Welcome and Panelist Introductions

John Dehlin [00:00:02] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is July 19, 2021 and today I am super excited to have as

Carah Burrell [00:00:13] co host Carah Burrell.

John Dehlin [00:00:15] Hey, Carah, how's it going?

Carah Burrell [00:00:17] So good. Hey, John.

John Dehlin [00:00:18] So this is the first time that we've done a kind of a live stream where we're co hosting and it's good to have you.

Carah Burrell [00:00:25] Yeah, my first one, I think it's going to go really good. Hot topic.

John Dehlin [00:00:28] Yeah. So for those who have not been paying attention to Mormon Stories over the last few weeks and months, because we had such a good year, past couple, you know, year, year and a half, we have been able to invest in bringing Carah on to be a co host. Carah does a lot of really important things for us. Audio, visually. She helps with time codes on YouTube so that you could jump to the important sections. But most importantly, she provides wit and wisdom and a younger voice and a more humorous voice and just all the great things that she provides. And so I'm glad you're with us.

Carah Burrell [00:01:08] Yeah. Thank you for having me.

John Dehlin [00:01:09] Yeah. And thanks to everyone who supports the Open Stories Foundation. Thank you to make this possible. So that's kind of the intro today. I am super excited for the topic. I want to credit Nemo. Hey, Nemo. Thanks for joining us.

Nemo [00:01:27] Hi.

John Dehlin [00:01:28] Some of you may or may not know, Nemo is our dear friend who has an amazing channel on YouTube that goes by what, what does your channel go by? Nemo.

Nemo [00:01:38] Nemo the Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:01:39] Nemo the Mormon.

Nemo [00:01:40] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:01:40] And we've had. We've had Nemo on Mormon Stories podcast to tell his amazing epic Mormon story. But he does great work on his YouTube channel, kind of breaking down Mormonism from. From his perspective and from a British perspective. But it's just so great to have you back, Nemo.

Nemo [00:01:55] Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:01:57] And this was your idea to do this topic. And the topic is will Mormons get their own planet? Is that right, Nemo?

Nemo [00:02:06] Yeah, yeah, that's. That's about it. And I thought, who better to share that stage with than the man below me?

John Dehlin [00:02:12] Then the Jackson Washburn. Hey, Jackson.

Jackson Washburn [00:02:16] Hi. Good to be back. Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:02:18] So Jackson also appeared on Mormon Stories podcast. Jackson. When was that?

Jackson Washburn [00:02:22] That was in 2017.

John Dehlin [00:02:24] I believe Jackson is kind of like the most precocious guest we've ever had on Mormon Story podcast. He was like a wet behind the ears teenager of like 16 or 17 years old coming on Mormon Stories, fighting with the ex Mormon titans.

Jackson Washburn [00:02:39] Oh, geez.

John Dehlin [00:02:40] He did share his epic Mormon Story pre mission. And then since then, Jackson's actually served a mission in Eastern Europe. Right, Jackson?

Jackson Washburn [00:02:49] Yeah, in Armenia.

John Dehlin [00:02:50] And I think this is the first time we've had you back since coming home from your mission.

Jackson Washburn [00:02:54] Yeah, yeah. Since. Since that interview. So I'm happy to be here.

John Dehlin [00:02:58] And, Jackson, I think you have some cool news about your future. Do you want to share?

Jackson Washburn [00:03:03] Oh, sure. Well, I've since graduated from Arizona State University, so. So I got bachelor's degrees in history and Religious Studies there, and I'm happy to announce that I am moving to Boston in two weeks to attend Harvard Divinity School. So I'll be getting a Master's of Theological Studies there. And I'm really looking forward to living in Cambridge, and it's my dream school, so I'm very much looking forward to just moving into this new chapter in my life.

Carah Burrell [00:03:35] Very nice. Congratulations.

John Dehlin [00:03:36] We're super excited for you.

Jackson Washburn [00:03:38] Yeah, thank you.

John Dehlin [00:03:38] I don't want to be pet paternalistic and say, I'm proud of you, but I'm still proud of you.

Jackson Washburn [00:03:43] Thank you. John, I understand you've had another guest that went to Harvard Divinity School. I forget what her name was, but if it comes to me, I might mention.

John Dehlin [00:03:53] But I think.

Nemo [00:03:56] So

John Dehlin [00:03:58] leaving the Witness, Amber Scora.

Jackson Washburn [00:04:01] Yeah, that's who I'm thinking of.

John Dehlin [00:04:02] Yes, she's there now, I think.

Jackson Washburn [00:04:04] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:04:05] Maybe she graduated, but she was there, I think, at least the last year. But she came to thrive. She has an amazing book called Leaving the Witness about leaving the Jehovah's Witness movement. But she was definitely there, I think, the past year.

Jackson Washburn [00:04:16] Yeah. Fantastic.

John Dehlin [00:04:18] I went to David Bachavoy's barbecue just this past weekend. Taylor Petrie was there and he went there.

Jackson Washburn [00:04:25] Yeah, I've talked to Taylor about it. He's been an important mentor.

John Dehlin [00:04:29] Yeah. So shout out to Tater Petrie.

Carah Burrell [00:04:31] And everyone on Facebook's also saying congrats to Jackson as well.

John Dehlin [00:04:34] Yay.

Jackson Washburn [00:04:34] Thank you, everyone. Thank you. I really appreciate it. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:04:37] And I just have to say, and thank you for moderating comments. That allows me to pay attention to the interviewees, too. But, yeah. Yeah. Jackson, I just have to give you a shout out because there aren't a lot of neo apologies I don't want to. You may or may not like the term neo apologist. I think of it as a complementary term because we all dislike, I think, in many, many things about classic Mormon apologetics, but just a progressive. You're one of the few progressive Mormons that will keep. Will still come on Mormon stories. So I just want to say I really appreciate that. I really respect it. Yeah. You're willing to stand up for your thoughts and beliefs and you're even willing to come on a show that some have labeled evil. I am Mormon Voldemort. What does that make you if I'm Mormon Voldemort?

Jackson Washburn [00:05:20] I think that would make her Bellatrix.

John Dehlin [00:05:22] Bellatrix, yeah. Do you like that? Are you gonna take that?

Carah Burrell [00:05:25] I don't follow that.

John Dehlin [00:05:26] Harry Potter.

Carah Burrell [00:05:27] Sorry.

John Dehlin [00:05:28] Okay.

Carah Burrell [00:05:28] I was gonna. I wanted to be like a queen diva of ex Mormonism, but I'm not

John Dehlin [00:05:33] gonna take care of the loser. I'm just gonna put an L on my forehead.

Carah Burrell [00:05:38] I feel really welcomed here on my first live stream.

John Dehlin [00:05:40] Thank you.

Carah Burrell [00:05:41] I am not in the Harry Potter club and it's evident. Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:05:45] All right. So anyway, Jackson, thank you for. We really appreciate you coming on.

Jackson Washburn [00:05:49] Yeah, yeah, my pleasure.

John Dehlin [00:05:50] And our goal, Karen and I's goal, is to just try and get out of the way and let you guys have a robust discussion. We may throw in jokes or questions or commentary, but we hope to just allow a thoughtful discussion and for you to feel super comfortable here, Jackson.

Jackson Washburn [00:06:06] Yep.

Origins of the Planet Discussion

John Dehlin [00:06:06] So, all right. So, Nemo, this. This was kind of your idea. I think you did a short on your channel, so why don't you go ahead. Let's begin, Nemo, by you telling us kind of why you thought this would be an interesting episode. We've got almost 200 people joining us on the live stream already. I'm guessing it's going to grow to 4 or 500 by the time we're done because these things grow. But Nemo, out of the gate, why don't you tell us why you thought this would be a cool episode.

John Dehlin [00:06:36] And then, Nemo, we'll have you take us through kind of your sense of the timeline of the history of this topic and what moments of the timeline you think are important. And then, Jackson, we'll have you come on, have you fill in elements that you also think are important.

John Dehlin [00:06:54] And then we'll kind of have a free for all and we'll ask Carah to moderate the comments because we really do. One of the reasons we live stream is we do really value people sharing their perspectives, their insight, their comments, and we want to incorporate those into the conversation. And so we'll do that as well. And we'll see if we can keep this under two hours. How does that sound?

Nemo [00:07:15] Sounds great.

John Dehlin [00:07:16] All right. Any additions or corrections to the agenda?

Nemo [00:07:20] None. All I can think of. Do you want me to crack on with that?

Jackson Washburn [00:07:24] Yeah. Not opposed.

Carah Burrell [00:07:26] We're on we're live streaming on YouTube and Facebook. So between the two of them, I think we're gonna have some good comments. Good questions.

Nemo [00:07:33] Should be good.

John Dehlin [00:07:33] All right, Nemo, take it away.

Nemo [00:07:35] Thank you. So the. The reason I thought this would be a good idea is because John actually contacted both Jackson and I and put us in a group chat together and said, have you seen this? Talking about, you know, the faq? I'd already spoken to Jackson about it on Facebook a little bit, and we'd had a little bit of discussion because it's come up.

The Mormon Zeitgeist and Doctrinal Background

Nemo [00:07:53] And so, yeah, this has been going around the Mormon zeitgeist for a little while, and I thought, well, who better to talk to than someone who is in more of the apologist camp and I'm more of in the critic camp. And it'd be good to get us both together because Jackson and I have interacted previously. We have a good kind of friendly relationship in that sense. So it would be a good quality conversation, I thought. And so I did my video where I put together kind of an answer to the question of whether Mormons will get their. Become gods and get their own planets. Because it seemed there was some confusion going around online, and if the church was attempting to walk away in any way, then I wanted to see exactly what they'd said previously.

Nemo [00:08:29] So the timeline kind of runs really back to Parley P. Pratt. Six years before Joseph started teaching it. He was really exploring this idea of peopling other worlds. And then the famous King Follett sermon is given by Joseph Smith. So that that is where he starts to really talk in these terms of God being a man, and then God going through the experience that we've gone through and becoming God, and we will likewise do the same. Lorenzo Snow had also been thinking about a similar sort of thing, and around 1840, he was particularly kind of thinking about it, but didn't want to say anything until Joseph Smith had said something.

Nemo [00:09:02] Once Joseph Smith taught that in the King Follett sermon, Lorenzo Snow went for it, and he actually coined the couplet that a lot of people sometimes attribute to Joseph Smith. And Joseph Smith said something fairly similar. But it was Lorenzo Snow who coined the couplet as man now is God once was, as God now is man

John Dehlin [00:09:18] may be was that after Joseph had died.

Nemo [00:09:22] I am not sure, actually, whether that was during Joseph's lifetime or not. You know, Jackson unclear. Jackson's unique.

Jackson Washburn [00:09:28] Let me look into that real quick.

John Dehlin [00:09:29] Okay, yeah, cool.

Nemo [00:09:31] I'll crack on while he's doing that. But what's interesting is really, that, that

John Dehlin [00:09:35] what I hear you say so far, Nemo, is that Joseph talked about this in the Kingfollet discourse, but it was really Lorenzo Snow who kind of popularized the couplet. Is that what I've heard so far?

Nemo [00:09:45] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Essentially like Joseph Smith taught it, and everyone heard the Kingfolet sermon, and that sermon is famous for a lot of the other doctrines that are taught in it as well. It was. It was quite a theologically heavy discourse that was given.

John Dehlin [00:09:56] It was pretty close to his death, right?

Nemo [00:09:58] Yeah, yeah, yeah. It wasn't too long before he actually died. I could be wrong. I'm not sure it was one of the last public sermons that he gave before his death. I'm not sure, but I know it was near the end. I'm sure someone will correct me on that. But yeah, it was. It was definitely taught by him. But Lorenzo Snow, I think, kind of re. Brought it to the forefront in that little couplet that then became propagated and moved throughout the sort of Mormon zeitgeist at the time.

John Dehlin [00:10:23] Okay, okay, okay.

Nemo [00:10:25] So carrying on with the timeline, what's interesting is in 1982, the church published an article in the Ensign where they were asked if that couplet is doctrinal. And they basically said, yeah, yeah, it is. 1982 is an interesting time because just before then, a few years previously, the God Makers had come out. And that was kind of a big critique of the church. It was from that sort of evangelical sort of criticism of the church. And so people were probably trying to clarify, oh, what I've heard about this thing is this actually our doctrine. Is this something we really believe?

John Dehlin [00:11:01] Yeah, and I actually had. I had Ed Decker, the sort of the author of the movie and the book the God Makers. And I, you know, I grew up in Houston, Texas, and I remember when the God Makers movie came out, it was definitely a huge deal in the United States.

John Dehlin [00:11:17] You know, local Baptist churches all over the country were showing that movie. And it has this cartoon that we actually played in the Ed Decker movie, kind of like a Hanna Barbera cartoon from the style of cartoons that were going around, kind of like the he man, she Ra kind of style cartoons of the day, where I think it does a pretty decently accurate job of. Of conveying at least Mormon doctrine that I was taught growing up in kind of Bruce Armani, Joseph Feeling Smith style Mormon theology and doctrine. And in that, it really just. And if you ever want to Google kind of Mormon cartoon that leaders don't want you to look at, kind of on YouTube, you'll see the God Makers cartoon.

John Dehlin [00:12:01] And in it, it basically just mocks the church and saying, someday, you know, exalted Mormon men and women will become gods and goddesses over their own planets and have billions of spirit children. And it was like Ed Decker wanted to take that doctrine and rub our noses in it, primarily from an evangelical kind of point of view, because I think evangelicals would take umbrage at that doctrine. I think they would say, only there's only one God. God and Jesus are one.

John Dehlin [00:12:33] And for us to claim that we could ever become gods someday is heretical. And then to add to it the absurdity of owning our own planets and then having endless celestial sex to populate our own planets with billions of spirit children. I think Ed Decker was just trying to shame and embarrass us.

Nemo [00:12:54] Well, I think what he did is he took what was possibly a fairly niche Mormon doctrine at the time and threw it mainstream in that sense.

John Dehlin [00:13:01] I think part of the purpose of this conversation is to decide whether mainstream that was. But let's not get derailed yet.

Nemo [00:13:09] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:13:09] Do you guys agree with kind of that God Maker framing that? I kind of just added. Okay, yeah.

Carah Burrell [00:13:15] I also think that to this day, I was just watching, like, Apologia Studios and things, and if an evangelical Christian, the main thing that they do want to do is, is bring up the. The God Makers kind of kind of doctrine. That's a real, like, harsh dividing point between Christian Christians and Mormons and stuff. So as much as we can get to the bottom of how much that is central to the Mormon theology and doctrine, like, the better we can actually discuss with our Christian brothers and sisters, you know, so continue, please.

Nemo [00:13:42] So, like, it was. It was still being taught, you know, before then and after then, both the Joseph Smith. After the original Joseph Smith taught it, and then you kind of get to the next time, I think it really kind of rose to the surface.

John Dehlin [00:13:55] Nemo, your point was that in 82, the church affirmed. Yeah, it's doctrine still being doctrine. Okay, sorry. And I derailed that God Maker's background.

Nemo [00:14:05] Yeah, they affirmed in their official magazine, an official publication of the church, that it is doctrine. And yeah, the next time it actually came up into kind of public consciousness really is, from what I can tell, and it may have happened before then, but the next big one I can think of is Gordon B. Hinckley's interview with the San Francisco Chronicle in 1997. So the year I was born, he basically was asked, don't Mormons believe that God was once a Man. And his answer was, I wouldn't say that. There was a little couplet coined as man is God once was. As God is man may become.

Nemo [00:14:35] Now that's more of a couplet than anything else that gets in some pretty deep theology that we don't know very much about. He was then asked a follow up. So you're saying the church is still struggling to understand this. And he said, well, as God is man may become, we believe in eternal progression very strongly. So he kind of affirmed the second half of the couplet, but not the first half. But he kind of downplayed whether it was particularly doctrinal or not. So that, that caused a little bit of a stir amongst people. But then I think Nemo.

John Dehlin [00:15:02] The quote I'm familiar with is, I don't know that we teach it. I don't know that we emphasize it. Was that a different.

Nemo [00:15:08] That's a slightly later interview.

Jackson Washburn [00:15:10] Yeah, yeah, that's the Larry King interview.

John Dehlin [00:15:13] Okay. Were you about to go that. Go to that one? Nemo?

Nemo [00:15:15] Yeah. So basically he says that on Larry King. So yeah, boom, done. And then so Gordon Hinckley twice has done this, but he's also taught in general conferences a doctrine so we can get into that later. And then really I don't know that particularly. Thomas S. Monson taught it. I tried to look for it. I couldn't really find anything.

John Dehlin [00:15:33] Can I just say one thing about that? I'm sorry, I'm just. My own stuff. In the time you go for it. I remember this sequence. This was all. I'm guessing this is all happening in the mid-90s. And I don't know what it was that was causing it because I also remember a Mike Wallace interview as well that he did like was 60 Minutes. And there was also where. Where he also. Gordon Mc Hinckley said, we don't practice polygamy kind of in a public.

Nemo [00:15:59] I think that was Larry King as well. That one.

John Dehlin [00:16:00] Yeah, Larry King. But the. But, but there was that conference. There was that conference moment where in public he had said, I don't know that we believe it. I don't know that we practice it. Referring to the theosis men becoming gods kind of thing. But then in conference, didn't he sort of do that winking and nod and that's the conference.

Nemo [00:16:19] Yeah, I just mentioned that. He effectively said, oh, it's a. In fact, what did he call it? He called it a grand and incomparable concept is what he called it.

John Dehlin [00:16:28] But there was also this moment where he. He was kind of riffing or almost extemporaneously speaking.

Carah Burrell [00:16:33] I think he said, like, I know the doctrine.

John Dehlin [00:16:36] Yeah, it was.

Nemo [00:16:37] I think that was about polygamy. I think that one.

Carah Burrell [00:16:39] You think so? Yeah, I think it was like directly the conference right after the Larry King interview is how I remember it. And it was like, if you think that I don't know the doctrine, I know the doctrine. I'm going to have a public Persona and a private one for the church.

Nemo [00:16:50] That's when he said, polygamy is not doctrinal. He then kind of said that. And he was like, no, I know the doctrine. Trust me.

Jackson Washburn [00:16:55] Okay.

Nemo [00:16:55] I had always associated it, which is fine. It's the same thing. Right.

Carah Burrell [00:17:00] It really is celestial marriage. I think you know the root of it there.

John Dehlin [00:17:04] So, I mean, some people that have. Some people who experienced that moment in General Conference got the impression that he wanted to kind of doublespeak, maybe an uncharitable way to describe it, but that he was basically wanting to use his public voice with the media and the press to downplay our most distinctive and. Or controversial or troublesome doctrines. But then he also didn't want to trouble the believing Mormons, you know, that were backtracking on some of our core teachings or doctrines. And so they interpreted that General Conference moment as a wink and a nod. Hey, we're still good on all these fundamental Mormon doctrines. Don't worry. I know. I know what our teachings are. That's how some have interpreted. I'm not saying that's what was going

Nemo [00:17:53] on, and I think you're right. I think it was about godhood. I think I'm being corrected by the comments, so I'll. I'll defer to the public knowledge on that one.

Carah Burrell [00:18:00] I'm like remembering podcast from two years ago.

John Dehlin [00:18:02] We're going to give you. We're going to cut you some slack, Nemo, because as you said, you were just being bored. Warrant. At this point.

Nemo [00:18:08] Exactly. Like I wasn't. Yeah, yeah, I was. Yeah. Certainly I had not reached the age of consent yet, so I didn't know what's going on.

John Dehlin [00:18:16] I'm sure you'll have. We'll get into the discussion about whether that's really what Hinckley was doing. I'm not trying to say that's what he was doing. I'm only trying to say that's how maybe many progressive or post Mormons interpreted what he was doing. Okay, Neil, I'm sorry. I just want to make sure we.

Nemo [00:18:31] Yeah, we get everything. Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:18:33] Going with your timeline.

Nemo [00:18:34] Yeah. And then, I mean, There was an FAQ that came out in 2010 or 2012. We've been kind of examining that, trying to work out exactly when it was, but certainly earlier than this year when it seems to have seen a lot of public viewership all of a sudden. And in fact. Yeah, well, if you, if you go back to the FAQ in question, which I'll explain in a moment, if you look at the Canadian website, so Newsroom ca and then look at that link actually, you'll see that it still says it uses the word Mormon. So it's still a major victory for Satan. Still exists somewhere on the church website on the Canadian spec of that.

Nemo [00:19:09] So it dates that article. So, you know, it was before Russell M. Nelson said that we can't use the word Mormon anymore, otherwise Satan wins. So it's definitely that old. And it was an FAQ of a series of questions of I suppose, frequently asked questions by I think by the media or those that aren't members of the church. Church about the church. So the intent of this was to provide a one stop shop for those who have questions about Mormonism and they want to come in and find out those questions that people regularly ask about us and what the church has to say about those.

Nemo [00:19:42] So there's other ones about polygamy, there's other ones about are Mormons Christians, stuff like that, do they believe in the Trinity, Those sorts of things. But there was two questions in particular and I can read them out loud if you'd like me to.

John Dehlin [00:19:53] Sure.

Nemo [00:19:54] And I'll read the answers as well, just for the completing the timeline.

John Dehlin [00:19:59] And I'm just going to add one quick thing. It's interesting whether the church came out with this fact indeed in 2010 or 2011, 2012 only because I would say if there was a second major motivation for the church to publicly address that this issue, aside from the God makers, it would be the Book of Mormon musical. Because obviously the Book of Mormon musical comes out in 2011. And in 2011 there's the song I Believe.

Nemo [00:20:30] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:20:31] And in the song I Believe the character Elder is it Elder Price sings, you know that. That men, humans will get their own planet at some point. You know that that's God's plan, involves Mormons getting their own planet. And that's when this issue, at least, let's just say a second time really penetrates the public consciousness.

Nemo [00:20:53] Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And that led to the I'm a Mormon campaign as well. That led to the church's very clever move to try and SEO optimize the heck out of the term Mormon so that their website would appear top rather than bookings for the play. And then that kind of clearly must have died down a little bit. 2018, you get.

John Dehlin [00:21:13] Were you going to read the.

Nemo [00:21:14] Oh yeah, I was going to read the questions. Okay, I'll read those out. I'll read the FAQ. So question 11 is, do latter Day Saints believe they can become Gods? Gods being in parentheses? Latter Day Saints believe that it.

Do Latter-day Saints Believe They Can Become Gods?

Nemo [00:21:28] Latter Day Saints believe that it is God's purpose to exalt us to become like Him. But this teaching is often misrepresented by those who caricature the faith. The Latter Day Saint belief is no different than the biblical teaching which states the Spirit itself beareth witness with our Spirit that we are the children of God. And if children, then heirs heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. If so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. Which is Romans 8, 16, 17. And then question 12 do latter day Saints believe that they will get their own planet? No, this idea is not taught in Latter Day Saint scripture, nor is this a doctrine of the Church.

Nemo [00:22:10] This misunderstanding stems from speculative comments unreflective of scriptural doctrine. Mormons believe that we are all sons and daughters of God and that all of us have the potential to grow during and after this life, to become like our heavenly Father. And again, it directs you to Romans 8. The church does not and has never purported to fully understand the specifics of Christ's statement that in my Father's house there are many mansions. That's John 14:2. So those were the two FAQs.

Nemo [00:22:39] And then, I mean, things carry on kind of as normal after that first wave kind of dies down. Russell M. Nelson continues to teach this in 2018 in his Christmas Devotional, he teaches the doctrine of kind of exaltation and world building and population of planets and worlds and things.

Nemo [00:22:57] And then a couple of weeks ago, a link broke on the Church's website for the Gospel Topics essay, which the Church released, which is a part of the timeline that came out, I believe, 2014, where they tried to clarify this doctrine further.

Nemo [00:23:13] The Gospel Topics essays generally were released, I think, in response to a lot of things going on, such as the CES letter and just generally the greater propensity for people to go to the Internet for information. So the church kind of wanted to put something out there because, you know, people can find whatever they want to find now.

Nemo [00:23:30] So it came up recently that one of those links had broken and a lot of people thought that the Church had pedaled back, they'd gone, ah, no, actually we're stepping away from Do Mormons become Gods? We're stepping away from that doctrine. And I think that's what brought this FAQ to light again because someone else found another example of when they believed the Church had done this and said, hey guys, look at this faq. You know, the Church has done it here as well.

Nemo [00:23:54] Turns out it was just a broken link. But this FAQ is very much real and still presents a good question as to is the church 5% one face or another?

John Dehlin [00:24:04] Right, Brilliant.

Nemo [00:24:05] I think that's a fairly comprehensive timeline. What do you reckon, Jackson?

Jackson Washburn [00:24:09] Yeah, I'm happy to fill in a couple areas just for additional context.

John Dehlin [00:24:16] Thank you. Thank you, Nemo, for preparing that. And that's all right. And Jackson, I just want to say I enjoyed your TikTok. You. I'm sorry. Oh yeah, Jackson, Colleague.

Jackson Washburn [00:24:26] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:24:26] So Jackson, under, under modern Mormon, you have a tick tock channel. And I really like the fact that you got on and you, you shared a perspective that maybe some ex Mormons or post Mormons or whatever have jumped the gun and didn't really understand the full history or context of what was going on. And that's one of the reasons why I wanted to bring you on. So why don't you go ahead and you can go back as far as you want and provide some clarification or some additional info to add to Nemo's timeline and then we can start having a kind of a freeform discussion about it. But thank you, Nemo, for that timeline.

Jackson Washburn [00:24:58] Pleasure. Yeah, I'd be happy to. So beginning in the earliest years of, I would say the Latter Day Saint movement during the lifetime of Joseph Smith, I think it's important to understand like why these things matter, why these conversations matter, especially as they pertain to the larger Christian world. Right.

Theosis, Deification, and LDS Theology

Jackson Washburn [00:25:19] So I have a couple notes that I prepared in light of this, but we start seeing these conversations amongst Latter Day saints within the 1830s, where you have not just conversations about various passages in the New Testament, for instance, that seem to hint or can definitely be used towards a view of theosis or deification. The idea that humans can eventually become like God or become gods themselves.

Jackson Washburn [00:25:48] This is a belief that is present within the larger Christian world in various circles. I would say it's most prominent in the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic traditions, although there are various evangelicals as well, who hold to a view of theosis.

Jackson Washburn [00:26:04] It's important to keep in mind though that in comparison to, I Would say Mormonism, there's some very key differences between how these beliefs are conceived. Some of these are broken down within the Gospel Topics essay, becoming like God.

Jackson Washburn [00:26:23] But just generally, when it comes to traditional Christianity, which refers to Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Protestantism, the concept of God is one where God is a creator, an uncreated creator. And what this does compared to the rest of creation, including humanity, is that we are all created beings. And so in terms of classifying the types of beings that we're talking about, you have God that exists in a completely unique category, and then you have the rest of creation, which is created, and its existence is contingent on God bringing it forth.

Jackson Washburn [00:27:00] So when various other Christians speak of perhaps becoming like God or becoming gods, or they talk about theosis or deification, this same creature, creator binary is always kept in mind. Right. There's not this idea that humans are of the same species or kind as God. There's this view that there will always be this ontological, which is a fancy word for like, state of being, distinction between God and humanity, even when we are deified or experience theosis. The view of theosis is just that we, through the grace of Christ, we can become so unified with God that we share in God's same energies, but not in God's essential nature.

Jackson Washburn [00:27:47] Right. So there's a difference of nature there. So within early Latter Day Saint discussions, as we're having converts into the faith from Protestantism, you start having internal discussions about, okay, how do we understand God, how do we understand Heaven, how do we understand the universe? And there's very distinct things that occurs within Latter Day Saint theology that also differentiates us from the wider Christian world. So, for instance, within the 1830s, you have Warren Cowdery talking to.

Jackson Washburn [00:28:21] Oh, I believe it's one of the Pratt brothers, let's say. Yeah, Parley Pratt talking about, what is heaven like? Okay. Do we conceive of heaven as this immaterial spiritual realm that is not material in nature? Or is heaven essentially just a continuation of the material universe that we exist in? And the route that Mormonism comes to take is one in which heaven isn't this immaterial spiritual realm or concept, but is one that is just a part of the universe that we're a part of? Right. There's this idea of turning the earth and into a Garden of Eden or into a celestial paradise, so to speak.

Jackson Washburn [00:29:04] And so the materiality here is very important. Now, another difference, I would say, is whether or not God is embodied within traditional Christianity. Of course, there's the idea of the hypostatic union or the condescension of Christ, this idea that Jesus, that God essentially in human flesh, dwelt in the form of Jesus, and that those two natures that created human nature and the uncreated godly nature were, you know, combined or rectified with one another. And how this plays out will depend on the Christian tradition that you're talking about. But Mormonism carries this idea of divine embodiment so much further, right? Where the idea is that God the Father has a body of flesh and bone like we do.

Jackson Washburn [00:29:54] And so again, this plays into Mormonism's conception of God as not too unlike humanity, of course, more progressed, as exalted, as perfected. But when it comes to their essential natures, Mormonism views God and humanity as existing on a continuum or a spectrum rather than a binary of creature and creator.

Jackson Washburn [00:30:15] So anyways, these things play out years before Joseph Smith delivers his King Follette discourse. And they're drawn from various aspects of both unique Mormon scriptures, such as the Book of Moses or the Book of Mormon, but then also passages of the New Testament. This all kind of culminates in Joseph Smith's most famous delivery and description of this idea in the King Follett discourse, which.

Jackson Washburn [00:30:46] Let me just pull up something else here. Yeah. So when it comes to Joseph Smith's teachings during the Nauvoo period, there's kind of like four unique things that he's teaching at this time. He's teaching that spirits were never created. Right. So that our eternal existence isn't actually predicated on God creating us, that we existed in some type of primitive or primeval form prior to mortality or even before we became spirits. In the pre existence, there's this concept taught that God wanted to help these uncreated spirits advance.

Jackson Washburn [00:31:20] And during this time, spirits, intelligences, these are kind of interchangeable terms. You have the idea that God the Father was once a man on a planet, just as Jesus was a man on our planet. That's detailed within the King Follet discourse. And then also that in the context of what Joseph Smith is doing with the temple endowment, this idea of humans are to become kings and queens and priests and priestesses to God. And when you combine that to exaltation.

Jackson Washburn [00:31:50] Yeah, there's just this idea that what the afterlife can look like for Mormon faithful is incredibly unique compared to a lot of other Christian theologies. So this is where it becomes important. During the 19th century, during kind of the Utah period, during Brigham Young's administration, a lot of these ideas they continue to develop in different ways. And what Brigham Young does, especially that is significant here, is he adds an element and actively teaches that when it comes to reproduction in the afterlife, whether in the pre existence, in terms of how our spirits were created or in the afterlife, when it comes to our own potential creative capacities, there's this idea of reproduction that is inherently parallel to biological reproduction.

Jackson Washburn [00:32:41] Right? That either God and Heavenly Mother or during the polygamy era, God's plural wives or ourselves in the afterlife, that the way that spirits are produced is essentially equivalent to what we would consider biological reproduction, meaning there's some type of potentially, you know, physical intercourse or something like that that's distinct from what Joseph taught in the sense that Joseph had more a theology of adoption, that it didn't advance the same kind of biological literalism that I think characterized Brigham Young's administration. And what this does is later on in later presidential administrations in the church or just in terms of membership, there have been many Latter Day Saints who have understood heaven to be similar to mortality in the sense of creating posterity.

Jackson Washburn [00:33:40] And this has often been pretty biological in how it might be described. So whether on the show or in other circles, there might be this fear amongst maybe Latter Day Saint women about this heaven where they'll be eternally pregnant or something like that.

Jackson Washburn [00:33:58] That kind of like, biological element was way more characteristic of the Brigham Young administration and has since been developed out of that. I would say today the church's position is more one where they're not specifically commenting or they don't draw a firm stance on whether or not spirits are created or related to God through adoption or through this kind of spiritual, biological process.

Jackson Washburn [00:34:25] And so, you know, there's kind of this neutral space that the Church occupies now. But those are what I see as very important distinctions and why these ideas within a Latter Day Saint context are so provocative to other Christians. Right. I think like we mentioned earlier, kind of during the rise of the professionalized evangelical countercult movement around the 1980s, these things are incredibly scandalous to many Protestants, many evangelicals, because there's a potential preponderance of sexuality, a divine sexuality. There's this idea that there's a plurality of gods. There's this idea that humans can become gods themselves. All of that is incredibly scandalous to most of traditional Christianity.

Jackson Washburn [00:35:12] So that's more or less like what I wanted to add. When it comes to this concept of maybe peopling planets or having posterity in the afterlife or what that looks like, these teachings are basically upheld by various other prophets or apostles or church leaders, but especially I would say on a local level amongst members who reasonably infer, based on maybe Latter Day Saint scripture or more explicitly from more specific teachings by general authorities, what the afterlife looks like or how we were created or things like that that will be relevant to our conversation.

John Dehlin [00:35:56] Beautiful. Brilliant. Okay, that's a great, that's a great additional perspective, Jackson. Thank you for providing it, Nemo. I have a couple just meta questions for the entire panel and even for the commenters. Is there anything that you just really wanted to jump in to ask, Jackson, in terms of a clarification, Nemo, or.

Nemo [00:36:19] Well, I mean, I just wanted to jump in and maybe clarify a position that we both share and I don't want to engage in reductionism. So Jackson, feel free to add any nuance to this you like, but I feel like Jackson and I both agree that this is a doctrine the Church has taught. I don't think we're going to get into a point where we disagree that no, this wasn't taught ever, or yes, this was taught. I think the doctrine as Jackson has described it, and certainly as most of us understand it on a local level, is what we have grown up believing about exaltation. And there are various things.

John Dehlin [00:36:50] For you, Nemo, it was. This was.

Nemo [00:36:51] Yeah, that's. That's what I was taught. I believe that is what has been taught. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:36:55] Becoming gods, the spiritual children, all that. For you, Nemo, growing up in the uk, even as a Gen Z, are you Gen Zer?

Nemo [00:37:03] I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:37:05] This was Mormon doctrine in your Mormon upbringing?

Nemo [00:37:07] Yeah, and I, I don't think we, Ne and Jackson necessarily disagree on that, but correct me if I'm wrong.

John Dehlin [00:37:12] So Jackson, what's your, what's your take on that?

Jackson Washburn [00:37:14] Yeah, so for myself, I also just want to totally acknowledge that in my own lived experience in the Church that these things have characterized my own upbring in local settings. Right. So whether it's local church leaders or maybe like Sunday school instructors or things like that, or, I don't know, some of the classic speculative conversations that might happen during young men's outings or something like that. Yeah, I was clearly taught these things where I perhaps get a little bit more, I don't know, like technical. Right. Is of course, like. I think there can be multiple definitions of what constitutes doctrine, both in popular Latter Day Saint thought or in these kinds of conversations.

Jackson Washburn [00:38:00] And I was actually surprised in visiting the Church's FAQ on the subject because, for instance, on the specific topic of peopling planets right, or, you know, getting your own planet right as the more colloquial term, or, you know, worlds without end, things like that, and what exactly that entails. I tried to search for scriptural justifications or descriptions of that specific teaching, the idea of having. Of our capacity to people other worlds, similar to what God has done with his children on this planet.

Jackson Washburn [00:38:37] And I actually didn't find that in Latter Day Saint scripture. I found plenty that speaks to exaltation becoming like God gaining God's similar powers, or talk about thrones and dominions, principalities, things like that. But when the FAQ kind of specifically says that this isn't scriptural doctrine, I really tried to challenge the FAQ on that and at least in my experience, found that to be accurate. So that was one thing where something that I felt was. I assumed my whole life was actually more strongly rooted in Scripture. It turns out that I think it can be reasonably inferred out of Latter Day Saint teachings on exaltation, but might specifically not be represented in Latter Day Saint Scripture itself.

Jackson Washburn [00:39:24] So if you have, for instance, like, if the church has a definition of what constitutes doctrine as needing some type of, like, more specific spiritual or scriptural foundation, I can understand why they might say that this isn't scriptural doctrine, or it might not constitute official doctrine. But I also, similar to Nemo, I want to just recognize that, you know, this has been a common teaching both amongst the laity and amongst church leadership throughout, I mean, you know, kind of since the earliest years of Mormonism. And. Yeah, so I don't. I don't want to downplay or diminish that at all.

Nemo [00:40:01] And I would say that because, you know, we have teachings from people like Jeffrey R. Holland who say we believe in an open canon of Scripture. We have, as Jeff Benson saying, that a living prophet is more important than the standard works. You'd be forgiven for seeing members as taking what the prophets say and viewing that as doctrine, even if it's not written down in Scripture. You could argue that the words of prophets are scripture according to some members.

Jackson Washburn [00:40:24] So, yeah, I mean, certainly not canonized. Certainly not canonized scripture. So there are, I think, schools of thought within Latter Day Saint Mormonism that would privilege, for instance, the canonized standard works at a higher level than, you know, maybe statements at General Conference. I believe Joseph Fielding Smith was of that view, that if a teaching isn't necessarily represented within the scriptural canon, that we're not bound to it as Latter Day Saints. But, you know, I also want to recognize that Amongst church presidents, the idea of which sources we give the most weight in terms of authority or doctrinal significance, that has been kind of debated within Latter Day Saint Mormonism, certainly.

Nemo [00:41:10] Yeah.

Personal Experiences with Exaltation Beliefs

John Dehlin [00:41:11] So I, I want to dig into this topic. It's probably deserves its own series, but just checking in with everyone, Carah, I just want to hear your. Was it your experience? The, the, you know, Mormons become gods, Mormons get their own planets, you know, exalted Mormons will populate worlds with spiritual offspring. Was that your experience?

Carah Burrell [00:41:31] Experience, yes. I think from every angle, from my Mormon upbringing in Provo, Utah, from seminary to young women's. And I don't want to like, you know, over exaggerate anything. It is something that I think we knew was kind of, yes, scandalous that we don't go around telling people that aren't members, but within the. In group of Mormons from a polygamy standpoint, from a doctrine and covenants, from a restored gospel, from a, you know, when you're trying to tie the New Testament into modern Mormon teachings and we go over all the different ways of like, oh, here's, you know, Paul saying that like, we are like gods or here's this and like everything felt like we're in the new restored gospel.

Carah Burrell [00:42:09] Part of the new everlasting covenant, part of all of the new stuff that Joseph has restored is this new important doctrine of progression that we didn't have before the restoration. So definitely a huge part of my life growing up. That's all I can say.

John Dehlin [00:42:24] Excellent. Okay. And I just wanted to add, just really quickly, my perspective, you know, my listeners, it won't be a surprise to them to know that I grew up in, you know, I went to seminary in the 80s and my, my seminary teacher was very much a Bruce R. McConkey, Joseph Fielding Smith kind of Mormon. This was not just taught to me as doctrine.

John Dehlin [00:42:45] Growing up in the 80s as a Mormon, this was the top value proposition of being a Mormon. This was the doctrine. This was for me the culminating, the coolest, the best part. Kind of like the ice, not just the icing on the cake. This was the central doctrine that made Mormons extra cool and extra true. And so I, I would not just say it was interesting or taught. It was central. And yeah, the coolest thing ever. That, that was my experience.

John Dehlin [00:43:18] And I also want to share. One of my coolest experiences at a Sunstone symposium was when I attended once a presentation by Michael quinn, the late Dr. Michael quinn. I don't remember. It would have likely been around 2004. 2005. And I don't know why he was giving this talk, but I remember him characterizing the church, because even then at this Sunstone, we were talking about the church backtracking or showing a lack of backbone or resolve around this issue. And I distinctly remember. And memory's fuzzy, but I distinctly remember Michael Quinn saying that when the church backtracks and. Or waffles or backs away from this teaching, that they're basically selling their birthright.

John Dehlin [00:44:11] And these are Michael Quinn's words, selling their birthright for a mess of porridge. And basically what I interpreted that to mean was Michael Quinn was saying, this is one of the most beautiful and powerful and exaltive elements of Mormon doctrine. And for the Mormon Church to abandon it or backtrack from it just to curry favor with the evangelicals, they're basically selling, you know, selling a birthright for a mess of porridge. Is that something either of you, Nemo Jackson or Carah, have heard expressed in those sort of. In those sort of terms?

Jackson Washburn [00:44:48] Yeah. Well, in my own experience and from my own perspective about why I choose to be a believing Latter Day Saint, like why. Why. That's. That point of my religious identity is important to me. Yeah. A lot of it does come down to Mormonism's unique teachings regarding godhood, regarding creation, regarding how we relate to God. And so where I do religious studies and kind of comparative religious studies, you know, that is something that I recognize as very unique compared to a lot of other religious traditions. And it's something that I find compelling and appealing and really factors into why I find Mormonism to be a beautiful theological worldview, or at least it has the potential to be one.

John Dehlin [00:45:34] Okay, so that. That leads me to some questions. I mean, obviously, I wish we could get the Mormon newsroom to come on Mormon Stories podcast and answer my questions about why they're. Why they've been doing all this stuff. Right. But, Jackson, you're the best. We've got to speak for the church. And I know that you would be the first to give the disclaimer that you don't speak for the church, but I think you're enough sufficiently in the know to be able to at least provide some interesting speculation as to what's going on. Okay.

Nemo [00:46:03] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:46:03] So can we ask you some questions as if. As if you might have some interesting things, Interesting things to say about what the church might be doing here? Is that okay?

Jackson Washburn [00:46:12] Oh, geez. Like, yeah, yeah, I. I'm happy to talk about my own, maybe thoughts on the matter. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:46:17] Okay. So if somebody were to say, all right, if someone were to reduce and I'm going to give you a couple options and we'll have you address each one individually. If someone were to say the church, okay, number one, the church is embarrassed about this doctrine because it just sounds too far fetched and or the church needs evangelicals and other mainstream Christians to do things like Prop 8 or religious freedom. And so they need them as allies. And so we want to downplay and or kill some of our more odd or troubling beliefs to outsiders so that we can either A help the missionary efforts go forward or B curry favor with traditional Christians. What would you say about that, Jackson, as potentially being what the church is doing is doing here?

Jackson Washburn [00:47:20] Yeah. So regarding the kind of the evangelical question, I think we did speak to some of the context of when this FAQ was released. Right. Whether, you know, it's within the range of 2010 to 2012, I'm still open to clarification there. But we spoke about, you know, the legacy of Ed Decker, the, the God Makers coming out of 1980s evangelical countercult efforts.

Church PR, Framing, and Integrity Concerns

Jackson Washburn [00:47:50] We spoke to the Book of Mormon musical being released and even I'm sure there's been caricatures on south park, for instance. Another thing I think that we forgot to mention during this time is within the political realm, right.

Jackson Washburn [00:48:06] Regarding the presidential candidacy of Mitt Romney. You know, not only did he run as a Republican candidate in 2008, he didn't receive the nomination. But you know, it was still a big deal. I think I can't remember in which one John Huntsman ran. You know, I was like 10 years old at the time, but you know, John.

Jackson Washburn [00:48:30] Yeah, Jon Huntsman ran as well. And then later when Romney ran again and became the Republican nominee, this is again during the same context. Right. And so where you do have the rise of the Internet, you have particularly given at least American Mormonism's propensity to be Republican, you know, in the last several decades. It's kind of shifting now, but yeah, it makes sense. Why, you know, coming largely out of, let's say the evangelical right, there's particular interest in some of these areas.

Jackson Washburn [00:49:06] So there's that in my own lived experience, I dialogue a lot with evangelical Christians or even Christians of other denominations. But when it comes to evangelical outreach efforts, there's different scriptures that they might turn to from the Bible to demonstrate why Mormonism isn't biblical or why these beliefs are heretical. Passages like in Isaiah 43:10 that talks about, you know, there is no other God. But I You know, language like that that seems to really strike against Mormonism's acceptance of a plurality of gods existing or that humans could ever become like God or become gods themselves.

Jackson Washburn [00:49:49] So, yeah, speaking from my own experience, you know, I've had kind of a unique interfaith upbringing here, but I know plenty of other young Latter Day Saints who, whether in mission contexts or in other settings, are approached by Christians, you know, given some of these like, you know, tricky, maybe Bible passages to wrestle with, at least within the context of Sunday school. We don't really do apologetics. There's kind of popular responses, but when it comes to really talking about, I don't know, the scholarship about Isaiah or the theology of the Second Temple period, we don't really do that in, you know, Sunday school settings. And so a lot of Mormon missionaries might feel unprepared and overwhelmed.

Jackson Washburn [00:50:30] We don't really train missionaries well to Bible bash in a, in a formal sense. Right. So I think, I think there's hesitations, you know, missionaries as well, can sometimes be prone to maybe soft peddling different theological beliefs or doctrines or different parts of Mormon history. I think this is an area where the church should improve in when it comes to, you know, really preparing and equipping and educating missionaries to more specific, straightforwardly and accurately respond to the different questions they might receive out in the field.

Jackson Washburn [00:51:05] But, you know, it is a real phenomena that various Latter Day Saints might soft pedal this. And, you know, I'm sure that's observable both in terms of the general membership, but also perhaps like in, you know, various general authorities. Like we talked about the example of Hinckley, you know, who had a lot of media airtime and that was something that uniquely characterized his presidency.

Jackson Washburn [00:51:30] And you know, so it's not entirely unsurprising that in kind of like a brief, like elevator pitch news conversation, the full, you know, depth of some of these ideas might not be fully explored or there might be this idea that, you know, we might need to downplay these a little bit. But again, my view is that I would rather us lean into it. I would rather us just accept and own the weirdness and, you know, just claim it fully. So, yeah, those are some of my thoughts on that. I hope that answered the question because

Nemo [00:52:08] what's that scripture in Romans for I'm not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. Right. So we could do with more of that, I suppose.

John Dehlin [00:52:15] Well, I mean, Nemo, what I kind of also hear you saying, and Jackson, again, this isn't like, pick. First of all, Jackson, I again, I'm so glad you came on. And I know it's not your job to represent the church. They should be representing themselves. So we're not beating up on you.

Jackson Washburn [00:52:30] Yeah, yeah. No, no, no, no.

John Dehlin [00:52:31] We're just trying to, you know. But there is this idea, I think. Okay. I think this comes out of this orthodox mindset that so many of us were raised in, that like the whole value proposition of Mormonism is that God talks to prophets, and then prophets tell us what's, what's real and true. And then you add to that there's so much about, you know, you've heard the saying that what's, what's. What's good about Mormonism, is it unique? And what's unique about Mormonism isn't good. This is an instance of something that's unique about Mormonism that I would say people like Patrick Mason or Richard Terrell Givens or Fiona Gibbons would say this is like one of the few things that Joseph added that's actually really good and truly unique.

Jackson Washburn [00:53:16] Right.

John Dehlin [00:53:16] But then you add to that this idea that God talks to our prophets and that that's supposed to be scripture and sacred, then it feels a little bit weird that the church isn't like standing up and owning this as some of the most precious revelation we've ever received. And that's kind of reflected in our dear friend Bishop Sam Pinson's comment. I'll just read it here on the screen again. Sam Pinson's interview with his family is one of the best episodes of Mormon Stories podcast ever. Sam writes the church's recent denial of the you get a planet doctrine largely amounts to, quote, you're just caricaturing our beliefs in typical fashion.

John Dehlin [00:54:01] It's a non denial denial that allows members and non members alike to arrive at whatever conclusions they want. And that was sort of, thank you, Sam, Sam Pinson, for sharing that. And I think that was the same vibe that many of us got from Gordon B. Hinckley's sort of engagement in the 80s.

John Dehlin [00:54:22] It's not just that the church isn't standing firmly behind what we all think would agree has been taught to us as central Mormon doctrine. And by the way, I had a roommate at BYU who took a religion class for Margaret Pope, who was Bruce Armaconki's sister.

John Dehlin [00:54:41] She had a true or false kind of multiple choice question on her exams in BYU religion class that was like, true or false? Jesus had multiple wives. You know what I mean? It was sort of like this. This is the whole point. Not only did God have Does God have multiple wives and all these spirit children? We will have multiple wives and spirit children and have our own planets. And Jesus will and does, too. Like, there's an element that this was core Mormon doctrine. Joseph, Billy Smith, Bruce, I'm a conkey. Everyone would have agreed. And so there's the problem, number one, of just the church not standing firm in what we have all known to be core Mormon doctrine.

John Dehlin [00:55:25] But then the second thing is that they want their. It's kind of a double speak problem, that they kind of want their cake and eat it too. They want us to still think that this is Mormon doctrine and that it's really. That they're not changing, but then they want to convey something different to the public.

John Dehlin [00:55:45] Nimon, tell me if I'm, if I'm capturing your concerns as well, that there just seems to be a lack of integrity here. Like I heard, you know, Lance Allred came on Mormon stories and defined integrity as, you know, you speak the same no matter who's in the room, so to speak. And you get. And I think one of the criticisms of the brethren over the past 10 or 20 years on this topic is they're trying to speak differently to different people, depending on who's in the room. And that. That conveys a lack of integrity.

Nemo [00:56:20] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think the problem, the problem we have, if I'm honest, the way I could summarize it, is that we have a prophet who has to act as both a prophet and a PR officer. And I think if we could delegate those jobs more separately if we had the prophet speak not to the press and not to the media, because with that comes the worry of how he portrays the church to the world.

Nemo [00:56:39] And he just spoke from God to the members. I think that could alleviate some of these issues. But then ultimately, he shouldn't be ashamed of what he said. And we can't just hide it behind closed doors. So either way, we just should not be ashamed of the teachings. And this can come across as the church wanting to portray something because it's an faq, right? It's not for members of the church. They're not necessarily trying to say to the members, oh, hang on, you've been getting this wrong. This isn't a course correction for the members. This wasn't announced at conference. This is an FAQ for outsiders to see, for those from the news media to see.

Nemo [00:57:12] You know, that's what it's for. So it's about our external image. It's image management rather than necessary doctrinal correction, which is problematic because you can't, you can't mix those things up, really.

Carah Burrell [00:57:24] Yeah, that's an interesting point.

John Dehlin [00:57:28] So, Jackson, I mean, again, we're not trying to put you in the position of having to defend anything. We're not blaming you for any of this, but we, we would appreciate your insight.

Jackson Washburn [00:57:38] Yeah, yeah. So kind of to what Nemo just said, where perhaps the church should do better at differentiating between, you know, more of a PR approach versus a, you know, the prophet acting more exclusively as a prophet. I kind of take the opposite stance there in the sense that I would love to see more widespread normalization within the church of understanding kind of the more human and individualized characteristics of prophets, especially as they might differ from one another. I think we often put too much weight on them. And this is, you know, I mean, it's not just a problem of like members assumptions. Right. There are these narratives that are actively taught, whether at general conference or inferred out of Mormon scripture, things like that.

Jackson Washburn [00:58:33] But like, personally, I have no issue, for instance, with Hinckley talking to, you know, whether it's Larry King or whoever and expressing his view that, you know, we understand more about eternal progression than we do about what occurred before this life or, you know, God's potential embodiment or life on a different world.

Nemo [00:59:01] Right.

Jackson Washburn [00:59:02] I don't actually have an issue with that speculation. I think one of my issues is more like the responsibilities that we place on prophets where we don't acknowledge this more human, this more political, this more PR potential side of them. And then more from a general religious studies perspective, this phenomena of particular faiths or religious traditions, you know, needing to work through the narratives that they teach internally, you know, in house conversations with religious insiders versus religious outsiders, how they relate to the rest of the world, how they portray themselves, how they describe their beliefs. You know, this is a phenomena that occurs in other religious traditions too.

Jackson Washburn [00:59:52] And a lot of these concerns can often be the same where if there's a particular belief that might be, you know, actually a lot more present within a religious tradition but amongst larger society, might not, not just caricatured, but sensationalized. Right. You know, it's. It's quite a thing to maybe talk to an evangelical Christian on the street and they might ask you, so you believe that you're going to be having sex in the afterlife or something, you know, that, that can maybe strike members is being, you know, it kind of begs this, this sensationalized element to it, like as if you should be ashamed of that.

Jackson Washburn [01:00:32] Right. So yeah, just again, I would love to see us just own our weirdness more often and really just, I don't know, shore that up in the face of, you know, potential, like ridicule, let's say, and then make positive arguments for why this is actually a beautiful theological belief and make defenses in light of it.

Jackson Washburn [01:00:56] Yeah, but I also understand the concern because in areas of the world where maybe the latter day the LDS Church is seeking to expand that might be predominantly Christian or others that would be scandalized by very heavy emphasis of these things towards religious outsiders, I can understand the concerns there. But yeah, I would like to see those conversations be more consistent, let's say.

Nemo [01:01:24] Yeah, yeah, because if that, that comes back to informed consent in that sense that people like, regardless of whether it's going to put them off or not, regardless of whether, oh, this seems a bit weird, they shouldn't be joining the church. If we're talking about the expansion element of what you just said, they shouldn't be joining the church. The church shouldn't be growing in societies where they don't understand exactly what it is we believe. Right. That's, you know, and that's, that's the weird doctrines as well as the general Christian ones. In order for them to have proper informed consent, we can't cherry pick what we teach them about what we truly believe.

Jackson Washburn [01:01:53] Yeah. And I just want to quickly add, I also respect the church's capacity to shape and craft its own official narrative and you know, how that narrative might change over time. Right. Certainly how the church might describe its official beliefs or views or doctrines now would be quite different than let's say the 1880s when plural marriage was alive and well.

Jackson Washburn [01:02:20] And so, you know, the faith tradition will continue to mature and grow over time. These narratives will continually be revisited and may take different appearances given who is the president of the church, where membership is at, where the church is at in terms of its own self understanding. And I think this, this can reflect a maturing of the faith that, I mean, if you compare Mormonism to, you know, the development of early Christianity in terms of years, the LDS Church has not yet reached the point of the Council of Nicaea in terms of, you know, early Christianity. If you want to talk about, you know, maybe doctrinal or theological unity or consistency in the days of early Christianity, of course the context was quite different because you didn't have the same kinds of institutions or globalization or things like that and communication was of course different.

Jackson Washburn [01:03:15] But you know, still, Mormonism is a young world religion. It's continually Growing, maybe that's slowing more these days. But you know, we have not yet reached that point in Christian history. And when it comes to President Nelson, he is basically exactly half the age of the church itself. And for that to be true of a given religious movement is quite unique in today's world. Right. Mormonism is still a new religious movement in that respect.

John Dehlin [01:03:42] Fascinating that Nelson is half the age of Mormonism.

Jackson Washburn [01:03:46] Like seriously. Yeah, he's like half the age of the church, you know, and so if that, if that tells you where we're at when it comes to maturing. Right. And we want to compare maybe the maturity of the, what this process might look like in Roman Catholicism or within Judaism more broadly. Right. I mean, you know, they've had centuries of these conversations, more than we have. Right. So I don't know.

Nemo [01:04:08] But then that's an interesting comparison because I believe Jeffrey R. Holland, who kind of denigrated a little bit the councils of Nicaea because they talk about creeds being built up and it being more like the counseling of philosophies of men rather than direction from God. So to compare us to that kind of track is quite interesting because surely if we have God at the helm and we've had multiple prophets teach that the restoration essentially complete and it's only, there's not many who have actually said, oh no, it's still ongoing, I think Russell and us and has, but generally we view it as complete. Then is maturation different to that in your mind?

Jackson Washburn [01:04:45] Well, I mean, yes, I do want to recognize of course that within popular Latter Day Saint discourse and also perpetuated in the writings or teachings of many general authorities, there is this kind of potential disdain, let's say that's helped for the rest of the Christian world when it comes to some of these councils or some of these theological debates and how they played out in Christian history. Often the critique is that, you know, this rather than having, let's say like inspired prophets or inspired revelators or things like that, that this was more a matter of getting a bunch of scholars or philosophers together to, you know, reach their own conclusions through rational means.

Jackson Washburn [01:05:25] And yeah, sure, you know, you can, I mean definitely in the development of early Christianity, it's not controversial to say that Neoplatonic thought, that various Greek philosophy impacted the development of early Christianity. I mean part of Christianity survival is that it was able to expand into the rest of the Mediterranean and not be isolated within the context of Second Temple Judaism. And that came with a variety of trade offs. But I think my point Is that even in a tradition like Roman Catholicism where you have Vatican II or some of these formal meetings amongst, you know, high ranking theological and ecclesiastical leaders that that kind of very specific determination of what the church's official, you know, doctrine or teachings are, it's it, you know, the LDS Church hasn't yet gone through that process.

Jackson Washburn [01:06:21] And that can lend itself to a variety of differences in belief amongst Latter Day Saints themselves. If you were to ask Latter Day Saints, for instance, you know, do you believe that there's an infinite regression of gods or that God is our primary creator, you're gonna get a number of different answers. Right. So there's a number of areas that to evangelical Christians especially, and this has been my experience, they might ask, how do you not have a doctrinal, an official doctrinal position about the origin of God, for instance, or something like that that, you know, is. Might be off putting to them, but to Latter Day Saints, we just haven't had those conversations.

Jackson Washburn [01:07:00] We don't value those conversations. Perhaps in the same way that evangelical Christians or Christians that value systematic theology might. So, yeah, the future, you know, this story remains to be told about whether or not Mormonism or specifically LDS Mormonism might be, you know, drift towards a becoming more systematic as the years progress.

Mormonism, Restoration, and Evangelical Christianity

Nemo [01:07:25] Then a question comes to my mind and sorry, John and Carah, if you want to get in on this, at some point, I just got all these questions firing up. Yeah. Is that, you know, you said about early Christianity being able to expand and encompass, and I find that interesting because you could argue that if the church is trying to, if you were to take the argument or the point that the church is trying to sort of softball some of these harder doctrines and make itself more able to take in people from other Christian traditions more readily, say, then you could argue that they're going through that same process as early Christianity.

Nemo [01:07:56] Which then again raises the question why, if this is a restoration movement rather than, you know, the sort of movement that we've been told wasn't the right one in apostasy before. And then the other thing I would, it's just gone actually. So just go for that one.

Jackson Washburn [01:08:09] Yeah. I'll just remark with that that in my own experience, or as I've tried to work these things out myself from the position of my own belief. Right. You know, I do believe in a restoration, and that means various things to me, but also from the lens of religious studies, I still see Mormonism behaving and acting and developing in ways strikingly similar to a number of other traditions. There's significant differences, of course, but a lot of these phenomena are observable in other faith groups. And so there, you know, I think it's important for us to ask ourselves or, you know, potentially challenge or at least examine, you know, what we assume about.

Jackson Washburn [01:08:47] And this is just as true for, you know, church members themselves. You know, what assumptions are we making about what it means for the church to have a prophet? What are the assumptions that we have about believing in a restored church? You know, does that mean we're going to fundamentally act different than, you know, the rest of the religious world? Are there areas where there will be commonality? Are there key differences in that? I think all of that it's important to examine critically.

Nemo [01:09:15] I've remembered my second question.

Jackson Washburn [01:09:16] Yeah.

Nemo [01:09:17] You talked about evangelicals finding it difficult to view us as not necessarily having systemic answers or necessarily a direct, concrete doctrine on things, but we have, as a church, a handbook that applies to all members of the church, no matter

Jackson Washburn [01:09:30] where they are in the world.

Nemo [01:09:31] The church format is the same. We are actually a very homogenous church in a lot of ways. We're a church with a single individual leader that we believe was called by God. And then.

Carah Burrell [01:09:39] Right.

Nemo [01:09:40] So we actually have a lot of very systematic tendencies, including we have. We have articles of faith, we have a set of beliefs that we hold. You know, we have. We have canonized revelation from Joseph Smith, but then we also. We talk about an open canon of scripture. We believe that the prophets are constantly teaching us things. That's coming from a specific point, whereas you look at other religions and they don't necessarily have that. So I always thought one of the claims actually of Mormonism was that it was very systemic in that sense, that we do have very clear answers that apply to everyone that is under the branch of Brighamite Mormonism.

Jackson Washburn [01:10:15] Yeah. I'll just say in response to that, that compared to evangelical Christianity or, you know, kind of Protestant Christianity, or even the rest of Christianity, Mormonism tends to emphasize orthopraxy or practice and policy, or, you know, the things that you do, and often places more of an emphasis on doing those things in a specific way than it does matters of orthodoxy, matters of theological belief. If we look to, for instance, the temple recommend interview questions, just the way that the temple recommend interview is designed, it's primarily, if not exclusively, yes or no answers. And only the first three or four questions have to do with matters of personal belief.

Jackson Washburn [01:10:57] The rest have to do with matters of lifestyle and practice. Right. When it comes to the sacrament or ordinances, or things like that. The LDS Church is very specific about how those things should be conducted. But often when it comes to some of these deeper theological questions, which traditional Christians might consider essential, the church is a lot more open, you know, or a lot more prone to not having an official position or, you know, being open to members exhibiting a diversity of thought on various issues.

Nemo [01:11:29] Interesting. Thank you.

Carah Burrell [01:11:31] Can we go back for a second? We need to kind of push the conversation back, unfortunately, we're going to hop behind where we're talking about evangelicals.

Historical Changes, Gaslighting, and Transparency

Jackson Washburn [01:11:38] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [01:11:38] Back to doctrine. You want to pull up this question where they asked, Emra asks, regardless of how young or old the faith tradition is, if the church were what it claims to be, why would its narrative need to change so much? So, Jackson, why don't you answer that and then maybe Nemo, you can respond to what Jackson has to say on that.

Jackson Washburn [01:11:58] Yeah, I guess, you know, it's important to just specify or consider like, what category of narrative we're talking about. Right. Are these, you know, narratives about theology and the way that we have derived various beliefs in the church, is this historical narratives that are often very influenced by historical research or scholarship or things like that, you know. So, yeah, I think that distinction, of course, is important when it comes to theological distinction.

Carah Burrell [01:12:30] Do you give it, Jackson?

Jackson Washburn [01:12:32] Oh, well, I mean, just in the context of this question, I see a lot more. I guess I see development in both these fronts. Right. It should be no surprise to most the listeners that over the course of the LDS Church's existence that are kind of understandings of history, the historical narratives we tell about the early restoration or things like that, those have been subject to revision, to expansion or update or clarification when it comes to the growth of various theological beliefs. Kind of earlier in this conversation when I talked about, for instance, the differences between what Joseph Smith might have taught in Nauvoo and how that later developed and was expanded or changed by Brigham Young and then how that impacted the rest of the church. There's definitely growth and development there, too. So.

Nemo [01:13:25] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [01:13:26] Can I ask a follow up? The root of the question is growth or development is one thing, but we're talking about a complete backpedaling, I think, is what people are frustrated over. We can grow in areas like so much of Mormonism is rooted around, like further light and knowledge will be added. And that's different than doctrine after doctrine changing and then members feeling gaslit. So it's, I think, what us, as people who are on the more critical side are really trying to pin down are we being gaslit? Or is this just a change in narrative and adding? Is that your opinion? Is that if I'm hearing you correctly, that you're. It's an. It's an adding to the narrative?

Jackson Washburn [01:14:05] Well, yeah, I don't think the two are necessarily mutually exclusive. The experience of potentially feeling gaslit is going to be contingent on, you know, the individual's own lived experiences within the church. And so, you know, these. These developments, this phenomena can take place within the church and how that's perceived by membership or former members, you know, is subject to variation there.

Jackson Washburn [01:14:29] So, yeah, again, I just want to say that one thing I would love to see become more normalized within the church is just recognizing these changes and really speaking to them in the context of their, you know, maybe historical outgrowths or like why, for instance, Brigham Young might have emphasized more of a biological reproduction and how that related to plural marriage at the time. I would love to. For us to just have more frank conversations about the development of these different areas because I think by normalizing that, it's going to reduce current members or, you know, future former members potentially feeling gaslit if they feel like the narrative is changing.

Jackson Washburn [01:15:07] Because right now with the narrative, we just don't have a great framework for dealing with a lot of these changes and speaking to them in more frank ways. I'm seeing improvements on local levels, like my own seminary and institute experience in this area. But I also don't fault maybe like ex Mormons in feeling that, you know, this particular belief, insert what you want. There was so emphasized in my upbringing and my lived experience. And now the church, you know, is clarifying that it's taking more of a neutral stance or a stance of not fully knowing or claiming to know the specific details. So I can understand that, you know. Yeah, so.

Nemo [01:15:51] But what seems to be going on there is you're saying, like person's lived experience, you're individualizing it rather than addressing the system of the church. But I'm not sure you can attribute it to a person's individual lived experience if this thing has been taught over the pulpit, because like I said earlier, we have a individual mouthpiece for God that we believe is telling us what God wants us to know. So everyone is listening to that person. Some people may be investing more, investing less, but ultimately, if a prophet has said it and it is believed to be from God, then that isn't down to individuals. That's down to that prophet. So that can then be viewed as, you know, if, for example, you look at the Adam God theory.

Carah Burrell [01:16:30] Right.

Nemo [01:16:30] That was taught by Brigham Young, a prophet. He put it in the endowment ceremony, the pinnacle of Mormon theological practice.

Jackson Washburn [01:16:38] Yeah, right. Yeah.

Nemo [01:16:40] So at that point, that's not individuals, that's not their own lived experience. That is the systematic church. That is its doctrines, its teachings, its practices have been one thing. And then something has changed how we're defining doctrine.

Carah Burrell [01:16:54] Have we had that discussion?

John Dehlin [01:16:55] Yeah, that's a, that's a topic.

Carah Burrell [01:16:57] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:16:58] I mean, no, but, but seriously, if you think about just this question, you know, Jackson, at one point you said you couldn't find it anywhere in Mormon scripture.

Nemo [01:17:08] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:17:08] And I would say you can't find same sex sexuality anywhere in Mormon scripture. You can't find a lot that's in the proclamation of the family. In fact, you can find, you know, polygamy, you know, was not, it was forbidden before it was allowed in Mormon scripture. Like, you know, and part of the problem that I'm seeing, it's not a problem, it's just a dynamic that we're.

Jackson Washburn [01:17:30] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:17:31] There's Jackson, the Mormon scholar who is basically doing what good scholars do, which is basically saying, how is the Mormon Church acting similarly or differently than other faith traditions? Let's just analyze it in the context of what we would expect from religious traditions, generally speaking. And that's an important and a thoughtful and a interesting thing to do. That's one strain of this conversation that Jackson's contributing. There's another strain of this conversation which is kind of the lived Mormon experience, which is all these Mormons that are like, we all know what we were taught, we all know what Mormon doctrine is, at least from the, at least from the 60s till now.

John Dehlin [01:18:13] You know, we all know that this has been Mormon doctrine. There's no surprise the Church is now trying to say one thing to the public that's very different from what we've all been taught. And it's, there's been no acknowledgment or reconciliation that what the Church is trying to say publicly really represents a backtracking of. I just spilled some water.

Carah Burrell [01:18:34] Keep talking, John.

John Dehlin [01:18:35] It's so important, really represents the backtracking of what we've all been taught for so many years.

Jackson Washburn [01:18:40] Right.

John Dehlin [01:18:41] And there's just no accountability and there's no reconciliation, and it leaves a lot of people feeling frustrated or angry with what's going on.

Nemo [01:18:51] Yeah.

Jackson Washburn [01:18:51] So I, I, I, I just want to say, like, yeah. To my earlier comments about speaking to that, you know, the dominant narrative, if you will, that we, that's often just so prevalent within Latter Day Saint teachings or discourse.

Jackson Washburn [01:19:06] It's one that really places prophets in high esteem, and not just in high esteem, but assumes if not teaches this kind of like, consistency. It doesn't leave room for, you know, various individuals who are leaders of the church to, you know, share from their own lived experience or in light of their own perspectives, their theological views, and teach it as beliefs. You know, I fundamentally, I would say I agree with all of you that this is an area where the church could improve its own internal conversations and its own internal beliefs about just how revelation, how Scripture, how these beliefs come to be in the first place.

Jackson Washburn [01:19:53] Because, you know, there is a disconnect often. And one area where I am comfortable issuing, you know, a level of critique is that often these changes can indeed be made or adaptions or clarifications without any recognition of how this might differ from previous historical teachings or beliefs. I would love to see the Church do a better job at properly contextualizing a lot of these shifts rather than, I don't know, in my own experience. A lot of times, maybe reading certain published pieces by the Church, these changes might be treated as just appearing out of a vacuum. Right. And historically and theologically, I don't think that's fully accurate. And I would love to see better context be given there, which I think would help others not potentially feel gaslit in the future.

Nemo [01:20:44] Would you worry that perhaps sometimes the context is due to external pressures which the Church maybe doesn't want to admit that it is kind of succumbing to, and maybe that's why they don't always explain the context.

Jackson Washburn [01:20:55] Yeah, yeah. No, I think it's very historically safe to say that the Church exists in the world and responds in light of the world on a number of different areas. I don't think the world or larger society or maybe critiques that are levied against the church are the driving factor or like the primary driving factor for maybe some of these changes. But they're certainly important parts of the puzzle to keep in mind. Right. And I don't, I don't agree with other members that, like, for instance, when it comes to the change about plural marriage in 1890 or about blacks in the priesthood, to deny the existence of real social influences in some of these shifts of belief or practice, I think is to do those subjects a disservice. So I'm all for the more proper contextualization there.

John Dehlin [01:21:48] For me, that's a really important reality that I think the church and even apologists are really reticent to acknowledge that if you take any major change that the church has ever made, whether it's polygamy, plural marriage, whether it's blacks in the priesthood, whether it's modern changes, the gospel topics, essays, you know, interviews of young people, this, you know, there's never sort of like, hey, we, you know, we did it this way once, but now we've changed and either we're sorry for what's gone on in the past, renounce the past. Awful stuff. You know, like with the race and the priesthood essay, there's always this sort of attempt to make an excuse that it doesn't really stand up to credibility.

John Dehlin [01:22:36] Like even just the answer you gave Jackson, like, it's not in scripture now, you weren't doing this. But if an apologist were to just sort of give that response to kind of downplay it, that's kind of a disingenuous argument because there's all sorts of things that we would all agree. Or Mormon doctrine that are not found in Mormon scripture.

John Dehlin [01:22:58] So. And we all kind of know that. We know that the church not only has never made it clear what really is and isn't Mormon doctrine. Well, I guess they have, but then they've changed it fundamentally.

Carah Burrell [01:23:12] Put the onus on the members is more what I would put it.

John Dehlin [01:23:14] But it's also to their benefit to keep it really nebulous because if they never allow it to be nailed down, then when things change, their prophetic authority can't be undermined. So it's almost like in their best interest to keep it really nebulous and unclear. But it, but it. There's something. If the church is going to maintain the position that it's the one true church and that its prophets speak to God and that God doesn't change, and that, you know, that there's something really solid going on that distinguishes us from the rest of the Christian and. Or religious world. You know, the church isn't acting with the level of integrity that. That we would. That it would. That it holds its members to.

Nemo [01:24:01] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:24:02] Level of repentance and contrition and honesty that we're all held to as members. It would seem as though the church doesn't hold itself to that same.

Carah Burrell [01:24:12] Yeah, yeah.

Nemo [01:24:12] Because down.

Carah Burrell [01:24:13] The church said that, kind of bringing that up, that there's a level of transparency that he would also like to see that we'd also like. I think we can all agree on that one.

Jackson Washburn [01:24:21] Yeah, yeah. Let me just add something real quick. For instance, when I was on my mission In Armenia, the November 5 policy, excluding the children of same sex couples from getting baptized until the age of 18 was rescinded. And something that I was disappointed by while I was out serving is that when this, in my opinion, very significant shift took place in terms of the policy in a relatively quick time period within the span of three years or so when the, when it was rescinded, there was no real context given for, you know, where potentially this change was coming from or, you know, why potentially the brethren might have felt like it was in the best interest now for this policy to go away.

Jackson Washburn [01:25:11] I would have personally loved and appreciated to see a greater acknowledgement of the that decision making process, perhaps acknowledging or I think I would have really liked to see an acknowledgement of some of the sincere pain and damage and impact and negative impact that was experienced within the frame of that three year where the policy was enforced.

Jackson Washburn [01:25:40] So, yeah, I think it's better for the church to do that. And that's just an example of where I was disappointed in my own life and not really seeing that more full context being given.

Apologies, Accountability, and Church Leadership

Nemo [01:25:53] So I would then ask the question, why is it, you think, Jackson, that Dan Lake Church said that the church does not seek apologies and we don't give them. Why is it that they don't necessarily say sorry, we were wrong in regards to some of these things?

Jackson Washburn [01:26:07] I mean, this goes back to some of my maturity comments. I think the church and its theology can tend to be immature in a number of areas. And when it comes to notions of institutional repentance and what that might look like, I just don't see the leadership primarily and by default the membership as being willing to make some of these necessary steps or have these difficult conversations.

Jackson Washburn [01:26:33] And I think when it comes to leadership specifically, a lot of this can be driven from a fear of losing potentially the same level of belief or the same conceptualization of what their prophetic authority is and how members are impacted by that authority existing. So, yeah, difficult dynamics there. But it's one where I do think some of those conversations, if they did take place, we would need to revisit and reframe what it means to be a prophet, what it means to have inspired leaders. And I think that would, you know, necessitate shifts in the dynamic between leadership and membership. And I, because you'd have to do

Nemo [01:27:22] away with some of those profits, will never lead you astray.

Jackson Washburn [01:27:25] Sure, sure. You know, it opens up all kinds of potential areas. Most relevant, I think right now would be questions regarding gender and sexuality. You know, if, I mean, this is very common and I don't love One to one equivalences of, for instance, the church's racial history and its views on human sexuality. I think those can often be overstated, but, you know, it's still relevant to, you know, consider that in light of previous teachings regarding, like, race or other areas changing. It opens up the possibility that, you know, members can hope for or anticipate some type of shift in the future, the, the unknown future regarding sexuality, considering that that's such a. An area of tension for the church today.

John Dehlin [01:28:17] Yeah. I wanted to just quickly note one interesting thing I've observed in history and get everyone's feedback on that. You know, if you think about, let's just say the 80s, Gordon B. Hinckley, when he was prophetic, he was kind of this master PR spokesperson. And you think about the, you know, you think about in 2021, something that would be unheard of was pretty normal in the 80s and 90s, which was Gordon B. Hinckley would just go on Larry King Live.

Jackson Washburn [01:28:47] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:28:48] With Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes, sit in interviews with like the LA Times or other, even with. With European news sources, and he would just take. Take all the hard questions and he wasn't afraid. And he was super polished. Probably the most polished public spokesperson for Mormonism that I've ever seen. And with the ability to go deep on any topic. And, and that was sort of the Mormonism that I. I grew up in, that was a little bit troubling at times. But, you know, when I was a believer, I'm just like, yeah, Gordon B. Hinckley on 60 Minutes and Gordon B. Hinckley's on Larry King. And that was because if he messes

Carah Burrell [01:29:26] up, he's messing up as a man and if he says something great, he's a prophet.

John Dehlin [01:29:30] Well, I just thought it was badass.

Nemo [01:29:32] Well, I think Jeffrey o' Holland sunk that boat.

John Dehlin [01:29:35] What's that?

Nemo [01:29:35] I think Jeffrey O. Holland sunk.

John Dehlin [01:29:37] I'm getting to that. Your channel, Nemo, highlighted the Jeffrey R. Holland sit down interview with John Sweeney called Meet the Mormons, which was a BBC production. And I really do think that was a super important moment in Mormon history because for the first time, you know, you can't say that King or Wallace didn't come prepared to their interviews, but they certainly didn't come at Gordon B. Hinckley with the, with the level of ferocity. He was diplomatic and typically British, sort of polite.

Jackson Washburn [01:30:17] British journalism is intense, man. But.

John Dehlin [01:30:19] But he was, he was kind of fierce. He was kind of savage in his politeness.

Jackson Washburn [01:30:25] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:30:25] And. And Nemo, you did a great job of breaking down that exchange on your channel between Sweeney and. And Holland. And I literally don't think the modern Mormon Church has ever been the same since that moment. If you add to that Hinckley dying and then Monson being senile for pretty much his whole administration, like literally mentally and physically incapable of fielding substantive journalist questions, that then when he hands the baton on to Nelson, you have that initial sort of like faux press conference where like Peggy Fletcher Stack and a couple others are asking some kind of like softball questions that were already probably given to the leaders before they even answered them in an orchestrated way.

John Dehlin [01:31:14] Other than that, you just, you would not see a modern Mormon prophet being willing to stand up to these intense questions. And in that sense, for me, that's a bit of a backsliding. We've kind of downgraded our boldness and our levels of integrity as a church. And I'm not sure it's a fake feature to be relying on Mormon Newsroom. You know, there's a lot of cynicism about the church's tendency in the past five or 10 years to allow Mormon Newsroom to be a spokesperson for the church. But then, is that, is that formal? Is that doctor what you were talking about earlier?

Carah Burrell [01:31:54] It's like a sports team that you're like, yeah, I'm watching them play. And then they're so suddenly they're in the minor league now and you're not, you're not able to see them on the big screen anymore. That's what it feels like.

John Dehlin [01:32:03] Yeah. It would be like the agents to professional athletes speaking at the press conference for what the professional athletes experienced in the game. No, if LeBron James just played a game, you want to hear LeBron's comment, not LeBron's spokesperson for what LeBron experienced during the game. Anyway, there's a sadness to the Mormon Newsroom dynamic. Yeah.

Jackson Washburn [01:32:26] Well, let me just hit the flip side of that. Because like early Mormonism, let's say in the 19th century, was often characterized by more off the cuff comments. The prevalence of, you know, these various individuals, whether church leaders or otherwise. There is a, you know, a time within Mormon history where Mormon apostles would openly debate with pastors or ministers of other faiths and, you know, or grant interviews or. It was a lot less centralized. And because of that, that comes with pros and cons.

Jackson Washburn [01:33:02] One of the pros of it, of course, is that you are able to not just have a more authentic engagement with various personalities within Mormon leadership, but also. Right. There's this capacity to field some of these tougher questions in a spontaneous manner. One of the cons of it is that it's not as carefully controlled or carefully crafted. And so as part of that, the potential answers you could get could be a lot more wide ranging. Or there could be comments made that the church is an institution or the church is a collective body or primarily, you know, governed by the Quorum of the twelve and the First Presidency.

Jackson Washburn [01:33:44] They might be uncomfortable with those. You know, also consider, like, I mean, we kind of see this really becoming problematic, or at least it might be perceived Today, Bruce R. McConkie publishing Mormon Doctrine. Right. That for various church leaders at the time or others may not have felt completely accurate to the Church's official positions and might have reflected more of Bruce R. McConfey's own views. So there's definitely trade offs with these things. And I want to acknowledge, of course, that I would love to see some of these more authentic, personable, one on one interviews take place.

Jackson Washburn [01:34:22] Because kind of the model that we have been operating in within Nelson's point administration is that there is this, you know, engagement with the news, there is this engagement with the media, but it's often a lot more carefully overseen or controlled or things like that so as to not repeat perhaps some of these moments that might be deemed embarrassing or might be deemed as not fully representative of the church or, you know, like pointing to Elder Holland. Yeah. You know, it was a difficult interview for him. Right.

Nemo [01:34:59] Yeah. Christopherson was dealt with the 2015 policy by having that conversation with Michael Otterson. That's what you got. Rather than the media coming in, asking the church. Yeah.

Jackson Washburn [01:35:10] Or like these face to face, you know, meetings where, I mean, I would love to see like my own ability to submit a question and that question be received. I think there was remarks made by maybe. I think it was maybe Ballard and Oaks at one point in preparation for a face to face. They were having that. I think they acknowledged that some of the questions they received were difficult or challenging ones, or perhaps they were questions that they didn't feel like they had formal answers to. I would still love to see engagement with those kinds of subjects because otherwise what you might be receiving at a face to face setting is substantively no different than, you know, the standard Sunday school curriculum that one might experience on a local level.

Polygamy, Exaltation, and Remaining Doctrinal Questions

Carah Burrell [01:35:58] I have a question for you, Jackson.

Jackson Washburn [01:36:00] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [01:36:01] Because kind of the what I think the baseline of what we're all talking about here with them going on the news and being able to relay to the public and to the members what the Church believes about X, Y and Z. Does the church put more responsibility on the everyday members and missionaries to know what the doctrines of the Church are then the actual people that are apostles who are, what's the language that they use, Special, special witnesses of Christ that they expect us to rely on the Holy Ghost to, you know, fill our mouth with the words of the Lord, but they don't have the confidence in the Spirit themselves to be able to go and speak to these things. What are your thoughts?

Jackson Washburn [01:36:43] Yeah, I mean, that's definitely an interesting dynamic there. I think the church, of course, course I would say institutionally, if they're like, and this is from my own experience too, right. And having more public, whether inter religious conversations with other Christians or people of other faiths or maybe debates that verge into the realm of theology or apologetics.

Jackson Washburn [01:37:06] It's rare that those activities are very explicitly, informally approved by the churches and institutions. Of course, on some of the resources that they list, secondary resources for seminaries and institutes, organizations such as the Interpreter Foundation, Fair Mormon or I guess just Fair now, and some other sites are acknowledged as potentially helpful secondary sources. But the Church does include often caveats that these are third parties and you know, not necessarily representative of the Church itself. So, yeah, you know, I think, I think it is a real dynamic that the.

Jackson Washburn [01:37:49] In a number of these areas, the Church does allow for thoughtful scholars or theologians or others, whether we're talking about Taro Givens or Patrick Mason or other individuals to take part in some of these more difficult conversations that are more frank and address some of these real concerns in a more direct way. And the church as an institution, is

Carah Burrell [01:38:12] that something you'd like to see?

Jackson Washburn [01:38:13] Well, I mean, here's the thing. I thought the Gospel topics essays were a positive step forward. I don't think they're perfect by any means, but I think they can be understood or approached as a model to expand upon, to become more comfortable with having some of these essays address some of these more difficult issues.

Jackson Washburn [01:38:38] But yeah, I don't know, it's also going to be fraught with difficulty in a number of areas because if you do engage some of these subjects, like for instance, let's say if the church, notably the church, doesn't have a gospel topic or historical essay on Adam God doctrine, and I think even in Saints Volume 2 doesn't even acknowledge that that was part of Brigham Young's administration, I think by engaging some of these subjects, the Church would have to have more difficult conversations that would therefore impact some of these narratives or concepts or understandings of prophets of revelation, of scripture, of church leaders, et cetera.

Jackson Washburn [01:39:21] So I think there's probably some hesitancy there. In which case some of these third party groups that might swing into the realm of apologetics, like FAIR or the Interpreter foundation, they, they kind of engage those waters more, more typically. But yeah, most people are not goodly

Carah Burrell [01:39:41] gonna go read those things, right?

Jackson Washburn [01:39:44] Yeah, unless you're like in the know, like most of most of the audience here or you know, people interested in the conversations we're having. A lot of those resources just might not be familiar with the general membership. I mean, if the Gospel topics essays aren't even read by all members and you know, all members aren't familiar with their existence. Right. You know, some of these third party groups are going to be even less well known. So yeah, I would love to see improvements made on all this front.

Nemo [01:40:12] We have these men who can speak and say, claim they can speak to God and they receive revelation from Him. And that is their job essentially is what they're there for. Their abilities to communicate with God ought to be better than mine, right? Certainly when it comes to the mass of the church, because I know Russell M. Nelson has taught that my ability to receive revelation for myself is just as valid. His ability to receive revelation for the matters of the church. But they would probably be better versed at it than I would. You would expect. But maybe not. But the point is that you have these men that can do this, but they don't.

Nemo [01:40:44] And they could rely on God to guide them through these difficult tasks, but they don't. They leave it to the terror givens as of the world. They leave it to the Interpreter Foundation. They leave it to Fair Mormon. They leave it to these other people to carry their water when they have a direct line to God.

Nemo [01:41:00] It shouldn't be up to members to go and find these tertiary sources to go and look for these things. They shouldn't even have to go and look for the Gospel topics essays. It should be coming up in Sunday school, it should be being taught at general conference. They should be addressing these things to the general membership of the church. And I wonder why they're not.

Jackson Washburn [01:41:17] Well, you know, with respect to like our theology of revelation, you know, I do think it's important to point out that some of these narratives or what exists is kind of the standard understanding or framework that the Church teaches about church leaders and the kinds of revelation that they can receive. Yeah, I think it is.

Jackson Washburn [01:41:40] It's important to have these conversations and flesh them out more for fully, because it is a very widespread belief and active assumption that the revelation that church leaders receive is fundamentally different in many respects than, you know, what my own capacity to ask God or inquire of God on spiritual matters might be.

Jackson Washburn [01:42:01] You know, I think there's a difference, of course, in matters of stewardship where I don't think it's too difficult to recognize that as a church leader they can receive revelation. But if we're talking about the revelation that they receive in a framework of, I don't know, almost conceiving of it as a one to one direct line, almost like fax machine type model for, you know, that they verbatim speak the very words of God.

Jackson Washburn [01:42:28] Yeah, that's gonna raise all kinds of problems in some of these different areas. It's something that I would like to see more engagement with because I think it's actually to the church's detriment to really overplay models of revelation with respect to church leaders in these areas.

Jackson Washburn [01:42:48] It's not that I don't believe that they can receive very clear revelation, but just personally speaking, their process of receiving revelation, I don't think is inherently too different than how I commune with and engage with God. I just perceive them as having a stewardship that's different and, and greater than mine with respect to, you know, receiving guidance or inspiration or revelation on behalf of the church at large rather than as individuals themselves.

Nemo [01:43:20] Okay.

Carah Burrell [01:43:22] Oh, where should we take it next? We wanted to. We're going to start wrapping up and I think the last kind of things that we want to hit. I was curious, Nemo, your opinion on how this ties in with the practice of eternal polygamy, spiritual wifery? And what is the point, I would ask, what is the point of having multiple wives in heaven if you don't have a body to populate a planet through Celestial sex, you could call it. So do you think that this doctrine being walked back also walks back a lot of the polygamist doctrine that has already been walked back, to be honest. But we do know that our prophet and his right hand man are both married to more than one woman in the afterlife. How does that play out for old Mom Nelson?

Nemo [01:44:06] I mean, so, so what, what you see there is. You have that scripture, I can't remember, indoctrination. It says the same sociality that exists here exists there and in the hereafter. Right. So you could expound that to mean that the same ways that we interact as men and women exist in the afternoon life as they do here. You could take it that way.

Nemo [01:44:27] And if we are creating worlds that we will populate with our spiritual offspring, as has been directly taught that it will, that our spiritual offspring will inhabit these worlds. That is, that has been the teaching from prophets, then that is why spiritual wifery and polygamy makes sense. And that's possibly why we've kept hold of that part of it, even though physical polygamy has been done away with for, you know, the fact that the US Government weren't too pleased about it. So that spiritual polygamy exists. And so that ties in very heavily with that. So if you start to take away, like you said, if you start to take that away, the building of worlds and the population of universes and whatnot, that starts to beg the question, what is polygamy for then?

Nemo [01:45:13] And a cynic might say polygamy exists, but because the church is inherently patriarchal, and therefore, how do you get men on board with stuff? You give them more opportunities for sex, it prays into a very deep drive, sexual reproductive drive, the cynic might say, but maybe this means that eternal polygamy might have to also go by the wayside if we were to abandon this. Because they do seem, like you said, very interlinked.

Carah Burrell [01:45:41] Thank you. Interesting indeed.

John Dehlin [01:45:44] Jackson, any responses to that?

Jackson Washburn [01:45:46] Yeah, so I feel like I didn't do a good enough job at this in some of the previous comments, but when we're discussing, like, what, if any, specific changes have taken place when it comes to the Mormon belief in exaltation or theosis and what its implications are in the afterlife in light of the faq, it's the shift that I perceive happening is really just saying that when it comes to populating worlds or having, you know, worlds without number, things like that that the Church is saying specifically, we don't know what that aspect of the afterlife will look like. If you go to the Gospel Topics essay, there's a section in Becoming Like God that, you know, does kind of talk to Latter Day Saints, anticipating getting God's same creative powers or capacities, what that might look like in the future.

Jackson Washburn [01:46:37] But I think for the clearest understanding of what the Church believes currently regarding exaltation, regarding godhood, regarding what those implications are, it would be in the Becoming Like God gospel topic essay, which is back up, which came out after the faq. And at least in my mind, the only change that I can perceive right now is just saying that when it comes to like a planet or worlds or planets or the specifics, the church is, you know, trying to clarify that they're more in a Neutral space on that. It's not that they are saying that Mormons, Latter Day Saints will not receive planets. They are occupying a space of saying, we don't know the specifics of this.

Jackson Washburn [01:47:18] And that's a very different stance than one in which the Church might be teaching, you don't become a God. You don't have the capacity to, you know, you know, produce spirit children or adopt them or, you know, rule over planets or things like that. So the church is a neutral space, in my opinion.

Carah Burrell [01:47:39] I am speaking of being neutral. I'm neutral here. But Jackson, I have, I have trouble believing you because when it says in the faq, do Latter Day Saints believe they will get their own planet? The first word after that is no.

Nemo [01:47:50] No.

Carah Burrell [01:47:51] So there's not necessarily a neutral. That's a negative on that.

Jackson Washburn [01:47:55] No, no, I agree. And when this FAQ was released within the time frame of 2010 to 2012, the Gospel Topic essay comes out in 2014, which actually does anticipate or at least acknowledges that many Latter Day Saints anticipate God's creative powers. And then in 2018, you have President Nelson during that Christmas address, acknowledging the belief, or at least in his own words, using verbiage, that's talking about worlds without number or, you know, receiving God's same powers in that sense. Right. So at least, you know, I agree the way that the FAQ is worded, not only does it strike me as quite political and lacking proper context, but I also feel like it can easily be misleading.

Jackson Washburn [01:48:41] But in terms of, like, what is the church's stance now? What changes recently have taken place, if any? I think just that the change is that they're adopting more of a neutral stance in terms of the specific implications of theosis. But if someone was to come to me and say that the church no longer believes that latter day exalted members can become gods or things like that, I would firmly disagree with them because the Gospel topic essay is backup. It was a glitch. And I think it's the

Nemo [01:49:15] one of

Jackson Washburn [01:49:15] the best places to go to, you know, understand what the church's current stance on the matter is.

Nemo [01:49:20] But then a couple of questions off that is that, you know, you say members anticipate. I don't think this can be put on the members. You know, you look at the words of leaders, too. Lorenzo Snow was quoted in the 2013 Institute Manual as saying, he's talking about a group of young boys and he says, through their knowledge and control over the laws and powers of nature, they will be able to organize matter into worlds on which their posterity may dwell and over which they shall rule as gods. So to say we don't know the specifics, that seems pretty specific. It may not be mechanically specific, but it seems pretty specific in terms of what is going to happen.

Nemo [01:49:53] So I think we have the specifics and I don't think it's the members are anticipating anything that the church needs to clarify. Because the church was pretty clear in its teachings. To now take a neutral stance actually begs the question why have they changed their stance to a neutral one when it was affirmative? In terms of we do know what's actually going to happen.

Jackson Washburn [01:50:10] Yeah. When it comes to institutional positions, at least currently, I think the church really prioritizes and values having all of the apostles, all of the high ranking church leaders being in a space of mutual agreement with one another. And so yes, you do have various quotes by Lorenzo Snow, by President Nelson, by others that might delve into more of these specifics. But in terms of like what the church's institutional collective position is, that's not going to be necessarily defined by a statement by Lorenzo Snow or by any one church leader or even necessarily the composite sum of all these different, you know, apostles or presidents.

Nemo [01:50:49] Not even if that's what they're teaching members through church manuals, an institute manual, say. So that's what they're teaching the members to believe. They're instructing them in this way, way. So to say that's not the doctrinal position of the Church. I'm a bit confused there because what are we teaching people then at lessons if we're not teaching them the doctrine of the Church?

Jackson Washburn [01:51:08] No, I think that's an important thing that you point out with regard to that quote specifically. Right. If there are quotes that are more specific that continue to be involved in curriculum, that would be a place of. That would be a disconnect than you know, what the Church in various other places might say, say, oh, we don't have an official position in this area and that might be an oversight, you know, so yeah, there's a, There's a

John Dehlin [01:51:35] comment that someone wrote in and this is actually a compliment to Jackson, but it's. The comment's gonna read maybe a bit as a backhanded compliment or criticism. Randy writes, props to John and Carah for being more patient than I could be. This is so frustrating to watch. Word salad and mental gymnastics are at play once again.

John Dehlin [01:51:55] Leaders and their ever changing policies do not deserve a pass. They are intentionally misleading members. I appreciate the Mormon stories podcast videos where the fact based truth is spoken in plain English. More than this, I simply cannot stomach any more of this. Jackson is a nice guy. I hope he wakes up one day. Okay? And I, and, and so Randy, I want to thank Randy for that comment along with so many other really good comments that we haven't been able to share. And I kind of want to come to Jackson's defense a little bit and then explain a tiny bit of what I think is going on.

Is This a Big Deal? Final Reflections

John Dehlin [01:52:26] Because again, I'm going to end with how I started, which is with gratitude that Jackson's willing to come on and represent his perspectives on what's going on with the church and frankly represent Mormonism from a scholarly standpoint and even from a faithful Mormon scholarly standpoint. There are precious few faithful Mormon scholars that are willing to dialogue in this way today in 2021. Most of them are afraid for their positions, they're afraid for their reputations and they cower behind private firesides or, you know, fears about, you know, backlash or, you know, punitive damage that might happen to them if they in any way sanction or appear on a more open, objective conversation.

John Dehlin [01:53:21] So I'm going to come to Jackson's defense and say that I don't see Jackson as engaging in mental gymnastics or as word salad. Here's my read of the situation. My read of the situation is there's kind of parallel ways to look at this entire question.

John Dehlin [01:53:38] There is this sort of informed consent, Mormon orthodoxy, lived Mormon experience perspective, which is to say that we all as Mormons know what we have been taught. We all as Mormons know what Mormon doctrine is in 2021. We all know that the Mormons getting their own planets has been central core, more premium Mormon doctrine for decades, if not a century or two. That's kind of the lived experience and we all know it. And from that standpoint, when we see the Church backtracking or waffling or issuing press releases that either deny what we all know to be true and or try and waffle or stay in this middle ground.

John Dehlin [01:54:26] It is, it is a lack of informed consent. It is duplicitous, it is double spirit speak. And it's troubling and it's disconcerting. And whether it starts in 2010 or 2011 or 2012 or 1993 or 1983 or just this year, it kind of doesn't matter.

John Dehlin [01:54:48] The Mormonism that we were all sold into, the Mormonism that we all have given our time and our tithing and our mission service and our reputations to that Mormonism is in some sense being betrayed and we are justified in being angry or frustrated or outraged about that kind of bait and switch which the media seems to, the Mormon newsroom seems to be engaging in at a sort of passive non complaint by the top church leadership that in reality should be standing up and owning and speaking for what's happening. So that's happening. And I think Jackson's even polite enough and honest enough to say he shares in some of that frustration and or noticing of what's going on.

John Dehlin [01:55:40] That's one track of what kind of where the outrage comes from. And then there's the Mormon scholarly view that I've already gave reference to, which is where Jackson is just saying, hey, if we're not looking at this as the one true church with exclusive authority, with prophets leading the church with the bat phone to God. And that's kind of what, you know, that's the narrative that we're all engaged in if we're not looking at it from that narrative, but instead if we're looking at it from, what do churches do? What's the reality of being a church in the 21st century with the Internet and having PR people?

John Dehlin [01:56:14] You know, when Jackson does what. What Randy might be calling mental gymnastics or word salad, Jackson's just doing his best job to explain from a scholarly standpoint, from a secular standpoint, even even though he's a faithful Mormon at some level, what's going on from a scholarly, secular standpoint. And I think Jackson does a good job at helping us understand that. And I think he deserves respect, not derision, for engaging in conversation in that way.

Jackson Washburn [01:56:44] Well, thank you for saying that, John. I do appreciate it. And just quickly, I'll just say that like any of us, I trust that we're all speaking honestly in light of our own lived experiences and the way that, you know, our journeys have taken us, the information that we understand, the education that we have, things like that.

Jackson Washburn [01:57:03] So, yeah, you know, if maybe some of the answers that I give or my perspective on Mormonism seems strikingly different than various members of your audience. I'm just coming from a different lived background, a different lived experience, and both on an academic level trying to understand these things, but then on a personal level trying to work through them in terms of how they implicate my own belief.

Jackson Washburn [01:57:27] Like it would be wrong of me to pretend like I don't experience certain forms of tension or even cognitive dissonance in certain areas. Right. And at least my, my desire is to just work through those as honestly and critically and authentically as possible in light of my own beliefs and experiences. And so I can understand how, you know, it might not be satisfying to everyone, but that's at least what I'm trying to do here. So, yeah, I certainly don't mind pushback or criticism in various areas where, you know, maybe I could stand to improve myself.

Carah Burrell [01:58:01] Thanks, Jackson, your solid stand up dude, for doing this. The comments are all people.

John Dehlin [01:58:08] Here's your comment. We read this comment because I think it's a comment worth mentioning.

Carah Burrell [01:58:12] Okay. Nathan says Jackson is legit. Folks who are attempting to dismiss him for engaging mental gymnastics or word salad are merely employing the logical fallacy of name calling. Engage the specific points. Do not dismiss or attack. This helps no one. So we'll keep going in the comments and after this wraps up and people can continue to say, watch this video back and pinpoint the exact maybe flaws in Jackson's argument, the flaws in our argument, and fill it in with their own ideas about.

Jackson Washburn [01:58:42] Yeah, and reach out and let me know too, because I would love to be corrected in areas where maybe I've overstepped or am incorrect.

Carah Burrell [01:58:49] That's awesome.

Nemo [01:58:50] Yeah, same here. I'm not going to make any assumptions that I'm right at any point, so feel free to tell me where I'm wrong.

Jackson Washburn [01:58:54] Yeah, that's why I love these kinds of conversations, you know.

Carah Burrell [01:58:57] Yeah, they're really helpful with somebody who's faithful but has a nuanced, different perspective. Like John was saying, maybe. Oh, no, sorry. I think it's you, Jackson, that just said that you might not reflect the same opinions as a lot of other orthodox members. And that's fine because everybody has their own ideas and lived experience, like you said. So. Yeah, I think it's a beautiful thing that we can dialogue like this.

Jackson Washburn [01:59:17] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:59:18] So I guess I. I guess one final question we can ask is, is this tempest in a teapot? Is this much ado about nothing? Is this a big deal? And you know, is it as dramatic as the. The church is making big changes, the church is abandoning its core tenants, the members are being betrayed, or is this just sort of like slow steps towards refinement and sophistication and maturity? Nemo, why don't we give you a chance to kind of weigh in on that? Carah, I want to hear your view. Jackson, of course. Jackson, of course I want to hear your view. And then we.

Jackson Washburn [01:59:59] I would love to hear your view too, John. I feel free to step out of the moderator position if you want.

John Dehlin [02:00:05] Thank you. Thank you. Okay, maybe I'll. I'll share mine as a closing point. But Nemo, you got us into this mess. We want to hear your kind of summation. If you could editorialize for a minute, what would you editorialize?

Nemo [02:00:20] I just want to start by saying thank you to Jackson. I may not get the chance later, so to say thank you. And the reason that I thought this would be a good idea is because me and Jackson have spoken before about modeling respectful dialogue. And I think both of us managed to do that tonight. And John and Carah have done that as well. So I think it's been really good. In sum, I think this is not much to do about nothing in the sense of. It is a microcosm of behaviour which the Church exhibits, which we need to be aware of the behavior of subtle gaslighting of reform without apology of change, without acknowledgement of.

Nemo [02:00:52] Well, actually, no, it's not quite what we taught you. It was. Because if you go back, you can see it's been very specifically taught, very specifically taught. And I mean taught because it's in lesson manuals. It's not just the institute manual. It's in the Gospel essentials. It's in.

Nemo [02:01:07] It's in all sorts of church materials, things officially published by the church. And so it's not much ado about nothing in that sense. What we do need to calm down from is the church hasn't removed the essay. It is still there.

Nemo [02:01:19] And that the church, I don't think would be that brazen. I'm not sure that's in their nature. I don't think they would just out and out do that sort of thing. I think it's much more their character to do this more subtle form of slight gaslighting or, or certainly revisionism without acknowledgement.

John Dehlin [02:01:35] Beautiful. Thank you. Nemo.

Carah Burrell [02:01:37] Can I say something?

John Dehlin [02:01:38] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [02:01:39] Okay. All right. Ex Mormons. Don't hate me on this one. Is the definition of gaslighting, you know, comes down to kind of people making you feel insane. Because you know what, you know, besides feeling insane, is gaslighting by the Church really all that bad? Because it's usually in the lane of progress. So we like to talk about when will the. When will women get the priesthood? When will like same sex couples be able to marry in the temple? With enough of these breadcrumbs of gaslighting, pretty soon we will have some real, real substantial progress. Just like people did not think that the, the curse of Cain and the different things with blacks in the priesthood and the temple ban would change.

Carah Burrell [02:02:19] I think we'll look back in 20 years and this will be a breadcrumb along the way of gaslighting. Now that might drive us a little bit insane, but in the future, maybe we'll think we'll thank the church for it.

John Dehlin [02:02:30] Karen living up to the nuance that she claims to possess. I love it. I'll just. My quick response to that is that there is this contradiction where progressive and post Mormons are angry at the church for like outdated doctrines or not changing or not modernizing. And then when the church actually does try and make things less weird or less str. Strange or less barbaric or whatever, then the ex Mormons or progressive Mormons are like, hey, wait a minute, the church is changing. That's bad. So sometimes ex Mormons and post Mormons want their cake and either too, they want to criticize the church anytime it changes. But then also they want the.

Carah Burrell [02:03:11] Because I know I'm not getting a planet regardless. I'm screwed either way.

John Dehlin [02:03:15] So anyway, that's a good point. That's a good point. Here.

Nemo [02:03:20] Yeah, thank you.

John Dehlin [02:03:21] Maybe it's nuance for the. For the greater good.

Carah Burrell [02:03:24] It's.

John Dehlin [02:03:24] It's for the greater good.

Nemo [02:03:26] Lying for the Lord. Right.

Jackson Washburn [02:03:28] It's so. So I'll just quickly add where I do think that this was perhaps like overblown or overstated. I think there was this moment where there was a perfect storm of both having the gospel topic essay be temporarily down due to a technical glitch, which I think is. Is.

Jackson Washburn [02:03:47] I see no evidence why it wouldn't be a technical glitch. And combined with this FAQ resurfacing from, you know, essentially a decade ago, there were assumptions made that I think now can be. Some of those concerns can be dismissed. But to Nemo's point, I also agree that this episode, both the potential, let's say like outrage or controversy at the beginning, but also this discussion that it's prompted, I think some of the phenomena that we've talked about, you know, it has relevance in those areas. It's important to, you know, continue to analyze and discuss those things both outside of the church or inside the church, because I think.

Jackson Washburn [02:04:32] I don't know, there's important things to talk about there. Dynamics to tease out and assess more accurately. So, you know, the controversy itself probably overblown. I think it was overblown. But the conversation that it's prompted I think has been valuable in a number of different areas.

Carah Burrell [02:04:52] Yeah, always good and valuable to have a conversation about whatever it is, especially this side, to this side. Wish we could reach out and give you a Hug Jackson.

Jackson Washburn [02:05:03] Yeah, I appreciate it.

Carah Burrell [02:05:05] And you too, Nemo, of course.

Jackson Washburn [02:05:08] He's, he's across the pond, so he's a. He's a little bit farther.

Nemo [02:05:11] Yeah, yeah, yeah. But this won't be the last time Jax and I work together. We have, we have plans. Watch this space. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Jackson Washburn [02:05:19] Nefarious stuff.

John Dehlin [02:05:22] Well, this is brilliant. So thank you, Nemo, for kicking this off and making this happen. Thanks for your wonderful channel. Nemo. Are you on TikTok yet, Nemo?

Nemo [02:05:35] There's so much pressure. Everyone keeps saying, get a tick tock. Get a tick tock. I just, I don't know, I feel like a 70 year old man inside when it comes to tick tock. Scares me.

John Dehlin [02:05:43] So if I met this person right

Nemo [02:05:45] here, if, if someone's willing to give me some lessons, perhaps I would, I would, I would consider it.

John Dehlin [02:05:50] All right. Yeah, we'll. We'll help you out with that.

Nemo [02:05:52] But I'm on YouTube like a, like a middle aged man. I'm on YouTube.

Carah Burrell [02:05:57] We've been doing so many projects. They're Mormons. To stories where we want people to get on TikTok. We're actually gonna do like a how to guide kind of because we want to get more people on. So watch for that other 70 year old men as well.

John Dehlin [02:06:07] Stay tuned. And while we're talking about that, yeah, Mormon Stories listeners check out Mormon Stories podcast YouTube channel. Carah's taking it from zero to hero in like two months. It's.

Carah Burrell [02:06:17] It's like I said YouTube, you meant TikTok. But.

John Dehlin [02:06:19] Oh, thank you. I'm so glad you're here. Carah has taken our Mormon Stories podcast Tick tock channel from 0 to 55,000 followers in, in less than two months. And some of our views have over a million views. It's just, you know, we don't make money off of TikTok, but it's just a way to reach way more people. And so please check out our TikTok channel. Follow us, subscribe to us. And we've done some prompts, like one prompt we have recently solicited. We have asked our listeners to. To take the challenge, the My Mormon Story challenge. We've asked listeners to share their Mormon story in a minute or less. Or if you have the three minute feature, I guess technically you could do three minutes.

Carah Burrell [02:07:01] I did a minute 20.

John Dehlin [02:07:03] Yeah, but we, but we want to flood the earth with people's Mormon stories on TikTok, where we're not the gatekeepers for people's Mormon stories.

Carah Burrell [02:07:12] Then we'll be going through them and selecting one person to interview as well,

John Dehlin [02:07:15] or a couple or. Yeah, but you have to hashtag.

Carah Burrell [02:07:17] There's actually a lot of good ones.

John Dehlin [02:07:18] You have to hashtag at my Mormonstory on TikTok. But anyway, check out our TikTok channel. It's reaching a lot of people. And Jackson, while we're at that, Jackson, your TikTok channel, I love it. It's one of my favorite channels.

Jackson Washburn [02:07:32] Oh, well, you know, a lot of times I feel like I'm just speaking into the void because I don't have the same kind of audience. Or at least there's not as many Latter Day Saints believing Latter Day Saints representing on TikTok as openly as many within the ex Mormon community. So, you know, I'm in a weird space there. But, yeah, I have been stepping into that. So that's why my TikTok handle is modern Mormon. If anyone wants to follow me.

John Dehlin [02:07:59] Hopefully you'll get some follows from this. And that's what, to me, that's what makes your TikTok channel that much more important. Because we want, you know, it's an echo chamber if we don't have multiple perspectives. And that's both why I'm glad you've come up Mormon Stories. And that's why I'm glad you have your TikTok channel. And that's why I'm glad you're entering the foray of. Of Mormon scholarship and Mormon studies even more than you have been, because we need voices like yours.

Closing Thoughts and Gratitude

Jackson Washburn [02:08:25] Yeah. Well, I just want to quickly say before we log off, of course, that I want to thank both you and Carah for being hospitable hosts and, you know, facilitating this conversation, which I felt was very cordial and friendly and respectful. Nemo, thank you for, you know, also being part of the conversation. And I appreciate the, you know, just the rapport and the dynamic that we have, and I hope to see things like this modeled more actively amongst, you know, people across the Mormon spectrum. I think it's foundationally important.

Carah Burrell [02:09:01] Model Mormon.

John Dehlin [02:09:03] Model Mormon.

Carah Burrell [02:09:03] He just said, model this type of conversation across it instead of modern Mormon. Model Mormon.

John Dehlin [02:09:08] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [02:09:10] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:09:10] And while I want to have Jackson back as much as he wants to come back, if there are any other faithful Mormon scholars out there that aren't afraid of the repercussions of free speech and open discourse, I will always work, I will always endeavor to make sure faithful Mormons are treated well on Mormon Stories podcast. So that's an open invitation to any other faithful Mormon scholar out there to come on Mormon Stories podcast. And speak your truth and represent your perspective. And we'll always treat you well.

John Dehlin [02:09:47] So hope to have you back, Jackson and Nemo again, both of you. I'll just end. You know, Jackson, you invited me to share my perspective. I think I'm beating this issue of informed consent like a drum this year. For me, what it really comes down to is informed consent. And I totally agree with everything Jackson says about why the church is doing what it's doing. Elder Holland himself once told me, we're an immature church. There are certain statements we're not able to make because we're immature. And I know what Elder Haaland meant by that is there are other senior members of the quorum of the 12 in the first presidency, you know, that make it so there isn't unanimity in the Quorum that would allow for more candid, frank statements or even more bold or progressive statements.

John Dehlin [02:10:38] And what Elder Holland was saying to me is just as a matter of practicality. There are lots of things that Elder Holland would like to be said, lots of affirming things, lots of healing things, but that just can't be said While certain apostles remain alive, senior apostles remain alive. And in that sense, I think the church is.

John Dehlin [02:11:00] The Brethren are trying to maintain this respect for unanimity in the Quorum. I think also they are always trying to guard their prophetic authority because that is, at the end of the day, what I think is most central to their truth claims and their power and their success as a religious institution. So the Brethren are always hesitant to say we were wrong or this is changing now, or members, everyone pay attention to this pivot we're making explicitly because they don't want to undermine their own authority, weaken the church, weaken member commitment to the church. And so that's why we're getting kind of this perceived double speak or this pr, you know, position that's, that's different.

John Dehlin [02:11:46] And the Brethren's remaining large, largely silent on these issues. It's all pragmatics where the Brethren are maximizing, optimizing their behavior towards maintaining strong faith and tithe paying membership and active membership as possible. That's what they value most. And that's, that's what they prioritize over everything else. And so in my view, that's what we're seeing here. It leaves a lot to be desired from the standpoint of like, the honesty we were taught and the ethics and the integrity that we were all taught.

John Dehlin [02:12:23] But I get it. I don't totally respect it, but I get it. And I can't say that I would act differently if I were in their shoes and had the responsibility, because who is a responsible steward over an organization is going to weaken the organization that they're responsible for. So I get why they do what they do. I don't totally respect it, but I get it. And then the other side is, for me, what matters most is integrity and informed consent. So the reason why there's outrage amongst progressive and post Mormons, in my view, is because we were all sold into a certain form of Mormonism.

John Dehlin [02:13:00] Many of us are still, still living under what we understand to be a certain form of Mormonism. And this represents the church sort of doing a bait and switch where they're pivoting without a reconciliation, without an acknowledgment of the change, and without any accountability for, for the fact that we were all sold into, gave our lives to, paid 10% of our income to, gave two years of our mission service to, and built our lives around a certain version of Mormonism that now the church is sort of slowly and subtly moving away from without ever saying we're sorry or we got it wrong or, you know, we are responsible for this change and we take responsibility for the implications of the change.

John Dehlin [02:13:50] That's why it's a problem. That's why so many ex Mormons are angry about it and outraged. And that's why I think this topic really does matter. But I don't know that the Brethren are going to be changing how they respond to these issues any time soon. And frankly, that's what gives life to Mormon Sports podcast, to Nuance for TikTok Channel, to all of x Mormon TikTok. As long as the Brethren refused to take responsibility for these changes, refuse to act with full integrity, you're going to continue to have progressive and post Mormons outraged and holding their feet to the fire and them largely ignoring us and the dynamic of a lot of heat with maybe a little bit less light.

John Dehlin [02:14:35] And I'll just flip that and say that the moment that the Brethren start taking responsibility, start taking accountability, start owning up to the changes and their mistakes, honestly, that takes the wind out of a lot of our sails. It takes the. It obviates a lot of the need for there to be alternative voices because the Brethren are just basically owning up to their mistakes and speaking in a consistent way that we all kind of get. And so, Jackson, you asked for my perspective. That's my perspective.

Jackson Washburn [02:15:06] Thank you, John. I appreciate it.

John Dehlin [02:15:10] All right, well, Jackson, we love you. Good luck. Come again, Nemo, we love you. Thank you so much. Come again. Carah, I just want to say I love having you as a co host. Somebody complained when I called you like a sidekick or an assistant. You're a full on co host.

Carah Burrell [02:15:26] Gosh golly, blushing already. Thank you. And thank you everyone for your supportive comments and joining. This is quite the active live stream too. So thanks everyone.

Jackson Washburn [02:15:35] Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry, I tend to have that effect when I pop on Mormon stories.

Carah Burrell [02:15:41] Hello, Jackson, you think it's you? I'll fight you.

Jackson Washburn [02:15:45] Maybe that was a little egocentric.

John Dehlin [02:15:47] I think it's Nemo in his British accent.

Carah Burrell [02:15:49] I think it is like am I listening to a live BBC thing right now?

John Dehlin [02:15:54] Anyone in the U.S. british or sex? British voices are sexy and more intelligent. That's just how British voices are processed in Yankees. Yep,

Carah Burrell [02:16:07] my Utah accent isn't sexy. I have.

Donor Thanks and Sign-Off

John Dehlin [02:16:12] We will conclude by just saying what we always say, which is thanks to our donors that make Carah possible, that make me possible, that make Gerardo possible in Brooklyn, the cinematography, our studio, everything, you donors make this possible. So thanks to our donors that donate. If you don't donate or contribute to the Open Stories foundation, we would invite you to become a monthly donor. We lose 10 to 20 donors, regular donors, every month. Whether they hit financial hardship or they lose interest or they move on or they decide to donate elsewhere. So if we want to maintain the current levels of support and programming and or increase our programming so like better lighting, better cameras, better co hosts, better more topics. Oh right. No, no, no. I mean Carah, as a representative of a better co host, if you want to upgrade, you can't improve on this. You can't.

Carah Burrell [02:17:11] If you want to keep me happy, keep donating.

Nemo [02:17:13] If you want to co host with a British accent, then you better donate.

Carah Burrell [02:17:17] You want to send me to like refinery school so I can talk like a nice British school girl? Sorry, go on.

John Dehlin [02:17:23] Yes, please, please become a monthly donor. Less than one out of a thousand viewers or listeners actually donates or contributes to our program. So please donate. Also donate. Nemo, how do people donate to you?

Nemo [02:17:36] People go on my channel when I go live, they send me super chats. A Patreon is upcoming. But most importantly, just go subscribe to the channel. That's what helps me out the most.

John Dehlin [02:17:44] And Jackson, do you take support or are you trying to be non commercial at this point?

Jackson Washburn [02:17:48] Oh no, yeah, nothing commercial. Although of course like if they want to follow me on, on Facebook or TikTok or reach out to me through social media, I'm always happy to make new friends.

John Dehlin [02:17:59] All right. Perfect. And I just had. Carah wants me to share this comment.

Carah Burrell [02:18:05] Nothing to do with it.

John Dehlin [02:18:06] She just grabbed my hand and moves the mouse. Benjamin Sanders says Carah is the better co host.

Carah Burrell [02:18:13] Amen.

John Dehlin [02:18:13] Am I supposed to be happy about that or offended in?

Carah Burrell [02:18:16] No, I'm not.

Nemo [02:18:17] Not.

Carah Burrell [02:18:17] I. I do add something, we'll find out what it is. Give me a year and I will articulate it. But thanks.

John Dehlin [02:18:24] Thanks, guys. Yeah, please become a monthly donor. You can go to mormonstories.org click on the donate button. Become a monthly donor. Or again, super chats are always welcome here in YouTube. You can always donate directly to YouTube, but however you support us, just thanks for the support. Please keep it coming and just be good to each other. You can also follow us, subscribe to us on YouTube, on Facebook, on TikTok. Where else? On Instagram.

Carah Burrell [02:18:50] Instagram. Yep.

John Dehlin [02:18:51] YouTube. All the different channels following us, liking us, commenting and then sharing with the world. That always helps with the algorithms. So please support us however you can.

Carah Burrell [02:19:02] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:19:03] And give us your email if you have ideas, if you have suggestions for people we can interview topics you want to hear about. We always welcome your emails@mormonstoriesgmail.com if they have their.

Carah Burrell [02:19:13] Your routing number in them and your bank. Just kidding.

John Dehlin [02:19:15] Your routing and your text. All right, thanks everybody. Thanks for Stories podcast. Yeah, Jackson, of course.

Carah Burrell [02:19:26] Thanks, John.

John Dehlin [02:19:27] And we'll see you guys again soon on Warmer Stories podcast. And thanks to Gerardo and Brooklyn as well.

Carah Burrell [02:19:33] Right on, Brooklyn.

John Dehlin [02:19:34] Thanks, everybody. You guys take care.

Jackson Washburn [02:19:36] Bye.

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.