Introducing Dr. Dave Christian and Today's Topics

John Dehlin [00:00:01] Hello and welcome to a very exciting presentation today. My name is John Dehlin and I am here with Dr. Dave Christian. Dave is we just got done for Mormon Stories podcast, doing a one hour interview with Dave. He's a local psychologist here in Cache Valley. You can find him@mydocdave.com he's been a good friend of mine for six years. He's my weekly walking buddy. But he is also a really well respected psychologist who's been, you know, providing mental health services to Mormons and former Mormons here in Cache Valley for decades. He also, as you learned in the last episode, was raised lds, then served a mission in Australia where he had the unfortunate experience of having his mission president attempt to become a polygamist with the sister missionaries in his mission.

John Dehlin [00:01:01] So that led Dave to leave the church. And now Dave continued after he left the church, getting married, having children and visiting the Unitarian Universalist Church off and on. And so recently he was elected president of the board of the local UU church. And while I was visiting there, he gave a presentation based on insights from a book called the righteous mind by Dr. Jonathan Haidt, who is a prominent, I don't know if he's a social psychologist or what he is, but he's, he's a great mind. And the, the purpose of the presentation was to talk about community formation and building bridges, particularly amongst secular folk.

John Dehlin [00:01:50] So this podcast is going to be sort of a co release. I'm releasing it on Mormon Stories. It's a continuation of my interview with Dave Christian there. But also I'm going to release it on the Mormon Transitions New podcast. Because this, you know, the purpose of Mormon Transitions podcast is to support Mormons as they're transitioning either away from orthodoxy towards more progressive Mormonism or leaving Mormonism as post Mormons. Either way, there are all sorts of principles and lessons that need to be learned, but more importantly, communities need to be built. So whether you're in a Facebook community as a progressive Mormon who's sort of supplementing your ward experience with these private communities on Facebook or these local communities, if you look@mormonspectrum now.org there's over 120 face to face communities all over the world that people are forming as progressive and post Mormons and they're just some basic, basic rules and guidelines and problems that progressive Mormons and post Mormons are going to be facing as they try and replace what their or supplement what their ward experience has or hasn't given them.

John Dehlin [00:03:11] Also, if any of you have listened to Dr. If any of you listen to Alain de bhutan and his TED talk, Atheism 2.0, or heard of the Sunday assembly or Oasis. In the United States, there's this emerging movement of creating secular communities that actually function very much like churches, but there isn't even a necessary belief in God, lack of doctrine or dogma. And oftentimes these types of congregations are filled with progressives. And, you know, there's some costs and benefits to trying to create community with a bunch of, you know, let's just say social liberal, political progressives. And so Dave Christian has this amazing presentation. It's on YouTube.

John Dehlin [00:03:58] There's some really great visuals. So if you're only listening to this on audio, if you are able, we recommend that you stop, go to, you know, MormonStories.org or MormonTransitions.org and pull up the YouTube video and watch it, because you'll get more out of it if you can see the visuals.

John Dehlin [00:04:16] So please check us out visually if you're not. But with all that to do, I now turn the time over to Dr. Dave Christian to talk us through his presentation. And I'm going to be jumping in here and there with questions and comments. So take it away, Dr. Dave.

Dave Christian [00:04:31] Thank you, John. Well, it's a pleasure to be here with you today and talk a little bit about community building and bridge building. As John mentioned, this presentation was originally given to the local Unitarian church here in Cache Valley a couple of Sundays ago. And John was in the audience and thought it might have some good relevance for this audience. And I'll hope to kind of tailor it into the audience that I think is out there listening to it today.

Dave Christian [00:04:59] Hopefully, he'll ask me the questions that will keep me connected to the folks that are listening. So, as you can see on the visuals here, if you have the visual component of the presentation, we're talking about building bridges in community.

Dave Christian [00:05:12] Much of this presentation was derived from the work of Dr. Jonathan Haidt. And I'll be talking about how to apply this to those who have interest in building various kinds of community, but especially the kinds that John described a moment ago.

Dave Christian [00:05:26] Most of us are aware of the culture wars that have been raging here in our country for decades. The culture wars are often described as a conflict or tension between left and right, Democrat and Republican, the secular and the religious. And at times, this conflict has gotten very nasty. And many feel that this conflict is getting sharper and more strident as we moved into our current decade with a lot of unfortunate consequences for us as a nation and certainly for us as individuals.

Dave Christian [00:06:02] This kind of conflict also, of course, has turned up for those in religions as people get access to more information about religion, about their own religion, and certainly the LDS community. We've seen this kind of tension arise and people are looking for ways to resolve it. It's a topic that I find really interesting. Given my own background with Mormonism, I've wanted to find ways to bridge that gap. I see much value in religion, even though I've chosen to leave my faith of birth, the LDS faith. I still consider myself a person of faith, but it's a much different faith than the one that I left, which was a more traditional one.

Dave Christian [00:06:45] And I'll hopefully share a little bit about that as we go through the presentation. This conflict occurs on several levels, and I'll try to just highlight a few of those levels here. The first one is the political level.

Polarization and the Crisis of Community in America

Dave Christian [00:06:59] As you can see from these statistics taken from the Pew Research center, fairly recently, 2014, there's a growing animosity across party lines. Political party lines, that is. The bar chart here indicates that 27% of Democrats at this time saw the other party as a threat to the nation's well being, and 36% of Republicans likewise saw the other party as a threat to the nation's well being. That's rather harsh and that highlights the conflict that we're dealing with on the political level. And obviously this creates gridlock and many other types of tension that get in the way of our political system.

John Dehlin [00:07:38] And I'll just say you kind of see this polarization happening on the Internet where, you know, true believing Mormons, TBMs, definitely view progressives and post Mormons as evil or the enemy. Sometimes they use the term anti Mormon to describe us, even if we're just simply sharing facts or our own experiences that can be perceived as a threat to the world's, you know, to God's eternal plan. And similarly, this type of polarization occurs amongst the sort of progressive post and ex Mormon community where we sort of start to demonize, you know, TBMs. And sometimes that's even that term's used as a pejorative to sort of say

John Dehlin [00:08:19] that, you know, if you believe you're dumb, you're foolish, you're ignorant, and you know, you're causing, you know, ignorance or war or, you know, whatever, whatever ills that we look to society, we can just as easily sort of say religion's always the cause. And thus we have two groups highly polarized and demonizing each other.

Dave Christian [00:08:42] Yeah, those are good examples of this kind of conflict on the religious side, especially here in LDS culture. It's a big problem and certainly one that I sadly have participated in on both sides. I think I've made mistakes both when I was a true believing Mormon demonizing the other side and I think I have made similar mistakes Once I left the church. It was very easy to cast members of the faith in a negative light myself. That's something I'm hoping to transcend a bit by learning some tools.

Dave Christian [00:09:16] If we step it up from the political level to the international level, we can see how this divide has created all sorts of conflict. 9, 11 Chinese conflicts, conflicts in the Middle East. There is no shortage of illustrations of this conflict in the geopolitical and international realm.

Dave Christian [00:09:38] Here's a quick cultural example of the divide. It's interesting to me that liberals often talk about homosexuality as a genetic based trait or characteristic. However, they tend to see gender roles as something that is learned or chosen. This manifests as liberals trying to raise children in a unisex way, not to impose stereotypes, gender stereotypes on them. Where conservatives might say that's a little bit silly and there's nothing wrong with those stereotypes because they are inborn. Conservatives, on the other hand, tend to see gender roles as genetic, but homosexuality is learned or chosen. And this, you'll see, is at the basis of much of the conflict between right and left, conservative and liberal with regard to these kinds of issues.

Dave Christian [00:10:27] And it's strange because you would think, well, aren't these subjects that should be resolvable with some good research? They certainly would lend themselves to research. But let's take a look at what happens when we do research,

John Dehlin [00:10:42] when we

Dave Christian [00:10:42] present logic and data, even if it's soundly grounded in scientific studies. It's become apparent that contradictory evidence can actually drive opinions further in the wrong direction. Studies on this with regard to gun control, abortion, other issues. When you present data to people, it actually can steep them more in the orientation they're already leaning towards. So if we look at this conflict at the family level, I think my own story may be a good illustration. As John may have indicated, I was born in St. George, went on an LDS mission, ran into a number of issues that were doctrinal, historical, had issues with the cultural aspects of the faith, had a very unusual missionary experience, all of which combined to create a crisis of faith for me in which I decided it was time to check out

John Dehlin [00:11:41] Left.

Dave Christian [00:11:41] The church essentially didn't participate any further. I became what I call a bum. That's my acronym for atheist, Buddhist, Unitarian, and former Mormon. Kind of a Strange mix, but I've found all of those traditions useful in creating the person that I am today.

Dave Christian [00:12:00] Well, this transition on my part really triggered a shockwave of awe, if not awfulness, in my family. And if you see the picture on the left here, that's the chapel that I grew up with going to church in.

Dave Christian [00:12:14] My grandparents went to that church. Other family members went to that church. And then I transitioned. By the time I and my family had moved to Moscow, Idaho, where I took a position as a professor in the department of psychology, we started attending the Unitarian Church. That's the building you see, the White Chapel. It's a former Swedish Lutheran church. Lovely old building.

Dave Christian [00:12:37] We invited my mother to go to church with us one day, one Sunday. And she was a little bit shocked to find that our minister was not only female, but lesbian in a committed relationship. And the topic of her sermon that day was the connection between sexuality and spirituality, and was not too bashful about sharing a few explicit things to make her point about the connection between spirituality and sexuality.

Dave Christian [00:13:08] The woman that you see here is giving an expression not unlike the one that I saw on my mother's face. She was a little bit shocked with this. Not only with my behavior, but what she found we were being exposed to at the Unitarian Church.

Dave Christian [00:13:24] So this kind of conflict shows up in families. Many of you know that when you're making a transition out of your faith, that this creates a lot of conflict, a lot of. A lot of repercussions and ripples. Another place that I find this divide is in psychotherapy.

Dave Christian [00:13:46] Most of us are acquainted with Isaac Newton's statement that for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. And I certainly see this play out in my work as a psychotherapist, for example, when I'm working with spouses, especially those who are undergoing a faith transition, one perhaps is making that transition very rapidly, and it's very scary to the other party. And in response to this, they may react by actually pulling deeper into a more conservative view, a more orthodox view, to counterbalance what they perceive as the unhelpful influence of that spouse on the children going the opposite direction. So that just widens the divide as well.

Dave Christian [00:14:28] And I find a real need for skills in bridging in the psychotherapy realm as well. I also find a need for these skills now that I've been asked to serve as the president of the board for our local Unitarian Church.

Dave Christian [00:14:43] Unitarians, for those of you who aren't acquainted with them, are a rather liberal bunch, by and large. The single Biggest subgroup among Unitarians are secular humanists, atheists and agnostics, comprising about 40, 45% of the faith. Many people might even find it odd to call that faith. But as it turns out, these folks, including myself, find it really helpful to be part of a community.

Dave Christian [00:15:10] Faith in this context is much more about faith in the goodness of humanity and in the importance of doing good, whether or not one believes in God. Certainly many people at the Unitarian Church do have a very devout faith in some form of God. So it's a real mix of people. The problem is with Unitarians, we live in a community that's predominantly lds. Here in Cache Valley, it's very easy for Unitarians, who are quite liberal in their orientation towards faith, to get their knickers in a knot when it comes to interacting with Mormons.

Dave Christian [00:15:49] They often see Mormons as backward and as they have a hard time understanding their positions on local issues and national issues. So I've kind of taken it upon myself as part of my tenure as president to try to bridge some of these gaps. I think we can become better members of our Mormon community as Unitarians by practicing better skills at connecting with people on the other side.

John Dehlin [00:16:16] This is also relevant, I think, to just our personal lives. We have friends and family community members, many of us who are progressive or post Mormon, that we still have to get along with. And so I think a lot of these skills are going to be useful, not just for interfaith dialogue, but also for our personal relationships and even our marital relationships.

Dave Christian [00:16:39] Yeah, I'd agree. Many of the principles I'm going to be talking about here are ones that I use personally. I'll be going to my own family reunion in Southern Utah here in about two weeks. And I can assure you I'm going to be using most of these skills myself as I interact with my family members, most of whom are very devout members of the church Institute, teachers, stake presidents, bishops. We've got a little bit of everything right now. And I can assure you I haven't been as good at this in the past. Frequently I found myself in rather open conflicts. Here's a quick story to illustrate the point.

Dave Christian [00:17:14] For years my wife kind of cringed at the thought of family reunion because on more than one occasion it led me to find myself at the the dining table with most of my conservative uncles surrounding the other sides and a very heated discussion, argument breaking out about basic church principles, with essentially me taking on all of them at once. I found this amusing, but other family members didn't always find it quite as amusing. And certainly she didn't find it so amusing. I hope I'm in a better position now to interact better with my family members. I'm going to have a chance to try it out here in just a couple of weeks.

Dave Christian [00:17:54] Another place I find this very useful, these bridging skills is with professionals that I work with. Another part of my professional work is doing trainings for physicians, attorneys, IT people, counselors of all sorts, financial counselors, nurses, medical professionals. And the topic that I speak on is how to connect with clients and patients, because there's often a bridge that needs to be formed there between the professional who's trying to provide services and a person who either may not understand them or may be coming from a very different life stance or paradigm.

Dave Christian [00:18:33] One other place that I use these skills regularly is in my work as a lobbyist. I work as a lobbyist, a volunteer lobbyist for Citizens Climate Lobby, where we're trying to promote a program that we have reason to believe is going to address climate change. And I do that lobbying both at the local level with our representatives here in Utah, as well as work at the national level in Washington, D.C. and I have found these skills really helpful in a lobbying context. I, as you might gather, I'm fairly liberal in my approach to the environment, and virtually all of the members of Congress that I lobby are very staunch Republicans.

Dave Christian [00:19:13] And so I can assure you that, boy, bridging techniques are essential. So this brings us to Jonathan Haidt, who's written this book called the Righteous Mind. And the subtitle is why Are Good People Divided by Religion and Politics?

Jonathan Haidt's Moral Foundations Theory

Dave Christian [00:19:30] So I think Haidt's message is especially timely given where we're at with the culture wars right now. And I'll try to show some applications that I'm finding for, for the principles he's developed. Haidt makes a point early on in his book that we have the misconception that as humans, we're rational creatures.

Dave Christian [00:19:51] But it turns out the best research we have lately is suggesting that emotion is the primary response that we make to issues. We have an emotional response, and then that's followed within just a few milliseconds by our rational mind stepping in to create justification for the emotional response that we've already experienced. So our rational mind is a bit like an attorney making the case for the emotional intuitions that we've already arrived at.

Dave Christian [00:20:22] Some people find the elephant metaphor is a good way to capture this idea. The elephant represents our emotional mind, very powerful, very large, essentially with the dominant influence the writer would represent our rational mind. And it's not that the rational mind doesn't have influence. It does, but it's very tempered compared to the sheer power of our emotional responses. And finally, the path that the elephant walks on would be equivalent to the environmental factors that shape our behaviors.

John Dehlin [00:20:54] So our listeners can imagine a picture of a large elephant with a man riding on top. He's the rider, man or woman riding on top of, and then sort of a path that the elephant's walking on. And that's as Dave says, the environmental factors.

Dave Christian [00:21:12] So this configuration of our, or this arrangement of our reason being dominated by our emotions is captured in a well known bias that psychologists have studied for some years. It's called the confirmation bias. We've noticed that humans have a real tendency to seek out information that confirms their existing assumptions and beliefs and a selective disattention to information that disconfirms their beliefs. This little cartoon perhaps illustrates that which

John Dehlin [00:21:44] has, which has Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth on the left hand side of the theater with nobody waiting in line to see it. And then a sister film next door called A Reassuring Lie. And of course the line to see the movie A Reassuring Lie is wrapping around the theater.

Dave Christian [00:22:06] So Haidt decided that he needed to find, he wanted to understand these undergirding moral emotional drives that seem to be at the core of the culture wars, at the core of so much of the conflict between right and left.

Dave Christian [00:22:22] As a psychologist and a social psychologist, he developed an instrument, a questionnaire called the Moral Foundations Questionnaire. On screen right now I have an example of the first five items on that questionnaire. He then administered it around the globe, doing work in India and South America and other countries to try to achieve a cross cultural instrument that measured well, these different moral inclinations across cultures. And if you'd like, that can be found@moralfoundations.org you can actually take the Moral Foundation's questionnaire and score it yourself to see where you fall on these different dimensions. We're about to look at heights. Research brings out six moral dimensions or foundations as he calls them.

Dave Christian [00:23:11] And I've listed those on screen here. I'll just quickly touch on each of these. Especially for those who may not have the visual component. The first one is care versus harm. This makes us sensitive to suffering and predisposes us to help those in need.

Dave Christian [00:23:27] The Fairness module or foundation makes us concerned about proportionality or karma. Others should get what they deserve. But actually there's two components to this that aren't captured in this chart. People should get what they deserve. That is the fairness of proportionality, we call it. But he found another dimension that liberals resonate with, and that's fairness of outcome. That's a very different kind of fairness. So liberals resonate with fairness of outcome. Conservatives resonate more with fairness of proportionality. We can talk more about that later. Loyalty versus betrayal, the third characteristic, foundation, makes us sensitive as to whether or not others are team players and encourages us to ostracize those who betray our group.

Dave Christian [00:24:12] Authority versus subversion. Factor four makes us sensitive to people's rank, class or status and assigns that they are behaving according to their position. Liberty versus oppression makes us resent anything that feels like attempted domination or oppression. And the last factor, sanctity versus degradation, makes it impossible for us to invest objects with seemingly irrational value, which helps us to bind groups together.

Dave Christian [00:24:40] So, for example, the Angel Moroni would be an example of a symbol that has taken on a certain degree of sanctity and helps Mormons rally around it. Also, symbols of the Temple would be another one for Mormons. For Catholics, Catholics, the crucifix would be a similar object that carries that kind of sacred symbolic value.

John Dehlin [00:25:02] So we've got these six sort of domains of moral foundation. Again, I'll just repeat them. Care versus harm. So just taking care of people and alleviating suffering. We have fairness, we have loyalty versus betrayal, so sort of allegiance. Then we have authority versus subversion. So that's how much we defer to authority. Liberty versus oppression. So that's sort of freedom versus, you know, being, being harmed. And then sanctity versus degradation. And in the Mormon context, there's just all sorts of sort of sacred stuff from the temple to beliefs and doctrines that can be really important. So, all right, those are the six.

Dave Christian [00:25:52] So now on screen, I have a chart that illustrates how liberals versus social conservatives fall out along these six different dimensions of morality. On the top chart, you'll notice that liberals resonate very strongly with care, liberty and fairness. They resonate somewhat with loyalty, authority and sanctity, but to a much lesser degree.

John Dehlin [00:26:19] Okay, so as we think about that, care and harm, that's. I'm just going to sort of think of that maybe as kind of the, you know, the Good Samaritan. Do we. The way Ferryman of grief. It's sort of taking care of the poor and needy. What we're saying here is that maybe, maybe liberals and progressives might even care a little bit more about that than social conservatives on average. Now let me think about that. So then that's kind of soup kitchen stuff. And then there's liberty and oppression. So they really value liberty and freedom. So that, so that people can kind of do what they want and not be oppressed.

John Dehlin [00:26:56] That makes sense for progressives. And then they're sort of, you know, concerned about fairness and cheating, that people aren't the people are pulling their weight and that they're being honest and doing what's right. Now that's where they're different from, from conservatives. And then you've got really small lines for loyalty and betrayal. So you're saying the progressive are a little bit less concerned about, you know, splitting from the group or being disloyal. That makes sense. They're not big into authority and they're willing to subvert authority and they are paying less attention to sort of like, oh my gosh, don't talk about sensitive or sacred things, the sanctity degradation thing.

John Dehlin [00:27:38] They're just a little bit more willing to sort of challenge things even if they are enshrouded in sort of the holiness of some sort of sacred conversation. All right, so that, that makes sense to me. Now let's go to the social conservative moral matrix.

Dave Christian [00:27:55] Yeah, this is where things get interesting. Compared to the liberals, the social conservatives essentially resonate equally with all six dimensions. And that has some really big implications for politics as well as day to day interactions of people. So think of it this way, and there are some subtleties here I should point out. For example, even though conservatives resonate more or less equally with all six dimensions, they resonate with fairness in a different way than do liberals. So for liberals, fairness is more about fairness of outcome. So they would be promoting things like the equal employment opportunity where women and minorities and blacks and gays and people of all different dimensions that they were going to try to assure that they have equal access to jobs and opportunities.

Dave Christian [00:28:45] That would be fairness of outcome. Where conservatives are going to see this a little differently. They care about fairness, but it's a fairness of proportionality, meaning that you should get what you earn. So they're not so concerned about making sure we have an equal distribution of different races and genders in the workplace. They're more concerned that those who work hard get ahead and those who are slackers don't. That's a little different take on the fairness dimension. But other than that, the liberals and conservatives compare are fairly comparable on the other dimensions.

John Dehlin [00:29:22] And I think so, just to kind of contrast the two, we're not saying that conservatives don't care about Karen Harm, liberty and oppression and Fairness and cheating. They do maybe a little bit, you know, maybe a little bit less than their liberal counterparts. But then what we see is them caring about those three things, but a lot more emphasis on loyalty versus betrayal, authority and sanctity. So it's just more highlighting the differences. Highlighting the differences, I think. Right.

Dave Christian [00:29:56] And this has big implications for our political world. Jonathan Haidt, among other things aside from his research, has been asked to be a consultant to the Democratic National Party. And he has warned them that based on the figures that we're looking at here, if they care about winning elections, they really need to start speaking to those other three moral dimensions. Conservatives do a better job overall than liberals at addressing all of those six dimensions. So that has a pretty big implication for people with a liberal orientation is that they need to speak to those other values when they speak to the other side of the aisle.

John Dehlin [00:30:33] And I think electorally, Democrats are doing fine. I think we're more talking about the types of principles that are needed for the Democratic Party to actually function and operate healthily and successfully. Not that the listeners need to be Democrat or Republican to enjoy or value this presentation. But the point is, I think that starts us talking about this idea that if we're going to be building communities or even congregations with progressives and liberals, the fact that we might not value loyalty or authority or even sanctity as much might make it difficult to create these communities where we need some of those binding forces to have a healthy community.

Dave Christian [00:31:18] It's a good point. In fact, Haidt uses the analogy of taste. We're all acquainted with the different types of taste receptors we have in our mouth. Salty, sweet, sour, bitter. And the latest one is umame, which is that protein like flavor you get from meat. So our tongues are capable of tasting these different taste dimensions.

Dave Christian [00:31:37] The analogy here is that liberals respond very well to three of the six possible moral flavors. So they're going to like things that contain those flavor values. But if they want to speak, or if they want to create policies that are likely to be of interest to conservatives, they're going to have to mix a recipe, as it were, that contains all of those taste ingredients in it. They're going to have to present it, present their political dish, as it were, with enough of those other flavors so that it's palatable to the conservative taste. And certainly on the other side, when conservatives want to resonate with liberals, they have to understand that their message needs to really play heavily to those three flavors that liberals are looking for in the dishes.

Dave Christian [00:32:20] They'll respond Care, liberty and fairness. So those are a few of the implications. But also when we're talking with family members, when we're interacting with people in the public, it's good to keep these in mind, especially once you know what orientation the person you're talking to hails from.

Dave Christian [00:32:40] Here's another way to look at this. Notice this illustration we have on screen now shows that for liberals, the care, fairness and liberty dimensions are all. A common denominator is autonomy. There's a high respect for individualism, individual freedom, fairness to the individuals. And that's really a common core of liberal values, where conservatives, the circle that goes around their value cluster entails all six, and that we might call the community value system. There's a high priority placed on maintaining community, loyal to the community, obedience to the authority of the community, to maintain the structure of the community, whether that's the political party, a church or any other entity.

Personal Journey from Mormonism to New Communities

Dave Christian [00:33:29] So let me tell you a little bit about how this relates to my own personal experience. The picture we have on screen now shows the LDS temple. When I went through the LDS St. George temple, when I went through that temple for my own endowments as a young person, before I went on my mission, as may be the case for many people who go through the temple, I found this ceremony that was supposed to be held very sacred to have a number of rather shocking and disagreeable components to it. And yet I found myself constrained to talk about that with anybody because it's sacred. Not only are you not supposed to discuss the details of it openly, but certainly to question the.

Dave Christian [00:34:10] The sanctity of that would be to degrade it. That, I think, was kind of a part of my own liberal orientation that I said, why can we not talk about things once they've been marked as sacred or sanctified?

Dave Christian [00:34:24] I found that a bit stifling. You'll notice there's also a picture here of Sonia Johnson's From Housewife to Heretic. I took interest in the Equal Rights Amendment, which was all the focus of our culture at that time. Church, of course, had come down on the side against it, and I had a hard time understanding how this could be fair, to continue to treat women the way we were. That also contributed to my migration out of Mormonism, and that was resonating with my fairness dimension on my liberal values. You'll see another series of pictures here at the bottom of the screen. There's a picture on the far left of Stanley Milgram's study, a very famous study that was summarized in his book Obedience to Authority.

Dave Christian [00:35:09] In which he showed that authority can be used very easily to get people to do very bad things, such as inflict pain on each other. This was pretty shocking. And I realized not only from that, but my mission experience, I saw how authority could be used very easily to get people to do wrong things and bad things and things that could hurt or harm other people.

Dave Christian [00:35:32] And so that took place in Sydney, Australia. You'll see a picture of the Sydney Opera House there. Central to my mission. And finally, the last picture is the picture of the Marriott Library at University of Utah where I went into great studies in the special collections section, digging into church history, finding out the best information I could, and found that much of my church's history had been kept from me and that I had been given a very sugar coated, a very sanitized version of my church's history. And that really I realized that I felt the need for the Liberty and Oppression foundation for me required that that stuff be available.

Dave Christian [00:36:15] And I was very offended that my intellectual liberty, my intellectual freedom was constrained by, as a member of the church, that I was discouraged to look at those kinds of things. And there was actually pretty nasty social pressure brought to bear on me and those like me who wanted to study those things. And I think that we still see some evidence of that today.

John Dehlin [00:36:37] And just to sort of summarize and condense these two slides, you know, what I'm getting from them is just that those of us who are liberals or progressives or post Mormons oftentimes are just going to value autonomy over community and that there's a lot of virtue to that, but it makes it really hard to create community.

John Dehlin [00:36:56] What's difficult about that is that we need community. And that's one of the most consistent pieces of feedback that I get for progressive or post Mormons. I'm alone, I have no friends. I miss the unity, I miss the music, I miss the social groups. I miss the connection with others. I do think that we are tribal, you know, animals, so to speak, pack animals. And I don't know that the answer to the future of humanity is lots of isolation. As a mental health professional, I see every day the ill effects of isolation. And so if as progressives we overvalue autonomy at the expense of community, I think we may do that to our peril to some degree.

Dave Christian [00:37:39] Well, I think I experienced that personally as I made my exodus from the church. I greatly enjoyed my newfound liberty, my intellectual freedom. I could study whatever I wanted. Nobody told me what I could read and what I could not read. I could have discussions with anybody I wanted to about any topic. And that freedom, that liberty dimension, was very heady, very appealing to me. But I, of course, immediately noticed the loss of community, because to step into that realm, at least from my conservative Mormon background, that was inconsistent with membership and good standing. And so I was immediately identified as a bit of a pariah.

Dave Christian [00:38:17] I was identified as a dangerous person. I know among some circles, once it was known, I had left and I had a lot of information that people felt was dangerous to these sacred principles, principles and ideas and beliefs that to them were sacred. I now posed a threat, a conceptual threat to that.

Dave Christian [00:38:38] So that put a rift that drove a wedge between me and my community. And I certainly felt the absence of it. I felt the distance from my own family. I felt the distance from my community in St. George and found it harder to make community, even at University of Utah when I went away to school, because now I was part of the other side. I had switched camps. And that loyalty factor is very strong in Mormonism.

Dave Christian [00:39:06] Once a person has been labeled as disloyal to the gospel, we have some nasty terms for such people. These are heretics, these are apostates. We have labels that identify that these are betrayers of the faith. And those serve to drive a very big wedge between people, which has really disrupted my experience of community.

Dave Christian [00:39:27] Like you said, John, the community is really critical. It's essential for good mental health for all of us. I think many people who go through this transition, one of the first effects they suffer from the. The loss of community is depression and anxiety. And I see that in my practice as well for many, many people who go through this process.

Dave Christian [00:39:49] Well, next step in my development, when I was a resident in training at University of Mississippi Medical Center, I ran across the Unitarians, and I started participating in the Unitarian Universalist Church of Jackson, Mississippi. This church had a colorful history, as you can see from this very yellow newspaper on the right.

Dave Christian [00:40:11] The pastor of this church in 1965 was shot because he had the audacity to integrate the church's preschool and invite black children to be a part of it. Unitarians have a very long history of standing up for fairness, and I found that very appealing that they were willing to walk their talk. And I also like their encouragement of intellectual freedom and spiritual freedom. Those got me interested, and we started participating in that church.

Dave Christian [00:40:43] Jonathan Haidt actually contrasts churches. He shares a study in the book where they took sermons from Unitarian Universalists and sermons from Baptists, plugged them into a computer, and the computer analyzed those with regard to the terms that were used, and found out, not surprisingly, that Unitarian sermons focus heavily on care and fairness, where Baptist sermons focus heavily on loyalty, authority and sanctity. And I think we'd probably notice that in LDS congregations as well.

Dave Christian [00:41:18] So this brings up the question, how do we balance autonomy and community? If we look at our US Coins, many of them bear a Latin inscription, E pluribus unum, which translated means one from many. So we've recognized that our country really requires that we have many. We're a pluralistic society. But if we remain pluralistic and we don't form a one or a unity, that could imperil our security, it could cause all sorts of problems in terms of us being able to to be a unified nation.

Dave Christian [00:41:52] And certainly the Civil War would be an example where that unity broke down terribly, resulting in one of the most bloody and highest mortality battles in our history. We can see this dynamic tension between autonomy and community, even among our founding fathers. On screen now we have a poster featuring Benjamin Franklin where he is making a statement that resonates with autonomy. He says, those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Dave Christian [00:42:25] Pretty strong statement on his part, resonating with liberals and the autonomy cluster of values. On the other side, we have a poster featuring Ben Franklin again, where he says we must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly, we shall all hang separately. And he's calling attention here to the need for unity and community if we're going to stand up to the challenges that face our country.

Dave Christian [00:42:49] So why should we bridge this gap? A number of reasons, I think. The picture you see now features about 900 of my citizens, climate lobby colleagues standing in front of the nation's Capitol. This picture was taken in June of this year, just a couple of months ago. I'm somewhere lost in the sea of faces near the top of the picture.

Dave Christian [00:43:13] We went to Washington, D.C. to lobby for climate change, specifically for a proposal that we're promoting. See if we can get this through Congress. And what we find is that we run into this gap all the time. It's very easy for conservatives. We know we have to have conservative support for this bill if it's going to make it through. But it's very easy for conservatives to see this as primarily a bill that's going to further liberal values. And the conflict that that generates can waste a lot of time, energy and resources that obviously could be used better if we were to collaborate. And we see a lot of this conflict around issues like climate change. Right now.

John Dehlin [00:43:50] And I'm just going to say that in the post Mormon world and the progressive Mormon world, we see a lot of conflict as well. So people struggling with their faith attack apologists. They attack TBMs. They want to go to battle about, you know, historical claims and doctrinal claims because they want to sort of try and get people to understand and empathize with and support their point of view. And, of course, TBMs. And as Dave, as Dave noted previously in the presentation, you know, for every action, there's an equal opposite reaction. And so what you get is apologists and TBMS fighting back.

John Dehlin [00:44:32] Sometimes you even have progressives and ex Mormons fighting against each other. People who even share the same cause start to cannibalize each other and fight. And it just, I think it burns a lot of valuable time and energy and resources that could be used furthering mutual goals that we all share, either as progressives or post Mormons, or even goals that we share with true believers and faithful members. So it's super crucial that we avoid this conflict because it wastes too much time and energy.

Dave Christian [00:45:10] Exactly. Another reason, I think, for closing this gap is that it's the way to recreate community. And we need to have community not only with the people who are like us, but the people who are different from us.

Dave Christian [00:45:27] So, for example, as you said, John, we've got on the right right now, we have Tea Partiers who feel that conservatives not as conservatives as they are not true conservatives. So you've got this infighting even within parties, and those divisions can really break up communities in very unhelpful ways. And I'm very interested in ways to build community back again.

Dave Christian [00:45:48] So how does this bridging happen? If we're going to successfully bridge these gaps and these moral divides, these political divides between autonomy and community, how does that happen? What do we know about this? What research do we have that bears on this question?

Dave Christian [00:46:02] And this is where I'm reminded of my favorite candy bar, the Reese's Peanut Butter cup, pictured on screen. Now, many in the audience who are as old as I am will remember from about the 1970s, one of the first commercials for the Reese's Peanut Butter cup when it just came out was this. We've got a clip of it here, a snapshot from it. There's a young man who's walking down the street with headphones on eating chocolate, his favorite treat. And there's a young woman with headphones on not paying attention to where she's going either, coming down the other side of the street, eating her favorite food, peanut butter.

Dave Christian [00:46:38] As they meet the corner, a collision occurs, and they're both very upset. And he says, hey, you got peanut butter on my chocolate. And she responds, yeah, you got chocolate in my peanut butter. And then they both take a chance and they try the mixture and they realize this is better, the mix is better than either item by itself.

Dave Christian [00:47:01] And so the birth of the Reese's Peanut Butter cup apparently came to be. I think there's something useful in that analogy for bridging the gap that liberals have something to learn from conservatives, conservatives have something to gain from liberals. But that's a very delicate process, bridging those values so that both parties, both groups come away with something better than they had, strictly focused on their own values.

Dave Christian [00:47:28] So how do we do this? How do we bridge this gap? Very tricky, because if it's done poorly, if the attempts are done poorly, it can actually serve to estrange or further divide the groups. I believe the first element in this, whether you're doing this on an individual or group level, is you have to recognize that whoever you're speaking with is going to identify you or be trying to identify you as either friend or foe.

Dave Christian [00:47:54] And that's the critical juncture right there. As soon as the other party, the other individual, the other group identifies you as a foe, that is that your values don't align with theirs, the process is not going to go well. And so the key here is to be identified as a friend. And that cannot be faked. True friendship has to be, has to be created. And there are ways to do that, even if they're pretty sharp differences.

Dave Christian [00:48:21] When people see you as a threat to their values, you get one of two responses, either fight or flight. These have been recognized by psychologists for a long time. They seem to be inborn, genetically driven tendencies. When we see something that threatens us, we either mount a fight or engage in flight to get away from that.

Dave Christian [00:48:41] On the other hand, if you come across as friendly, you're much more likely to get collaboration with the other side. And collaboration is where is essential to bridge building. These, I feel, are the basics for building bridges with other people.

Dave Christian [00:48:57] First step is cultivating genuine trusting relationship. How do you do this? Step one, you have to show that you understand the other side's values. So when I'm working with clients in session, husband and wife who are in a high conflict set of marital problems, first step is to help each side show that they do understand the other side's point of view. This doesn't mean you have to agree with the other point of view. Too many people feel that showing understanding is going to be implicit agreement, and it's not. You can make that distinction.

Dave Christian [00:49:29] Step two is to not only show understanding, but appreciation of those values. Again, you don't have to agree with them, but you can acknowledge the utility or the benefits of the values the other person has without necessarily sharing them. Step three is to look for places where you can collaborate with that person on common values. This joint effort, when we can find a way to actually join forces with the other person and support their values in a common project, is the glue that really starts putting the elements of the bridge in place and securing it.

Bridge-Building Strategies Across Ideological Divides

Dave Christian [00:50:04] Once that's happened, once we've really extended ourselves to the other party, then we're in a position where we can seek their help with furthering our values because we've now become trusted. We've earned that trust and now we can translate those values, but we need to translate our values into their language.

Dave Christian [00:50:23] So, for example, when I do this as a lobbyist on promoting carbon fee and dividend, that's the proposal that Citizens Climate Lobby is trying to get through Congress. I am speaking almost exclusively to Republicans as our representatives from the state of Utah. I have to point out this is not a tax. Why? Because Republicans don't generally appreciate tax taxes. I point out that it's a fee and I make the distinction between a fee and dividend versus a tax. And those are important distinctions that they can resonate with. I have to point out that this over has the potential to reduce overall regulation. Why? Because Republicans find that compelling.

Dave Christian [00:51:04] They don't like regulation. And I can show how our program will achieve that. I can point out how it increases national security. I have studies that establish how addressing climate change actually reduces our defense costs. And these are studies that come from our own Defense Department.

Dave Christian [00:51:22] Our conservative legislators tend to be very interested in maintaining a strong defense, so they resonate with that. And then finally I can talk about its benefits for health, economy and the environment itself. Now, of course my inclination would be to go right to the environmental benefits, but that's something that liberals resonate with more when I'm talking with Republicans. I'm going to do my very best to speak in a I'm going to speak Republican. That is, I'm going to speak in terms that they can resonate with, but certainly not in any way that compromises my value.

Dave Christian [00:51:58] You'll see this approach being taken by Mormon missionaries. In my day we were almost strictly proselyting missionaries, but most of us have Noticed there's a shift in missionary policy. This picture illustrates two sister missionaries helping an elderly woman with her groceries.

Dave Christian [00:52:15] I've noticed that missionaries are not necessarily hitting proselyting first in their approach to new prospects. They are offering service and they're developing a relationship and a connection and friendship, as you can see being done here. In this picture, I use a little metaphor. I call it my handy metaphor. If you take a look at your hand, you can ask yourself which of those is your true digit? Is it your pinky finger, index finger, thumb? That's a silly question. Most of us recognize the key to getting the most out of your hand is the fact that your fingers can act in balanced collaborative opposition with your thumb.

Dave Christian [00:53:01] And without that, your hand doesn't serve much purpose. Notice that it takes equal and opposite force being exerted by your index finger and your thumb. If you're going to turn a key effectively, your thumb by itself or your index, for its finger by itself is incapable of that task. It has to have opposition in order to get things happening.

Dave Christian [00:53:25] Of course, we have Joseph Smith saying that there must needs be an opposition in all things. I don't know if this is what he was talking about, but it certainly seems consistent. Another factor in bridging is to be prepared to make a paradigm shift.

Dave Christian [00:53:42] On screen, we have a picture of Jesus arm wrestling Satan. That's the paradigm that I think we've had for a very long time. The notion that it's a war between good and evil. And when we look at the world as a struggle between good and evil, it's very easy to demonize the opposite side and to see them as the other team, the bad team.

Dave Christian [00:54:05] I think it works a little better if we lean on an Asian metaphor here, the yang and the yin. This symbol that's on screen represents the interplay and the interdependency of two sides on any issue. So like our thumb and our forefinger, without those two, we can't get much done. We really do need the checks and balances of opposing sides and contrasting values to get good things done.

Dave Christian [00:54:34] Let me give you another example of a way to build bridges. Jonathan Haidt points out that increasing exposure of both sides to the values on the other side can by itself go far in bridging the gap. Here you see on screen, Congressman Chris Stewart from one of our Congress people from Utah. I was in his office speaking with his chief of staff in June in Washington, D.C. and there was a very telling. They made a very. A very telling comment was made my delegation of about Five or six people was there sitting in his office chatting with him. And he said, you know, I have to tell you guys something.

Dave Christian [00:55:11] He said, this is about the fourth time your group, your lobbying group has come to meet with us in our office. The first time you came, we didn't really pay too much attention. But then the second time and the third time, and now the fourth time you've come, we have to pay attention to you guys. You are persistent, you keep exposing us to your ideas and we are taking notice of what you're offering here. That's the exposure effect. And notice that once we let ourselves get divided and not talk to the other side or rub shoulders with them, there's no exposure. So we really need to look for opportunities to intermix with people on the other side. And that repeated exposure has a tendency to start setting the stage for bridging.

John Dehlin [00:55:57] And for me, one area where this is really relevant is, you know, there's a lot of people out there who are doubting or no longer believe in the church, but they're kind of quiet and private and sort of in the closet about it still. And just as we've learned, you know, if you think of the movie Harvey Milk, where Harvey Milk turns to all his gay friends when they're trying to get a vote passed and asked if they've come out to their friends and family members, because we know that once people know a gay or lesbian person personally and have that personal interaction, they're willing to vote for them in a cause on some sort of ratio like 3 to 1.

John Dehlin [00:56:37] It's going to be very similar as we more and more decide to come out to our family and friends as non believers, as post Mormons, but we retain those relationships with them. That frequency of exposure is going to lead to more empathy and support. And so it's really important that when we feel safe and ready, that we come out to as many people as possible. Because that's going to help bridge divides.

Dave Christian [00:57:03] Absolutely. This next frame talks about or speaks to another bridging technique that we call externalizing the problem. It's very easy when you have two opposing sides, be those religious sides, political sides, for it to turn into an us versus them sort of a conflict. And we find that it's very hard to make progress when each side is defining the other side as the problem. This little diagram illustrates an alternative.

Dave Christian [00:57:33] It sees the problem as something external to the two parties. So for example, if we did this politically, it would be Republicans and Democrats defining a common problem such as climate change. I think both Republicans and Democrats would like to see the number of abortions in this country reduced. How they get there is another matter. But we find the common denominator and then see ourselves as joining forces in the pursuit of that goal. There's an old saying that nothing unites people like a common enemy, but we don't want to make that common enemy the other side.

Dave Christian [00:58:12] Another key tool for creating bridges is showing appreciation, which means affirming the other side's efforts, actions or intentions, and again, focusing on the areas of commonality and celebrating the achievements of the other side. One of our standard policies as lobbyists is to start off our interactions with members of Congress, complimenting them on anything that we know they've done that furthers our interests and furthers our common goals. In order to do that, I have to read their voting record before I meet with them to very carefully look for the things that they've done that I would appreciate. I'm not going to immediately jump on the bills that they didn't vote for that I would have liked them to.

Dave Christian [00:58:51] I'm going to focus on the things that they did that I appreciate. Another big factor in bridging the gap is being simply likable, which means being respectful, pleasant and helpful. This is. It seems so obvious, but if you think about that family member that you may know who you get into a conflict with regularly over religion or politics, ask yourself how likable they are. If they're likable. My guess is that you can find it much easier to have that hard discussion with them if you see them as likable and they see you as likable. In my case, it's my uncle Wayne. Wayne, he's a great guy.

Dave Christian [00:59:32] He's my favorite uncle. I've spent more time with him than any other. But he's politically very conservative. The fact that I like Wayne, I like him as a person, we have a close relationship. We can have very intense political and religious discussions, even though we come down on very different sides of the issues. But we remain friendly. And that's, I think, due to both of us maintaining likability wherever possible.

Dave Christian [01:00:00] This next frame shows President Obama cheering at what looks to be a child's soccer match. This is, sadly, something that is being lost in our nation's capital. Back when Newt Gingrich came into power as the speaker of the House, he changed something. Up until that point, conservative members of Congress coming in would bring their families with them and move them to Washington, D.C.

Dave Christian [01:00:26] newt Gingrich recommended that as of that incoming Class of representatives that they leave their families home. Now, sure, there were benefits to this, but one of the things that was lost is that you didn't have Republicans and Democrats at the same soccer matches with their children intermingling. You didn't have them going to the same schools. You didn't have your families commingling from the right and the left at public events and getting involved in public activities.

Dave Christian [01:00:55] So this bridge building technique is about exposure and cultivating those joint activities that build trust and friendship. This next frame I've got a shot of John himself because he's doing something that Jonathan Haidt recommends strongly for building bridges, and that's using personal stories.

Dave Christian [01:01:14] Notice that as we mentioned earlier, that when we simply share facts supporting our arguments, there's this strange effect where we can actually drive people deeper into the attitude that we would like to change. And yet personal stories have been shown to have a much more compelling effect on people, a more effective way of bridging with those people. Because again, personal stories speak to those elephants that we were talking about, the emotional side of each of us.

Dave Christian [01:01:48] Another factor is to speak to their group interest. Now pictured on screen right now is our Representative Rob bishop from District 1. I lobby Rob at a local level and we also meet with his office at the national level. Rob's a Republican, as most of you would know. And you can see the expression on Rob's face on the left is not one of great interest. And I have to say, the first time I met with Rob, that was the expression on his face because he knew we were there selling some kind of liberal environmental policy.

Dave Christian [01:02:25] But what we did is we tried to talk about how our proposal would address his group's interest, namely Republican interests. And by the end of that 30 minute interaction, Rob was looking much happier, as you see on the right here.

Dave Christian [01:02:40] That speaks to the importance of speaking to group interests. It's been noted in American politics that many people don't vote their own interest. So for example, you'll see poor people voting for policies or for politicians that frankly don't treat poor people very well. And people think that's an illustration of stupidity. It really isn't. When you realize these people are voting for their group's interest, not always their personal interest.

Dave Christian [01:03:06] So this principle is to know the group a person belongs to and speak in a way that addresses their group's interest, not just their individual interests. It's also important to be authoritative. You've got to know your stuff, but you can't share that until you've developed rapport Once you've got rapport, then you can share statistics and information. At that point you're going to have the beneficial effect rather than driving them deeper into their own opinions.

Dave Christian [01:03:33] Next principle for bridging is focus on what they can do rather than what they must do. Notice it's very easy in various spheres for us to talk about what the other side must do. Given the facts. You must vote this way. You must do this. Must creates verbal handcuffs and people tend to want to squirm free from those verbal handcuffs. It makes much more sense or it works much better to talk about what people can do and it shows that they could believe something that would still be consistent with their group's values.

Dave Christian [01:04:07] Another principle for bridging is diversify your group's view of the other side. This frame shows a picture of a person addressing a group of people. This occurred at Citizens Climate Lobby, our national meetings this year. One of our training sessions was conducted by Republicans and the title of the presentation was Something to the Effect of how Republicans Think on Climate Issues. And these Republicans had agreed to come in and talk about how Republicans see climate issues. And that really gave us a lot of insight in how better to work with Republicans as we lobbied.

Dave Christian [01:04:48] Haidt makes an interesting point. He says we should recognize when we go about doing what we're doing that our morality is weird. Weird is an acronym. It stands for Western, educated, industrialized, Rich and Democratic. And that probably describes a good share of the audience that will be listening to this. Most of us in this country are weird. And those with this.

Dave Christian [01:05:14] These that come from this demographic group, we tend to. We're actually the least typical people on the planet. If you look worldwide, people that meet these criteria are in the minority. And the weirder that you are in terms of these factors, the more you tend to see the world as made up of individuals rather than relationships.

Dave Christian [01:05:35] That's an important thing to keep in mind as we interact with other people. Let me give you some examples. We have a cartoon on screen right now and there's a woman dressed in a bikini and she's thinking about a woman she's passing on the sidewalk. And that woman is dressed from head to toe, covered up in a burqa. The woman in the bikini says everything. She's looking at the other woman with some disdain and she thinks everything covered but her eyes. What a cruel male dominated culture.

Dave Christian [01:06:05] At the same time, the woman in the burqa is looking at the bikini clad woman and thinking nothing covered but her eyes, she's wearing sunglasses. What a Cruel male dominated culture. With our weird orientation to the world as Americans, it's very easy for us to see oppression in those who don't really feel oppressed.

Dave Christian [01:06:29] This happens internationally or cross culturally. But I'll give you an example of where I made this mistake with my own sister many years ago, shortly after I'd left the church and was a little bit in the grumpy, antagonistic mood about that. I had the chance to drive with my sister from Salt Lake to St. George. That's a long drive. And the topic of religion came up and the topic of women's rights and religion came up. And I was haranguing her a little bit about how can you be so devoted to the Mormon Church when they treat women so badly?

Dave Christian [01:07:02] You don't have the priesthood, you don't have much control, you don't have much influence. It's male dominated, male values or it's a patriarchal society. And she looked at me with dismay and said, I don't feel oppressed at all. I don't feel that I'm missing out on anything. And of course, my inclination was to simply see her as so deeply deluded by her culture that she didn't realize she was being oppressed. So I think all of us have to be careful. It's easy to see the other side as duped, oppressed, or in a derogatory fashion.

Dave Christian [01:07:37] What are the implications of all this for religions? This is where I really tried to share something of use with my Unitarian congregation. I'll use some examples now of how this applies specifically to religions and those who are becoming post Mormon or progressive Mormon. Hopefully you'll see some applications that you might find useful.

The Great Exodus from Religion and What It Means

Dave Christian [01:08:01] It's important, I think, to recognize we have a great exodus underway. And this isn't just in Mormonism. We know there's an exodus taking place there, people who are moving out to the fringes of Mormonism and in some cases completely out. But this is not confined to Mormonism. This slide comes from the Christian Post. Just this most recent May statistics indicate that 3,500 people are leaving churches daily in the United states. States. That's 1.2 million people leaving churches, organized religions every year.

Dave Christian [01:08:34] A quote from this article says the majority of individuals who are leaving the church report that they no longer feel connected. That's telling. I think many people who are leaving today, it's because they don't feel a connection. And if we want to create community for people, we have to create this connection. It seems to be something that people are yearning for and if they don't feel it, they leave.

Dave Christian [01:08:59] Here are some statistics to reinforce that. This comes from the Pew Research center on the left. We have a graph that shows that since from 2007 to 2014, there's been a rise in people who are religiously unaffiliated. These are called the Nones. When asked, what religion are you? They say none. They don't want any and they don't have any. That number has risen from 36% to 56% in a short span of seven years. When we break this down by group, we can see there's clearly an age effect here with younger millennials comprising the larger portion of these people and then tapering down to the older group in our culture.

Dave Christian [01:09:42] So this has huge implications for people who want to create community. We've got to reach these people. In fact, there's a large group of people who are making this exodus and would most likely be interested in at least community, if not dogma.

Dave Christian [01:09:59] Unitarians are an example of this. I've got statistics on screen now that show that from 2008 to 2014, Unitarians suffered a loss in membership from 163 or 164,000 down to about 158,000 and dropping from 160, 1050 formal churches to 1047.

Dave Christian [01:10:20] That's not a terrible decline. In fact, it may be a little better than nationwide, but still, it is a decline that Unitarians ought to pay attention to. Next, I've got statistics for the LDS Church. And if you look, this is the 10 year moving average growth rate for the LDS Church. And as you can see, the growth rate has tapered off for the LDS Church as well here in recent years compared to growth rate for the population worldwide.

Dave Christian [01:10:48] So what do we make of this? If you want to create community, post Mormon, progressive Mormon, non Mormon, how do you do this? What are the implications? We as humans are ultrasocial, and Jonathan Haidt points out that we have a hive mentality. Biologists refer to organisms that are highly social as hiving oriented creatures, or they engage in hiving behavior. And of course, that name comes directly from honeybees.

Dave Christian [01:11:19] Bees tend to form hives, which are extremely intricate, collaborative, cooperative organizations. And if you've ever looked inside a beehive or seen the structure, it's extremely organized and well run, with very clear roles for each of the members of that community.

Dave Christian [01:11:37] Highly organized, a lot of unity. And notice how hiving creatures orient towards loyalty, authority and sanctity. The beehive is sanctified for bees. If you mess with that beehive, they are very loyal and they will come out in mass and try to sting anything that threatens the hive.

Dave Christian [01:11:58] And for many bees, this means the end of their life. They literally sacrifice their life in the process of stinging an organism that's threatening the hive. That it's ironic, I think, that the symbol for Utah is the honey or is the beehive. We are the beehive state. I think that's a very apt symbol for our state and for what it means to create a useful or a strong community.

Dave Christian [01:12:22] Now, can community get too strong? Can these principles of loyalty, authority and sanctity be taken too far? Certainly any virtue taken to an extreme becomes a vice. We have to recognize there's a downside to the extreme version of any of these value dimensions. But if we're in the business of creating community, even if it's liberal community, that requires a degree of loyalty, authority and sanctity, but it has to be done in balance.

Dave Christian [01:12:54] Jonathan Haidt, his other area of research, speaks to this. He studies happiness in addition to morality. And I like a quote Jonathan makes about this. He says, happiness does not come from within, it comes from between. There's a great deal of research suggesting that human happiness and functioning is highly dependent upon these interrelationships we have with others. I remember, too, I took a course in the sociology of Mormonism at University of Utah many years ago, and the sociologist who taught it shared a very interesting statistic.

Dave Christian [01:13:26] He said that of all faiths, those who disaffiliate from Mormonism are the least likely to reaffiliate subsequent to their departure. Of all the faiths, I've often wondered, why is that? Why do Mormons reaffiliate and rejoin and rejoin community less than anybody else? It may be because of the very strong doctrine that it's the only true church, who knows? But I think this really says that we need to find better ways to create post Mormon communities or liberal Mormon community, because this is a group that struggles very much with that, with that activity.

John Dehlin [01:14:03] What I hear you saying is, you know, I think it's pretty demonstrable that even in the field of psychology will acknowledge that, on average, people who are involved in religious traditions are happier than those who are not affiliated. But when they've really teased out what the factors are that contribute to that happiness, I think that what they found is, is that it's the community, not necessarily the. The doctrinal or religious beliefs or even the spiritual pursuits that really contributes most to that happiness. And so I think I'M not saying that post Mormons or progressive Mormons aren't happy, but I am saying that if over time, and especially if you think about not only ourselves, but our children, our grandchildren, and you know, what I worry is that we're going to find that we may feel better leaving the institution that we didn't believe in.

John Dehlin [01:14:59] But whether we fare as well without strong communities I think is something to be seen. And my instinct is that if we can figure out how to create these communities, how to build and foster communities for us, we don't have to sort of of, you know, have one or the other. We, we can both have our conscience and our, you know, our distance from dogma that we think is harmful. We can embrace science and embrace a more, let's just say, liberal or progressive worldview that, that suits our conscience and our the way that we make sense of the data that the world provides us. And we can still enjoy the benefits of casseroles to people with cancer and pregnant, you know, women, babies, service projects, maybe even occasional Sabbath or Sunday services that are more TED talky and inspirational than, you know, sermons based on dogma.

John Dehlin [01:15:56] We can have youth groups and book clubs and children's groups and bike groups and all sorts of different social connections that leave us with sort of the best of both worlds. I think that's where we're sort of coming from. And that's why I think that happiness message is really important.

Dave Christian [01:16:15] We're seeing it all over the place like you're saying, John, we're seeing it. For example, there's a great book I just finished reading called the Blue Zones by Buettner. And he focuses on those parts of the world where we have an extremely high percentage of people reaching the age of 100. And one of the common denominators for those cultures is that they have very strong sense of community.

Dave Christian [01:16:37] There's another study called the Depression Cure by Ilardi, and he looks at cross cultural patterns of depression and notices that those cultures that have very high degrees of community have much lower rates of depression. So I think separate and apart from dogma, we have to recognize the value of community. It's an essential ingredient for human happiness and well being. Another book that illustrates this is Dean Ornish's book Love and survival, where Dr. Ornish is a doctor of internal medicine from Stanford, I believe, and he summarizes several hundred studies in his book that show that the more connection people have, the more intimacy, as he calls it, with other people, the lower their rates of almost every known type of Morbidity or mortality, including heart disease, stroke, cancer, even accident rates, are shown to be lower for people who have a higher sensitivity of community.

Dave Christian [01:17:36] So we're just seeing this coming in at us from many, many different sides. We can't ignore it. So what does it take to make healthy community? I'm going to suggest that it takes a balance of both conservative and liberal values. We need the autonomy values that liberals are good at, but we need the community values that conservatives are good at. And we need to find a way to balance those for each respective group that wants to form. And it's not that all groups have to be the same or blend these in the same way.

Dave Christian [01:18:10] Haidt makes the case that the best nation we could have would be a tribe of tribes. It would be a community of communities. It's not the idea that we need to blend everything to a homogenous midpoint. That's not the idea at all.

Dave Christian [01:18:25] Communities can and should form around principles that they value and form a healthy community that's very distinct, but at the same time maintain their connection with the other communities in our country. Here's some ideas that I'm going to toss out for lessons in building community. The picture that you see on screen right now on the left is my great, great grandfather, Dudley Levitt. Dudley Levitt was an early Mormon pioneer sent to southern Utah by Brigham Young to colonize that area.

Dave Christian [01:19:02] Dudley Levitt was commanded into polygamy. As was the case in those days, most people had to be called into polygamy and he was called to take on five wives. You'll notice in this picture that the next to the last woman on the right is a Native American woman. And from his history we learn that this woman had lost her husband. She was a member of the church, she was out without support, and he was commanded to take her as a wife and support her and her children.

Dave Christian [01:19:35] The other picture on this frame is a picture taken at the St. George city limits. And you can see this is a road coming into St. George from a side that most people don't see. This is probably a good snapshot of what St. George area looked like when Dudley Levitt arrived. It's barren, it's hot, it's desolate. Almost nothing grows, there's almost no water. It is a very stark landscape. And so how was it that these people who were given so much, so many demands were placed on them, how did they form community?

Dave Christian [01:20:12] Well, we have this study online or on the frame right now by Richard Sosis. He looked at 19th century communes and did some very of which there were several hundred. And of course the Mormons experimented with communal arrangements as well the United Order. And he asked the question how many of these made it at least 20 years or more? If the commune was secular, that is no religious aspect to it, only 6% survived to see their 20th birthday.

Dave Christian [01:20:42] However, if it was founded on religious principles, essentially six times as many of those made it past the 20 year mark, 39%. He found additionally that the more demands a group placed upon a religious group placed upon their commune members or community members, the longer they lasted. And we certainly see evidence of this for the Mormons.

Dave Christian [01:21:06] Early pioneers had tremendous demands placed upon them. And yet instead of scaring them off in it seems to have deepened their commitment and their group cohesiveness.

John Dehlin [01:21:15] So why shouldn't this depress us and make us think that it's a futile effort as maybe more liberal, progressive and even secular folks? Why are you ending with a way to discourage us?

Dave Christian [01:21:29] Right. Well, this is a dilemma I face as president of the board at the Unitarian Church because liberals are like herding cats. They're very independent creatures where conservatives, if we'll make an animal analogy, are perhaps more canine like they tend to run in packs. They tend to naturally organize and community better. And so this is a big challenge for me personally as I try to help the Unitarians develop greater group cohesiveness, greater community and one of the things that we've recognized. I have to say it seems like about half of our Unitarian Church membership is comprised of former Mormons like myself. And those of us who come from the Mormon tradition are struck by how little demands the church places on people.

Dave Christian [01:22:13] There aren't callings, there's very little asking of people to do things. I think that's an opportunity missed. It's not that we're going to be quite as heavy handed perhaps as some organizations are, but I think we could benefit from this principle of making greater requests of people. They can accept or refuse those requests. But I think we need to make more invitations, offer more opportunities for service to the church and to those outside of our church because frankly, it builds group cohesiveness. We've got a lot of evidence suggesting that some other ways to build community. On this frame you'll see a picture at the top of people standing in front of the Logan LDS Tabernacle.

Dave Christian [01:22:56] Several of those people are members of my congregation, the Unitarians out demonstrating for peace. That's an illustration of creating purposeful community. Unitarians are very big on promoting peace, social justice, environment. And I think that we as a community need to benefit. And any community that's forming post Mormon, progressive Mormon needs to have a purpose. It's almost as though you need to have an identity.

Dave Christian [01:23:22] It's very easy to define yourself and your identity as in terms of what you are, not as post Mormon or progressive Mormon. But notice that you're still defining yourself in terms of Mormonism. I think it's going to be important for these groups to cultivate an identity that's unique to them. It may still reference Mormonism in some way. It's still important, of course, but you need to also develop a clear narrative.

Dave Christian [01:23:47] Mormons are very good at this. They have a powerful narrative, a powerful story that talks about how they came to be, why they're here and where they're going. We know that really tends to be a nucleus around which communities form and benefit from that sort of narrative.

Dave Christian [01:24:05] We as Unitarians need to get a better narrative and identity, not only for our own purposes, but to function in our larger community. We've realized if we're going to grow, our community has to recognize who we are and what we're about. And we've done a very poor job of that. That by and large.

Dave Christian [01:24:22] So this is about identifying who you are, what you do and why it is that you do that. I think those are critical for anyone building community. Factor number three is care for our family. Jonathan Haidt talks about the power of parochial altruism. Big fancy word. What does that mean, parochial altruism? It means taking care of your own first of your group members. First Unitarians are notorious for wanting to take care of everybody else.

Dave Christian [01:24:52] We have members in our congregation who go to Haiti after the earthquake and donate considerable time and effort and money, hands on helping. That's not parochial altruism. That's altruism. But it's for those outside of one's parish, as it were, for community building. It's not that those aren't good things and we want to still do that, but we really need to.

Dave Christian [01:25:13] Groups have to engage in parochial altruism, taking care of their own in group members, which creates that sense of cohesiveness and family. Number four is getting organized. Any group has to have some organization. And those who are liberal in particular leaving faiths are usually fleeing to some degree what was too much organization.

Dave Christian [01:25:35] But to have a good community, you do have to have some organization. There has to be structure, there has to be roles. And this involves distributing the work and the service so that you prevent burnout. Otherwise a few passionate individuals can take the brunt of the workload, and that very quickly can lead to burnout. And finally, last principle, building cohesion with synchronous work and play. Haidt talks about synchronous work and play means doing things together. So you see a picture of our Unitarian congregation having a group activity and a backyard. And you also see an example of what we as Unitarians call our circle suppers, where six to eight of us gather in homes and have a meal and it's just pleasant conversation and getting better acquainted with each other.

Dave Christian [01:26:22] Those are examples of synchronous play, synchronous activity, and certainly work projects where you work as a group are a tremendous way to build a sense of cohesiveness. I noticed this recently when I was helping with the spring cleanup at our Unitarian church. I got much better acquainted with the other people who were there as we worked together, taking care of the grounds and other things that needed attention. I built much more cohesiveness with those people in two hours of working with them than I have built with them, rubbing shoulders, just sitting next to them in the church for service after service.

Dave Christian [01:26:58] That is an example of synchronous work and the effect it has on community. So that, in summary, is some of Haidt's observations on creating good community and also bridging gaps between ourselves and those who are different from us.

Building Progressive and Post-Mormon Communities

John Dehlin [01:27:16] And just really briefly, to bring it back to kind of the main purposes of why I wanted to capture this presentation. You know, we have over 120 now face to face communities that you can find at a website called mormonspectrum.org. there's one in Cache Valley, there's one in Phoenix called the Phoenix Open Mormon Community. There's a great one in Utah Valley called the Utah Valley Post Mormons. They're in Salt Lake City, Boise, London, dc.

John Dehlin [01:27:45] You can find meetup groups or Facebook groups all over the world, literally for progressive and post Mormons. In addition, you'll find various groups on the Internet, you know, thoughtful faith, and there's a Mormon Matters community. There's, you know, ordained women, there's feminist Mormon housewives, there's feminist Mormon women of color, there are all sorts of groups out there, ex Mormon, post Mormon, etc. And what I, you know, think we ought to consider is how we might, you know, decide if we can start taking these communities to the next level. And so I just believe that these principles that Jonathan Haidt provides with us that Dave has discussed, if we can figure out how to apply these principles to our communities, maybe we can take them from sort of pipe dreams, you know, online communities or even these face to face communities that are just emerging and maybe build them into something a lot more significant.

John Dehlin [01:28:51] So just a plug for mormonspectrum.org go find your community there if you are able. If you can't find a community existing in your local town on mormonspectrum.org you can go to them and they'll tell you how to create that community and then we'll help you advertise it. But what I would love to see are, and we'll be talking about this in the weeks and months ahead, see some of these communities start to branch into the territory of forging deeper ties. Because I think we need to move from lots of online stuff to more face to face stuff. And I think we may find that our happiness as progressive and post Mormons actually grows in the process.

John Dehlin [01:29:34] So thank you so much, Dave for coming on and I just want to also highlight that Dave, Dave makes his services available as a mental health professional to people who are in need, whether you have depression or anxiety, mental illness, or if you just need life coaching. So if you're in a faith crisis, if your marriage is in distress, if you are struggling with your identity in some way, you can actually reach out to Dave and he can provide either in person or sort of coaching over Skype for those who are in distress. And Dave, why don't you tell us the website where they can get ahold of you?

Dave Christian [01:30:15] Sure. Happy to help in any of those ways or if folks are interested in building community, as John said, happy to help with any of those issues if I can. My website is mydocdave.com that's my D O C-A V E dot com. It provides all the contact information you need to get in touch with me and happy to help wherever I can.

John Dehlin [01:30:40] All right, so thank you, Dave Christian, for coming on this sort of Mormon story Mormon transitions episode. And we invite everyone to please join us either@mormonstories.org or mormontransitions.org to follow up with questions or comments or concerns. We'd love your feedback as well and we look forward to ways that we can build fantastic community for post Mormons and progressive Mormons in the years ahead. And we're grateful to Dave for providing us with some wisdom and to Jonathan Haidt. So thanks listeners and thanks so much, Dave.

Dave Christian [01:31:21] Thank you, John.

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.