John Dehlin

Welcome and Mormon Stories Mission Overview

[00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is September 7, 2021, and I am doing something that occasionally I do over the years of Mormon Stories podcast, which in part is kind of just providing an update of what's been going on here in the Open Stories foundation with Mormon Stories, kind of following the spirit of transparency, which has been important to us from the very beginning of the OSF back in, oh wow, 2010, 2011. But then also I love to entertain questions and comments from listeners and viewers. I like the openness, the collaboration, the transparency, the feedback, et cetera.

[00:00:45] So that's kind of what that's what we're doing tonight. There's so many exciting things going on. There's been some changes that I want to either address and or announce. There have been lots of questions I've been getting, and I just kind of this morning put it out to the audience. Hey, any questions? Anybody have any questions or things they'd like to have me talk about? And a lot of you guys shared some questions or comments, so I'm going to do my best to answer some of the questions or feedback. And also I'm welcoming live questions or feedback as well. Kara Burrell is joining us. She's moderating the comments in the chat today.

[00:01:25] We're super grateful for Kara and all she's done. She's home today, but she was gracious enough to agree to moderate the chats in the comments. So she will be commenting and moderating as a part of this episode. All right, so let's just go ahead and jump in. I don't plan on this being super long today. I wanted to talk about again, an update and give you guys a chance to ask me questions.

[00:01:51] So I wanted to begin, as I often like to do, kind of centering or grounding us in what our mission is and kind of what we're about. Just to remind those who are new. Well, to inform those who are new, but also just to remind us all, including myself, what, what we're all about.

[00:02:10] Mormon Stories is a podcast provided by the Open Stories foundation, which is a 501c3 nonprofit. And I have been playing with the kind of mission of the Open Stories foundation of Mormon Stories. None of this is going to be super new themes, but this is my latest attempt at articulating them.

[00:02:32] The first bullet is something you would have heard me talk about a lot in the past year or two as, as the concept is kind of crystallized for me, but it's, it's been in the heart of Mormon Stories since the very beginning. So if I had to list today what my kind of four tenets of our mission are, the first would be informed consent for Mormons and non Mormons. In the past, I kind of framed that as kind of educating Mormons and non Mormons about kind of the truth and the realities behind the Mormon Church. Lately, I like talking about informed consent because I think the truth is there is a lot of positive that I could probably talk about on Mormon Stories in here in the Open Stories foundation, because, you know, I'm.

[00:03:16] I am one who believes that the good things happen within the Mormon Church and within the Mormon community. But we don't really spend a lot of time on Mormon Stories podcast talking about that, although sometimes we do. And the reason why that is is because I think the Mormon Church does a really good job talking about all the good things the church does and talking about all the ways the church is helpful. The problem is that there's literally millions of people in the church and then the rest of the world that don't have a real, accurate, honest, open view of the Mormon Church's history of the way that it sometimes harms people.

[00:03:56] And, you know, there's a lack of financial transparency and other sorts of things. And so what we want to do is provide mostly a balance for that so that Mormons who don't learn the factual history, Mormons who don't know about the problems and the harm that the church might cause, and investigators or people who are outside the church as well, that they can all learn the truth about the church, the good and the bad, so that they can make decisions from a standpoint of informed consent, obviously.

[00:04:26] Well, not obviously. If I were to open up my heart, what I hope you would see is that I don't have this goal, particularly of per se destroying the Mormon Church, because I don't think it can be destroyed.

[00:04:38] And I also don't have the desire to rip people out of the church, mostly because I believe that the only thing worse than a suboptimal or even harmful structure is no structure. And so I believe that the Mormon Church plays a structural role in millions of people's lives and if they just lost it without replacing with something better, they might be in a worse off position. I'm not arrogant enough to say that I know for sure what's good for everybody.

[00:05:08] So what I. What I. But what I do want to make sure is that those who want to know the truth about the church can. And then they can make informed decisions accordingly. And that's where the informed consent comes in.

[00:05:20] So that's the first mission of the Open Stories foundation of Mormon Stories is informed consent through education. The second is, is pretty obvious to support Mormons who are in faith crisis or faith transition or maturation of faith, however you want to call it.

[00:05:36] That's really important because that phase of losing your faith in Mormonism and trying to figure out where to go is very painful. So that's the second tenet. The third is promoting healing, growth and community after Mormonism. So for those who have kind of successfully transitioned out of the church, there's often still a need to, to figure out what's next and to build a life once you've left. And there's no one really doing that. And so I want to help with that. We want to help with that. And then the final thing, which I put it last on purpose, sometimes what we do can help reduce harm within the Mormon Church.

[00:06:16] We know the Mormon Church listens to Mormon stories. We know they follow it. We know they respond to it very, very quickly. And so we feel very confident that when we make criticisms, when we shine transparency, when we shine the sunlight of transparency onto the church, that it often helps the church make changes that leads to less harm. So that's not an explicit goal.

[00:06:42] I see the first three goals as the main things that we do, but we hope that as a side effect to what we do, that we reduce harm in the church. So I wanted to begin there. I hope that makes sense. While we're at it, I want to give a quick shout out to Timothy Bands.

[00:07:01] Timothy made a donation through YouTube. YouTube's got a super chat feature where you can click on the dollar sign and make donations. We, we really rely on donations to make these live streams possible and just to fund the ongoing operations of the Open Stories Foundation. So, Timothy, I'm going to come back to your question later, but I just want to thank you for donating and, and just, just say that I appreciate. Whether it's through the Facebook Stars feature or the YouTube feature, we're always going to encourage and appreciate donations because they're what help keeps keep the light on. And we're going to talk about that in just a second.

[00:07:40] Okay, I'm going to go ahead and show one of the questions that I've already received. One is what trends have you seen related to your podcasts in terms of number of new listeners, new donations, amount of people reaching out to you directly, general growth that may provide insight on what may be happening in the church right now related to member attrition. Do you have any insights to share? And I do, actually, I do have some insights to share. So the first thing I wanted to do was to talk about the phenomenal growth that Mormon Stories and the Oba Stories foundation have experienced in the past 16 years, but particularly in the past two years.

[00:08:20] So every single year of the existence of the Open Stories foundation, we've had an increase. We've grown. We've grown in terms of viewers, we've grown in terms of listeners, we've grown in terms of donors, we've grown in terms of donations and the like.

[00:08:39] And I was super worried during COVID that we were going to take a hit. And in fact, during the first couple months of COVID we absolutely did take a hit, and we lost a bunch of donors who were not able to support us because of financial reasons, getting laid off, et cetera.

[00:09:02] But. And we lost a bunch of revenue from all the events that we were holding. We used to hold regular monthly workshops and retreats, and that was a major source of revenue for the Open Stories Foundation. We even acquired new office space to help do workshops here on site and retreats. And Covid shut all that down. So I was really worried about revenue and I was worried about the business, and I was just. But what we did is we decided. I decided to invest in the podcast and the YouTube experience and in venturing into new platforms on social media because. Because I wasn't doing workshops and retreats and because I was worried about revenue and because I wanted more importantly to promote the mission and reach as many people as possible.

Podcast Growth and Social Media Milestones

[00:09:51] And the news that I have is just so exciting, I can't even tell you what you guys can see. Here is the first chart which shows podcast growth. Now, this is from first, I'm going to show just MP3s. And this does not include Spotify necessarily as a source.

[00:10:13] This doesn't represent Google Play and other platforms necessarily. But what this does represent is growth in downloads from, let's just say 2017 to now. So over the past four years, what this shows is significant growth in podcast downloads. We were probably, probably averaging 300 to 350,000 downloads per episode towards the end of 2017, beginning of 2018. And what this shows is a significant growth to where we're averaging around 500,000 downloads just through one, just through Libsyn alone per month. So basically, since 2021, we're averaging over half a million MP3 downloads per month. And that's just people that only listen to the episode, you know, through kind of their.

[00:11:12] Their iPhone or their Android device or whatever. That's significant growth. And I'm super, super excited about that. But the news gets even better. Years ago, probably, oh, four years ago, four or five years ago, I decided to put every single.

[00:11:30] To record the video for every single Mormon Stories podcast episode and to put it on YouTube and to try and put it more on Facebook. And what we've seen is just this phenomenal growth in YouTube, our YouTube audience, and especially about two years ago, what you'll see is significant growth starting about two years ago, almost exponential growth in our YouTube viewing audience.

[00:11:58] And we're going to talk a little bit about why our YouTube audience has grown so significantly, but our YouTube revenue now is starting to become a really sizable, significant percentage of our overall revenue. So donations, direct donations are the main way that we've always received our revenue through the Open Stories foundation. But now YouTube ad revenue is starting to become, you know, really significant.

[00:12:30] Yeah. And so I want to talk about that as well. But YouTube has become a significant force. And then I'm just super. Oh, and by the way, I want to shout out to Mark Fuentes, who just made a donation as well to Super Chat. Thank you, Mark. Mark wrote, now, don't go spending it all in one place. I appreciate that, Mark. Thanks for that donation. And also previously, Matthew Messner also made a donation. So thanks to Matt, thanks to Mark, and thanks to everyone who's able to support us again through Super Chat and Facebook. So another really exciting thing is that we just a few months ago decided to invest in the TikTok platform.

[00:13:14] And what you'll see if you're watching this visually is we. We've experienced phenomenal growth on TikTok right now. If you look at our YouTube followers, we're we're at about 38 or 39,000 YouTube followers, and we're excited about that. We're growing at about 1500-1800 subscribers to our YouTube channel per month. So that's about, you know, 18 to 20,000 new YouTube subscribers per year on Mormon Stories podcast. And that's phenomenal. So we're almost at 40,000 YouTube subscribers and followers.

[00:13:57] But the reason why I'm telling you that is because we started TikTok just a couple months ago, and we are already now at 70,000. We're like 0.2 thousand shy of hitting 70,000 TikTok followers, and we're over 1.1 million likes at this point.

[00:14:16] So our TikTok growth has been phenomenal. It's been a wonderful investment. I'm going to talk about Kara Burrell and the importance of her role in that in just a second. But before I do, I'm also going to just talk about Instagram growth and what you'll see on our Mormon Stories Instagram channel, which Kara Burrell has also been managing. We're up to 12,000, 12.1 thousand followers on our Instagram. And I don't probably need to tell you that Most teens and 20 somethings are not on.

[00:14:48] They are on TikTok and Instagram. And so this has been a really important investment for us and it's something that we've invested time and money in and it has really, really paid off. And of course it has to be that some of our increase in, in MP3 downloads and in YouTube have come from our TikTok and Instagram investment. And I know that for a fact I'm being stopped by people on the street and said, hey, are you the TikTok guy? And I've never, I mean, obviously two, two months ago, Mormon Stories podcast wasn't even on TikTok. So of course that wasn't happening a couple months ago.

[00:15:26] But just imagine. And you know, I've been doing Mormon stories podcast for 16 years and you know, it's still, you know, maybe once a day I might get stopped if I'm walking around Salt Lake City or once or twice. But now I'm getting stopped as the, as the TikTok guy, sometimes multiple times a day. So those are all really, really promising and exciting sort of results.

Board of Directors, Staff, and Donor Appreciation

[00:15:52] And so the next question becomes, to what do I attribute the crazy growth? And that's a question that I get a lot. And I kind of want to talk about it. I want to start with mentioning our board of directors. A couple years ago we, as we always do, like, you know, we've probably had three or four eras of Open Stories foundation boards, maybe five.

[00:16:19] And that's over again. Kind of a, you know, an 11 year period. We've probably had four or five major boards. We had an original board, then we had a smaller board with me, Natasha and Dan. Then we grew the board and it went through one or two iterations for a couple years. And then over the past couple years we've kind of had a smaller board again. Right now the board consists of myself, my dear friend Clint and my dear friend Carrie. They've been on the board for about two years. And I just have to say every board has been amazing. Every board has been special.

[00:16:53] This has absolutely been the most efficient board, the most productive board, the most effective board we've ever had. And that, that has nothing to do with the former board members. We've always had amazing board members, but I think you just learn how to work with nonprofits and with boards and how to manage things more efficiently, more effectively over time. All. Also, the increase in revenue has allowed us to have a top notch accountant on retainer and a really good attorney to help us with all legal issues that former boards maybe didn't always quite have the benefit of. So when we have any sort of governance issue or logistics issue or legal issue, we just bring on an attorney, a nonprofit attorney, the best nonprofit attorney in the state.

[00:17:36] And he helps us think through things so that we're making decisions based on the law, not based on just kind of guessing or wondering what the right decisions might be. So I can't say enough about our board. We have had a few moments in the past couple years that were really, really difficult and challenging for the Open Stories foundation and this amazing board has been so helpful.

[00:17:58] So I'll try and entertain comments here and there. Jeff Webb. This is a critical comment. He's basically saying sort of comes off as braggadocios. You know, Jeff, I'm just going to say that, you know, there's a catch 22 here because also one of the biggest criticisms we receive is that we're not transparent. And I think that's never been true. But I do think it's important for us to share where we are. And I'd be lying if I didn't say it hasn't been an amazing year to, I mean, if I'm going to report to my, my donors and my listeners and my viewers how things are going and, and it just so happens that we're up in every domain, in viewers, in listeners and downloads, in donors and in productivity and on multiple platforms.

[00:18:45] Yeah, if you want to say it comes off as bragging, that's totally your call. What I'm doing is reporting to you what's going on. And hopefully those of you who donate and those of you who care about the Open Stories foundation want to hear this kind of stuff. And in fact, many of you ask these questions to me all the time.

[00:19:02] So I, you know, I guess I'm saying sorry, not sorry to Jeff, but I'm glad, you know, you feel comfortable making that observation. And we want criticism. A quick thank you to Aceh for their donation to YouTube. He writes, I had a brief run in with the church back in 2006, but I was Never baptized. Everyone was lovely to me, but I kind of feel like I dodged a bullet. Keep up the good work. And that reminds me, ache we have so many never Mormons now listening to Mormon Stories podcast, ex Jehovah's Witnesses, ex Scientologists, ex Jews, ex Catholics, ex Muslims all over the world.

[00:19:37] And I'm really, really proud of the fact that we're helping people who all and people who live in Utah and people who know Mormons and have to figure out how to interact with Mormons but that don't quite know how or don't understand the church. We are just so thrilled about our. Our non Mormon audience and never Mormon audience. Anyway, thanks for the criticism and feedback. All right, so our board is amazing. It is a smart board. It is an efficient board, is an. It is an independent board. And I have so much confidence and love in this board.

[00:20:14] All right, so the. So the board is the kind of the foundation of why we've been so successful. If we didn't have a board, they look at our finances every month. They help me troubleshoot, they keep things on the up and up.

[00:20:30] We couldn't exist without an amazing board. The second thing is our donors. Also, I want to thank Sarah Pratt for her donation. She just donated 20 bucks. Brilliant move to bring John Larsen on and give Mormon expression to a new audience.

[00:20:44] Thanks, Alison Biggers. We love you, Allison. And yeah, we're going to talk about John Larsen in just a second. But the main point I wanted to make right now is that we could not do this without you. You, the donors. So about one out of a thousand listeners or viewers donates right now to Mormon Stories and the Open Stories foundation. And we, we could not do it without you. Everything that I do is funded by voluntary donors. And so I just have to say we, none of this would be happening without donors.

[00:21:14] And Jeff just, just made a contribution and he said this donation is the least I can do for everything you have done for me and everything else you and your team have helped through our faith crisis. Your PO have helped me realize I'm not crazy and I'm not alone. Thank you guys for everything. I am forever in your debt. Jeff, thank you so much for that donation. And Jeff, I think your comment represents why a lot of people feel compelled to donate. It's because they feel like we help them in all the ways you say, and hopefully that continues. But I just want to say, donors, thank you, thank you, thank you.

[00:21:48] I want to spend more time with you. I want to have donor lunches. I want to have donor get togethers. I want to have regular brown bags. Now that Covid is hopefully chilling out a little bit, I think that will be more possible in the weeks and months ahead. So look forward to more ways that I hopefully can interact with my donors.

[00:22:09] All right, so the next reason we're doing so well is because of the amazing interviewees that we have. If you just think about the past few months on Mormon Stories podcast, you know, we. We've had Margi, my wife. Come on. We've had the amazing Matt Easton, the valedictorian from byu. Come on. Recently, we've had the Lang family. We've had John Larsen. We've had Kyle Ashworth and Gerardo. We've had Jesse Funk. We've had Radio Free Mormon. Come on.

[00:22:41] We have had, you know, a whole panel of physicians talking about COVID You know, we had, we had Leah Young. We had her daughter, Brinley Young. We had Kelsey Marie Warner, you know, the Driggs family, Linda and Savannah.

[00:23:04] We, you know, Luna Corbden. We have had so many amazing people come on Mormon Stories podcast and share their stories. Exmolex, Haley Everts, Drew Manning, Lance Allred, jd, JT and Lady C. Like so many amazing guests. And Mormon stories only exist because people are willing to courageously tell their story.

[00:23:32] And the people that we interview are so thoughtful, so courageous, so wise. That's what all our content is based on. That's what the TikTok channel is largely based on. That's what the Instagram channel is largely based on. That's what our YouTube channel is, and that's what our podcast is. So I know it kind of goes without saying, but we never can get enough of our interviewees of thanking them and saying thank you for making all of this possible.

[00:24:03] So. Oh, and of course, Mark Osland. I can't forget Mark Osland. He has been so amazing. Natasha Helfer has played a huge role. Mark Nagle, Roger Hendricks, the Shakespeares, like, there are just. I could. I could go on and on and on.

[00:24:21] Thanks, Carl, Saturday, for your donation. Thanks, Nate Butterfield, for your donation. Again, for everyone who's donating through the Super Chat or through the Facebook stars, we appreciate it. Okay, the next major reason why we are doing so well right now in the Open Storage foundation is our staff.

[00:24:42] A couple years ago, when Covid hit and I knew that we had to turn the lemon of COVID into lemonade, I decided that if we're not going to be able to hold workshops and retreats on site, that we needed to up our lighting game, our cinematography game, and our sound game. So we invested donor money in cameras, lenses, microphones, lighting and a setup.

[00:25:10] And that's all Gerardo. And I think a huge part of our YouTube growth has been the fact that. And in thumbnails, the fact that on YouTube we've got these really cool thumbnails that look so artistic and inviting. That has been Gerardo. We Gerardo started out as volunteer. He worked months and months and months just out of the goodness of his heart. And then once I knew we had the money to pay Gerardo, we've started paying Gerardo a contractor rate to do thumbnails, to do help out with cinematography, and to help out and sometimes even co host some of the episodes. So again, a huge shout out to Gerardo.

[00:25:47] He's been essential. Then we brought on Brooklyn Alden, who took over. I was doing during COVID I was doing all the audio and video editing because we had to kind of tapered down our staff for fear of not being able to make it through Covid. But once we had the financial rebound of COVID I brought Brooklyn Alden on to do audio and video editing and she just handles the audio and video editing and she has done an amazing job. And then as most or all of you know by now, then once I knew I wanted to get into the TikTok game, we brought Kara Burrell on and she first started by taking over and running our TikTok.

[00:26:25] She slowly started doing Instagram and then she even being here in the office with me to to run the soundboard, to help with lighting in the cinematography, to take show notes and to help make guests feel comfortable and to even co interview to bring wit and wisdom and perspective into the podcast. And she's even starting to work on feeling comfortable conducting some of her own interviews and she's done one already where she led and she's going to be doing another one tomorrow. So I am just so thrilled to have Kara as a producer and or co host.

[00:27:09] We experimented with a response video that was received really well last week and she's just fun and delightful and witty and wise and strong and I just can't say enough about Kara. And yeah, growing our staff has been a phenomenal part of our success. Huge shout out to my dear friend John Henderson for his donation over YouTube. Thank you, John. That is super helpful. Love you. Miss you. Let's grab lunch soon. Okay, So I do want to show you a photo of our studio upgrades. This may not look like a lot, but this is the actual this is Studio two. And Studio one. Studio two is a three camera shot that Gerardo set us up with where we have lighting for, you know, we have a mixer, we have a soundboard, we have a place where Kara can sit and co produce with me.

[00:28:03] And then we have a two camera shot along with a kind of a TV monitor where we can actually see what's on the screen. And it's been a great setup. And this is just behind the scenes of what it looks like. And then the other photo you see here is Studio one, which is, which is just my desk, but behind my desk is a camera and lighting. And that's kind of the type of studio upgrades that your donations have gone to financially support. And it's really convenient. I could literally say, you know, I can, I can say, hey Alexa, turn on Studio 2 and it will automatically turn the lights on behind me and power up the studio.

[00:28:44] And it just did it now. And then I can say, hey, Alexa, turn off Studio 2 and it'll turn off those same lights. So I mean, that's a really cool setup. Gerardo and his partner Zach helped with that and it's just really fun and it's really cool. And it's been an important part of why I think YouTube and TikTok, frankly have been so successful, just our lighting and, and stuff. And then I also want to answer a question that really people are asking that has nothing to do with us, but like, what's going on with the Mormon Church kind of more more broadly?

COVID's Impact on the Mormon Church

[00:29:17] You know, people have asked like, hey, John, what do you think Covid has done to the Mormon Church? And I gave a video about this, a short video about this a few months ago, right as spring was emerging, that I think the Mormon Church is, and I have pretty good evidence to suggest that the Mormon Church has taken a massive hit because of COVID Because so many people stayed home for a year or a year and a half from church, realized that they didn't need the church as much as they thought, realized how much they enjoyed staying home and also just frankly had, with less callings, had more time to learn and study about the truthfulness of the church.

[00:30:01] And even before COVID there was already a growth of people becoming aware of the problems with the church, the way that the church hurts people, the church's LGBT policies and sexist policies, besides misogynistic policies that have their own exponential curve of impact because the more LGBT people come out, LGBTQ people that come out, the more family and friends are affected by that, which makes more and More people aware of the problems, and same with the church history. The more people become aware of the church history, the more people that leave the church, which makes more people talk about the problems of the church history. That makes more people aware of the problems of the church history.

[00:30:38] So you had before COVID these exponential growths in awareness of church history problems and the church hemorrhaging for its racist and sexist and homophobic policies. Then when you add to that Covid we have experienced, the church has experienced kind of an explosion in disaffection. And I estimate that the church lost at least a full 5 percentage points of its membership. So we already knew going into Covid that the church, of the 16 members that the church boasts, 16 million members that the church boasts, there were probably only between 4 and 5 million, you know, Mormons that were active and, or kind of self identified as Mormons.

[00:31:24] And then the other two thirds were either totally inactive and still identified as Mormon or left the church. And then there's a full third that just are lost because they were never really converted in the first place. So now after Covid, I really believe the church has lost about 5% of its active membership, 5 percentage points. So I think the church is down to about 3 million active members now worldwide, which, which if you divide 3 by 16, you realize that the church activity rates are down somewhere 15 to 20%. And the only thing keeping that alive is Utah membership, California membership, and a birth rate, because the church is literally dying in Europe, it's dying in Asia, it's dying in a lot of Latin America.

[00:32:13] And the only place that's kind of keeping the church alive is again, his birth rate. Utah Mormonism, where if you leave, you lose your job or lose your family. And Africa. The church is massively investing in Africa as a way statistically and numerically to make up for the hemorrhaging happening everywhere else. So yes, the COVID spring is here.

[00:32:33] Yes, it is dramatically and negatively impacting the Mormon Church. And yes, I'm seeing that everywhere. And of course, all my numbers are anecdotal because the Mormon Church isn't transparent about its activity rates and its numbers. And if the church wants to prove me wrong or provide a more clear sense of its hemorrhaging, I welcome the Mormon Church to do that.

[00:32:56] Really quick thanks to TJ edits for, for his donation through YouTube and he asks, how do I talk with family who've been affected by alt right Mormon podcasters? I will get to that in, in the Q and A, but thanks for the donation, TJ and I look forward to answering that question. So, really quickly, for those who have not been following closely, I just want to announce very quickly what's new, give an update on some of the projects, and, and I want to just kind of let you know what's really exciting. So the first thing I want to let you guys know about, those of you who follow us closely, know that recently, you know, John Larsen reached out to me and I reached out to him, and we've been kind of developing a bit of a friendship slash relationship over the past year or two.

Mormon Expression Partnership and New Projects

[00:33:51] And at some point he reached out to me and said, hey, John, you know, as you well know, hackers and spammers took down the Mormon Expression archive and library. And I don't really have the staff or the time or the resources to get it back up again. But if you and the Open Stories foundation wanted to help, I would be willing to enter into some type of partnership. So those of you who follow us know we entered into that partnership. John gave us the rights to redistribute his podcast. I personally have gone into anchor, which is Spotify's MP3 host, and I've been posting individually the.

[00:34:33] The back catalog of Mormon Expression podcast. And I know I've, I've, I've submitted somewhere between 50 and 100 episodes myself. So about a third ish of the catalog is now already been published. I did like the first 30 or 40 episodes and like, let's just say the last 30 or 40 episodes. And I'm getting the numbers wrong, but you get a sense right now on four platforms, on Spotify, on Apple podcast, on Google Play, and one other. You can now listen to a third of the Library of Mormon Expression podcast that John Larsen hosted.

[00:35:09] That's super exciting news. And John Larsen is a legend. His content has helped so many people and I'm super excited that he has partnered with us and trusted us to get that going. And already you can see that Mormon Expression has had over 3,555 plays. There are 805 unique listeners to Mormon Expression Podcast, and that's just on Spotify. That does not count necessarily itunes or Google Play or some of the other players.

[00:35:40] In addition to that, we solicited donations to this Mormon Expression project and to fund an agreement where John Larsen will come on on once a month to do a special episode on Mormon Stories podcast like he did with the Mormon Doctrine of Cain episode. And I'm super happy to announce that we did this fundraiser. Several of you stepped up and we've raised over $10,000 to support the John Larsen Mormon Expression Partnership and project. So John Larsen is funded for the next, you know, six to 12 months at least.

[00:36:16] And, and some of that money, you know, John's given full access, transparency to those donations and some of that money is going to go to, you know, just to the costs of supporting that, porting that migration and just the ongoing upkeep of the Open Stories Foundation. And so, and so we're, we're super excited about that and I want to thank you for everyone supporting. Really quickly we have a, we have a couple donations. I want to thank Zach Lightcap for his donation on YouTube and I also want to thank Megan Mills for her donation. Those donations through YouTube are super helpful. So thank you.

[00:37:01] I also want to announce a new project that I just mentioned recently on my episode with Margi. We, we invested some money. So a couple years ago, Natasha Helfer and I, along with Margi decided that we wanted to release, you know, 50 plus hours of free coaching and coaching content for people in faith crisis. We knew that even if we had full time coaching practices, me, Margi and Natasha, that we would never be able to meet all the need that was out there.

[00:37:32] And so we, we basically recorded 50 plus hours of free coaching on things like communicate with believing family and friends, coming out to family, raising children who are believers, communicating to children after a loss of faith crisis, mourning and grieving, you know, coming out to bishop and family, you know, ward members and you know, ward leaders, healthy sexuality, tenets of healthy marriage. Like so many amazing, amazing episodes. But the, the user interface of the website wasn't great. So the website is mormonfaithcrisis.com and if you went there, the episodes were reverse sorted. It wasn't super user friendly and it just wasn't a good experience. And so what we've done is we took some of your funds and we invested in a designer and they've kind of redesigned this website and I'm just showing you the new look and feel and basically what it is is starting from episode number one, you can go through and get 60 to 80 hours of free coaching on all the important topics through this website.

[00:38:48] So if you can't afford a coach, if you just need in depth support on so many of the important topics that people have in a faith crisis, you could do that now a lot easier. On MormonFaithCrisis.com or gift to the Mormon Faith Crisis, shout out to Jeremy, who is a contractor and friend who helped with the revamp of that website.

[00:39:14] So I wanted to let you guys know about that. And I also want to announce that we're doing something new on Mormon Stories Podcast, which is that we're going to relaunch the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis Initiative, where, you know, once a week or once every other week, we're providing you with free or live coaching with people like Natasha Helfer, Margi, maybe Samantha Shelley, maybe Anthony Miller, Leah Young and others. And what we're going to do is make sure that in addition to providing content about truth claims, providing content about people's faith transition, providing content about current events, we want to provide content about helping people heal and grow and thrive after Mormonism.

[00:40:00] So if you really are particularly interested in that type of content, you can go to mormonfaithcrisis.com click on the Donate button. Those donations go to the Open Stories foundation and they'll go to supporting this type of content. So again, what we're trying to do is provide you with different channels and ways to donate depending on your interest. So if you go to mormonexpression.com you can donate to the John Larsen Mormon Expression Project. If you go to mormonfaithcrisis.com, you can donate to the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis Project. All of that goes to the Open Stories Foundation. Is tax deductible, is governed, is audited through, you know, is observed and accounted for through our accountant, is overseen by our board.

[00:40:45] And it's all nonprofit. It's all nonprofit tax deductible stuff. But we wanted to just give you different channels to support so that we can sort of support the things that you care and like about. And of course, you can always donate@mormonstories.org if you want to just support Mormon Stories Podcast. But Gift of Mormon Faith Crisis is a new initiative I'm super excited about. Margi's going to appear at least twice a month, and then I'm going to have people like Anthony, Samantha, Leah and others join. And if you are, another person might be Jesse Funk of Especially for Truth. And if you are a mental health provider and you have, you know, a really good presentation on healing and growth, we'd love to have you on Mormon Stories Podcast as a part of this series on the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis.

[00:41:34] So that's an open invitation for anyone who. Who wants to be a part of it. Okay, so from there, let's see, we have a couple other questions that we want to answer. The next question is what topics are you most focused on? And or passionate about to discuss for the rest of 2021. All right, so this is a list of the themes or categories that have come to my mind and that we want to either keep doing or start doing more of. Because we want Mormon Stories podcast to be a balance. We don't want it to be just faith transition stories.

[00:42:18] We want it to sort of meet the needs of lots of different people. So the categories that come to my mind are the following faith transition stories, Again, we're never going to Stop As Long as I'm Alive. The long form, multi hour in depth faith transition stories with individuals and or with families. There are a lot of people that are like, oh no, John, with you bringing on Kara or John Larsen, are you going to stop the thing, the bread and butter, the things that have made us love Mormon stories and that have helped so many people for so long. And the answer is no, we are not ever going to stop these epic, multi hour in depth faith transition stories that are generally believer safe, believer friendly, or, you know, questioner friendly.

[00:43:05] So don't worry, that's never going to change as long as I'm alive. In addition, we want to ramp up our discussion of current events within Mormon stories. So just recently, when Elder Holland gave that heinous talk that he gave at byu, we realized that that was a topic that a lot of people were interested in. So we did probably three episodes that really touched on that. The views skyrocketed and listens went through the roof. And that let us know that you are very interested in us covering current events. And so with that, we heard that loud and clear. And we know that what we need to start doing is make sure and do more of that going forward.

[00:43:57] So look for us to do more of that in the weeks and months ahead. And we are even going to be potentially experimenting with some new formats to cover and explore current events, maybe in a panel format. So more to come on that we always want to cover church history and truth claims. So look for us to try and continue that, you know, there isn't always a lot of new history going on and we've interviewed, you know, Dan Vogel and John Hamer and so many other people. We want to keep doing Mormon history, but sometimes it's hard to get historians to talk about Mormon history, but we want to do it.

[00:44:35] So if you are a Mormon historian that's done important Mormon history work, if you are even an amateur historian, but really know a lot about the history of, or if you know a really good historian or you've read a good Mormon history book, and you want it to come on Mormon Stories. We want to invite you to just reach out to me and we will help make that happen. We also, again, we're doing faith crisis transition tools, healing and growth after Mormonism tools and tips. And then we want to always promote community, things like thrive and other types of events like that, and then again, reduce harm where possible.

[00:45:11] So those are some of the main themes or categories or types of content that we want to show up in our TikToks, show up in our Instagrams, and show up on Mormon Stories podcast with a lot of regularity. So that's answering that question.

New Collaborator and Content Direction

[00:45:31] Now, there has been, you know, some people express some concern, and I'll just, I'm going to hit this very directly. For those of you who know John Larsen, you'll know that he's a passionate friend, fiery, brilliant individual, and that's what people love about him. And sometimes he gets angry, sometimes he gets spirited. Sometimes he just has a lot of conviction. And that's a different thing. The Mormon expression, John Larsen vibe is a bit of a different vibe than the Mormon Stories vibe has been historically. And there's been an overwhelmingly positive sort of reception to John Larsen being on Mormon Stories podcast. I'd say, you know, one out of ten comments are like, I'm worried about the future of Mormon Stories.

[00:46:23] John swears too much, he's too angry, he's ranty, he talks about politics too much. That's like 1 out of 10 of the comments about John. And then 9 out of 10 is like, love him, want more of him, can't get enough of him, etc. So, you know, that's, you know, so there has been some people who have said, is John Larsen, you know, partnering with Mormon Stories means that Mormon Stories is going to be all about anger and politics and F bombs. Similarly, you know, Kara Burrell is an amazingly witty and funny and younger voice. And Kara brings so much to Mormon Stories. Wit, wisdom, again, humor, a younger point of view, a female point of view.

[00:47:06] There's just so much amazing stuff that Kara has added already. But there have been people that are like, I don't like her sense of humor. I don't like the jokes, or it's become too informal, or it's become too sarcastic or whatever it is. And that, of course, has led people to, again, worry that Mormon Stories is changing. I want to address that just very directly. Here's my answer. My answer to the question is, you know, does the addition of John Larsen care Burrell represent a fundamental change in focus or tone for Mormon Stories Podcast? I would say no. The answer is no and yes. And here's what I mean.

[00:47:43] What's not changing about Mormon Stories is we are still extremely committed to the podcast being a place for questioning Mormons to feel comfortable. So we always want believing Mormons and newly questioning Mormons to generally feel safe on Mormon Stories Podcast. That will not change. That is still the case. We are also still committed to bringing on a balance of guests and perspectives, including believers, apologists, people, you know, Christians, theists, all the way to people that are the opposite of all those things. We always want Mormon Stories to represent a spectrum of perspectives. That's harder because the church has made orthodox believing Mormons or apologists terrified to come on Mormon Stories.

[00:48:33] So people like Terrell Givens and Richard Bushman, Patrick Mason, they're worried that they'll lose their jobs or lose donations or lose their support from orthodox members or book contracts or that their reputation will go down or they'll be talked negatively about by their peers if they come on the podcast.

[00:48:56] So, you know, that's not on me. That's the Mormon Church striking fear into the hearts of believers and apologists and progressive Mormons. But we're going to still keep trying. So if you are a believer, if you are a progressive Mormon, if you're a Mormon scholar, we would love to have you on Mormon Stories. If you have something interesting or new to say, if you're not terrified of the Mormon Church and the way that it might punish you, if you are open and honest and come on Mormon Stories Podcast. So that's an open invitation. We're not changing that at all.

[00:49:30] And we do not want Mormon Stories to be mean or angry. We don't want it to become political or politicized, even though occasionally politics does come up. I don't apologize for that. Having said that, we don't want politics to alienate our listeners because that's not the main.

[00:49:49] That's not the main purpose of what we're trying to do. And then finally, we don't want to become an echo chamber where it's just ex Mormons hating on the Mormon Church because we don't think that's really what's super useful. So those things are not changing. What we are changing is that we want to add, in addition to what you've always gotten in terms of Mormon Stories, we want to add more support for people who've left the church and more support for ex Mormons. And in the case of John Larsen, what so many people love about John Larsen is he represents a lot of the thoughts and feelings and perspectives of ex Mormons.

[00:50:26] Yeah, ex Mormons get angry. Yeah, ex Mormons swear. Yeah. Ex Mormons are passionate about the harm that the church causes. And when John Larsen speaks, it's cathartic. And Kara Burrell, when Kara Burrell comes on Mormon Stories podcast, even if you're not used to her, even if you don't want to hear a female voice or don't want to hear a younger voice, or just don't even, like, you know, her particular style per se, what I ask you to understand is it is really important that Mormon Stories not be a sausage fest, that it not just be guys, white, middle aged guys talking all the time. And Kara, as you guys know, because 9 out of 10 of the comments about Kara are that she's hilarious, she's witty, she's fresh, she's breathed new life into Mormon Stories and the Open Stories Foundation.

[00:51:15] And I just need you guys to understand that change is hard. You may have been used to just, you know, kind of John being. Trying to be moderate, non ragey, non caffeinated John, making it always safe for believers. We still want that to be a part of what we do. But we want to bring women, we want to make the podcast more inviting to women. We want female perspectives, we want younger voices, we want to represent the ex Mormon community better. And so all of that is parts of the reasons why we're experiencing growth. Because we're willing to experiment with new modes of information and of delivery and of platforms and of content.

[00:51:57] So please, those of you who are nervous or unhappy or uncomfortable with the change, stick with us. Please stick with us. Let John and us learn to fine tune what we do to help as many people as possible. Let me and Kara keep refining our work together. We're going to try and bring on other voices as well. In addition to Kara, again, Gerardo has been bringing on new episodes and co hosting with me. Gerardo is getting up to speed on how to co host and even potentially how to host. Just please bear with us because we're trying to broaden Mormon stories with more voices, people of color, women, minorities, so that we can have content that's as relevant to as many people and so that we can reach as many people as possible.

[00:52:47] So thank you for your support. Please keep supporting us. The other thing that we came up with with Kara and with and with others is this idea of a content rating. So just like in the movies, you can self select if the movie's rated. You know, a G movie is one thing, a PG movie is another, and a PG13 is yet another. What Karen and I are committed to and John at the beginning.

[00:53:14] Oh, and by the way, there's this comment that I have to share. Donnell writes, what I love most about Kara is for her being smart and kind. And that is absolutely true. Kara is smart and kind. Jenny writes, Jenny 21, 21 writes, John Larsen is a flavor that has been missing for too long. Another writes, Tammy writes, john Larsen is awesome. But those are not, but those that are not used to those words, you could lose them. Yeah. So we understand that F bombs and even political tirades can cause us to lose people. And so we have to work through that. But what we hope, what, what we hope is a solution that we're expending, experimenting with is this idea of content ratings and self selection.

[00:54:02] So what Kara and I are committed to is at the beginning of each episode letting people know, this is a believer friendly episode. This is a believing, slash progressive, questioning, Mormon safe episode where you won't be hearing a bunch of F bombs, you won't hear a bunch of, you know, angry stuff or ragey stuff, etc.

[00:54:27] So we'll warn people up front to the best that we can. Or if it's going to be a more like jokey, venti sort of, you know, more humorous or edgy sort of, you know, episode, we will try and warn you about that. And so if we say, hey, there's going to be some foul language here, there, there may be jokes that are on the edge in terms of sexual innuendo or whatever. Hopefully by giving the content warnings and allowing people to kind of self select, that will help people know what kind of content they can and they can't, you know, they can choose to engage with.

[00:55:08] And you know, we're going to try that and we just, we welcome your feedback. We, we, we're going to experiment with this and see where it goes. If it turns out in three or six or eight or 12 months that, you know, these attempts at trying to bring on new personalities or try new projects, either it's not financially sustainable or, you know, it alienates the audience or has, you know, damages the brand or our mission in some fundamental way, we'll find some way to kind of separate them out or do them through other channels or, you know, redirect in some, in some sort of way.

[00:55:46] But hopefully it's going to be successful because so far I think it really has been amazingly successful. So we have Some other really exciting announcements coming soon that I'm not quite ready to announce. I'll share one more comment. Kara, right. Damon writes, care is awesome. It can't always hit right. If you're always swinging for the fences, keep swinging Kara. I agree. Kara is awesome. So is John Larsen and so is Gerardo. And we're going to keep swinging for the fences.

Listener Questions on Church Defection and Epistemology

[00:56:16] And you know, we really rely on your feedback. So each time I when people email me@mormonstoriesmail.com I listen to the feedback and I and I try to answer those questions and I try to address those issues. So please email me@mormonstoriesgmail.com with feedback. Provide feedback and comments here, on YouTube, on Facebook, wherever you can. And we will read Kara. Kara reads every comment. Kara's probably the only person more obsessed about reading comments than me.

[00:56:52] She's awesome. And so we will read your comments, we will read your emails and we will do our best to respond to them. Mrs. Land of Landenland says Gerardo is so humble and kind. I agree. He's also freaking brilliant. So I have to add that about Gerardo. Anyway, we would love your feedback. Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to answer some questions from our listeners and I'm going to encourage you guys now to post any questions you have.

[00:57:22] And we'll just do now kind of the ask me anything Q and A. So let me just go back to some of the super chats and see some of the questions that have been asked. So let's see. The first, the first okay question that I have is the following.

[00:57:48] A listener writes, I would be interested in your anecdotal experience of people in local and or general leadership leaving and or questioning. It feels like more people are leaving now, but it also is the case that the Internet is bigger now so we may just be hearing more.

[00:58:06] And as Mormon stories has grown, you might hear from more people that you then you would have 10 or 15 years ago. So it may be hard to really know. Anyways, any thoughts you have on the trends in leadership, leaving and or questioning. So that's a great question. I'm not going to share people's names because I don't have people's permission to share their names. And in a high demand religion like Mormonism, you can lose friends or family just by asking a question on a podcast these days. So I'm going to be careful about sharing people's names. Err on the side of caution. So I've already kind of addressed this but I am going to say one thing, thing.

[00:58:43] I have bishops reaching out to me weekly. Mormon active Mormon bishops or bishopric members. I have members of Stake presidency, Stake Presidents and or stake presidency members. I have families. I had a grandchild of a Mormon apostle, of an active serving, super high ranking Mormon apostle reach out to me today.

[00:59:05] I have active serving missionaries reaching out to me every month. I have actively serving CES seminary and institute directors reaching out to me. And so many people are reaching out to me. And so, you know, more than, more than ever before. And so that combined with all the emails and texts and comments and the spike in listenership and viewership demonstrates to me that there is absolutely a massive, massive Mormon spring slash defection going on.

[00:59:44] And it's real. And what hides that a little bit is so many people who are terrified to leave the church. And so there's so many people that fear for losing their marriage, fear for losing their children, fear for losing the respect of their parents or grandparents, for losing their inheritance, for losing their jobs, for losing their dentist clients or their doctor clients or their lawyer clients, et cetera, their therapy clients. So you know, in any high demand religion cult, you are going to have people terrified to be honest and open. And that's by design.

[01:00:23] So yes, the defection is massive and real. No, the Church isn't going anywhere anytime soon, mainly because the Church is richer than God, almost literally. The Mormon Church is, if it's not already a trillion dollar organization. It's worth 3, 4, 500 billion and it only takes about seven years for money to double at about a 6 or 7% interest rate.

[01:00:54] You math people, you financial people can correct me if I have that wrong, but my answer is yes, it's hemorrhaging by every metric, including the reports we get on the ground. There was an amazing episode we did with Simon Southerton recently about how the Church is hiding its membership growth. And so I highly recommend you go back a few episodes. If you haven't seen that, listen to and or view the Simon sotherton episode about how the Church is hiding its shrinkage by announcing thousands and gazillion temples all over the world.

[01:01:28] But if you just look at the metric of number of members per ward or stake, you can see that that number is growing. So the Church is just trying to create as many branches as it can in Africa. But everywhere else, the Church is closing wards, closing stakes, and trying to do a shell game with the numbers to make it look like the Church is doing better than it is.

[01:01:53] So that's all true. Huge thanks to Lyle for your donation, Lyle. Let's see. I'm going to go ahead and ask Lyle's question. Lyle says, I'm fascinated with epistemology, how people draw conclusions about truth and beliefs. Your content really breaks down so much about Mormonism. Thank you, Lyle. Thank you for the donation to YouTube. Thank you for that piece of feedback. And yes, epistemology is a big thing that we cover. Kara and I recently did a response video to Jacob Hess, a guy who kind of made a mean, mean spirited, kind of passive aggressive video on YouTube attacking Mormon stories. And me and Kara and Natasha and RFM Radio Free Mormon and others.

[01:02:36] And we talked a lot about epistemology and how claiming that believings are facts. Claiming that believings. Claiming that. Sorry, claiming that feelings are facts is wrong. Claiming that feelings are evidence is wrong. And so much of Mormonism and Mormon testimonies are rooted in. Let's get you to feel these certain things, to believe that feelings equal knowledge and truth, and then to walk around with certainty. That's just a broken, bankrupt epistemology. And we try and cover that. We covered that a little bit with Kara on the episode with Jacob Hess and we'll keep covering that. So, Lyle, thank you so much for the donation.

[01:03:21] Zach, also thank you for the donation. And a question from Krisko Bike. Would you be willing to do an episode on the church's stance on the environment? This topic was my final talk in church. Yes, Krisko Bike or anyone else, if any of you consider yourself kind of an expert on, on the environment and Mormonism, we would love to do an episode on that. We have in the past, but we would love to do that in the future as well.

[01:03:51] So thank you so much for those donations. Thank you so much for the questions. Right now, please send more questions and comments. I'll stay on for as long as people are asking questions. The next question I have is, does seeing the pain and trauma people experience from the church's irrationality and abuse make you angry at the whole institution?

[01:04:15] So that is a complex question, dear listener and viewer, and I will answer it this way. So I have the benefit of having had my faith crisis literally 20 years ago. 20 years ago. 2001 is sort of the year I mark for concluding that the Mormon Church for sure was not what it claimed to be, that the Book of Mormon was not in any way a historical record or translation, that the Book of Abraham was in no way a translation of an ancient record like it claimed to be, that the Mormon Church was not the one true church. And that the Mormon Church was no better than any other church and in some ways way worse.

[01:04:54] So I've had 20 years to process and grieve. And for the first four years I was depressed and grieved and weeped and wailed and gnashed my teeth. And honestly, I started Mormon Stories Podcast partly as a way to cope with and redirect my anger and sadness and frustration.

[01:05:13] So I channel. To be honest, I don't feel angry at the Mormon Church, sort of in some ways on a day to day basis just because like I. Anytime I feel angry, I'm like the Incredible Hulk. I just, you know, or like Cyclops on, on the X Men. I just channel and focus any of my emotions and frustration and sadness and anger into Mormon Stories podcast in the Open Stories Foundation. So that really works for me. It gives me a sense of meaning and purpose in my life. And so in, in a chronic, long term sense, I don't feel a lot of anger. Now, of course, when Elder Holland gives a talk that like, makes LGBT youth and young adults want to think about not living anymore, yeah, I get angry and frustrated.

[01:06:00] The church, mostly I'm just angry that the church is so dumb sometimes, often to its own demise. By the way, shout out to my nephew, John Faust, I love you. He gave me a shout out for an X Men reference and go, marvel.

[01:06:18] Love you, John. So, so anyway, um, so yes, I get angry when the church makes super dumb decisions that hurts both the church and its members. Like why, if the church is worth hundreds of billions of dollars, and that's a B, not an M, hundreds of billions of dollars, why would the church make such stupid decisions as like the November 2015 policy followed by the November, you know, whatever, the 2019 reversal, all the dumb Covid stuff, you know, that they, that they've done before, they kind of got it more right than wrong. Although you could debate about that.

[01:06:56] You know, the LGBT stuff, the stuff with women, like, the racist stuff, like, it's just, it seems like the Keystone Cops, like error after error after error after error. They're just too rich and too powerful to be acting and so dumb. And so because the church hurts people because they were so rich, I think they should be smarter. Yes, I get occasionally angry.

[01:07:19] And that's why we're doing Mormon Stories podcast in the Open Stories Foundation. I will continue to channel any anger or frustration I have into better TikToks, better YouTubes, more Thrive events, more healing and growth videos, because frankly, we need it any, any more. Any post Mormon or progressive Mormon coach or therapist that I know has like a six month waiting list.

[01:07:48] The pain is everywhere. It's real and the defections are massive. And so there's just no time to sleep. Like Kara, maybe she'll tell you, Gerardo, I'm often texting and working at 4 or 5 in the morning, weekends included. Not because that's necessarily healthy, but because there's just so much pain and so much need and so much to do. I'm hoping to sort of get a handle on that a little bit, but, you know, that's my answer.

[01:08:19] I'm not super angry. I get angry when the church hurts people, but I just channel that into what I do. And I recommend you guys do that as well. That's a really important one way to, to cope with the anger. And you know, there have been many people that have volunteered to support Thrive, to support the Open Stories foundation, to support the work that I do to become a mental health, you know, coach or a therapist. There's so many ways you can contribute.

[01:08:50] Just find a way to volunteer and that's a way to deal with the pain. All right, next question. See, I. I do want to invite you guys to make comments or questions here as well. Let me just go ahead and take one comment.

Listener Questions on Death, Grief, and Loss of Faith

[01:09:10] Katie writes Nevermo here. Welcome Katie Fulford. It is so awesome to have never Mormons tuning into Mormon Stories podcast. Katie writes Nevermo here. But this is my favorite podcast. I love that and it's kind of humbling to me because like how many gazillion podcasts and YouTube channels are there now? The fact that a non Mormon would say that this is their favorite podcast or YouTube channel, I just, it's mind blowing to me and super humbling.

[01:09:37] But Katie says, I've learned so much about cults and healthy coping mechanisms and I love what you guys do here. Katie, thank you. That means the world. I love you. I would love to interview you for Mormon Stories just to find out what you value about it. So email me@mormonstoriesgmail.com if you want to come on the podcast.

[01:09:57] That is, that's just so wonderful. Okay, other questions and comments or suggestions? I'm just monitoring the YouTube and the Facebook chat and I am welcoming more comments and questions here. Let me go ahead and go to the next one.

[01:10:14] Now that your spiritual framework has changed, what is your approach to death and dying? Has it changed your motivation to accomplish things or how you want to spend the rest of your life? Do you grieve in advance over the future loss of family members how do you handle the loss of those who have already passed on? Okay, so I am going to now both answer this question and in a way, answer the question of a dear friend of mine named Anthony Miller who recently asked me what are some projects or initiatives going on outside of Open Stories foundation and the Mormon Stories Podcast realm that are exciting to me?

[01:11:01] And I'm going to now reference one of my favorite resources of all time, one that I myself used recently in the past few weeks to help me through through some hard times. So, so this, this resource is called Secular Buddhism Podcast. And, and this podcast is run by my dear friend Noah Rashetta. And it's a podcast, it's not a religious podcast.

[01:11:31] It is a podcast basically dedicated to positive mental health principles that help people cope with anxiety and stress and depression and sadness. It's based on Eastern wisdom and Buddhism, but it's fully secular. There's no woo, there's no superstitious stuff going on, no metaphysical stuff. It's all wisdom.

[01:11:55] And so I'm doing two things here. I am giving a shout out to Noah Rashetta and the amazing podcast Secular Buddhism. I'm recommending it to all of you and I'm going to share with you something I, I listened to recently on, on, on this podcast. So recently, in answer to this question about, you know, what's my spiritual framework and what do I think about God in the afterlife, here is my answer to this question.

[01:12:29] There was a point in Noah Rashada's podcast recently that I listened to where he said that he knows of a Buddhist monk who basically says, I don't really teach Buddhism, all I teach is, is I don't know. Now this is going to be kind of a mind blowing concept for many of you. Like what I teach, I don't know.

[01:12:52] It is a super powerful concept and I want to encourage you to go listen to the most, two, two or three recent Secular Buddhism podcast episodes to understand it. But the truth is, the absolute truth is. And this is to my believing in God friends. This is to my Christian friends, my Muslim friends, my Jewish friends, all my religious friends everywhere. This is to my Republican friends, my Democrat friends, my Donald Trump loving friends, my Joseph Biden loving friends, my Libertarian friends, my non political friends, everyone okay, the answer, one of the most important answers in life is you don't know.

[01:13:34] You don't know. I don't know facts. As my daughter Clara would say, absolute truth. Anybody who tells you they know anything about God is at, at best just guessing or sharing with you their feelings or something. That someone else taught them. Anyone who tells you they know that Jesus lives is just guessing. Anyone who knows that there's a resurrection says that they know that there's a resurrection or a heaven or an afterlife and says that they can describe anything about the afterlife and who gets where. At best, they're just giving you their opinion and sharing with you their feelings. At worst, they're trying to get money from you or lying to you, or trying to exhibit or wield undue influence over you.

[01:14:20] That is just the facts. So believe in God, believe in Jesus, believe in an afterlife, believe in Muhammad, believe in Buddha. I don't care. What's a fact is nobody knows. And so to answer this question about the future loss of family members, how I handle it, yes, in some ways, I have to learn to let go. Every single day I live knowing that I could die at any moment and that Margi, my wife, could die at any moment and that any of my kids could die at any moment, or that the earth could erupt, you know, that a meteor could hit the earth or global warming could take us all out.

[01:15:02] Like, I absolutely realize that life is finite and that we don't know what happens when we die. All I can say is that doesn't make me sad anymore. I don't feel a loss. And I actually feel better about my life now than I ever did as a believer, thinking I knew anything about heaven and Jesus and a resurrection in the afterlife. And here's my brief explanation how that works. Here's how it works. Number one is I, because I still view life as beautiful, I view life as a miracle. Creation is a miracle. Even if evolution, like all we know evolution, is that science suggests that evolution is a fact.

[01:15:47] I believe in evolution. I think evolution is super solid. And I don't claim to know anything about God or Jesus. But even if just evolution is true, and I'm also open to God, and I'm open to Jesus, I'm waiting. I'm waiting. Heavenly Father, talk to me. Jesus, if you're there, come talk to me. I'm no longer going to accept some other person claiming that they talk to you on my behalf. If you want to talk to me, I'm here. I'm waiting. Okay, now. So I'm open to God or Christianity or whatever. I don't identify as an atheist. I don't feel like I'm an anti Christian or an antichrist figure.

[01:16:27] And even if evolution is 100% true, there's no divine being. All there is is nature. And this is a Big, random fluke driven by evolution. Even if that's the case, I think that's probably even more miraculous and amazing and wonderful than if there's a supreme being and a God. And so I am left with probably more awe and wonder and beauty and appreciation for the universe now than ever.

[01:16:58] So that is so every day I think it's a miracle that I'm alive. It's a miracle that humans exist. It's a miracle that we have speech and language and the ability to do things. It's amazing that we have this wonderful Earth.

[01:17:13] Technological advances, ways to alleviate suffering, ways to grow and advance. So in that sense, I'm humanistic. I believe in humanity. I believe in animals, I believe in humanity, and I want to see us all continue. And that's exciting to me, and that's what gets me up in the morning. And if all I do is like, alleviate suffering and promote healing and growth and try to advance the cause of humanity, and then I die and I'm worm food and there's nothing of me. Two things. Number one is I will have lived an amazing, rewarding, enriching, wonderful life where I got to meet a bunch of cool people, do a bunch of fun things, and, and alleviate as much suffering as I can and help advance the human project.

[01:17:57] And if I'm dead and in the ground and not conscious, I won't be sad or grieving. I'll be no different than however I was before I was born not conscious. So that's how I handle death and uncertainty about death and the afterlife. There's another episode on Secular Buddhism podcast about this notion of groundlessness. And Noah just makes the point. And I'm going to enhance this a little bit by saying religion does not have certainty. As a Mormon, you did not have certainty.

[01:18:33] A lot of people say, well, I lost my faith. And what I miss most is the loss of certainty. Okay, you had certainty in the sense that you. You thought you were certain about things, but you turns out you didn't know anything. You weren't certain about anything. You were just told a story. You were given these teachings that some person made up, and you bought them and believed them, and that gave you a false sense of security. And turns out having a false sense of security is probably better than just chronic acute fear and obsession and sadness and depression and anxiety. So I'm going to give Mormonism and religion a thumbs up for, you know, providing people with some meaning and structure that makes them want to get up in the morning.

[01:19:21] That's valuable to many people. But but don't fool yourselves. You never had. You were never standing on solid ground. You never had certainty. You had the illusion of certainty. We are always falling. We are always potentially a one car wreck or one disease away from. From death. And for some, that's terrifying and they don't want to think about that. For me again, that just makes me want to live the best life that I can. And it motivates me to try and be a part of the solution. And that's how I look at life now. And it's not sad.

[01:19:56] And, you know, it gives me meaning and purpose. So that's my answer. Please keep believing in Jesus and God or whatever you believe in if you want to. I'm not. I don't mock people for that. I respect that, etc. But that's how I deal with a loss of. That's kind of my spiritual framework. My spiritual. My spiritual framework is kindness. My spiritual framework is community. My spiritual framework is family. My spiritual framework is service to others. My spiritual framework is doing good in the world. My spiritual framework is trying to love my neighbor as best as I can and trying to advance the cause of humanity and of all sentient creatures and nature and fun and joy and laughter and music and games.

[01:20:48] That's my spirituality now. And. Yeah. So I hope that answers the question. I hope that is useful. Really quickly, I saw a comment from. Let's see. Let me just share this donation from Jeremy. This comment. Ironic that I'm saying this, but I still think you ought to try to get people on who are ex Mormon but not progressives and now belong to another religion. So, yes, Jeremy Christensen, I am totally willing to bring on ex Mormons who are politically conservative and or who have joined other religions. So thank you for the donation, Jeremy. Thank you for the suggestion. And I want you to know that if you have joined another religious tradition, have found meaning in it, and you want to come on Mormon Stories podcast, as long as you can share your beliefs in a way that aren't weird or encouraging unhealthy perspectives, I am absolutely willing and eager to do that.

[01:21:52] Okay, let's see. There was a question by. I think. Yeah, tj. So, tj, I lost your original question because it's gone too much up in the stream. So, tj, you said, hoping your question from earlier doesn't get buried.

[01:22:09] So, tj, will you repost your question? Because I've lost it. But I'm totally committed to answering it. So thank you so much. Here's a question from Jenny 2021. Jenny thanks for your donation. She writes. Will Mormon Stories Podcast be addressing the LDS YouTube channel Quick Media CWIC Media? They present stronger arguments for Mormonism more intelligently and boast 13.4 thousand subscribers. Jenny 2021 that is exactly the type of feedback we need and want.

[01:22:44] So please email me@mormonstoriesmail.com include this question. Kara and I are going to and Gerardo will spend some time on the Quick Media channel and we will come back to you with thoughts and hopefully we will create some response videos if that makes sense. Matthew Mesner, thank you for your donation. Matthew, you write do you really think Joseph Smith knew it all was a sham or do you think he might have been mentally unstable? I like to think Joseph found some psilocybin. Yeah, lots of my friends love psilocybin have found it to be or report that they found it to be really healing for them. That's magic mushrooms for those of you who don't know.

Questions on Joseph Smith, Leaving Mormonism, and Psychedelics

[01:23:27] And I think there's potentially a lot of promise in psychedelics, although I've never tried them myself and I don't per se recommend them. Anyway, I kind of Matthew, to answer your question, I'm kind of a little bit in the same realm as Dan Bogle on this. I think that Joseph Smith knew that he was deceiving people with the Book of Mormon, with the Book of Abraham, with claiming to be a translator, with claiming to be a prophet from God, with claiming that God wanted him to marry 14 year olds and other men's wives and sister pairs and mother daughter pairs.

[01:24:05] I think Joseph Smith absolutely part of him was a fraud, a conscious, overt, intentional fraud. And part of Joseph Smith was a sincere believer in God and Jesus and he had a magic superstitious worldview. And I think he believed some of his superstition and or theological perspectives. And so I think it's I agree with the idea of a pious fraud. Maybe he believed it got to the point where he believed God was telling him to have sex with 14 year olds. Maybe he believed that he was furthering the mission of Christ on the earth.

[01:24:41] I'm absolutely open to the possibility of that. I think that in some ways people, once they become famous, start believing their own press, believing their fame. And I'm believing that what they hallucinate about or dream about really comes from a divine source. That's every cult leader that's ever existed, frankly. That's ever every religious leader that's ever existed. And so, and so because of that, you know, and so because of that I that's my answer. But I think Joe Smith in many ways was kind of brilliant. I also think he probably was narcissistic. I think also he probably, you know, maybe had bipolar depression. I don't know.

[01:25:28] I can't really officially diagnose him. But. But, you know, we'll see. Those are just some of my quick responses to that, to that question. Thank you so much, Matthew, for asking it. Let's see. Lee, thank you for your donation. Lee, you write the loss of at least the appearance of security is very hard indeed. And Lee, I want you to know that that's true. I think that's the reason why a lot of people don't leave religion. First of all, because they don't want to. They prefer to have beliefs handed to them that make them feel secure than have to confront death and existence without it.

[01:26:11] So it's hard. And I don't fault anyone for maintaining a belief in God and Jesus for those reasons alone. Those are credible reasons to remain believers. I also noticed that there's so many people that leave Mormonism and join other religious traditions and, or gurus and, or other cults. And instead of learning the great lesson of Mormonism, which is to never give away your authority, instead to, to just give your authority to a guru or a yoga instructor or a podcaster or another pastor or a priest or another theology or a multi level marketing thing or a business person or whatever. It's so easy to just want to give your authority to somebody else so that you don't have to figure it all out and you don't have to make your own decisions.

[01:26:55] And a lot of this might just be privilege. Honestly, there may be a privilege element to, to what's going on here. So anyway, Lee, I, I do think it's hard. I do have a recent episode we did on Spirituality after Mormonism on Mormon Stories podcast, Lee, that I want to recommend because we'd be me, Samantha, Shelley from Zelf on the Shelf, Anthony Miller, and my wife Margi. We all talk about spirituality after Mormonism and that episode has helped a lot of people. So Lee, I want to recommend you check that out because I think you may, you may really like that.

[01:27:33] So. But yes, I empathize with you. Okay, so now we're going to get to TJ's question. We're sorry for any of the questions we lost. Please repost your questions if, if I miss them and just post them now and I'll make sure and get to them. TJ writes, how do I talk to family who have been affected by alt right Mormon podcasters like Rodney Meldrum, Wayne May, or the Desnat.

[01:27:58] Wow. So this is. I'm going to give you kind of a short, I'm going to give you like a high level answer and then a bit of a longer answer. So I, I'm going to now reference again a podcast that I referenced earlier today. And this podcast is called the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis Podcast. And if you scroll down, these are in order. This is like 70 plus hours of free coaching. And some of the episodes that I want to point your attention to are communicating with believing family and friends. Okay?

[01:28:38] Communicating with the church leadership, ward members and neighbors during and after a Mormon faith crisis, and communicating with children during a faith transition. And I also want to refer you guys to a retreat that we recorded called the Thrive Retreat. If I had to say, probably the most important thing I've ever done in all my time, these 16 years doing Mormon Stories podcast. It's the Thrive Retreat that I recorded over a weekend. Thanks to the donation of Clint and Jenny Martin and the participation of Natasha Helfer, Margi and people who support Mormon Stories. We recorded a full weekend of a retreat where we provide tools and tips and tricks for communicating with believing family and friends.

[01:29:26] That was a major emphasis in the retreat and that is a major emphasis on this podcast. Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis Podcast. So this is a, that is a way to get back to TJ's question, which is how TJ do you talk to family who have been affected by alt, right Mormon podcasters? Here's what I would say, in short, is make them feel safe. Don't try and preach to them, whether it's about religion or politics. Don't try and convince them anything about evidence.

Talking to Religious Family About Difficult Topics

[01:30:00] I saw this wonderful TikTok video the other day where a teacher is teaching a bunch of students some scientific facts. And then a student turns to the teacher and says, well, this is great. Now that we know the truth, all we have to do is teach it to the people who don't agree or don't believe and they'll come around to our side. And the teacher's response is, evidence is only useful to people who value evidence.

[01:30:27] Right? Another way to say that is you can't deconvert someone out of a position they arrived at emotionally with logic or evidence. I'll say that in a different way. You can't use evidence or facts to deconvert someone from a position they arrived at emotionally. Right? Most people. And you'll get this in the retreat. Jonathan Haidt in His elephant and the rider metaphor teaches us that people don't usually make decisions rationally or logically. This is religious beliefs or political beliefs.

[01:31:07] Usually they arrive at their religious and or political decisions emotionally and then cherry pick the evidence through confirmation bias to support the decisions they arrived at emotionally or psychologically. And so you're never going to be able to disrupt. You're probably never going to convince a person on the political right or the political left to come to your point of view. And you're probably never going to be able to convince a religious person to change their point of view with evidence. In fact, you're more likely to create what's called the backfire effect, which is they, when they feel like their beliefs and their views and their identity are challenged, when you give them evidence, they actually sometimes will hold even tighter to their identity and to their beliefs and their logic.

[01:32:03] So when you try and deconvert or change someone's points of view, you risk actually strengthening their political or their religious points of view. So what can you do? My answer is, number one, make them feel safe. So don't ever even talk religion or politics around these people.

[01:32:23] If you want to be able to still have a healthy relationship with them, or if you even want to have influence on them, avoid talking religion or politics. The second thing is boundary. Say to them if they bring up politics or they bring up religion and you're not able to sort of hear the things that you don't like or they're triggering to you, or they make you angry or sad, you need to learn to put up healthy boundaries and say, listen, I love you so much that I don't want religion or politics to get in the way of our relationship because I love you so much.

[01:32:56] So I'm going to put up a boundary and ask that we don't talk politics or we don't talk religion when we're together. And I do that not because I don't love you. I do that because I love you. Let's talk about things that we share. Our children, grandchildren, the world, entertainment, movies, Marvel movies, whatever it is, fishing, sports. Let's build our relationship on things we agree on, on things we like. And let's just not talk about the, the painful, difficult stuff that's alienating to us.

[01:33:26] That's the best thing you can do with people you have major political or religious differences with is build on the places in your relationship where you share commonalities, avoid talking about the polarizing stuff. And then you have at least them in your lives and you have influence with them. And then at some point when they feel safe and a crack starts to come into their religious or their political worldview, maybe they'll want to talk to you about it because you'll have a relationship with them and they'll feel safe with you. And then you can just say, hey, here's. Here's some stuff I've read. Here's some books I've read.

[01:34:04] You know, if you want to go learn religious, you don't want to go learn about Joseph Smith. Here's the CBS Letter. Here's Von Brody's no Man Knows My History. Here's a few Mormon stories, podcast episodes that have been helpful to me or politically. You know, Here's a political YouTuber that I like or here's a book that I read that was really meaningful. Here's some evidence that I found in a study. You can read that. I don't care if you believe it or not. I don't care if you change your mind, if you have. The point I'm making is if you have a relationship with them where they feel safe, they feel like you are not trying to convert them, and they feel some emotional intimacy with you, that's your best shot at being able to influence them.

[01:34:44] But ultimately, everyone's going to arrive at their own political and religious decisions, and that's everyone's journey. And by the way, I'm not. I'm a registered Republican, even though I voted both Republican and Democrat in my life, I don't think I see problems with Biden. I see problems with Trump. I see problems with Republicans. I see problems with Democrats. I don't think that, like, progressivism or liberalism politically is the right answer in every case. And I don't think conservatism is right in every case. And I think there's problems with conservatism, there's problems with liberalism. I'm, I'm more nonpartisan than I am partisan. I'm more multifaceted than I am dogmatic about politics.

[01:35:28] So I just want to make sure people understand that I, I'm. I'm as concerned as I'm as concerned about the alt left as I am the alt right. I'm as. I'm as concerned about extreme political liberals as I am extreme political conservatives. And that's the honest truth. I want moderates. I want balanced, measured, moderate religion and politics and secularism. And that's my little workshop on that. So, TJ, I hope that helped to answer your questions. And again, I just really want to thank you for the donation and the support, I think you've made three donations and I, and, and if you want, you know, to talk to me more about that or whatever, I will do that really quickly.

[01:36:14] Alessandra writes. Vallez writes, gladly giving my 10% income to you. Hopefully $10 isn't 10% of your income, but if it is, I'm really grateful. But anyway, I'm just grateful that you are willing to support us. Alessandra, you go on to write, thanks for changing my life. My Mormon Story wouldn't have happened without this podcast. That's what I live for, Alessandra. I think that's what Gerardo and Kara and Brooklyn and Clint and Carrie and all the people who help out with the Open Stories Foundation. That's what we live for. That's why we do what we do.

[01:36:47] And I just, I love to hear that feedback. Other comments and questions. William Hines made a donation. He says, I realize that Mormon Stories is broadcasting on many platforms. Is there a way to add live closed captioning for those of us watching via video?

[01:37:02] So, William, I've tried to look into live closed captioning video and I don't know right now. I've had Brooklyn look into it. I'm asking Kara right now, who's supposed to be watching and listening to this and moderating comments. I've asked her to look into it. If any of you can help us turn on live closed captioning either on YouTube or on Facebook, we would love it. We've tried. We do the best we can. My sense is, is that those things are outside of our control, but if it's possible, we'll do it. And I'm giving Kara and, and or Brooklyn and Gerardo the, the ask along with you to email us or message us if you have ideas on how to make that happen.

[01:37:46] To this date, we have not been able to figure it out, but we will keep trying. Thank you, William, for the suggestion. That really means a lot. And we want, we want your feedback and we want to make our show as accessible as possible to as many people as we can.

[01:38:09] Lee Mortensen, again, thanks for the support. Lee writes, thanks, John. Yes, way too many keep giving away authority to a charismatic leader. And by the way, I'm going to say this really explicitly. Some people say I'm a charismatic leader. Do not follow me. Do not do anything that I say without first doing your own research, your own investigation, your own critical thinking. Never follow me. I am not your guru. I am not your new leader. Don't follow me. I don't want followers now. If my podcast provides information and stories that are meaningful and helpful to you, great. But as far as, like, if there's a God or if there's an afterlife or what you should do, take everything I say, always with a grain of salt.

[01:38:54] Consult your own internal moral authority before you ever blindly follow anything I ever say or do. I believe that. I. I really believe that. And I want to make sure that's very obvious. I have zero interest in becoming anyone's, you know, new cult leader.

[01:39:15] All right, George. I want to thank George for his donation. He likes. I like that we are all figuring this stuff out together. Thank you so much, George, for that. Timothy asks, do you think you could interview any former polygamists like Doris Hansen from Polygamy? What love is this? Or Stars from Escaping Polygamy. Timothy. If you guys can help me get in touch with former polygamists, I would love to interview former polygamists.

Listener Suggestions for Future Interviews

[01:39:43] I. I have interviewed them in the past. If you look up Ann Wild, and Wild was literally the first video interview I ever did. That's wild. W I L D E Check out my interview with Ann Wilde. She was a former polygamist who still believes in polygamy. It just so happens that her husband passed away.

[01:40:03] And then also I also interviewed Vance and Lance Allred. The late Vance Allred and, you know, the amazing Lance Allred. They weren't polygamists themselves, but they were raised in the all Red group, and so they have a lot of perspective about what it's like to grow up in a fundamentalist religious group. And honestly, I've probably interviewed more polygamists and I've just forgotten it, but I would like to interview more. So if you are a polygamist or have been a polygamist, I would absolutely love to interview you. Or if you know a current or former polygamist, please just reach out to me. Email me@mormonstoriesmail.com and I would love to bring you on.

[01:40:52] All right, we're going to just do a couple more questions or comments, and then I'm going to wrap this up. The. The next one is from Neil Johnson. Thanks for the donation, Neil. Again, a lot of people who are posting their questions are, are doing it through the super chat feature of YouTube where they click on the dollar signs and post their questions. We're. We're reading questions from everyone, but obviously those stand out just because, like, YouTube highlights them for me and makes it really easy for me to see those. So thank you for the donut. Thank you for the donation Neil Neil writes discussion on the utility of the church versus the validity.

Utility vs. Validity of Church Belief

[01:41:30] I feel like a lot of folks believe in the church, the doctrine, sort of an afterthought. Yes, absolutely. Neil. This is a great point. This is an amazing point. I actually have an episode on Mormon stories podcast with Dr. Dave Christiansen, Dr. Dave Christian, where he talks about this notion of utility Mormons and validity Mormons. Some people are Mormon because they believe it's true.

[01:41:55] Others are Mormon because they believe it's useful or good. And a lot of times people aren't really super conscious of why they're Mormon. But if you are asking me whether there's probably millions of people who are in the church not because they believe it's true, maybe even they've lost their belief that the church is true, but they're in it because they think it's a great, It's a good structure for their life, it's a good structure for their marriage, it's a good structure for their family, it's a good way to raise kids. It's their tribe, it's their heritage, it's their culture. I would say one out of three active Mormon, active Mormons, maybe even half of all active Mormons.

[01:42:37] And I'm guessing and speculating, I'm pulling that literally out of my ear, so to speak. There are probably millions of Mormons that don't believe some or all of Mormon doctrine and theology. And instead they're either doing it because they feel like bad things will happen to them if they leave or because they feel like the value is worth it.

[01:43:00] So, yeah. And to be honest, do I think the Mormon Church meets criteria for a cult? I think there's just zero questions to an objective analyst that the Mormon Church, like Scientology, like Jehovah's Witnesses, like orthodox Judaism, like Evangelical Christianity, Mormonism, absolutely 100% meets full criteria for a cult. Now, do I say that in a way that I'm trying to alienate people or piss them off? No. It's just a fact. And if you go look at Stephen Hassan's criteria bite criteria for cults, controlling your behavior, controlling the information you receive to control your thoughts, and then manipulating you with emotion, there's zero way you could argue that the Mormon Church meets the criteria.

[01:43:48] If you also watch my 15 hour series with Luna Corbden, you will know that Luna has spent a lot of time pulling together 31 tools of coercion that high demand religions, including Mormonism, use to wield undue influence on their people.

[01:44:06] And the Mormon Church gets you know, I had my listeners rate, you know, the extent to which the church employed those 31 techniques of undue influence. And everyone gave, almost everyone gave the church an A or an A plus in terms of meeting full criteria based on Luna Corbden's book, Recovering Agency. So if you don't believe me, you know, that's, that's up to you. I'm not trying to persuade you, I'm just answering the questions here.

[01:44:38] So, yes, the church does meet criteria, but I also believe that the church adds value. It gives people a sense of spirituality, a sense of meaning, a sense of purpose, a sense of morality. It gives them friends, it gives them community. It gives them sometimes financial support, moral support, psychological support. It gives them resolution about death. It gives them a sense of ego, a sense of certainty. It can be a great place to raise your kids. It can be a great place to raise a family. It could be a great place to be if you're sad or lonely or dejected. And so I think only a person that's not really open minded and fully aware is going to make the argument that the church only does harm and adds no value.

[01:45:18] I don't think the church would still be in existence for the most part if it didn't add value and a lot of value to many of the members. So that's my position. Sometimes I get in trouble for saying it. It's what I believe, sincerely, you know.

[01:45:34] Now, having said that, it's deadly to, you know, to lgbtq, many LGBTQ people, to many youth and young adults that are ashamed about sexual things. The church is rampant with anxiety and depression and scrupulosity. It destroys way too many families. It destroys way too many lives.

[01:45:55] You know, prescription, you know, illegal prescription drug use and drug addiction and all sorts of secret, unhealthy coping mechanisms. Mormonism is rife with that, Utah especially. So there's all sorts of carnage and damage individually and familiar and socially inside of Mormonism, not to mention the rampant, egregious racism.

[01:46:18] So, yeah, there are all sorts of problems with the church. I don't think it's a safe place for many, many people these days. But everybody's got to make that decision for themselves. And I am still of the opinion that it's healthy and good for some people. And more importantly, I get why many people feel like they can't leave.

[01:46:37] So that's my answer to that question. Shannon, thank you for the donation. I really appreciate that. John Henderson writes, have you done a podcast discussing where the Joseph Smith wives went after his death? Did any come west with Brigham Young?

[01:46:52] Yes, John Henderson. Many of Joseph Smith's wives were reassigned to other men like Brigham Young or Heber C. Kimball or others. The best source for that is a book called In Sacred Loneliness by Todd Compton. We did do an early episode with Todd Compton, but the best source for that is the book In Sacred Loneliness by Todd Compton. He goes through each one of Joseph Smith's wives, goes into detail about it. I highly recommend that book. You can also check out Lindsay Hansen Park's Year of Polygamy. Anthony Miller Anthony Miller asked me or challenged me to talk about other exciting things happening in the world of progressive and postmormonism.

Progressive Mormonism, Podcasts, and Community Updates

[01:47:37] And I I want to give a shout out to Year of Polygamy because it's absolutely a podcast that reaches a lot of people and makes a big impact. While I'm at it, Anthony Miller I'll, I'll answer Anthony Miller's question. I am also super excited about Radio Free Mormon podcast about Bill Real and Radio Free Mormons Mormonism Live that happens weekly Wednesday nights at I believe, six o', clock, five or six o'. Clock. Don't take my word for it.

[01:48:11] Check it out. I I'm a huge fan of that. I'm a huge fan of marriage on a tightrope podcast with Alan and Katie Mount. They do a bang up job. I'm excited with Jonathan Streeter and thinker of Thoughts, the YouTube channel. He's amazing. I'm super inspired by the TikTok community, progressive and post Mormon TikTok community.

[01:48:31] Anthony highlighted a tiktoker that I'm particularly impressed with. His name is Daniel McClellan. I believe he's actually an employee of the church. And you know, Anthony describes him as imagine a younger David Bacavoi doing TikTok videos that deal with the complexity of biblical scholarship, including Mormonism. Check out Dan McClellan on TikTok. That's a believing Mormon church employee that's actually doing really cool things. And so thanks, Anthony Miller, for recommending that and calling it to our attention.

[01:49:06] I'm going to come back to Anthony's post in just a second as we close. But John Henderson, I love, I love your question. Yeah. And to get the best answer, check out your polygamy podcast and Todd Compton's In Sacred Loneliness.

[01:49:24] A couple other things that Anthony Miller says he's excited about Jackson Washburn coming out as bisexual. Those of you who don't know Jackson Washburn, he's been on Mormon Stories at least twice now. He is a young Gen Z Mormon scholar, social media influencer. He's currently at Harvard Divinity School.

[01:49:44] He's been an apologist for the Mormon Church in the past and he continues to want to be a Mormon scholar and to provide faithful perspectives on Mormonism. In response to Elder Holland's heinous damaging talk at byu, Jackson Washburn came out to the world as bisexual and made an amazing speech. And so that's a real breakthrough. So that's exciting. I'm going to also read some of other Anthony Miller's recommendations. Colby Townsend's Work in Biblical Studies Colby Townsend is sort of a protege, I would say, of David Bacavoi. That may or may not be accurate, but that's how I describe him. Watch for more cool things from Colby Townsend in the years and weeks and months ahead.

[01:50:29] Anthony mentions the scholarship of BYU professor Trevin Hatch who's doing stuff in the like of Bart Ehrman around biblical criticism and scholarship. So I hope I don't get Trevin Hatch from BYU in trouble for recommending his work, but I'm going to go ahead and recommend it.

[01:50:50] And yeah, so a lot of cool stuff is going on. There are a number of ex evangelical scholars on Tick tock and on YouTube that are exciting. I'm gonna also make a shout out to Thrive. So Clinton, Jenny Martin, Lisa Hacking, Natasha and me, along with a a wonderful working board has been relaunching Thrive and there's going to be a Thrive Women's conference. It's sold out, like over 800 women sold out. This Thrive for Women's conference in early October. I don't even need to tell you the date because it doesn't matter. There's no more seats left. But Kara Burrell is hosting. She's hilarious and good hearted and fun.

[01:51:32] I think Natasha's speaking. I think Chelsea Homer is speaking. Remind me, remind me not to forget about Chelsea Homer and a shout out to her. Others are speaking as well. I think Laura Schnell is speaking. So many amazing speakers at Thrive for Women. That's super exciting in October. A huge thanks to the Thrive Committee for making that happen. We are doing a Thrive November, a big one like we did before, hopefully in the Salt Palace. We plan to be announcing that in the next week or so. But plan for Thrive November, the date for Thrive November, if you want to hold it in your calendar, it's November 14th.

[01:52:15] So put that on your calendar for a full day, hopefully of a thousand or two progressive and post Mormons dedicated to healing and growth after Mormonism. There's also going to be A Thrive Arizona in November. It's going to be amazing. We're going to be announcing that soon there's going to be a Thrive Southern Alberta in January, hopefully 2022 and there's going to be Thrive St. George and in February. So I'm super excited for what's going on in Thrive. And then also I want to make a shout out to Chelsea Homer and the amazing work she's doing at Faith Journey Meetups. So we already have always always loved Kim Turner and Women of a certain age or waka.

[01:52:57] That's a support group in community for women 40 and above who have left Mormonism. It's all over the country. It's especially strong here in Utah. But if you want to meet other Mormon women who have left Mormonism, it's mostly for women 40 above. They also do some things for women under 40. Check out Waka, W O C A or WCA Worldwide on Facebook or Women of a Certain Age.

[01:53:25] Check out the Mormon Stories podcast episode with Kim Turner and waca. But in addition to WAKA or Women of a Certain Age, there is now Faith Journey Meetups and Faith Journey Meetups is this amazing YouTube support group for post Mormon women and non binary individuals. And I'm just going to show you a screenshot of that faith journey meetups 5.5 thousand members. This is a group dedicated to supporting people both online and in person to navigate their faith journey and and I just can't say enough about Chelsea Homer. She is freaking amazing and she deserves all the support in the world. So shout out to you Chelsea.

[01:54:17] We just respect you so much. We respect what you're doing and all the women that help you run Faith Journey Meetups. I get the sense that Chelsea might be moving into the realm of hosting live events. More live events. She's already hosted at least one or two posts sort of since sort of this Covid re reboot so to speak. Look for more from Faith Journey Meetups and Chelsea Homer in the weeks, years and months ahead. I can't say enough good things about Chelsea Homer and Faith Journey Meetups. Okay, I want to end, but I still want to at least give a shout out to a few other people who have donated just to thank you because we do everything based on your donations.

[01:55:03] Timothy Bands writes. Doris Hansen is a former Kingston and has interviewed hundreds of polygamists. She is good friends with Sandra Tanner. Maybe a way to contact connect with her. Timothy, if you or others will help me get in touch with Doris Hansen, I would absolutely love that. Timothy also writes I love this podcast. Thank you for all you do want to get into interviewing others from high demand groups just like you. There's tons of opportunity by the way. That's another area that we want to continue showcasing on Mormon Stories podcast. We interviewed Tova Mirvis, an ex orthodox Jew. We interviewed Tara Westover. We interviewed Leaving the Witness.

[01:55:48] I'm. I get a brain. We've interviewed Leah Remini or she's interviewed me, Mike Rinder, Chris Shelton, ex Scientologist, Lloyd Evans, ex Jehovah's Witness. Like we do our best to cover ex members of other cults again. Lady C&JT, their YouTube channel. I'm going to be on their channel next week. We will continue to interview people who have left high demand religions and or cults. And Timothy, I really recommend that you keep doing that as or start doing that as well. That is a worthy, worthy ambition.

[01:56:23] Thanks Jenny 2021 for your donation through YouTube Super Chat, you say? I'm so sorry, I forgot to ask if you're going to get Tom Hanks on the podcast. I think it would be an interesting interview given his HBO series Big Love. Of course I would love to have Tom Hanks on the show. I don't know that he would do it, but I would love to have it.

[01:56:42] Same with, you know, same with the south park guys. Trey Parker, Matt Stone. Same with Steve Young and Barb Young. Same with Donnie Murray Osmond. Same with Dallin H. Oaks and Russell Nelson. Like there are so many people. Same with Dan Reynolds of Imagine Dragons.

[01:57:00] There are so many people that I would love to interview on Mormon Stories Podcast. The only thing that's keeping me from interviewing amazing, cool people is them, not me. Michael says Kara is such an awesome addition. Makes it so fun. Thank you Michael for the feedback. Kara, we love you and I agree. Carrie, you do make it so fun. Janice, thank you for the donation.

[01:57:24] And then finally, Susan, thank you for the donation as well. All right, so it's two hours. I think we've had enough. I can't thank you guys enough for your financial contributions. If any of you donate ongoing to Mormon Stories, thank you for that. If any of you donated tonight, thank you for that.

Closing Remarks and Donation Appeal

[01:57:44] We could not do this without your support. If you value Mormon Stories Podcast and the Open Stories foundation, all these projects we've talked about, all you have to do is go to Mormon Stories podcast, mormonstories.org in your browser and at the very, very top there's this blue button that says donate.

[01:58:04] Your browser will show that as well. Many of the most recent episodes Have a donation link you can click on that. Become a monthly donor and keep us alive. We always have people canceling their donations every month, either because they move on or they get into financial difficulties, lose their job, or they just decide they want to support other things.

[01:58:25] That's totally cool. But we always need new donors to sign up to support what we do. Because if we don't replace the donors that we lose, then we end up having to shut things down. So if you're not a donor, you value our programming. If you value the program you heard today, if you like the projects you've heard, please become a monthly donor. 10 bucks a month, 50 bucks a month, 100 bucks a month. Whatever you can afford. We publish our finances openly every year. We're financially transparent. We're a 501C3. It's tax deductible in the United States, and every dollar goes to supporting you. We've got the best nonprofit accountant in the state that we know of, doing our books.

[01:59:06] We've got a board that reviews our finances every month. We run a tight financial ship and we try and sort of guard your donations as thoughtfully and carefully as we can. So please become a donor. One thing I had someone recently cancel and say, I'm not going to listen to Mormon stories anymore because I feel guilty that I can't donate because I'm poor and so I'm going to stop listening.

[01:59:30] Don't do that. If you can't afford to support us financially, we want you to still listen and get the benefits from it. So don't take my appeals for financial support as me saying, we don't want you to listen or to feel guilty. If you can't afford to donate to the Open Stories foundation or Mormon Stories, that's fine. We want you still to have benefit and access to the content. Or if you can't donate because your wife or husband monitor your finances and will get in get you in trouble, that's fine. Like, the reason why we give everything away for free is so we can help as many people as possible.

[02:00:11] So don't feel guilty if you don't support us, because you can't. Now, if you do listen and can support us and you don't, I don't want you to feel shame or guilt, but I do want you to consider contributing because it keeps us alive. And frankly, we want to pay Cara well for what she does for us. We want to pay her a generous living wage, hopefully with benefits. We want to pay Gerardo fairly. We want to keep paying Brooklyn fairly. We want to keep our talent. There are other projects and things we can do.

[02:00:47] And so, and so please support us if you can and if you can't financially. But you do want to help us, there are lots of other ways. All of you subscribe right now on YouTube. Turn on your notifications. Subscribe right now on Facebook. Turn on your notifications. Follow us on TikTok. Follow us on Instagram, Follow us wherever you can.

[02:01:09] Share links, share with family, spread the word. One huge thing you can all do is give us a positive review on Apple Podcasts because we always have haters giving us negative reviews when they don't even listen to the podcast just to bring our ratings down. So right now, if you want to do something for us, go to Apple Podcasts, log in, give us a five star rating, bring up our ratings or go to the Mormon Stories podcast Facebook page and go to the ratings section of that and give us a positive review. Write some good stuff about us. Just, you know, help when you can, when you can't enjoy our content.

[02:01:46] And then of course, we always love it when you help us find amazing people to interview or when you give us great ideas, give us feedback, write us emails. I do read every email. I can't respond to every email, but I respond to as many as I can and I read as much as I can. So anyway, you guys are awesome. Thank you so much for your support.

[02:02:09] I hope you value the transparency. I hope you like what you heard today. We want to do more of these. We want to do more response videos. We want to just do more good things. Thanks to Kara for the extent to which she was able to help us today moderate the comments. Thanks to Kara and Gerardo and Brooklyn and Carrie and Clint and all the people that help us and all you donors that help make all this possible. Carrie has pasted a link to our donor link into YouTube or on Facebook. Feel free to click on that. Thank you Kara for monitoring the comments and sharing people links.

[02:02:51] Again, just go to mormonstories.org if you want to donate to Mormon Stories go to Gift to the Mormon Faith. Go to get go to mormonfaithcrisis.com if you want to support the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis project. Go to mormonexpression.com if you want to support John Larsen and the Mormon expression efforts and just love each other and be good to each other. Keep up the feedback.

[02:03:13] Keep. Just know that it's the. It's the pleasure of my life, it's the honor of my life to be able to do what I do. Kara, I adore you working with you. Same with everyone else. Gerardo, Kyle, Clint, Carrie, everyone. And then finally, just a final thank you to Margi and my wonderful kids. No one will ever know the sacrifice that Margi and my kids have made for you, frankly, for listeners and viewers of this podcast. And that sacrifice gets paid every day in so many ways that no one will ever see. And a lot of you know, they've paid a heavy price. So I'm going to end by saying, Margi, I love you.

[02:03:55] Margi, I couldn't do this without your support. And children, I love you and I couldn't do this without your support. And thank you for all the difficulty and pain you and my family members have experienced as a result of what I do. So I love you guys. Thanks so much for everything and we'll see you guys all again very soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Take care, everybody.

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.