Introduction and Welcome Back

Part 1 of 2 · Ep. 366

John Dehlin [00:00:00] 1, 2, 3.

Joanna Brooks [00:00:04] Come, come ye saints. No toil nor labor fear, but with joy wend your way.

John Dehlin [00:00:18] Hello and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I might even say a special edition of Mormon Stories podcast, but the truth is I say that every time. I'm John Dillon, your host and today I could not be more excited to be doing something new and different and special.

John Dehlin [00:00:35] We are announcing a new project. We'll try it one time and see if it works. I think it will. It's called Mormon Stories Book Club. And what we're going to be doing is featuring a book. We're going to be having an interview with the author of the book.

John Dehlin [00:00:52] And what we, what we are going to be doing is providing resources through Mormon Stories. This podcast is an interview questions for a book group, other, you know, past episodes, and other materials that we think you'll find interesting. And basically what we want to support is people having book clubs all over the world, within and without Mormonism. And so we'll give you these resources. You guys can plan your book club, you can watch this interview, you can buy the book. I should mention we'll talk about the book in just a second. But you can buy it and you can host book clubs and even have the author through Skype or maybe even through personal visits, depending on the situation.

John Dehlin [00:01:36] Actually have the author come to your book club either virtually or in person and have a great discussion about the book. So that's Mormon Stories Book Club. You can read more about it@mormonstories.org but today we are going to feature as our inaugural guest on Mormon Stories Book Club, Joanna Brooks. Welcome, Joanna, again, welcome back to Mormon Stories.

Joanna Brooks [00:02:01] Thank you for having me back.

John Dehlin [00:02:04] It's our pleasure. So here it is, the Book of Mormon Girl Free press. It's out August 7, 2012. I've read it. It's fabulous. It's a real gift to Mormons and non Mormons and I mean that sincerely. You can buy it at, you can buy it through Mormon Stories if you want. Maybe they'll throw a few pennies our way for helping to sell it through the Amazon Club or whatever. But you can also buy it at your local mom and pop bookstore. You can buy it at all the major bookstores. You can buy it online@Amazon.com you can even buy it where Joanna, you can

Joanna Brooks [00:02:51] buy it at Deseret Book.

John Dehlin [00:02:52] At Deseret Book.

Joanna Brooks [00:02:54] Woo hoo.

John Dehlin [00:02:54] Thank you, Deseret Book. All right, so we're going to be talking about Joanna and the book today on Mormon Stories. So welcome again.

Joanna Brooks [00:03:02] Thank you for having me. Thank you to everyone in Mormon Stories world.

John Dehlin [00:03:07] Well, it's a great. It's a great community, and it's great to have you here. All right, so let's begin. Oh, something else that's kind of special. We've invited five special, maybe six special guests to our studio. And later, we're going to allow them. They've all read the book, and we're going to allow them to ask some questions. So it'll be the first time other people, aside from yours truly, appear as interviewers in the video version of Mormon Stories. So those of you listening in audio, you can actually be watching this interview and see Joanna in all her Glory on YouTube.com MormonStories Glory, glory, turquoise glory.

Joanna Brooks [00:03:47] Yeah, always.

Revisiting Joanna Brooks and Her Story

John Dehlin [00:03:49] So I guess we should begin by noting the fact that in our first interview with you, we covered a lot of awesome territory. We talked about your childhood, we talked, about, you know, your time at byu, we talked about your time after byu and, you know, kind of some of your faith struggles, even talked about your marriage and kind of a little bit about the composition of your faith today. And so we're going to touch on some of that. But the truth is the book talks a lot about that stuff, so I want that to be the first place people are able to read it.

Joanna Brooks [00:04:21] It's in there.

John Dehlin [00:04:23] This is a memoir, right? So listen to that Mormon Stories interview if you want to hear that. We're going to talk about new ground. We're going to cover new ground here. So the first question that came into my mind, because I wonder if this is going to maybe help frame you a little bit, is just to ask, who are your heroes?

Joanna Brooks [00:04:43] Ooh. Hmm.

Joanna Brooks [00:04:47] You start with the easy one.

John Dehlin [00:04:48] Yeah.

Joanna Brooks [00:04:49] I have very random and odd heroes all over the place. I think my dad is one of my heroes. And I've come. I just lost. He passed away about a month ago, I think, after a long struggle with als, which is a very terrible disease. And he was a very observant, faithful Mormon man who served in a lot of callings, served in a couple as bishop in three. Three different stints, you know, and at his funeral, when I was talking about him, I was helping give. All of his children spoke. And I just kind of asked everyone who was there, who he had mentored. He was a great mentor of young men to stand up.

Joanna Brooks [00:05:33] And there were all these young men who he had mentored, and he had just shown up for people and been really consistent, had an eye on, like, passing it on to the next generation. And for Him. It was really about young men. It was really about young men. So he's definitely someone I really have always idolized, even though our lives were really different in some significant ways.

Joanna Brooks [00:05:56] And then there's a talk about all over the map. Then there's a writer named Audre Lorde, who is an African American feminist, lesbian, poet, philosopher, whose essays I always find myself turning back to when I need courage, which I need all the time. And so, you know, there's Audre Lorde, my dad.

Joanna Brooks [00:06:19] I'm trying to think. Terry Tempest Williams was a hero of mine at a pivotal point, as was Carolyn Pearson in the 90s when I was like coming into my feminism at BYU. They were the writers I turned to to find myself.

Joanna Brooks [00:06:36] And I think there are other more conventional Mormon liberal heroes like Eugene England. I have heroes among September 6, like Lavina Fielding Anderson's always been a hero of mine. And Margaret Toscano. So many.

John Dehlin [00:06:51] Any sort of traditional civil rights kind of heroes. Kind of the activist in. You

Joanna Brooks [00:06:59] see, I never really thought of myself as that tremendous of an activist, really. You know, I never thought of self consciously modeling. I really have just always loved being in the thick of things, you know, Whereas I think I remember seeing the movie Gandhi when I was in sixth grade. I don't know if that's normal. Like I went to a theater with friends, like at like you're like 11. Hey, what should we do this Saturday? Let's go see Gandhi. So I guess maybe that kind of is a key that I was different.

Joanna Brooks [00:07:29] Yeah. No. And you know, I think in grad school I got to read just so much political philosophy, political history, and just think about this world stage of actors and what it means to really be in history and to play a role in history, help nudge history along. So there's just so many writers and thinkers. But I never thought of myself as an activist like on that in that way.

John Dehlin [00:07:51] So when you say being in the middle of it, you mean to be a positive force in helping move history along?

Joanna Brooks [00:07:57] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:07:58] I don't mind admitting that, that I

Joanna Brooks [00:08:01] want to help be a positive force in helping move history. Well, I want to be very, I don't know every day what the positive direction is. I follow my heart and I follow what I understand to be the teachings of Jesus Christ. Like what would Jesus do? You know, and sometimes really it's. I get. I feel just pushed in some directions. I don't really. I just feel pushed. And it goes back from early, like my mom tells me, and my mom and I are Very different people. I mean, my mom is like, whip smart. Like, not a sort of traditional Mormon woman, was a stay at her home mom her whole life, but, like, has a definite opinion on things, even though we are different.

Joanna Brooks [00:08:41] But, you know, she writes in her journal from that. When I was six, you know, we were having a conversation about, like, the millennium in the kitchen at home. And I was like, mom, you mean, you know, people will be kind to each other and there'll be no more pollution. You know, so for me, from six, like, the millennium meant justice, it meant kindness, it meant healing, it meant a renewal in ways that sort of map onto liberal sensibilities. So when I was in fourth grade, I talk about it in the book. When I was in fourth grade, I got to choose two term papers to write that year.

Joanna Brooks [00:09:14] One I wrote on Joseph Smith, the other I wrote on the Equal Rights Amendment. So my mom is like handing me the Phyllis Schlafly pamphlets. So I think I just tell people I was just born this way. Not like some affected, studied thing. It's just how I was born made. That's how I came out.

John Dehlin [00:09:34] Got it. So we talked a lot in our first interview. And the book talks quite a bit about how tough your BYU years. Well, how glorious your Southern California Youth Conference sort of young men, young women experience was. And then how energetic and optimistic you came to byu, almost like Dorothy coming to Oz. Right. And then maybe you got a peek behind a metaphorical curtain or 2 and left BYU, maybe not as the happiest camper. And then you struggled to try and find your way in the church. But then maybe for several years, wasn't as active as you might have been.

Years Away from the Church and Returning

Joanna Brooks [00:10:18] Wasn't active at all.

John Dehlin [00:10:19] Yeah, yeah. And we'll save.

Joanna Brooks [00:10:22] Let's just be playing. I did not go to church for a long time.

John Dehlin [00:10:25] So you're not inactive for probably eight years. Eight years. So, you know, there's the sense that, oh, you learn all the history, oh, you have bad experiences with the church, you leave it and then you're gone forever. Right.

Joanna Brooks [00:10:41] That's one of the storylines we tell each other.

John Dehlin [00:10:43] Right.

Joanna Brooks [00:10:44] But I don't know. I mean, one of the reasons I wrote this book was because especially when I was coming of age in my 20s, there were these two. And it was right during the 90s when there was, you know, this incredible pressure and incredible focus on intellectuals and feminists as being dangerous. And the prevailing storyline at that time was you stay and you suck it up or you just leave. There's just two stories. It's Just one or the other, you know, and life is so much more complicated. There are more stories than that, and they just don't get told enough. You know, there are other ways of negotiating faith.

Joanna Brooks [00:11:24] It's not for everyone. For some people, it is. I don't begrudge people whose paths go like that, but I hungered for a wider range of stories. I think that's one of the beautiful things that you've done. You know, you've given us all these stories, so many different ways of living this faith.

John Dehlin [00:11:42] Right. But this is kind of jarring for people. Like, there probably aren't a lot of historical facts you didn't learn by 24. And maybe some of the ways you were treated, villainized, maybe even you could, say, could leave someone marred for life. And so someone might look at you as an enigma and say, why did you come back more of an enigma?

Joanna Brooks [00:12:03] I think that title's taken. But that would be really great for the book club, which, by the way, is just a really brilliant idea. I just think it's great to be supporting Mormon authors. And I know there are, like, people like Matt Bowman and others down the line that are really going to be a great addition to this community. So thank you. Yeah, that is sort of an enigma. It's enigma even to me. But that's. That's faith, you know?

John Dehlin [00:12:25] So how did it. When did that spark come and come back? Yeah, like, when did that first spark come? And then how did it grow? You're. You're getting. You're getting your PhD, your University of Texas. Like, when did it start?

Joanna Brooks [00:12:39] You know, here's the thing, and maybe this is just stubborn wrongheadedness, which I am completely capable of, but I always felt like I didn't leave the Church. The church left me. Like, I was witnessing this very painful moment in Mormon history where. And this moment had a body count, and I hated it. I hated seeing that happen in a faith tradition that I felt my ancestors had helped build, that my life had helped build, that I felt very connected to, that I felt just formed me from the core.

Joanna Brooks [00:13:14] And the question was, could I live out that moment? And, you know, could I live out that particularly intense moment in Mormon history? Could anyone survive that? See, that was the thing that was such a pity about the early 90s was that the idea you either in or out. It was also, you were dead or alive. Like, there was no surviving the purge. Right. They got to do that to people. They got to X you out of the Mormon community, and there was no ever coming back you know, they could stigmatize you and shame you, and you would go. And I was just stubborn, you know, just like, no, no.

Joanna Brooks [00:13:49] It just didn't feel safe to come back for a while. And then I found good reason enough to come back and really exert my courage and say, no, this absolutely has always meant something to me. And even with its complexities and contradictions, it's, you know, the spiritual dimension of my life has always been by far the most interesting.

Joanna Brooks [00:14:10] Let's continue the story. I hate it when the story ends it. And they won and they killed you and they eliminated all of these people, and it was over. It's not over. Not at all. I mean, that's what's so, like, beautiful about this moment. For people like me who remember the early 90s is like, Mormon feminism today is stronger. It's stronger, right?

Joanna Brooks [00:14:31] And that's because there have. I'm not the only one. There have been other women who said, yeah, no, we're not leaving. It's not that easy.

John Dehlin [00:14:39] What did you miss most when you were. When you were gone for eight or nine years,

Joanna Brooks [00:14:46] Sundays were deadly quiet. I mean, they were always good quiet. When you're living an observant Mormon life, you know, you go to your meetings, you kind of come home and you chill, take a long nap. But there was an emptiness on Sundays that I just never felt right with. That spot in time was just never adequately filled. We tried other things. We tried to go to Quaker meetings, and Quaker meetings were great, you know, but, yeah, the Sundays were empty.

John Dehlin [00:15:14] Were there parts of your religious and spiritual practice that you maintained even while you were away?

Joanna Brooks [00:15:18] Oh, yeah. I always prayed the whole way through. Yeah. And prayed as a Mormon. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:15:27] Did your daughters have anything to do with you coming back?

Joanna Brooks [00:15:29] Oh, yeah. Yeah. Even when I was back at church, from the time they were little, you know, I was always telling them, okay, you know, teaching them things, teaching us things. Come, come be saying to them in the rocking chair. You know, there's a scene in the book where I talk about how when I brought my daughters back to church, Ella, who was, let me see, just over four when I started coming back, you know, she had never heard Come, Come, Ye Saints sung by, like, a crowd. She'd only heard it sung by me, like, in the rocking chair at night. So one of the first meetings I brought her back to was, you know, in the summertime, was around pioneer days.

Joanna Brooks [00:16:04] So we sang Come Cummy Saints, and Ella, like, literally, like, spun her head around, could not believe that all these people knew this Song and she started, like, dancing in the aisle at church. Like, you know, we always sit in the overflow because we're really underachiever Mormons. We're always about five minutes late. And, you know, maybe the husband's there, maybe he's not, but she, like, leaped into the aisle of the overflow and like, literally started dancing in church.

John Dehlin [00:16:27] You know, she discovered her people.

Joanna Brooks [00:16:29] Yeah, because I had been trying to teach her all of this.

John Dehlin [00:16:31] Half of her people, yes.

Joanna Brooks [00:16:33] She has two fine peoples. I'd been teaching her all of this in isolation, you know, even when we weren't going to church, I'd say, okay, we've got to do something today. I've got to teach you. You know, you've got to learn how to pray, and I've got to teach you about God and the plan of salvation and. Yeah. Even by myself.

Why She Wrote The Book of Mormon Girl

John Dehlin [00:16:52] So a lot of people want to know why you wrote this book. Kind of what your agenda was and what you were trying to accomplish. And I just. I have to say that if I were to think about writing a memoir, I would be really self conscious about the fact that I don't want to appear narcissistic. Like, I believe that my life was so important that everyone needs to know about it. And so that would psych me out as I was writing it. So to get over that, you kind of have to really have something you feel is important to say other than the fact that you're a brilliant writer. So why did you write the book?

Joanna Brooks [00:17:29] I had. I'd always written from the time I was a kid. Like, I had my first poem published in the Friend when I was eight, you know, Whoa.

John Dehlin [00:17:36] And the Friend.

Joanna Brooks [00:17:37] Yes, nice. Exactly. And had always loved writing and wrote all my way through BYU and never known how to write about Mormonism. Like, no one. There was this whole cohort of us who went through at BYU with these great professors like Darrell Spencer, and none of us really knew how to write about Mormonism. And there were just not that many books out there about Mormon people. I mean, growing up, like, I read Little House on the Prairie books and I read. There was just. And I read, you know, the Jorgeson books that my parents could get at byu, but there was no, I mean, at Deseret book, you know, but there was no book that felt like my life when I was a Mormon girl growing up, there was nothing.

Joanna Brooks [00:18:14] And getting byu. Then there was Terry Tempest Williams Refuge, which was huge. Although it's really kind of sort of like partially about Mormonism. It's sort of. It's in the narrative, if you know how to find it. And there are points where she'll say it explicitly, but still, it's not about. Here's how this feels to grow a Mormon. There was just nothing.

Joanna Brooks [00:18:32] I mean, there has been some. There have been some fine books been published by some of the smaller Mormon presses. And so I was hungry. I was hungry for stories about us. And so I went away from writing for most of the years that I was not attending church. I was too, you know, uncertain and scared to write about Mormonism. I remember once a friend asked me to write this academic essay about Mormonism. I literally, like, cried the whole time because I was scared, because who did they excommunicate? They excommunicated writers. They excommunicated people with books that. Signature books on the catalog. They went right down, right?

Joanna Brooks [00:19:05] So I was scared. So I came back. And so the first thing I. When I started coming back to writing, I was writing a book about interfaith, a blog about interfaith family life. Because writing is a great way to work out problems. So I was writing this really small circulation blog, just like friends and one of my friends. Ah, you should see if you can get an agent. So there's an agent. And I was talking to this editor on the phone in New York City, and she's like, I love this book. You're a great writer. There's one problem. You're Mormon. And that's really weird, you know?

Joanna Brooks [00:19:33] And I was like, oh, my God, it is 2000 and what? And it is still, like, unmentionably weird to be Mormon. Like, that's just. That just means that there are not enough books by us yet. There's just not enough. And during all those years away, those eight years away, I'd always been trying to explain, always talking about my faith and my Mormonism and telling friends how it was to grow up and try to convey to them a sense of the really beautiful parts that I try to convey in the first few chapters of the book. The really magical parts of a Mormon childhood and why you feel such a sense of connection.

Joanna Brooks [00:20:09] And then the kind of funky, clumsy growing up, how Mormons teach their kids about sex, what girls camp is like, how young Mormon women are kind of introduced to the idea of polygamy, all of those funny human aspects of Mormon life. So all of the stories that I had been telling my friends around the dinner table, I decided I was just gonna write those down. So I sat down for two years, every Tuesday and just wrote all these stories that I'D been telling regaling non Mormon friends with when I tried to explain how it felt to grow up Mormon because there was just that lack of understanding, so that an editor in New York City could still say, you're so weird, because no one had told that story.

Joanna Brooks [00:20:52] I mean, think about today when you go to the bookshelf in a bookstore and you go looking for Mormon books and it's like a Barnes and Nobles. What is there? You have like crack hour, right? You have Krakauer and then you have like maybe some stuff from Deseret book made it over. And then there's like 10 ghost written polygamy escapee memoirs. You know, where are the rest of us?

Joanna Brooks [00:21:16] Mine's not the only story. There should be 50 more. There need to be like 50 more. But I was just. I just felt like someone needed to start talking about how it felt to be a contemporary Mormon person in ways that humanize the faith. I know many people have tried that and I wanted to give it a go too.

John Dehlin [00:21:34] And the book does such a great job of, as you say, expressing what it feels like to be Mormon. I mean, I related so much to the youth conferences and the dance festivals and, you know, young men's, young women's and campouts and all that stuff's there. Even the BYU experience. It was great. So that mission was definitely accomplished. What about, you know, people want to just pin that kind of activist thing on you, that you've got some agenda that you're trying to, you know, speak up for this or that group or make changes or help influence this or that. Was any of that mixed up in there as well, as you said, your desire to kind of be in the middle of things?

Joanna Brooks [00:22:15] Well, I mean, I think, I mean, clearly I was trained by feminist literary professors at byu and I've always felt really strongly about. I mean, I'm a literature professor. I love books, I love reading books. And, you know, part of my feminist literary education was this. We were just indoctrinated, not by Mormons, but, you know, that books matter, that life stories matter, and that just telling your story, even if it's weird and marginal and imperfect, is a humanizing act. And there's this one book in particular that influenced me by Audre Lorde, who I mentioned, a book called Zammy. It was published in the 80s, early 80s, and it was just her autobiography, growing up as a queer child of immigrants in New York City.

Joanna Brooks [00:22:57] And it was, it became a feminist classic just because it was so painfully honest about what growing up as a woman felt like, and there was something. Even though she seemed to be the most marginal of figures, you know, she was black, but she was also the child of Caribbean immigrants. So she wasn't like African American from the South. She was, you know, queer. She was working class. You know, even though she seemed to be so marginal, there was something in the humanity of her telling. And I've taught that book so many times that humanize all the readers too, so that everyone could start talking more honestly about their lives.

Joanna Brooks [00:23:30] And that's sort of one of the articles of Faith of, you know, literature, is that when we just tell our stories, we create room for more stories to be told. You know, we contribute to a vocabulary that humanizes, you know, both the author and the audience. So that was the article of Faith in the book. You know, just telling this story, even though it's not in many respects a typical Mormon story. In other ways, though, it is a typical story because it's an American coming of age narrative. You know, it's like, okay, how many people understand this? You grow up, you feel totally safe, you feel totally secure and loved and like you have all the answers and then life hits you and what do you do with that?

Joanna Brooks [00:24:11] What do you do with that? Whether you're Catholic or Jewish or gay, and, you know, whatever you. This is a very common experience, that loss of innocence. So hopefully, I thought by narrating the fact that, like, I'd had issues as a Mormon, that would humanize the tradition as well. Hopefully that not everyone.

Joanna Brooks [00:24:34] I say in the introduction, usually only orthodox stories get told on Sunday. Right. And that means that we only allow each other to tell orthodox stories. So what if we just start telling our unorthodox stories and saying, yeah, that's Mormon too. People recognize that in us then. And that's the nicest. One of the. One of the nicest things I found that non Mormons recognize that struggle as something deeply human.

John Dehlin [00:24:58] Yeah. I think I first started understanding Mormonism when I started reading Caim Potok, the Jewish Authority. Do you feel like your book might even resonate with non Mormons? Oh, for sure. And have any even reached out to

Joanna Brooks [00:25:13] you and said, hey, sure, yeah, I mean, because no, none of the people I've worked with to bring out this edition have been Mormon, but they've all. We cried reading it. We love, you know, and there's been feedback. Yeah. People get it. We are not so different.

John Dehlin [00:25:29] Exactly.

Joanna Brooks [00:25:29] We are not so different.

John Dehlin [00:25:30] And sometimes you need the lens of another faith to help you understand your own better.

Joanna Brooks [00:25:34] When the other thing is something I just noticed as someone who studied literature. This is my day job, I studied literature. Is that most of the memoirs that made it, whether you're talking about from African American literary history, American Indian literary history, all these different groups were from people who had been outside the community for a while and come back, or people who were on the margins of the community always, in every tradition, it doesn't matter Jewish, you know, everything.

Joanna Brooks [00:26:01] There's something about being sort of on the margins or having left that helps you see it differently in a way that translates. So, yeah, this book I wrote, I wrote it with just two different audiences in mind. I'm like, these are the stories I tell the non Mormons I love. And there are a lot of non Mormon people I have, like, really close friendships with. So I think about that audience in a very intimate way, you know, so these are stories I want non Mormons to know about us because I want them to know that we are human beings so that we can act like human beings, we can be treated like human beings.

Joanna Brooks [00:26:32] We can treat each other like human beings. Not like flat orthodox cardboard cutouts. Right? Yeah. And then I wander for people inside who feel alone, who feel like they're the only one in their ward or in their class at BYU that has ever had a thought like this and felt unorthodox, felt bad that you're not alone. This is something Mormons have been struggling with all the time.

Reading from the Book and Her Faith Today

John Dehlin [00:26:59] Well, you just prompted me to want to have you read a small section of your book because it ties exactly to what you said. There's a chapter in here, a very special chapter called the Sealed Portion. And I debated whether or not to kind of have it be a spoiler, because it's such a powerful literary experience to read that chapter, but I wanted to capture you reading it. So for those of you with your books, pull out page 143 and Joanna is going to read the part my

Joanna Brooks [00:27:38] mother doesn't like, the sealed.

John Dehlin [00:27:41] And my favorite part, I love it.

Joanna Brooks [00:27:43] You know. Okay, this chapter is called Sealed Portion, and it starts with a bracket, so the whole chapter is in between these brackets. Here are the parts of the story I do not want to tell, but I will for you, wayward Mormon boy or girl, I will for you, girl seeking. Because our stories are not told in sacred books. They're not told over the pulpit. They are not told by the prophets. No one says, I felt my church turn away from me and it was a kind of death to me. No one says, I drove into the desert, I wandered around the city in the dark.

Joanna Brooks [00:28:19] I was alone and it was cold and inside me was desolation. No one says I sat in the hotel lobby bathroom, my ribcage racked with sobs until a stranger, insistent, knocked at the stall door, handing me a Kleenex and urging me to be strong.

Joanna Brooks [00:28:38] No one says when my family treated me as a stranger, I preferred the company of strangers and I walked among strangers and. And what did I find but God in every one of their faces? No one says I broke rules. I broke rules. I broke rules. I broke all the rules. That one and that one and that one too. Yes, I did.

Joanna Brooks [00:29:01] No one says I lay on the floor of the Venice beach apartment and Parliament Funkadelic was on the record player and my friend and I, we were looking at the ceiling and I waved the smoke from the air with the back of my hand. And when he asked, help me understand what Mormonism means to you. I said, it is my first language, my mother tongue, my family, my people, my home. It is my heart, My heart, my heart. No one says any of these things, but they should. Because no one should be left to believe that she is the only one. No one should be left to believe that she is the only Mormon girl that walked alone into the dark.

Joanna Brooks [00:29:38] No one should be left to feel like she was the only one broken and seeking. Or Mormon boy, give me that book back. You know what?

John Dehlin [00:29:49] You know, give me that book back.

Joanna Brooks [00:29:50] You know what was nice? I got, I got, when I did the self published edition, I got this email from a mom whose daughter had gone inactive. Like a very observant, straight ahead, she's like, I ordered your book so I could try and understand her. And I was getting ready for my other daughter's wedding and I set all my sewing aside and I sat there and I just read it for a day straight, straight, so I could get my mind around. That was one of the best feedbacks of the book I ever got.

John Dehlin [00:30:16] Love that. Love that part. Thank you, thank you for reading that. One thing that humans like to do is put people in boxes. So I'm going to give a chance to unbox, to unbox you. So for those who would want to paint you as something other than traditionally believing, we'll start there, we'll go through a couple boxes, talk about maybe some of the ways that you actually are a traditional Mormon.

Joanna Brooks [00:30:47] I believe in God, Heavenly Father, Heavenly Mother. I attend church. The atonement is one of the key ways I understand my life, my chances. I've experienced what I understand to be the grace of Jesus Christ, which is not a term we use a lot in Mormonism, but it's one that works for me. I attend church just about every Sunday when I'm not traveling now. Haven't always, but I do now. I teach Sunday school teenagers, which is awesome. I feed the missionaries. I have the missionaries over for dinner, which is a form of torture. I don't mean it to be, but they look at my sweet husband and they just think he's got to convert sometime soon. I just think it's your husband.

John Dehlin [00:31:42] We haven't told the audience your husband.

Joanna Brooks [00:31:44] Yeah. And he can talk to anybody. And right now there's an elder in our ward who really loves sports, and my husband really loves sports. And the last time we had him over to dinner, there was just. There was some sports talk.

John Dehlin [00:31:54] David really loves sports.

Joanna Brooks [00:31:57] He really loves sports. So we feed the missionaries. I teach my kids Mormon beliefs. They go to primary. I clean my ward building when I'm asked prayer. Yeah. Yeah. Mormon prairie. Mormon prayer life. We're working on family prayer. We're better at. During the school year, as many people are. Right. So trying to think. Anything else?

John Dehlin [00:32:25] No, it's good.

Joanna Brooks [00:32:26] I don't craft. Just not good at it. Punctuation is my craft.

John Dehlin [00:32:36] So then there's another group of people that want to just put you in the box of apologists, that you're just a shill for the church, that you're just here to give the church. Church a new face for pr.

Joanna Brooks [00:32:46] Right.

John Dehlin [00:32:47] And really, that's all you are, is just an apologist.

Joanna Brooks [00:32:56] I would characterize myself as being fully aware of historical controversies and happy to leave them as controversies. I don't. I think Joseph Smith was a very complicated and flawed human being. I don't see him as like. I just wrote a post last week at my own blog about dealing with Joseph Smith's complicated history at Ask Mormon Girl and kind of laid out my. The way I came into this more complicated understanding of Mormon history and. And got a lot of very intense feedback from.

John Dehlin [00:33:31] To put it lightly.

Joanna Brooks [00:33:32] Yeah. From people who are recovering from Mormonism, as they would call themselves, which, respectfully, I'd like to use the word they call themselves. I don't tend to be in the camp that sees Joseph Smith as a especially egregiously deviant mastermind of. You know, I like to save that for Pol Pot, you know, so. Yeah. So I.

Joanna Brooks [00:33:56] There are things I personally find myself at odds with about church policy. I measure my words in public very carefully because I'm aware that Every generation of feminists prior to this one, they've managed to shame feminists by excommunicating us.

Joanna Brooks [00:34:21] So I have a full awareness and a robust, albeit personal, criticism of policies and things I disagree with. But I'm committed to the future of Mormon feminism. And I'd like. It's more important to me that Mormon feminists stay in the game without sacrificing any of our integrity, but being as positive we can about the things we care about so that we can pass the knowledge down to future generations. So I don't see myself as an apologist at all.

John Dehlin [00:35:03] And you write pretty unflinchingly about the difficult things.

Joanna Brooks [00:35:06] Yeah, it's so funny. Are you an apologist? No, no.

John Dehlin [00:35:11] The term is nouveau apologist. That was used today, actually, at Sunstone's Nouveau apologist. Don't we love boxes?

Joanna Brooks [00:35:17] Well, here's the thing. I mean, see, every time something is so interesting because I write a great deal online and you keep up with these online news cycles, you have to write to these cycles. And every time something spins around, I really ought to just check in with myself. I'm like, how do I just feel about this? You know, if someone is being a real jerk in the way they write about Mormonism, I'm going to say they're a real jerk. If I gasp at something, if I gasp at a depiction of Mormonism, I'm going to say, that made me gasp.

Joanna Brooks [00:35:47] And most of the time I'm gasping because we're not being treated like human beings. Mormonism will not be able to critically process its own flaws and complexities until we are viewed as human beings and we view ourselves as human beings who are accountable to civil discourse. And that's a two way street, right? There's this cycle that's 150 years old of outsiders antagonizing us, which, you know, reinforces and amps up our insularity and defensiveness, which contributes to people who want to ridicule us round and around in circles like chasing tails. What would it be like if we could enter public discourse as human beings and say, I really love some things about my faith and I am critical, and my criticism is about the following subjects.

Joanna Brooks [00:36:40] And this doesn't mean I'm not invested in my faith, don't feel warmth towards my faith community, but part of my adult form of expressing my warmth and respect and responsibility is by being a thinking member of my tradition. So I'm wondering if that can happen for us. And I think the way it has to happen is by both Demanding respect in the public sphere, not allowing ourselves to be reduced to caricatures, and by acting like human beings capable of participating in a full and open, robust public sphere conversation, which we don't always do, we still do a lot of hidey hide. So that's the theory of. That's the theory of the practice.

John Dehlin [00:37:20] So chase the shame away, is that what you're saying?

Joanna Brooks [00:37:23] Yeah. Oh, the shame and fear are deep. That's, you know, one of the reasons to write the book and write pretty unflinchingly about, you know, subjects that other people are ashamed to admit, like I broke rules. I broke rules. I broke rules. Was to move into the space of a little more openness, a little more humanity.

Loyalty, Dirty Laundry, and Speaking Honestly

John Dehlin [00:37:42] What would you say to someone who said it's. Who would say it's not loyal to air dirty laundry?

Joanna Brooks [00:37:50] See, and that's deep. That is a deep and hard subject. You know, other minority communities, I've studied the history of their literatures and their politics, have similar experiences of outsiders using things from within the community to pick on the community, you know, but the history, for example, African American literature, is a history of a people inoculating its own children, you know, teaching them what they need to know about the tradition so that they can go out heads high and really represent. And I don't think we're there yet. We're getting there. We're at the beginning of a transition. We're. We see it where there is more openness happening about church history.

Joanna Brooks [00:38:29] It's time. It's way past time. We need to teach our children our own dirty laundry. So where does that start? Does that start? Do we wait? Do we wait for them to get it at church? Do we start now or do we just go out in public and act as if it is okay to understand that your faith is complicated and still love it? Just project that confidence. Just be like, yeah, oh, sure. Totally complicated. Mind bendingly so. Totally lovable.

John Dehlin [00:38:57] And here I am and worth it.

Joanna Brooks [00:39:00] And that's not so unfamiliar to people on the outside. You know, we just come across so nervous all the time in public, so, like, managed by the script, you know, like, if you veer from the script one inch, like, everything's gonna break loose.

John Dehlin [00:39:14] Are we really more weird than Jews or Catholics?

Joanna Brooks [00:39:18] Yeah, Catholics don't. I've had really fun interactions with Catholic readers. And yeah, yeah, we're weird.

John Dehlin [00:39:27] But, you know, so if you're, if you're, if you can't be put in the box of stereotypically traditional only, and you can't Be put in the box of ex Mormon or, you know, wolf in sheep's clothing. That nudges people to say, well, what is this? This middle way? You know, as some people call it. You're. And this could be a box, too. You're, like, in the middle of the road where you might get squashed from both sides. You know, you're.

Joanna Brooks [00:39:55] That's how my inbox looks some weeks.

John Dehlin [00:39:58] Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, some people would say, look in or out, sister. Sign up or get out. But this middle way, what's that? You can't be a. Can't be a Mormon. I know.

Joanna Brooks [00:40:12] I mean, here's the thing. Here's the thing. When I mean. And I like to leave my ward out of it, but I will say, I have a great congregation. I attend, and when I show up, they say, we're glad you're here.

Joanna Brooks [00:40:29] Can you come clean the church on Saturday? You know what I mean? And I don't, like, go to the. I don't go up during testimony meeting, like, hold fourth on City Creek Mall or something, you know, Like, I don't know what Sunday's for, you know, So I don't know. We are very. I've noticed we are very hard on each other inside, not only in orthodox Mormonism, but also in, you know, unorthodox forms of Mormonism. We are really hard on each other.

Joanna Brooks [00:40:58] We don't offer each other a lot of privacy or, you know, that sense of reserve, that dignity. People get to have complicated spiritual lives, and that's okay. And I wonder about that. And I think it comes from the fact that, like, I don't know about you, but my dad had, like, interviews with me, like, on Sundays. Yeah, from Sunday. Yes, exactly. And, like, we. No one else goes to church with people who are their neighbors and gets interviewed by their neighbors. No one else.

John Dehlin [00:41:24] No.

Joanna Brooks [00:41:25] That is very unique to Mormonism. So there is this sense that we have this right to sort of. What are you really? You know, like, look, you know, a lot of us have really complicated in our lives, and there's beauty in that. Like, that's okay. That's okay. Is that okay? Can we create that shelter for each other? In unorthodox Mormonism of all places? Can we create that shelter for each other? Like, hey, if you show up for me and I show up for you, I'm gonna put my arm around you. It's gonna be okay. You know, like, we don't need to figure this all out right now.

Joanna Brooks [00:41:54] We just need company. We just need company and some Stories to keep each other entertained. I just wonder if that's something we can do in unorthodox Mormonism. So we're not like. Because, you know, there are, I mean, while we are beating each other up with these kinds of questions, the world is running away. I mean, there are like, people are making millions of dollars on caricatures of Mormons.

Joanna Brooks [00:42:22] And I loved the Book of Mormon musical. Right. I didn't like Krakauer's book, but I mean, there are people who are making a career on us and we are beating each other up. Beating each other up on Facebook.

John Dehlin [00:42:35] Hello.

Joanna Brooks [00:42:36] It's like, start writing our own stories, get our stories out there at every point on the orthodoxy spectrum.

John Dehlin [00:42:43] And yet to speak about Mormonism in terms of orthodox or unorthodox. I almost wonder whether you could find discussions like that prior to like 2005. Like in Judaism it's hundreds, you know, 100, 120 years old. Right. But in Mormonism, it's like, what unorthodox Mormon does that exist? Like, where is that in the discourse? Mormon or outside extra Mormon.

Joanna Brooks [00:43:08] Right, right. And yet there has been this innovation in the last five, seven years. And I've used those terms and I've made a point of using them and actually think they're, you know, in as many ways as boxes are not helpful. Boxes are also sometimes fairly useful.

Joanna Brooks [00:43:27] And so, you know, the terms we are left with otherwise we needed to innovate. We had anti and X. You know, I write about, I added, my editor asked me to add a few new chapters. If you read the self published edition, there's a few new chapters in this edition. And one of them talks about the experience of starting writing again. And like at first it was just this email inbox full of just like hate. It's like you're an ex Mormon, anti Mormon, sheep, wolf in sheep's clothing. And I was just like, it's like rocks, you know, being thrown. It's like not even close. Like, not clearly there's a vocabulary gap.

Joanna Brooks [00:43:58] We just didn't have. We have not had the language to describe what's happening. So just like so much of the important work that you're doing and a little of what I try to do in the book was to tell a story that people could say, I'm not like that, I'm not like that. I may be more like that. Maybe there's some other flavors of this story. You know, we need that vocabulary. It also helps humanize us to the outside world. I mean, every time I go on Some, you know, random media thing. I asked my Facebook friends and my friends or whoever, and we're like, what is the most important thing to say?

Joanna Brooks [00:44:27] They're like, tell them we're not all alike. And, you know, and you go out into this world, you know, and you're in some media venue, and, like, you realize there are like 99% of the nation's conversations are happening without Mormons in them. And that's sobering, you know, and that if you're the Mormon that shows up finally and has the conversation at CNN or at PBS or wherever they wanted, one of the first things they want to know are, really, you're not all alike. No, we are not all like, oh, phew. Like the rest of the world wants to know.

John Dehlin [00:44:58] Well, the first question is, do you make furniture?

Joanna Brooks [00:45:00] And then the second question is, use nails. Yeah. No, come wives.

John Dehlin [00:45:06] Yeah, yeah. So the way that Judaism, as I understand it, dealt with this is they kind of schismed, right? So they have. They have, you know, ultra orthodox, they have orthodox, they have conservative, they have reform, they have Reconstructionist, and they just kind of split in five or ten different ways. Right. And some would say, well, what do you. What. What are you trying to do? Are you trying to, like, create a reform Mormonism? Are you trying to schism, like, go start your own version? Like, don't taint. Taint us traditional Mormons with your polluted, you know, middle way, liberal version. Right.

Joanna Brooks [00:45:41] Yeah.

Joanna Brooks [00:45:41] You see, I suspect that there have always been reform Mormons, if you want to call it that, because there's no such. You know, there's always been a wider range of belief and feeling than we cop to. And I think post correlation, especially.

Joanna Brooks [00:45:59] And in the 90s especially, you know, orthodoxy closed in institutionally pretty hard. And that's when you started seeing this plot line take place. Either you're in or you're out. Right. I mean, I grew up with people who were different kinds of Mormons, you know, like a little bit odd, you know, like, there's been a bandwidth. We are a human community. You know, people have left in waves. At different points in Mormon history, there have been different, you know, exoduses out of the tradition by groups of intellectuals. But I think there is capacity that we surrendered. We were scared out of at some point, and that there is space not to go necessarily marching in with, like, a banner and an agenda, but if the church matters to you and you feel good there, there is capacity.

Joanna Brooks [00:46:50] We don't have to be quite as scared maybe as we were 20 years ago. To take our place in the pew in all of our imperfection and just be. Now, I could be totally wrong. I could be totally wrong. But, you know, and I talk about in the book how writing helped me feel like I could take my place in the pew again.

John Dehlin [00:47:09] Yeah. Not just a capacity, but a history of it. You read about the 1920s and 30s, about how apostles would disagree with each other publicly over issues like evolution and the age of the earth and science. They would go at each other, and somehow we. We've lost our ability to have a wider breadth of perspectives.

Joanna Brooks [00:47:30] Right. So part of what's felt important to me in this book, but also just in some of the writing for the Internet I do, is to say Mormons are capable of disagreeing. We are. We are. There are people I will totally disagree with on Twitter who put a big arm, a one arm Twitter hug around me. You know, yes, we can. And sometimes that takes Mormons like you and me not acting ashamed, not acting afraid, you know, not acting like we have something to feel guilty about, because we feel it. We really felt it after the 90s. Right. It's like, I'm bad. No, you're not bad. You're not bad. You're not bad. You know, head high. We can disagree. We are robust, complex, evolving faith tradition. Really rich, kind of kooky, really inspiring. And we have the capacity to work out problems. And unless we're brave, we're going to lose that capacity.

Feminism, Activism, and Mormon Identity

John Dehlin [00:48:33] So how do you balance your, I don't want to say activist impulse, but your impulse to kind of be in the thick of things and to help move us inches towards positive progress? How do you balance that with some of the very Mormon traditions of obedience and respect for authority? How do you balance those things?

Joanna Brooks [00:48:55] I think if there's a good story in the book, I don't know if there's a story in the book that speaks to that.

John Dehlin [00:49:00] It feels like that's more what you're doing now than what you did back then.

Joanna Brooks [00:49:05] Yeah. Well, I think things change when you become a mother. You know, when you move into a certain phase of your life and you're like, you know, I'm showing up. I'm an adult. I'm here to contribute with the gifts that God gave me. And the gifts God happened to give me are really funny that they came in a Mormon package. I'm like a mouthy, not totally mouthy. I'm like a, you know, you know, wordy, you know, writing, brainy, non crafty. You know, I'm kind of an Independent minded Mormon woman. Is that something new? I don't know. But it was funny to be born at that certain time in history with that combination. But I'm here. These are my gifts. What can I do with them? This is what I got. This is what I have to give. What do you want? You know? Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:49:53] So let's talk about feminism.

Joanna Brooks [00:49:55] All right.

John Dehlin [00:49:57] Like, what's important to you? Why is that important? How is it relevant? And how does it overlay with Mormonism, of all things?

Joanna Brooks [00:50:07] Right. You know, one of the best parts of writing the Book of Mormon Girl was telling a Mormon feminist story, you know, showing that this faith is so capable of raising independent, you know, thinky girls and women who are taught from the time we're young to, you know, the glory of God is intelligence. We're taught to study the scriptures, we're taught to seek our own answers. We're never taught that you can't be like Joseph Smith in terms of being a 14 year old with questions and going to the woods and praying, like that inquiry that take it to God inquiry that's gender neutral, that is taught to all of us.

Joanna Brooks [00:50:48] And, you know, that hunger for knowledge, how it unfolds over the course of a Mormon woman's lifetime is something I really tried to show in the Book of Mormon Girl. The curiosity and then going to BYU and finding this legacy I'd never known about. I'd never heard of Eugene England before I went to byu, or Lowell Bennion, or I did not come from a Sunstone Dialogue household.

Joanna Brooks [00:51:12] And then that collides with certain adult gender role obligations that we've emphasized increasingly in the last part of the 20th century. That Mormonism is emphasized increasingly last part of the 20th century. Especially from the time of the fight against the era proclamation on the family, there's been this hardening of this sense of what a proper Mormon woman does and how that fits into theology.

John Dehlin [00:51:39] It wasn't always this way. Right. Don't we have late 19th century, early 20th century examples of, of women actually being surprisingly non truthful?

Joanna Brooks [00:51:49] There's a big array of data in Mormon women's history and a lot of it's really surprising. You know, there's all these sorts of nuggets and tidbits of Mormon history. I try to sneak in whenever I write for non Mormons so that they know our story is complicated. Our story is complicated. I do think, you know, there's this moment that Mormon stories listeners know about called correlation. In the 50s, you know, 30s, 40s, 50s, especially 50s, onward and I think correlation had some impacts on gender. I think gender got correlated too. But again, this is something we probably need to have like three academic conferences about and sit down and just figure it out.

John Dehlin [00:52:23] Yeah, sure.

Joanna Brooks [00:52:24] But, you know, in the book, I just tried to show how very natural it was as a Mormon girl who had been taught to think and value herself to question things. And that's the spirit of Mormon feminism. I was raised in a faith that nurtured that seeking part of me, and it will never die. I will continue to seek and then it will brush up against and even butt heads with other parts of the tradition that I come into as an adult and how I manage those contradictions and stay true to that original seeking spirit inside of me. In the community of other Mormon women who share this, like, that's the essence of Mormon feminism. Mormon feminism is just a commitment to other Mormon women that we are going to care for each other as we figure this out.

John Dehlin [00:53:05] But how do you do it? Like, you know, all male leadership, you know, some could say, well, you know, feminists who stay in the church are being the Uncle Toms of, you know, Mormon women, because you're empowering the institution that is holding you down. You know, so how do you go every Sunday and go to general conference or watch it and see, see the wave of wonderful men from Idaho and Utah? And how do you, most importantly, raise two daughters in a tradition that sort of. Maybe a lot of the stronger feeling feminists out there would say this is a dangerous place to raise daughters.

Joanna Brooks [00:53:52] That is not an easy question to answer. You know, and being part of a Mormon feminist community or identifying as a Mormon feminist means sort of, for me, means acknowledging lots of different women answer that question in lots of different ways. And even the way we answer that over the course of our lifetimes may change. You know, for me right now, I mean, there's no question that all male chain of command separate from the question of priesthood. You know, some of the discussions that are happening now among Mormon feminists and feminist allied Mormon men are, you know, how do we understand priesthood? Is it really necessary for this, all this bureaucracy to be entirely male too?

Joanna Brooks [00:54:33] You know, like, there's so much space for us to think carefully and critically about things that matter in Mormon life. You know, why is the membership clerk a gendered office? You know, like, there's just, there's a lot of space for us to think critically and it's going to take time. We just know that about Mormonism, it's young and it's slow.

Joanna Brooks [00:54:53] So you Know, for me, Mormonism is a faith in which I've experienced so much goodness and taken so much strength from it, but at the same time, it's a challenge. It absolutely is a challenge. And I just feel a tremendous amount of solidarity with other Mormon women, Mormon feminists, and a willingness to stay in and try and work it out with this community and hope that good things will come.

Joanna Brooks [00:55:21] My daughters, though, you know, I mean, it's interesting because they're growing up when they go to temple and they go to shul, they have all female rabbis and teachers. They're growing up in a world where they see they're growing up in a household with an egalitarian marriage, which I think a lot of Mormon households these days have egalitarian marriages increasingly.

Joanna Brooks [00:55:42] And they're gonna. They may be less patient than me, and I would like to think that I could convince them to stay in the game, but they will be less patient than I am.

John Dehlin [00:55:54] So there was a time when the three great enemies of the church were declared as gays, feminists and intellectuals. We've talked about the thinky, brainy stuff. We've talked about women's issues. And of course the LGBT issue is something you've also been quite vocal about. Why?

Joanna Brooks [00:56:17] Yeah, you know, I don't know where that started. I think I mention in the book that, you know, the first time I really met gay people was of course, at byu. Met openly gay people who were not openly sub. Honor code gay and was just very curious, but was not like an automatic supporter of same sex marriage from some early. I mean, gay issues were on my. If you remember the student review, I think gay issues were on my radar from like 1991. But, you know, I think it was just because I had actually met gay people at byu. I was just like, oh, wow, that's a challenge.

Joanna Brooks [00:57:01] What does that look like? Like. And feel like just curiosity. But it became more important to me in the late 90s when the church started getting actively involved in the political fight against same sex marriage. And that just made me sad. Just basically very sad. Again, I wasn't a huge supporter of same sex. I just like, oh, I think the

John Dehlin [00:57:29] book said you cried for when Prop 8 happened.

Joanna Brooks [00:57:32] I cried for like six months. Yeah. The book has a full chapter on Prop 8 from the point of view of someone living in San Diego, California. Just kind of seeing it unfold.

John Dehlin [00:57:43] I think it said you couldn't enter a chapel without crying for a while. Yeah, that was hard.

Joanna Brooks [00:57:51] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those were some times. Those are some times there's a scene in the book. Everyone likes to get me to talk about that. You know, I'll let you get there on your own. But where I actually destroy everyone smiling. I actually take like Prop 8 materials out of a church building. So I'm just telling you it's in there.

John Dehlin [00:58:12] It's very subversive.

Joanna Brooks [00:58:13] I was. I don't know if it was. Yeah, I had to write a book club guide for it for like the rest of the world for the book. And one of the questions, I said, do you think this was a cowardly or a courageous act? And I don't know that I know. I think that's an honest question.

Same-Sex Marriage and LGBTQ Issues in Mormonism

John Dehlin [00:58:28] And two, and just really break it down and be candid to the traditionally believing Mormon person or non Mormon person, evangelical Christian, whatever, who says homosexuality is a sin and the Bible condemns it and these people, it will destroy traditional marriage if we infect it with their nastiness. What's your argument against those? Just couple, you know, a minute on.

Joanna Brooks [00:58:57] I don't argue about it. I just don't. You know, mostly what I find myself caring about is equality under the law. You know, that's a political stance I'm willing to take. You know, something in my heart just makes it impossible for me to demonize people who I love. And I have close gay friends. And so I just can't really even participate in that kind of an argument. It just doesn't make sense to me.

Joanna Brooks [00:59:33] I will, you know, make an argument about the fact that all people should enjoy equal protection and equal access under the laws of the state. And I know that that puts me in tension with the church's own investment, but I think we've seen a dialing back of the Church's investment in the politics of same sex marriage. We've tracked it really carefully, you know, just observantly, just not trying to be, you know, cagey or anything, but just watch. Watching state by state as the question

John Dehlin [01:00:05] is revisited four years later. Right, right.

Joanna Brooks [01:00:08] And there's not been anything that match that has matched Proposition 8. And that's a relief to me.

John Dehlin [01:00:17] So when I. I'm going to say two words and I want you to register for us what you. What comes to you emotionally and intellectually when I say the two words. All right, all right. Ready? Mormon moment

Joanna Brooks [01:00:34] almost over.

John Dehlin [01:00:39] Followed by whoo.

Joanna Brooks [01:00:43] Yeah, no, it's been kind of nutty, huh? Yeah, it's the moment in which America woke up and said, we know nothing about Mormons, you know. Nah, it's been a very interesting Time. I've enjoyed it, but I think it will be great when it passes.

John Dehlin [01:01:02] What's it about?

Joanna Brooks [01:01:06] Oh,

John Dehlin [01:01:08] why us? Why now?

Joanna Brooks [01:01:12] Well, I mean, clearly it's Romney's candidacy. Clearly. And I think why us is because we. We're this puzzle.

John Dehlin [01:01:21] Okay, wait, Romney's dad ran for president and there wasn't a Mormon moment then?

Joanna Brooks [01:01:25] You're right, right.

John Dehlin [01:01:26] Nobody. It was like a non issue. So I don't mean to like argue with you, but like.

Joanna Brooks [01:01:31] No, no, no, you're right.

John Dehlin [01:01:32] Is there something else? A maturing or a time element or a critical mass?

Joanna Brooks [01:01:37] We're larger than we were back then. I think there's also something about the 24 hour news and content cycle that the Internet's created that has opened up dimensions of human experience. You know, everything from reality TV to the Internet makes everything searchable. You know, even I think when George Romney ran there was this idea of decorum and of privacy that there are matters that are maybe a bit odd, but we don't dwell on them, we don't want to pry into them. But that's all out the window now. Everything is fair game now. And in the face of that, Mormonism maintains this reserve, right? Still social insularity, still things we do not want to talk about ourselves in public, you know, some of them by covenant not to talk about them. And that makes us an irresistibly curious object. Our own insularity feeds the curiosity as it feeds antagonism.

John Dehlin [01:02:38] Right. And so what's it been like for you as a Mormon, who's proud to be a Mormon, to see your faith under the microscope? What have you felt? How do you rate the coverage?

Joanna Brooks [01:02:51] I think it's really evolved. I think the coverage has really evolved. One thing that's been said and you know, I write memoir and I've also written online quite a bit as I think we've just sort of referenced and I don't expect anyone reads that. But I write for a magazine called Religion Dispatches and I've written about Mormonism two or three times a week, generally about Mormonism, but usually about faith and politics. Two or three times a week for the last two and a half years and via that opportunity. And it's a non Mormon publication, it was founded by the Ford foundation at one point. So it's sort of this like public sphere, secular but religious and journalists read it.

Joanna Brooks [01:03:34] So one thing that's happened over the last couple years, I've noticed and I've always tried to sort of write about representations of Mormons along the way here's the good ones, here's the bad ones. Here's when someone got really wrong without being defensive or goofy, just saying, like, yeah, that was not cool.

Joanna Brooks [01:03:52] And something that's really gratifying is just, I know that I've had journalists say to me, I wrote this piece, and I thought, what would you think? That made me feel really good. So there's this conscience now that there are Mormons in the room. When you write about us, we are not this species of creatures living, you know, somewhere past the Rocky Mountains. Don't know if they're the ones with plural wives or not. Like, Mormons are actually in the room.

Joanna Brooks [01:04:22] They're in the discourse community of people who, you know, produce content. So that's. I think there's been. And I'm not saying I contribute to that at all. I think overall, though, we've seen the coverage get better. I actually think we've gotten off pretty easy.

John Dehlin [01:04:37] Yeah. Yeah. For July. Right. I mean, it may heat up and

Joanna Brooks [01:04:41] it may heat up after the nomination.

John Dehlin [01:04:42] There may be an October surprise.

Joanna Brooks [01:04:44] Right.

John Dehlin [01:04:44] We'll see.

Joanna Brooks [01:04:46] But I think we've gotten. I think we've been generally treated with some cases, you know, and it's easy to focus on this. I think generally the quality of coverage has been getting better and better. And you've seen lots of Mormon voices poke through. Spencer Fluman in the New York Times was fabulous. You know, and, you know, the New York Times sampled lots of, you know, Russell Fox and Kathleen Flake, people that they should be talking to and non Mormon scholars of Mormon experience, too. You know, the nation's paper of record, which for the last year and a half hosted a number of really subpar articles about us, is finally starting to get Mormon voices in the pages of the week in review, which is great. Yeah, that's great.

John Dehlin [01:05:26] I've been surprised how many journalists that I've spoken with say, we don't want to take cheap shots at you guys.

Joanna Brooks [01:05:30] No, exactly.

John Dehlin [01:05:32] We want to treat you guys as we would treat Jews or Catholics. With respect.

Joanna Brooks [01:05:35] Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

Mitt Romney, Media Coverage, and Being a Mormon Spokesperson

John Dehlin [01:05:38] So does Romney have a chance? And if not, how much of that is his Mormonism or not?

Joanna Brooks [01:05:45] There's a new poll out today from Pew Forum that shows a third. Oh, at least a third still have no idea what his religion is. Okay. So while we are totally obsessed with it, a third of America doesn't even care, which is so important to remember.

Joanna Brooks [01:06:02] And among those who do know, 60% says it makes no difference. So it will be a hard case to make that Mormonism ruined Romney's was a negative factor in Romney's candidacy. I think the way Mormonism has impacted his candidacy is far more subtle. I think his feeling of vulnerability as a Mormon has made, has crafted or contributed to his very stiff demeanor. His highly managed demeanor which many people find off putting has made it difficult for him to connect.

Joanna Brooks [01:06:38] A couple weeks ago the LA Times like he should talk more about Mormonism. You know, makes him human and the campaign is not, absolutely not doing that. They won't let anyone get close to them. The reporters and the press don't get say so Mormonism has indirectly shaped his candidacy by making him so exactly as we are perceived to be hiding things.

John Dehlin [01:07:01] Buttoned up, formal and clearly defensive.

Joanna Brooks [01:07:05] Defensive. And how do you reconcile that with the rumors about the weird 19th century beliefs or the temple practices? So it contributes to the mystery. Right? It builds the mystery. So buttoned up and yet maybe weird behind the buttoned up rather than open. But no, I, we watch the numbers in our house every day and it's not looking great for him this fall. But we've got a few months. Yeah, but by the numbers it's not looking great for him but I don't think we should blame, I don't think we will be able to blame it on his Mormonism. Right.

John Dehlin [01:07:40] Is there a part of you that would be proud to have a Mormon in the White House?

Joanna Brooks [01:07:44] I, you know, I love see Mitt Romney reminds me of my male relatives, you know, in good ways, in sweet ways. When I look at him, I don't see some people see this real, you know, threatening and there are things about him I certainly don't agree with politically and things about his characteristics and you know, his personal touch that I, you know, that don't give me warm fuzzies. But I see Mormon men I know who've given their lives to service and been up through the chain of, you know, stake president and heavy responsibilities and so I have a huge affection for that.

John Dehlin [01:08:21] Are there any virtues, are there any Mormon virtues that you see in him that you think would, would serve well in the office?

Joanna Brooks [01:08:29] That's hard. I mean I, you know, I, I do think he thinks he's doing what's right. One of the things I've tried to write about consistently and you know, we're way off topic from the memoir now but that's fine and I write for the Internet is the ways in which his own sense of the importance of hierarchy and of being loyal to the big institutional agenda and of covering the people who are going to give you Status have shaped his agendas, economic and foreign policy. So we have this Mormon candidate, but there's virtually no faith imprint anywhere in his policy other than gay marriage and abortion. There's nothing Mormon about his agenda, which is good for many people.

John Dehlin [01:09:19] What about honesty and hard work and self sufficiency and independence and pull yourself up by your bootstraps, that kind of stuff.

Joanna Brooks [01:09:26] Oh, I love that story too. It may look different from the point of view of Latin American saints.

John Dehlin [01:09:33] Right? Yeah. Yeah. All right, so you probably are being called on by more journalists than any other Mormon at this time to speak for Mormonism. You're kind of a go to spokesperson. I mean, you've been on Krista Tippett speaking of faith. CNN did a feature you've appeared in on television as kind of a pundit spokesperson. Right. Different networks, all over the place. What's that like?

Joanna Brooks [01:10:11] It's been weird.

John Dehlin [01:10:12] Yeah.

Joanna Brooks [01:10:13] I mean, I think it's important to demystify how media works because I've learned some things. I come from this academic world. It's very slow. People are like, we're gonna throw a conference next year, can you come? You know, and you're like, oh, I got pregnant in the interim. I can't make it. You know, I was like, it's so slow. But, you know, here you have, you have a 24 hour news cycle, 24 hour content cycle. Internet, video, radio, newspapers. They need stuff. They need stuff. So what does a producer do when they're trying to fill a seat on their show? They do what we all do.

Joanna Brooks [01:10:47] They Google and writing for the Internet about Mormonism three times a week for the last three years. You know, you get found. And so they come, you know, they read your perspective and they try and figure out perspective is the key word. And if you listen. And so the thing I compare it to is because I've never positioned myself as a spokesperson, because that's not right. It's not who I am.

Joanna Brooks [01:11:12] It's sort of like if you're listening to an NPR story about the auto industry and one of the sources might be the PR guy for Chevrolet, you know, for General Motors. And then someone might just be the auto industry analyst who works at the auto industry trade rag. Like, that's me. I'm just the analyst. I'm just someone who's always watching and observing and saying from experience, you know, interpreting from experience and translating a little bit, comparing, you know, since I have sort of a background in American studies, I can put us in a historical context and a cultural context. So I'M a translator and a commentator.

Joanna Brooks [01:11:47] And so when a producer is trying to get a handle on an unfamiliar subject, they want the analyst. They know what they're going to get from pr, but they also want a translator and an analyst. And just by the way the Internet works, the Internet's changed. Everything has made voices like mine more accessible.

Joanna Brooks [01:12:06] That's it. That's how it happens, you know, and then you do one radio show and you put it up and you know, and then the producers, they all talk amongst themselves. It's crazy. There are like people for a living who just is procure radio guests. You know, I need someone because it's going all the time. They need someone on 9:00am, you know, Robert Jeffress spouted off his mouth again. And they want someone to talk to St. Louis at 10am tomorrow for the talk show. You know, can you do it? And you're like, da, da, da. And it's the craziest experience because you really don't say anything that dramatic.

Joanna Brooks [01:12:35] I ended up teaching the plan of salvation to St. Louis one day, you know, because we're going to the phones. Like that's the worst thing that ever happened. We're going, you know, they're talking to you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, yeah. Trying to sound human and humanize Mormons and humanize the experience and not just speak inside or speak, but speak in a language I'd use, like with my in laws. Right. People I care about and trust, but who are not from us and don't always buy everything we have to say, you know, and then, oh, we're going to the phones. And that's when you say, don't go to the phones.

Joanna Brooks [01:13:05] Because then random. Don't you believe that Jesus and Satan are brothers? Then you back up and you find yourself, you know, on your cell phone explaining the plan of salvation to the city of St. Louis. You know, it's very random.

John Dehlin [01:13:17] I remember traveling to Houston and it was like a day after you had had a radio debate with or appearance with some evangelical guy and he had been a little bit rough with you. I had heard.

Joanna Brooks [01:13:27] Oh, that was. I. That was. I was on my phone. I usually the only quiet space in my house is my Prius in the garage. So I'm on my cell phone in my Prius and you know, while like the kids are going to school, you know, David's walking to school. We live close to school. And he was, that was actually friendly. They had Pastor Jeffress on like the segment before, and I had no idea until I checked My email and someone said on Facebook, I'm listening. And Pastor Jeffress is on, and Joanna Brooks is going to join him next. I was like, he's the one who said the very provocative, you know, Mormonism is a cult stuff last fall.

Joanna Brooks [01:14:00] So I said my help me Jesus prayer, you know, and sat in my Prius, ended up just having this really joking, robust conversation with the host. And he was a very conservative talk show host, and he was teasing me for being an Obama liberal. And I was letting him tease me. And every time we went to commercial, he was like, this is great. Can we keep you on two more segments? You're really acting like a human being. And I said, yeah, okay, sure.

Joanna Brooks [01:14:25] It's hot in the Prius. Can we hurry? So I say that just to demystify the way that this happens, that really there is a hunger for content about Mormonism, and there is also a hunger for perspective and analysis. And by virtue of the way the industry works, being findable snowballs. And producers also talks amongst themselves about who can make good tape. So if you can speak in ways that are engaging, they'll say to another producer who's hungry. And literally they're filling their programs sometimes 15 minutes before.

John Dehlin [01:14:59] Yeah. And your appearance on Krista Tippett's on Being or speaking of Faith was like. For me, it was like this moment, because I had been listening to Krista Tippett for years, loving her work. And when you came on, it was like the hair was standing up on my arms and my eyes were watery and the chills. Everyone that I talked to said that you were such a beautiful story spokesperson for us. So I want to tell all the listeners, all the viewers to go listen to that interview. That was a good one. We'll put a link up to it.

Joanna Brooks [01:15:32] She does great work.

John Dehlin [01:15:33] She's good.

Joanna Brooks [01:15:34] And I just tried to tell the same story I tell in the book, which is like, here is who we are as individuals. I think one of the things I actually taught a Relief Society lesson, I subbed in Relief about sharing the gospel.

Joanna Brooks [01:15:45] And I know they're giggling. Peanut gallery's laughing. I laugh, too. It's really hilarious. But, you know, I believe very strongly that by telling our own story as individuals and admitting our flaws and imperfections, we often express what is best about our faith. You know, and this is not the way necessarily, we're raised to talk about it. We're raised to every member and missionary and stick to the script and say it in a very particular way. And people can't hear that. Non Mormons don't hear that. It bounces off their head. It just does. So if we just narrate it, as imperfect as each of us is, I think so many Mormon lives are really beautiful.

John Dehlin [01:16:23] Yeah. Tune in.

Joanna Brooks [01:16:25] Yeah, Mormon people, I think, really live their faith and really live the challenge of faith. All of us, even the unorthodox ones.

John Dehlin [01:16:34] So one last question about being. Well, a couple more questions about being a spokesperson, then we're getting to the

Joanna Brooks [01:16:38] question, which I'm not.

John Dehlin [01:16:40] Right. Right. But here's the deal. My sister, my own sister loved my sister. She said, I don't like Joanna speaking for us. She doesn't represent us.

Joanna Brooks [01:16:52] It's true. I don't.

John Dehlin [01:16:54] But you are sort of.

Joanna Brooks [01:16:56] I'm the auto industry analyst.

John Dehlin [01:16:58] That's how you see it. Yet. Yet you've admitted you like to be in the middle of things. You've got feminist proclivities and pro LGBT proclivities and so you're not dis. A dispassionate, objective outside analyst. You're in the thick of it also trying to help positively move things forward. Analyst is that tricky.

Joanna Brooks [01:17:20] But the questions never present themselves that way in actual life. The question is, St. Louis wants someone on at 9am tomorrow. Will you come talk about. Have you tried the church? The church doesn't respond to our emails. PR is busy, really busy.

John Dehlin [01:17:38] Or they. Or they don't want to.

Joanna Brooks [01:17:39] Or they don't want to. And there's things they can't even begin to say. They don't want to talk about anything dealing with politics, which is wise, you know. And yet do Mormons have thoughts about politics? Yeah, you know, I think the only answer to. And I know, let's be like, oh, who do you think you are at the top? More voices.

Joanna Brooks [01:17:58] That's the only answer. And I am excited for more voices. I co wrote a piece with Tamara Kelmsley, who has different political views than me, but who is also a Mormon feminist that we did for a new service that serves the Islamic speaking world. Not the Islamic speaking. The Islamic world. You know what I mean? There just need to be more of us doing this. There just need to be more. I mean, five years ago we're moving from this model in Mormonism where we are so used to having everything done with the institutional imprint.

Joanna Brooks [01:18:27] Right. Either it's LDS church official or it's not. Right. We haven't yet developed a robust independent sector like many faiths have many faiths. A professor of Jewish studies can talk about Judaism and not be perceived as the Spokesperson for Judaism, but as an analyst, a perspective, a participant, an affiliate.

Joanna Brooks [01:18:52] And we're just barely getting to the idea. We are so used to, you know, part of our insularity has been trying to assess whether a media coverage of Mormonism is good for us or bad for us. And usually if the media product comes from the church, we know it's safe. And if it doesn't, it's not safe. We just need about 20 more flavors to present the full array of Mormon humanity. So, yeah, I know I don't represent everyone. So y' all get busy. Come join me. I'll help if you want in.

John Dehlin [01:19:20] Like, it gets tiring, right, to always

Joanna Brooks [01:19:24] have to answer, you know, it's been an adventure. It's been really great. And I want. I hope I can convey a sense of how carefully I think about what I do. Like, I was on BBC, and again, just by storytelling, I was on BBC, did a NewsHour on us, and they came here, and it was me and Michael Otterson were the two voices on. We did two hours back to back, and one of them was literally for the world. And I was literally sitting there, like, very prayerfully saying, what does Kenya need to know about Mormonism? What. You know, like, I take the responsibility that comes with this adventure really seriously, but at the same time, I recognize it's totally accidental.

Joanna Brooks [01:20:08] And there is room for 25 more voices, and we need those voices, because some people will not hear it from headquarters. They will not hear it that way. They will not understand us as human beings that way.

John Dehlin [01:20:24] Is it ever hard? And I can think of two ways. It's hard, hard sometimes feeling the burden or the pressure or the responsibility of being on that edge, and then hard because you get attacked from the inside. Talk about each of those hards, eh? Not too bad, of course.

Joanna Brooks [01:20:44] But you don't want to be like. Well, you don't want to be like, oh, woe is me. I wrote a book, and people are reading it. You know, I'm so grateful. I think it's just like a wonderful. Like, I'm so grateful, you know, Like, I just want to be useful. I always wanted to be useful. I didn't see a way to be useful for a long time, you know, So I found a way to be useful right now. Maybe it's not perfect, but it is, you know, nudging along the Mormon project in some direction. I trust that I'm not in charge and someone else is, and it's going to be fine.

Joanna Brooks [01:21:14] Oh, and, yeah, I get, you know, I get beautiful email. And I get the chance to connect with beautiful people, non Mormon and Mormon, who I just love, and I feel so lucky. And then I get who is raising your children. You are promoting homosexuality. Have you read the Old Testament story of Jezebel? You should. Mormon women don't talk about Jezebel enough. But you need to study that story. You know, just.

Joanna Brooks [01:21:42] I get, you know, but on my day job, I've learned that when I'm making everyone a little bit uncomfortable, then usually I'm doing it right.

Joanna Brooks [01:21:49] Right.

John Dehlin [01:21:49] But does it ever sting?

Joanna Brooks [01:21:51] Oh, of course. Of course.

John Dehlin [01:21:55] But you're stubborn.

Joanna Brooks [01:21:57] Totally, totally stubborn. You know, and there are women. There are women I reach out to and I check in with who I say, okay, you tell me. You know my heart. You tell me, am I. I have people, I have leaders. I check in with, women I look up to. I'm like, okay, how do I do? What's your advice? You know my heart. Am I doing all right or not?

Joanna Brooks [01:22:38] Come, come, ye saints. No toil nor labor fear, but with joy wend your way though hard to you this journey may appear. Grace shall be as your day. Tis better far for us to strive our useless cares from us to drive to the San Jo, your hearts will swell. Oh, all is well. All is well.

Book Club Discussion Begins

Part 2 of 2 · Ep. 367

Guest [00:00:00] 1, 2, 3. Come, come, ye saints. No toil nor labor fear, but with joy wend your way.

John Dehlin [00:00:18] Well, in that vein, we have brought four lovely ladies.

Guest 2 [00:00:24] Five.

John Dehlin [00:00:25] Five lovely ladies. And each of them have a few minutes worth of questions. And so what we're gonna do, it's

Joanna Brooks [00:00:31] like a real book club.

John Dehlin [00:00:32] They've all read the book. There's no. They've all brought their books. The Book of Mormon Girl by Free Press, August 7th. We're gonna have a little.

Joanna Brooks [00:00:42] It's not as serious as I am. I present pretty seriously. Sometimes it's actually funny.

John Dehlin [00:00:46] Oh, it's hilarious and it's heartwarming and it's sometimes searing, sometimes it's jarring, but it's not.

Joanna Brooks [00:00:55] It's not like a dry 200 pages of theory about the Mormon moment. No stories.

John Dehlin [00:01:00] Yes. And so what we're gonna do now is invite each of these ladies to have a little dialogue. So I'm gonna turn over the chair and I'm gonna ask each. Each one introduce themselves when they start and then just ask, you know, a question or two, have a little five minute chat, and then we'll turn it over to the next person.

Joanna Brooks [00:01:20] Well, thank you all for coming. Being here, reading the book, very exciting for me. I'm so glad you're here with your questions. Go ahead, fire away.

Guest 3 [00:01:31] So excited to be here too. Loved it. Like John said, it's one of those where you cry and you laugh and I could totally relate since I grew up Mormon too, as most of us, I think we all did. But what I'm really relating to right now is you have two girls. I have two girls, young girls about the same ages. And I loved how the beginning of your book starts out, you know, as you're a young child and just all this kind of magical Mormonism, good culture and pioneer heritage. And then as you move up quite quickly, the tone kind of changes and you go to young women's and you start getting these morality lessons and it's quite.

Guest 3 [00:02:12] It's humorous, I love it. But it also is very thought provoking and I'm wondering what are you doing to. I'm also in young women's right now in my ward and I'm wondering, what are you doing to prepare your girls for young women's and those big life changes and those hard lessons that they're learning that you may or may not agree with how they're being taught? What are you doing?

Joanna Brooks [00:02:36] My daughters are 6 and 8.

Guest 3 [00:02:37] She plan. Yeah.

Joanna Brooks [00:02:38] So I am hoping they get a really good grasp of the Basics right now, you know, to really get all the great things primary teaches so that they have. Because for me, it was the good basics that kept me anchored as all of the more funky aspects expanded and took up more space in my Mormon world as it became more about sexual morality and dress codes. And, you know, I could pull on those basics and say, okay, it's not really all about. Right. That there's something more fundamental. So I'm just hoping the fundamentals will really stick. I love primary. Primary is a okay with me.

Joanna Brooks [00:03:22] Yeah. And I don't know. I don't have a plan yet. Yeah, I don't have a plan yet. We're gonna see. I mean, my daughters are gonna be pretty independent minded, so I hope they'll. But we're in a small ward, I mean, award as a small number of. So I'm hoping that their good personal relationships too, will keep them engaged. And maybe if I threaten them with like, they won't get a car unless they go to seminary. I don't know. You know?

Guest 4 [00:03:44] Yeah.

Joanna Brooks [00:03:45] But I don't know. I don't have an answer to that.

Guest 3 [00:03:47] Yeah, no, that's good. It's just something that I've kind of been thinking about.

Joanna Brooks [00:03:50] How are you dealing with it? What are you thinking?

Guest 3 [00:03:51] I have no idea. I'm scared.

Joanna Brooks [00:03:54] Did you have the lessons, like in my ward? They did like the donut we talk about in the book, the object lessons chapter where they pass the donut around. Who would want touch it? Who would want the donut? Did they do that in your ward?

Guest 3 [00:04:06] We had similar ones. Yeah.

Guest 2 [00:04:10] Yeah.

Guest 3 [00:04:11] I'm trying to remember. I can't remember the exact ones, but there were definitely lessons that you remember and you're like, oh. And looking back on it now, I'm like, there's more than one way to think about it and how I was taught as a 14 year old or whatever.

Joanna Brooks [00:04:23] You know, when I revised, when I did the expanded new edition, I actually, I rewrote the way I said this is what I would actually tell my 16 year old self. I kind of expanded it because I thought about it more.

Guest 3 [00:04:34] Yeah, I love that part. I could totally identify with that. Yeah. Because you're so different now than you were when you were 16 and there

Joanna Brooks [00:04:39] are things you want to tell her, but you can't unless you write a book to her.

Guest 3 [00:04:44] Yeah, that's a good way to look at it. I had one more question, and that was about, I love how you bring in like the relationships with women that you had in your ward and your Family. You talk about this relationship that you had with the visiting teacher when you weren't even active. I don't think you were pregnant and expecting your first child. And I just really identified with that as well. And you're wondering to her kind of out loud like, have I done this wrong? You listed all these things that have. I read wrong and thought wrong and loved wrong and married wrong. All these things. And she just takes you by the hand and then what does she say exactly?

Joanna Brooks [00:05:19] She says, it's gonna be okay. Terry will be my example. It's gonna be okay because you are searching for truth and that is what matters. And this was a, you know, straight up active, down the line, multi generational.

Guest 3 [00:05:32] Yeah. And that's something totally identify with, searching for truth. You know, we're all just searching for truth and we're all on our own little truth searches. I just was wondering, how do you search for truth? Is it the standard Sunday school answers? The I go to church and I read my scriptures and I pray? Or have you found what you're looking for? Do you feel like it's still a journey or.

Joanna Brooks [00:05:55] Yes, yes, absolutely. I think, you know, there are some conclusions I come to in the Book of Mormon Girl about what that truth would feel like to me, you know, and I kind of close with this, like, dream of this big Mormon table where everyone has a place where we can all sit down and work out, you know, tell our stories to one another and really be more open with each other and support each other. You know, everybody, you know, the people who've been pushed out because they're gay can come home and sit at this table. The parents who push their kids out can come home and sit at this table.

Joanna Brooks [00:06:26] Everybody. Room for everybody. Is there a space that's big enough like that? So that's the truth I'm looking for, is the space where we can sit down with one another and really love one another and listen to one another.

Joanna Brooks [00:06:38] That's where my heart gravitates. But oh no, it's going to take me the rest of my life because it keeps changing. Right. Isn't that your experience too?

Guest 3 [00:06:47] Absolutely. And you find goodness in little corners that you didn't know were even there.

Guest 4 [00:06:53] Right.

Joanna Brooks [00:06:53] Which is a spiritual thing. You know, like people who are spiritually mad. Like that's how we, we look for the little moments, you know, like the unexpected visiting teacher who shows up and says the exactly right thing, even though you feel so left out.

Guest 3 [00:07:05] Yeah.

Joanna Brooks [00:07:06] She's gonna reach out to you and it doesn't have to be a visiting teacher. Could be someone totally random. You know, wisdom comes from unexpected places when you're on a spiritual journey. Yep.

Guest 3 [00:07:16] But you were open to that. Even though you weren't attending, you were still letting a visiting teacher come and pat you on the hand.

Joanna Brooks [00:07:21] There was something about her voice that was really soothing.

Guest 3 [00:07:23] Y.

Joanna Brooks [00:07:24] You know, something about her voice. Something about her was really special. Yeah. But I always did try to be open, even when I was away. Yeah.

Guest 2 [00:07:34] I also. I read the book a couple months ago, and I really. I really liked it. I found it just very relatable, and it spoke to me a lot. I'm a BYU student now, and so just your feelings about going to BYU really resonated with me. But my question does have a little bit also to do with young women's like hers. There's the chapter called the Marie Osmond Guide to Health and Beauty. Oh, yes, that's it.

Perfectionism, Stories, and the Mormon Experience

Joanna Brooks [00:08:02] Marie Osmond was my icon.

Guest 2 [00:08:05] Well, I'm a little young for Marie Osmond, but you mentioned. Sorry,

Joanna Brooks [00:08:12] who is your icon? Did you have a Mormon icon growing up that you looked to? No one that published a beauty guide and it was, like, full of secret gospels.

Guest 2 [00:08:18] Does anybody else publish a beauty guide? I don't think anybody did.

Joanna Brooks [00:08:23] Marie was kind of special that way.

Guest 2 [00:08:25] She was.

Joanna Brooks [00:08:25] She still is,

John Dehlin [00:08:28] but.

Guest 2 [00:08:28] Well, you did mention the song A Window to His Love in that same chapter, which I sang in Young Women's when I was young. And I thought it was very creepy at the time, but it has its merits. But you talk a lot in that chapter about kind of the Mormon focus on works over grace, how you're gonna, like, work your way to the celestial kingdom, and a lot of. Just a lot of, like, perfectionism being kind of absorbed from, like, from Marie's, you know, health and beauty guide and from church. And I think that that happens for a lot of people, that they develop this sort of perfectionism with a very religious focus. So. But when you're talking to John, you. You mentioned grace and sort of grace being more important to you. So I was wondering how you kind of overcame that focus on work so much and perfectionism.

Joanna Brooks [00:09:22] I think you have hit on one of the major struggles for Mormon women. Like, really perfectionism checklist. Perfectionism combined with, like, focus on body image. It is rigorous. You know, I see it in so many Mormon women. The amount of energy, anxiety about being perfect in all these ways takes up. It is huge. If we could, like, untagged, unleash that energy and redirect it, you can move Mountains. The amount of time we spend worrying ourselves about whether we're good enough or not. I think, you know, one, I. And I was really a perfectionist.

Guest 4 [00:10:06] Really.

Guest 5 [00:10:06] Really.

Joanna Brooks [00:10:08] Until the point at which things really fell apart for me while I was at BYU later in my BYU time, when I was just struggling pretty hard with my faith and subsequently made some pretty unorthodox choices, ones that I write about in the book.

Joanna Brooks [00:10:27] And so being open about what others would consider my imperfections has been my vote with my heart and my life and my words, to say it's okay to do it a different way. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. Let yourself down off the hook. And a big part of that was sort of finding, coming back again to those core beliefs, even when I was away, about, you know, what it's really all about.

Joanna Brooks [00:10:58] We do put a lot of emphasis on works and Mormonism. But for me, there came a point which I was like, I got problems bigger than I know how to solve, so you're gonna have to fix them. I turned it over.

Guest 6 [00:11:16] My turn. Okay. So I loved the book, too. I read it right when it came out on my Kindle, even before it was printed. And the thing that especially resonated with me was when you talked about your, like, your relationships with your mother and your grandmother and your female ancestors, because that's something that's always been important to me, too. I have a very close relationship with both of my grandmas, and I've always really valued that and having them as role models. And also I have a lot of pioneer ancestry, too, and that's always been something that I've really valued. And in fact, as I was reading it, I thought, I have to give this book to my mom. And here she is with the book I gave her.

Guest 5 [00:12:04] Yay. It says, to mom, love English.

John Dehlin [00:12:08] Yeah.

Guest 6 [00:12:13] So that's what especially resonated with me. But the questions that I have are sort of more about. Well, I have my bachelor's degree in Comparative Literature, and you have a doctorate in English. Right. And so I'm really interested in that, like, how your background in literary studies affects sort of your worldview.

Guest 6 [00:12:40] And I hope my questions aren't too nebulous, but they're fine. We'll see if they come out right. But my first question is, it's about. So when we study literature, a lot of the questions we ask are questions about interpretation.

Guest 6 [00:12:57] And I think about that a lot in the context of religion. And I think within everyone. And everyone within the LDS Church has their Very own. Because they're a separate person, they have their own interpretation and a lot of them might be very similar, but because we're all separate people, we all have separate interpretations. And I've sort of been wondering what you think is the best balance between relying on other people or maybe institution like the church, the church's interpretations about certain things or.

Guest 6 [00:13:37] Yeah, so the interpretations of an institution as opposed to our own individual interpretation. And I think there's a lot of conflict there within the church. And I'm wondering where you think the right balance is between that or should we focus totally on our own interpretation or what, what do you think is like the best balance or what's been the best balance for you?

Joanna Brooks [00:14:07] Wow, that's a question. Because that balance shifts all the time. Well, you know, I'm a literary historian, right. So I think a lot about history and I think about being a Mormon as being part of this historical movement and it's been had many branches and it's had this sort of interesting historical path and evolution over time. And during our lifetimes we've experienced Mormonism large as members of the LDS Church, which is not the only way to be Mormon. You know, we've experienced it through the lens and through the prism, through the experience of this highly centralized, highly institutionalized, top down correlated church.

Joanna Brooks [00:14:55] But I don't think that that defines that highly centralized, highly institutionalized church experience defines all of Mormonism. It's. For me, it's one part of Mormonism. It's a pretty defining part of Mormonism in the late 20th century, the early 21st century. But there have always been so many versions of Mormonism.

Joanna Brooks [00:15:16] And when I really think about what Mormonism is, it's the sum total of all the experiences of the people who have participated in the Mormon movement from its inception. Right. So who writes the book on Mormonism? The book on Mormonism is written in all of our lives. All of our lives make up the book, you know, the big story, you know. And so in the end the book, I say, oh, I don't want to. You know, I just want to write. I just want to tell my story. I just want to. I think there's a next chapter for this tradition. You know, I think there's hope that all of our stories help build the next chapter of this tradition.

Joanna Brooks [00:15:45] So, you know, I try not to think about in oppositional terms my personal interpretation and the Church's interpretation. I really like the places where those coincide. I feel a great deal of warmth there. Sometimes they don't fit and that's usually, I think, just because of my humanity or the church's humanity or a particular moment in history where things collide.

Joanna Brooks [00:16:15] But I try to acknowledge and think, hopefully, that there are lots of possible stories within this big thing we call Mormonism. There's not just one definitive imprint, you know, that we all, in these heroic lives that all of you, that all of us lead, you know, where we really take our faith seriously. We're all writing the story of Mormonism in our own way, imperfect as it may be. So I don't know, does that answer us? Is it really?

Guest 6 [00:16:41] Yeah, yeah, that does. It does. And I like how you sort of. You say that a person's story, you sort of put a person's. Like a person's story is in a sense, their interpretation of their life or their experience. And I've noticed that sort of an overarching theme that's in your book and also in a lot of interviews you've done, is the importance of having, like, a multiplicity of stories of different kinds of stories.

Joanna Brooks [00:17:04] Yes.

Guest 6 [00:17:04] And so my second question is about that. And I've noticed that at church, when we talk about stories or the importance or benefit of scripture stories or stories about Mormon history, a lot of times, the reason that we read or listen to those stories is for sort of a. To learn how to be better people,

Joanna Brooks [00:17:30] you know, or to confirm what we already knew.

Guest 6 [00:17:32] Right. They're like faith promoting a lot of times.

Guest 3 [00:17:34] And.

Guest 6 [00:17:35] And so it sort of gives this moral purpose to stories. And I get the sense that you don't see stories as like a moral something that's supposed to just sort of define what. Or show us how to be moral, you know, they have more beyond that. And my question is, what can stories do beyond just tell us or give us an example of how to do something, like, what's the benefit of them? Beyond that?

Joanna Brooks [00:18:08] One of the biggest ways I think about the function of story is that it's a way to provide shelter and keep people company, you know, so, you know, for example, if someone's going through a hard time, you know, maybe if everyone shares their story. I've been through that. It lends wisdom and perspective and shelter so that no one feels so left out, out alone, isolated.

Joanna Brooks [00:18:30] And that's definitely what this book tries to do, you know, is to say, you know, I've experienced this really plainly. Really, you know, some sections, there isn't a clear moral improvement, you know, like, I'm not sure. I'm sure I wasn't always exemplary. In fact, but there was always meaning in it because it was always an honest, heartfelt struggle.

Joanna Brooks [00:18:55] And telling it honestly is the best gift I can make of my own experience to others who might be going through the same thing and feeling like they're the only one. So I think it's just as important that we share our stories to keep each other company and to pay attention to life as it unfolds, because I feel that there's a lot of inspiration in history as it unfolds. So if we're paying attention to our lives and the way they're coming together and really believe that they're not totally accidental, that there's meaning to be found, and we live our lives intentionally and consciously, you know that new meaning comes forth. You know that new meaning happens.

Guest 6 [00:19:31] Yeah, I really like that because I think that meaning. I think meaning can be found in so many different places. And what meaning. Meaning is sort of defined by how we take it. You know, like, if it wasn't for us, it existed outside of ourselves. It wouldn't have. Have any meaning, but it's our interaction with it that gives it meaning. And I think that there's a lot of ways that we do that outside of a church, within and without outside of a church context that we can find that. And I'm not sure where I was going with that, but I like that

Joanna Brooks [00:20:03] you asked some good questions. Those are graduate seminar questions, but, yeah.

Guest 6 [00:20:09] I loved your book, Joanna. I really. One of my favorite books.

Joanna Brooks [00:20:12] Thanks for sharing it with your mom.

Guest 6 [00:20:14] Yeah.

Joanna Brooks [00:20:14] That means a lot to me.

Guest 6 [00:20:15] And, you know, I really wish. I think both of us wish that. My mom's mom, her name's Marilyn, actually. We call her Mar Mare. She's very spunky and very dramatic and fun, and she. She's been so much of an influence on both of us. And we both wish that she. She's actually. She has. She's getting old.

Guest 5 [00:20:38] Dementia.

Guest 6 [00:20:38] She has dementia and she can't talk really anymore.

Guest 3 [00:20:41] And.

Guest 6 [00:20:42] And we just both wish so much that we could share this with her because we know that she would really connect with it. So she.

Guest 5 [00:20:49] Love it. She married outside of the church in the 50s, so.

Joanna Brooks [00:20:55] Yep, exactly.

Guest 5 [00:20:56] Grew up in the little small town, Utah.

Joanna Brooks [00:20:58] Married outside the faith and stayed in it.

Guest 5 [00:21:01] Yep. Brought us to church.

Joanna Brooks [00:21:03] Exactly.

Guest 5 [00:21:04] As I was growing up.

Joanna Brooks [00:21:05] Yeah. My grandmother married outside the faith, too. Right. So. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Well, thank you for sharing it. Yeah. Now that it's a Deseret book, too, I'm hoping that people, like, if their mom might not have had nice feedback. People Said I'm the odd duck out in my family. But I asked my family to read this and now maybe they'll give me a little more. So. But it seems like you guys, you guys seem like you're on the same page.

Guest 3 [00:21:26] We are,

Guest 5 [00:21:28] we are for a number of reasons. Are you done?

Guest 2 [00:21:31] Yeah, I'm done.

Guest 5 [00:21:31] You're true. I. Well, Ingrid, of course ordered it for me and sent it. It didn't come fast enough. She posted something on my Facebook, said, I just ordered this book and then I got it much too late. Anyway, finally did and read it and couldn't put it down. Read it in just a few hours and cried and laughed.

Guest 6 [00:21:51] In fact, I was sitting next to her and she trying to read my own book and she kept reading out loud to me and saying, oh, I love this part.

Guest 5 [00:21:59] I think part of it is because I grew up in San Diego if 10 years.

Joanna Brooks [00:22:03] So your Southern California Mormon experience, just

Guest 5 [00:22:07] the dance festivals and watching Donnie and Marie. And I knew that little wink at the end was really for us.

Joanna Brooks [00:22:15] It was like, it'll be a perfect day when you find love and laughter along.

Guest 5 [00:22:23] Anyway. Yeah.

Joanna Brooks [00:22:24] Although I was watching Stop singing now

Guest 5 [00:22:27] you can do the Saturdays for you want to. We won't do that. But my question was part of. Well, there's so many, many things that resonated with me. But I do have to just say thank you because when you were talking about that you're hoping that this book will help people find shelter for those people that are feeling a little bit outside of the norm. I was so much like you and went to BYU and loved it and married in the temple and had these beautiful children and knew that everything would

Joanna Brooks [00:23:03] just be hunky dory the way it

Guest 5 [00:23:05] was going to be because I had done everything. And not soon after our second child was born, there was a possibility that maybe he would be gay. And he is, and he's 21 and we love him and have loved him from the minute he was born. But I have always felt this, like I'm sitting on the end of the pew thinking, what if everyone else knew what I know? Or how would they reconcile this or not reconcile it and just live with not being able to reconcile it. So when I read this and just, I mean, I just. I just was cheering in the background saying, yay, this is how I feel too.

Guest 5 [00:23:45] And so it did so much. It really, really helped me to just feel like I get to sit here too. And there's a line. I can't remember exactly where it is, but where you Say, well, going back to the whole Prop 8 thing, I remember we lived in Utah, which was lucky because I would have just broken in a million pieces.

Guest 5 [00:24:07] But you said that after Prop 8, it was hard to go back to church. And I remember even during that whole thing, there was almost like this feeling like, oh, this is where, you know, we separate the wheat from the chest. Yeah.

Guest 5 [00:24:19] And I thought, well, who's the wheat? I think I'm the wheat, you know, because I'm the one that's loving and accepting and totally unconditional in every. I mean, there wouldn't have. There is no condition. But I remember thinking to myself, I don't know if I can hang on to this.

Guest 5 [00:24:41] But then there was something in me that said, I think the church needs me to be here to represent him and to say, represent your son. Yeah. That he loves the church, too. So I just want to say thank you. There's not really a question in there, but here's my question.

Joanna Brooks [00:24:57] Thank you for your courage.

Guest 5 [00:24:58] Oh, well, it's. You know, it gets easier. Somehow. It's gotten. It does feel like there's been a progression and that it's easier to talk about.

Joanna Brooks [00:25:08] And there's so many who are gone from us, who belong with us, who miss us, and we miss them. We don't even know that we miss them. And we miss them.

Guest 5 [00:25:17] And the thing that I became aware of early on was that whole. For a long time, the dialogue was like, it's us and them. And I thought, no, it's all of us. They're here. We can't talk about them like they're somewhere else. I mean, they're all. Because he was right there sitting next to me.

Guest 5 [00:25:39] So anyway. But my question is actually two questions. You talk sometimes about edges, and early on, you talk about as a child that you couldn't see the hard edges that divided you from the outside world. And sometimes those feel like a protection almost. At least that's how I felt when I was growing up. But how do we soften those edges?

Community, Authenticity, and Softening Hard Edges

Guest 5 [00:26:02] How do we. And I think part of it. Well, you also talked earlier about in our Sunday meetings. Everything's so fresh and clean and perfected almost in the presentation. And you can't go over. Well, you can. I don't know. Anyway, I don't know what I'm trying to.

Joanna Brooks [00:26:24] I'm going to tell a random story about my dad. When my dad was bishop of this ward in Southern California, in a town called Cyprus, he decided he was gonna put on the ward band. Our wards used to do things like roadshows and, you know, and it wasn't perfection. Like, it was, you know, it was like all these random people, including like a woman who played the marimba, you know what I mean? And this was his project, you know, and I've loved that fanciful aspect of my dad's service, you know, and in seeing that, like, it's okay for our wars to be like home, homegrown, homely, messy, if everyone gets to participate.

Joanna Brooks [00:27:01] And I think sometimes we lose that in our desire, in our perfectionist desire. I think your question about perfectionism is just brilliant because it really runs the show for a lot of us in Mormonism. So, you know, the more we can relinquish our perfectionism and focus on just, you know, just really knowing what everyone's unique talent is and making sure it gets a place that's a very like 1970s Mormon's vision.

Guest 4 [00:27:22] Mormon vision.

Joanna Brooks [00:27:23] But it's one I hold too. But the edges is hard because there's something about Mormonism, which we are. That we're at tension with the rest of the world. And I guess, you know, and we perform that tension and that distance in a number of ways. And I guess it's a matter then of sorting through what are the right ways to perform our difference or to remember our difference or our belonging, you know, our being called, if you will, to live this way apart. Like, what's the right way to live that, you know, and that changes all through time, you know, the ways we've expressed our difference from the mainstream.

Joanna Brooks [00:27:59] And I think it was really hard, and for me, it was a real negative when we expressed our difference from the mainstream by becoming politically involved in the fight against same sex marriage. You know, like, not even taking up the theological issue, just that that was how we chose to be different, by contributing to a discourse that demonized people who are also different.

Guest 5 [00:28:20] Right. And made them feel rejected.

Joanna Brooks [00:28:22] You know, other Christians have interpreted their, you know, response to be different in other ways, all sorts of ways throughout the history of Christianity. You know, some have done it by living in intentional communities or by being active on economic justice issues. And I don't know what's the right way for us, but I know when something feels painful, that. And exclusionary, that that can't be. That can't be the answer for us, can it? It can't. Not just. Not for me. It really can't. That's not, you know, that's not the Zion I was raised to believe in. The one that lives here.

Guest 4 [00:28:56] Right.

Guest 5 [00:28:56] Yeah. Well, it's about love.

Joanna Brooks [00:28:58] And it's okay to be different. It's okay to have edges even, you know, if you're. If you kind of undertake them like there. It's interesting in Judaism, there's. And they're not a perfect comparison for us, but there are lots of people who are actually choosing to live more orthodox lives now who were raised reform. Like, I have friends who are more observant than they used to be. And they do it through dress and they do it through Sabbath and they do it through food, but they don't necessarily do it through othering others.

Guest 5 [00:29:23] Right.

Joanna Brooks [00:29:23] Excluding. Can we do that? I don't know.

Guest 5 [00:29:26] I think what. I think that's. I think that is the answer that we should try. So, anyway, thank you.

Joanna Brooks [00:29:35] Thank you.

Guest 4 [00:29:38] Okay. I think I might be. I think I am the only one here that was raised in Utah.

Joanna Brooks [00:29:44] In Utah?

Guest 4 [00:29:45] Yeah.

Joanna Brooks [00:29:46] And so you're like, what is she talking about?

Guest 5 [00:29:48] This is not.

Guest 4 [00:29:51] Like, I hate the idea that it's so different to live in Utah, but I think that it probably really is because what I mostly hear is how everybody resonated with the warmth and the love and the community that you felt in your Mormonism growing up. So I'm curious about why you think that is so different here. And then also I want to mix into that. So there's a quote in the book, and this is on page 10. If you've got your book, follow along in your. Actually, I have the old book, though, so I think the pages are.

Joanna Brooks [00:30:29] The pages are going to change in the new edition.

Guest 4 [00:30:33] What was there to compare to this feeling of belonging to one another, belonging to the only people who believed as we believed, as our mothers and fathers and our pioneer grandmothers and grandfathers believed. And I just sensed the warmth in that statement from you, and it's not something I experienced so much. But then I'm wondering when this stuff happened with Prop 8 or when you started to realize that you. You aren't really believing necessarily what that community is believing. How did that impact. And when you came back to church, did you feel that same sense of community that you felt before?

Joanna Brooks [00:31:06] I think it's like being in a family, you know, and your reasons for. You feel that sense. There's all this history, and even when there's disagreement and you go away, it's still. There's that deep, profound sense of like, at core, these are the people who made me. This is where I'm from.

Joanna Brooks [00:31:22] You know, I also read in that, you know, Walter Kern, who wrote very briefly about Mormonism, who's a great American writer, wrote this essay just a few weeks ago. We wrote about the later part of his life as a Mormon after leaving the faith, you know, and looking back on it and remembering and saying, you know, what makes Mormonism special is it's still this communitarian experiment. And even though it looks so conventional now, you know, we are still people who try to show up for one another, you know, like, even if you're not attending a ward, you know, Mormons, even unorthodox Mormons, have a sense of trust, you know, amongst each other.

Joanna Brooks [00:31:56] Like, I will show up for you. I will, you know, I will try and be there for you because we have this bond. So I think there is a bond that persists when we try and show up for each other, and we choose that now. I don't know. I don't know how it sounds like there needs to be, like, Book of Mormon Girl Utah audition, or like, you know, the even more ironic, sardonic Book of Mormon Girl because I grew up in, like, the mothership heartland. Like, let me tell you how it really is. Which would be great to have dueling books, because, like, right now it's like Crack Hour, you know, like Shadow Mountain Imprint, you know, whatever is like the church approved account and then ghostwritten polygamy memoirs.

Joanna Brooks [00:32:36] And now there's the Book of Mormon Girl. And now there need to be about four other Mormon books to capture what it feels like to be different kinds, you know, because, you know, it sounds like you had a very different experience than me.

Guest 4 [00:32:45] Yeah. I wonder if it's just when you're not the minority. Right. Changes the dynamic. It changes how you need to rely on each other a little bit or something. Ah. So I felt, you know, I felt a little, like, ripped off. Like, man, you know, I didn't feel that, but it was beautiful.

Joanna Brooks [00:33:04] California Mormons, we know.

Guest 4 [00:33:07] And much of it was, you know, the details were the same. You know, we didn't do the really cool dance festivals, but. So I have one other question. I don't know if you want to talk about this, but you didn't mention David very much in the book. Yes. And I am super curious about kind of how intentional it was to marry outside the faith or if you think it's easier to be a Mormon feminist and not be married to the priesthood or not have to anyway.

Marriage, Disaffection, and the September Six

Joanna Brooks [00:33:40] And I taught, you know, that was one of the things when I started working with Free Press on this new edition, like, yeah, you're gonna have to write more about your marriage. Please Put more in. And I was happy to do that. So there's about two new chapters in the new edition. And so one of, you know, David gets a little more coverage there.

Joanna Brooks [00:33:56] You know, I met him at a time when I was definitely away. I mean, I was still. Actually, I was still attending. It was before the anti gay marriage stuff started. So I hadn't, like, sort of stepped away and gone into the crying years.

Joanna Brooks [00:34:09] But, you know, our relationship was during years. I was really actively sorting it out, and I think I felt really safe with him. And there's a line in the new edition where I say, you know, that, you know, it was such a relief to be with someone who would never audit my heart for heresy. And that even a Mormon like me deserved a marriage. Right? Even a bad Mormon deserved a marriage where I could be safe from being audited.

Joanna Brooks [00:34:43] And I can't say that it was conscious at the time. I mean, I fell in love with him because he was cute and smart and nice to me. You know, all the basic good reasons. But, you know, somewhere in that story there's a meaning that over time, I've been able to see that marrying him played a really good role for me and has been an asset to my coming back and contributing in my own quirky way to Mormonism. Feeling like I could, you know, having an ally. So, yeah, it was a lucky break.

Guest 4 [00:35:23] It's nice to get those once in a while.

Joanna Brooks [00:35:25] It is. It is. Well, thank you all. Thank you for reading the book. I'm glad you liked it. We need more, right? We do. We need more. Who's writing the next one? Ingrid, thank you. No, I should have known. Some of those questions you asked. No, we need more books.

Guest 2 [00:35:47] Yeah.

Joanna Brooks [00:35:48] Why not you?

Guest 6 [00:35:50] I don't know. I need to work on my confidence.

Joanna Brooks [00:35:53] I'm gonna start giving you homework assignments.

Guest 6 [00:35:57] Okay, sounds good.

Joanna Brooks [00:35:59] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:36:04] That was really fun to have you interview and talk to. You remodeled a book club with these wonderful ladies.

Joanna Brooks [00:36:10] They were really smart.

John Dehlin [00:36:12] Good questions. Nice job, ladies.

Guest 4 [00:36:14] Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:36:16] All right, so few more questions. Thank you so much for your time today. Someone asked, how do you stay so positive? Like, is there anything in your spiritual or even your physical practice that you would say contributes to your cheery, upbeat, positive demeanor? I know yoga is a big part of your life.

Joanna Brooks [00:36:43] Yeah, I go to yoga and I sweat it out at the hot Bikram. Yoga. 90 minutes. Let me see what else contributes. Yeah, exercise is important. I pray. Those sound like textbook answers. I mean, I think, you know, there's a line you'll hear different People say I'm a prisoner of hope. You know, Cornell once, Cornel west once said that he's a African American thinker and kind of thought leader. I'm a prisoner of hope. And he got it from someone else. I'm trying to remember who, but I like that idea, you know, I mean, yeah, let's be critical. Let's be sharply thoughtful and analytical, but when it comes down to it, you know, there is so much good. Let's plug into that as much as possible, ruthlessly positive without being flaky, without being simplistic, sort of an experiment. You know, can we be ruthlessly positive without being goofy and simplistic?

John Dehlin [00:37:48] That's what Harvey Milk said. He said, give him hope. What role do the Scriptures play in your lives?

Joanna Brooks [00:37:55] Well, you know, being a Sunday school teacher, I'm getting to know him again, you know, and again and again and again, like we all do. I found some comfort, you know, when I was teaching different points. I find a lot of comfort and wisdom in the scriptures. Yeah, yeah. I'm not the best at scripture study, but, you know, I have a homework assignment every week. I have to read them, study them, teach them. So I do.

John Dehlin [00:38:24] Nice. So in the spirit of hope, you've talked a little bit about the challenge the church is facing right now with sort of. And all religions across the world are facing, which is retaining its members, especially its women and its young members and its young women. That might be the most troubling demographic of all. I'm not going to ask you to counsel the church leaders, but how would you handle the disaffection problem? Can you see any solutions to this that don't compromise our uniqueness? Those edges that you guys talked about, can you see any answers that might help keep a certain percentage from leaving that doesn't also compromise who we are?

Joanna Brooks [00:39:15] You know, I don't tend to think in terms of solutions. I tend to think in terms of, you know, principles, because I don't think the solutions are always evident to us. You know, I really love history and the idea that, you know. Well, it's an old Marxist idea, you know, there you go. Uh, oh, it's an old Marxist idea. Before him, a Hegelian idea. Yeah, you know, that. And Hegel was this interesting figure. I can't believe I'm talking about Hegel,

Guest 3 [00:39:41] but here we go.

Joanna Brooks [00:39:42] Hegel was this very interesting. A secular figure who is deeply influenced, a secular philosopher who is profoundly influenced by his religious roots in Christianity. And he talked all the time about the spirit unfolding through history. The history was the material through which the spirit worked. And, you know, that got translated through even more aggressively secular thinkers into this, like, there's a world historical spirit and there's a spirit of the times. But for Hegel, it's always sort of vague whether that's actually, you know, the spirit with a capital S or the spirit of humanity, or so, you know, yeah, we are in some times as Mormons.

Joanna Brooks [00:40:20] These are very interesting times. You know, the church is, you know, renegotiating always its relationship to the mainstream, the outside world, whatever that means, because of the Internet. Information that we were once able to sort of bracket about ourselves is available in new ways that often interrupt, that aren't timed to come in some particular place in a life journey.

Joanna Brooks [00:40:46] In places where the church has been a strong social, cultural force, retention rates are dropping. Just sociologists tell us that, you know, through the 90s, it was retaining 90%. And, you know, post 90s, it's more 60%. That's a significant drop. It's still way higher than other churches.

Joanna Brooks [00:41:04] I really don't know what the answers are. I do know that God is in and through all of it, and that it is all going to continue to work itself out and be worked out, and that the only thing that makes sense at any point in this huge historical puzzle as the story unfolds, is to be faithful to principles.

Joanna Brooks [00:41:23] And for me, the principles that matter most are compassion, courage and love and honesty, generosity. You know, those are principles that I don't think could lead you wrong.

John Dehlin [00:41:42] Except if you look at mainline Protestants, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, they're. I mean, we're having a hard time. They're having a really hard time. They're the ones adopting these values and principles that you try to stand for and that you just enumerated. So I know. Can you.

Joanna Brooks [00:42:00] That's why I'm not giving anyone any advice.

John Dehlin [00:42:01] Exactly. So do you have sense? Do you feel compassion for the LDS Church leadership, where as they contemplate emphasizing these values more, they're also contemplating the stability and the vitality of their institution?

Joanna Brooks [00:42:15] Oh, I have absolutely. I mean, they have a big job. This is a global church. But, you know, I think the story is unfolding in really complicated ways. You know, I think the story of our worldwide growth is gonna have some very unexpected future turns. And, you know, for me, I have a very small part in this play, and that is to be Mormon, feminist writer living in California, trying to raise her family and, you know, use whatever I have the best way I can. But I think there's some twists and turns in the road ahead for all of us, but I'm, you know, I want to stick around and see what that story looks like.

John Dehlin [00:42:56] Would you consider yourself optimistic for the future of Mormonism?

Joanna Brooks [00:43:04] I don't. Wow, that's hard. I really believe that God's in charge. So beyond that, I don't know. I mean, you know, I love Mormonism. It's my home. I love this tradition, broadly written. I serve in the church, you know, but that's too big a question for me to answer.

John Dehlin [00:43:36] I mentioned before that famous quote of the early 80s that basically said that the three great threats to the church are intellectuals, gays and feminists. Right now I think one of the.

Joanna Brooks [00:43:48] Right now the great threats are uncovered

John Dehlin [00:43:50] shoulders, multiple earring piercings. No. So I think if we had a zero in on a population that's probably most in jeopardy right now in the church in the US our, the more progressively minded females, the intellectual, the people who love science, the youth and middle aged people who are being tempted by secularism and the gays and lesbians are leaving at a rate about 70%, our data show. So let's say there's that young gay intellectual or feminist, or even that middle aged one and they're saying, I don't know, I'm weighing it, I'm open, but this is really hard. Is there anything you would say to them to encourage them to consider sticking around?

Joanna Brooks [00:44:43] Whatever they choose, there will always be a place for them at my table. That's all I have to offer. There will always be a place for them at my table. And if they want to identify as Mormon, no matter what they choose, I will claim them. There'll always be a seat next to me on the PU if they want it, and if they don't want to come there, we can just sit at my house. But I will always claim them, you know, as brothers and sisters, as fellow sharers in this tradition. You know, those choices are so personal.

John Dehlin [00:45:15] But is someone. Maybe I'm projecting, but I just want to see if I'm projecting because as I've even contemplated leaving my faith, when I see people choose to leave, there's something in my heart that breaks. Do you ever feel that?

Joanna Brooks [00:45:33] Yeah. But the story is big. It's not over, it's long. There are many chapters. You know, most of my friends coming out of BYU, who I was in that moment with when we saw Cecilia fire far, you know, Cecilia firefired, most of them aren't here. They don't continue to Affiliate. But most of them, they continue to think of themselves as Mormon in some capacity. You know, it's a hard fact of history that a lot of broken lives, you know, are how change happens. It's just hard. So in the meantime, what do we do? Care for each other. We tell our stories, try to have a good time.

John Dehlin [00:46:18] And I like. I kind of like what you said about. You never know. The story's long because we're in a month or sort of a year where we're one of the September six has now chosen to be rebaptized, and she's the second. And I think 50% of the September sixth are active Mormons, although one hasn't been allowed to be rebaptized yet. What's that like to see 50% of those that. Whose rejection sort of defined your early Mormonism, now to see at least half of those return, or in Lavina's case, never left.

Joanna Brooks [00:46:49] Right. Well, Lavina is special, and, man, I wish. I wish someone would reach out and mediate if that's what she wants. I haven't heard her say that that's what she wants, but, goodness gracious, that woman needs to be, in my view, you know, welcomed.

Joanna Brooks [00:47:09] When Maxine. Maxine pulled me aside, it was actually in Boise at a Mormon stories conference, and she said, I want to tell you something. And, you know, and I was just. I just cried. I was, of course, very Mormon, but I felt like.

Joanna Brooks [00:47:25] That's ending now. That chapter is ending. I'm so glad, because that was a long 20 years. That was a really long 20 years. And to have that feeling that, like, there was this hole ripped, you know, in the community through this act of ecclesiastical violence. Excommunication. Excommunication, you know, and to try and, like, hold it together for 20 years and wait for the people you care about to, like, come to their senses, which I know is a very prideful way to talk, but that's how it felt to me. Me, you know, it's like, really, really, that had to happen, you know, and then it didn't have to happen, or if it had to happen, it wasn't permanent.

John Dehlin [00:48:12] So to see it sort of come full circle, how does that make you feel?

Joanna Brooks [00:48:16] It was huge relief I felt. I actually. What the thought that went through my head was, I'm done. My work's done. That's what I actually thought. I was like, I'm done. My work's done. Not that I did anything to contribute to Maxine, but, like, that moment in history, that was mine to live through

John Dehlin [00:48:36] new chapter.

Joanna Brooks [00:48:39] But it really. I mean, let's not be too celebratory, because there are still. There's still a lot of healing that needs to be done from that moment. But Maxine's was a really positive step.

Her Father's Passing and Its Impact on Faith

John Dehlin [00:48:50] You started by talking about your father. How has your father's passing impacted your faith?

Joanna Brooks [00:49:00] Well, my father had. Was lifetime of service the church, you know, and, you know, because he was in a position to give service and did, you know, he had these positions of leadership. And my path went a really different way. I haven't been able to serve in the church in comparable ways for many reasons. Some of them that are my doing, some of them, they're just an accident of the fact that I was born a woman. But as I wrestled with his legacy and the beautiful legacy of service, it definitely made me look at my goals and try and examine if I was contributing as much as I could, even if it was in my own way. If I could be there for a few young Mormon women and the way he was there for young Mormon men, then that would be nice to honor his legacy that way, albeit in my own unorthodox way.

John Dehlin [00:50:16] Was the. Did you find the plan of salvation to be comforting to you at all?

Joanna Brooks [00:50:20] Death was really interesting. Death was. We were all there with him when he passed. And, you know, and I talk in the Book of Mormon Girl. I do.

Guest 5 [00:50:28] I write about.

Joanna Brooks [00:50:29] My family invited me. I was allowed to come help my grandmother. Even though I was, you know, unorthodox soul, I was allowed to come dress her for her burial. And, you know, I had the same experience with my father, even more so, sort of watching the act of death, just, you know, for me, that old story with the hand and the glove that he taught me at the kitchen table that your book mentions that my book opens with, you know, being a child and having your father say, this is your spirit, right? This is your body being born. You know, it makes so much sense when you witness death and you see this change come now.

Joanna Brooks [00:51:12] I know that might be just a story we tell ourselves, just something we reach for. You know, faith is a comfort in dealing with loss. But that's fine. I'll take it. It's a beautiful story. Works for me. Even if I don't ever see him again. It's a beautiful story. And I'll. I'll hinge my. You know, I'll bet my life on it. If I was wrong, I was wrong.

John Dehlin [00:51:41] You're a believer, aren't you?

Joanna Brooks [00:51:45] Are you shocked?

John Dehlin [00:51:47] No.

Joanna Brooks [00:51:52] If I bet my life on it. You know, if I was wrong, I was wrong. It's that easy. Sometimes the image that goes through my head is like, this is how much of an unorthodox believer. I'm a roulette wheel and my life is a little ball, and if I landed, that's great, and if not, that's another life.

John Dehlin [00:52:10] But you're siding with belief.

Joanna Brooks [00:52:12] Yeah, I'll stake my life on it. I got one. I'll gamble on belief.

John Dehlin [00:52:19] So time to end and thank you, John. We have to end in traditional Mormon stories fashion.

Joanna Brooks [00:52:24] Do we get to sing the Marie Osmond tomorrow? Be a perfect day. May you find love and laughter along the way. May God keep you in his tender care till he brings us together again. Good night, everybody. We all watched it. It's in the book. It's in the book we did. Did you have Donnie?

John Dehlin [00:52:57] Oh, popcorn, Kool Aid.

Joanna Brooks [00:53:00] Do you think like that is I. That is me.

John Dehlin [00:53:03] Crazy horses. Osmond brothers.

Joanna Brooks [00:53:06] You absolutely.

Guest 5 [00:53:07] See, I couldn't do the hair, though.

Joanna Brooks [00:53:09] I had the Donnie Kendall.

John Dehlin [00:53:12] Absolutely.

Joanna Brooks [00:53:13] With the purple socks.

Guest 5 [00:53:15] I was waiting to go to the state dance. Watching

Joanna Brooks [00:53:19] Only in the Book of Mormon girl.

Closing Reflections on Belief and Community

John Dehlin [00:53:21] So wait, so last thing, last question is just what are a couple final things that you sort of want to leave our listening audience with in terms of belief? Right. Or things you care about most or values that you just want to kind of close with? Always got to close with your testimony to whatever extent you are.

Joanna Brooks [00:53:49] I thought I've been doing it for two hours.

John Dehlin [00:53:50] You have been. You totally have been.

Joanna Brooks [00:53:55] Well, I just.

John Dehlin [00:53:57] But isn't it Mormon to end with the testimony?

Guest 2 [00:53:59] Yes.

Joanna Brooks [00:54:00] Can I testify? No. Bring it full circle.

Guest 3 [00:54:03] Just.

Joanna Brooks [00:54:04] You know, I think it's so interesting, the questions we ask of each other, the questions that you got from people when you solicited them. Why did you really write this book? You know, and it really is a book, I hope that will just allow us to have good conversations across differences in Mormonism. I hope it's a book that if you feel unorthodox, you could give it to someone in your family and say, you know, even if you don't feel like you know how to tell your own story, you just let the book do that work for you and maybe a good conversation will happen and that more orthodox folks hopefully could read it and maybe get an insight into their unorthodox religious non members could read and get a sense of why we care so much about this faith, why it doesn't wash off, why it motivates us and frustrates us and engages us so much.

Joanna Brooks [00:54:59] So this is my, that's my gift, you know, to the world. It's like, eh, you ever wonder why we care so much about the faith? This is how it feels to grow up in this world. So

John Dehlin [00:55:11] to you, we're weird, but not all that weird.

Joanna Brooks [00:55:15] No, just sort of weird, little weird.

John Dehlin [00:55:20] The book is the Book of Mormon Girl Free Press. You can get it at MormonStories.org, you can get it Amazon, Deseret Book, local mom and pop bookstore. Go get it. Buy yourself a copy. Buy each of your children a copy. Buy your parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, ward members. Bishop, let's help Joanna move this book.

John Dehlin [00:55:45] We want you to have your own book clubs. Go to Mormon Stories for Mormon Stories Book club. You'll find there a list of questions to discuss in your book club. This interview, other interviews, the Krista Tippett interview. And we hope that you enjoy this book club tradition. Write us at mormonstories.org, gmail mormonstoriesmail.org or post on the blog to give Joanna your thoughts or feedback on the book. We actually have a Facebook page that you can go up to and have a Facebook conversation using social media. That's important as well.

John Dehlin [00:56:18] Joanna will appear in your book clubs via Skype at minimum, if you have a little critical mass of people who want to schedule her and if you actually want to have her in person, you know, you'll have to make it worth a while. And David's well, you know, but you

Joanna Brooks [00:56:36] know, I just want to thank you for this and just for all the other authors, like we have some brilliant authors in Mormonism. I know you're going to do Matthew Bauman's book the History, you Know, the Mormon People and Untold Others. And you know, this is a great way to support thoughtful Mormonism. So thank you.

John Dehlin [00:56:55] All right. Joanna Brooks, thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories.

Joanna Brooks [00:56:58] Always a pleasure, John.

Guest [00:57:11] Come, come, ye saints. No toil nor labor fear but with joy wend your way though hard to you this journey may appear. Grace shall be as your day. Tis better far for us to strive Our useless cares from us to drive to listen. Jo, your hearts will swell. Oh, all is well, all is well.

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.