have been enough for you to stay or would that have been so devastating for you?

Guest 5 [00:57:19] That is a great question. And I am not sure. The only reason I say that is because they had lied to me the whole 38 years that I was in. And so, so that was a big thing.

John Dehlin [00:57:32] But, but what gave me permission to

Guest 5 [00:57:34] look outside of the church sources was the fact that they were being disingenuous in the gospel topics essays, which, I mean they have changed since I found them in, in about February, March of 2022. But it's still like all those things I was raised, those were anti Mormon lies I was given in seminary. You know, they talked about Joseph Smith's polygamy and they said they gave that one where he's like, I'm accused of having seven wives, but I see only one.

Britt Hartley [00:58:02] Find any? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Guest 5 [00:58:04] And so I was told if he did, he had the revelation, but he was reluctant.

John Dehlin [00:58:08] But if he did, it was to

Guest 5 [00:58:09] take care of elderly women. And then the same thing with Brigham Young. It was elderly women and, and widows that couldn't take care of themselves as they were crossing the United States. It was never about, you know, again, a sex cult like, like a Keith Nixium or anything like that. That, and so that betrayal really hurt.

Britt Hartley [00:58:27] So the essays were like a cherry on top of a bigger experience of what you feel like, is the church lying to you?

Kolby Reddish [00:58:35] Yes.

Jenny [00:58:36] Okay.

Guest 5 [00:58:37] And gave me permission to look outside of church approved sources.

Kolby Reddish [00:58:41] I had one follow up question that kind of is along the same line as Brits, but it's a little bit different and it's. And I wondered this about myself too. So that's why I'm asking you. So Sloan, is if the church wouldn't have come clean even in like a half hearted way in the gospel topics essays, if they wouldn't have acknowledged some of the controversial issues, do you think you would have accepted the same information from outside sources?

Guest 5 [00:59:08] So that's, that's actually a great question and I already know the answer. So I got divorced in 2008 and my brothers had left the church when I was like a teenager before I left on my mission and they had given me under the banner of heaven and things like that. And I dismissed it outright saying this is, you know, this is just anti Mormon material. Once the church admitted to it, that's when I was like, I can't dismiss this anymore. I have to come face to face with these things, these problems. And so that was kind of, that was why I had to face those things, if that makes sense.

Kolby Reddish [00:59:44] Yeah, absolutely. That's basically what I've concluded about myself as well is the church at least acknowledging the issues gave me greater permission to study from outside sources. When before I had heard about, for example, the Rock in the Hat translation, I had learned about that from South Park. Right. Like many people for the first time. But I didn't take it seriously because of the source. It was only the church openly acknowledging it in the Gospel topics essays that I felt gave me permission to explore those things from more scholarly sources that weren't very favorable to the church.

Guest 5 [01:00:14] Exactly.

Guest 7 [01:00:15] Yep.

Kolby Reddish [01:00:16] All right, well, thank you.

John Dehlin [01:00:18] Thanks for coming on.

Sloan [01:00:19] Thank you.

Guest 5 [01:00:20] Appreciate you all and all you do.

John Dehlin [01:00:22] All right. Good to have you. Hope you come back.

Callers on the Problem of Evil and Personal Faith Journeys

Guest 5 [01:00:24] Yes, sir.

Britt Hartley [01:00:25] Can I ask you, John and Kolby, what your answer would be to that. That question I had, if the church came out tomorrow and said, like, we're not maybe really true in the ways that we thought we were, but we're going to use all these buildings and all this money to try and be good now, would you go back?

Kolby Reddish [01:00:44] I'll answer first.

Guest 2 [01:00:45] I.

Kolby Reddish [01:00:46] So it's not that I don't want to answer, but to me that's a little bit like asking what if a fish were a bicycle? Like the leaders of this church, I truly don't think would ever have the capability to do that. I really don't think the church as an institution has the ability to do that. If they did, if they were saying, we're going to divorce ourselves from truth claims and now we just want to be good, I think then it come back to that old phrase. Right. Like the proof is in the pudding. Like, I'd have to actually see it. And I just don't have any belief that the people who've been raised in this structure for so long, and especially that make it up to those higher levels would have the capability to do that. I truly, truly don't. I don't even think they have the option available to them. They've been in a closed loop for so long.

John Dehlin [01:01:33] My answer is, in theory, I'd be willing to go back, but in practice, the bar would. Would have to be quite high. You know, the church would have to apologize for its past racism explicitly. It would have to allow, you know, same sex marriage in the temple. It would have to give the priesthood to women. It would. It would have to come clean about its history and about the problems with its truth claims. It would have to acknowledge, you know, that it had cover up child sexual abuse for decades. Boy Scouts and just other children and spouses and maybe.

Britt Hartley [01:02:16] Yeah. And maybe say sorry for excommunicating you too.

Guest 8 [01:02:20] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:02:20] And for all the, all the.

Britt Hartley [01:02:22] Maybe like a. My bad.

Guest 9 [01:02:23] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:02:24] And doubters that excommunicated for questioning or for criticizing it and just really clean up its actual apologize, do better, make restitution. Basically, all the things the church taught me. I mean, I say it's a high standard, but the truth is the church taught me the steps to repentance, to feel remorse, confess the sin, to make restitution, those sorts of things. And so that's where I learned to have this standard for myself and for others. If the church would live to live by that standard and that sort of thing, then I could see myself rejoining. Because there's so much that I miss about the church and there's so much that I value about the church. It's just I know that if the church did all that, it would cause so many people to question it and to leave it that it would possibly just no longer be able to survive. We know the Community of Christ or the Reorganized Church, Church did a lot of these things, and it's kind of a shell of the church that it once was. So that's the rub.

Jenny [01:03:37] Yeah.

Kolby Reddish [01:03:38] How about you, Brett? How would you answer?

Britt Hartley [01:03:41] Yeah, if I. I have a lot of holy envy for secular Jews in America, how they're able to be atheist and participate fully in the community. Like Kolby, I live in Boise. All of my friends and all of my family and all of my neighbors are Mormon. If there was a way that I could participate more in the community around me and my family, I would do that. If I could openly be an atheist the way that, you know, there are atheist rabbis in New York City, that's not really a problem. But from the data, we. When we look at religions that are able to get that flexible with their truth claims over time, you need at least a couple thousand years. So we're a long way away.

Guest 10 [01:04:25] Yeah.

Kolby Reddish [01:04:26] And I mean, I think one of the reasons that would never really work for Mormonism and it does for Judaism, is that it's not just a religion. Right. It's also linked to people's cultural heritage.

Guest 2 [01:04:36] It.

Kolby Reddish [01:04:36] And Mormonism is too.

Britt Hartley [01:04:38] But not some of that. No, not. Not dating back so far, but we do have a culture. And we also are, like, if we pulled out our genealogy charts right now, we're going to be related.

Guest 9 [01:04:49] Like, we.

Britt Hartley [01:04:49] We really are. So there is a little bit of that. But yeah, we. We just. We would need a lot more time

Guest 11 [01:04:54] to be able to.

Britt Hartley [01:04:55] To develop that kind of flexibility.

Kolby Reddish [01:04:58] I did think it was interesting, too, that Sloan noted, you know, looking to other high demand or high control groups was part of his deconstruction. I Remember, it was probably like five years before leaving the church. My wife and I were watching going clear the Sign and the aftermath with Leah Remney dealing with Scientology and some of its behavior. And I remember having these kind of like, out of body moments where I would say to Cammy, like, our church doesn't do that, but it also doesn't not do that. That's the way I would say it to her. And so it's interesting to see that that played into his deconstruction as well. And I think it linked in my mind another of our callers, Vicki, talked about the problem of evil. And I think that would kind of connect here if we can bring her on. Hi.

John Dehlin [01:05:43] Hi, Vicki. Welcome to Mormon Stories.

Guest 12 [01:05:46] I. I'm not. I've never been a Mormon, but I consider y' all my siblings with extra reading material. So, yeah, I left. I left church. I'm going to give you the tldr. It's. I grew up conservative Southern Baptist here in the south, small town. It was my culture. It was my family. Everybody was Baptist, Methodist or something like that. And went. My. My first shelf item, I suppose, would have been when I went to college in 1996, and I met my first openly gay people. And I decided that. That, hey, they're not anything like what my little church told me. And so I gradually, over 20 years, moved to become a progressive Christian. And in that church, I was a Sunday school teacher. I taught 3 and 4 year olds. Loved it. Best part of being part of a church. And around that time, Sandy Hook happened, right? And that was a real struggle to me. And it strained my shelf, as y' all like to say, a lot, because it dealt with a problem of evil. And how could God let something like this happen? I prayed about it. I got an witness is, I think, what y' all call it, because, like, I heard in my head a small voice saying, you're the one who's called to love. That's your job. And so that's what I did. So I was still teaching Sunday school in the spring of 2015, and I heard through the grapevine that one of my fellow Sunday school teachers had. How shall we say, this

Guest 9 [01:07:26] had been

Guest 12 [01:07:27] incredibly harming his daughters.

Guest 11 [01:07:30] Okay.

Guest 12 [01:07:31] And they didn't tell anybody in the church. This was the son of somebody who was funding a lot of the church. They were well off people, as they say. And this made me very angry. I went to them. I. I wrote letters. I talked to my pastor, I talked to people on the board, and they told me I didn't need to know. But yet I was expected to stand up in front of parents and say, your kids are safe here, when I didn't believe it anymore. And the, the shelf broke at that moment for me. As, as y' all say, I, I generally say the thread that held me through Christianity and belief in God broke around that time. What I decided was that either God was an or he didn't exist and I didn't want to worship an.

Guest 9 [01:08:27] And

Guest 12 [01:08:30] I also thought it was pointless to worship something that didn't exist. So I was just done at that point.

John Dehlin [01:08:39] Wow. A lot of themes that we definitely see in our tradition as well. I can see why you call us. What is it? Cousins? Is that what you say? Siblings?

Guest 12 [01:08:51] Yeah. So

Guest 9 [01:08:55] me.

Guest 12 [01:08:56] So

John Dehlin [01:08:59] what's that?

Britt Hartley [01:09:00] A bad breakup up?

Guest 11 [01:09:02] Yeah.

Britt Hartley [01:09:03] So her story just. We would call that anti. A move into anti theism, which is, even if this God does exist, I refuse to worship it because he's not good. And so that would be not just atheism, but anti theism, which is you've been developing this morality that you're supposed to have and you then eventually you've developed those moral skills enough that it turns on itself and you realize, oh, this God is not worthy of worship, even if he did exist.

Kolby Reddish [01:09:34] And I think what the way you stated it too, Vicki, I had very similar experiences when I was working as a criminal prosecutor. And my belief in God actually didn't break at that moment, but I became more and more of almost like a deist, like God, for some reason I can't understand, isn't allowed to intervene really in the ways that I had been taught or that I would read in the Bible or. Those are like very, very rare exceptions, the way my belief started to move. So I find a lot of commonality with your story too, to and dealing with some of the tragedies that people deal with in life. I think a lot of people start experiencing that. That decrease in their belief as they deal with the complexity of the reality of life and how random and how people can do terrible things to one another. It can be really difficult. Thank you so much for sharing with us, Vicki.

John Dehlin [01:10:20] We love our never Mormon listeners and viewers, so we're so, so glad you called in. Please, please join us again.

Guest 11 [01:10:28] All right.

Guest 12 [01:10:29] I love your shirt, John. So have a. Have a great day, y'.

Guest 11 [01:10:31] All.

Guest 7 [01:10:33] Thanks.

Guest 6 [01:10:33] All right.

John Dehlin [01:10:34] Thanks, Vicki. Take care. All right.

Britt Hartley [01:10:37] I will say let me do one more thing is I. When I see Mormons and Christians, Christians tend to have a harder time with the problem of evil than Mormons do is what we see, because Mormons have a different fall. So the fall is like a falling forward.

Guest 9 [01:10:54] Right.

Britt Hartley [01:10:55] It's not like a full curse because you're falling forward. And then as cold he's talked about on Mormon stories, the Mormon God, especially in the Book of Abraham, is like an organizer rather than like a, you know, creating out of nothing. And then we also have consent. So it takes away a lot of the problem of evil issues. If you were a spirit before you came here and you consented, you signed some kind of heavenly form that you are going to go to a world like this where you're going to hurt and be hurt and there's going to be suffering, but we all consented to it. So those things, having a different fall, having God be an organizer, so a different kind of God, and then having a different kind of creation where there's consent actually makes it so. It's not that the problem of evil isn't there for Mormons, but it is far easier to deal with theologically. If you're a Mormon and doing some kind of paper on the problem of evil, there's a lot that you can do to work with it. Whereas in Christianity, it's much more difficult to try and understand why God would make a world like this. So we tend to see that more like her specific story with the problem of evil. We tend to see that more on the Christian side than the Mormon side. Even though there are various parts of her story that were very Mormon friendly in the sense of like, why am I worshiping this God?

Kolby Reddish [01:12:14] And I think that's one of the reasons that I didn't have the same response to it. Britt is exactly like, you're talking about modernism's theology. Of course, there's no evidence or none of that could be demonstrated.

Sloan [01:12:24] Right.

Kolby Reddish [01:12:25] The sure. Almost like, like it's almost like Mormon theology was responsive to some of the problems of Christianity. Who could imagine?

Guest 11 [01:12:32] Yeah.

Britt Hartley [01:12:33] And, and you know, Joseph's like, he did have a philosophical side to him, especially when you get into, like, his later works and the King Fallet discourse. There's a lot of meaty stuff that makes it more philosophically able to deal with the problem of evil, that Christians actually don't have as much ability to work around that.

Kolby Reddish [01:12:52] Yeah. And one, one issue that John highlighted recently on the biography of Joseph Smith that he' exploring with John Turner is that Joseph Smith was actually probably from a young age able to have access to Thomas Paine's Age of Reason. One of the first real, like Secular critiques about the Bible and about religion. Yeah, it was actually shared with the Smith family by his grandfather, Asil Smith, when they were going through the revivals that they were going through in the Second Great Awakening. And so I think that probably explains where Joe Smith started noodling on some of those concepts. And. And I think we can even see some of them in the Book of Mormon themselves. For example, I think the story of Korhor is basically Joseph Smith creating a strawman to attack Thomas Paine. But before we move on, I thought we did have another caller talking about the problem of evil and how.

John Dehlin [01:13:44] Hey, Kolby. One second, one second. I just want to thank Susie Catherine for the super chat. You know, Mormon Stories survives in a couple ways financially. One in the main way is through our donations. So I just want to thank everyone who donates to Mormon Stories, the Open Stories Foundation. We couldn't do this without you. If you want to become a donor, you just go to MormonStories.org, click on the donate button. Become a monthly donor. That's how we pay our panelists and our staff, and that's how we keep the lights on. Of course, when we do these live chats, we're grateful for any super Chat donation. If you want to make sure your YouTube comment makes it through, maybe just throw. Make it a super chat. Throw a little bit of a donation there, and we'll make sure and get it. So thank you, Susie Catherine, and all our donors for making. Making this possible. All right, did you want to go to Samuel next, Kolby?

Kolby Reddish [01:14:37] Yeah. Sam also had a call dealing with the problem of evil, and so I thought we could talk about that since we just got off that topic or just dealt with that topic.

John Dehlin [01:14:44] All right, Samuel, tell us. Tell us why you left or lost your faith in Mormon.

Guest 13 [01:14:49] So my situation is very similar to what you guys were talking about is just kind of a bunch of stuff stacking on top of one another, the shelf, all of the little things adding up. And I was okay with everything, setting it aside. And then back in 2019, my daughter was diagnosed with a complex medical condition. And for me, that's when really things began to fall apart because I began questioning, you know, if we do really have this loving God, this loving heavenly father who wants. Wants the best for his children. He wants his children to find success in life, to find happiness, to find joy, then why would he provide my daughter with a body that is so messed up? In fact, in her specific situation, it's a genetic condition that happens in utero. So this Was something that when she was forming in the womb, as we would say, it was taking hold of her body. And now, you know, unfortunately, she deals with a lot of complex issues including seizures. She's got a feeding tube, she struggles with walking, she requires 247 care. We love her, she's a great kid, she's really funny, she's awesome. But when I would talk with members about it, a lot of times they would say something about like, oh well, God is trying to protect her. You know, she's one of the most choice chosen spirits and they don't. And God doesn't want her to have to experience sin or falter on the way she's got her election made. Sure. And I was like, man, if that's really the case, this God is an evil, awful monster. Because we're not just talking about something in the abstract, in the ether of, you know, she's experiencing some bad things. No, this is very real. She's experiencing seizures almost on a daily basis. She struggles to eat, she has to use a feeding tube, she can't walk by herself. She's having to do therapies all the time. Is that really God protecting these special individuals? So anyways, yeah, it was pretty rough the road, but once I finally got there, I was like, okay, now I can accept what this life is, which all I have is this life. And my wife and I are doing the best to provide our daughter with the most positive experience that she can possibly have.

John Dehlin [01:17:10] Thank you for sharing any quick comments?

Britt Hartley [01:17:13] I think this is a perfect explanation of what problem of evil in Mormonism looks like, which is like the thought ending cliches just don't work in this situation. And so I've seen it with children like, like this story, but I've also seen it like when we look at our doctrine on the millennium that like Satan is bound for a time and children grow up and then just like, like they just get to experience a better world and then they get to go on to whatever kingdom and then it just starts to raise the question, well then like if God could save all of us and save us from all of this suffering, then why doesn't he? So that I just think that story and, and just heartbreaking to hear the struggles that you've gone through. But I think it's a perfect example of, of how the problem of evil shows up with Mormonism where if. More if God has this control to bind Satan or to make some spirits go instantly to the celestial kingdom, why isn't he doing it for everyone? Why Go through all of this.

Kolby Reddish [01:18:12] Yeah. And to connect with the comment you made earlier, Britt, I think this is also where Mormonism's real focus, as opposed to like Protestant Christianity. Mormonism's real focus on God as a heavenly father. And so many hymns that are built around this concept of like, he loves you like a father Father. I think that's where it does get a little bit harder to deal with situations like Samuel shared about is like, I would never do this to my kid. Why would a perfect being do this to someone who's also their. Their child? Did you experience any of those feelings as you were grappling with this situation, Samuel?

Guest 13 [01:18:48] Yeah. Oh yeah, absolutely. In the beginning, you know, it was a lot of just shock that something like this had happened. But then as I started process processing it through my spiritual eyes, I began questioning exact. And I had been taught these things about individuals with special needs and disabilities being essentially like a protected group of people. They had been doing so much in the premortal existence that God wanted to protect them. But then once I began living the life with somebody who has these complex needs, I began to realize, oh, wait, no, this isn't easier. In fact, this is a thousand times harder than what I ever would have expected. And absolutely, I would never, never. If I'm having the hand in the creation of my child, I would never allow that to happen. And if God is in fact all powerful, he then decided, he specifically decided, if he's all knowing as well, he specifically decided that he didn't want my daughter to have a body that was whole. And then if he did, didn't have control over the situation or didn't know what would happen. Well, that's not a God that I feel like should receive any praise or worship either. And so ultimately it was just easy to say, well, then this being doesn't exist. And that's why I left.

Britt Hartley [01:20:08] Because God becomes the same as like, stuff hap. Stuff happens. You know what I mean? Like, oh, do this and you'll be blessed. And then you don't get blessed and your child really, really struggles. And it's like, well, that's God's plan too. And it's like, well, that sounds just the same as stuff happening, happening. Not really sure how God's playing into this at all.

Guest 13 [01:20:26] Yeah, I've had this conversation multiple times with people in the church where we talk about miracles. And people tell me, well, I know that miracles happen. And I ask them, okay, so if you know that miracles happen, then the opposite should be true as well. That you know why miracles don't happen. There should. If you're understanding why they do, you should also understand why they don't happen. And what ends up happening is, is just saying, well, we don't understand why God doesn't provide in this instance or that instance. And if, if that's your stance on that, you can't honestly say, I believe in miracles as well.

Britt Hartley [01:21:02] It's the same game played when a kid dies. It's like if they're saved from the brink of death, it's God. If they die, then God called them back. And either way, it's just a thought loop that tries to make it God's plan.

Guest 13 [01:21:15] Yeah. Yep, Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:21:16] All right. Well, Samuel, thank you so much for being to share, for being willing to share something so personal and for your really thoughtful comments. It's great to have you on Mormon Stories. We hope you come back. Yeah, thanks.

Guest 13 [01:21:28] Appreciate it, you guys.

John Dehlin [01:21:29] All right, take care, Samuel. All right, next guest we have, they've been waiting quite some time is Chris. Hey, Chris. Welcome to Mormon Stories podcast. Why did you leave Mormon Stories Humanism?

Callers on the Second Anointing and Temple Concerns

Guest 2 [01:21:43] Well, I left originally because, you know, I learned about the second anointing.

John Dehlin [01:21:51] And do you want to tell our audience just quickly what that is?

Guest 2 [01:21:54] Yeah. So the second anointing is pretty much like an ultra secret ritual where they pretty much say, hey, you get to skip judgment unless you take an innocent life or you blaspheme against the Holy Ghost. And you know, to me, that that's, that's almost blasphemous, like no one gets to skip judgment.

John Dehlin [01:22:14] And I'll just add it's. It's usually given to wealthy family connected, older Mormons. And yeah, they're brought into the temple and their feet get washed. I think multiple times they get blessed by an apostle. I think the wife even lays her hands on the head of the husband at some point. But it's a super secret ritual. You can Google Tom Phillips or Hans Abrigita Matson. Those are some instances of the second anointing on Mormon stories that we've covered. How did you hear about the second anointing, Chris?

Britt Hartley [01:22:48] That's my question. Like, that's usually something you find out way late in your.

Guest 2 [01:22:53] Yeah, well, me personally, I've, you know, witnessed some things happening in the church. And I was, you know, just looking into, you know, how some of these things come about, like how someone can be okay with, you know, some of these very evil things but not be tempted to drink a coffee or something like that. And so I guess I just Started doing research, and then, you know, it popped up on your channel, and I watched it. I'm like, oh, my gosh. You know, it's. It's almost systematic. And, you know, I think, you know, there's a lot of truth claim rabbit holes you can go down. But I think the second anointing is all you. You need to know that, you know, there have been lies propagated by Joseph Smith and, you know, whether you want to believe, you know, that there are, you know, pedos in the church or, you know, the SRA claims that they are possible through the second anointing.

John Dehlin [01:23:49] Yeah, those are good points.

Kolby Reddish [01:23:51] Yeah. I think it's difficult for us to know exactly what falls within the scope of the second anointing and what people feel comfortable doing, but I think one thing we can say for sure is that if it makes people feeling supported and more comfortable doing things that the rest of us would never even consider because they've gotten this supposed permission from God. Thanks so much, Chris.

John Dehlin [01:24:11] I think a lot of people are bothered that it's kept from the membership. Why are they learning this on Mormon stories or on some other podcast? And I think the elite nature of it, that it's pretty much only given to wealthy members who happen to be family members or related to general authority, it doesn't sit right. It almost feels like the. The notion, the concept of indulgences that the Catholic Church used to support, where you could buy your way to heaven, so to speak.

Guest 2 [01:24:39] And. And I think it's also interesting that, you know, if someone wants to go about reporting some of the things that, you know, they've seen in the church, that the church actually has their address and their family's address on record to where. Where, you know, some officials in the church can look it up and just find it. You know, I think that's also an interesting thing.

John Dehlin [01:25:02] All right. Oh, go ahead, Go ahead.

Britt Hartley [01:25:04] I. I've known people who, like. I don't like to use the word cult, just. Just for obvious reasons. It's such a strong word, but I know that. I know that when you've. When you're. In one, you don't feel like you're in one because it's just normal. And I have had people where the second anointing was learning about. It was the first time that they felt like they were in something like a cult because it wasn't normalized, because we don't talk about it. And so when they learn about it, it's almost like the way that we view outsiders, like if you look at Scientology or something else, you'll be like, oh, no, that's. That's weird, or that's wrong, or that's obviously a cult or something like that. And so that happens with the second anointing because we're not used to it because we don't talk about it. And so I have seen people make big shifts when they learn about the second anointing because it. It feels culty in a way that they're not used to because it's not talked about in general.

Jenny [01:25:58] Mormonism.

Guest 2 [01:25:59] And most people won't believe it. They're like, that's not true. No one gets to skip judgment. But, you know, that's why you got to show them receipts and stuff like that.

John Dehlin [01:26:10] Well, Chris, thank you so much for being willing to come on the show and to tell us why you left Mormonism. It's great to have you. Hope you'll join us again. Our pleasure. All right, we've got a couple more super chats that have come in. Let's just take a second to read them. Brandy Hepler writes. Hi, John. Thanks forever for this convo and the many opportunities to hear Point of View and learn so much. All crew, contributors, guests. It's truly helpful for me, and I imagine so many. Thank you, Brandy. It's so great to have you. Thanks for the support. I'll go ahead and read a comment as well from Brandy. She says the second anointing was infuriating for her, knowing such righteous people that would never have that. Yeah, farmers and school teachers, they're not getting second anointings. It's rich lawyers and doctors that are sons and daughters in laws of apostles. That's the profile. Anyway. Brandy says also that wife washes husband's feet, but husband doesn't wash the wife's feet. That's also true. Although it's kind of cool, I guess, if you're a believer, that an apostle. I believe an apostle washes the feet of both in the couple, kind of like at Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. I imagine if you're a believer in the apostles, that's kind of a cool experience, but, yeah. Why isn't the husband washed?

Britt Hartley [01:27:38] Do we know that? Do we know that the wife gets her feet washed? There's some chats that say that they don't.

John Dehlin [01:27:43] I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

Britt Hartley [01:27:45] I might have to go down that rabbit hole and check that one.

John Dehlin [01:27:48] But, I mean, the fact that the church just doesn't make all this public, why is it secret?

Britt Hartley [01:27:53] It's weird.

John Dehlin [01:27:54] It's weird. Especially in the Internet age where you really can't keep anything secret. I'll also read the Sandy Stone says can't join today. My shelf breaker was looking at familysearch. Joseph and Emma were not sealed to their children. Families forever. Joseph didn't get the memo. What we hold so sacred today doesn't match sealing and polygamy. Thank you, Sandy, for sharing. I'll also say one thing that Brooke Bishop was learning that, like Hitler, Adolf Hitler had had his temple work done, his baptisms for the dead. He had even been sealed to Eva Braun. I believe Hitler. And then I learned that Hitler had not only been baptized for the dead once, Hitler had been baptized for the dead, like, 12 times and sealed the evil Braun like, 10 times. And that they didn't even for decades and decades, like, track who was actually, you know, getting sealed multiple times. They didn't really have a system for knowing who hadn't. Hadn't already had their work done. So there was just massive duplication of baptisms for the dead and marriages of all sorts of unsavory people. And I'm like, why are we teaching literacy to children and getting water to people that don't have clean water? Why are so many volunteers doing these doubles?

Britt Hartley [01:29:12] Hitler's waiting on his ordinances. You know, Hitler's waiting on his ordinances. Priorities, John.

John Dehlin [01:29:20] Yeah, one more comment. Marlena writes, if the foundation of a religion is created by a of section sexual predator, then the religion cannot be true. That is a really hard term, Kolby. And, you know, for a long time, people like Dan Witherspoon and others would get really uncomfortable when the term sexual predator or, you know, sometimes pedophile is used. Sexual abuser is used when referring to Joseph Smith. Where do y' all weigh in on the use of terms like sexual predator predator with Joseph Smith? Britt, you go first.

Britt Hartley [01:29:54] I say yes to sexual predator. I say no to pedophile. And I will call out ex Mormons specifically. It doesn't seem like he was attracted to women pre puberty. And so I do want to kind of save that term for when we're talking about prepubescent children. And so, you know, I don't think we're gonna get any headway in this conversation, especially with Mormons, if we come out with a word like pedophile. But we can at least talk about. About, you know, sexual predator or lack of consent or some of these other things. I think we can stand on further ground by using some of those terms.

John Dehlin [01:30:33] Anything else to Add Kolby.

Kolby Reddish [01:30:35] Well, I would generally agree with Britt. I don't use the term cult, basically for the same reason. I try and make the language that I'm using, especially if I'm talking to a believer, someone who doesn't share my perspective already, I will try and use the language that's as accurate as it can be. So I would probably focus on the. The lack of consent, the coercion that Joseph Smith engaged in with multiple of. Of these women, like I said, including one that I'm related to, which I also learned through familysearch to Sandy Stone's Super Chat. That was the first time I learned about that. So I wouldn't necessarily focus on that term. I think I want to focus more on the behavior. I would also say, say that when we're looking at the. These issues in the church, like the way the church handles sexual abuse issues, it can often be difficult for people to dig into, like, historical data because we just. We really don't know. And there were so much. There was so much modification of documents and records going on, not just in the Utah period, but in the earlier periods of Mormonism's history, that I often like to focus more on the contemporary issues, issues about sex abuse or, you know, unsavory sexual behavior, just because it's easier to point to, like, actual court records that exist today. Not to say that it doesn't matter, because it absolutely does, and those people's stories matter. But I feel that that can often be more palatable for people because if we're talking about, like, contemporary court records, it's harder to do the. It's harder to not confront it. And when we're dealing with someone, especially who's a believer, still, still their brain does not want to confront those issues they're going to look for. Even if they're unaware, their brain will subconsciously look for any reason to write off those criticisms.

A Caller's Experience with Mormon Purity Culture

John Dehlin [01:32:18] All right. I love it.

Guest 6 [01:32:19] All right.

John Dehlin [01:32:20] I just want to let our viewers and listeners know we've got a few lines open, so if you're wanting to join, we invite you to do so. Our next caller or joiner will be Keedan. I hope I'm pronouncing that right. Welcome to Mormon Stories. Keaton.

Guest 13 [01:32:34] And.

John Dehlin [01:32:34] And what caused you to leave Mormonism?

Guest 10 [01:32:36] Yeah, so I love Mormonism because about six months after being married, I just continued to feel guilty for stuff I did in high school. Masturbation, law, chastity stuff. And six months into marriage and after talking to multiple bishops, multiple stake presidents, parents, even my wife just continued to feel guilty and finally, eventually just said, I, I can't do this. I can't. I can't continue to feel guilty for things that I've been told that I've repented on, but continue to feel guilty about and feel as though I'm completely unworthy to do anything.

John Dehlin [01:33:14] Any responses? Britain, Kolby.

Britt Hartley [01:33:15] My response is just when you're breaking a shame cycle like, like what you're talking about, it takes an incredible amount of courage, like leaving, leaving a church, leaving your community, leaving your beliefs, it's hard for everyone. It is hard across the board. But when you're leaving a shame cycle cycle, it's very, very difficult. So I just want to commend you for stopping that shame cycle that you were, that you were stuck in, because it's very hard to do, because the shame will breed, you know, you know, that buildup and then the masturbation and the more shame. And that's a really difficult cycle to break when you're in it. So that took a lot of courage.

John Dehlin [01:33:50] Amen.

Kolby Reddish [01:33:51] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:33:53] The.

Kolby Reddish [01:33:53] The thing I would say to Keaton as well is, you know, there are a lot of people, including certain apologists that you mentioned, Britt, that their appeal, Mormonism's appeal to them is the structure and the order that it gives to people's lives. But that structure and order can often backfire. And I think Keaton's story is part of that backfiring that we see sometimes. It's an issue where the church can't have it both ways. If they get to be praised for bringing structure and order to people's lives, lives, they also have to deal with the reality of what happens when that order and structure is taken too literally or taken too far by people because of how it's been taught to them and the way they've received that and the guilt and shame cycles that so many people deal with. So thank you for sharing that. Keaton. I'm sorry you had to deal with something that was so hard, but I hope now that you're on the other side, you've gotten some relief from those feelings. Do you feel like you have?

Guest 10 [01:34:49] Yeah, I feel like I've felt a lot better about myself. I've suffered with anxiety and depression my entire life, and ever since leaving the church, I can say that I have not felt that those two feelings, as, as often, obviously they still happen, but I don't constantly think about mistakes that I've made all the time.

Guest 9 [01:35:15] Thank you sharing.

John Dehlin [01:35:17] Oh, go ahead.

Britt Hartley [01:35:18] I just want to say thanks for sharing, because when people who are stuck in that shame cycle, hear a story like you yours, it does save lives. So thank you for, for sharing.

John Dehlin [01:35:28] Yeah, of course. I'll just add one of the, one of the most interesting ironies I've experienced. You know, I, I did pursue a psychology PhD. I've done six years of, you know, supervised clinical and counseling therapy for, you know, Mormons struggling with this type of stuff. There's this interesting scenario where if, if you're Mormon and you're told, you know, don't look at porn, don't look at porn, don't masturbate, don't masturbate, and you're told that from the time you're 11, number one, it makes porn use and masturbation way more common and prevalent because you're, you're being educated about it so frequently and from such a young age for so long, how can you avoid thinking about it? Because it can feel like that's all the church ever talks about. And then once the shame is heaped on where the church tells you your salvation is at stake and your spouse threatens they might leave you, or maybe your boyfriend or girlfriend won't marry you if they know or think you're masturbating, that shame can make it so. So porn and masturbation use are actually more prevalent than non Mormon or non LDS populations. And I promise you three, I've seen it more than one time where a member of a marriage, a husband or a wife is caught in this toxic cycle, is masturbating or licking a porn way more often than they want. And then as soon as they just confess to their spouse, say it's, you know, stop keeping it as a secret, tell them what's going on, they find. And in the cases where the spouse says, hey, you know what? No shame, it's normal. You know, how can we, how can we communicate better? How can we work on, you know, sexual health and communication and intimacy? So often, and even in some cases, the person leaves the church. Church and no longer believes that their eternal salvation is dependent on whether they stop masturbating or look at porn, lo and behold, their porn use goes into steep decline, if not in some cases, disappears altogether. And that's just an example of how this toxic shame, it's not so much often the porn use of the masturbation, that's the bad thing. It's the way we talk about it and the way that we handle it that that leads to so much toxicity in the church.

Kolby Reddish [01:38:04] Yeah, the last thing I wanted to say too, to Keaton's point is, you know, there are so many people who are either afraid to leave or who are these apologetic types that will argue that, you know, we're here talking about not dealing with that guilt on the opposite side. And so they would say something like, like, oh, see, you just have killed your conscience or something like that. And I think, and Keaton, you can correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think one of the things that I've realized is as I've gotten some distance on the church, is the fact that I don't have to deal with like that guilt and shame spiral that John's talked about that can be so problematic. Doesn't mean that I don't believe in trying to improve myself and better my life and that I don't care about how my actions and my behaviors are affect other people. Instead, it's a much more healthy relationship where I can come to terms with the fact that I fail. I fail every day. There are times when I have to come and apologize to my kids, apologize to my wife, because I don't always get it right. I don't always show up in the right way. And even setting that aside, there are times where the way my behavior is received by people or the way that it's. It comes across doesn't match my intention. And I think so often in the church, church, it's just such a infantilized version of looking at the cause and effect of our behaviors and the way we affect other people. And I think that I just wanted to speak to that briefly to say it's not about necessarily leaving guilt behind entirely. I still feel guilt and still have to change and go through the steps that John mentioned earlier that we would in the church of called repentance. It's just. Just approach from a completely different angle, from a completely different lens. It's more instead of it being about guilt and shame because I didn't live up to some promise of my ancestors or some expectation that God has for me, it's more about the expectations I have for myself. Who do I want to be? And I think that's just a completely different way of looking at it.

Guest 10 [01:40:00] Yeah, no, and that's exactly the way that I look at it now too. Having, going back in ancestry, having, having and being told over and over again like, these are the people that you know in your family that did these hard, super hard things. And then being. Looking at it and being like, I can't even get over this. One silly little thing that seem is being. I'm Being told is the next is the greatest sin next to murder. And. And then looking back and being reminded over and over again of those ancestors that crossed the plains and just that, like you guys have mentioned, just that guilt and shame spiral.

John Dehlin [01:40:46] All right, well, Keaton, it's so great to have you, and thanks for being willing to come on and talk about something so sensitive. That's really courageous.

Kolby Reddish [01:40:53] When I saw you pop up in the tank top, Keaton, I was going to say, if you said that you were leaving because of. Of garments, I've got great news for you. Yeah, I saw all of that.

Guest 10 [01:41:05] I left about 3.3/2 years ago, so.

Sloan [01:41:09] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:41:09] Although I don't think men. I don't think men get sleeveless tops, Kolby. I think it's only women.

Kolby Reddish [01:41:15] Hey, not yet. Not yet.

Britt Hartley [01:41:17] It's a living church. You guys will get there.

Kolby Reddish [01:41:20] Market. Elder Rigdon, I'm prophesying right now.

John Dehlin [01:41:24] Thanks.

Britt Hartley [01:41:25] I just want to add one more thing to what Kolby said, which was this shift that can happen when people lose their faith in the Atonement, and there is this fear that we're kind of drilled in as. As Mormons or even just religious people, that you're going to lose more morality, your morality. But what we're seeing in the data is often the opposite, that the Atonement does not then let you take full moral responsibility. So when Kolby's talking about his life post Mormonism, he's talking about taking full responsibility that he has to go say sorry to his kids or his wife without just saying a prayer to God, telling God, I'm sorry. And so that was one of the things that really actually blew up my shelf for the Atonement was that taking full moral responsibility is actually the moral high road versus trying to put that on someone else.

Kolby Reddish [01:42:20] Oh, I'm so glad to hear that. That it's not just me thinking that I'm a better person.

Britt Hartley [01:42:24] No. Like, when people decide that they're going to take full moral responsibility rather than work with the atonement to take some of that, we actually see, like, a lot of improvements in morality, specifically in the saying sorry. Like, just. I'm going to say sorry to my kids and my wife.

Kolby Reddish [01:42:39] That's great.

More Callers Share Why They Left Mormonism

John Dehlin [01:42:41] All right, well, we've got several lines open, and I'm loving the participation we've had and have on the line. Several men. We would love to hear from a few more women. So if you're a woman, if you're in the sound of our voice, if you're tuning in, please check the Pinned comment that has a link you can join and we'd love to hear from. Get a few more women in the queue. Having said that, we appreciate anyone who's willing to join. Our next guest is Malcolm. Hey Malcolm. Welcome to Mormon Stories. What caused you, you to leave Mormonism?

Guest [01:43:15] Hey there. Thanks very much. I originally left or stopped going to church because I realized that I never really enjoyed it. I didn't originally have any issues with any doctrines or any truth claims of the church. I just kind of got, I got especially tired of the, you know, Utah Mormon culture. And I, in fact I was teaching Elders Quorum at the time and I had gotten, I started a segment of my lessons where I would highlight sections from the manual, the church manual and I would compare that with church culture and we would do a little segment where we point out the culture versus the doctrine. And I just, eventually I got tired of it. I was, you know, know, kind of disagreeing with certain things about teachings I was having to teach and it, it got tiring and I just realized, you know what, I never really enjoyed this. So I am just, I'm an adult now. I don't have to go anymore. So I'm just going to stop going. It was after that that I started looking into Mormon stories, especially the LDS discussion series that really turned me off to the, the doctrine and pointed out the issues.

John Dehlin [01:44:36] I just have to, I'll just comment really quickly. I love the fact that you mentioned a really important group of people. Just the people that are bored, the people that feel like the church is no longer relevant. So many 20s, you know, teenagers, 20 somethings and 30 somethings, they don't give a fig about Fanny Alger or, or Egyptology or DNA. You know, they don't, they're not looking to get the priesthood. They're just like, church is lame, church is boring, church is irrelevant. These are old white men. It's not fun. Sacrament meeting is a snoozer. And these rules and, and the focus just seems to be completely not aligned with what I care about. What I'm interested in, another derivative of that are people that are leaving because they feel like there's a prevalent political culture that doesn't align with their politics. And this isn't me being partisan. I'm not even saying which side is which. I'm just saying politics. And anyone getting a sense that there's a misalignment between their own politics and, and the prevailing politics of whatever ward or branch or stake they happen to be in, that can also be a big Reason why people leave. Any. Any comments or thoughts from panelists?

Kolby Reddish [01:46:01] Yeah, I have a question for Malcolm, but first I'll kind of frame it. I had a mission companion that was a lot like you, Malcolm. They are a former mission companion. Obviously they left the church basically after Covid and he is like, mind boggled that I spend so much time talking about Mormonism still today. And he. It basically for him was he and his, you know, his wife and kids got a break because of COVID because church was shut down for like a couple years in their area. And I guess I would just ask when. When exactly did you kind of come to this realization? Did. Ended Covid, the break of like not having to go every week, did that play into that realization at all?

Guest [01:46:40] I do think that covet played a big part of it. We, we were kind of semi inactive before that, but then once, you know, they said go home and you can do church at home, we realized that, that one, it felt better not going to church and two, it actually felt better sort of participating in that at home with our family. And so even if we were going to continue worshiping, it felt better just being at home home. And so getting back into church was really rough. I, at the point that I left, I was only going on the weeks that I was teaching elders quorum and that was kind of the habit after Covid. So yeah, that was a big. I think that was a big part of it.

Sloan [01:47:28] Great.

Kolby Reddish [01:47:29] Thanks for sharing.

John Dehlin [01:47:31] All right, well, it's great to have you, Malcolm. Thanks for joining us and I hope you'll join us again. Really appreciate it.

Guest 9 [01:47:36] It.

Guest [01:47:36] Thank you very much.

Britt Hartley [01:47:37] All right, we're still gathering data on Covid and the effects of COVID on Mormonism. And from what we have so far, it seems to be that it was

Guest 12 [01:47:47] more

Britt Hartley [01:47:49] paradigm shifting for women than for men. At the end of COVID we had. The men were a little bit higher in missing church and wanting to go back because church was their only sense of community, the only way that they talked to people outside of work. And women really loved the break and not having signup sheets and toddler bags and the whole thing. And so from the data that we're getting, there are a lot of people who kind of practiced not being Mormon for a while during COVID and then found that they really liked it and then didn't go back. And of that group, the women tended to be a little bit higher than the men on that because women do so much of the invisible labor to make church happen.

Guest 12 [01:48:34] Happen.

John Dehlin [01:48:36] Yeah.

Kolby Reddish [01:48:37] Yeah, that totally makes Sense, Britt. Yeah. And the way my friend put it when we talked about it a couple years ago after co. As he just said, you know, I looked around when we went to go back and I didn't sense any difference in my life going every week versus my week when I or my life when I was, wasn't going. And it really was as simple as that for him and me who spent like several years in this space trying to figure all of this stuff out and digging into the history is a little jealous that it's so easy for some people to just say, yeah, I don't really care. But yeah, I'm happy for the people who are able to see it that, that clearly.

Britt Hartley [01:49:12] I'm jealous for the people who had Mormon stories. I was reading microfilm in a library by myself trying to figure out what's going on with Joseph Smith and then people just like have a long drive and, and just, you know, get all that on a Mormon stories. I'm jealous of the people who have Mormon stories stories.

Kolby Reddish [01:49:29] No kidding.

Women Callers Share Their Reasons for Leaving

John Dehlin [01:49:32] All right, well, we've had some, we've had some women join, so let's get a couple women in here. All right, Jenny, you need to unmute yourself. Welcome to Mormon Stories. Tell us, tell us why you left Mormonism.

Guest 11 [01:49:49] Hi.

Jenny [01:49:49] First, loving this discussion. Thank you so much, guys. I love these lives. I was born and raised, went to church for 44 years, never had a shot. I went to church one Sunday full believing member and I like to say that I got all the stuff on one Sunday that I never knew existed. So sacrament meeting that day was three women. And I will never remember if it was the primary presidency, Young women's or Relief Society or who it was. But the topic was on the family proclamation and it was an entire hour of guilting women who work. And I was looking around this ward going, there are a lot of professional women in this ward and how is this lesson landing on them? Am so that really hit me. I went to Gospel doctrine and it was a lesson from Second Kings and the teacher was completely anti Semitic throughout the lesson. And I remember at one point he just point blank said the Holocaust happened because the Jews crucified Christ. And I raised my hand and I was like, whoa, this is wild. Like, you guys, this is, this is not, this isn't true and this isn't right. And then they referred me to the manual and it was actually part of the lesson that he was teaching, teaching. And that really hit me that the manual itself was, was teaching about some of the, the things the Harsh things would fall the Jews because of what they had done.

Kolby Reddish [01:51:08] Do you, Jenny, do you remember which year that would have been in?

Jenny [01:51:11] Yeah, that was October of 2018.

Guest 13 [01:51:14] Wow.

Sloan [01:51:15] Okay.

Jenny [01:51:16] October of 2018. And so then I went to Relief Society and the Relief Society lesson was anti lgbtq. And it was just so, so hateful. Ten minutes into the lesson, I was physically shaking, sitting in this classroom. And I was a temple worker. I was Relief Society presidency. I have really never missed church. Deeply Devout, believed it 100%. And I just had like this physical, visceral reaction to the hate that I heard. And I remember sitting there in my chair in the Relief Society room, surrounded

Guest 2 [01:51:50] by all my friends.

Jenny [01:51:51] And like, I went to church that day completely believing, but I remember sitting there thinking, I come to church to learn how to love people better. Better. I don't need to learn how to hate people more. I. I got that down pat. Like, I don't need to learn hatred from my religious organization. And 10 minutes, and I raised my hand and told everybody, I'm, I'm leaving. And I'm not just gonna go, you know, get a drink out of the drinking fountain or go to the bathroom. I'm getting my kids and I'm leaving the church right now. And I turned to the teacher and I said, this little 23 year old teacher. I was like, the generations of my children will not be Mormon because of this lesson this day. Also. What hit me about that was I thought that this was just a teacher gone rogue. But I leaned over to one of the sisters in the re Society presidency and I was like, should we make her stop? Like, what is the lesson supposed to be about today? I don't know what the lesson's supposed to be about. And that was the lesson. It was based on a talk by Elder Uchtdorf, and the Sisters of the War had decided to teach on the evils of homosexuality. And I didn't hear the end of the lesson. I left 10 minutes in. I went out in the hallway, got my husband, we got the kids. And I remember just on the car ride home explaining to my husband, like, I don't want my children to learn this hatred towards. I mean, it was women, the Jews and gays, all in one fell swoop. And then my sister that week called me and told me that she had also just left the church. And she's like, hey, you gotta go listen to this Year of Polygamy podcast. And have you ever heard of Mormon Stories? And I spent the entire week listening to Mormon Stories podcast. And then on Friday of that week, I listened to the episode on the year Polygamy about Zina hun. I was 44 years old. I had been a lifelong member. This was 2018, and I did not know that Joseph Smith had practiced polygamy. I thought that women had been sealed to him after he died. I had no idea that Joseph Smith was a polygamist. And listening to that episode about Zina Huntington, because she was married. She was an 18 year old girl. She was eight months pregnant, and Joseph Smith comes to her and says, you know, whole angel with the flaming sword, you have to leave your husband and be married to me. I listened to that episode, was literally bawling my eyes out. Here I'd been faced with, you know, LGBTQ hate and anti Semitism and feminism all in one week. And listen to this episode about Zina Huntington and Joseph Smith's polygamy. And I went to lds.org and I got in some of the gospel topics and I googled on the LDS website, Zina Huntington, polygamy, Joseph Smith. And after just a little bit of research into that, I clicked over into QuitMormon.org and I resigned.

John Dehlin [01:54:22] Oh, my goodness. That's a lot, Jenny.

Britt Hartley [01:54:25] It was a big week.

Jenny [01:54:28] It was wild.

Britt Hartley [01:54:29] And can I also just highlight that Jenny's story is. Is an example of the great cost that happens when you can leave Mormonism? If you followed her on social media or her own YouTube channel, it cost her everything to leave, and it's still costing her as Ward Radio recently came and kind of attacked her and has been trying to discredit her. So she's someone who's continuing to pay the price and shunning in the community for standing up. What? For loving people and not hating people and standing up for the things that she's talking about. So incredible amount of courage from Jenny that she's still. Still paying a heavy, heavy price for.

Jenny [01:55:11] Thanks for saying that, Brittany.

John Dehlin [01:55:13] Well, Jenny, it's so great to have you join us for a panel today. We've corresponded for a long time, and I know your voice is really important. So thanks for joining us. Thanks for sharing your story. Hope you'll join us again.

Jenny [01:55:26] Yeah. Thanks for doing this, you guys. This is so valuable.

John Dehlin [01:55:29] Thanks, Jenny. Take care. All right, that was so great. It looks like we have Kurt next. Is that right, Kolby?

Kolby Reddish [01:55:41] That's right. We'll go. Kurt the name.

John Dehlin [01:55:43] All right, Kurt. Welcome to Mormon Stories Podcast. Tell us why you left Mormonism.

Guest 7 [01:55:51] Hi. I think the first thing that I want to do is, you know, I commend Jenny for doing what she did. I think that's a situation I would have probably froze myself. But I very much commend and respect the fact that she had the courage to, to walk out with that. For me, leaving it was a culmination of a lot of things. I never really had doubts that I cared about as a teenager. I served a mission from 2013-15, but I always had those doubts. And then the LDS discussions, how the church handles doubt, that spoke to me a lot. The, the patriarchal blessings, I've always found a little strange how, I mean, it's basically a Mormon version of fortune telling almost. But the thing that really caused all of the, the dominoes for me was actually my mission. Presumably during my mission, you know, I struggled because it was the first time I had ever left home. I went from Utah to Jamaica, which is very different. And so I had some issues and my mom was trying to help me out and he would not let me talk to her at all. And back then it was, you know, when missionaries could only call home twice a year instead of the weekly they do now. But he wouldn't let me talk to her. Nothing. He actually apparently told her that all of the problems I had were because she was not active in church. And he did that several times during my mission, from what my mom's told me. And then the other thing that really, really caused everything to really start going downhill, I had missionaries literally talking behind my back about the work that I was doing because we would have this person come out and teach with us every single day. And they thought it was weird because this, because this girl was coming around with two 19 year olds. And the other missionaries, they, they, they were like, whoa, what, what's going on? And eventually they were talking to my, my companion who had replaced the one before that we, we were doing this teaching with, and they were literally 10ft behind me, talking right behind my back. And I just heard my name. And then my zone leaders were calling my companion and having him go into a different room, room to talk, to talk about stuff. And I could hear through, through a door what was going on. They all thought that I had like this huge crush on, on this girl. And I'm like, I'm here serving a mission. Like, I'm not even focused on that. I'm three months away from going home. Like I'm, I'd rather get done with this and then I can focus on all that.

Kolby Reddish [01:59:17] So I. Oh, sorry. If I could ask a question. So you said that was kind of the start of it, how did that actually tie into your exit? Did you, did you basically come home and then, then leave because of the way you were treated on your mission and by your mission president?

Guest 7 [01:59:32] It definitely had a sour taste in my mouth. I, I kept going because through those two years, like, it was kind of conditioned. Hey, you need to be going to church. You need to be going to church. And I lived with my dad for, I think it was like two years when I got home. And then once I moved away to a new college, away from home, I just stopped going. And even before then, like, like I'd go to sacrament and then I'd skip an hour of class of church and then come back for the final hour because I had a call calling. But the whole time, you know, I, it was always in the back of my head like this, like what my mission press did. This is like they use the church to justify what they were doing.

Guest 6 [02:00:31] Yeah.

Guest 7 [02:00:33] In the name of the church. There's condemning my mom for caring about me.

John Dehlin [02:00:38] Yeah.

Guest 7 [02:00:39] Like, yeah.

Britt Hartley [02:00:41] So once the expectations dropped as far as, like, like you're on your mission or you're like, once the expectations went away, you just like stopped going.

Guest 7 [02:00:49] I, I, I, I, I stopped going. And you know, I, I've always had respect for people who stay in it because that's if it makes them happy, it makes them happy. And, and they should go for their happiness. But I, it, it didn't take long after I stopped going for me to realize I, I wasn't actually happy in the church. It was just, I was being told this is how I'm going to be happy. But I never was. I've been so much happier outside of the church now than I was in 20 plus years in it. Well, Kurt, one step in, Kurt.

John Dehlin [02:01:32] Yeah, people, so many people, including myself, start to have really significant faith crises while on their mission. Mission and, or just lose their faith completely on their mission. So you represent a really important part of our audience, of the church membership broadly, and we really thank you for coming on to share that story. Thanks for joining us, Kurt. All right, we hope you'll join us again. Okay, well, we've got several people. I like to do what I kind of call a lightning round now where we just, you know, as we're kind of wrapping up the show, try and let several people get through with pretty, pretty quick summaries so that we don't leave people kind of sad that they waited and didn't get to share. So, so we'll kind of do this rifle round now to end. And I think Annie is next. Annie, you've been patient. Give us a quick review of thanks for joining us on Mormon stories. Give us a quick review on why you left. Really quick.

Guest 12 [02:02:35] Thank you so much.

Guest 3 [02:02:36] I apologize. Somebody got hungry all of a sudden.

John Dehlin [02:02:39] No worries.

Guest 3 [02:02:41] But honestly, I was a convert at 17, loved everything about the church. It felt safe, it felt like a great place to be and family centric. And then when I had important callings, I was the young women's president, my ex husband was the bishop of the church and I had three daughters. And I started realizing and that this wasn't for women. This just wasn't a place for women to be. And I was discouraged from working, I was discouraged from getting an education. And I thought that was so strange. And I feel like when the proclamation came out it felt like for me a nail in my coffin, education wise. And I was truly heartbroken because that was one thing I had always wanted was to have an education and to help other people. Fortunately, when I did leave, I did end up earning my doctorate and now can do all the things that I want to do. And I'm very grateful for that. So I guess my learning was follow your intuition, listen to yourself and bottom line, at the end of the day, just follow your intuition.

John Dehlin [02:03:51] Why are you smiling?

Britt Hartley [02:03:52] BRITT Hartley oh, isn't it just, oh, it's so beautiful. It's my favorite story of the day.

Guest 7 [02:03:58] Day.

Britt Hartley [02:03:58] She's holding this beautiful baby. She went gotten her PhD. She's like glowing. She stepped out so that her daughters wouldn't have this limit to their human development and for herself too, but also for her daughters. And I just like makes me happy to see stories like this. Good job girl.

Kolby Reddish [02:04:16] Can we also just take a second to recognize that the family proclamation, while it does have some good things in it, has been used as a cudgel against women primarily for so long and it is not even canonized. Every time a problematic scripture or problematic statement comes up in church history, what is the first thing apologists do? Well, that wasn't canonized and yet that document isn't canonized. Was generated essentially to give the church standing to be involved in lawsuits on same sex marriage. And it's not even canonized and yet they use it like it's the, the feature of their faith today.

Britt Hartley [02:04:55] And not even that and not even like what's written in it, but the process by which it came to be not and I'm not even talking about like the lawyers and the Hawaii and all of that, but the Fact that like the women wanted to be involved and weren't and felt hurt when they weren't involved. Like, it blew up for me this idea that like men and women are equal, like we're different but we're equal. Or like women are so great and they're close to God and all these things. And it's like if you think that about women, women, a woman should have been in that room and she wasn't. And it just like that piece blew it up for me. Like reading Chico Okazaki saying, like I was really, she was really hurt that women. Because she was like, I would have worded some things differently. The fact that like you can't say that women have the priesthood too and women matter too. That was a room where something happened where women were not in the room where it happened. And that was crushing. Not even just what's in it, just the process of how it came to be showed what our guest just said, which is like, you don't care about women at all.

Guest 3 [02:05:57] Then it's that old saying, if you don't have a seat at the table, you're likely on the menu. And that's exactly how I felt about the church at that point. And I was on the menu and so many things happened during the course of the divorce and the separation. And it proved to be a good old Boy Scott club. And was was terrible for me and my daughters, but for my ex husband, it was quite a great experience.

John Dehlin [02:06:23] Did you say what your PhD is in, Annie?

Guest 3 [02:06:25] I have a doctorate in nursing practice. I'm a nurse practitioner with a doctorate.

John Dehlin [02:06:30] Oh, that's amazing.

Guest 9 [02:06:31] Good for you.

John Dehlin [02:06:31] But we may need to have you on Mormon stories. If you haven't applied, consider applying.

Guest 3 [02:06:36] I would love to it. It's just an honor to meet all of you. I've been watching you for so long. Thank you.

John Dehlin [02:06:41] All right. Yeah. What an amazing story. Thank you, Annie. Hope to hear from you. Please do apply.

Guest 3 [02:06:47] I will.

Guest 6 [02:06:48] Thank you. Okay.

John Dehlin [02:06:49] Take care, Annie.

Guest 3 [02:06:50] Take care. Take care.

Rapid-Fire Caller Stories on Leaving the Church

John Dehlin [02:06:51] And just a reminder to everyone left, we're going to have you tell your Mormon story. Why you left in a minute or less. So please prepare to be brief. Giovanni, why did you leave Mormonism? Welcome.

Guest 6 [02:07:06] So I left the church primarily because. Because it's believing in God stopped making sense. But I wanted to share something that might be beneficial to people. I was listening to a story on NPR about a cult called Heaven's Gate and they committed suicide back in the 90s all together. And it was a very entertaining story. At the end, they all shared their testimony just the night before they're about to commit suicide. And all of you know, testimony meetings are cringy. But that moment, this was about 7 years ago I listened to it and my jaw dropped from how similar it was their experience to what they were sharing. So at that point I had already emotionally disconnected from the church but it was very, very difficult for me to hear that and realize that I had been following a religion without, without being true to myself and that I was just doing what everybody else was doing, which is what I felt like listening to that story. And so I think it's powerful to hear it sometimes because the church tells you to be away from other people's. Everybody else is telling you that the church is not true and it's false. But it's powerful to hear it from a different perspective because then it's not about you and you can see it for what it is. And it was eye opening and that's what I wanted to share. Share that. I mean I did the whole BYU thing, the going to on my mission and final thing I want to share is I actually went to your, one of your retreats and I when I first started talking I just said I started crying because I had so much emotional trauma from being in the church and living in Utah and within about three months I had a job here in retail know and I've been so much better since. So I just wanted to thank you for that.

John Dehlin [02:08:59] What a delightful story. Hiovanny, thank you so much for sharing. I'm so glad to see, I'm so happy to see you again and glad you're doing so well. I'll also say we did an episode, me and Randy. Randy Bell did an episode on Heaven's Gate on Mormon stories. Randy Bell actually was called in to assist assess property damage and reviewed the evidence and the police reports and Heaven's Gate's a really alarming story so. Yo Vinny, I'm glad you mentioned it because yeah, those testimonies, so many testimonies in other cults or high demand religions if you swap out some of the names and some of the nouns, the, the feelings and the words and the, and the substance of those testimonies are literally indistinguishable from Mormon testimonies. Testimonies including flds testimonies of plural wives of Warren Jeffs. So. Hey Oveni, you bring up really good things. Thanks so much for joining us today and hope you'll join us again.

Britt Hartley [02:09:59] We have some data on that Too John, that 60% of people who pray if their church is true get the answer that it's yes, and that's true across the board. So it doesn't matter what religion it is.

Kolby Reddish [02:10:10] Wait, Brett, you're saying that more people than just Mormons pray to know their religion is true?

Britt Hartley [02:10:16] Yeah.

Kolby Reddish [02:10:17] Shocking.

John Dehlin [02:10:19] All right, well, we've got a few more people that have joined us. We want to try and get everyone in. So let's go to Mark Stoddard. Hey, Mark, why did you leave Mormonism?

Sloan [02:10:28] Hey, I left because, very weirdly,

Guest 7 [02:10:34] with

Sloan [02:10:34] the church, you know, you're taught to believe in the Holy Ghost and all that stuff. And I'm a return missionary as well, while I spent a long time in the church and my mother, I grew up in Goleta, California, with the mounts. So Bishop Mount was my bishop for a while.

John Dehlin [02:10:48] Oh, cool.

Sloan [02:10:50] Yeah, so my mother left in 95, and she was actually excommunicated in the 80s. And interestingly, she kept asking me, you know, what's taking you so long? And for me, in church, I just felt one day, I'm like, there's just something not right here. And then I had a kind of a weird experience. I was in church, and I started reading about Joseph Smith sticking a gun through the door and shooting the mob as they came in. And I'm like, okay, is that something a prophet would do? No. And it kind of just all stacked. And so, you know, you folks and what you do, I want to applaud you. You do do a. You're doing yeoman's work for all of us out here that are in the ex Mormon community. Fortunately for me, my transition has not been super traumatic, although I've had a very traumatic divorce as a result. And where I have a bane with Mormonism is I will never. And this hurts. I will never have a normal relationship with any of my children. My ex wife alienated them. A lot of that was because I left the church. So it's, you know, that's been the unfortunate process of the whole thing. Now I've remarried. I'm very happy, and at the end of the day, you know, for me, and one of the reasons I follow you guys and watch, I'm a logic guy, so I got to put this together and package it in some way to go, what is this? And, you know, the short of it all really is I've done more and more thinking. Watch Dan Bogle and read Dan Vogel and other folks is I don't believe Joseph Smith was a pious fraud per se. I think he just simply Made this all up. And he was a young man who, like all of us when we were. I'm a man, so I'm thinking like a man, all of us, young man, what do we want to do? We want to provide for our families. I'm a serial entrepreneur. I've retired from the army back in 2011 as a major. And. And, you know, since then, I've been a serial entrepreneur. So what do I want to do? I want to find businesses. And so I think at the end of the day, for me personally, I think Joseph Smith's two primary motivations were money. And it's very clear the data is there. It just supports it completely. And then two, he wanted to be known and prominent in his community as a respected religious guy. He wanted to start a go to church. And then finally three, I think the funny one, he just didn't want to get arrested for using the Seer stone again, you know. So to me, that was his kind of logic. It was like, okay, I'm getting arrested for using this thing. I don't want to. You know, Emma's dad wants me to be a ranch hand.

Guest 6 [02:13:40] No way.

Sloan [02:13:41] I don't want to do that. You know?

John Dehlin [02:13:43] Yeah.

Britt Hartley [02:13:44] I think this is a good example of the shadow side of having a church that says families forever. And the costs applied to the.

Guest 3 [02:13:50] That.

Britt Hartley [02:13:50] Because then if you are not enmeshed in the system, then the church is actually going to be the thing that will rip the family apart. And that's the shadow side of that

Sloan [02:14:00] sarcastic take on the proclamation of family.

John Dehlin [02:14:06] Mark, just because we've got a lot of people, I'll just say really quickly, first of all, thank you for sharing. I don't have a problem with Joseph Smith defending himself when a mob comes to kill. Kill him, so to speak. I do have a problem with the church not telling us the real circumstances of his death. Telling us that he was like a lamb to the slaughter, that he did no wrong.

Britt Hartley [02:14:27] I also don't like the drinking thing. I don't like that he took off.

Sloan [02:14:31] They took off their garments. That's all part of that.

Britt Hartley [02:14:33] So, yeah, he was getting drunk and then telling us not to.

Sloan [02:14:37] My other real bane with the church right now is the fact that it's just simply. And you guys call this out day after after day. It's just dishonest. They are misleading. They are purposely misleading, you know, and. And it makes me wonder how much there has to be some of these senior leaders there that are not that brainwashed, that. No, they're. They're Doing this and purposefully misleading, and that's.

Guest [02:15:04] That.

Sloan [02:15:04] To me, I actually looked at that kind of in a criminal way. I think that's. You're. And as a missionary, I served a mission, you know, and I had. I. I served in just about every calling. I mean, I'm a yacker, so I got called to be gospel doctrine teacher.

John Dehlin [02:15:18] No, we understand, Mark. Yeah. Just because we're short on time, yo. Yeah, the fraud is a big issue. Also, just the way divorced people are treated in the church is a huge problem. And the fact that someone losing their faith could destroy an otherwise reasonably healthy marriage. So you brought up a lot of really important issues. Mark, so glad you joined us. Sorry we don't have time to talk more. It's great to see you today.

Sloan [02:15:44] Thank you.

John Dehlin [02:15:46] What's that?

Sloan [02:15:47] Have me on sometime. I'll tell my story. I got. I got a really interesting story, so.

John Dehlin [02:15:53] All right, Mark, thanks for joining us. It's great to have you. Thank you, Mark. All right, quickly, Melissa, why did you leave Mormonism?

Kolby Reddish [02:16:01] Hi.

Guest 9 [02:16:02] I was in the church for a lot of years. Raised a family, had a lot of kids. It took a lot to get me out. I learned that compliance equaled safety. So I spent a lot of time being really good at being compliant. And I had one daughter in particular who could not do compliance. And she was talking about going through the temple, and that idea made me view the temple as an entirely different experience. I knew she couldn't do it. I knew there's no way. I knew she'd walk out. So that was where I stopped. I stopped believing. I thought at that point, as I. As I deconstructed really quickly after that, I thought I was out, but I couldn't let go of the church because I had these kids I loved more than anything. And the idea of losing my eternal family scared the heck out of me. So I didn't know what to do with that. And then one day, three years later, this episode of Mormon Stories popped into my newsfeed. And I can't tell you why I clicked on it, but I did. And it was you guys doing a panel discussion responding to a come follow lesson on DNC132. And for the first time, I had the context to explain what that was. And it changed everything for me. And in it, I cried for days. I just cried for days, and I couldn't believe anymore.

Britt Hartley [02:17:25] So do you feel like you had, like, intuitions telling you something was off, but you just kind of repressed it until. Until your daughter brought that up? And then Mormon stories, like, gave you some more context, and then you were able to, like, feel there was so much family.

Guest 9 [02:17:43] My family was not okay with me leaving. They were not okay with me letting go. So that's its own thing. And I'm sure you're familiar with how that. That works, but I'm from a large family in a small town in southern Utah, and kids, and that was hard, so it was easier for me to justify it than it was to spend too much time thinking about what that meant. And so I just would whitewash things like crazy and sweep it under the rug and put it on the shelf, and all of the things. All of the things tap dancing as quickly as I could. And then the idea of this child of mine, Mine. I had sons go on missions.

Britt Hartley [02:18:18] We.

Guest 9 [02:18:18] We did. We did the temple. But this child of mine, I. I couldn't stand the idea of her spirit being squished. There's no way that was okay.

Britt Hartley [02:18:31] That's so beautiful.

Jenny [02:18:32] Thank you.

Kolby Reddish [02:18:33] It's interesting to me, too, that you're not the only color today that shared that, basically their cat compassion or their charity for one of their children was the prime reason that they left. So thank you for sharing that, Melissa.

Guest 9 [02:18:45] Yep.

John Dehlin [02:18:45] Yeah. Yeah. Leaving instead of leaving because it's a great place to raise your kids. Leaving because you want to protect your kids from the harm that could be caused.

Guest 9 [02:18:55] Melissa. Yeah, all of them were LGBTQ and had come out, and I was. I'm ashamed to say that wasn't enough to take me out by itself. That was the precursor that happened about the same time frame. And putting that in the same context as the idea of this other child going through. Through. I could not justify anything anymore, and that let it all go well.

John Dehlin [02:19:18] Melissa, thanks for such a heartfelt story. Thanks for coming on. We really appreciate it.

Guest 9 [02:19:23] Thank you for doing what you do. It helps us a lot. So thank you. Thank you all. I appreciate you.

John Dehlin [02:19:30] Our pleasure. Thanks. Thanks, Melissa. All right, we have time for just a couple more. Really quickly. There's a few of you who have joined that don't have your cameras turned. Turned on. Mark and Stephanie, if you don't turn your cameras on, we won't be able to see you. We're down to, like, just 30 seconds. I. For those of you who are remaining, you only got just 30 seconds. So really quickly, Mike and Carrie, I've seen y' all before. I think I know what this story is going to be. Give us the 32nd version. I apologize that we got to go brief in January of 2020. I'd been a full time seminary teacher for 19 years.

Guest 2 [02:20:03] Years.

John Dehlin [02:20:03] And I'm so grateful that Carrie had the trust enough to tell me she was done at the church. And I quit my job a year later. Now I'm working as a social worker, clinical social worker with LGBTQI plus clients and in the process of becoming a certified sex therapist. And what. What if there was one thing that convinced each of you that it wasn't true? What. What was it? First you carry, then you.

Guest 11 [02:20:29] Mike, for me, I had problems throughout my life. I would say the main one.

John Dehlin [02:20:35] When I served a mission, my father passed away. They told me I. That the brother expected me to stay and I couldn't go home.

Guest 11 [02:20:41] And it was just. I accepted it.

John Dehlin [02:20:44] I blindly accepted it. And so it wasn't until 20 years

Guest 11 [02:20:47] later when I read the Gospel topics essays where I just allowed myself to think critically, and that just allowed me

John Dehlin [02:20:54] to explore all the other stuff. And I was able to tell Mike,

Britt Hartley [02:20:58] and I knew it would change our

Guest 11 [02:21:00] life forever, but we're so much happier.

John Dehlin [02:21:03] And Mike, what. What's an issue that would make a seminary teacher, a Mormon seminary teacher, leave? What was maybe one big issue for you?

Guest 2 [02:21:11] I list.

John Dehlin [02:21:11] I read Carolyn Pearson's the Ghost of Eternal Polygamy that we did. So the impact on polygamy for Mormons today, not 100 years ago, but the way Mormons the. The persistent polygamous beliefs in the Mormon church today and how that affects members.

Guest 7 [02:21:29] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:21:30] And for Carrie, you know, she also just saw how it was affecting our children, and that's really the camel that. The straw that drove broken back for her was what it was doing to our children. That's when she came to me. And then, yeah, it's been. But life without manufactured shame is just blessed. Beautiful. All right, Mike and Carrie, it's great to finally have you guys on for a bit. Thanks for joining us.

Britt Hartley [02:21:54] I have to say my favorite part of Mike's story, he lives in Boise here with Kolby and I, is how much medication he was on for anxiety and depression and heart issues when he was a seminary teacher, because the amount of repressing he was having to do was showing up in his body. And when he left, it all went away. And so he actually has a. Just his body has a story to tell.

John Dehlin [02:22:15] Wait. Our screen right now is 100% Boise. I was born in Boise. And the rest of you are in Boise. So Boise represents. All right, Mike and Carrie, thanks for joining us. Hope to see you again really quickly. Mark and Stephanie, you got your camera to work. Why did you all leave Mormonism? Give us the quick version.

Guest 12 [02:22:34] Okay.

Guest 11 [02:22:35] Well, we were in a mixed faith marriage for 28 years of our 38 years of marriage. And I was the stubborn, faithful, devoted member, rich heritage. John Taylor is my great, great grandfather. So very proud of that. But I met this guy in high school, and he was a great guy. He was raised inactive, but somehow the social pressure made him go on a mission. And I waited for him. Married in the temple.

John Dehlin [02:23:09] What caused y' all to leave?

Guest 9 [02:23:11] Truth.

Guest 11 [02:23:12] Truth matters. But it wasn't. I raised our daughters, all three of them, in the church faithfully until our oldest daughter was married and she was 26, and she heard that her boss did a Mormon stories. Clay Christensen, we're the family he speaks about in his second episode. So I. She did. She convinced me to listen to that. And because he was such a faithful, sincere member. All in. I was willing to listen and never was willing to listen to him. But we had agreed to disagree, and somehow we made it work. And so what made me listen to Clay was his sincerity. And I agreed. I never had reason to doubt. Sorry. I'm so nervous. But then I went and I did all the research. CES letters, rough stone rolling. No man knows my history. All of it. I ordered all those books. I did my own research. And I was just so blown away and so mad.

John Dehlin [02:24:17] How are you related to Clay Christensen?

Guest 11 [02:24:19] He was my daughter's boss.

John Dehlin [02:24:22] Okay. I forgot about Clay. He's a very epic Mormon story.

Kolby Reddish [02:24:27] I love that episode.

Guest 11 [02:24:29] What number 617 is the episode?

John Dehlin [02:24:32] Yeah. Now, Mark, you said truth. What's one big reason you left?

Sloan [02:24:39] It never resonated with me as being truthful. And so I left when I was

John Dehlin [02:24:44] in my early 20s just because the whole.

Sloan [02:24:47] It didn't take any proof for me.

John Dehlin [02:24:50] It's just everything in it obviously wasn't

Guest [02:24:54] true

Guest 5 [02:24:56] as I got older.

John Dehlin [02:24:56] And it was clear that anybody with the evidence today could see that it was rather frustrating. Well, I wish we had more time to hear more from your stories, Mark and Stephanie, but it's so great to have you. Thanks for your stories and hope to have you back on. All right, thank you.

Jenny [02:25:13] Thank you.

Guest 11 [02:25:13] You saved our. Our family, our marriage, so.

John Dehlin [02:25:16] Oh, my goodness. That's why we do it. But that means the world. Thank you. Thank you.

Guest 8 [02:25:23] Thank you.

John Dehlin [02:25:23] Y' all take care. Where are you calling from?

Guest 2 [02:25:25] Perry.

John Dehlin [02:25:27] Perry, Utah?

Guest [02:25:28] Yep.

Guest 11 [02:25:29] We grew up in Cache Valley.

John Dehlin [02:25:30] That's up north, right?

Guest 2 [02:25:31] Yep.

Guest [02:25:32] By Brigham City.

Guest 11 [02:25:33] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:25:33] All right. Go, Perry.

Kolby Reddish [02:25:35] Thanks, Marcus.

John Dehlin [02:25:35] Stephanie.

Sloan [02:25:36] Thank you.

John Dehlin [02:25:37] All right, All Right. Really quickly, Samantha. Oh my gosh, what happened to your camera? Samantha, can you see us? Samantha froze for a second. Let's bring on Shelley. Hey Shelly, unmute yourself yourself. Welcome to Mormon Stories and tell us really quickly why you left.

Guest 8 [02:25:55] Oh, John. And you know, I. September 23rd last year I finished watching the first season of Mormon A Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. And then after that came a little show about Joseph Smith translating the Bible and it me up. I'm sorry about swearing, sharing, but that was the moment where in my mind I, I had no idea that Joseph Smith did anything to the Bible. I was such a good Mormon and unfortunately raised in a really messed up house with a lot of sexual assault and all of that was hidden in the church. Bishop's interviews were messed up and within days I found Mormon stories and the CES left and I am just, I'm in the, I'm in the process of. I go from really, really angry, from being lied to to just the relief of knowing that I'm not crazy because everybody told me I was crazy. You know, I could never get answers from the church. You know, church didn't want to give you straightforward answers.

Sloan [02:27:07] Yeah.

Britt Hartley [02:27:09] So you were watching Secret Lives of Mormon Wives and then when you finished it, it like, it like tried to suggest a new show and that's how you got into that.

Guest 8 [02:27:19] When I saw Secret Lives of Mormon Wives show up on that on Disney platform, I live in Australia, I thought to myself, this can't be right. The church can allow this. The church hasn't this, how is this possible? My head was on fire, going, going, how is this? And you have to understand, I have been an inactive person but a true believing Mormon for nearly on and off for 30 years. And it's because I was made to be the wrong person. You know, when you're having interviews with the bishop at seven years old and they're asking you about petting and necking and keeping the law of chastity. In my head I'm like, I can't answer your questions because if I answer your questions I won't get to get baptized and I won't get. And I'll ruin my family. And the whole possibility of it's being sealed together forever in the temple, like, oh my God. The pressure that has been put on internally, it's, it's, I'm, I'm, it's real. This is so real that I feel like, like a two year old child learning to live life for the first time at 53. It's, I'm I'm grateful and I'm absolutely baffled at the same time. I've raised a 30, I've got a 34 year old who is know I married a Mormon. My, the, my, my returned missionary ex husband raped me and then I got to go to church and I got to marry him and he also abused my daughter. I know she's not watching this so I'm pretty safe in saying, saying I've just in the last two months of my deconstruction I'm getting help at the hospital. I've got some great therapists piss and you know, had memories that my dad abused me as well.

John Dehlin [02:29:32] So like Shelly this, this is a lot. So we're so grateful that you, you're willing to join especially from Australia. That's a lot that you're carrying. Thank you so much for being willing to share a bit of it and, and the church.

Guest 8 [02:29:47] You know I grew up in Winnipeg so like this has been something that, that it's across the world world. I know you guys reported on this and, and, and I'm just very grateful for you know I've listened to Kolby and Britt and I've listened to you John Dehlin and I've read the CES letter and all of these platforms, you know, Nuance Ho and cults to consciousness. Like I just can't highly recommend these places for people just to try to start to get their head around the, that we unfortunately took in and believe.

John Dehlin [02:30:19] Thank you Shelley. Thank you.

Guest 12 [02:30:21] Thanks Shelly.

Guest 8 [02:30:21] I love you.

John Dehlin [02:30:22] Thanks so much for joining us all the way from Australia.

Britt Hartley [02:30:25] I think Shelley highlights something that is unique to high demand religions which is when you do leave, you are a newborn baby like you, you don't have skills for how to do life because you were doing it all within religion.

John Dehlin [02:30:39] Absolutely.

Kolby Reddish [02:30:40] I'm also grateful that she joined us to share one her emotion that connected with the comments earlier that talked about about it changes, you know, minute to minute, hour to hour. And I'm also grateful that she dropped our first Mormon stories live F bomb so I didn't have to do it job.

John Dehlin [02:30:54] I think she dropped three or four. But yes, we welcome authenticity even if it comes in the form of four letter words. Samantha, you've been patient. Welcome. Tell us in 30 seconds or less why you left Mormonism.

Guest 12 [02:31:09] Yeah, for me I feel like it was right after your episode with Mark Pugsley, I believe that's his name, where you guys discussed the SEC scandal and then right around that same time there was a lot coming up in the news about the Arizona sex abuse case and how the LDS Church, Church's lack of involvement kind of led to, you know, someone being harmed in a significant way. And it just kind of of sealed the deal for me that this wasn't an organization that I wanted to be a part of. And kind of, I just felt like it was really evident that the patterns of abuse, of coercion, of dishonesty, you know, are still a part of the church today, just like they were, you know, at the beginnings with Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. So that was kind of what led me to walk away for good.

John Dehlin [02:32:07] So you're saying you've got a problem with financial fraud and cover up of sexual abuse? Is that what you're trying to tell us?

Guest 12 [02:32:13] I mean, just a little, I guess.

John Dehlin [02:32:15] Yeah, that's. Those are really important issues that have taken a lot of people out these days. Ensign Peak, the SEC stuff, there's IRS stuff that is coming out now. Check out the widow's mite report report. They just came out with a recent report recently where it's looking like they've uncovered more tax fraud. The church has not been transparent in finances and it's, and it's apparently potentially allegedly engaged in financial fraud. And you know, we've covered the sexual abuse cover up scandals extensively and it's, it's arguable that Mormonism has as much or more sexual abuse cover ups per capita than the Catholic Church.

Guest 9 [02:32:56] Church.

Guest 12 [02:32:58] Okay, I'm not that surprised, but where

John Dehlin [02:33:02] are you calling from, Samantha?

Guest 12 [02:33:04] Oregon, Portland area.

John Dehlin [02:33:06] All right, Oregon represent. Well, Samantha, thanks for joining us. Thanks for your patience. Oh, no problem.

Guest 12 [02:33:11] Thank you.

John Dehlin [02:33:12] So great to have you. Hope to see you again. All right, take care. All right, we got time for one last person. It's Gene Judson. Gene, 15 seconds or less. Why did you leave Mormon? Mormonism? 15 seconds.

Guest [02:33:25] I left Mormonism because John Dehlin got excommunicated.

John Dehlin [02:33:28] What? That was the straw that broke my camel's back, proverbially.

Guest [02:33:34] And there had been a lot of issues and I stopped paying tithing because

John Dehlin [02:33:39] of Kate Kelly getting excommunicated and I

Guest [02:33:41] stopped attending because of your excommunication. But I still had hope for Joseph Smith and Jesus, but it wasn't until

John Dehlin [02:33:49] Covid and rewatching a lot of Mormon

Guest [02:33:53] stories and especially like the Dan Vogel series and it just was like, wow, it was just history. All the anti Mormon lies was just truthful history and we've been lied to and so that's pretty much the, the

John Dehlin [02:34:10] end of it for me.

Guest [02:34:12] You've saved me, I guess about you

John Dehlin [02:34:15] know, $30,000 or more in tithing or whatever.

Guest [02:34:18] So there you go.

Britt Hartley [02:34:19] And you're going to pour it all into Mormon stories.

Guest 8 [02:34:22] Right.

John Dehlin [02:34:22] Somehow it got spent.

Guest [02:34:24] Who knew?

Guest 13 [02:34:25] Right.

Britt Hartley [02:34:25] How often does that happen, John, where someone says that your excommunication really affected them. Does that happen?

Guest 9 [02:34:31] Quite a bit.

John Dehlin [02:34:32] I do think that. That there was a time where Kate Kelly's mine, Jeremy Runnels, you know, there were so. Sam Young's excommunication. There have been so many excommunications. Natasha help offers excommunication. Like, I. I do think that as. As horrible it is as it is to be excommunicated. I think it's hurt the church way more to excommunicate its critics and its dissenters and its truth tellers. Because, yeah, so many people said if the church doesn't want John or Natasha or Sam or Bill Real or Jeremy, then they don't want, you know, me, me. So I just think the church pokes itself in the eye when it excommunicates its truth tellers.

Kolby Reddish [02:35:16] I think with the excommunication of Nemo last year or earlier.

John Dehlin [02:35:20] Nemo, yeah.

Kolby Reddish [02:35:21] I think. I think Radio Free Mormon is like the last outspoken critic with a, you know, with a platform or a podcast that hasn't been excommunicated yet.

Britt Hartley [02:35:30] I have not been excommunicated yet. And honestly, I'm. I'm offended. I'm honestly offended that they don't care about me enough to excommunicate me. It's offensive. It's rude. Like, what does a girl have to do?

John Dehlin [02:35:44] Are you throwing down the gauntlet?

Britt Hartley [02:35:46] I'm actually more. I'm more interested in what's going to happen with Julie Hanks because I feel like they want to excommunicate her, but there's going to be a lot of women that walk out with her. So I'm more. I'm more interested in what happens with that situation.

John Dehlin [02:36:03] What's that?

Guest [02:36:04] I said you have to start saying priesthood pricks about the leaders. Like, yeah, I guess.

Britt Hartley [02:36:10] And honestly, I'm just tired.

John Dehlin [02:36:12] Also, Michelle Stone, it'll be interesting to see if the church.

Britt Hartley [02:36:16] Oh, yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:36:18] I just have to say, Gene, you've been a really. You've been a super fan of Mormon stories. You've been really supportive. You do a lot of great work on your YouTube channel as well. And I just want to thank you for being such a great fan and a great citizen in the community.

Guest [02:36:36] Thank you. Sad story, merman stories.

John Dehlin [02:36:42] Thanks, brother.

Guest [02:36:43] Bye.

John Dehlin [02:36:44] Good to see you, Gene. Thanks for Joining us.

Britt Hartley [02:36:45] Sad story. I recorded like a two hour conversation with Gene that wasn't recording that we haven't done again yet. So that's the worst.

Guest 9 [02:36:53] Yeah.

Final Thoughts from the Panel

John Dehlin [02:36:54] Well, we've gone two and a half hours. This has been great. Let's give each of you guys a chance to give some final thoughts. You want to go first, Britt?

Britt Hartley [02:37:03] Yeah, I don't have a lot to say other than I feel like that was a really good sampling.

Guest 11 [02:37:07] Right.

Britt Hartley [02:37:07] And, and we got a lot of. There was Mormon stories, there was mixed faith marriages, there was Book of Abraham, there was church topics, the women especially. I feel like that came up a couple times. I mean, I feel like we covered, covered our bases here. And I just want to say that on the, on the side when I'm reading through the comments, there's just a lot of people who are appreciating this conversation and wanting us to do more of them. So I do feel like we gave a pretty, pretty broad tasting of what it's like. And what's really interesting when I read the Nevermost comments is that because Mormonism is different than whatever religion or ism that they're in, but we're covering so much ground, they're able to see kind of their own organization mirrored in what we're talking about and it's helping them process whatever religion or ism they're a part of. And so, yeah, this just seemed to, to hit, hit a lot of ground. So. Appreciative of everyone that called in.

John Dehlin [02:38:07] Absolutely. Let me thank my friend Bishop Bo. Bishop Bo says, awesome format. We love you, Bo. I don't if you're still in Hawaii, get home soon. But we love you, Bo. Thanks for the feedback. Thanks for listening. Couple other super chats. Meg Mont Zukas says, great theme. My shelf broke when I had to teach Doctrine and Covenant Section 132 to teenagers in Sunday school. I didn't want to lie or hide it, but it made it too real. Yeah. DNC132 is for sure a shelf breaker. Thanks for sharing. Emma Robinson Robson says, I found Mormon Stories podcast because of Lori Valo and Chad Dabel. I think a lot of people did. Thank you so much, Emma, for the super chat and for the support. We also got a Super chat from Ms. Angry Scott. Seth, thanks for that. And Hiovani Sanchez as well. Thanks to everyone who donated and supported today. And most importantly, I just want to thank the bread and butter donors of Mormon Stories podcast who just go to MormonStories.org, click on the donate button. They become Monthly donors. You keep the lights on Kolby. Final thoughts?

Kolby Reddish [02:39:16] Yeah, my final thoughts is I'm just very appreciative of all the callers who called in today to share their perspectives. I think, like Britt said, we saw different emotions around the gamut of all the different things that we talked about in the poll as we set. As we set the expectations. Looking at that data, I think my last thing I'd just say is that I hope everyone who deconstructs Mormonism or whatever faith tradition that's interested in this episode finds happiness and finds peace on the other side of things. I know that faith transitions can be a really rough couple years.

Guest 12 [02:39:51] Years.

Kolby Reddish [02:39:51] I'm now three and a half years out from when I was really in the hard times. And I will say that first year was a lot harder looking back now than I even remember. But you're strong. Stick to your principles, do your research, rely on your. Your people, whether that's family, friends, whoever is there for you. This community can be amazing. That'd be my big recommendation. And the last thing I'd say is, is, at least for me, what was really helpful was learning the basics of critical thinking and Epistemology 101. It was understanding different logical fallacies because there are so many ways that our brains have been hardwired to believe things for bad reasons if we can't find good reasons to believe. And so I would say rely on that, those resources that you can find. And I was really glad that Britt could join us today because I think she's doing some really interesting things in this space, and I really appreciate both you of. Of you for being part of this conversation.

John Dehlin [02:40:48] Britt, how do people. How do people get your book and follow your TikTok and YouTube and all your good things?

Britt Hartley [02:40:55] Yeah, it's no nonsense. Spirituality everywhere. So on social media, the book, the website. So it's all under that name.

John Dehlin [02:41:03] All right, Britt, you're awesome. Thank you so much.

Britt Hartley [02:41:05] Thanks, guys.

John Dehlin [02:41:06] Great to have you. Thanks for organizing today. Please tell Cam we love and miss her. It's always great when she's on and,

Kolby Reddish [02:41:15] oh, I totally forgot to mention, yes, Cammie will probably not be joining us every episode. That's in part because she's been dealing with some health issues, some autoimmune issues. I think a lot of people experience those when they're going through tough times with, you know, little kids and faith transition stuff. So she's just decided that, you know, podcasting every week isn't really her thing, so.

John Dehlin [02:41:38] So that. But we also love Having Kim on, she's brilliant and, and as her health and time permits and the topic, when it's a good fit, we really hope to have her back because we love her. So give her our.

Britt Hartley [02:41:50] I did have one. Go ahead. Sorry.

Kolby Reddish [02:41:52] Oh, I was just gonna say she's, she's exercising different ways to get her ideas out into the world. So through illustration and through different projects that she's working on. So for people who really appreciate her perspective, also know that most of the good things that come out of my mouth are because I listen to her.

John Dehlin [02:42:07] So love it.

Britt Hartley [02:42:09] I just had one question in the comments that I wanted to answer. Someone said, I've gotten Britt's first book, but where's the second book? I'm about six months away from releasing the second book, which is specifically on existential crisis. So you better believe I'll be back on Mormon Stories when that is published.

John Dehlin [02:42:26] Great. Thanks, Britt.

Britt Hartley [02:42:28] Bye, guys.

John Dehlin [02:42:29] Thanks, Kolby. And I'll just say my final comment is if you're in the middle or beginning of faith crisis or at the end, we have a free resource for you that really can be helpful. Just go to mormonfaithcrisis.com there's over 70 hours of free coaching. It's me and my wife, Margi and Natasha Helfer. And we talk about talking to your children in a faith crisis, keeping a marriage healthy in a faith crisis, being in a mixed faith marriage, communicating with believing family and friends, friends coming out to your bishop, coming out to ward members, healthy sexuality, you know, healthy marriage concepts, grieving, creating healthy rituals, creating secular spirituality, how not to blow up your life, common mistakes that people made. This is one of the most valuable resources that we've ever produced. And it's almost no one knows about it and it's almost never looked at. So just go to mormonfaithcrisis.com and please check that out because it's there to help you and so many people don't know about it. If you want to learn more about the truth claims, check out the LDS discussion series. It's on YouTube. It's on Spotify and Apple podcasts. People love it. Always check out Mormon think in the CES letter as well. There's lots of other YouTube channels and podcasts that you could check out. Just know that we're here to support you in any way that we can. And thanks for joining us today. Thanks to Julia and Brooklyn that make all this possible. Thanks to our live callers. If you like this format, let us know. If you don't like this format. Let us know if you have feedback. Email it to mormonstoriesgmail.com or leave a comment. We read every comment. Also, if you want to apply to be on Mormon Stories, just go to MormonStories.org click on the application button. Make sure to record that three minute video. We will not likely accept you if you haven't recorded a three minute video telling us why you think you'd be a good fit. We also just again please subscribe to this channel. Please like these episodes or thumbs them up. Please share them and yeah, and again the comments always help with the algorithm. That's it. That's all for today.

Closing Remarks and Resources

Guest 3 [02:44:49] Today.

John Dehlin [02:44:50] Be good to each other. Be kind to each other. Thanks for joining us. Hope to see you again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories Podcast and on our live Q and as. Take care everybody and we'll see you all very soon.

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.