Welcome and Introducing Today's Guests

John Dehlin [00:00:01] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin, one of your hosts, John de Lynn. It's September 15, 2022, and we are excited to have back in the house, Carah Burrell. Hey, Carah.

Carah Burrell [00:00:15] Hey.

John Dehlin [00:00:16] It's good to have you in studio.

Carah Burrell [00:00:17] So happy to be back. And I also just noticed, I mean, not that I just noticed John moved around the whole studio, but I also just noticed that you have a bunch of cute little stuff, little knickknacks that I brought into the studio back in the day. That little golden plates. I got that from Di for you. So I just come back to home. I'm like, ah, so it's good to be back.

John Dehlin [00:00:34] We just can't quit Carah.

Carah Burrell [00:00:35] Basically, there's just, I just can't quit you.

John Dehlin [00:00:39] Well, welcome back. It's great to have you for our monthly Mormon Expression episode with John Larsen.

Carah Burrell [00:00:43] Karen. John Larsen.

John Dehlin [00:00:45] Yep.

Carah Burrell [00:00:46] We're back.

John Dehlin [00:00:46] It's a franchise. Yeah. And so for those who don't know, we, we, you know, John Larsen, once upon a time was a huge, mammoth, epic, heavyweight Mormon themed podcaster. And then he took a break. And we are so honored with your support to bring him back as a monthly contributor. So without any further ado, John Larsen, welcome back to Mormon Stories.

John Larsen [00:01:15] Hey, guys, thanks for having me.

John Dehlin [00:01:16] It's so good to have you.

John Larsen [00:01:18] It's great to be here. I'm. I'm always. Well, I was going to say I always look forward to these, but actually that's a lie because I have to do homework before them oftentimes, so they hang over me. But they're always. They're always a great time. A great time is had by all.

John Dehlin [00:01:33] Yeah. Yeah. You'd think we'd be done with homework, but here we are. Yeah.

John Larsen [00:01:39] Right.

John Dehlin [00:01:39] Well, it's good to have you. We're glad to have you. And, you know, we talked about doing an episode on. I think you were thinking about doing the Mormon Church's history of filing amicus briefs. I think we have a little more research we want to do on that. Is that right?

John Larsen [00:01:55] Yeah, yeah. I run out of time. You know, I have a regular job and a family and I have a kind of a little farm. So it is the fall, so we've been in the middle of canning and harvesting things, so I didn't quite get there. But, John, you. And this is going to segue a little bit. I listened to your podcast from last week where you kind of came and did a. A open transparency, which, by the way, I really enjoy. And we used to try to do those back in the old Mormon expression days, and they were. They were well received. So I.

John Larsen [00:02:26] I listened. This is an idea I've had bouncing around that we're talking about tonight. But I listened to that, and I. You know, I want to validate a lot of the things you said about how difficult and why this job of. Of working in this Mormon space is.

John Larsen [00:02:42] Is. It's painful. It's. It's. It's. It's a lot. And, And. And what led to this topic of why are our ex Mormons perceived as being so hateful? And I thought we could talk about it.

Why Do Ex-Mormons Seem So Angry?

John Dehlin [00:02:55] Okay. All right, well, let's do it. Carrie, you ready? Are you hateful? Are you a hateful human?

Carah Burrell [00:03:03] No, I. I. The transparency update that John Larsen was just referencing, I did my own little response to your video. Yeah, bump the mic. I haven't been here in a while. Sorry, I forgot that that's what's here. My equipment at home is not this fancy.

Carah Burrell [00:03:19] And so you mentioned in that that, you know, you have more of a critical lens about the world in a lot of ways. But I felt like I expressed myself in that video on my YouTube channel, that I was like, I feel my eyes are wide open for empathy for so many different people with so many different backgrounds, seeing people as products of their genetics and their conditioning and trying to understand and listen and empathize with people in the situations that they're in. So while I feel like. Well, the. The thing that we're talking about feels very. We're talking about somebody's religion, it makes people think that you're attacking them as individuals, and that makes them feel like, you hate me if you don't like, you know, the church that I participate in. But as I'm sure we'll get into, that's not exactly correct.

John Dehlin [00:03:57] Yeah. Yeah. It's more. It's more complicated than that. So. So, John, I'm. We're super glad that you chose this topic.

Carah Burrell [00:04:04] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:04:05] And. And it's also just one of the common. I liked Maven. When Maven was writing the description, she called it a trope, kind of the trope of the angry ex Mormon. And we're kind of taking on a trope today a little bit.

John Larsen [00:04:15] Right, right.

John Dehlin [00:04:17] And.

John Larsen [00:04:17] And just to be clear, you know, I'm looking at the comments and listening to you guys, we keep going to the word angry, which is very important part of this discussion. But I specifically said hateful, which is the. Which is the more toxic thing. The ex Mormons are accused of, of being, of being.

John Larsen [00:04:35] Yeah. Almost like a hate group. And, and so I want to leave, Leave room for that. That just like faith transition just said, anger doesn't equal hate. But oftentimes that anger that people feel, which, which is a valid emotion we're going to talk about, that is, is translated into, into, into, into hate. And that can be very dangerous because when people feel hate or they feel like they're being hated, human beings seem to have a low bar for violence at that point. And so I, I think it's a, it's a sensitive topic on all sides because there are people in the church, I want to be clear right up front, who suffer because people leave the church and that suffering is real and the anger that they feel on their part is real. And it's.

Carah Burrell [00:05:26] Paul.

John Larsen [00:05:26] Part of this big, nasty equation that we're dealing with.

John Dehlin [00:05:31] Yeah. In fact, in fact, John, you're, you know, this, just this week, I released an episode with Patrick Mason, kind of the church's top faithful scholar in the world. And in part three of that interview, I let him ask us questions. And he asked a really poignant question to me and Margi. He said, what about our pain? You know, he says, you ex Mormons like to talk about your pain and your suffering and your discomfort, but we've had people we love leave the church and it's caused us pain. What about our pain? And it was a. I really like that we start with empathy because I think what we need in the world is more empathy, not more anger and attacks and, and wars and, and so thank you for starting in from an empathetic place.

John Larsen [00:06:19] Well, yeah, I think it's really important over the years, as you have, John, I've had the, the, the fortune of talking to a lot of people who left the church. You know, when, when my name got out there and, you know, people can contact me and they still can. My email is john larson.org there there.

John Larsen [00:06:43] You hear a lot of people working through this, and one of the things that I've counseled a lot of people is to try to understand how the members of the church are processing this whole thing. And we're going to kind of get into that tonight. But it is really important to acknowledge that there, when someone leaves the church, there is suffering all around.

John Larsen [00:07:04] And that's where I wish we could develop more empathy for one another and realize, you know, we're, we're punching hard both ways, but we're still the same people. You know, there's people who've left the church, people who were part of the church. But at one time we were all a community.

John Larsen [00:07:22] And there's good reasons why the ex Mormons are not in that community, mostly because they get thrown out of it. But we do need to dig deep to find that empathy for, for everyone involved. And it's hard. It's very difficult.

John Dehlin [00:07:37] It is like, we'll probably get to this, but I, I often like to think that, you know, if you believe Joseph Smith is what he claimed, then, you know, then the church is true and everyone should be a member of it. If you, if you believe that maybe Joseph Smith wasn't what he claimed and that the church isn't true, then you could literally conceive of everybody else as victims, including the true believers that believe that Joseph Smith created something that he actually didn't create. And that even makes someone as, maybe as unpopular as Brigham Young in the ex Mormon circles or you know, pick your modern day prophet that you don't like.

John Dehlin [00:08:17] If they're sincere believers in what Joseph Smith started, let alone your believing family and friends, they're just literally feeling passionate about, caring about and defending something that they just genuinely believe. So in that sense, we're literally other than maybe Joseph Smith and someone might even want to make a case for Joseph Smith being a victim. I don't know. But if you don't believe Joseph Smith's what he claims to be, you can make an argument that we're all victims. What do you think about that, Carah?

Carah Burrell [00:08:44] Yeah, and I think the country that we live in and the world that we inhabit, yeah, there's gonna be different ideas that can get stuck inside people's heads and those can be utilized for power and influence and those ideas like we like to talk with, you know, the word cult is kind of a, a scary word.

Carah Burrell [00:09:09] Um, and people wouldn't join religions that are cults if they didn't have some advantages to it. So we have to look at things that are multifaceted. We have to be nuanced about it. Um, I used to say this in my Mormon Stories interview back in the day that like, things are complicated and, and the reasons that people stay in the church and the reasons that they, they find, you know, that spiritual intuition and they, these different tools and these different rituals, they obviously they brought a lot of healing and space and connection with the divine for me, until they didn't. Until I found out that they weren't really rooted anything.

Carah Burrell [00:09:40] And I was like, hey, that's why I was sus this whole time. So those Those tools are still really important to my parents. My parents still. While I don't feel like the church is true and that Joseph Smith did make it up, and it does have a lot of reasons that it fits the BITE model to be a cult and that it's overall not healthy, some people, they can still utilize those tools to the best of their advantage for community reasons and to communicate with the divine, which is what I kind of feel like intuitively we all try to do. But it can be taken advantage in systemic ways.

Carah Burrell [00:10:10] And that's what normally. I think, John, and you and me, we're trying to give as much informed consent to people as possible to know. These are some of the damaging reasons that you might not want to live with such strict orthodoxy, and you might not want to ostracize people who are gay or different or want to be on a more nuanced Mormon path than the orthodoxy that you try to practice, that there are people who connect with the divine and connect with themselves and try to find authenticity in this life in all kinds of different ways. And I try to respect my parents.

Carah Burrell [00:10:43] Carah, that doesn't sound like you. I'm really trying. I really try because I know how much those. I know how much guidance and things that the Mormon principles brought to me when I was Mormon, and it's more about things from a systemic level and trying to root out, you know, corruption and lies and child abuse and all of those things, and getting people to look at those things, in my personal opinion. But I do understand that the rituals and the spiritual connection is not something that I want to always. You know, I don't want to stick the knife in that deep on those kinds of things. So I'm just trying to say it's nuanced, it's multifaceted.

John Dehlin [00:11:17] Totally. All right, well, John, where. Where. Where should we go next?

Origins of Mormon Expression Podcast

John Larsen [00:11:23] Well, sorry. When I started Mormon expression in 2009, I had just moved from Utah to North Carolina. And prior to that, I was involved in Utah in an organization that existed at the time called calm, which was the community. After leaving Mormonism, it just really helped people get together, find others, connect. We had meetings, like, in the public library and things like that.

John Larsen [00:11:50] And then I went out to. To North Carolina, and I was still fairly interested academically in Mormonism. Like, after I. After I left the church, I was really fascinated. Well, how did we get here? How did all this happen? Why. Why do so many intelligent, thoughtful, sensitive people believe something that is so obviously false?

John Larsen [00:12:11] So I started the podcast. There were actually five of Us that started it. And there were two that were kind of stridently ex Mormon, more anti Mormon, I would say, that were to the, to the left of me, and there were two that were to the right of me that were both still attending church and, but still wanted to discuss things. So I kind of positioned myself in the first few episodes in the middle, trying to, trying to moderate it. I thought the podcast was going to be more academic than it ended up being, more, more cerebral. But the reason I bring this up is I was not nearly as angry.

John Larsen [00:12:50] I'd processed kind of out of the church. You know, I, I didn't have the kind of hostility that you've heard from me since. But what happened as soon as we put the podcast out there, people started to call me and, and they started talking to me and I started hearing their story and I started hearing what had happened. Like, I grew up and I had really good church leaders when I was a kid, all the way up until I got to byu and then they were for shit. And, but I had been immune against that because I had a really good experience growing up in the church.

John Larsen [00:13:21] I had my doubts, but we were a community. You know, the, the, the, the bishops in, in my ward. I was fortunate enough, really cared about people and it was this, like a bucket of ice water thrown on me to recognize how much the church had done damage and hurt a lot of people. I realized that instead of sitting on this academic problem of is the church true or not, we were sitting on an entire world of pain and circles of pain that kept flying, feeding on themselves in terms of family relationships and, and other stuff. So it opened my eyes to a world that I had not quite seen and, and a lot of members in the church, I'll say, you know, 10, 15 years later, and you both can verify this.

John Larsen [00:14:12] A lot of people in the church have really positive experiences or generally banal experience of the church, and they don't see all the pain because it's oftentimes hidden behind closed doors. The shunning and other things that we're going to talk about is, is not present.

John Larsen [00:14:28] So, so as, and, and, and I got, I got more and more mad when I started seeing that there were real victims in real serious, serious ways that led to suicide and alcoholism and drug use and, and financial woes and divorce. Possible terrible thing you can come up with was rooted in these things that were happening as people lost their faith in the church. And it is this big gory underside of, of just filth and smut.

John Larsen [00:15:02] And I didn't know it was there. And, and, and then I rolled around in it for five years, John. And, and kudos to you. 2014. I, I had to be done. So I, it's true. I come on this podcast every month or so. I'll engage things, but I don't. I can't swim in the world of ex Mormon pain anymore. I can't, I can't do it. It's. It's too much.

John Dehlin [00:15:24] Yeah. And every, every day I think Margi and I are saying, can we last another week? Honestly?

John Larsen [00:15:31] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:15:32] It's brutal. I mean, car. You, you. Your response to my recent OSF announcement. I think you empathize. Am I wrong?

Carah Burrell [00:15:41] You definitely read. Yeah. Yep, yep, yep. This is a very, a space with people who are highly traumatized. And then there's always the Mormons and the TBMs and the apologists coming in here saying maybe you're just inventing things to be traumatized by. But I don't know if you guys have ever seen, gone to like a non Mormon therapist and like, explained some norm things in Mormonism. They usually are like, you had to do a what about and you were okay with doing. Huh. It's usually people outside of the church, they can understand that the traumas are real, the situations that people find themselves in are highly coerced, and people are lacking any kind of like, true authenticity to steer their life and are very much conditioned in a highly patriarchal system, highly conservative system that can serve some people, but sure, don't serve them all.

John Dehlin [00:16:34] Yeah, absolutely.

John Larsen [00:16:36] Hey, parenthetically, I'll add, you know, my recommendation to people over the years, when you talk about therapists, it's hard to find, you know, a good therapist to deal with when you're leaving the church. I usually will recommend people look for Jewish therapists because there is sort of the, the, there's several things that have gone on. Of course, Jewish people continue to suffer from a lot of discrimination and, and, and flat out hate. But there's also the tensions in the Jewish community between the Orthodox and, and the more liberal Jews. And I, I found that individuals who understand Judaism can be very empathetic to the Mormon, ex Mormon thing.

John Larsen [00:17:17] I just throw that out there because there's a lot of people listening to this who are nowhere where there's enough therapists to find a good ex Mormon therapist or even a therapist that understands transitioning out of religion. So that's, I'll, I'll give you guys that tip. John, you're a therapist. What would you say?

John Dehlin [00:17:31] Well, yeah, I Mean, it's, it's tough, it. So one, one thing that I, that I learned as I was getting my PhD in clinical and counseling psychology is that just like in, in the medical profession, you don't just, you wouldn't go to an eye doctor for brain surgery, you wouldn't go to a podiatrist for heart surgery. There's specialties and specialties matter. Mental health is literally the same way. Of course there's like chronic depression that, that any well trained therapist can deal with if it's low grade chronic depression or low grade chronic anxiety or kind of general life experiences. But as soon as you get into any clinical diagnosis, whether it's obsessive compulsive disorder, eating disorders, post traumatic stress disorder, name, name your major disorder, you really do want someone who's, who's got training with empirically supported treatments to treat that specific disorder.

Finding Specialized Help After Leaving the Church

John Dehlin [00:18:26] But it turns out that a faith crisis from a high demand religion and, or a mixed faith marriage within a high demand religion is its own specialty that requires a level of cultural competence as they call it in the professional biz that is really essential.

John Dehlin [00:18:45] So on the one hand, yes, John Larsen, there are going to be highly skilled therapists who have either trained to deal with people coming out of high demand religions or mixed faith marriages or they've been in, you know, they're, they're survivors of high demand religions themselves and they've just done enough client, client interactions where they become an expert in it. So in that sense, yes, if, if you get an ex Scientologist or next Jehovah's Witness or next Jew or an ex evangelical therapist who really is a specialist who's got that cultural competence and expertise, I think that can very easily transfer between high demand religious traditions.

John Dehlin [00:19:26] But there are going to be things unique to Mormonism that really even blow the minds of a, of a ex Jew or an ex Catholic or an ex evangelical. So I think, I think one of the rules of therapy is you just find a therapist that works and you should feel free to shop therapists until you find someone that works. And I think finding an a Jewish or an ex Jewish therapist can be a great idea, but it's not a given. You would still want to do your due diligence to make sure that makes sense.

Carah Burrell [00:19:56] Yeah, you don't want to waste that good on hard earned money explaining like the temple rituals when somebody could have already gone through one.

John Dehlin [00:20:02] Exactly. Yeah.

Carah Burrell [00:20:03] Like we just ate up an entire IRO for me telling you what young woman's in Trek is you know exactly.

John Larsen [00:20:08] No, that's fantastic advice, John. The only thing I would add is if you're going to talk to a therapist, and I suggest the leaving the church is, especially if you spent a majority of your life in the church, you probably should talk to a therapist and, but you got to audition those therapists. If, if I were to go back to a therapist, I probably wouldn't even talk to her for the first two sessions. I just want her to explain why she thinks she can help me because I, in, in the years working with Mormons, Mormon expression, we started partnering with therapists and trying to get people to therapists. I, I've met a lot of therapists and I'm going to say something. Half of them aren't worth your time. So you really, you really got to put them through the paces.

Carah Burrell [00:20:53] And while life coaching is not a super regulated industry, I love my friends. I know Margi's a life coach, you know, Leah Young, like Sam Shelley, Kyle Bishop. There's so much good wisdom that can be found in post Mormon life coaching that I think is also kind of bang for your buck. Don't you think, John?

John Dehlin [00:21:14] Yeah. Like it, it's, it's, it's interesting because on the one hand, when I was being trained to be a psychologist, you know, they, they look down their noses at like Tony Robbins or life coaches because they unregulated. Yeah, yeah.

Carah Burrell [00:21:30] Because like a certification only means so much. But yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:21:34] I mean if you get your PhD in psychology, you've got five to six years of course, clinical training full time. A life coach can literally not have any training and just call themselves a life coach. So on the one hand, especially if you're, you know, seeking treatment for major disorders, you're always better with the, not, not just, not just a therapist, but a clinical psychologist who, who's an expert in that disorder. Having said that, oftentimes a faith crisis is not a disorder. It's not. I mean it can be comorbid, as we say, with depression or anxiety or other sorts of things. But, but it, sometimes you just need help me.

John Dehlin [00:22:12] How do I talk to my parents? How do I talk to my spouse? How do I talk to my kids? How do I figure out what my new identity is? And ironically, when you're getting trained to be a therapist, whether it's a Master's level or PhD level, most, most professors and trainers don't want to get anywhere near religion. They hate the topic of religion. They're not, they're, most of them are secular and they don't actually have any experience talking about religion and they're certainly not culturally competent. So weirdly, you can get a 20 year PhD level clinical psychologist who literally can add no value to you in your faith crisis or relatively little value.

John Dehlin [00:22:56] Whereas somebody like a Sam Shelley or Aaliyah Young or whoever who's like live 30, 40, 50 years within the Mormon context, they often have so, and then they're just wi, they're good listeners, they can show unconditional positive regard, they've got the cultural competence. And then if they've got additional coaching training so that they understand the ethics of coaching, they can, they can work wonders in just a session or two. So it's, it's tricky because you know what you really want are experts in or out of licensed therapy. You just want experts who are good people and you only find that out through, you know, reputation talking to other people that can refer and trial and error. Yeah, good point. It's a good point.

Carah Burrell [00:23:46] To get the help they need and connect with whatever kind of provider that means.

John Dehlin [00:23:49] Yeah, that's great.

John Larsen [00:23:50] I'll give my unpopular opinion here on life coaches. To me, a life coach is like buying electronics from a van at the supermarket. I, I, in, in my career I have to hire a lot of highly skilled, highly technical people. And the truth is that there are a lot of not highly skilled, highly technical people who can do 99 of the highly technical, highly skilled person's job. But I pay them because they, they know what to do with that 1%. I'm afraid you get in with a, with a life coach, they might actually be doing damage and not realizing it or not recognizing when they click, when they trip over something that is really serious. So I would say use extreme caution with life coaches because if, if you've got a real issue, you, you might just make it worse.

John Dehlin [00:24:44] I can't, I can't argue with you. And I'll, I'll just say if you want your best bet, find a PhD level psychologist who's culturally competent in, in faith crises. That's gonna always be your best bet.

John Larsen [00:24:58] Agreed. And I wish, I wish they, they hung there, there. You know, I found a lot of therapists list a lot of skills and you look at that and say you can't really be expert in all those things. So that's again why I go back to interview them, talk to them, you know, because if you're like me and in, in person, I'm very much a people pleaser and I want to please that therapist. I want that therapist to like Me, I, but go in a little grumpy, you know, like, and, and, and ask them some hard questions.

John Dehlin [00:25:26] I love it. All right, John, well, we love your, your opinions and we don't care how popular they are to be a truth teller.

Pain as the Root of Ex-Mormon Anger

John Larsen [00:25:35] All right, so we're, we're talking about why do, why do ex Mormons appear so, so hateful? So let's start with the first one that I brought up, which is pain. And, and, and there's, I've watched some of the comments. There's, there's some good points in here. People can feel pain and they can suffer for things that they do that they perpetrate. Like oftentimes perpetrators of violence or sexual violence or other stuff feel shame, humiliation. It's, it's. And by the way, we should have put this disclaimer up front. I'm sorry, I'm gonna do it right now. We're going to be talking about suicide tonight. So if that's something that, that's beyond what you can stomach, then I think this is a, probably a good time to head for the, the side doors. And I don't know, John, if you have anything to say about that. Nope.

John Dehlin [00:26:31] That's good.

John Larsen [00:26:31] Yeah. So, so, and you can see those things where somebody who is, is, you know, extremely abusive, physically abusive, ends up taking their own life. And I'm not saying so. I, I want to be able to acknowledge that people hurt and have empathy for their hurt, even when they're villains. Right. The, the, the, we're all still humans. And I think that's an important part for ex Mormons to process the Mormon side of this thing. Because the, the response oftentimes is, well, they did this to us. They don't have to do what they're doing. Why should I be empathetic to the them? Why should I give them quarter?

John Larsen [00:27:07] And I'm not saying you have to give them quarter. You're just going to understand the world better and be able to process your own pain and find your own place in the world if you can understand and acknowledge that some of the, some of the things people are saying come from places of, of anger. I was watching. I'm not going to give them any sort of credence by naming who they are. Watching some junior apologists online. I was watching this little video that popped up in my feedback of them just lambasting why are ex Mormons so angry? And it just seemed like anger coming out, coming out of them.

John Larsen [00:27:41] And I'm like, well, probably for the same reason you are, my friend. And. And I think if we can acknowledge that there's pain all the way around, that doesn't excuse villainous behavior.

John Dehlin [00:27:54] Yeah, yeah. I know what video you're talking about, and I agree. We don't really. I don't think the video is kind of worth dignifying by actually talking about who we're talking about, but I'll just

Carah Burrell [00:28:05] stay in the dark.

John Larsen [00:28:07] Well, it's not just one. There's plenty out there, you know, of. Of. Of apologists and. And whatever. Who. Who, you know, and who accuse ex Mormons of having personality flaws, basically, because of these things.

John Dehlin [00:28:22] Yeah.

John Larsen [00:28:22] So, okay, that's a lead into pain

John Dehlin [00:28:24] you're talking about specifically. It's kind of like ex Mormons are so hateful that someday there's going to be violence that happens and it's going to be on the hands of all these hateful ex Mormons.

Carah Burrell [00:28:36] Oh, I'm named in that. Oh, yeah, I know.

John Dehlin [00:28:38] You're right. Yeah. And crazy.

Carah Burrell [00:28:41] No, thanks. Don't. Don't put me in that.

John Dehlin [00:28:43] And I do. I do think, John, one of the common responses I've heard from people who've seen that video is, man, those. Those people seem awful angry and hateful.

Carah Burrell [00:28:52] So.

John Larsen [00:28:52] Right.

John Dehlin [00:28:52] But. But you know what? Here's. Here's the peace offering I'll offer all. Try. And. I mean, John, I was going to talk to you about this just a week or two ago. I will never forget when you reemerged from kind of a hiatus and you came back to Sunstone podcast and you sort of said, this has been hard, but we need more love. And you talked about a member of your ward, wherever you were living, who showed love to your family. And you just. You made this heartfelt plea that we need more light, less heat, more love and compassion and empathy and less anger. And this is something that I've struggled with.

John Dehlin [00:29:30] There's caffeine John, Caffeinated John de Lynn, and decaffeinated John de Lin. Sometimes, you know, I have. Sometimes I get angry. Sometimes the. The veins in my neck bulge. And honestly, a lot of times our audience is like, yeah, I like caffeinated John. I like it when John's angry. And John, a lot of times people come on your episodes and love it when you drop f bombs and love it when you get upset. And. And we. I think part of what we have to figure out is how to allow that space, because when our audience. I believe that when our audience is saying, go, John Larsen, be angry.

John Dehlin [00:30:04] Go, John de Lynn, be angry, basically, I think what they're saying is, is they're hurt. You know, anger is a secondary emotion. Usually there's sadness or fear that's underlying the anger. And what they're basically saying is I'm sad or I'm afraid, which, which I'm manifesting is anger. And then I like to see that anger expressed in the public figures that I follow because it makes them feel validated. And I think that's on the one hand that that's legitimate that people feel angry. I hope we're not ruining a segment we're going to come to in a second, John. But it's, it's totally valid to be angry.

John Dehlin [00:30:40] Angry is a healthy emotion. We'll get to that later. And it's, and it's even understandable that people want that anger expressed as a way to validate and in public discourse. Like one of the biggest problems I think we have in 2022 is the inability to have civil discourse. And what I think was so remarkable about Patrick Mason coming on Mormon stories is ever since Max communication, Richard Bushman the givens is, you know, people that I call neo apologists have stopped coming on Mormon stories. And the, and the, the two outcomes of that are, number one, ex Mormons and me, we become more isolated and, and also we become more angry because we're isolated and we don't have any constructive dialogue to help look each other in the eye, stare each other in the face and realize that we're both humans.

Civil Discourse and Content Creation Challenges

John Dehlin [00:31:32] Patrick's a human, we're humans and this is a human experience. So, so John and Carah, part of the trick of what we do as ex Mormon content creators is how do we express that anger and how do we create bridge, building, healing, dialogue.

John Larsen [00:31:50] Well, I, I'm with you in the first one. I'm not with you on the second one.

John Dehlin [00:31:53] Tell me what you mean. And Carrie.

John Larsen [00:31:56] Well, well, let me caveat. I think we can bridge, build and between individual people in the church. The church is a dirty, corrupt, vice ridden cancer of a company in the United States. And there's no quarter for the church. There is no compromise. The church, the church has no morality. I'm not talking about the individuals in it. I'm talking about the church itself. And we can measure that by all the things that it's done, all the things that it supports, how it continues to operate. All this kerfuffle about, you know, that, that I, I think most Mormons would get up and, and agree with Jesus that would say that, you know, to offend a child, you know, is one of the worst things, and it's better than a millstone be cast about their neck and they drown.

John Larsen [00:32:48] The church members would say that, but the church itself functions as an abuse enabler, not because it wants abuse, but because it's protecting its own assets. That's an amoral organization. So the problem is we start talking about bridge building, then, then Mormons will immediately want us to build bridge build with a church, which means they want us to give church quarter. And this comes to the Dallin Oaks, you know, who, who was the Supreme Court justice in Utah and an attorney, his interpretation of religious freedom. Because if you read the First Amendment, you know, we all have the right together. We have the right to free speech, basically every freedom that religions have.

John Larsen [00:33:26] We all are guaranteed the Constitution. So what is it they want? And Dallin has made the point over and over again that religious freedom for him is the right for religious people to discriminate and treat others terribly well. He's acting as an agent of the church in, in that instance. So I would shun any, any attempt at bridge building with the corporate church because there is no bridge. There's, there's no, nothing there. And I think this is extremely important because institutions, I. E. Corporations in the United States do not, they're not entitled to any human compassion. They're not entitled to any deference, they're not entitled to any politeness.

John Larsen [00:34:08] They are, they are entities of the law. And, and that is not something that is a human we have to be kind to in any way. But there's the rub. The, the, the people who are part of that organization being good, decent human beings trying to do the best thing, they will take personal offense and they will, they will take whatever is said against their corporate church as an affront to them. And thus we get into the cycle.

John Dehlin [00:34:37] Okay, and John and Carah, I want to get you in here, but John, I, I also just want to ask you. Sorry, let me just switch our views really quick for some reason. Okay, there we go. So, John, but, but what about bridge building with members? Right?

John Larsen [00:34:57] That, that, that we can do to a degree.

John Dehlin [00:35:01] Like, what about civil discourse? Like, like I don't think of Mormon stories. I don't think of our audiences, corporate church headquarters. I, I realized a long time ago that if my, if, if my goal was to make the Mormon church leaders pay attention and to make them react to what I did, I was going to fail miserably because more often than not, they're actually going to do the opposite of whatever we recommend. Not always, but, but oftentimes So I cut loose worrying about the church corporate headquarters or the leaders a long time ago. And my focus has always been on the grassroots members of the church.

John Dehlin [00:35:37] And all I just want to say is for them, I think the question I'm asking is to what extent church should we model healthy civil discourse, not only so that we're building bridges with believers, so that we're not an echo chamber and so that we're, you know, creating an environment where they want to listen to us, but also all of our listeners, all of our ex Mormon listeners out there, they have to maintain relationships with believing family and friends. And sometimes I worry that if we're just modeling anger and outrage, then they'll bring that, I worry that they'll bring that to their relationships with believing family and friends and it won't be good for them either.

John Dehlin [00:36:17] And maybe I'm taking on too much. Carol, I want you to jump in and then I want, I want to hear John, a final response.

Carah Burrell [00:36:23] I think we have to nail down, like, what does that look like? What does that mean? When you're in, you know, you realize some things. You, you sometimes when you grow out of certain perspectives and into other ones and you learn some new information, you end up being a little bit condescending. And if ex Mormons are something, we're probably pretty condescending because everyone we talk to who's still in the church, we have this era of like, if you know what I knew, or if you understood what is like, you know, peer reviewed psychological best practices on something, you would understand that that elevated emotion actually has more context.

Carah Burrell [00:36:56] Everything within this ex Mormon space, we see ourselves in the Mormon person that we're talking to and we're like, yeah, I used to think that way and then I learned all of these things. And so we're going to have to come to terms with. We have an air of condescension on us without holding space for like, I totally get what you're saying without trying to like, but then speak into that person's head because as we already know, spirituality and is, and people's connection with religion is very, very personal and very integral to who they find themselves. And people don't like those things being questioned or attacked.

Carah Burrell [00:37:26] So we have a space of like, I, I knew that. And then you also have the religious side of people who are like, if you would only things that are so painfully dogmatic and like, you're in the grips of Satan, like, things that are just not provable, things that are as horrible as they sound of Like Satan has his chains around you. And I think from like a psychological perspective, I do think that a lot of Mormons and religious, I think, can be kind of classified as having this gigantic ego about that. The spiritual messages that they get, the stories that they have, the Joseph Smith story is the best story of religion of all time.

Carah Burrell [00:37:57] No one else has had spiritual experiences like this. If everyone would just join. This is the one true church. And it has this air of its own type of condescension, its own type of narcissism, and they have to be in that space because emotional intimacy is what I think a lot of us are lacking, that we can't, we can't put down that condescension to be emotionally intimate with people who have varying disagreeing things. And one is bred out of a lifetime of, of indoctrination that the opinions that you're hearing, those are satanic. Like, I cannot emphasize that enough if people are not Mormon. The way that I was raised, that my parents raised me, that, that cognitive dissonance, that those beliefs that are different, I'm now satanic for having those opinions.

Carah Burrell [00:38:43] And I just think that you're wrong, Mom. You know, like, there's this, there's this entire bread of indoctrination on one side, and then people who are like, I used to be like you. I used to have those opinions. And so that's my piece on that.

John Dehlin [00:38:55] Yeah, yeah. And I would say you're being a little bit. You're saying satanic. You're, you're showing hyperbole there.

Carah Burrell [00:39:02] I'm not.

John Dehlin [00:39:03] I was talking to my friend just yesterday who went to a wedding with a bunch of believing family and friends, and he and his wife were called, you know, in the grips of Satan, just at a wedding reception, and only because they left the church and they're actually super lovely people. Like, this does happen all the time.

Carah Burrell [00:39:18] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:39:18] I'm not exaggerating.

Carah Burrell [00:39:19] Yeah.

The Difficulty of Dialogue with the Church

John Larsen [00:39:20] And that, that's the bridge I wanted to, to my, my next point. When you talk about, when you talk about dialogue, I mean, let's, let's face it, the Mormon church is an imaginary thing. It's like Star Trek. Somebody made it up there. It's not real. But Mormons themselves are human beings and that's real. So. And I, I do. I have people who, who I am close to, that I have ongoing relationships with, that are friendly, who are Mormons, who are evangelicals, but our relationship does not function on the Mormon level at all. So, yes, absolutely. As human beings, we should build bridges to those other human beings. And in my worldview roles like being a father or a mother or a child would preempt any of the church relationships.

Carah Burrell [00:40:11] Yeah.

John Larsen [00:40:11] However these people identify themselves as Mormons. And, and the, the problem is Mormonism fundamentally defines apostasy in terrible terms. And they continue to do this the, the sitting 12. There are several of them who've given awful hate filled diatribes about ex Mormons and they ascribe to us all sorts of negative characteristics. And if you go to the Encyclopedia Mormonism or Mormon Doctrine or any of these other books, the Bible Topical Guide and just read the church's definition of apostasy and what they tell people about their apostasy, it's sort of like, and forgive me for this, give me for this metaphor, if I were the descendants, if I were a Southern American who is a descendant of slaves and they said, well, it's been a long time since slavery passed.

John Larsen [00:41:12] We need a dialogue between you and the descendants of the plantation owners. And the plantation owners were going on about how I'm uppity or I'm out of my thing or I, you know, don't understand what they had. There is no dialogue there. So you cannot, you cannot have a dialogue with a Mormon who believes that you are an apostate and a son of perdition and deserving of the worst penalties to ever exist in the universe. If somebody ultimately thinks that you are trash and you are a tool of the devil and you're satanic and you're under, you're under demonic possession or demonic influence or you're there to destroy the world, there is no dialogue that can occur.

John Larsen [00:42:00] And I would caution ex Mormons from trying. So if there is a Mormon in your life that you would like to have a life with, it's an admirable. Working towards that is admirable. But if they believe the church, you can't do it because they think you're a shitbag. And they're never going to change that. They're going to always talk down to you, they're always going to think low of you, they're always going to gossip about you and they're always going to keep the separation.

Carah Burrell [00:42:28] Yeah. And I would add to that, they're always going to have a confirmation bias in their mind of inputting whatever information is going on in your life. They're going to filter out anything that is going on. Well, is, you know that that scale of like person leaves the church? There's a meme about it. I've shared it on Steph and Matt Purcell's episode once. But anything that's going well, it's oh, well, they're only happy for a time. But anything that's not going well, it's like, oh, because they need to repent and come back to the church. And that for me, when you, especially when you're in a faith crisis and you're leaving and you're, things are, things are changing and you're going through a transitional process and you have a delayed adolescence and you know, you might be starting that when you're 30 years old and you have all of these Mormon eyeballs on you while you might be experimenting with drinking or wearing tank tops or things that are normative behavior that your parents are going to be like, well, that's the reason why you lost your job or that's the reason why your health is so bad and that's the reason why your bills are piling up.

Carah Burrell [00:43:20] Or they always just kind of want to feed this, like this, like a social media feed, feeding out anything that could be positive and looking at this person as a well rounded individual instead. Everything is filtered through the.

Carah Burrell [00:43:32] Are their actions in line with what should be bringing them happiness in the church or are they just like, you know, living a life of sin and everything in their life that's complicated, I don't have, I don't have space for that. I just see it as complicated and born out of their sin and their satanic worship.

John Larsen [00:43:50] Yeah, those are the conversations in my house there. There are a lot of Mormons who honestly believe these things and they will avoid anybody who's, who's left the church because they do believe that they're demonic and you just can't function with somebody like that. Mormons should be empathetic because a lot of them have been on missions to places that are hostile towards missionaries and hostile towards Mormonism in particular. And they've experienced it from that side but, but they just can't. For some reason most of them don't seem to be able to make the empathy connection that, that, that, that for, you know, Baptists or, or whoever is calling Mormons demonic, that, that, that's, it's the same thing externally, but there's a lot of bad behavior.

John Larsen [00:44:38] And I, you know, I've been thinking, I've been doing a lot of soul searching lately because I've covered up over the years a lot of Mormons bad behavior. And I sort of ask myself why. And it's partly just to keep relationships. I'll give you a personal example. When My first wife and I left the church. Her mother, my mother in law, came to us and said, we will no longer give you anything. By this, I mean, you know, kind of stuff that families, you know, like, hey, I have an instapot and I'm not using anymore. Does anybody want it? You know, the things that families do.

John Larsen [00:45:09] She sat us down to make a point that she would no longer help us or aid us in any way, which she didn't. She wouldn't babysit for us. She wouldn't, she wouldn't do anything because she did not want to inadvertently promote evil.

John Larsen [00:45:28] This was her daughter. You know, we were in her, we were a young family with young kids and. But that experience that I experienced directly where, you know, she basically cut us off from any kind of familial charity is shared by a lot of people. So, so, you know, we're looked at the ex Mormon saying, why don't you build bridges? Why don't you start a dialogue? And meanwhile we've had these passive aggressive but highly consequential things happen to us over and over and over again. And that's not even scratching what I was just saying 5 minutes ago what they actually think about you, because I don't, I wouldn't encourage anybody to enter any sort of relationship to be loving or friendly with somebody who really thinks that, that they're not even worthy of standard human decency.

John Dehlin [00:46:20] Yeah, I want to get you in, but I've been dying to just add a me too on a couple things and then we'll come right to you. Is that okay?

Carah Burrell [00:46:26] The John de Lynn me too moment.

John Dehlin [00:46:27] Okay. Yeah. So a couple things, Number one is, you know, something that never Mormons who aren't really into Mormonism won't realize is that there's a doctrine, there's this doctrine of Mormon salvation or damnation and that it, you know, Mormons like to say that technically there's no Mormon hell. That's not totally true. We don't have like a burning hell with fire. But what Joseph Smith said is heaven has three degrees, celestial, terrestrial and telestial. And even Hitler, and I'm not exaggerating, even Hitler goes to the telestial kingdom. Murders and rapists go to the telestial kingdom. But what Joseph Smith said is there is this place called outer darkness that is just where you go forever.

Eternal Consequences and Church Control

John Dehlin [00:47:18] And all you do is you just go to darkness and just suffer in darkness for literally the eternities. And I, I, Karen, John, you know where I'm going with this? Who goes to Outer darkness. Only one cares. Raising your arm. Only one group of people. It's people that knew the church had a testimony of the Church who had a witness of the Holy Ghost that it was true and then. And then stopped believing and left the church. So it's weird.

John Dehlin [00:47:46] We're actually not exaggerating that in many Mormons minds an apostate Mormon is not only worse than a rapist or a murderer or Hitler, but we're going to the worst place in, in the afterlife called outer darkness. So that's, that's Mormon doctrine. Now of course there's going to be variability within the church of how all that's interpreted but that is, that is a teaching care. Are you feeling. I'm just checking in with you. Is there anything you want to say about that? I can tell. Maybe I brought up some feels.

Carah Burrell [00:48:20] Yeah. I mean when I really. When I really analyze why Mormons, ex Mormons are so angry. I can speak for myself and it's just a simple sentence that it's. It took my family away from me. Mormonism teaches my family that Satan took me away from them and it's just the opposite is that the teachings that they've been indoctrinated with are now a full blown stop between fully embracing me and my life and what I'm up to. Everything is completely through a million filters of lenses, of binoculars, sin.

Carah Burrell [00:48:56] Everything is, is. I'm not a person. I'm not. I'm not the daughter. I'm a daughter or son of perdition. And it's. It more. The, the lies of Joseph Smith have ramifications. Why are ex Mormons so angry? It's not just a religion. Hey, leave them alone. It's really. It helps people. There's ramifications, there's dogma, there's conditioning. There's an entire world out there that people have shrunk their little brains into and focus on just the negative with all of their like apostate kids or family or spouses and all of that can effing be traced back to the words of the leaders that they still worship, that they still adhere to, that they still go listen to BYU what's it called with Oaks this week.

John Dehlin [00:49:47] Oh yeah.

Carah Burrell [00:49:48] Like, like don't forget love the leaders. Love God, obey us before loving your neighbor. Like those, those messages are still so pumped into our, our family's brains.

John Larsen [00:49:59] Yeah. So beautiful.

Carah Burrell [00:50:01] I have a tear running down my face. Audio listeners because it's when I think of the number one thing like it's not. I don't do this whole thing just because I like attention and I, I do it at the end of the day because I'm like anybody else who needs validation that like you're not the broken one. It's the system that's conditioned to the people around you to tell you that you're broken and you're not beautiful and

John Larsen [00:50:24] there's so much pain. I could sit here for eight hours and just tell you story after story after story that have been shared directly with me. And I kind of have to sit back because I have never wanted to parade individuals pain here. And you know, I'm sitting here debating like one of the worst things that ever happened with my family, whether I should even tell it. It's, it's a story that, that, that is just so unbelievable that, that I, I don't, I don't know. But you know, the, the, that the church tries to destroy people's lives.

John Larsen [00:50:59] Like, like for example, I, I know of instances where people have, have been dating for a long time, years, and they're getting ready to go through the temple and they do what is human, what God designed them to do, and that they, they, they, they are a loving couple who has sex, which is kind of the whole point of existence.

John Larsen [00:51:25] And I have known of several cases where the church made them, as a matter of their repentance, break up. Like people who really loved each other and cared about each other and their sin was they, they, they, they expressed their love physically and, and the church breaks them up. And then some of these people have unfortunately gone on to marry the only person that they could stay, that they could actually get through an engagement. So the strategy was either you, you're engaged for like three months because you know that time is ticking. And if you love each other and you're into each other and you want to be, you want to literally be on top of each other, that's a human response.

John Larsen [00:52:15] That's, that's not the devil, that's not sin. That is, that is what it means to be alive. And, and the church to, to get power over these people will destroy those things. So you get people who will marry people that they can stay celibate with. When I hear, like when I hear Mormons who are married in the temple after a five or seven year engagement, I'm like, oh no, no, no, no, no. That is not gonna work unless they're both ace. Unless they're both asexual. Like, like the church does things that it knowingly messes with people's heads and it's Done that a lot to the LGBT community where.

John Larsen [00:52:56] Where it has forced people to end healthy, positive, loving, good relationships and sit in a church full of people who disdain them and. And. And. And hate them. One of the reasons I left Utah was I lived in Cottonwood Heights. And, you know, in. In 20, in.

John Larsen [00:53:20] In 2019, a young brown boy, 19, had robbed, I think at gunpoint, a store. And the cops chased him down, and they gunned him down while I was running down the street. They shot him in the back like, 15 times. And they were exonerated. A year after that, they had a little parade for. For him. They had a dance party. His family and friends, of course, brown people again.

John Larsen [00:53:48] And the cops came in with their billy clubs, and you start beating the. Out of everybody. This is in the paper. You can look at this. I'm not making this up. But then, of course, this is after the troubles, after 2020. So then all the people with their machine guns and their Mormon signs and their death to fags, they were right there together, shoulder to shoulder.

Church Involvement in Politics and Civil Rights

John Larsen [00:54:09] And I saw clearly that there was no distinction between the hate groups inside Utah politics and what they were doing, because there was nobody standing up to them. And, And. But this. This prevalent hate has been fermenting for years and years and years because of how LGBT youth, LGBT adults are treated over and over. And that's just one example that the church purposefully wants people to suffer. And. And there's a real reason, in my mind. That's because they are snake oil salespeople who are selling medicine, and they're constantly telling people that you're broken and you're suffering and you're unhappy because you don't have our medicine.

John Larsen [00:54:57] And then, of course, everybody drinks it down and they're still broken and suffering. And the church just blames them. They just gaslight them and just say, it's the double bind. Well, you're just not. You're not doing it well enough. You got to double down. You got to pay tithing. You're going to temple once a week and go to temple twice a week.

John Larsen [00:55:11] And the church's interest is keeping everybody in pain. So just like a dog that has a thorn in its paw, when you go to pet, it bites your hand. For ex Mormons, that's why Mormons are so bitey, is they are kept in a constant state of suffering and sorrow in their religion because that's what's going to make them write those big checks to the church.

John Dehlin [00:55:36] Yeah, this is painful stuff. So, Carah and John, thank you both for Sharing such heartfelt things. And I'll just add. Not to pile on, but I'll just add, I entered this space, started Mormon stories in 2005, because in 2001, when I left my faith, lost my faith. I just realized that, like, marriages are being destroyed. Like, you've got a couple that actually is doing quite well together with kids, and it's a relatively happy family. As soon as one loses their faith, oftentimes family members or bishops will, in the. Historically would counsel the believing spouse to leave and to divorce their non believing spouse and split up the family.

John Dehlin [00:56:17] Oftentimes, parental alienation would be a part of that. Oftentimes I'm contacted by people within Utah, the, the, the non believing kind of ex Mormon, part of a divorce where, where through the court system, parental alienation was kind of encouraged by the believer, by the believer's lawyer, by the believer's family. So there's the divorces and then there's just. There's, like you said, Carah, there's. There's estrangement from parents, there's estrangement from siblings, there's estrangement from children. There's, you know, children, you know, children of parents who won't allow their children to be with their grandparents. So kind of grandparent alienation, where if grandparents leave the church, their children won't let, you know, the grandchildren be with the grandparents.

John Dehlin [00:57:04] I'm not making this up. There's people losing their jobs and there's carnage and the church. Carolyn Pearson, once, when I was interviewing her, you mentioned John Larsen, the LGBTQ community. Back 20 years ago, I remember talking to a family member about LGBT people and she said, well, you know what? Forget the doctrine, forget the theology. If you look at the lives of LGBT people, and in this case, it was kind of during the AIDS epidemic, it's like just look, they, you know, if you go live the. And they would say, quote, the gay lifestyle, then you go get AIDS and then you die of aids and you know, what a miserable life.

John Dehlin [00:57:43] You can just tell the fruits of that, quote, lifestyle is death and misery. I told Carolyn Pearson about this once, and her response was, we throw them in the gutter. Meaning, she was meaning LGBT people, because this was 20 or 30 years ago. We throw them in the gutter and expect them not to get dirty. And it's very similar for the ex Mormon experience, because if we lose our spouse, if we lose our children, if we lose our parents, if we're cut out of the text chats, if we're fired from our jobs, if we're alienated from the people that love us. If we lose our friends, if we lose our ward community and all of our social networks have fallen apart.

John Dehlin [00:58:26] Sometimes we do get angry, sometimes we do self medicate, sometimes we do even engage in self destructive behavior in the worst case scenarios. But it's because we've completely lost pretty much everything. And to your point, John Larsen, I think it's fair to say that that's what the church historically has often wanted and even engineered by pushing a narrative that where will you go? How could you be happy? You're a son of perdition if you leave? I think you could argue that there have been many in the church that wanted the destruction of our lives once we've left. And I think that can lead to anger and even hateful discourse. Because what do you do when you've lost everything?

John Larsen [00:59:12] Yeah. And to, you know, I'm sharing more of my personal experience. I have received three letters over the past 15 years, three of them independent of each other, that were from co workers years later who apologized to me, sincerely apologized, saying, you know, I knew that you, even though, you know, I didn't work anywhere in the space of any of this. They, they would say, basically, I knew who you are and what you were doing, you know, that you were against the church or whatever, whatever it is. And because of that, I, this is what their confessions to me, I was involved in gossip and blackballing and underhanded things that led to you not, you know, that were unfair to you, John

John Dehlin [01:00:00] Larsen, in your occupation.

John Larsen [01:00:02] In your occupation. Yeah, and, and, but, you know, I, I, I've received those letters. So, so it validates that because sometimes, yeah, as an ex Mormon, you're like, am I, am I being gaslit? Is, is, are, are things, are things going on?

John Larsen [01:00:19] I, when I worked at the University of Utah, I caused myself a big problem. I, I started the job and it didn't take long until somebody there knew that I'd done the podcast. And then it, then it kind of leaked out. But all the employees started coming to me because I'm a peer manager, I was a manager in this department, would play hymns all the time in their one on ones. So she would play LDS hymns whether they were Mormon or not, and she would also quote scripture to them whether they were Mormon or not. And so I had four different employees come and complain to me because my boss was Mormon and his boss was a Mormon and his boss was a Mormon, his boss was a Mormon.

John Larsen [01:01:01] So I had to, I had to do my due diligence as a manager, because that's not right. That's not legal. That's not okay. So I had to go to my boss and say, hey, you know, this is happening and this, this needs to stop. She needs to be told that she can't do this. He did, but he told me later. He's like, yeah, they kind of got your, your, your mark. And I have no, I have no proof. But you know, it. There's two instances where just working in Utah, just trying to do your job, trying to be a good person, you see this shadowy sort of operation of the church and you can't stand, stand against it.

John Larsen [01:01:40] It's going to impact your, your, your life. And you can find ex Mormons who tell stories about getting shunned for drinking coffee. There's a lot of ex Mormons who tell stories about Utah employees complaining to their bosses because they can smell their coffee. Just things like that. Just this low level passive grinding against you all the time. I remember we're talking about pain right now. And, and that, that leads to anger when you're, when, when you are ostracized, when you are put out, when you are not part of the group, when you are you, you, you, you doubt yourself.

John Larsen [01:02:21] And, and, but you also will push back. You'll become more angry and you can, if you let it canker, it can become hateful. The. That you're like, why, why am I being treated like this? This is, this is unfair. This isn't right.

John Dehlin [01:02:34] Yeah, yeah.

Carah Burrell [01:02:37] And I make you angry.

John Dehlin [01:02:38] Yeah. And we, you know, we can talk about employment stuff and we can talk about neighbors and ward members, but let's just be real. Where the rubber really meets the road is when it messes with your spouse, when it messes with your children. And I think some of the most traumatic things I've ever seen have been when it messes with your relationship with your mom and dad. That, to me, that's, that's where it gets really real. And Carah, you know what's more sacred than your relationship with your mom and dad? Right?

John Larsen [01:03:09] And you're exactly right, John. And I, I thank you for saying that, that those relationships are key, but I, I don't want the point to, to get missed that leaving the church can poison everything you do. I can't tell you. And John, you'll say the number of dentists and doctors who've told me, you know, over a beer that they don't believe anything, but they can't leave the church because they'll lose their practice.

John Dehlin [01:03:32] Oh, yeah. All the time.

John Larsen [01:03:33] Yeah. And. And it's. It's that acknowledgment that it's. It's there. But really without addressing it. It to me for a lot of years, I would say, I understand, brother. Now I just say off if somebody told that to me, because there's people who take the arrows and get the pain and you don't get any quarter in John Larsen book. I know you want it. You write me, ask for it. You should leave the church if you know it's true because it's such a bag organization. You're protecting your. Your own stuff.

John Dehlin [01:04:03] Get out if you know it's not true. Right?

John Larsen [01:04:05] Yeah. Yeah. If you. If you know, if. If you know, you need to get out now, I'm gonna caveat and say it's not that easy. I understand.

John Dehlin [01:04:14] Now there's a lot of people that literally can't. Wouldn't be able to. I mean. So, John, I, I totally hear where you're coming from, and I'm not disagreeing with you directly, but I am just gonna say that, like, there are people in jobs at BYU that just literally don't feel like they're able to leave and face the consequences. There are people who are in marriages where they just feel like they cannot, are not equipped to handle the fallout from coming out to their spouse or to their children. And people with medical conditions, people with financial situations, people with mental health situations. So on the one hand, John, we do need.

John Dehlin [01:04:59] When people do choose to speak out and open up and be public and vulnerable, it's, It's. It would be impossible to overstate how valuable that is for all of us when people are in a position to be able to speak out and come out and to raise their voices.

John Dehlin [01:05:21] And I do want to. I do always want to create space for people that are just not in the position to be able to do that.

John Larsen [01:05:27] It's true. You're. You're right. I will concede the point and then I'll argue with you again. Here's the thing. This story was in the Bible, you know, lot said to God, you know, can we spare the town? And God's like, if you can find 50 people or whatever, if you can find 10, or. And. And they. They couldn't find the. They couldn't find 10 righteous people to save the city of Sodom and Gomorrah or whatever it was.

John Larsen [01:05:59] If 200 BYU professors, and there's over 200 who know this is all horseshit. If 200 BYU professors, just 200 and it's probably less than that, were to get up tomorrow, resign their, resign their, their educational thing, resign their membership and stand together and say, this is all bunk, the church would fall. That's why I'm mad at these people. They could bring the church down.

John Larsen [01:06:27] They have the power and they choose not to for their own personal gain. They are going to reach the end of their life and they're going to look back and say, you know what I did? I, I built a rip roaring orthodontic practice and I enabled a shitty, shitty organization for 50 years. Good luck with that.

John Larsen [01:06:47] Like, we only have a short life. And I, I know I'm, I'm getting worked up, getting angry. I am upset in 2022 about how few people will stand up and do the right thing. And so we make all kinds of excuses for them. They'll lose their jobs, they'll lose their family. Yeah, do it. A lot of us did.

John Larsen [01:07:03] And, and, and we need you. We need people who care about truth more than they care about their paychecks. And, and I have not heard a compelling case yet, John. This is why I'm hard on BYU professors, because they should know better. I've not yet heard a compelling case as to why any one of them should keep it secret because they might say, well, I was able to reach these seven LGBT students who wouldn't have been reached otherwise. Yeah. And there were another 10,000 who assumed you hate them because you teach at that university. So I don't, I don't, I don't want to hear, you know, that you, you saved three because they could do it.

John Larsen [01:07:39] And those 200 professors would find employment at other universities just for the fact that they did this. They would become a celebrity in their own, in their own circles. You know, to actually stand up to a conservative church organization that is anti scientific, anti basic human decency and human rights.

John Dehlin [01:08:00] Well, I think you're, I think you're making important points. I've, I've got something I want to say, but, Karen, want to give you the first shot. Is there something you want to.

Balancing Mercy, Justice, and Anger

Carah Burrell [01:08:07] Just to recap? What I think both of you are saying is that it's, it is that million dollar question of the balance between when to employ mercy and justice. And when we see all of the unjust things that the church does and the way that they perpetuate straight out lies, straight out bad psychological information that harms people, bad ideas about their identity, who God is, their relationship to him, things, things that should be so interpersonal, that are so hoisted upon people. We See a gigantic injustice. Right. And so I think that's what I'm trying to tap into with what John Larsen is saying, that if you believe that there's an injustice, then you need to actually fight for what you believe in.

Carah Burrell [01:08:47] Or on the other hand, you have to have that mercy space for like, you are also a victim of the injustice because you can't escape now because your entire life is tied up in that. So it's this balance between both of those objectives in my mind.

John Dehlin [01:09:00] Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna throw another thought in here that I think is one of the most difficult aspects of everything I've seen in the past 20 years. And it's kind of going to be agreeing with you both. And it's also slightly different point, and that's this. When we talk about anger, and I would even add when we talk about major depression and suicidality, I, I have never. The most angry people I've ever seen in, let's just say the non believing or ex Mormon world are the people who are hiding their true feelings and are, are living a lie. In other words, they're not out to their, their spouse, they're not out to their children, they're not out to the world, and they're going to church every Sunday as if they're really believers.

John Dehlin [01:09:57] And if I had to say, who's pretty much always the most angry? It's those that are living secret lies. Because when you're living a life of inauthenticity, your brain is not meant to deal with that cognitive dissonance, that falseness, that hypocrisy, just to be sitting in the pews and listening to all the bigoted and, and false things that you're constantly confronted with by acting and pretending like a believing, faithful Mormon, but in your heart knowing that it's not true. And so your brain is dumping these chemicals saying, get out, run away, speak up, right? Like, like tell the world. Your brain is just constantly dumping those chemicals.

John Dehlin [01:10:45] This cortisol, these, this adrenaline, it's constantly. Because it's trying to get you to move. It's trying to get you to change. And when people feel so stuck that they can't change, that's when the biggest episodes of anger emerge that I've ever seen. And it's worse because I've had several, I've had multiple friends now, and I'm not exaggerating, multiple friends who came to me and said, john, I'm so angry. I've got a believing spouse, I've got to pretend Like I believe so I'm in the church, but it's eating away at me.

John Dehlin [01:11:23] I've had multiple friends and I'm not exaggerating and this is a trigger warning for those who are sensitive to issues of suicidality. I've had multiple personal friends take their lives when they were in that situation, when they were living that false, inauthentic life in hiding for multiple years upon years upon years. So the problem is much deeper than just the anger that we're talking about.

John Dehlin [01:11:53] It's actually potentially fatal to your mental health to live a lie over a prolonged period of time. And I could name names right now of actually some very well known people who died by suicide.

John Larsen [01:12:09] Who.

John Dehlin [01:12:09] You would know who they are. Many of you would know who they are if I told you, and it's because they were secretly living a lie. So I'm saying let's have space for people who don't feel like they can make the change because we don't want to be judgmental and we can't fully understand what it's like to be in their shoes. Let's try and have space for that. And I'm going to just say after 20 years of talking to tens of thousands of people, that your life could potentially be in danger if you're living a prolonged life of inauthenticity. It could actually be fatal. If not damaging to your health, it could actually be fatal. Mm.

Carah Burrell [01:12:49] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:12:51] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [01:12:51] All I have to say to that is you only get, you know, let's say 90 years on life at best, and you're going to do a lot of things to serve your family, to get love and to serve your community to get love. And it just, it's a heartbreaking story that we've come in contact with for so long that there are so many people who, they can't step into their own authenticity that they know could be there, but they just have too many, I had that. Too many pillars up, too many balls in the air, too much bandwidth dedicated to just keeping going, keeping yourself survival. And you don't want to engage in that pain. Your brain is telling you to run away, but in that the actuality of, of practicing your life like that is prolonging your pain.

John Dehlin [01:13:39] Yeah, it often is, John. You want to jump in.

John Larsen [01:13:46] You're exactly right. I, I've seen them too. The people who violently taken their lives. The people have drank themselves to death, the people who've drugged themselves to death. The, the. And, and, and, and we're, we're on. Still on the first point it's pain. And, and, and that's. I want, I want everyone to, to realize that this whole world, the ex Mormon world, the Mormon world, all, it's, it's bathed in pain. And unfortunately, that's the story of the United States writ large right now.

John Larsen [01:14:19] That somehow we've got to find ways to hold our ground against the destructive organizations and corporations and money that are doing these things to us and recognizing the humanity in each other. And I don't know how to do it. That's why I've always said I don't. I'm not talking to anybody in the church. I wish that if you want to keep your testimony intact, you just not listen to me. I don't want to cause you any more pain than we have to.

John Larsen [01:14:48] But the, the, the, The. The. The pain is, is, Is real. But let's, let's pause for a moment to, To mean. To steal the Trevor project. But it does get better. And the catharsis of saying you over and over again to the church, the catharsis of drinking your first Miller Light. People still drink Miller Light. The catharsis of becoming your own person and finding friends and finding your people is genuine and real. And when you're in the pain, you can't see it, you can't get out.

John Larsen [01:15:36] But it's all fake. The, the everything that makes you want to. Want to hurt yourself or, or hurt others. It's. None of it's real. And, and, and, and that's why I'm still here. Sorry.

John Dehlin [01:15:55] Thank you, John. Thank you. Very heartfelt. And I'll, and I, you know, I'll just say that one of the most profound discoveries of 2022 was to learn that over half of our audience on Mormon stories has never been Mormon. Because the pain isn't just ex Mormonism. It's ex evangelical Christian, it's ex Jew, it's ex Catholic, it's ex Muslim, it's. It's ex Scientology.

Carah Burrell [01:16:24] We must be hitting some deep, interesting. Sorry, can I rant for a second?

John Dehlin [01:16:29] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [01:16:30] Because there, I'm gonna say there is a section of people who watch ex Mormon content. And yeah, it's. Sometimes it's, It's. It's a freak show. And let's point fun at like, you know, temple clothes or like quirky things or just crazy things that Mormonism does. I'm a tick tocker and I know how to come up with a list of 10,000 things that are quirky about Mormonism off the top of my head for references, but that's not what it's actually about, because I would, I. If Mormons are watching this and one thing that they could get out of it that I've said, it's that if it is so ubiquitous across so many different types of ex religious people where, you know, that you would think that their religion is false and maybe they, you know, rooted their lives in Judaism or evangelicalism or, you know, Islam or something, you know, that they've rooted their lives in a bunch of untrue ideas and they went and found a bunch of Mormons who are also undoing themselves from rooting themselves and all these ideas.

Carah Burrell [01:17:23] What, what do you say to that? Is it just a bunch of people complaining and they're just a bunch of angry people, or is there something that is 10 layers deep, deeper than you are able to even comprehend because you haven't been able to hold space and empathy for people who are going through an existential crisis? Like, it is so easy. I'm trying to paint this idea to Mormons. Like it is so easy just to say it's just people who are making fun of us and it's a freak show and it's people who are just want to like, complain for the sake of complaining. Or you could grow up and you could actually hold space and empathy as an adult.

Carah Burrell [01:17:56] Would that they can see that there are so many varying types of people and backgrounds who all come around this like, unanimous type of, this hurt, this trauma of undoing themselves from false ideas about themselves and the world around them.

John Dehlin [01:18:08] Yeah.

John Larsen [01:18:09] Hey, I want to acknowledge. Trudy brought up a good point. Alcohol is not the answer to anything. Alcohol is the worst drug there is out there. It's dangerous. It, it, if you're going to drink, be careful. You know, there, there's, there's people who, I used to say that there were, you know, the ex Mormons were kind of safe because they didn't start drinking until they were in their 30s and they wouldn't suffer from alcoholism. Oh boy, was I wrong. Yeah, I've, I've, yeah. So I, I, I, I, I, I drink, I don't drink a lot, but I drink and, but it's, there's no answer in a bottle, there's no answer in a pill. There's no answer in any kind of herb or mushroom. Now people are going to argue with me about that. Maybe a mushroom. There's answers in, I don't know. That's the only one.

Carah Burrell [01:18:58] There's answers in mushrooms.

John Larsen [01:19:01] Well, yeah, there's answers there, but you don't know what the Question is, that's the problem. All right, let's go on. We've. We've hit the other ones, but I. The other reasons that. I think that Mormon, ex Mormons can sound hateful, but we, We've touched them. I want to kind of give them their due diligence. So we talked a lot about pain that I hope we made it clear. There's a lot of pain coming around, and that comes out in negative ways. The next one I want to talk about is betrayal. When one discovers that the church is not true, what immediately happens is sometimes there's a big sense of relief.

Betrayal as a Core Ex-Mormon Experience

John Larsen [01:19:35] But the next emotion that comes, either an hour or a minute or a week or a year later is, well, wait a minute. If this is not true, then I was betrayed. I was lied to. I was. That. That there's something fundamentally wrong. And there's been a lot of psychologists who've written about the psychology of betrayal and how humans react to that. It's one of our strongest reactions. So this is the reaction from the point of view of the person who leaves the church. They're recognizing that the, the, the stuff that they were told, that's not true. The way the organization was propped up, you know, like this Arizona case with the, with the lawyers and the, and the protecting the church, child abusers, things like that.

John Larsen [01:20:24] Ex Mormons tend to feel, or not everybody, but there's a bunch of them that tend to feel an overwhelming sense of betrayal and. And that makes you want vengeance. It makes you want to make the people who betrayed you pay.

John Dehlin [01:20:39] Yeah, yeah. I'll just say that, you know, we've talked quite a bit about the survey that Marlon Jensen, church historian, you know, had me and Greg Prince and Travis Stratford conduct back around 2010, 2011, pre. Kind of pre Gospel topics essays. Marlon Jensen asked us to conduct a survey, thanks to Hans Mattson, former Swedish area authority.

John Dehlin [01:21:05] And we surveyed ex Mormons, like 3,000 plus ex Mormons about why they lost their faith. And of course, you would get, you know, things like Peepstones and polyandry, Joseph Smith's polygamy and polyandry. You would get, you know, the, the folk, Joseph's treasure digging, the Book of Abraham problems, the Book of Mormon anachronisms and historicity. You'd get the racism and the sexism and the homophobia. You would get all that. But when it was really distilled down to the main reason that people left their faith, so many people wrote, I actually could have used my reasoning to make good on any of the, you know, historical or social justice problems with the church, I could have.

John Dehlin [01:21:54] I could have endured or reasoned myself out of those problems. What I couldn't reason myself out of was feeling betrayed by the church because the church, because I. You know, in my case, I had spent three decades in orthodox believing Mormonism, seminary, BYU religious education, decades of Sunday school and elders quorum lessons, and all the stuff that I started Learning in the 30s, in my 30s, starting with the Book of Abraham and the Papyrus, stuff I had never, ever heard before. And then when I found out that the church knew all these problems and intentionally hid them or punished the scholars like Fawn Brody or Michael Quinn or the September Six or others, not only, you know, hid the evidence and provided a whitewashed history, but then excommunicated anyone who dared talk about it.

John Dehlin [01:22:49] And this was all pre Internet, so you couldn't really fight back. I felt betrayed, and I think that's a huge part of what's fueled me on Mormon stories. And I think for so, so many people, they felt betrayed.

John Larsen [01:23:03] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [01:23:04] Makes us angry. Makes us want to say the F word sometimes. Yep. Because I believed when you put your faith in the church and you stand up in a testimony meeting, and I believe in this church, and I know you know, such and such is the prophet of God, and you say those words and you really believe it yourself, and you're in your community and you're just constantly testifying that this is the one true church, and you have no other idea, why not believe these men? And so when Holland gets up and he says stuff like, this book has been. He's holding the Book of Mormon.

Carah Burrell [01:23:34] This book is the actual copy of Hyrum Smith, and it wasn't. And this book, the Book of Mormon, has been torn apart a million different ways. And everyone's been trying to. And this is flopping, and everybody has been trying to try to poke holes in this, but they will have to climb over or under the truthfulness of this book. And you've watched that as a teenager, and you're like, wow, if my apostle that I totally believe is called of God is saying that this is. People have tried all that they can to try to disprove the Book of Mormon, and I guess nobody's done it.

Carah Burrell [01:24:04] We believed you. And when you put up on the ensign with all of the pictures of Joseph Smith and his hands running over the. The golden plates, because it would be really weird if he just had his face in a hat and everyone was like, what's he looking at in that hat? Oh, it's just a rock. Where'd he get the rock from? Oh, it's just like his old treasure digging days. What did he do in his treasure digging days? Oh, you know, you asked too much questions. You know, like, like everything that they're doing was all because we kind of believe the story that you told us.

Carah Burrell [01:24:31] And all the way down to things that, you know, that's not like the worst deal. It just has the ramifications that come out because, like, I was a super duper bigoted conservative Mormon and I was very. What's the word? Heteronormative. You could say that one relationship was of God and the other one was just defective.

John Dehlin [01:24:53] All others were defective.

Carah Burrell [01:24:55] Right. That influences how you treat people, and they don't deserve to be treated that way. So everything that I'm just painting you here is like there's all kinds of betrayal and deception and it came out in real. It bled out. It bleeds out. F Words.

John Dehlin [01:25:10] Yeah. Interjected.

Carah Burrell [01:25:12] Interjected in that.

John Dehlin [01:25:14] John, I've got one more thing to say about betrayal, but I want to give you a chance to jump in.

John Larsen [01:25:17] Go ahead, Go ahead.

John Dehlin [01:25:17] Okay, I'll just, I'll just say that there are, you know, I talked previously about, you know, some of the most angry people I've ever met are people that are living a lie and hiding it. I will also say that some of the most significant anger I've experienced in the ex Mormon world is, is people who felt betrayed. And let me give you a couple examples. So, like, somebody just posted, like, they've paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in tithing.

John Dehlin [01:25:45] You know, it's. It's one thing to give hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars in tithing. It's another to give it under false pretenses. There's. There's so many people who married people they would have married at times they wouldn't have married, chose careers they wouldn't have chosen, had children they may not have had at the time they had them. They would have made all these really crucial life decisions differently if they had been given the real information.

John Dehlin [01:26:11] And that's betrayal. And then I'll never, ever, ever forget, you know, this one experience I had with my friend named Corey. This was in my first year of Mormon stories. He had served in a Stake High Council and he came to my house and he told me about presiding over a state council, Stake High Council, just excommunication of this single mom who had, you know, been. Been married. But then I guess they got divorced and then the single mom ended up Having a boyfriend and ended up being sexually active. And then my friend Corey, because he went to. He was in a Stake High Council.

John Dehlin [01:26:51] He sits around this table with 15 men grilling this woman about, who did you have sex with? How many times did you have sex? Did you orgasm? Was it under the clothes? Was it over the clothes? Did you enjoy it?

John Dehlin [01:27:04] And he thought back about how he had been a part of this abusive experience with this woman who was probably at the lowest point of her life. And yet he. He was thinking back about him participating in the evil himself of. Of the treatment of this woman because he had been led to believe it was all true. And I'm not. I. I don't believe in. You know, I'm not like, into superstition. I'm not into exaggeration.

John Dehlin [01:27:35] As he was telling me this story, his hands tripled in size. And what it was, it was a histamine reaction. If you've ever seen someone get hives when they get so upset. Margi got upset so once that her lip swelled to like, three times its normal size. Blotches on her face like stress can make you. Can. The histamine levels in your body can actually make your body do really strange things. This guy's hands swelled to like, almost three times their size in terms of thickness. It was this weird anxiety and emotional reaction to how angry he was at his sense of betrayal that he had been complicit in the harm to this woman.

John Dehlin [01:28:22] And I've also had people say, I served missions where I spent. Paid. I spent two years of my life, Sacrificed two years of my life and paid for it. To lie to other people, to unknowingly lie to other people, to. To bring them into a church under false pretenses. And, and these are just some of the examples I've experienced of. Of. Of the. The, you know, the emotional response to feeling betrayed. Carah, you're.

Carah Burrell [01:28:51] In summary, ex Mormons are angry. Point to. We were complicit in our own betrayal in a lot of ways, but we're complicit in the betrayal of so many people in the harm of other people. And that's frustrating because we didn't want that. We wanted to be Christians. We wanted that guy that we heard about in Sunday school that you converted us to. That was that really cool preaching homeless hippie. We thought that we were at this church because we were becoming like him. And we feel betrayed that we were manipulated and subjected to be the opposite of it.

John Dehlin [01:29:19] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [01:29:19] Pisses us off.

John Dehlin [01:29:21] And I can't even describe the parents I've met with who had LGBT children who took their lives when it was the parents who. Who gave messages to their own children based on their faith in a church that said, we. We have prophets who speak to God who say the proclamation on the family is the only way. And so, of course, being LGBT is evil and sinful, and they pass that on to their kids. You know, talking to those parents who lost their kids and then realized they had been betrayed, like, those are conversations you just never want to have with them.

John Larsen [01:29:57] Those are tough people to talk to. And even worse are the families where the parents, years and years and years after the death by suicide of one of their LGBT children, keep doubling down in front of all the rest. They keep the. The. Not only is this person dead by their own hands due to the church, these will keep hammering the point. Sometimes I wish there was a hell for people like this, but there's not. And they get. They get what they deserve, I guess. I don't know nobody. There's no justice. All right, I think you guys have made great points. There's one other thing I want to.

When Betrayal Continues After Leaving

John Larsen [01:30:30] I want to emphasize, you know, about the betrayal, and that's. The betrayal doesn't stop when you leave the church. It just keeps rolling because you'll oftentimes have family members, even family members who are working to keep the peace, who are trying to, but they will keep in demonstrable ways, choosing the church over you, choosing that relationship over your relationship with the family. And it keeps happening over and over and over again. You don't take something as simple as a wedding.

John Larsen [01:31:03] It's true. You leave the church. Then your little sister gets married, and you're not going to go in. And you've criticized the temple and all. All that kind of stuff, and they're like, well, he doesn't want to come to this temple wedding, and we'll invite him to the reception. And, you know, so everybody thinks they're doing the right thing, but those things still cut. You're still left at the end of the day when you're laying in bed at night, realizing that their religion was more important than you.

John Larsen [01:31:33] And. And that message gets driven home again and again and again, again, even by those who ostensibly are trying because they keep sending. You know, you. You can have LGBT kids that you love, and you say, I don't. I don't support the church in this, except they do. They keep writing the checks. They keep. They don't stand up in testimony, meeting and say anything different, because the church is designed to have the appearance that everyone is acquiescing because you're, you're supposed to vote and you're supposed to get up in testimony meeting, bear your testimony. So, dear members, the church has put you into this bind because it has sacrificed you so it can blame you.

John Larsen [01:32:15] So by sticking with the church, and I know I'm going back to this point saying, I know there's pain, there's a reason people stay in the church, but you're staying in the church will continue to betray. If you are a young men's leader, a young women's leader that the kids look up to, and you know, one out of 10 of those kids or one out of 20 is probably LGBT and probably struggling with identity. And if you do not loudly proclaim that they are of equal value, that they, that they are not secondary citizens, you, they will assume, they will look to you and say, well, you know, John Dehlin keeps going to church, so it must not be that bad.

John Larsen [01:32:57] You will prop this up and you will be part of that betrayal, even in tiny ways, because just by going and singing the hymns, you know, there's 300 people in there. How many of those guys are LGBT or other marginalized groups that are watching you and watching what you support? And, and those as, as, as somebody who's left the church, those little micro cuts from people who should love you, they stack up year after year after year after year. And what normally happens is families just, I, I'm, my cohort left the church 15, 20 years ago.

John Larsen [01:33:30] And so as I talk to them, you know, it's amazing how many of their families are just falling apart because once the kids, you know, their extended family, the, the, the, the division between these people always choosing the church and these people being invited, the ex Mormons being invited sometimes, but not always. And then often I was blamed, you know, like, well, because I had my mother in law say this to me, well, it's your fault. You could go get a temple recommend if you wanted. It's, you're doing violence to the family by not coming to this wedding. And, and, and those betrayals just stack up over and over and over again.

Carah Burrell [01:34:05] Deep.

John Dehlin [01:34:06] Yeah, thanks, John.

Carah Burrell [01:34:07] This is what the ex Mormon experience is about. All those never Mormon listeners. We're really painting the picture for you, aren't we?

John Larsen [01:34:14] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:34:15] Hard stuff.

John Larsen [01:34:18] And there's one more, and then we can blow some sunshine around. And the one next one we need to acknowledge is the shunning. And we, we've, we've, we've talked about it quite a bit. We've hinted at it, but it is real and it is painful. And. And the shunning, like the Jehovah Witnesses or the Scientologists are much more explicit in their shunning. But the shunning that the church does.

John Dehlin [01:34:44] Mormon Church.

John Larsen [01:34:45] The Mormon Church does, yeah. Does a huge amount of psychological damage. And shunning is never okay if you are with. Here's a simple test of if you're with a good organization or a bad one. If they shun people, go away. This is not. There's. Shunning does not enter into God's kingdom. Shunning is not a part of anything that is good or glorious about being human. And we could go on and tell hundreds of stories about people who were shunned in real sort of ways and stacks up again.

John Dehlin [01:35:25] Yeah. Carah, have you had. Have you had any experiences with Shining or has that not been a part of your experience?

Carah Burrell [01:35:31] Well, your girl over here is pretty complicated because only one year after I left the church, I started making content about it and then pretty much all my Mormon friends. All. I have a good group of, like, high school friends and a bunch of people. People in my life. And there's obviously my family knows what I do now, so we're not super close anymore. But one of my good Mormon best friends, she saw me on Mormon stories and said, hey, my neighbor's a big fan. Carol, will you text her a shout out? And I was like, that's really cute that, like, you want your ex Mormon friends to be ex Mormon friends with each other, that they're not like, oh, you know, you don't want to talk to her.

Carah Burrell [01:36:07] So I think there's people who have varying levels of nuance with me, but just generally they. The shunning is more just an overall. With my family, at least an overall disapproval and a lens of everything that you're doing. I can't have any emotional intimacy with you. I have too much. We can't talk about life because I'm too busy judging everything you're doing. Like, the shunning comes and just know I'm able to hold space or emotional

John Dehlin [01:36:33] intimacy for me, I have. There's there's at least one kind of immediate family member that if I come to their house, they'll. They'll leave. So they won't. Not only will they not talk to me, they won't be in the same room with me, but if. If I come to their house to visit other family members, they'll. They'll drive away and they Won't come back to the house until I'm back. Now it's complicated with, with me because, you know. Yeah, you say Voldemort. Like sometimes the church has kind of highlighted me as their number one enemy. And so I think this person, in fairness, they would say, you know, yes, I completely have.

John Dehlin [01:37:16] Act as though John is dead, even though he's an immediate family member. But he's, you know, in this person's perspective, he's making a living taking people away from the church that I love. And so I have, I have grace for this person, even though it's been very painful to be treated this way. And there's ripple effects because there are other, you know, there's, there's other family members involved that are tied in here that I don't have relationships because of this other person. And I'm being intentionally vague. I still have grace for this person because from their perspective, I am one of the most evil people on the planet, because from their perspective, they think that I'm just literally just living my life to make money out of taking people out of the church, which is not what I do.

John Dehlin [01:38:03] It's not why I do it. But, but I can see why they feel that way. The, the more stark example that I have is that when we, when we moved to cache Valley in 2004, you know, Logan, North Logan, we had, we had lost our faith three years prior, but we still wanted to stay in the church as progressive, non literal Mormons. So imagine us from 2004 to 2014, 10 years in this one north Logan suburban neighborhood, you know, helping people sod their lawns, taking people casseroles who were sick, babysitting their kids, our kids being friends with their kids, like steak and ward basketball games and elders quorum and just imagine 10 years of. And, you know, if you live in Utah, it's like three streets are your ward.

Carah Burrell [01:38:50] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:38:50] Literally three streets.

Carah Burrell [01:38:51] Good stuff. That's a sweet spot. Yeah, sometimes it could be really good.

John Dehlin [01:38:54] So you're, you know, your ward, you know, maybe 95 of the households are Mormon in your Utah county or Cache Valley kind of ward slash neighborhood. So these aren't just, these aren't just your church going, you know, co members, these are your neighbors that you're seeing every single day as you snow blow their sidewalks. And you, you, you know, their kids get out in the street and you, you save their kid from getting hit by a car and you take it back to the neighbor. Like that's the level of intimacy you have. Again, delivering casseroles to people with cancer. Then fast forward 10 years, you decide to speak up as a matter of conscience that you can't stay in the church anymore or you get excommunicated.

John Dehlin [01:39:38] It was like a ghost town out of the, you know, let's just say 100 families that we knew in this ward, maybe two or three would still talk to us. Everyone else, if we would walk around the neighborhood, they would kind of see us coming and, and go into their house. So it became like a spiritual, communal ghost town.

John Dehlin [01:39:59] The shunning, it wasn't like you said, John, in Mormonism, it's not always the hardest shunning, but it's the soft shunning. And I think, you know, I talk about the crickets effect in, you know, when you. Oftentimes, when you lose your faith, you want to write this letter and you want to email everyone in your wardrobe and you want to blast it out to everyone on Facebook and podcasts and Twitter that you don't believe because you feel so betrayed and angry. The most common response to telling everyone you've lost your faith is what I call the crickets effect, which is no response at all. It's just they, they cut you out of their lives completely and you never hear from them again.

Shunning, Family Division, and Social Loss

John Dehlin [01:40:38] And I was just going to say one last thing in a, you know, back to this theme of betrayal, but also, but also familial division. Like, like, Carah, I'm thinking about you. When you know, you, let's say you lose your faith and you've got this great relationship with your parents, like, or let's say you're in a mixed faith marriage where now you've lost your faith, but you've got this person who is the person that you love the most and is supposed to love you the most. You would think that if, if you're a smart, capable person of integrity who dedicated your life to the church until you learned a few things, you would think that your spouse or your parents, you would think that their reaction would be, oh, my gosh, Carah, you're smart.

John Dehlin [01:41:24] Like, you're. You've always been honest. If you've lost your faith, tell me what you've read. I want to, I want to read everything that you've read. I want to learn everything that you've learned. You know, spouse, husband or wife. If you've lost your faith, I'm your partner. I'm your life partner. Tell me everything.

John Dehlin [01:41:44] Because you're such a person of integrity. You were the AP on your mission. You were Relief Society president. You gave Your life to the church. So this must be a credible problem with the church. Tell me everything. And that's pretty much no believing person's response ever. Now I'm exaggerating. Let's just say 2% of.

Carah Burrell [01:42:04] We've had one guest on one of the stories I can think of specifically,

John Dehlin [01:42:07] but let's just say 2% of the people that I've heard get that response. Everybody else at best gets no response and at worst gets shunning.

Carah Burrell [01:42:18] Yeah. And do you want to know why? I think it's, it's so I'm just going to look right in the camera and be like, shunning. And this whole thing we're talking about is so stupid. It's so surface level is the problem. Like I come on earth because I want to have deep, meaningful, emotionally intimate relationships with a lot of people where I learn and grow, when you learn and grow from one another. But instead you have a very systemic approach with the way that the Mormon religion is taught. And at least the way that I would. If you guys disagree, the way I was taught is that everything comes back to, you need to have the spirit with you always or else you're going to be enchained in Satan's clutches.

Carah Burrell [01:42:56] You know, you can think of the Book of Mormon scriptures that I was taught in seminary that you need to stay on the covenant path. You need to do these certain things. You need to be reading your scriptures 30 minutes a day. If you're not doing that or you're not covering your shoulders or if you use bad language or watch bad movies, the spirit will withdraw from you, withdraw from your home and then you're kind of up for Satan's taking. And so it's just this very surface level. Look at like, it's not, it's not what John said. It's not like, oh, you were, you were.

Carah Burrell [01:43:20] So you did all the studying and you did this. There must be something wrong with the church. Hell no. It's okay. Well, you must have not followed the formula. I think I remember you watching an R rated movie that probably led to that. That probably led to that. And I just have an entire idea of things are way more severe in my head than they actually are in real life. And you probably have been tumbling down to hell for a while now. And I'm just like, oh, I'm betrayed as your family. Like, I'm betrayed that like you've lost your faith because of all these surface level things that like the reasons why you can no longer be faithful anymore are probably all rooted in your tank top and not in anything to do with the institution that I love and find identity in.

Carah Burrell [01:43:58] It's so service level. It's so bs. It's not the way to live a fully a full, authentic life for you or for the relationships that actually make life worth. Worth living.

John Dehlin [01:44:09] Yeah. Carrie, you just made a mic drop. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's beautiful. You just. You know, the way I thought to summarize what you just said, part of it is you're experiencing betrayal. And what you. And what you get in response isn't empathy and validation and investigation. You get people who. Who either shun you as you communicate your betrayal or worse, they act betrayed as. As a reaction to your actual betrayal. Right. Like it's. Right. Like they're the victims. All of a sudden, all your believing family members are victims. It's true that to be the victim.

John Larsen [01:44:48] Did you finish?

John Dehlin [01:44:49] Yeah, yeah, go ahead.

Carah Burrell [01:44:51] We should let John Larsen chime in here one more time. Because when my sister did leave the church, and she was the biggest, best Mormon I've ever known in my entire life, and she just up and one day told me she left the church, and I had a full existential crisis right there in. Right in front of her. Couldn't go to work, like, the next day. It was. It was so painful that somebody that I. I rooted so much of my testimony in. Because these testimonies don't forget, they're interwoven with your family members and with the people in your community and the people who you think their testimony could never be shaken.

Carah Burrell [01:45:23] So that's. The betrayal is like, you didn't tell me. And then they just, like, dip out sometimes. And now you're just like. I thought that my whole world of this being true was so much tied into you also believing it. And then sometimes people dip. And then as a Mormon, I felt betrayed by people not telling me.

John Dehlin [01:45:43] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [01:45:44] That they. That they had completely lost their faith and wouldn't tell me why. Because they don't want to hurt me. They know how painful it is. There's Mormon. There's ex Mormons, when I was a Mormon, who wouldn't tell me what they were saying. My husband. My husband, for one. And my sister would not tell me the problems with the church because they knew the existential dread that was waiting for me.

John Larsen [01:46:03] Yeah, I. I think there's two types of kind of passive shunning I want to highlight on top of what you guys already talked about the one. And these are. These are personal. So I'm going to share personal experiences with my family.

John Larsen [01:46:18] I'm estranged from half of them, meaning we don't talk at all. And unfortunately, it's a little bit deeper than that. The others we talk and we have a loving relationship as far as it is. The, the. And, and I don't say this. I'm trying to be very sensitive to, you know, to people I love, like my parents, who I love dearly.

John Larsen [01:46:42] But what happened when I left the church is the passive shunning came in and that they do not talk to me about my life because they're afraid what I might say. And so for the last 15 years, although it's a very loving family relationship, it is very, very, very surface level towards me. I know, I know a lot of things that go on in their lives, but they don't ever talk to me. I'll give you a real example, just because it's funny. My mom called me once a few years ago and I said, hey, I just got off the phone with German Public Radio,

John Dehlin [01:47:26] okay?

John Larsen [01:47:27] And then there was a big pause like that, and then she just changed the subject. She wasn't curious as to why German Public Radio was calling me or what we talked about or what I said to them. She never asked, as far as I know. There I. One time, there was one episode I was kind of proud of with Mormon expression where it was one where I was trying to express more empathy for the church, and I made her listen to it. And as far as I know, it's the only thing I've ever produced that she's listened to. My mother, who I love dearly.

John Larsen [01:47:58] But when I called her after I said, did you listen to it? She said, yeah. And I said, what'd you think? She said. She said, yeah, there was a lot of words and, and, and so you. You get cut off.

John Larsen [01:48:15] And, and what's unfortunate is because that passive cut off, they didn't engage that with my kids, but kids smart, they. They see what's going on. And so that passive shunning that happened to me in part destroyed the family.

John Larsen [01:48:35] And I don't. I don't have that kind of relationship with my parents. They don't. They don't know hardly anything about just the surface level stuff. Now, I compare that to my wife's family, Kimmy's family, who are all in the church, and they don't practice shunning, and they know all about me. We talk and they're interested and I'm interested in them. And, and we have a. We in on that sense. We have a Much better relationship. But in the end, you know, and I, I understand the choice, but they, they chose the church over my family because my children and my spouse and my stepchildren, all that inherit the way they treat me, right.

John Larsen [01:49:18] Does that make sense? And for me, I am something to be loved but avoided. And, and so that's, that's kind of my personal experience with shunning that, that, that continues. And every once in a while it gets, it gets hard because something will come up. This happened to me. I, I, I don't know how many details, but something comes up where they decide not to shun. Like a funeral. And it exposes what they have been doing and, and shunning about and the passive lies that people that you thought you trusted, people keeping secrets from you and not telling you things are happening and, and all that.

John Larsen [01:50:00] It really, really breaks up the family. That's a, that's the first thing I want to share. The second thing is I, Kimmy and I have four kids and they are, right now they're 21, 20, 19 and 18. So as they went through high school and they're all kind of queer and whatever, they're just, they're just great people. They are who they are. I mean we, who gives a, like why, why does anybody care?

John Larsen [01:50:25] But so we became one of those households where kids, it was a safe place. Kids, no matter what, what they were doing, who they were, they were just kids. They were 14, they were 16, they were accepted. And I'll tell you the number of LDS kids that I had come through my home who are shunned in passive ways by their parents.

John Larsen [01:50:46] Parents who, who refuse to engage with them unless they're reading their scriptures. Parents who refuse to buy their school pictures because their hair is blue. Parents who refuse to, where there's been more than one kid that didn't belong to me, who had their prom pictures taken at my house and got a hug from my wife because their parents wouldn't do it because of this religion, their own children and, and the shunning is so deep that they do it to their own kids living in their own house. And now conservative religious people are saying, I don't know why all the kids are leaving the church. I don't know why this whole thing's falling apart.

John Larsen [01:51:31] It's because you did this to yourself. You chose your own flesh and blood and you chose to treat them like dirt or second hand citizens or as, as if they're shameful or embarrassing or something. To not love because of a pile of lies. And with each passing day, the lies get more apparent. And I hope that you're feeling more shame to fix this, because you did it. Fix it.

Carah Burrell [01:52:00] Yeah. And you can't even start fixing it until religious people start getting it in their head that. That it's like what Oak said in that BYU devotional this week that, like, don't get it confused, that you need to be loving your neighbor more and loving other people more than the leaders of the church and loving God.

Carah Burrell [01:52:16] It's all just a construct in your head of how you love God that is so ambiguous. And so if you love God by shunning your kids, grade A stamp, Hooray. But everyone is just, like, in a destructive path behind you, because the way that you loved your God sure wasn't that helpful. Right? So the way you get my opinion on that is the way you start fixing it is start aligning yourself with actual higher truths and not the ones that just make you feel comfortable. There's, like, it's everyone else who needs to align to my God, and if I do enough shunning and stuff, they'll. They'll feel his love. Yeah. Yeah. See how that works out. Eye roll, squinty eyes.

Conditional Love and Church Leadership's Rhetoric

John Dehlin [01:52:52] Yeah. The problem with Oakes's argument that, you know, he basically makes the argument and he's made it before. I'm. I'm guessing President Nelson's also made this argument. The basic argument is the first commandment in Christianity or Mormonism is love God. And the second commandment is to love your fellow men or humans or whatever. And what he's trying to say is, is that we should never love our fellow humans in ways that violate God's commandments to us. And so if we have to choose between God's commandments and our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, we need to choose God and therefore find ways to show disapproval for our.

John Dehlin [01:53:35] Our LGBT brothers and sisters or. Or to point of this presentation, we have to. We have to not show too much love and support for our fellow family members or friends who have left the church. The problem with that is if you. If you look back to what Jesus actually said, when, you know, we all know about the. The Poor Wayfaring man of grief song, right? We know about when. When. When people ask Jesus about this very question. Jesus said, inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. And so what Jesus has basically said is, how do you show love to God?

John Dehlin [01:54:18] How do you show your love to Jesus? It is literally by how you treat who the least of these. And so even if Mormons believe that the gay and lesbian or transgender people or apostates are the least, even if you believe that as a believing Mormon, that we are the least, then Jesus says the way you show your love for Jesus or God is to show love and compassion for us the least of these. And to me, that's where Elder Oaks's argument completely fails the Jesus test.

Carah Burrell [01:54:53] Nice one, John.

John Dehlin [01:54:55] Yeah.

John Larsen [01:54:56] All right, let's shift gears a little bit. This was all done to all of us. We're all victims, even the ones who are victimizing. When you find somebody who is, I don't know, a sexual predator about children, most often we find out there's serious trauma in their past, too. These things perpetuate.

John Larsen [01:55:17] And, and so what, what, what that means is even though these people hurt us deeply and we hurt them deeply, it isn't for character flaw on any of our parts. Like, like this is a system that kind of lodges in defects in our own thinking and defects in our own society. And the religions come and they prey upon those things. I mean, ways that I've enumerated for years and years and years and, and again, we're, we're all part of it. As Lisa just said, hurt people, hurt people.

John Larsen [01:55:57] It's true. The good news is it doesn't have to be this way, and it's not this way intrinsically. For those who leave the church and are being shunned and in pain. You can create your own families of choice. You can find people who will accept you for who you are. You can rebuild these things. And even in the darkest and hour, it's only a temporary hour. And sometimes it's. It can go for a long time or seeming a long time, but there, there's, there's, there's hope in all this. And it just tends to get better with time. The pain lessons, all. All of that, you know.

John Dehlin [01:56:41] Yeah. Amen, John. I'll just add, I'll just add, you know, to what you said, a message of hope and care. I'm sure you've got a message of hope as well. Mine is, you know, when I, When I got. Got my PhD in psychology and realized that I wanted to try and not just help people deconstruct and process their stages of grief and their anger, but I wanted to help people build.

John Dehlin [01:57:09] I just started paying attention to sort of like, you know, after one or two or three or four years of processing the high demand religion of the faith crisis, what were the outcomes of the people that I was seeing who either lost their faith or left the church and, and believe it or not, when I, when I tried to give a name to the faith crisis counseling that I ended up creating and the website that ended up putting together that I gave away for free and still give away for free, the, the name of the entire project we named the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis.

John Dehlin [01:57:45] And you can go to mormonfaithcrisis.com and we have over 70 hours of free coaching materials and free retreats that you can just consume for free to help you navigate your marriage, your relationship with your kids, communicating with believing family and friends, healthy sexuality, healthy relationship advice, how to find community, how to find resources. All that's on this website@mormonfaithcrisis.com but I named it the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis because while there's pain, while it can, it can end up leading to divorce, while it can end up leading to estranged relationships with parents or with spouse or with siblings or with children, while there is undeniable pain associated with leaving a high demand religion, there is also immeasurable good and benefits.

John Dehlin [01:58:41] And it's not just like trying to make something up so that, you know, we, we won't look as pathetic as we, as the church oftentimes wants to paint us. I can say in my relationship with Markie, my relationship has gotten stronger. John Larsen I would say as awesome as we all love Zilfa, I would guess that you would say the outcome maybe is a better relationship, a more fitting relationship with Kimmy than you had before. So you can either improve your existing marriage or if your current marriage doesn't end up working out because maybe you shouldn't have ever been married to begin with, I don't know, you end up potentially having a better marriage than you ever could have had before because all of a sudden you start learning the, the rules of emotional intimacy.

John Dehlin [01:59:27] You partner with someone where you actually share real values. You're no longer married to the church church, but instead you're literally married to each other and you have better communication skills, your lives are rooted in common values, and all of a sudden you become a better parent. Instead of teaching conditional love and modeling your parenting after how the church treated you, you start parenting in a way that's showing unconditional love, that's showing a child centered sort of parenting, and all of a sudden you find you're a better parent than you ever were before. And then you may lose all these friendships that are sad to lose, but I can tell you we have dozens and dozens of friends that surpass the deepest relationship that we ever had in or out of family prior to our faith crisis.

John Dehlin [02:00:21] We have now dozens and dozens of friends that are friends on the deepest level you could ever imagine. And I would have never imagined this level of intimacy with Margi, this level of intimacy with my own children, this level of intimacy with new friends.

John Dehlin [02:00:41] I would have never imagined this level of intimacy possible. That's not to mention the 10% raise when you're not paying tithing and putting jokes aside, being able to take your money and give it to real charities that actually really need your money, whether it's repairing cleft palates or, or supporting women in micro, you know, micro businesses and micro economies or providing water to villages that don't have it. All of a sudden, even something like tithing or charity takes on a completely new name. Not to mention the mental health benefits of, of being able to get rid of your anxiety and get rid of your depression that you had while you were in.

John Dehlin [02:01:20] Now, sometimes you do need a therapist or a coach to help you process the trauma, to help you emerge through the stages of grief into a happier and a healthier place. But out of the tens of thousands of formerly believing and or ex Mormons that I've met, maybe one or two or a handful have said they would take the blue pill and go back to the way their life was before.

John Dehlin [02:01:47] And 99.999 not only say they would have, they would take that red pill again and again and again. The overwhelming majority say that on every single level, spirituality, community, identity, friendships, meaning, purpose, mental health, marital relationships, parenting, everything across the board ended up better. It may take a few years, it may take three, four, five years. It may take some therapy, it may take some coaching. But, but a faith crisis can be a tremendous gift if you don't burn too many bridges and if you don't blow yourself up along the way as you're trying to cope. And so check out mormonfaithcrisis.com for support. Carah, I would love to get you in here.

Carah Burrell [02:02:39] Here. Oh, I just want to say to that, that what you're describing is a night and day, literally of a vibrancy in post Mormon life. And I would describe it like I, I will drive past a church building and it just makes my heart go, oh, I bet everyone's like sitting in their pews and their pretty clothes and then like singing a church song. And like I could, I could get a lobotomy and I could go back there. Like, there is a happiness There. But what I think of is, I think of trying to watch a movie in black and white when you have an option to watch it in full color.

Carah Burrell [02:03:09] But you might need some sunglasses. Glasses because the colors are so vibrant. That's, that's the analogy that I would put on that. And if you want me to wrap up my message of hope, here's my, here's my nuance home message out to the people.

Stepping Back: Sadness, Systems, and Second Acts

Carah Burrell [02:03:24] So I, I like to think of things in, in big, big world terms, systems thinking and our ex Mormon's angry. Am I angry? I am not so angry. I'm sad at the human condition and I'm sad at the way that our brains are wired. Kind of an evidence that if there is a God man, he wired our brains to be oriented more towards comfortability than truth. Tribalism.

John Dehlin [02:03:49] Tribalism.

Carah Burrell [02:03:50] Tribalism and, and sometimes greed, depending on how you're conditioned. I'm sad at the human condition. I'm sad not that Mormonism exists or other untrue faiths exist. I'm sad at the conditions in which the poverty that my parents grew up in forced them into a situation where they found comfort in untrue things because they needed to tr. They needed all of the other services and all of the other like existential questions were answered. And you can, you can sacrifice your children on that altar and that's sad. You can sacrifice your authenticity on that altar because of the systems in the childhood and the conditions. And that just, that just speaks back again to the human condition, whether that's you're growing up in certain improvised situations or with alcoholic parents that put you in a situation to believe untrue things and then perpetuate harmful cycles.

Carah Burrell [02:04:39] And that, that's, it's, again, it's, it's a. I'm a no free will kind of girl. And like I'm not angry at my parents for, for converting to the church. I'm just sad that the conditions are what they are. But my message of hope on the other end is that the church is getting a lot more secular by the day. It's getting very divisive and dogmatic. But we know that the scale of the less religious a country gets, the more poverty decreases and the more reasons I think that people aren't choosing religion and they're going more secular routes and mental health counseling and things that we have proven methods of improving ourselves that aren't based in superstition are becoming more and more available to people.

Carah Burrell [02:05:16] And that's where I find my hope that people are actually going to Be utilizing better, more useful things than falling on the systems of the past for the last millennia of human civilization. Untrue things that make you really comfortable. People that are dogmatic. But we can talk to each other too much now. We got the Internet too much now. We know the traumas now. We can study them now. And people are outgrowing the old. And we're going to be in this new really like, bobbling toddler phase for a while. But we're not this, this infant homeo. Homo sapien species anymore growing into something bigger and beautiful. And that's my hope.

John Dehlin [02:05:52] Love it. Love the hope care. Thank you.

John Larsen [02:05:55] Brilliant. I, you know, we've. John, you hinted at this earlier and the beauty of all this is you get a second act. That's something that a lot of people don't get. And I remember on the stage show when I retired, we go in and we talk about the great gift of being wrong, of having been really deeply wrong about something as big as the church, that we believe the church. And it was wrong intellectually. You know, my frustration with this world is how basic scientific understanding, how basic logic and reason and rhetoric have sort of gone out the window and we're making mistakes we should have cleared up 2500 years ago.

John Larsen [02:06:41] But this is a jump start to people's brains and understanding how the world actually works. It is this fantastic gift. And I was thinking, John, when you were talking about, you know, we, we, we, we talk about some of the worst things that can happen to us. Like, like divorce. Well, what happens after a divorce? Well, you get remarried, you get to

John Dehlin [02:07:02] do it again or not to marry again.

John Larsen [02:07:05] Right. Or, or not. It's, it's one door shuts, but it, it doesn't shut anything down the road. Which is why my, my, my plea to those who are feeling suicidal is, oh, things are going to change. They're going to get great and, or maybe they won't, but, but there's going to be differences in your existence. It's not going to be the, the same as it was before.

John Larsen [02:07:29] And I think those gifts of having a second chapter and, and when I got divorced, you know, and I was talking to other people as we went through the legal system. Lucky. I was fortunate that ZILF and I were able to do it amicably and, and, and, and, and fairly. I think we both wanted to be very fair to one another. We both cared about each other. You know, there wasn't any malice there.

John Larsen [02:07:53] But I did meet some friends, some. And the two guys, I'm Thinking of in particular were men who, in the courts, they, they lost full custody of their kids. And that 20 years ago or 10 years ago, that wasn't that uncommon. Probably still happens that you have Mormon judges who, when one person leaves the church, they will, they will, they're not supposed to legally, but they do custody. And you'll, you'll see custody arrangements where the ex Mormon has to take their kids to sacrament meeting as a condition of custody. I've seen that in writing. But I'm thinking of these two guys, these two different guys, and they basically lost everything.

John Larsen [02:08:28] They lost their house, they lost their retirement, they lost custody of their kids. They just had visitation, they lost their marriage and, but there was a freedom there. Like for the first time in their whole life, they were unencumbered. Like when you hit the bottom, there's like nowhere up the. To go but up. And how, how. What we fear the most to happen to us can sometimes be the, the, the best thing that happened and people going through the ennui, the terribleness of leaving the church lose sight sometimes that, oh, there's great things just around the corner, I promise. And like you've talked about the, the great relationships and, and the, and the, and the, and the friendship.

John Larsen [02:09:11] And I, I was gonna say it at, at the beginning, but I, I'll say it now. I think my, the, the thing that I hate most about this, the podcasting that. John Larsen, what I'm known for is I think I'm most famous for what I consider to be the worst traits of my personality.

John Larsen [02:09:32] And the. That, that, that you can laugh. I mean that, that to me, all of life is this ridiculous absurdity and there's nothing to do but, but laugh and find people who think it's funny too and keep moving forward and, and there is such beauty to be had even in watching things burn, you know, like, like everything's not going to be as we want it. We have some real troubles, but life is precious, man. And kids are still cute and sex still feels good and food tastes great and the sun still rises and the rain feels wonderful on your face. And this is all made up.

John Larsen [02:10:14] All of Mormonism is a fiction. It's not real. And when we can break away from, from that falsehood, then we're free to experience reality. What a beautiful gift.

John Dehlin [02:10:29] Yeah. And I'll just say one of my favorite things to hear from the people who listen to Mormon stories. Let me just be clear. Very few people have ever lost their faith because of Mormon stories. What happens is they start to question or lose their faith. And then they're seeking support and validation after having lost their faith. And then they come to Mormon stories. But my favorite thing to hear is, John, thank you for giving me my life back. Because when you are in a high demand religion, what I do think is an apt metaphor is the Matrix. And if you've seen the movie the Matrix, it's all these people plugged in to this centralized, whatever, monstrosity.

John Dehlin [02:11:13] And all it's doing is it's siphoning out their lifeblood, siphoning out their energy, siphoning out their identity, their, their personality, their, their lives, their time and their money. And that's what high demand religions do. They like, they, you know, they, people experience good things within a high demand religion. Kind of like the Truman Show. Now I'm mixing my metaphors, but like you said, John, the Truman show, it is great until you find out it's all artificial. It's not true.

John Dehlin [02:11:45] So. So number one, you're living a lie, even if you're happy and it's someone else's lie. But then you realize that what happened is you had 50 or 60 or 80 or 90 years, whatever money, whatever time, whatever identity, and it was what, what your life amounted to was the church siphoning as much of all of that to its own benefit to become a multi hundred billion dollar corporation while your life got spent living someone else's lie.

John Dehlin [02:12:17] And I don't mean to reduce it for the people that believe in it and love it, but that's what it is for the people that I talk to. And so the, the, the gift of the Mormon faith crisis. If I had to summarize, the gift of the Mormon faith crisis is the rest of your life to live as you want to live as authentically as possible. And even if you goof it up, I'd rather goof up my life than live someone else's lie. Yeah, but you're not going to goof it up if you just deal with it smartly and, and kind of be wise, I don't think. Carah, how you doing? Good.

Carah Burrell [02:12:54] I'm just trying to think of how I, what I would have said to that in my believing Mormon mind. Because I remember sitting in Sunday school and thinking like, what could anyone possibly hate about what I'm learning at church here for three hours? Like I'm learning about being Christ and learning about all these things. And I think, John, the words you just said is that like your life is being siphoned. When I think of a siphon I think of like a gas tank and somebody siphoning that fuel out for their own purposes to get them going. And I would have said to that as a Mormon, like, oh no, no, no, when I go to church, I am being fueled up by being right here.

Carah Burrell [02:13:27] But I was missing one really quintessential point though is I believed as a presupposition that I could not survive without that fuel. I had no concept that the fuel was like, could become from within. That the only way I had to have been, you have to be fueled up to be siphoned. And I thought the only place to fuel up was through the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. So no matter how much you siphon out of that, you're like, I'm fine with siphoning my, myself and my work and everything about going to the temple and just the service oriented things, but all just your mind, body, soul into this entire high demand religion.

Carah Burrell [02:14:02] I was fine with the siphoning, I was fine with the suffering. I was fine with the bigotry that I was learning, I was finding with my hating gay people or whatever. I was fine with all of that. Because the fuel, this essence that I was told was so, so special and so unique in the one true church. And the covenants I make are more important than anyone else's. And the story about my testimony is more important than anyone else's. That fuel was what I thought was the only way my brain had an operating system. And that's the great lie. You don't need that operating system. You don't. Can you believe somebody thought that I got fired from this job? I'm like totally killing it today.

John Larsen [02:14:37] And we should make clear we're going to keep doing these. This isn't the last one.

Carah Burrell [02:14:41] I'm always on John Larsen's ones. Everyone comes in, they're always like, Carrie's back. I'm just on the John Larsen. So you know.

John Dehlin [02:14:46] And you've got your own channel, Carah, do you want to plug it real quick?

Carah Burrell [02:14:49] Yeah, I'm really excited. I'm going to try to make weekly YouTube videos on my NuanceHoe YouTube channel. And they're going to be a range of different types of really funny stuff, long form stuff. I'll have my shorts and tick tocks and things like that. And if you, as a matter of fact, if you like the discussion we're having right now, I just uploaded a video, probably at a terrible video time because the views are not doing well, because I know it's a bomb video because it's the same exact energy you're getting right now with my friend Kyle Bishop, who runs beyond God and religion.

Carah Burrell [02:15:14] He's a well known tick tocker, Instagrammer, Facebook guy, who is the best. And we made a video together about shadow work and all of the things about identity that we're talking about and conformity, things like that. I just uploaded a video today about it, so could you like do me a huge favor and like go click on it and watch it and leave a comment and subscribe to my channel and then maybe like, I don't know, sign up for my Patreon. I also got a donor box button. I'm stealing Mormon Stories idea so people can go to the link for donor box if you want.

Carah Burrell [02:15:40] My YouTube channel, if you find it helpful and you want to keep the content coming. I literally go through some personal stuff, don't have a lot of money. It's not a big deal. But like, I really just want to like make my job being a Mormon YouTuber and not at this one because I like this job I have here. I did at Mormon Stories, but I want to do it on my own terms. You know, female led stuff, stuff like that. So if you want to see me continue to do that, the only way I can do it as well with reoccurring donations are super, super helpful. So I have a donor box button on my, on my newest YouTube video. I'd probably drop it right now. So.

John Dehlin [02:16:10] Yeah, yeah, we'll have it in the show notes for sure.

Carah Burrell [02:16:13] Oh, thanks.

John Dehlin [02:16:13] Yeah, I, I, I just talked to Carah the other day. Like, we need more female owned and led content in the ex Mormon space that are and yeah, and, and so we need to support our creators, whether that's Self on the shelf or Carah or others. Lindsay Hansen Park Europe Polygamy. Like, we need more female voices. So I also am going to just do a plug for John Larsen. Like John has this library of over 300. How many, how many episodes? John Larsen

Closing Reflections and Looking Ahead

John Larsen [02:16:46] for Mormon Expression? I think there were like 289 or something like that.

John Dehlin [02:16:51] Yeah. So there's this phenomenal archive of like pure raw John Larsen at his best over multiple years, tackling some of the most important issues in Mormonism. It's still relevant. He often had panels, really fun panels. If it's on Thrones is a podcast that actually spun off from Mormon expression. And you know, if you go to Reddit or anywhere and they talk about, you know, the most important Mormons Mormon themed podcast episodes of all time. Multiple episodes from John Larsen always Shoot to the top and pass over 1600 Mormon stories episodes, including how to Build a Transoceanic Vessel, their discussion the Doctrine of Word of Wisdom, their discussion of DNC132.

John Dehlin [02:17:38] Just so many brilliant episodes. So you can go to, you can just Google Mormon Expression and you can either find the Mormon Expression Library on Spotify or on Apple Podcasts and, and you can also go to MormonStories.org Mormon expression and you can become a monthly donor to this series because we pay both John and Carah to come on and we do that through the donations you make specifically to the Mormon Expression Fund.

John Dehlin [02:18:08] So if you want to see this, these monthly series with Karen John continue, we're also going to provide a link to mormonstories.org mormonexpression. You can become a monthly donor. 10 bucks a month, 20 bucks a month, whatever you can afford. We'll keep Carah and John coming back month after month after month. We've also used it to get John to upgrade his microphone, to upgrade his laptop, to upgrade his lighting and his camera. And you know, we just need, we need more John Larsen and we need more Carah Burrell in the world. That's my view and I'm sticking to it.

Carah Burrell [02:18:41] Ah, thanks.

John Larsen [02:18:42] Yeah, I agree. And hey, let's tease this. Karen. I have been trying to find time together. We're going to record a podcast where we talk about John. So look for that coming up soon.

Carah Burrell [02:18:52] This is news to me.

John Dehlin [02:18:56] It wouldn't be news to me. No, I'm just kidding.

John Larsen [02:18:58] John is a, John is a human being like the rest of us. But the, the, the, the number of people that he has, he has helped has outweighed whatever personal flaws you may see in him.

Carah Burrell [02:19:12] Yeah, I totally agree with that. I just, if you guys are don't know. John did the transparency video last week about the state of Mormon stories and then I did a video where I talked and responded to it and just added some more context from my time working at Mormon Stories just to give you, the viewers, a more well rounded context of thing. And I was really nervous making it because I don't want to come across it that John has flaws or that, that he's at all imperfect in any way. Steve points is like shocking at me right now. No, it's. This space is really complicated and it's really traumatic and it's really difficult. And so any, any, just like space and space and everything you can have for like the content creators and stuff and making sure that you guys feel like you can see and hear us too. It's always welcome.

John Dehlin [02:19:59] Yeah. Well, thanks, Carah. Thanks, John. And thanks to you both because you guys, you, gal and guy both provide such important content and constantly, you know, even when I released this recent episode, so many people just responded. I don't care who you get rid of, just don't get rid of John Larsen or Carah, you know, so. So there's a lot of love out there for you all. So, John, do you want to give us a preview of maybe a topic or two that. That people can look forward to in the. In the months ahead, or do we just.

John Larsen [02:20:30] We. We have some good ones coming up. Doing the research on the amicus. Amicus briefings. The church oftentimes get involved in Supreme Court cases, and we're just. For the last 10 years or so, we're going to talk about the Supreme Court cases that they've chosen to get involved in and speculate as to why. So hopefully that one will be the next one. And then I have some in the wings where I have in my personal possession evidence of the church's fraud and blatant fraud. I have two examples, and I'm digging them out of boxes, and we are going to go through those. You'll be able to see here live on camera, stuff the church has tried to bury.

John Dehlin [02:21:12] Ooh, that sounds juicy. I didn't even know that was in the works.

John Larsen [02:21:15] Yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:21:17] Okay. All right. All right. Well, John, you're awesome. And Carah, you're awesome.

Carah Burrell [02:21:23] You're awesome.

John Dehlin [02:21:23] Yeah, thanks so much.

Carah Burrell [02:21:24] You're all right.

John Dehlin [02:21:25] Yeah, thank you. Thanks.

John Larsen [02:21:27] Yeah. Everyone needs to ask John when. When Mormon Stories Palooza is. I keep threatening I'll fly into Salt Lake if we do a big live show.

John Dehlin [02:21:36] So, yeah, yeah, you're basically just saying you want. You want to have a, like a Thrive kind of event where, where we get a bunch of people together, podcasters, YouTubers, tick tockers, and just allow kind of our community to kind of have a bunch of fun.

John Larsen [02:21:54] A little bit like Thrive, but more rowdy.

Carah Burrell [02:21:57] You know, Mormon Palooza is coming up, like, the first weekend of October. Do you know about that? It's called Mormon Palooza.

John Dehlin [02:22:02] Oh, yeah, tell us.

Carah Burrell [02:22:03] I'm hosting it, I think.

John Dehlin [02:22:04] Tell us about that.

Carah Burrell [02:22:06] I just heard about it from Mike Steed, who runs Mormons on Mushrooms podcast. So John Larsen's been on that podcast. I've been on that podcast. It's run by a couple friends of mine who are awesome. And so there's an entire post Mormon kind of psychedelics and community. And so they decided to put on a Big kind of what you just described. There's going to be like a road show and Lindsay Hansen park is speaking and I think I'm going to be emceeing part of it. And that's all I know so far. But you can go to Mormon Palooza on Instagram. I know they have an Instagram page. That's all I know.

John Dehlin [02:22:34] Okay. Fun. All right, John, there's your Mormon Palooza.

John Larsen [02:22:37] All right. It's important to get out of the basement and meet other people. You'll. You'll feel much better.

John Dehlin [02:22:41] Okay. All right, well, thanks again, John. Thanks again, Carah.

Carah Burrell [02:22:45] Yeah, I'm so happy. This was a good one.

John Dehlin [02:22:47] And yeah, and thanks to all of you who are joining us today. We had a lot of really great comments in the comments section. Thanks to Maven for moderating today and to, you know, Gerardo and the open storage board and everyone else behind the scenes that helps make what we do possible. Thanks so much for the donors. We couldn't do the Mormon Expression episodes without the Mormon Expression donations. I just included a link in both Facebook and YouTube to the Mormon Expression page where you can become a monthly donor to support Karen John and what they do. I also just put a link in the comments to the Mormon Expression library so you can check that out.

John Dehlin [02:23:28] We. We were able to get that back online after it had been taken down by baddies. And so we're. The Storage foundation is just. Just thrilled to sponsor the Mormon Expression podcast feed. Carah, if you want to include a link to your YouTube page, really quick in. In Streamyard.

Carah Burrell [02:23:45] I mean, I'm also doing a Mormon Palooza 1. Just so you guys.

John Dehlin [02:23:47] Okay. Yeah, that's great too. But thanks. Mostly just thanks to all the donors because we could not do any of this without your donations, even general donations to the Open Stories foundation or to Mormon Stories. Pay for my time, pay for this studio, pay for this equipment, pay for our, you know, Brooklyn, our editor. Pay for Gerardo and the great work that he does in our accountants and our attorneys and everyone that we need to kind of keep a non profit going. So thanks to your tugs. Thanks to the donors for your support. Thanks to the listeners. If you. We just passed 70,000. I know. Congratulations on YouTube. And we're kind of growing at like 1500 to 2000amonth. So we may pass a hundred thousand within a year, year and a half.

John Larsen [02:24:28] Half.

John Dehlin [02:24:29] So. So. So please subscribe now. If you're on YouTube, please subscribe because once you hit a hundred thousand, it. I think YouTube likes that in the algorithms and so of course, thanks to to Kantara. She just did a super chat. If you ever join us on, on YouTube, you can always click that little dollar sign in the YouTube chat button and donate. And those donations are also super useful. So thanks for the super chats, thanks for the donations. Please subscribe and like us. You can follow us on Tick tock, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube. And we don't do much on Tick Tock, but we do have a Tick Tock account there.

Carah Burrell [02:25:07] Why not?

John Dehlin [02:25:08] I don't know, just too much going on.

Carah Burrell [02:25:10] Your talent flew off to other places.

John Dehlin [02:25:12] Yeah, thanks Elder Claiborne, for your super chat as well and anyone else who's donated and anyway, just be kind to each other, love each other, do good to each other, try and, you know, process your grief and your anger in healthy ways. Get a therapist, get a coach, write, journal, you know, express yourself on social media, whatever you need to do to process and get through the stages of grief.

John Dehlin [02:25:39] But then try and love people and build bridges and be kind and most importantly, the best thing you can do. The best advice I would have after a Mormon faith crisis is to go on and live a big, bold, beautiful, bright life. There's nothing and that's not to pressure you, that you can't ever make mistakes or have sadness or that things won't go wrong. Things go wrong in everyone's life. Suffering is a part of everyone's life, including orthodox Mormons.

John Dehlin [02:26:06] You know, life contains suffering. That's one of the truths of Buddhism. But the best testimony is a well lived life of integrity and kindness and joy. And so do that. Your, your purpose in life isn't to be an ex Mormon. Your purpose in life isn't to watch Mormon stories podcast or to rage on Reddit. Do that when you need to, but go live a healthy, big, beautiful, productive life. Carrie, you got something you want to add?

Carah Burrell [02:26:31] I just wanted to stare into that camera and be like, guys, if you can just get to what John is saying, both John's, that it gets better, I can speak for myself. I'm going through some personal stuff, some things that, that I. The only reason that I'm able to do that is because of the context and the, the, the bigger picture things. And I'm still very happy. I'm so much happier with the tools that I have learned as a post Mormon that are ground in better psychological principles. I'm able to do the hardest work of my entire life on this side than I ever would have.

Carah Burrell [02:27:05] I would have been too afraid because those tools, they're wood tools they ain't steel tools. When I was in Mormonism, to be able to get to the nitty gritty to. To not just love people better and love yourself better, but actually to do the hardest things in life, the challenges of life, the things that feel like marathons that you'll never get to the finish end. I'm able to do on this side, and that's what I want for you guys.

John Dehlin [02:27:25] Yeah. Thanks, Carah. Also, quick shout out to Billion Dooll Dan, who just gave us a $50 super chat. We need to mention super chats more because they come in when we. When we sometimes ask for them. John, any final words before we go?

John Larsen [02:27:41] No. No. Just be good to each other. Come out to Oregon and smoke a bowl with me.

John Dehlin [02:27:46] Okay. All right. Is that me personally or.

John Larsen [02:27:49] Well, of course, John, it's time for you to end your teetotaling ways.

John Dehlin [02:27:52] Okay. All right. Thanks, John. Thanks.

John Larsen [02:27:54] All right.

John Dehlin [02:27:55] Thanks, everyone. We'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories.

Carah Burrell [02:28:00] Muscle Stories.

John Dehlin [02:28:01] Muscle. Muscle Stories instead of Mormon Stories. All right. Muscle Stories.

John Larsen [02:28:05] All right.

John Dehlin [02:28:05] Thanks, Carah. Thanks, everyone. We'll see you 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.