Introduction and Welcome

Part 1 of 2 · Ep. 567

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Mormon Stories is a production of the Open Stories foundation and relies solely upon the support of people like you, its listeners to help keep the podcast alive or to become a member of the community. Please become a monthly subscriber by visiting MormonStories.org and clicking on the Donate button on the right side of the page under support. All contributions to Mormon Stories are completely tax deductible and go towards producing the podcast and building communities and programs of support for Mormons like you. Thanks for your support.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:00:36] The kindly light a myth encircling gloom Lead thou me on the night is

John Dehlin [00:00:48] dark and I am far from home. Hello and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host John Dehlin and you are listening to, let's just say, segment two of a multi part interview series for those who were able to tune in earlier. Gina Colvin sort of began this series by interviewing me, John Dehlin, for her podcast A Thoughtful Faith. I've shared that interview already on Mormon Stories and it's it's a several hour interview where we talk about my years in the church, growing up, my mission experience, my time at byu and what led to, you know, Mormon Stories after my faith crisis. We talk about the Mormon Stories journey over the past several years and then we end by talking about my excommunication and kind of what has happened since then. That was part one of sort of or section one of this multi part series. Now what we're going to do is I'm interviewing Dan Witherspoo for of Mormon Matters podcast. So Dan and I have been friends for a long time. Dan ran Sunstone when I first started wanting to do some sort of work within Mormonism. That was back in 2004 and Dan was really instrumental in helping me get Mormon Stories going. And after Dan left Sunstone, I encouraged Dan to start Mormon Matters podcast. And so Dan has been running Mormon Matters podcast for several years and the main focus of Mormon Matters podcast, I would say, is to help model constructive ways of engaging the LDS Church as a progressive or even non literal believer, but still maintaining affiliation. And Dan's been doing a great job there. And so I'm going to spend a few hours interviewing Dan about his work with Mormon Matters and about his experiences there, trying to support what we call a middle way or, you know, helping people stay in the church after a crisis of faith. And then we're going to go to a final section or segment of this very long series where Dan sort of puts me on the hotspot after listening to my interview with Gina. And after my interview with him and he asks some questions back at me, acknowledging the fact that for a long time I was a champion of the Middle Way and I had tried to maintain a very conciliatory tone towards the church. And that tone has changed somewhat since, you know, since I guess, fall of 2013. So we're going to talk about that and he's going to sort of put me on the hot seat, ask me about why I've changed, you know, talk about the tone of Mormon stories, and also just kind of my future, what I hope to do now that I've obtain my PhD. So it's a multi hour series. I've already promised at the end of Dan's interview with me that anyone who listens to it all, all the hours, if they come to Logan, I will buy them a steak dinner. So that's the promise. And so now, without any further ado, here's my interview with Dan today. I'm very excited to have with me as a guest Dr. Dan Wotherspoon. Dan. Dan and I kind of go many years back, you know, when I, when I first went to my First Sunstone In 2004, Dan was leading Sunstone, and he was honestly, in the early days of Mormon stories had to have been one of the most important connections I made to be able to interview many of the people that I did and just get to know the community. So Dan's played a huge important role, not only as sort of an expert in this field, but also just as a friend and a colleague and a comrade. Dan's best known these days for at least one of the things for podcasting on Mormon Matters, which is a podcast, sort of, I'd say, committed to helping people stay in the LDS Church as a thoughtful member, but also as a believing member and navigating those waters to Dan may decide to describe that a little bit differently, but it's certainly one of the most successful podcasts in the history of Mormonism. It's also, you know, controversial for some and just purely delightful for others. But Dan and I have worked a lot together over the years. He interviewed a lot of people for Mormon stories before he started Mormon Matters, including Dan Peterson, Richard Dutcher, and he also did the atheist interview with Tyson Jacobson and Randy Snyder, who eventually went on to do Infants on Thrones. But the reason why I wanted to bring Dan on was because it's been a few years since sort of the, you know, stale ds, Mormon matters, the thoughtful faith kind of initiatives have all sort of been up and running. And I just thought it'd be fun and interesting to check in with Dan on how he's doing, how those initiatives are doing, and to sort of understand, you know, his feelings and thoughts about those initiatives, especially in light of the new essays that have come out from the church, the new transparency that has sort of come out from the church, and also, you know, the disciplinary councils of Kate and myself and others. I just thought it'd be really fun and interesting to check in with my old friend and to see how he's doing and see how his initiatives are doing. Now, Dan, I'm going to turn the time over to you, and you can feel free to introduce this podcast kind of from your perspective and also maybe from your audience's perspective. But regardless, welcome back to Mormon Stories podcast.

Dan Wotherspoon's Background and Mormon Matters

Dan Wotherspoon [00:06:52] Thank you. Thank you. And thanks, Dr. John Dehlin. Congratulations. This year you called me Dr. Dan, so I. I gotta call you Dr. John in return.

John Dehlin [00:07:00] Oh, thanks a lot.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:07:01] Way to go, friend. That's so good. Yeah. Listeners to Mormon Matters is we will probably very likely release this together. John and I have just been friends for years, like John said about 2004, so a good 10 years and a good 10 years of conversation. We're just such different individuals, different temperaments. But there's always been love and always been a great deal of affection between us. And so even as we today get into areas that may delineate a little. Delin.

John Dehlin [00:07:31] Ha ha.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:07:31] Hadn't even ever noticed that a little bit about your name there. As we delineate a little bit between our approaches and things like that, I think, and I trust that you'll always feel the affection that we have for each other.

John Dehlin [00:07:43] Absolutely.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:07:45] So I'm excited to hear what you're doing. I know, John, certainly all the big events of the last year and a half, and you and I have talked privately, but it'll be good if you. To try to take us, if you. If you decide to. To go into some of those areas. I'd be happy to share on that. But. But thanks for being on Mormon Matters.

John Dehlin [00:08:07] My pleasure. Yeah. All right. Well, good. Well. Well, maybe let's just dive in. So. So Mormon Matters has been going. Mormon Matters podcast has been going with. With your head for how long?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:08:22] I think it was March 2011 and.

John Dehlin [00:08:24] Okay.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:08:25] And right at the beginning, we did exactly what you were doing with Mormon a panel discussion. And it was pretty much the news of that week or the last 10 days or certainly a big thing that was going on in Mormonism. And it was pretty close to A darn hour, you know, and we just didn't go into super big depth, but it was kind of this weekly thing. And then I feel kind of badly like that I just ended up after, you know, maybe there was a slow news week or something. I just said let's do a deep dive on this topic and then let's do a deep dive on this topic. And pretty soon I think it's. It turned into just more of a panel discussion on topics sometimes, often, certainly what's in the air led to what we would do, but it became anywhere from an hour to 3, 4, 5 hour conversations, multiple episodes on different things. I just appreciate you doing it. I'm not the kind of guy, even though I headed Sunstone and things like that to generally put my voice out there, I'm more of a cheerleader and a midwife for other people's ideas. That's kind of how I felt like my role at Sunstone was. And you forced me out of my shell. So. Thank you, John.

John Dehlin [00:09:38] My pleasure. Okay, so if you had to describe. So there's also stale DS and a thoughtful faith. To what extent do you kind of think of those as one overarching initiative versus just kind of thinking of yourself as in your own kind of silo?

Stale Doughnuts and a More Thoughtful Faith

Dan Wotherspoon [00:09:57] Yeah, I tend to. I don't think of. I certainly think of stale DS as more of its own initiative because again, announces right from the beginning, this is, you know, for those of you who want this, here is. This is what it's about. And it's a much narrow range of, you know, voices or at least outcomes that are discussed or kind of pointed towards. Whereas I think a thoughtful faith and Mormon matters, you know, a little more destination neutral, but just trying to have in depth and rich discussions, you know, if anything else, I'm almost like wanting to say that I'm like anti hasty decision, you know what I mean? And I think it's just a matter of temperament, John, you know, whatever it is through my life, either my own crazy family and friends and stuff like that, there's always so many stories, so many different perspectives and things like that. And I tend to not come to conclusions fast in my own life because I'm always listening. I always think there's something out there that needs to be said. Sort of on the opposite side of what's being argued right there. I was like, come on, you can't go exactly with that. You gotta calm down and jump back a little bit. And so if anything else, I think I'm at least with Mormon matters Just trying to say, let's talk in depth now. I will say that because I've managed to find a way to feel happy and fulfilled and to feel like I have a rich spiritual life within Mormonism, even as I'm, you know, way out there, theologically, way out, you know, outside politically and things for most of the people in my, in my wards and immediate areas, because I found that, and probably the people that I know, I tend to bring on those folks who've, who've managed that same move. So I can see that it stands. It sort of seems like it's about, you know, you should stay. And I, and I understand that and I'll own that. But again, I certainly understand that people with different temperaments, different stories, different types of experiences within Mormonism, it may not be the healthiest choice. And so if so, I just want them to leave Mormonism knowing that it was. I just want to. I just want them to see both sides of the thing and not just just the negatives.

John Dehlin [00:12:25] We've covered this in the past and your listeners are going to sort of probably know this story. Give us the one minute version of kind of your. I could do it, but I'm going to ask you to do it of just your background in bio as it relates to what brought you to ultimately to Sunstone and to Mormon matters. So just give the. Just the quick short version.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:12:48] Yeah. So after five years of partying in high school, I did straighten, kind of get my life together, had some powerful spiritual experiences and went on a mission at age 23, came back and I taught at the MTC for a couple years, married a woman, Lori. From my mission, we were asked to head up the reunions and that's where we fell in love and all that stuff afterwards. And so we've had a pretty good life. But I had decided to go into graduate school. And at first I was going to be a CES person and that just didn't like, fit for me in terms of teenagers and stuff. I always wanted to go richer and deeper. So I ended up going to graduate school in religion. I went to Arizona State for a master's and then Claremont for a PhD, both in religion. And it was in that first semester of classes at Arizona State that I was finally confronted with just a more complex picture of what religion is. And at first it was Christianity and it was the scriptures and the historical critical method. And then you study all the different ways that religion approaches. So I'm learning everything from the sociological idea that you get a group together and A feeling emerges and. And that can feel religious or, you know, psychological approaches and things like this. And so I. I'm studying it, and after a while, of course, you have to look at your own religion that way. You have to begin to say, well, how much of these critiques or how many do these angles illuminate parts of Mormonism? And a lot of them did. And, you know, that began a process of just having to really sort through it all. So ultimately, you know, just as 8. 8 years directly studying religion was kind of what happened in my life. And I would say, let's see, that's five to six years after I finished my PhD is when I finally feel like I settled into this sort of comfort zone with Mormonism as a really quite liberal, progressive Latter Day Saint, but sort of independent in terms of my own spirituality from the church. You know what I mean?

John Dehlin [00:14:54] Right.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:14:54] You know, it's like, okay, God and I are good. You know, I've got my relationship with God. I have kind of this feeling. I know where I know where I'm centered, and therefore it's. I'm like, there's a bit of calm about me and a bit of, you know, grace that I'm able to extend the church, I think, just because I feel that in my own life. And so about the last. So all the years that I was running Sunstone Incense have been a place where I'm not in the question anymore about whether I'll stay or not. It's just, you know, it's just I'm trying to. Trying to serve the best I can within this community. And if I didn't feel called to do it, like, for instance, I just went to my good friend Roy Schmidt's confirmation in the community of Christ yesterday, and I enjoy the heck out of those guys. And, you know, if I were to probably change religious traditions, I would probably change the community of Christ, but I don't feel called to it. You know what I mean? I feel called to this one. And so that's why I stay.

John Dehlin [00:15:54] Okay. Now, as I've tried to make sense of belief and commitment to the church, there are a few sort of patterns that, you know, sometimes I've felt like I was recognizing in what causes some people to stay versus leave. And one of the, you know, one of the patterns that I think has emerged is when I found someone whose life really was sort of not going well, and they feel like the church sort of really rescued them from a very difficult place. And, you know, for people like this, I think they just feel well, not only just such a debt of gratitude, but they just feel like their lives were transformed because of their devotion to the church. For, for some people like that, I think that can engender loyalty in ways that, that maybe it wouldn't for others. Would you say that, would you say that that's a pretty significant factor for you not to, not to diminish or minimize or reduce everything to that? I'm not doing that, but no, sure, sure.

What Keeps Dan Loyal to the Church

Dan Wotherspoon [00:17:12] Yeah, I, I, I mean, not that that certainly wouldn't be the reasons today, but I would say that, you know, those, that year, that real, that year of transformation from going to being a guy that just was broken and couldn't make a good decision for himself to being on a mission, certainly the church was part of it because I was living with an aunt and uncle and it was a very active and wonderful family, and it was a great ward and I was attending with them. And so everything felt whole and good, but it, it was really a time in which I'm letting my own spirit kind of breathe again, kind of have a place in my daily life to where it's like, oh, I'm going to choose something good instead of the easy way or just these old patterns that I was in. And so the church was certainly there at that point, but I really think it was my own work on my knees and kind of getting just right with God and kind of having that, those feelings about, you know, guess what, you haven't totally screwed your life over. You know, you have stuff still to give. You're, you're, you know, you know, you're truly still my son kind of thing. That's the dominant thing. So it's not so much Mormonism as much as it is, you know, just this strong feeling I have now of constantly knowing that I'm okay, that I'm forgiven. I mean, I, I was thinking about it, you know, over the last few years, and I, I can't even imagine in the last 10 or 15 years that I've made a single decision in my life based upon any worries about the hereafter, you know, or, or anything like that. And it's, and it's more just, you know, having that centering in, in spirit. And then it is Mormonism. So, you know, it all happened within Mormonism, but I don't know that it, you know, that loyalty thing that you're talking about is really quite there.

John Dehlin [00:19:15] Right, okay, that was an early influencer, but now it's more about what you would describe as your deep relationship with God.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:19:24] Well, at least as far as the strength and the ability to like sit in this mess and you know, come home from church frustrated and angry at times over the level of discussion and things like that. That comes from the calm within. Yeah. The other stuff though, really for, and again, maybe you're still going to talk about your patterns and stuff, but for me, I loved Mormon ideas when I got into my religion program and things like this and I really started to see the deep ideas of Mormonism, the big, broad, expansive stuff, I love those and those are always prominent in my brain and mine too. And so that helps me to say, okay, this pettiness, this small mindedness, this cultural stuff, that's not, you know, certainly that's a part of Mormonism, but that's not Mormonism. That's not the ideas that got Mormonism going and you know, made so many people excited about, you know, being alive with God again, you know, the way Mormonism got going. So to me, I love Mormonism and then I love people, you know, and I love, I'm able to like see the good in the people even when they're, you know, idiots on certain, you know, topics or something like that. I don't mean to say idiots, but I mean like, you know, they can be wrong in this or that or the other thing. But I think luckily just being in my ward and, and seeing them at service projects and things like that, I can overlook a lot of the fact that they just haven't, you know, thought through most of the things that I have or a lot of people in our audience have, you know, so now

John Dehlin [00:21:00] we would have covered this in our, in one of our past interviews, but I'll just really quickly, I, I think for, for those who are listening for the, for the first time or getting to know you now maybe for the first time, I, without trying to get you in trouble or really go too much into literal stuff and specifics, I'll frame it this way. My. Is, is it true, you know, my understanding about your faith perspective is, you know, the, the literal aspect of your, of your beliefs in Mormonism are, are maybe less important. And so whether or not there were actually gold plates or whether or not this is, you know, the one true church or, or even whether or not there was a literal sort of resurrection, is it, is it fair to say that, that those aren't really important parts of your, of kind of your testimony?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:21:59] Yeah, that's pretty fair. Of course they were early on and during those, those years of wrestling and you know, seeing that I'm so different than most of the people that I'm interacting with on Sunday and, you know, loving, you know, sunstone and places, because there at least I could breathe, you know, with. With fellow travelers who are saying, you know, our theories of the atonement aren't really that sharp, you know, kind of things. And that never made sense to me and all those kinds of things. But y. So beliefs were big and huge for me early on. But I think just as you. Well, here it is. Can I lay out a little philosophy for you? There's three kinds of main approaches to truth. One is called the correspondence theory of truth. Does X correspond with the truth of things? In other words, is there a good matchup between what's said and what really is? The second one is coherence, and this is more. How do ideas hang together? Are they coherent? You know what I mean? So the coherence theory of truth, and then there's the third one. And this is where I'm at. And I became a big fan of William James through the years. And the other one's pragmatic truth. And pragmatic doesn't mean just like, okay, it's nuts and bolts. Does it work? That's certainly the definition of it. But a truth that lives for you, that excites, that expands your brain, expands your heart and things like that, that's a powerful thing of truth. And that's why mythic truth works. And that's where I think a lot of people were used to, like, oh, were there really an Adam and Eve or not? You know, and that's a. And that's a big thing for a while. And I certainly, for, you know, a couple of years was wrestling with that one until I just caught on by, you know, looking at the myths of other religions and things like that and kind of normalized that for mine. And I'm talking not just Genesis, I'm talking the Jesus stuff, too. When I began to see those as, like, working mythically to change somebody for the good, they changed me for the good. Those other ones are like, do they correspond with reality? Was he really the son of God? Like, God really came and made a baby with Mary? All those kinds of things, they just kind of fade into the background. And I tend to stay pretty agnostic on it. Same thing with Satan. You know, I tend to, like, say, okay, you know, for a while there, you know, I don't want to follow Satan. I want to follow God. You know, that was a big thing. And, you know, and when you feel tempted and all that kind of stuff. Is this real? You know, I came to really start to wonder whether the Satan stuff was just one of these stories that helped explain things for people. But ultimately there was more powerful ways to explain, you know, why I sin than, you know, Satan and his minions over here tempting me and trying to win me, you know, him kind of thing. So all that kind of stuff just worked, like I say, less literal, but it's now more at this mythic level of how does it change? How does it feel within me? That's where the truth of something lives.

Dan's Philosophy of Truth and Relationship with God

John Dehlin [00:25:14] Got it? Yeah. Okay. When you talk about your connection to God, I think there's a lot of us who, who feel like we prayed and never really got the answers we were promised in any way that was really concretely external to ourselves. And then I think there's a lot of us that maybe feel like we studied confirmation bias and the power of the brain and emotion and maybe just decided along the way that, that what we thought might have been the Holy Ghost or God was really just, you know, our emotions or our feelings or our subconscious. And in that way, you know, so many disaffected Mormons become atheists or agnostics. How do you describe your relationship with God? You know, knowing that you've thought deeply about things like emotion and confirmation bias and the complex psychology of the human brain, you know?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:26:24] Yeah, yeah. Some of the language you used early on, let me just comment on it, but I will get right to your question.

John Dehlin [00:26:31] Sure.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:26:31] You know, we didn't get the answers we were promised or something like that. That's again, obviously that's just not how I think anymore. I imagine early on that, you know, and I think you're, you know, you're raised as a kid, you know, here's. You ask your parents for things, they give you answers one way or the other and things like that. And so we put up into God and we want those kinds of answers. And an answer also is a thing that's like a head, you know, a head thing versus, you know, it's like, I want to know this rationally. I want to know, you know, I want to kind of put it in language, I want to put it in structure or something like that that I can convey to somebody else. And so those. That kind of answer stuff just isn't how I work with God. And let me just say this, I believe in God, but I don't know what this God is. I certainly don't limit it to the great God, you know, the white bearded guy in the Sky. If and when I want to try to say, what is God ontologically, is it a person? I definitely want to go male and female united. Whether that's a heavenly father and a heavenly mother, I don't know, but it certainly is. You know, it's got both. Both genders, both sexes involved with that, male and female. I have a lot of things that come to me that don't need a God, you know, to feel like answers. So I'm just trying to figure out where to start with this. When I'm. When I've had major. Like, here is a before and an after this experience, in other words. So when I've had these experiences that have marked a moment in my life that I am different afterwards because of. Because they were that much. They were that profound for me. I can't think of any that said I am a God. I'm male. I am, you know, a member of one of three that are in the Godhead. They don't, you know, there's no relationship to Jesus Christ or the Holy Ghost or anything like that said in it. It's these kinds of before and after things that, to me, move me past confirmation bias and stuff to say that maybe it's just all my subconscious and all things that I'm contributing to this experience. These things generally don't have a whole lot of content that have anything to do with theology as much as connection, love, expansiveness. You know, I think I might have shared when I interviewed with you lots of years ago. One of my experiences on my mission just happened to be triggered by me praying for every one of our investigators. You know, one day, I mean, I guess you pray for them every day, but one day I just decided to pray extra hard about each one. And as each person, you know, after I'm seven or eight or nine of these people in my prayer, I mean, just like the entire universe, you know, exploded into just like, you think that was love that you're feeling for them. This is love, buddy, you know, kind of thing. And so, of course, my language on my mission is like God saying, oh, you know, you love them. Look how much I love them. Or look how much, you know, I think of them. I think of them in this way of light and truth and largeness and stuff like that. And so, you know, these are the kinds of experiences, the ones that changed my life, that make me say, I am going to have a religious life, because a religious life is at least going to remind me of, you know, these times in my life where things made Way more sense than at any other time in my life that showed me what was way more important than whether or not I got something right or wrong with my brain. You know, those are the kinds of things. And so that's why I continue to have a religious life. Whether it's a Mormon life or not is a different story for people. But I'm going to always argue for letting there be that possibility that something beyond your brain, your subconscious, all those different things, can be involved in knowing something important and profound about the universe. So that's kind of my answer to the confirmation biases and things like this. I have felt emotion, and I have felt like my wish is fulfilled or my wishful thinking. I've had experiences that just, you know, they're just not that. You know what I mean? I've had emotional experiences and I've had these other experiences, and these are big. And I know that not everybody's had them. And that's been a slow realization for me, you know, that not everybody has had some of those kinds of experiences. And I always just want to say, seek them. Seek them. Because, you know, at that point, you kind of own the world because you kind of. If, you know, if this is how you sit in the universe, so does everybody else. And it kind of just changes the perspective on everything you do.

John Dehlin [00:31:55] So, I don't know, you're kind of talking about just a transcendent. What Mormons would call a transcendent kind of spiritual experience. Right?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:32:05] Yeah, just. Yeah. And they'll certainly have been content, some of them very specific to me, like, here's a thing about you, Dan, or something. But they're always accompanied more with just this larger sense of significance than, you know, just normal waking kind of things. I'm not sure I'm giving a good answer there.

John Dehlin [00:32:26] And some people can reduce those just to emotions. But for you, they were so powerful, they left such a big impression. Your sense is that they come from outside of you.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:32:38] Well, what's out again, I don't actually. I wrote my whole dissertation on this, John. You know, I mean, not my whole dissertation, but there was certainly a major section of it where I talk about. I think we're continuous with everything else, and I think it fits within Mormonism. And so there's sort of. There's this Dan Wotherspoon, you know, conscious mind, physical body, you know, five senses, you know, kind of. That's. That's, you know, the Wotherspoon. That is my waking day, my normal kind of thing. And I react to the world out of that. But my sense is that, you know, that's just the top of an extended me that flows into everything kind of thing. And so the analogy of, like a whirlpool or an eddy within a river is kind of one that I use a lot in the sense that a whirlpool has its own energy, it has its own pattern to it, and yet it's continuous with the rest of the river, the rest of the body of water. Right. And so when I say it's not outside of me, that's a lot of times what I'll talk about, my spiritual experience. I'll feel like the bottom fell out, is one of my phrases that'll kind of always come to me. It's just like whatever feeds me from below is getting through up into this, you know, this upper part, you know, better than it usually is. And so that's what I try to tap into with my morning devotionals and things like that is just to kind of, like, remind myself to be open to the fact that there's more, more going on than what my senses and everything are going to say to me. And then I'll find that a lot of times during the day, I can react a lot more calmly or something, because I feel like I'm centered in something bigger.

John Dehlin [00:34:27] Right. So almost like a tree that's planted in the earth, you separate the tree from the earth, the tree dies. There's clearly connection. Right? We're all part of something bigger.

Naturalistic Theology and Doctrinal Differences

Dan Wotherspoon [00:34:40] Yeah, yeah. And, yeah, yeah. And so to me, you'll never have me think of anything as supernatural. It's all natural to me. It's just we're not noticing it because of we're embodied in this body, or we, you know, are attuned to our thoughts or something like that, rather than, you know, just that openness for this other stuff to come through. And so that's why I think regular devotional practices and things like that kind of at least can increase the possibility of you sort of living in this wider sense of self from you. But I'll never treat God as breaking into natural from some external realm. God would be fully natural within this same thing. Does that make sense to you? I think that's actually good Mormonism, too. It's just on Sundays, we end up talking like the omnipotent God who is all powerful and all those kinds of things. Mormon theology is certainly richer and deeper than that. But yet, obviously, on Sundays, people go to shorthand or they want to be calmed down. So the more powerful, the God that You have the better. And so the rhetoric gets away from them, at least for me, from what's normal, really, Mormon theology, distinctive Mormon theology, anyway.

John Dehlin [00:35:59] Right. And as I hear you talk, obviously, and you're the first to own the kind of difference between the way you view doctrine or the gospel or kind of church, your beliefs, that those are very different from kind of the correlated LDS Church teachings and kind of the traditional LDS testimony. Is it ever, you know, hard for you for there to be such a big difference between the two? And mostly what I mean is I could hear. I could hear orthodox members and sort of ex Mormons both say to you, Dan, what you're doing isn't Mormonism. You know, it's some sort of New Agey thing that you've kind of, you know, that you've kind of generated. But it's not. It's not, you know, Joseph Smith was about man becomes a God, that these. God has a body, that, you know, there were golden plates and, and follow the brethren, you know, and. And I could see you getting hit both from orthodox members and from ex Mormons that are like, you're just making your own stuff up and have. That's not Mormonism, Dan, what you're talking about. Do you ever, you know, do those things ever frustrate or challenge you or. Or not that difference?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:37:35] Oh, absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:37:38] I'll.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:37:38] I'll say that I think everything that I believe is Mormonism because I think Joseph Smith and all the profounder teachings are, you know, come experience, come know for yourself. So it's kind of like, you know, the Eastern thing is, you know, what is enlightenment? It's not a state of ment stuff. It's an experiential kind of thing. When you kind of see that all the dynamics that feed life and things like that, and you're sort of awake to them. Same thing. I think Mormonism and all the Christian traditions are basically saying, be as fully transformed and awake as you can to all these other things. And guess what? It can't be captured in language. It can't be captured in a particular set of teachings or something like that. Like, I'm frustrated that folks at church don't speak more like me. But on the other hand, I don't speak the way I'm speaking now at church, because church isn't for that. Whenever I teach a lesson, they respond really, really well because I'm probably operating at, you know, a refreshing level of, you know, like, here's some things that we don't normally talk about, guys, but none of Them, like, feel like it's not part of Mormonism that I'm sharing with. So it's. If you're saying it's my confessions that I don't know if there's a God, I don't know if God has a body, all those kinds of things. If that's not Mormonism, then I guess they would never know that. I don't think that on Sundays. But again, I'm agnostic on it. I'm open to it. The thing you got to realize with me, though, is pretty much any teaching in Mormonism, I can kind of see that there's a good, deeper level at which that is true or whether it is important. It's a. Whether it lives at that level of richness on a daily basis, that's a different question. But when I teach it, I can at least hint at that depth that's there. And so that's why I survive pretty well when I teach and open my mouth at church. But I'm inventing my own religion, I don't think. So. I can't think of anything that I teach that I can't find within the profounder teachings of Joseph Smith or for sure, somehow or other stuff. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:39:52] And I would say not just Christianity, but Buddhism and Taoism and Hinduism all. I think I've even heard you say this. They kind of all point towards kind of this call to. To better yourself, to connect to something higher, to be as enlightened as possible,

Dan Wotherspoon [00:40:14] to basically become a new person that is, you know, open to relationships with all. To me, you know, that's the hallmark of a transformed person, is a compassionate person, a person that's, you know, welcoming to every living entity, you know, as worthy of being honored and respected and held in its wholeness to whatever degree it can be.

John Dehlin [00:40:39] Yeah. And I actually completely agree and resonate with that, that. That, you know, charity, right, above all else, just empathy and love and compassion. That there is nothing more important. And at the same time, you know, you don't have to be Mormon or even religious to be compassionate or charitable. True.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:41:04] Absolutely. No, again, Mormonism worked for me, and I guess my, my, you know, for whatever listeners and stuff are coming to my podcast, they're most likely Mormon. I. I would. My message would be, I think you can find rich, powerful, spiritual life within this community, within these teachings as kind of the gateways to go have your own experiences with God. But I'm absolutely not a one and only true church person. I tend to not believe that the ordinances are saving ordinances. I tend to think that they're important and neat. Every time you make a covenant with God, there's a ritual that is attached it to. To it. And I like these markers in time in which I said, this is the fullest desire of my heart to live this way, and I'm going to honor that to the day I die, that I was a person who was willing to make covenants. Now, the nature of those covenants may change over time, but I'm all for ritual life and ordinances and priesthood and all that kind of stuff. But do I think that the Mormon Church has all of it? And the only ones that have it know. And I think we completely misread D and C 130. You know, when we talk about the one and only true church, I just, you know, we've talked, we've done a whole podcast on how I think it's a bad reading of it, that it wasn't talking about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

John Dehlin [00:42:31] You don't think that's what Joseph was thinking?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:42:33] No, I don't. And even just that whole line that says I'm speaking collectively and not individually or something like that, that's. I'm not precise on the language right now. To me, he's talking about the communal church, those who are seeking and striving to do it. Just like there's two churches only in the Book of Mormon. There's the Church of Satan, the Church of the Devil, and the Church of God. Who's in which ones? The people who are trying to go Godward versus the ones who are trying to be selfish, or whatever you want to call the negative folks. We have it in section 10 where it says those who are forgiving themselves or something, or forgiving others and striving for this or that, those are church. So when he says this is the only true church on the face of the earth, in which I'm well pleased. That, to me, is. It's the broader definition of church, and it's not an organization and it's not a structure. Anyway, we can link to the whole Mormon matters on that one. When I had Christine Haggard and Randy, Paul and I, we kind of went on that one for quite a ways.

The Meaning of the One True Church

John Dehlin [00:43:34] All right, so if I'm striving for compassion and love and kindness and charity, then you consider me to be a member of the same church as you, right?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:43:45] Yeah, I would.

John Dehlin [00:43:46] Okay. Yeah. And. And I. So if somebody says to you, Dan, you know, when the. The church is built upon a belief that, that, that an Adam and Eve really existed. If you go to all of the, you know, 15 leaders of the church, church, they're all going to tell you that Adam and Eve literally existed, that there were actual golden plates delivered by an angel, that this is God's one true church with exclusive priesthood authority. I think you'd probably get. A listener would probably claim that 100% of these real material, literalistic claims would be. Be. Would be taught by those leaders and even taught as essential by those leaders. And so what, you know what, what do you make of that? That if you were to go to them and say, hey, I don't. All that, all that literal stuff, I'm really not really not into that, and they would say, well, then you're. You're not really believing what we're telling you. The church is all about, about how, you know, how would you make sense of that if that, that type of conversation were to happen? And I think it probably would, right? I mean, if, if we could get the 15 up. If we could get the 15 up somewhere and, you know, you were to say, hey, do you believe all these things? I think they would say yes. And I think if they heard you say all the things you've told me, they would say, well, you're not really believing Mormonism the way that Joseph and the founders and the scriptures all intended. How would you make sense of that difference in your own mind and heart?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:45:36] Yeah, well, first of all, there's, you know, there's two ways to imagine get the 15, and they know that the answer is going to be public versus they know that the answers would be private, let's say public. Well, again, I'm just saying you're right. At the public level, they're probably going to stand by all those things. At the personal level, where we got to know each other and things like that, I could. That they would think that I've got a good walk with God going. And I've worked through these things and I've studied it out, and again, I make very few hard and fast conclusions. I'll let them know that. It seems more powerful to me to look at Genesis mythically. I think that the text itself shows that it's a mythic thing and all those kinds of things. And I also kind of took, as you were kind of talking occasionally, said, the church is based on these things. It didn't seem like anything you said, you know, real plates or there was a real Adam and Eve. It doesn't seem to me like the church is based on this. The one Thing that I think would be the hardest of all the ones that you mentioned would be the priesthood. Because that sort of does feel like the reason, you know, to be Mormonism, you know, is because they would claim that God really does require priesthood ordinances to be done. And it had to be, you know, priesthood, that's for sure, here on the earth and transmitted. And that's when you get into the whole John the Baptist and Peter, James and John coming back here, and there's so much invested in that thing, it would be hard to move them off of that position. And that, to me, is almost the only place that you can claim the one and only true church is if you were to give serious consideration to the idea that priesthood ordinances had to be done and they have to be done by clear authority that God has granted, then you can make those arguments for Mormonists. But, you know, there's so many other ways to look at, you know, God's, you know, spiritual gifts and things like that as evidence of divine favor and connection with God. Again, I'm just, I'm going to argue always for the result. Did it change you? Did it make you larger? Did it make you bigger? And if so, it's of God. I think we got to leave in a little Moroni 7 in there with that particular answer.

John Dehlin [00:48:01] But you're right.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:48:01] No, but again, at some point, you know, John, it's just this idea of beliefs versus faith. And, you know, faith is richer, it's deeper, it's a trust, it's a relational kind of thing. You know, Francis Menlove wrote that book that I helped publish last year through Signature. And you know, one of the key things in there is this whole. There used to be faith. The term faith always had as an object, another person. It was always about you in relationship with others. And it was only after the scientific revolution and only after the enlightenment and things like that that people had to start saying, oh, I believe this despite what science said or something. And faith became about claims instead of about like a living, active relationship with God. And I just, you know, I don't know how the brethren could sit there and have somebody talk to them about relationship with God and them them to say, nope, it's more important that you actually believe XYZ than you have a nurturing relationship with God. That's obviously, you know, making you more loving. If they say that, then they're false prophets. You know what I mean? That would be the way I'd have to come down on it.

John Dehlin [00:49:18] And yet I know you're probably aware of people, people who, who are, you know, I, I mean, obviously it sticks with me when you, when you acknowledge. And I, you know, I've, I've spoken directly with, with some of the 15 and, and I do think they, they speak different publicly than they speak in privately in some ways. But to me, that points towards this idea that, you know, that there's what you say in public and then what you think and feel privately. And a lot of times those need to be different things. And I know you're aware of people who believe very similarly to you or to Gina Colvin or to others who, when they've just been, instead of trying to hide or be duplicitous or nuanced or philosophical, when they've just been really open and honest, either directly with their leaders or, you know, even worse, sort of on the Internet or on a podcast, they have been either invited to resign from the church or disciplinary actions been taken against them very specifically for not how Christlike they were, not how much they were trying to be compatible, but for not having the right beliefs. You know, how do those. Do you acknowledge that that happens quite a bit? That it's very painful and. Sure. And how, how do you deal with that yourself?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:51:00] Well, I don't say those things publicly.

John Dehlin [00:51:02] No. No. That it's happening to other people who are just trying to be honest about their feelings and experiences.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:51:12] I'm always really sad when I hear about it happening. So I know, I know it. I know it does happen. I just think that those leaders, when they do that and when the excommunications and things happen, they're acting out of fear, they're acting out of a mist, you know, a miss between somehow these feelings that come up and say I must protect the flock, you know, the whole wolf and wolf among the flock kind of thing, watchmen on the tower kind of thing, they mistake that for. For love and the spirit telling them things because it is a powerful emotion. Right. It is a powerful spirit. And you feel like you're doing right by something or some entity when you're protecting it. And so I just think that's a mistake on their part in not discerning the spirit. But, you know, on the other hand, you know, I don't know that those who say those things and put themselves in a position to where they're going to be called in for those things, I'm not sure that they always are ready to speak or they're, they've, you know, been as skillful as they could be. Or that they've gotten to a place, you know, of real peace within themselves because, you know, you know, you get in reaction mode instead of, you know, being centered, you know, kind of, kind of mode, and your language suffers and you, you know, you poke somebody in the eye or you, you know, you roll your eyes or you, you know, make a deep sigh and all those things, you know, signal lack of respect and all sorts of things that they'll, that they'll take as, you know, you being apostate.

John Dehlin [00:52:49] But I know you're not saying it's their fault, right?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:52:52] Well, I mean, everyone is on a journey, and it takes forever to learn how to speak and when to speak and to recognize that there are certain settings in which speaking is not going to ever be effective, you know, because you're going to. Some people, you know, people have to be prepared to listen. And so you have to have a relationship with people before I think you can really, truly share those kinds of things. And so what was it? Richard Bushman in his little ask me anything on Reddit in a month or two, you know, check your motives at the door. Why are you sharing this? And things like that, that's always really good advice. And if it's because I'm in pain and I'm lashing out or not lashing out, that if I'm in pain and I'm. And I want somebody at Sunday school to, to answer me, I just don't think that, you know, logically we know that. We know that that's not a good place for it. Right? So I, I'm glad for these message boards and things like that. At least give people a chance to have it in a forum that, you know, at least you might have somebody that will listen to you and actually engage you.

John Dehlin [00:53:59] And yet, and yet you, you want to think that if there's ever a place to be able to be, be. Not have to worry about nuance, to not have to worry to be guarded, to not have to use, you know, philosophical language or sophistry or even, even duplicity. You wouldn't, you know, you, the idealistic part of me wants to think that the church is the place where you shouldn't have to do that, that you can just say, I'm broken. I'm not believing. I don't believe a lot of this stuff right now. And that, that, that the church should be the safest place of all for you to doubt and to question and to be able to be. You don't have to get a PhD in history or Religious studies. You don't have to listen to a podcast or read Taro Givens to be able to survive in this church. You know, it's. Is there ever a part of you that just feels like you should be able to just be open and honest and to be safe?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:55:07] Sure. And I think the church collectively as a group. Absolutely. It should be that way. The church on Sunday. I'm not necessarily with you. Sunday has its own agendas and its own rhythms and things like that. And I don't think that that's going to be very awesome and the right place for it. So, again, think of church beyond the walls of those three hours. Think of church beyond the public figures. And Mormonism is working at it. You're working at it. I'm working at it. We are strengthening each other. We're doing all the things that our baptismal covenants say we should do. So. I don't know, John, but if you're asking me if I'm frustrated. Yeah. You know.

Institutional Harm and White Male Privilege

John Dehlin [00:55:59] Well, how so? So one of the things. One of the things that I would admit kind of suffocated me was, was sort of sitting in the therapist chair and seeing the depression, seeing the anxiety, seeing the marriages dissolve, seeing the LGBT individuals, you know, be driven to the point of wanting to end their life. The deep distress of a faith crisis. The people of color, you know, the women, the intellectuals, just sort of all these little groups, the single people. Obviously there are millions of people for whom the church really works well. But sometimes when the church doesn't work well for somebody, it. It can cause an incredible amount of damage to the point of even being destructive to a marriage, to a family, or even even sometimes to. To someone's mortality. And so one of the. In my. In my weaker times, when I've looked at people like Bushman or Givens or my former self or you or others, there is this feeling that I have that's like, you know, man, sometimes it feels like these people. And I'm not saying this is true. I'm saying these feelings come up. It's like these people are actually encouraging people to stay or providing cover for or strengthening an institution that is causing an unacceptable level of harm to these sort of minority groups. And in that way, they're sort of complicit by their membership, by their support, financial, by their time, and by their just encouraging people to stick around. Are you ever troubled or haunted by the possibility that you are. Are empowering an organization that some would say is really doing some serious harm to people?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:58:18] No, because I know who I am and I know what I'm doing when I'm in those settings and situations and who I'm speaking up for and that I'm speaking up for love and acceptance and looking at things in a different way. So I guess if you're saying should the church blow up versus continue, I'm also saying the church should continue. There are many, many, many people for whom it works wonderfully. And so I certainly don't want the church to go away because I see neighbors who serve like crazy and are wonderful people and who don't reject their gay children and things like that. So I don't want the church to go away and I certainly don't feel like I'm keeping it in business by my membership or something like that. If anything else, I just have the temperament that's able to stay John in some way, ways. And, you know, if, if I ever couldn't, I wouldn't, but I can. And I know that I'm, I'm actually making it better. Not that that's, you know, the explicit goal, but, you know, I'm. There's two or three conversations every Sunday that I have that I know I've, I've shifted somebody's perspective to wider, wider things. And another half a dozen guys I play golf with regularly in my ward, which is different foursomes, and we have good discussions, sessions and I know I'm influential, you know, locally, so as well as through this Internet stuff.

John Dehlin [00:59:48] So, you know, you're doing, you're doing good. That, that in some ways it's better than if you were to leave. Sure. But, but the, but the pain that the, you know, let's just say that the church, you know, let's just say that, you know, again, that angels didn't, angels didn't give Joseph golden plates, that God didn't really appear to Joseph and say, start the one true church with exclusive priesthood authority, then if you fast forward to a young gay Mormon who lies down on a train track because of his influence in the church and gets run over, you know, there's not a part of you that goes, ultimately the church isn't what it claims to be, and that leads to people sometimes even taking their life or having their marriage dissolved. So that's unacceptable. There's not a, there's not a problem.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:00:43] No, it's unacceptable. But what. So if I'm, I abandoned the church, that's not going to happen. I mean, I guess I'm just complete the thought. Do you want the chance for the church to widen and grow. And I think all the evidence points to the fact that it is, it's just a slower pace than I think all of us who listen to this podcast would want, you know, and things like that. But is it going to happen? Is it going to, is there going to be less of that stuff than more of that stuff? If everyone like me were to jump out? I think I'm speaking truth to power and doing my best, you know, with my temperament, my gifts to alleviate that. But there's, there's no, there's no dreamland in which that stuff isn't going to happen overnight. Right. Unless again, you're arguing, is it John Larsen that says, yeah, let's just blow the whole thing up?

John Dehlin [01:01:38] Yeah. And I'm, I'm. That's not my argument at all. This is more just me with some of the feelings that I've had over the years and lots of the people that I've talked to. Just sort of giving you a chance to respond to what some people think and feel, that's all.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:01:53] Well, one of the ways I've, I've said it, you know, for instance, you know, I have two children and neither one are gay. But I've tried to say that if, if my staying in the church and if one of my children were gay and I would talk to them, I says, if it is such a slap in the face you, that I am still active within this church, within this community and things like that, that you feel like that's in somehow a rejection of you or something like that, I really believe I would go, you know, that would be, it would be a no brainer. On the other hand, I would guess that my kids, even if they were gay or something like that, would say, well, Dad, I know you love me, I know you're centered where I, where you need to be and stuff like that, please make way, make the path as smooth as you can for the kids, the other Mormon kids who are gay or something like that. I would let them kind of like tell me whether I should stay in or out because my relationship with them would be primarily. But on the other hand, I think that mostly people would have to argue that I'm doing good for those marginalized people more than bad by being in the church. Don't you think?

John Dehlin [01:03:03] Yeah, totally. And if I think about, let's just say you pay tithing or, or serve in the church or even give your name to it, even if at your level you're doing all the good you can to reverse some of those Negative effects. Any money or time or credibility that you lend to the church overall, which really does. It fights same sex marriage. It espouses ideologies that some say can be hurtful. You're still sort of supporting financially and in other ways an institution that in some ways can really sometimes harm people.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:03:43] Sure. But I'm also supporting an institution that teaches people that they're divine at their core, that service is ennobling, that we should love each other, that we should try to build Zion communities pure in heart. In other words, every one of the negative things you say, I'm also supporting an organization that does those things and does those things quite well. Well, you know, I've seen some real changed people. You know, kind of get back to your early question about those who, you know, have had some profound change by the church. I tell you, I'm inspired on fast Sundays in my ward and things like that. There's some people who've, who are really benefited from it. So I just never want to forget them and that side of it when I hear all the other stuff too. And I think I was. I had Adam Jacobs, Jacobson, who I think a lot of people will know through this on my podcast once, and I think he says that he basically stayed in the bishopric as long as he did because he wanted to be sure that the two gay kids, or the kids that he suspected were gay in the ward had somebody come up and put his arm around him every day, every Sunday when they showed up. And I don't know, there's just something powerful about that to me.

John Dehlin [01:04:52] Okay, a slightly different question. And this is just again, me just kind of musing about thoughts and feelings I've had. What would you say to the idea, idea that a decent part of your even ability to stay in the church is a function of what I'll just call privilege. And when I say privilege, I mean you're a male, white, male, straight, white, straight. You have a PhD. Like you are able to access a vocabulary and a level of sophistication that many people just, you know that in many different ways, socioeconomic privilege, etc. That sort of makes it a luxury for you to be able to stay and allows you to enjoy a lot of the benefits of the church that a lot of other people just aren't going to have those types of experiences. And so in some ways you're sort of saying, well, it's comfortable for me, sure, yeah.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:05:53] No, I mean, what can you do? That's my autobiography. That's who I am. And things like that. And I try to always remember those sense of privileges and why the church works for me the way it does for others. So I just try to, you know, what am I going to do? Apologize for those particular things? No, I just have to do my best to be as big a person as I can and have expansive vision as I can despite those privileges. I can't reach, reject. I can't reject those pieces of my. Of my history and stuff. I just got to do the right things with them. I don't know. That makes sense.

John Dehlin [01:06:29] Yeah. Yeah, that's good. That's good.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:06:30] Yeah. But, you know, on the other hand, I just, like, oh, man, John. The whole, you know, the whole PhD and theoretical and stuff like that, the longer I've, you know, almost 20 years now, I've had that thing done, and it's just become so less important to me. But again, you know, the intellectual approach to religion is just. It's, you know, I was able to see things. I was able to normalize Mormonism among other religions. And that made it, you know, it kind of defanged. De. Triggered a lot of the things, you know, I said, oh, guess what? Every religion struggles with this. You know, hey, you know, all those kinds of things happen and stuff like that. But what you said about, you know, needing to have these, the gospel, whatever's important, it's at that level of love, it's at the level of interconnection. It's at the level of being in community and serving each other and all those kinds of things. And so whatever any of us can do, dazzling with our brains has just become so. The tinkling brass kind of. Was it sounding brass, tinkling cymbals kind of stuff of Paul. It's just become less and less important to me.

John Dehlin [01:07:47] Right. Thanks for joining us today on Mormon Stories. If you enjoyed this episode, please help us make more like it by becoming a monthly subscriber@mormonstories.org music for this episode was provided by the Lower Lights. When with the wounded heart, anger or

Dan Wotherspoon [01:08:23] malice

John Dehlin [01:08:27] I draw myself apart searching my soul.

The Emotional Cost of Helping People Navigate Faith

Part 2 of 2 · Ep. 568

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Mormon Stories is a production of the Open Stories foundation and relies solely upon the support of people like you, its listeners to help keep the podcast alive or to become a member of the community. Please become a monthly subscriber by visiting MormonStories.org and clicking on the Donate button on the right side of the page under support. All contributions to Mormon Stories are completely tax deductible and go towards producing the podcast and building communities and programs of support for Mormons like you. Thanks for your support.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:00:36] The kindly light a myth encircling gloom Lead thou me on the night is

John Dehlin [00:00:48] dark and I am far from home. Okay, so one of the things that I, that really whiplashed me back when I started Stale DS and you know, you, of course, when I, when I first had you read sort of the beginnings of that essay that I, that I worked with, ultimately with Brian Johnston to kind of polish off, you know, you had kind of smiled and said to me once, you know, you're just like, you're just starting this journey. You have no, you know, no idea what's ahead. And you're writing this as a, as someone who's really green, you know, and, and that was true in probably 1400 different ways. But one of the things that really caught me off guard, I was so optimistic when I started Stale DS and when I asked you to do Mormon matters and when I started a thoughtful faith with others. And one of the things that really dragged me down was how many people I would sort of make the pitch to make my very best pitch, to use a lot of, honestly use a lot of the arguments and the language even that you continue to use today with much more eloquence than I ever had, of course. And then to just find that so many people that, that I interacted with weren't able to do it just over time. They felt disingenuous or they felt inauthentic, or they felt like they had to bite their tongue, or they just said, no, the church is causing too much harm. Or they. They just felt like it wasn't true and that somehow that really mattered, so that that kind of ended up getting me down because so many of these people and so many close friends of mine just would come to me privately and say, john, I just can't. I just can't do it. What's, what's been your experience sort of making this pitch? Like, let's just, let's just say you, for a hundred people that have listened to your podcast that have, that you've made the pitch to do you have any sense for what percentage stick around versus go? Do you ever, do you ever feel like there's more who end up leaving than staying? Do you feel like the people staying are growing? That it's actually the majority are able to stay if you catch them. What's your sense for that flow?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:03:18] Yeah, I haven't really tried to ever measure it. You know, as, you know, when we do these podcasts, a big portion that people don't see is how many people write to us. Right. You know, and we'll end up in these long email conversations or, you know, Facebook, instant messaging, things that go on paragraphs for paragraphs and days and weeks and all that stuff. And so certainly lots of people have just found what, you know, the path that I've taken wasn't for them. Others do, you know, and it's like this is optimism or something like that, you know, just again, I've said these words before. So if you look at, you know, 1989 to 2000 was really my crisis years, you know, kind of kind of came out, started coming out of crisis. 98, 99, 2000. It just took such time for me to do it that, you know, these people who are saying to you or to me, I just don't know that I can keep doing it. It's not working for me. I would have said all those things too if I had had, you know, a Facebook friend like me, you know, or you too. Now I did have Randy Paul and those who've listened to my podcast enough time. Randy Paul was my steady Mormon friend, the guy who had been ahead of me on this path. I had Gene England to look to. I had Armand Moss, I had Richard Bushman. I had these guys that someh. And it could be all because their PhDs and stuff too, but they represented to me people who I know, I respected their brain. And I could see they had really neat spiritual lives. And so they were people in front of me, you know, close, you know, either through my reading or talking with them that even when I would express these things of frustration and I just don't know, and I'm taking a month off or I'm taking taken, you know, however, you know, I think I've shared off and on various places. You know, there was about a four year period where I just hardly could stand to go, you know, so I'm just, I just, I'm just trying to put this 11 year, you know, thing as in like, are we. Is our sample size too small, John? Because when people, you know, say I'm leaning this way or I'm leaning that way. Do we know that they're done? And I do think there's a lot of people who are saying, that's it. Mic drop, I'm out of here. I gotta have my name removed.

John Dehlin [00:05:52] Those.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:05:54] I can see that for some folks because I think there are certain temperaments that say to even be affiliated with this adds this extra layer of stress to my life, you know, that if I'm officially even on the rolls of this, I can never heal. I understand that. You know, have your name removed kind of thing. For a lot of the rest of us who are just able to, you know, take our time and live in the tension, you know, your question is kind of calling for, what's the results? I'm saying we're still in the middle of finding out, you know, be in that. I'm losing my articulateness. Not that I ever had much, but I guess I'm just trying to say, John, I don't know that anyone is done. And those who, I think make the gestures of a formal removal or something like that, I. You know, I can see that for some, but I would hope that you don't. I would. I would love to see people, you know, find the kind of peace that I ended up finding, but just know that it took a good 10 years or longer.

John Dehlin [00:07:04] So part of your message is to just go slow. If you need to take a sabbatical, sure. But as hard as it's gotten for anybody, you know, a lot of people have been there. And sometimes in your view, sticking around is worth it, even.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:07:28] Well, it's not just worth becomes a neat, positive thing. It's not like I'm. Even when I'm talking about having my bad weeks on Sunday, I'm mostly joyful because of my membership. I'm mostly joyful that I'm in community with these people I see on Sundays. And so even if we'll have a, you know, 10 minutes during a Sunday school or a priesthood meeting or something like that, there's that. Plus there's this joy of feeling like I'm in the right place at the right time, not because of God's command. Like I say, I haven't done anything for years where I'm worried about, oh, God would be displeased with this and that might affect my salvation or something like that. I'm just so beyond that. So I don't always want to let you sit with. You can stay. Ultimately, I think you can joyfully stay. And that's what I saw in Gene England amidst all the tragedy. I saw joyfulness to his life. That's what I see with Randy Paul. That's what I see with Richard and Claudia and Terrell and Fiona.

Progressive Mormons and the Future of the Church

John Dehlin [00:08:33] Okay. And you don't have a sense for whether sort of progressives, the net number of progressives in the church are rising or not?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:08:45] No, I don't know. I find a lot of them for my podcast. Sam Brown and Adam Miller and all the different people that I have on Joe Spencer and Ben park and all these guys. I think there's quite a few of us out there now who are walking that life of. You clearly can't say that, haven't studied it out, don't know the issues. David Bachavoy would be certainly another one. And yet somehow our spiritual lives are alive enough that even with all the critiques that we have, the other stuff is screaming at us too. Look at the joy, look at the growth. Look at the transformation of character that I recognize in my own self as well as those around me. So I want to hear out of both ears, see out of both eyes.

John Dehlin [00:09:36] But in terms of the growth of progressives in the church, you're, you're, you're seeing an increase, maybe. Is that kind of what you're saying?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:09:47] Maybe increase of the public nature, the people who are doing it publicly?

John Dehlin [00:09:51] Okay, maybe.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:09:52] I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:09:54] Do you sense there's an increase in the pews?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:09:59] I see more and more informed people, you know, because like, there's been people who come up in my ward over the last year and in fact, when you got excommunicated and Kate were excommunicated. How you doing, Dan? You know what's happening? Are you safe? Are you, you know, and these are people who I think only vaguely knew that I was connected with these things. And the same thing with the seer stones that brought up three or four people coming up to me and say, hey, let's talk about that, or is this making your life really busy right now? And so I think there's greater awareness in the pews, if my small sample is anything there, that these issues are getting out there. I think Peggy Fletcher Stack has about the biggest numbers in the Tribune as far as readers go. And so I know lots of Mormons who are at least now getting inform whether they've become progressive or not. I, I don't know. But, you know, I'm John. I don't know. I've been able to have good conversations with pretty much anybody on any subject.

John Dehlin [00:11:00] Right. Yeah. Okay. So maybe. So, maybe that. So it sounds like what you're saying is maybe there is, there's at least growth on members becoming more informed and thoughtful about Mormonism, at least in the Western kind of world. But maybe there is some growth in the pews of progressives. Yeah.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:11:22] Or, you know, again, you know, you did the podcasts with. I'm blanking on her name real quick. But progressive Mormons and what they want.

John Dehlin [00:11:30] Yeah, Juliana Viegus Haas.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:11:33] So if that means progressivism, you know, I'm not even as progressive as she is. You know what I mean? Let's put it that way. But if you mean people who are at least saying, yeah, let's have better conversations, expand our vision to include the possibilities of, you know, glbt, Latter Saints and us having a change on that, you know, that they're starting to welcome women's voices and, you know, they're seeing, you know, when a lot of us will sit here and go, well, that's a nice step. You know, that the church is now having women on council. Some of these are just, they're so excited about it. They don't have the critique of, oh, well, there should be more, you know, that we naturally all come with. But I don't know. I'm not nearly as depressed as you guys.

John Dehlin [00:12:24] Hey, don't speak for me. I'm not depressed.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:12:28] Again, if you look at where our church was 50 years ago, 40 years ago, 30, we're trending in the right direction on all of them, I think, even with bad statements. And we're the two steps forward, the one step back. We can concentrate too much on the one step backs, but I think we're moving in the right direction. I hope it's okay to say. I won't say the person's name, but there's a great thread in the Thoughtful Faith Support group today where a guy. They had the fifth Sunday lesson yesterday. We're recording this by everybody on a Monday. They had the fifth Sunday lesson and there was a David Bednar quote that the bishop either shared or they watched a portion of a video that basically talked about kids who leave. A lot of it's because it was bad parenting, where the gospel wasn't being taught in their home and things like this. And he says his wife is over here crying to the left of him. She's writing some thoughts down on a piece of paper. Finally, he just raised his hand and says, you know, Elder Bednar may have had good intentions this, but what he said was pure crap, you know, and he sat there in front of the whole, you know, combined men and women for the third Sunday. And he says, you could tell that the person who was leading the discussion was trying to shut him down. Trying to shut him down. And then the next person raised their hand and then the next person, he basically says there was a swell of a whole bunch of parents in pain, you know, calling crap on, you know, statements that are going to basically lay the blame of, you know, a child, you know, just wandering at the parents feet. And I don't know, that was fun because it was like, here is your average Latter Day Saint. Somebody spoke up and everyone then just took over and there was no stopping that, that kind of critique from, from resonating.

John Dehlin [00:14:18] Nice.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:14:19] So it was pretty neat. So those are the kinds of things that I, I'm encouraged by.

John Dehlin [00:14:24] Yeah, yeah. So you know, I, I put, I put out to Facebook that I was interviewing you and I got a lot of really great questions in. Okay, so, so what, what you know, one person wrote, you know, do you know, do you ever get discouraged? And if so, what do you get discouraged about? And then a flip side to that is, is a question by Tom Grover, my good friend. Sure. Who was very complimentary, but he basically asked, you know, how do you remain so, you know, positive or level headed in such a difficult sort of situation? So talk about both those answers, respond to both those answer questions if you can.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:15:04] Yeah. You know, on a Sunday, the drive home from church, my wife gets an earful, you know, of, of usually the negative things, you know, oh man, you know, a lot of the ones that frustrate me almost most are missed chances to go deeper and richer, you know, because of certain conversation turns. Every once in a while it'll be like this person was just plain speaking ugliness or something. And I couldn't find my way into the discussion. And so I'm more frustrated with myself that I wasn't able to turn the tide. So certainly that happens a lot and I'm very frustrated with that. And somehow or other I been saying lately, you know, how it's one of those things that just kind of comes up in various conversations. There hasn't been a good church press conference in a while, you know, that I was like, oh man, these guys really got it together. They really are forward thinking here or something like that. So even when they're moving forward, I just kind of like go, man. So I'm never satisfied, let's put it that way. So if that means the level of frustration, it's both at my local level. And just in general, we're not moving as fast as I want to and things like that. On the Tom half of things, where it's like, how do you stay.

John Dehlin [00:16:21] Wait, wait, wait. Before you jump into that real quick, what about with trying to sort of be this, you know, shadow apostle for the middle way? Do you ever. Is there anything that ever discourages you there?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:16:33] Sure. Oh, I mean, you'll get. You'll get a bad talk or a bad statement and go, oh, there goes six months worth of progress I've made on that because now someone's going to flip to the end sign and find this, you know, so. Yeah, I get that kind of all the time, too, you know, how about

John Dehlin [00:16:49] in your direct interactions with people online or in person with the people that you're trying to help or others in the conversation that aren't related to the church?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:17:01] Well, okay, well, okay. So let's, let's say that there's some categories of things that you don't like to see and that you have to sort of. Now, okay, brother. So and so when he said this, he, you know, kind of set back my. You know, somebody who's. There's an extra stumbling block. Right. So let's say that, I mean, a lot of times you have to say, well, who is he speaking to? Why was he or she speaking to that? If I were in charge of a huge organization and I'm looking at everything from a few months convert to somebody else, what kind of message would I frame it at? You know, I can generally contextualize a lot of these statements, and they don't feel quite as, you know, in your face, negative as, like, there's no getting around this particular statement. Sometimes I just have to say, well, I just don't. I think that person's just concentrating on, you know, some problem. Like, for instance, you know, the famous Russell Nelson unconditional love, you know, thing back in the Ensign. Was it 2002 or whatever or something? You know, this was just bad theology in the sense that he was equivocating, meaning he took the same word, which was love, and he equivocated on it, meaning he had two definitions of it. One is love, like, does God love us? And the other one was love, meaning, are you saved or are you welcome into the kingdom of God? And he was different. He was. You could tell that's what he wanted people to not have. You know, Father Tom, who's been on my podcast before, Greasy Grace, you know, there's people that feel like you can just slide into heaven, you know, without, you know, you know, living a. A life where you're working on your soul or however you want to put it. He was against that, and yet it came out as if he's saying, God doesn't love everybody unconditionally. He basically says, you don't get into heaven unconditionally. But he was equivocating on those terms. And so you can kind of look at that, sit down with somebody if you wanted to, and say, clearly this was just poor choices of word by an apostle. I wouldn't be surprised if I could sit down with him and look at this with him for half an hour if he would agree with me, you know, so there's those kinds of levels where you can. You can just kind of say it. So. And then every once in a while, you just have to say, well, that guy, you know, it's not inspired, or, I'm not inspired or something. But I'll just say that one doesn't feel like it's a message for me.

John Dehlin [00:19:28] I'm actually trying to move away from the question about the church and its leadership more to ask about whether you get discouraged in any way, trying to sort of be that. That shadow, sort of, you know, ecclesiastical leader to the. To the disaffected. But also I'm curious whether things you see on Facebook, things you see on Reddit, you know, let's just say CES letter or Jeremy Reynolds or ex Mormon or Mormon stories or me or Kate Kelly or whatever, are there areas of that domain of your ministry that are separate from the way the church behaves and its leaders that cause you to feel discouraged at times?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:20:15] Yeah, it's interesting when you talk about shadow apostle and stuff like that, never once in my brain has I ever entertained that or even almost like, I know that my role at Mormon Matters does affect people, and I know that through people's feedback and whatnot. So in some ways, it is a ministry, but I rarely ever think of it in terms of, like, I'm trying to do this. I just am a public guy having discussions about topics that interest me at the moment, grabbing some of my friends, putting them on. Putting them on the, you know, the Internet kind of thing. And so I tend to not think of, you know, thing as me having a program for people to follow.

John Dehlin [00:20:58] See, I totally don't experience you that way. I experience you as a guy that really passionately believes that many people leave the church too quickly. Yes, I do believe that there's a deeper experience that people can have and

Dan Wotherspoon [00:21:13] that I only say that because I've had it, and I know lots of.

John Dehlin [00:21:18] But you want as many people as possible to be able to enjoy the fruits of that experience and that each time someone leaves prematurely, maybe it even makes you sad. And it does.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:21:35] And, you know, if. If we're going to ever, you know, flip over and I'm starting to talk with you, you know, and you're. That you're kind of receiving the questions. That would be. One of the areas that I would be talking about with you is, is, you know, this leaving business. And I would be basically saying, what would be the. What would be the way to phrase it, John? Are you empowering people to not,

John Dehlin [00:22:08] you

Dan Wotherspoon [00:22:08] know, to only see Mormonism through the lenses of the problems and the tensions, instead of, you know, as just the wider importance of having a spiritual life, of having a tradition, of having a community, whether you want to go Gene England and saying, you know, a community that you're even served as learning to love people when it's a community, community that you're not in agreement with, that you're actually in tension with. We know that, you know, it's hard work to make love in a family work. It's hard work to make love in a community work. And it's not like I'm saying, everybody, be a masochist and enjoy your pain, but I'm just almost like saying, are we forgetting that this is the work of the soul? If there's anything that kind of feels like what this life about is about at some kind of spiritual level for me, I'm not going to name it in terms of trying to get to the celestial kingdom or something like that, but, no, it's wrestling with others and learning to love them. And to do that, are we making it, through our discussions so easy to forget the beautiful half and the fruits of those kinds of struggles? And so I can't remember exactly what it was in your question that made me say, I want to ask you that question now.

John Dehlin [00:23:34] But if you're ever frustrated with the mission field, your mission field.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:23:40] Yeah, it's because I think it's like every time somebody overstates something, I want to say, but don't forget the other half, too, or I'll listen to your podcast and I'll go, john, if that person was my guest, I wouldn't let them make that statement without a challenge. You know what I mean? Because there's this fullness of Mormonism that it's beyond just the problems. And Joseph Smith was a horn dog or kind of These things that it's so easy, these little tropes for us to lay out there and just let sit on people's hearts. Where I wanted to say, you know, everything's more complex, if you can stand it. It be in the question. Have you heard? I don't know how much of my stuff you listen to, but I was kind of on a kick a year ago or so with Parker Palmer. He talks about the tragic gap. Have you ever heard any of that stuff? Yeah, I love Parker Palmer, but it's that idea that there's always the ideal and then there's always the real. And we're always living in the tension between the ideal and the real. Right. But it's hard to live in that tension. And so he says your tendency is to collapse the gap one way or the other. You're either going to collapse, you're going to either go off into la la land in the ideal and just ignore that the reality is really happening around you. Or he says you might collapse into the negative. Well, if that's the real thing and if human beings really do act this way, I'm going to go get mine and you're going to forget about altruism and all those different things. So he says it's hard to live in that tension. But the way that you live in that tension, he says, is if you're by something deeper than is things going my way, am I persuading people, is the organization changing and things like that, you have to find some way to center and be renewed in your spirit. And so for him, the word, he says, that is the key to whether or not you'll feel renewed. And so this is to your question of, you know, in my ministry, am I depressed about, you know, what goes on around me, the renewal I get? And I really like His Word and it seems to work for me. His is faithfulness. And his Word, faithfulness means faithfulness to your gifts, faithfulness to your sensitivities, faithfulness to your social location and doing things that are faithful to those unique things about you. And he says if you're acting and working in that faithfulness to this, you're going to have a constant renewal of spirit. So this would be now, towards the Tom Grover half of your question would be, I feel like I'm called to be where I'm at. I feel like whatever this strange journey I did on the academic end, again, I'm not a scholar anymore. I haven't really advanced my scholarship at all in the 20 years since my doctorate. But I'm super aware of things. On the other hand, I also have this interesting personality. I've got this fat body that makes me approachable. I've got whatever this easy, strange little laugh or whatever it is. Somehow or other, there's this combination of me that I feel like I'm being faithful to through this work again, that you are so important in helping me. First of all, I had the Sunstone gig. That was a wonderful fit for me, and then this podcast gig, I'm able to be renewed in my own spirit because I know that I'm doing the stuff with my gifts that I should be doing. You know what I mean? And so that's why when I get depressed, I'm able to usually bounce back. I highly recommend to everybody, do something every day, you know, to try to be bigger. You know, whether it's yoga, you know, whether it's running or some kind of something that just gets you out of your head, out of your worries and stuff like that. That's where the renewal comes from. Or. Because I've done that that day later, when I really need it, I know that I've got an extra resource.

Dan Turns the Questions Back on John

John Dehlin [00:27:49] Okay, well. Well, I. I actually don't want to ignore the. The. The idea that. That you may. That you may have some questions for me. So after just talking to you briefly about it, what I want to do is, is say that I. I look forward to those questions and answering them. And I think what we just decided was we'll go ahead and make a separate part of this podcast where we kind of turned the mic over to you. And so, listeners, if you're eager to have Dan throw some questions at me, be a little bit patient. I'll finish out asking Dan my questions, and then we'll have a separate part for that. Does that sound all right, Dan?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:28:33] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:28:33] Yeah.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:28:34] So let's just make this part one, and then part two will be kind of in reverse.

John Dehlin [00:28:39] Okay. Okay.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:28:39] Yeah, so that's good. So, yeah, if you have any more stuff to throw at me there. But those are my key answers. John, in terms of. Dang, yes, I'm frustrated all the time. It's never easy, you know, to be in tension with your community. But on the other hand, I don't think true peace is tensionless. You know what I mean? I think real peace comes from knowing that you're kind of doing what you're supposed to be doing about something that's, you know, important. You know, whether you want to say Mormonism is important. I don't know that I Don't need to necessarily go that way. I just say I think your spiritual life is. I really think, you know, waking up to. To the fact that you're larger than your consciousness, than your brain, than what you believe, you know, those things are just like, man, that's what it's all about. And, you know, and if anything in your Mormonism is taking you away from that, don't concentrate on those parts of it. Concentrate on the parts of Mormonism that's, you know, that's there about growth.

John Dehlin [00:29:34] Right, Right. Okay, so I'm gonna. I'm gonna. Let's shift gears a bit, and I'm gonna challenge you to give sort of. Because there's a lot of questions from listeners. I'm going to just challenge you to give the kind of the punchiest answers you can, knowing that being punchy can get us into trouble. But just. Just do your best, and I'm going to throw a bunch of questions at you in succession. Is that okay?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:29:57] Sure.

Listener Questions on Finding a Middle Path

John Dehlin [00:29:57] So Annie Jensen writes, you know, is there any hope? Have you seen a lot of. Have you seen many people succeed at this sort of middle path? You know, can someone be a progressive Mormon and. And be happy and at peace for a long time, for the long term? What would your quick answer to that be?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:30:15] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:30:16] Okay, nice. All right. How can I stay and not feel. This is Nick Drew. How can I stay and not feel that I am sacrificing my personal integrity by participating in practices I no longer see as true? True. Quick answer. You've touched on that.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:30:34] But, yeah, I would probably just work with Nick on, are there other ways that things are true than factual? Or does this statement really name something fundamental about God or the universe or something I would concentrate on more? Like, I would say you would never have to participate in something that you don't think is true. But I would challenge you to see, are there ways that you can see these aspects of Mormonism that are bugging you or triggering you as having some deeper connection, some deeper, you know, filaments that. That could lead to a help in your, you know, as. As a transformed person.

John Dehlin [00:31:14] Okay, so think about true and deep.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:31:16] Yeah, yeah. Because I really do think that that's it. And, you know, honestly, you know, I've done a lot of James Fowler stuff through the years. That stage four, which is, you know, that one where you're moving out of the comfortable, you know, worldview that you kind of just inherited, it usually has that head aspect first, where it's all about the mismatch between the factual Stuff of the universe. And then as you move into five, it's that more both and that more allegorical, that more mythical way of doing it. And so I just think it's a natural progression. So wherever you are, if you're getting bugged by the kinds of things that are in the CES letter, which are just like, it's bullet point history, right. Without a whole lot of context and things like that just have. Here's another thing that, you know, they're not giving me a satisfying answer to, you know, and, and when it's all about answers and questions and things like that. At some point, I think as you continue on in, in life and in your journeys, answers going to become a lot less important than, you know, centering, for lack of better word, centering in a place where you feel comfortable, you feel like you've owned, you own your own position in the universe. I recommend trying to make that. How big is your spirit? Actually, I know John, a lot of people, maybe we can talk about this when I interview you, the trigger language of spirit and God and things like that. I definitely want to get into that kind of stuff with you, but I just would want to say, just know you're on a healthy path when you're asking these questions. I just say don't abandon all of religion because guess what, religious stuff doesn't yield well to those kinds of inquiry. You know, things of the spirit are, you know, more inclusive than, you know, my brain can give an answer to this. Right.

John Dehlin [00:33:17] Okay. Nick follows with another question. How do I stay and teach my young children a more nuanced view of Mormonism and not have them be labeled as outsiders within the ward.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:33:28] Yeah, I wonder how old the children are. I would guess, you know, I tend to not worry so much about the primary age K kids. And then I would just be mostly signaling to your kids that any question at any time, you know, is fair game for them to come to you. I wouldn't try to necessarily lead out like today's family home evening is going to try to debunk what you've been learning at church, you know, you know, through Sunday school. I would just, you know, always signal that you're open to it and, you know, ask them what they think and follow along because they may be, you know, you know, have. Maybe they're really ready for a big question. But you may, otherwise, you may like, over, you know, what is it, the fire hose approach or something like that. You might try to give them too much based upon your struggles. So I just to me, with my kids, I'm just like, hey, you know who we are. We know who your parents are. You know that any question you ever bring will be here. You know that your mom and I have a more nuanced view than this. And if you ever want to talk about that, you know, we're here for you. But I don't, I don't. This deprogramming your kids, I'm never, I don't think it's necessarily. And again, maybe I'm over influenced by Fowler and John. Maybe with your own, you know, PhD studies in religion. When you do faith development stuff, do you, do you like tend to think that there are proper stages for certain tasks and developmental tasks to take place and that certain things need to come in front of other things? And so to me, I'm at least fine with a true believing child up until the point when they begin to naturally ask questions. Then I want to be there for them.

John Dehlin [00:35:09] Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Matt Algernon wants to know whether a progressive church can succeed to the same or greater extent than the current model. In other words, if the church becomes more and more progressive, does that weaken the church in your view?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:35:30] Well, not in my view, but I certainly do think, yeah, I think ultimately conservative churches are more successful, if that's what he means. But could the church, you know, continue to open up in the ways that it is that it does seem to be doing with women and GLBT and all that stuff? I think we'll survive these moments just the way the church is surviving. You know, the change with blacks. Of course we're not fully done on any of these things, but I think our church will continue to go in the right direction and can stay it strong. But I think if we were to move too fast, then it does weaken the church. So it's hard to say it because I am dying for the church to be full of me, people like me kind of thing. Isn't that all of our dream? Right?

John Dehlin [00:36:17] Yeah.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:36:19] But on the other hand, when you think organizationally and globally and people in every point in the faith spectrum or something like that, is it too much is given, much is required kind of thing? I think we've been given more and we need to be able to put ourselves out and to wrestle with this stuff. If we have these questions, it doesn't mean that that would be healthy to have Sunday school lessons on it or that would be the overall focus. There's so many people in this world that are just barely hanging on or they want to Just know that there's some meaning to life. Or sometimes you just need to go and just say, I'm going to cast my burdens upon some other being. And all these things can be healthy for people. And so when we're in the struggle, it doesn't mean to me that we should trouble everybody about it at all times. So I do think a progressive church is. A more progressive church is on its way. I just don't think that we can get there overnight and have Mormonism stay as strong. Strong.

John Dehlin [00:37:26] But if the church slowly moves towards more progressive ideas, in the end, you think it can maintain its vitality.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:37:34] Sure. But then of course there'll be more progressive ideas. That today's stuff will seem pretty tame. Right? I said it in priesthood meeting a couple of weeks ago. What we're wrestling with here with the GLBT stuff is I know there's a lot of people don't like to compare it with the blacks and the priesthood stuff, but I said, how many of you are glad that. That we got through that? And you know, that there were people that were aching for this and who had done their own thinking and had been. You know, I didn't say all this, but this is kind of the gist of what I was trying to say there. I said we were glad. Then I said, I firmly believe that we're going to be glad to welcome all these people as we understand all the GLBT stuff, people as we understand them better. We're going to be just as happy as we are with the blacks and the priesthood change. And I truly believe that same thing. It'll be so normal to have women officiating.

John Dehlin [00:38:34] You see gate temple barriers happening someday.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:38:38] At a certain point, I don't think how you could stop it because the more we know, the more we'll get there again. Right now, I think Trevor Petrie's. Excuse me, Taylor Petrie's piece is the only one out there that's wrestling with the theology that would need to change before the temple marriage of gay people would do it. The more people come to accept that this is not a choice and that it's not a defect that will be fixed in the eternities. You know what I mean? Because that's kind of where the church's official stuff right now is still wrong, like, okay, it's okay to be gay, and we know that you probably didn't choose it, stuff like that. But we know that in the next life everything's going to be back to normal. Right. Kind of thing. Those are the hurdles that we need to get to. And as soon as we get through those things, I think the rest of the stuff will be, how do you deny that these are two souls that want to come together in this kind of relationship and make these kind of commitments? And then Taylor's piece, of course, also deals with that. It's not necessarily divine sex. The way we imagine the way we know how babies are made here. That's not how spirits are made there. Once we get past those, I can't see how we'd ever withhold the temple stuff. Do you?

John Dehlin [00:39:53] Oh, I don't know. I don't know. I think it would. Well, you can ask me that in my interview.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:40:00] Okay, well, and, and it still could be. It's going to be several generations away, probably. But again, the more people live with an idea that, oh, you mean intermarriage is okay between races? Okay. And then now no one even thinks about it. At a certain point it'll just become so normal, like, wow, these two people found each other and they want to unite together. It's like we're in this laugh that we ever were worried about, you know, same sex marriage. And then it'll happen in the church too. But, you know, it's not going to happen because we're agitating. It's going to, it's going to happen because, you know, we who stick around and share about our own experiences with our gay children or whatever, that's. We're just going to normalize it till people finally take a real look.

John Dehlin [00:40:50] Right. So you see women ultimately having the priesthood side.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:40:56] Yeah, you know, I'm still a little open to. Maxine Hanks seems to be indicating that she thinks there might be a way to go. Different orders. You know, there's administrative orders and other kinds. And it's been a few years since I've really encountered her thinking on it. But yeah, for sure. How could there not be, John? You know, the gifts of the spirit are so powerful, you know, with women that, you know, with certain women, they're going to say, how would this person not be. Be the best bishop of our ward ever? You know what I mean? It's just going to happen. I would, you know, here's my fun thing. I don't think I've ever said this in public. I got to think that when it happens, married couples are going to be called as bishops together, you know, wow, that'd be cool, you know, like it'll be empty nesters because, you know, they'll have that whole, you know, Time away from home. It'll be all like your mission kind of thing, but I wouldn't be surprised that that happens. And then it'll just expand from there.

John Dehlin [00:41:52] Okay. Okay. So somebody writes, why bother? No offense. Dan, this is Charlie Brulee. Progressives are bound to have a worse go in than out. What would you say about that?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:42:07] That it's just a worse go in than out?

John Dehlin [00:42:10] Yeah. Yeah. It's just too hard that lots of people try it. And unless you're really united, unique, it's just going to be too hard and that people are better off. You know, there's an argument that says all the good that's in Mormonism you can find elsewhere, and there's too much bad. And to try and walk this middle way just becomes too difficult than. Too much effort, too much pain for too little gain. What was your quick answer? You've already talked to this, so just give Charlie a really quick answer.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:42:40] Yeah, there's several ways I could go, but I'll just concentrate on the end of it. Not all pain is bad. I think pain is important. I think struggle and wrestling with people who don't agree with you is important. And to truly love, you have to work at it. And to me, to think of the dozens and dozens of people who I know and I love were people that at one point drove me crazy, to have had them transform in front of my eyes into these beautiful souls of light who still are dang wrong on XYZ questions. Those are the most profound experiences of my life. I count those as the biggest graces of my life, is to love people who I disagree with. I just disagree with the premise that it's too much work. On the other hand, all the good that can be found in Mormonism can be found elsewhere. Sure. Make sure that you go to another community where you have to wrestle with people again that you're going to disagree with. You know, I love Viktor Frankl's thing. He says, you know, peace is not attention, free life. Peace is to struggle for something that you think is worthy of the human spirit. And so to me, the growth of us into expanded, loving, compassionate beings, you know, it doesn't come easy, and it certainly doesn't come by entering the echo chamber and only going with people that you agree with. So I just. I don't know that there's real gain. But on the other hand, check your own sanity, man. And if you can't take it, stay home. Don't throw yourself in the ring where you're too beat up. The other Guy's just going to be punching you in the face every second. Gather your strength and go back. Like, like I said, if anybody forgets that my 11 years were up and down and struggling, I don't want you to forget that I didn't manage to find my peace by taking. It wasn't a magic pill. It was a lot of hard work. But luckily I had neat people as mentors who at least, if nothing else, they were just shining out there as like, oh, maybe that's possible for me someday. And that somehow I know I serve that role for some people now and it's a scary thing. And for the rest of you, I drive you crazy because I'm like this Pollyanna. So who knows?

John Dehlin [00:45:16] Okay, so I tried to nail you down on this before. Jeff Green wants to know, what's your batting average in terms of all the people who get exposed to kind of your Mormon matter stale to us, a thoughtful face. What's the percentage of people that you think in the long term can make it work versus leave? And I heard you say before, we just don't know. Are you going to stick with that or do you want to give a number?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:45:40] Well, again, if I get to say everybody gets 15 years to be in these questions and where they would end up, I think it's a lot higher than you get when you first start interacting with people and they're saying, yeah, I think I'll make it work. And then they have a bunch of bad moments or they, again, frankly, are listening only to the negative half of things because there are certain websites out there, certain Facebook groups and stuff like that, where the ratio is not going to be affirming. Let's remember that there's big and important things going on in Mormonism as well. So it depends on what they is is all a big factor. But if I were to give somebody 15 years and if I would say that they were truly in a wrest with God, with their own spirit, with how do I become the best human being that I can? And if they were truly listening and not just concentrating on the pure questions, I would think that a lot of people would end up where I'm at. But again, I, you know, like you said, I'm privileged in all these, you know, all these ways, and I have to own that. But, you know, it's pretty high. I think it's pretty high that you can get there because again, okay, now here, John, this is. Someday I'm going to have to ask you, are you at all a Fowler, a Fowler fan? Or not. Or are you just not? But ultimately I discovered that guy right at the end of stage four, kind of emerging stage five for me. So everything that he said mapped to my own life perfectly. And he puts five and six out there right in front of us all as like, this is the path of the human being being. And I think the longer that you live, more people do naturally end up centering their spirituality in something other than belief, other than whether or not this matches up with, with that or this idea is a good one. And they center it in something, you know, more profound than simply, is it true?

John Dehlin [00:47:46] Right. Okay.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:47:47] It's like, how does it work on me?

John Dehlin [00:47:49] Okay, so no, you can't give a percentage. Not going to give a percentage to,

Dan Wotherspoon [00:47:54] well, again, of the people who are writing me. And we have extended conversations, probably 50, 50.

John Dehlin [00:48:00] Okay.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:48:01] You know, but on the other hand, I don't, I don't write any of those guys off who've, who say, I'm leaving, you know, because, you know, I hope, I would hope that they're going to continue on a spiritual journey. And I think all spiritual journeys will kind of end you up back at like a place of both and, and mythic truth being just fine. Fine.

John Dehlin [00:48:22] Okay, got it. All right, so I, so this is a question for me. Sometimes I have interpreted maybe, maybe you, maybe, maybe other people as sort of saying if you're sophisticated, if you're deep, if you're truly good, you'll. You'll stick it out in some day. Is that a misunderstanding of your position?

Dan Wotherspoon [00:48:55] I can certainly see how some phrases would make it, make somebody think that, you know, just the different giftedness of people is just, it just slaps me in the face all the time. You know, what percentage of us have intellectual gifts? What percentage of us have, you know, know, more physical gifts? What percentage of us are never, you know, in a million years going to be interested in the kinds of questions that some of us who come to these conversations are. And I gotta believe that what that says is these gifts that you're talking about, sophistication, and I can't remember to use two or three phrases here. I can't believe that they're the most important things. You know what I mean? Just, just the way I can't believe that, you know, language communications is the most important because obviously most things in the universe communicate not through language. And so it has to be at something deeper and more fundamental than what words can say. So, so I guess what I would say to you, there is no, I don't believe that those are the cases. I think it's easier when we're in these kinds of conversations that we're going to naturally say, well, here's my wider view from having read this person, that person and that person. I can see how that comes across as an arrogance or in a saying that everybody has to read that kind of person. I hope it's not in my heart that I know it's not in my heart to ever say that, but I'm certainly sure I can be accused of saying, you know, here's what I guess here's, here's what I'll say. I really feel like I was blessed to do all that school and I recognize that that was a privilege and I recognize that I had eight intense years from 89 to 96 where this was my full time job, was wrestling with this crap, you know what I mean? And so all I can do is say I'll take that eight consecration, those eight years, consecrate them to the good. And if they resonate and if that's a blessing to others, I out there, then I've, then I'm okay with the fact that I had that privilege.

John Dehlin [00:51:13] But for others, do you think, do

Dan Wotherspoon [00:51:16] you think it's more important to be loving than right? You know what I mean?

John Dehlin [00:51:19] But do you think that, do you think the wise and the deep ones stay and the ones who leave are, you know, less courageous or less strong or less wise ways or less, you know, somehow lesser than that? The, it's, it's Terrell Givens and, and Eugene England and Lowell Bennion and Dan Wotherspoon and Peggy Fletcher Stack who are the, the real strong, noble wise ones. And the ones who leave, sold, sold themselves short and, and weren't strong or wise or deep enough to, to stand, stick it out.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:52:02] Such a hard question. I mean, the answer is absolutely no. But yet it's such a, it's a loaded thing because this is all like, everybody wants to know how do I measure up? You know what I mean? And we're always listening like, am I as advanced as that person in this area? And you know, this is the whole, you know, Rene Girard, you know, kind of stuff about mimetic desire. And this person is this, and that's this, and where do I measure up? And that's the basis of all conflict and separation. So here I just gave you an egghead answer that goes against what really this question's about. I guess, John, anybody who doesn't want to listen to both sides of the Question. I guess, frankly, I'm going to have to say that's not as good a way to go as those who are willing to look at all sides. You know what I mean? Now, there may be very good reasons. There may be lots of pain or abuse or some reason that right now you can't look at all sides of the questions. And so therefore you're making decisions based upon that pain or that anxiety or that tension and things like that. So I would say that you're excused from that critique. But is Socrates angle, is Socrates arrogant when he says the unexamined life is okay, wait, they're not worth living?

John Dehlin [00:53:30] You know, okay, so, so you're. I'm not necessarily only saying people who haven't really deeply looked at all sides. I guess another way to say this is if somebody says, hey, Dan, I've looked at it deeply. I've tried really hard to be positive. I've looked at both sides very carefully. And I'm telling you, I feel like too much harm is being done done. I feel like the church, I feel like the fact that the church is built on claims that I perceive to be fraudulent and I feel spiritually led and called elsewhere. Do you see that as a position that's equal to your own or inferior to your own? If somebody comes to that conclusion after really feeling like they've weighed both sides carefully.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:54:21] Well, again, I wouldn't want to judge until I really chat, chatted with them. And again, I would guess that we would find that we have such different personalities or temperaments that that's why what you call a fraudulent claim for me, you know, might be more understandable or something. We would be able to kind of, through conversation, kind of get a sense of each other. And then ultimately I would imagine that they're walking in integrity of their path just the way I'd be walking integrity with my path. So I would say the answer is no. Both things are fin. Both things are equal. But I will say that I so often encounter online and this is where I'll get myself in trouble. You know, just these one sided, flippant, you know, guess what? Mic drop. You know, anybody who, you know, still stays knowing this, you know, that's, that is just, that's dismissive and not as worthy to me of respect as it is for those that will say, okay, you just did a mic drop here. Let's examine that together. And if that person's willing to come and examine, let's reason together, then maybe we can, maybe they'll still stay with where they're at. But again, John, here's something I guess I wanted to say coming in. So let me try this out on you. It's so temperamental to me. And I don't mean, you know, temperamental isn't like fussy. I just mean like it's all based on temperaments. I look at you as kind of having an activist temperament versus mine, which would be maybe more of a, you know, just quiet, contemplative temperament. In other words, you know, when you see issues in this world that are wrong, you only know how to engage them at a pretty high level of intensity. You're super sensitive to pain, you're super sensitive to struggle. You want to, more than anything else, reach out and change that world to, you know, to remove people from this pain. I want to do that too. But I. Somehow or other my temperament is not like I don't have to, I don't, I don't engage. Is the right words, the long game or short game? I don't know if that's, that ends up being pejorative. My stuff is like, I want to change and I want to remove people from pain and all that stuff too. But I want the society to change that puts people in pain. Right. In other words, like at the political level, there's all these things that we can do, these short term fixes. I want to fix the problems that create the systemic, the systemic abuse and things like that. And so somehow or other I think it's a matter of temperament and, and I. Who's. You can't say one temperament's right and one temperament's wrong. That's ultimately my answer. It's just. They're different.

John Dehlin [00:57:25] Okay. Well, I, you know, it's, it's one thing to say this path really feels right to me, but. But someone else's path can be just as holy, even if they see things very differently. And then it's another thing to say, I think I kind of really have the deeper and the truer way, but I still, you know, respect that other people are human. And, you know, I still think they deserve love and respect in good things, even if they're choosing an inferior path. And I'm just trying to get a sense for where you are between those two, sort of.

Dan Wotherspoon [00:58:02] Yeah, I'd want as much information as possible, but ultimately I get, you know, John, There's no sense in me that anybody's ever done, you know, that somebody has reached a full stop. And so I just tend to always want to say, you know, you're on Your journey? I'm on my journey. More power to us in our journeys. It's easy for me to answer your question and say, inside Mormonism, outside Mormonism, is one superior to the other? That's easy for me to say, I don't think so. I think you can find richness and truth and transformation of soul in millions of different ways. On the other hand, and here's where the stuff that I'll get to you on, it's like, come on, people, you're abandoning your entire family, generations upon generations, family, culture, things like this. Yeah. Your intention. Lots of things are going on. You don't know which end is up and which end, but you really want to. You think I just don't know that we can think through the losses, that if you can make it within Mormonism, it's worth every dang effort in the world because you're so embedded in it already. So that's where I would challenge people. Yeah, okay, I'm out of the pain. I can now love more freely because every Sunday I'm not hearing people that disagree with that feels temporary to me compared to just like, okay, let me just get centered and love that person anyway. And so, I don't know, I just feel like I don't like these questions about better or worse, obviously. And we're two hours and I'm interested,

John Dehlin [01:00:02] you know, if anything. It, it's just, it's, you know, it's just me having you think about the fact that sometimes it can come off that way to some people. And I, you know, I think, I think it's good to have you address that specifically just because sometimes it can come off that way, you know, and

Dan Wotherspoon [01:00:20] then, and then their stuff comes off the same way to folks like me. Right. You know, this. Oh, you must have some, you know, like the term mental gymnastics, you know, always comes across pejoratively to me because it doesn't feel at all like mental gymnastics to me. It feels like this is the natural process I do with everything, you know, everything needs redefining constantly throughout our whole life. And just because my 12 year old, you know, Sunday school teacher taught me this about God and now I realize God has to be reconceived there. It doesn't feel like I'm doing mental gymnastics. I'm like, I'm like, well, let me test God against my own experience with God and it feels very healthy. So there's lots of things that kind of come in the reverse that way. And so I'm certain that folks like me can Come across as arrogant, but I mean, obviously we all struggle with things like that. But I would hope that we'd go to lunch and a couple hours later we'd have merged with a good sense of each other, and hopefully that wouldn't be the dominant thing that we come away with. Oh, Wotherspoon thinks that he's right and I'm wrong.

John Dehlin [01:01:28] Right? Okay. Yeah. All right. So, Liz. Lizette Smith Nielsen asks, and I'm going to ask you to do this in a sentence, explain the book of Abraham in a sentence how, you know, yes,

Joseph Smith, Polygamy, and Church Maturity

Dan Wotherspoon [01:01:44] Joseph kind of went into some dissociative. Not dissociative necessarily. You know, some kind of the same thing that happened at the Book of Mormon. In some kind of altered state, things began to flow to him, and he thought that that was a translation of the Book of Abraham, just like he thought those translation of plates.

John Dehlin [01:02:04] Okay, okay.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:02:06] So it's certainly not a translation of

John Dehlin [01:02:09] the papyrus scrolls or the plates.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:02:12] Right. Well, were there even plates? You know, that's another question kind of thing. But on the other hand, I don't think Joseph Smith is being deceitful. I really think that he came to understand that when I'm looking in this stone, I think he really believed that he touch with God. And so the gift, when he says this was done by the gift and power of God, I think he's being authentic.

John Dehlin [01:02:34] But we know he was deceitful about polygamy. Right?

Dan Wotherspoon [01:02:38] Mean, as far as, like, do I share with everybody what I'm doing and

John Dehlin [01:02:41] practicing, Denying that he's practicing it when he is.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:02:45] Well, okay, again, you got to. Look, you're gonna have to give me some context on that.

John Dehlin [01:02:50] Oh, so you don't. You don't think generally he was dishonest about his practice?

Dan Wotherspoon [01:02:56] Well, any more than you or I would be when, you know, again, if he's in tension with himself over whether or not he should practice it at all and he's going ahead and practicing it, then you might do it. But if he's truly. If he really thinks that this is what I'm supposed to be doing, and yet God hasn't somehow cleared the path for everyone around him to agree with him or to receive the semi revelation or something like that, I think the guy's in a tough spot. Now, if he was purely knowingly saying, I'm doing this in order to have sex with a bunch of women, then yeah, he's deceitful as hell. But I think somewhere, the truth has to be somewhere in the middle, that whether it's he got this in his head from reading Old Testament and wondering about plural wives with them. And if this is part of the restoration of all things or at least is this a possibility and he gets some wires crossed and he says yes, this feels like God giving me a green light or something, then he's got at least a divine charge. No.

John Dehlin [01:03:56] But when people say at some point people reporters asked are you practicing polygamy? And his response was does anybody see anyone other than Emma? I only have one wife here. It's clearly a deceptive answer to many

Dan Wotherspoon [01:04:14] pretty dang human nature y thing to do, don't you?

John Dehlin [01:04:16] No, no, no. Yeah, but you can acknowledge that it's dishonest and say it's human nature. Sure.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:04:23] But it doesn't necessarily mean it's not something that is makes him disqualifies him as somebody who could be called by God to do an important work.

John Dehlin [01:04:34] And even the 14 year old girls and 30 plus women, none of that disqualifies him for you.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:04:42] Again, I don't know, I tend to doubt that he had the God saying this is what you're supposed to do. But I kind of give him the benefit of the doubt that he thinks that he was acting in concert with something that was okay with God. You know, I tend to not think that he did it purely for those other reasons.

John Dehlin [01:05:02] So well intended for base reasons. Don't. Is it the claim of golden plates being delivered to him in and of itself deceptive and the fact that if he didn't really receive plates, he would have had to create some fake plates that then he let people heft. Isn't there deception in that to you?

Dan Wotherspoon [01:05:23] Well, again, I encourage everyone to listen to the Seer Stone one we did because Ann Toews and Mike Quinn and Ron Barney, we basically went right to all that stuff. So I don't again, there's a lot of stuff there that. So what's the intent behind this question, John? This is another one of these kind of things that I wonder aloud. You know, again, I'm going to look like I'm dodging these questions. It's mostly because those questions don't even come up for me anymore in my normal, you know, waking hour about whether or not there were plates or not. I know that there's a Book of Mormon. I know that reading passages of the Book of Mormon have sent me on adventures in spirit that are. That are fantastic.

John Dehlin [01:06:12] You've made those points. I'm just saying. Saying it's just the deception of questions.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:06:17] Yeah, but who cares? Laurie, Matthew Kip's book at Sunstone. Why is the matter of Joseph Smith, whether he's being sincere or deceptive as he's doing this, why is this the important question that everybody wants to focus on in Mormonism?

John Dehlin [01:06:30] So you're just saying to you it's not important?

Dan Wotherspoon [01:06:32] Well, again, when you say it is important, does it mean would it ever be a mic drop for me? In other words, like, okay, there it is. He lied about this or he lied about that, or I get to dismiss all the Mormonism. I wonder what's behind that stuff. And I gotta think that if you have not been having good experiences within Mormonism, if you don't find the truth claims expansive and helpful in your own life, if you don't enjoy Sundays and things like that, but you're only hanging on because, dang, what if this is true? And what if my salvation is really at stake in this? Then I guess I could start thinking in terms of mic drops and like, oh, okay, once I settle this and if it really is a mic drop for me, then I'm relieved of those burdens, of just that hesitation. What if it might be true? I better hang in here. Just because it might be true. I mean, go to. You know, again, I would just say I don't think God cares one bit if you believe that Joseph Smith's a prophet. What God would care about related to Joseph Smith is are there teachings that many people have found in Joseph Smith that had them come and learn about themselves as large, divine, wonderful, expansive beings and, you know, more power to Joseph Smith for that. But, you know, if Mormonism is such a burden for you, you're only hanging on in case it might be true, leave, please. You know, just. Don't you think, John, at a certain point, if you're not either in it, if you're not enjoying the. Or if you don't believe the teachings are expansive and good and true, you're gone, don't you. You might just be slow, but for one, one way or the other, I think you have to at least, you know, enjoy being a Mormon at some level.

John Dehlin [01:08:31] Well, I think there are people who really enjoy, who really enjoyed being a Mormon, who, Who. Who feel. Feel like, you know, I think it's important for you to make your case, and I think your case is a valid and legitimate one. And I would say bless you and bless everyone who can make that case and who can make it work. I think, I think it's ab. I think it's 100% valid and reasonable for someone to Say it looks like Joseph made this up and misled a lot of people and deceived a lot of people and that the church just fundamentally isn't what it claims to be. It's. It's as fraudulent as Scientology or David Koresh or whatever. I, I guess there's a part of me that wishes I could hear you just say, oh, yeah, that's totally credible too. Like my, my perspective is credible, but if somebody says, you know, it, to me, it matters if there, there were plates and it matters. Matters if the Book of Abraham really is a translation or not like it was claimed to be. I would love to hear you just personally, not, not that I care about whether you say it on this podcast, but, but for me, it just seems really reasonable that you would go, oh, yeah, that. Sure, that's a valid perspective.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:09:53] Well, obviously I wrestled with all those things, you know, during my time.

John Dehlin [01:09:58] Yeah.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:09:58] Of, of real confusion and things like that. And I'm now talking, you know, 14, 15 years of being, you know, kind of past those questions. And so when I give my answer about, you know, it doesn't matter to me. It doesn't mean that it didn't matter to me at some point in my

John Dehlin [01:10:16] journey, you know, but, but, but, but I think where we sometimes get hung up, and this is what I was trying to refer to earlier. What's, what's sort of implied from that is that like, maturity will put you to the point where you don't care about those things anymore. And I would say to you that,

Dan Wotherspoon [01:10:34] well, there's, there's something, there's something about.

John Dehlin [01:10:36] For some people that's just a non starter. It's not about maturity. There's plenty of people who can leave and be super mature and just say, no, no, no, it's. It's very simple. If Joseph made it up and he thought he was channeling God, but he really wasn't, then I don't want to be a part of it. And, and, and I don't hear, I don't hear you saying, oh, yeah, that's totally valid. And a mature person can take that path too. What it sounds like you're saying is if you're mature, you'll realize that those questions don't matter and you'll stick around anyway.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:11:10] Well, there's two things on maturity. One is there's this. Is it a virtue to be mature? And then there's another one, like, have you just lived longer and you've kind of just naturally grown into different perspectives? You know what I mean? And so Take any pejorative away from mature or immature and then maybe we can talk about that question. Because to me, it's just more and more experience with the spirit has taught me how the spirit works. And it's never clear, you know what I mean? It's never words that you can generally or not, it's very seldom. Or words that I would say, this is truth that encapsulates for all time, or this is an answer to some factual question. The spirit is more like, guess what, man, I'm expanded. I know I'm learning things. I know I'm centering in things that are good. And from this point forward, I meet life with a new energy and a new zest and things like that because of that experience in spirit. That's how it works for me. So truth claims and things like that. So here's what I would guess back to. The thing is like, I've decided this, I've decided this. Let's spend. I can't answer the question, John, unless I know that that person has actually read more than one source on how they got their conclusions.

John Dehlin [01:12:30] But don't you know tons of people who have. Don't you, don't you know tons of people who have read who have looked at all sides and who just say, no, it's not true. And that's important to me. I mean, don't you know a lot of people that have, have decided that it's not true and that that's important, but they're also deep and wise too?

Dan Wotherspoon [01:12:49] Sure, I guess so. Yes.

John Dehlin [01:12:51] Okay, okay, fair. All right, so.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:12:56] But don't rob yourself of the, of the journey. You know what I mean? Just because this, because you know that person doesn't mean that if you did that same set of wrestles yourself, you would come to the same conclusion to them. Because as many people as I know who you've just described, I know people who have come out the other side. And so I would want those who are in a faith crisis, they're struggling right now and say, I gotta end this faith crisis. You know, if you can just be willing to stay intention and get in and do the work and do the discovery for yourself instead of saying, well, you know what, John's out of here, Kate's out of here, so and so's out of here, you know, they've done the work and I'm just going to trust that they did it. You're in the same situation you are with Mormons who say the leaders have done the thinking and therefore I'm Just going to follow in. I mean, journey, man, this is the wrestle of life. Take it on and don't go hasty again. I guess that's my word.

John Dehlin [01:14:02] Right, that's fair. And I think you would agree that there's a lot of people who, who are very thoughtful and careful and wise in their decision to leave and that just because someone decides to leave doesn't mean that they're giving up the journey of depth and of wisdom. There are plenty of people who leave and continue becoming more wise and deep.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:14:28] Yes, that's the key to me. If you're going to go, go to something, just don't go from something. You know what I mean? And I think that's what you're trying to do with Mormon transitions. You know, you got to continue to grow. You've got to continue to develop. Life's big questions are still going to come at you. Have some resources for meeting those, you know, have some sort of sense of soul growth or whatever you're going to want to call, you know, this, this core of you, you know, at least go towards something and. Absolutely. I know lots of people that have gone and had amazing. And are having amazing spiritual journeys beyond Mormonism.

John Dehlin [01:15:04] Right, right. Okay. Have you ever communicated with general authorities or church leaders in your role sort of with Mormon matters?

Recommended Resources and Temple Relationship

Dan Wotherspoon [01:15:15] No, only sunstone. Only sunstone.

John Dehlin [01:15:17] Okay. And so somebody, Juliana Viegas Haas, is asking how we can communicate with general authorities. I guess you wouldn't have any tips on that. No.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:15:25] Or I'm not. I probably wouldn't even want to.

John Dehlin [01:15:28] Yeah, you know, yeah, same thing.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:15:31] You'll let them in your brain or they make it think that you're asking for advice or permission or something and it just seems like a big mess. They have a stewardship and they have a role to play. And you know, if you're, you're just. I'm just trying to be faithful to my call and, you know, I certainly not going to ever seek it out. I don't think that's the way that church is going to change. Change from convincing a general authority.

John Dehlin [01:15:58] Would you look forward to being called as a gospel doctrine teacher? Or would you sort of shy away and say, oh, that's too many minefields?

Dan Wotherspoon [01:16:08] I volunteered to teach it this year. I had a great conversation with my bishop. It's been so. I don't want to say it out loud because some people in my ward listen. But yeah, within the New Testament year, I just, I wanted to have a much richer experience in Sunday school than we had. And so a couple months before the year, I just said, you know, hey, you know, here's the level of discussion in Sunday school. Let's not have this be the same thing again. This year I volunteer, and he wrote me back a really nice letter and stuff like that. So no, I'd love that. And I do teach priesthood meeting, and I think the guys look forward to what I share, and I love it.

John Dehlin [01:16:49] Okay, so, Deborah Reader, HUAC asks about your relationship to the temple. So to the extent that your question comfortable. Do you have a recommend? Do you not ever recommend? Is that your choice, someone else's choice? What's up with the temple for you?

Dan Wotherspoon [01:17:03] Well, first of all, I love the temple. I love the ritual. You know, listen to some Mormon matters podcasts. Number 40 and 41 was on Ritual, then Mormonism. And you can kind of get a feel for why I, I really like that kind of stuff in terms of my own status right now, I've just, by choice, I don't have a temple recommend. And it's. The only thing is, is just I've, I've chosen for my own reasons not to pay tithing right now.

John Dehlin [01:17:29] Okay, all right.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:17:30] But I, I'm worth, you know, I'm worthy. And every year when it comes up, you know how the ward or the executive secretary will call, hey, Dan, the bishop wants to call you in. And so the bishop will call me in and we'll just have a little discussion about do you want to temp or recommend? And I'll explain to him why I don't. But I don't feel like going into it here if I can.

John Dehlin [01:17:49] Okay. Okay, cool. All right, so, Scott, and let's, let's make this on a one or two sentence. Scott Good wants to know what resources you recommend to broaden and deepen one's perspective about Mormonism. So books, podcasts, role models, rifle off your sort of top 10 or type 20 just in stream of consciousness. Consciousness.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:18:17] So resources.

John Dehlin [01:18:18] Yeah, books, you know, articles.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:18:22] You also said one to two sentences, so this is a little hard.

John Dehlin [01:18:24] It's going to be lots of commas. Lots of commas in the sentence.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:18:28] All right, so the, the things, you know here are like the seminal things for me. Super helpful. Was Bonner Richie's article called the Individual and the Institutional Church or something. The Institution and the Individual. It's in the Sunstone 25th anniversary. It was a reprint of something El Bonner Ricci just helps you totally get that. Institutions are always going to be mismatch and fit with individuals, and so institutions are going to act like Institutions, individuals need to learn at least a little bit about the way institutions work to help protect themselves from the natural abuse that you're going to get. And so he does very open heartedly saying the church is an institution, it's going to act like an institution. He doesn't say it, but it's like get rid of this idea. Well, if it's the one and only true church, church, it should do better. You know, that's an argument that is, you know. No, it's an institution. It's going to perpetuate itself. It's going to teach the ideal, it's going to speak to the middle, you know, it's going to set goals that are basically measurable and how do you measure spiritual growth and all those kinds of things? You got to read Bonner.

John Dehlin [01:19:37] Okay, keep going.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:19:38] Okay, okay, sorry.

John Dehlin [01:19:42] So what were the other making a list. Don't feel like you have to explain, explain each one. Just make, just make the list.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:19:49] And it's about Mormonism, the writings of Eugene England, I would say, especially his books, Dialogues with Myself and why the church is as true as the Gospel.

John Dehlin [01:20:04] Okay.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:20:08] Rough Stone Rolling. Richard Bush, angel in the Beehive, Armin Moss. I would give one of the givens titles. Let's go. Crucible of Doubt. I think for somebody right now I'm excited. I actually just bought Wrestling with the angel and I haven't started it yet, but I'm excited about that.

John Dehlin [01:20:30] I think that a new, Is that a new book?

Dan Wotherspoon [01:20:32] That's his new one, yeah. Wrestling with the Angel. Let's see. What were the turning moment things for me? I loved, I loved Harold Bloom's the American Religion. That was such a refreshing take on Mormonism. That helped me right early in my graduate days just to have this outsider say, look at this expansive thinker and he places Joseph Smith alongside of Emerson and Walt Whitman and all these powerful religious imagination people. So that was really helpful and fun for me.

John Dehlin [01:21:06] Okay, what about so non Mormon stuff? Maybe Fowler.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:21:10] Fowler. Stages of Faith was key for me. William James, Varieties of Religious Experience. You know, it's a super long book, but it's basically a psychologist looking at the phenomenon of religion. And he says some really powerful things. But you know, of course it's going to be. Oh shoot, I thought I turned my phone down just a second, let me go. But William James says he's just so observational. But anyway, just know that you're going to have to deal with early 20th century stylized language. Right. Is a religious experience. Honestly one of my favorite books ever in terms of just having an introduction to these really amazing and deep, rich spiritual thinkers who are not Mormons. You've got to read Krista Tippett speaking of Faith.

John Dehlin [01:22:00] Okay.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:22:01] You know, I. There's, you know, there's. I probably have bought 30 books based upon, you know, either her podcast now called On Being, or that book Speaking of Faith.

John Dehlin [01:22:12] Right.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:22:13] What else would be. Anyway, I'm sorry, John, If I think of more.

John Dehlin [01:22:16] Okay, that's good. That's good.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:22:17] We can edit them in or I can do something.

John Dehlin [01:22:19] No, no, no, that's. That's fine.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:22:21] Yeah, sorry.

Final Reflections and Closing Words

John Dehlin [01:22:23] All right. I. I'm looking through, and I think, you know, what would you say. What would you say, Jimmy Handy basically says, if someone were sort of to reduce a lot of people's affiliation with the church to sort of family pressure, social pressure, spouse spousal pressure, etc. You know, what. Would. Would you. What would you say to that sort of. That position that so much of this is really, is just social?

Dan Wotherspoon [01:23:01] Well, the word pressure is what throws me off on that. I do think that, you know, we are social beings, and there's a social element to all of our decisions, and

John Dehlin [01:23:10] that's like, my wife might leave me. My parents will be disappointed. I'll lose all my friends. Like, people won't respect me anymore.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:23:20] But if he thinks. If. The question is people are only staying because of pressures, they're absolutely wrong. You know, that's wishful thinking that people are only staying because of pressure. I stay purely by choice, and most of the people that I affiliate with do, too. We'd survive the family drama of. Of. Again, I don't like the question just because that's fine. Well, it's a loaded question.

John Dehlin [01:23:54] Yeah, okay. No, that's fine. It's fine.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:23:57] Find your own reasons to stay. And again, I'll go right back to the beginning. If you feel like you're doing what you're supposed to be doing and you and God are good, guess what? That's a man. There's a perspective right there where you can meet a lot of crap. And that's the secret to actually making your own way in life, is knowing that, knowing who you are and that. That you're right with your highest ideals, then pressure. Smasher, you know, no, nobody's, you know. You know, nobody could come to me and. And basically, you know, psychoanalyze me, you know, into some like, oh, you're only doing this, or you're only doing that because of this. Let's go do. Dude, you know, maybe 1520 years ago. Yeah, but I'm. I'm making my own choices now.

John Dehlin [01:24:51] Right.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:24:52] You know, it sounds so arrogant, but anyways, so let it stand that way.

John Dehlin [01:24:56] Do you have any reason to believe the church likes or approves of what you're doing, wants to see it continue

Dan Wotherspoon [01:25:04] again? I don't think of the church as an entity. You know, certain individuals would and certain wouldn't, I'm sure, inside. Yeah, I mean. I mean, some would and some wouldn't. Don't you think? I mean, I think. Well, like for instance, when I was with Sonson's. Here's an answer that at least you can get here was a general authority. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to say his name, but we met with him and he basically said to me and another fellow we're meeting with him, he says, we know that people are going to wrestle with questions. He says, I would rather have them wrestle with within a community than have them think that they're the only ones thinking these things and then get depressed and feel lonely and go off on their own. So I've got to think that there's a lot of general authorities that recognize that what's happening on Facebook and in podcasts and various things is healthy for the church. So that's what I would think. But then there's certain other ones that are gonna think you're gonna expose people to questions that they're not ready for, and I'm certain that that happens. Here's a great William James quote again, I'm not gonna give it to you exactly, but it' Everybody acts in good intentions and we'll never even know until the end when we measure the wounded in our wake, whether or not we actually did good or not in the world. You know what I mean? Because we're going to. No matter if we act this way or if we act that way, there's going to be people wounded. And that's the only way. You're only going to measure it after the fact. So I just act forthrightly with what I feel called to do, and I pray for people to, you know, not be harmed by what I do. But on the other hand, I know that my forward moving in this way, at least from the feedback I get, I not only feel good within my spirit, but from the feedback I get, I think people, many people do benefit from it.

John Dehlin [01:26:52] 1. One listener asks if you think the church made a mistake by excommunicating Rockwaterman, me, Kate, the culture was, etc.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:27:02] I. I'd never excommunicate anybody unless they asked, you know, to have their name removed. So, yeah, I'm completely against it. I mean, on the other hand, I think that at least in the case of you and Kate, you guys were poking them in the eye pretty. Pretty good. You know, Rock and the others, I think, were a little bit less so. But you and Kate were definitely doing some very provocative things. And, you know, I think you, in many ways. Ways, you know, you could have backed off the paths that you were on, and you wouldn't have been excommunicated.

John Dehlin [01:27:31] But.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:27:31] Yeah, so it's a mistake. I never would have kicked you out, either of you.

John Dehlin [01:27:35] Okay, well, cool. Well, there. I think there was. There was a debate in the Thoughtful Faith Forum by James Patterson and Jerry Lee and others, I think, Brian Dillman, about who's the true president of the Dan Wotherspoon fan club.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:27:56] Oh, brother.

John Dehlin [01:27:56] Is it Brian Dillman?

Dan Wotherspoon [01:27:58] I'm glad I'm not looking at this.

John Dehlin [01:27:59] Is it Jera Lee? Is it James Patterson? Do you have a.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:28:02] You know, it's Jara Lee.

John Dehlin [01:28:04] It's Jera Lee. Oh, wow.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:28:07] She at least makes the claim the most often. I love all those guys, and we have such a good time, but. Yeah. When did you ask these questions? Because I thought I was on Facebook within a few minutes of us starting, but I guess you've been getting all these answers.

John Dehlin [01:28:21] I'm sneaky. I'm super sneaky, Dan.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:28:24] Oh, that's funny. But.

John Dehlin [01:28:27] All right, all right.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:28:28] I'm completely uncomfortable with having a fan club, but. But Gerald Lee, I will say, says it the most often, so therefore, she wins.

John Dehlin [01:28:37] Awesome. Okay, so, So I, I. There are more questions, but I think I'm gonna. I'm gonna go ahead and call the interview for now, and we're going to have another part where you get to ask me questions, and you can prepare for that as much as you want, but I want to give you a chance just to sort of, for those who've been listening, if you have any closing thoughts or a closing plea or a closing statement or a closing testimony, you know, I just want to. One, thank you for coming on. Thank you for bringing your big spirit and your just generosity to Mormon stories. There's a lot of people who won't come on anymore, and I'm grateful that you will. And I want you to know that I love and respect you. And so with all that, what are your final thoughts or expressions for the listenership?

Dan Wotherspoon [01:29:36] Well, thank you, first of all, John, and our friendship means a lot to me. And you've been a crazy active conversation partner of mine for 10, 12 years, and it's been a big blessing for me. And again, you're probably the friend who brings up these questions that make me think, you know, how this comes across or something more than anybody else. And so I'm grateful, grateful for that.

John Dehlin [01:30:01] Thank you.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:30:04] I probably, you've heard me reiterate two or three things over and over again, so those would probably have been the key things for me coming. I, you know, I'm 56 years old. You know, when I came to feel like my spirit reasserted myself, I had some powerful experiences. And in some ways I think I was blessed by kind of having my rock bottom experiences to where I was open to. To just like something new. And I kind of learned to recognize whatever this power, this energy that came in then has always been pretty readily available to me from that point on. And so I feel lucky by it. And I know a lot of times, and I think I said earlier an hour and a half ago or whatever, it kind of started. Surprised me when I would talk with these intense friends of mine who said, no, I've never felt that. I've never felt something other than that might not just be my brain, that might not just be my emotions, my wishful thinking, my. My confirmation bias and things like this. And, And I just would. I just like, I ache for you to, for those that are in that situation to just know what it feels like to have, you know, something break into your normal consciousness and be so qualitatively different that, you know, after that moment, you are changed. There's a. It's a. There's a scene in the movie Contact. It's not actually in the novel, but it's Palmer Joss talking with Ellie, you know, the Jodie Foster character. And he just simply says when she's adding all the stuff about, you know, maybe it's just this, maybe it's just that. He goes, no, no, nothing could touch it. Nothing could touch it. And that's the way I feel about. Again, some of the. I'm only talking a handful, six or eight experiences that are just so much that way. But there's an energy register or sort of an expansiveness or this glory trail or something that I can generally find in my life. And when, when church is bad, when relationships are bad, and of course, sometimes I reject it outright and I'll just like, f you, universe, F you, God, or whatever. I don't want to deal with you right now. I don't want to feel better about this. I want to be mad and I want to be upset. I want to feel my pain. And so just know that that's there. But there was somehow I was blessed with having a sensitivity to spiritual trailings or whatever. And that's how I do it. So whatever piece I've achieved here, it's because I have that connection and I feel it. So how do I encourage those who haven't had it to have it? I don't know. I hate to say you have to hit rock bottom, but I do know that that works for a lot of people. When you just simply say, I can't run my own life. You know, there's, there's, you know, I've tried it and I've botched it. And sometimes it's in that desperation,

John Dehlin [01:33:33] you

Dan Wotherspoon [01:33:33] know, I need something other than me. That's maybe where you first get those feelings. Sometimes I just think it's like give in and trust that your brain is going to still be there on the other side of those experiences. I feel like more than anything else, a lot of people will say, well, if I like try faith or if I give myself into the temple ritual or if I give myself into these non rational things, that somehow I'm betraying my intellectual. What I found is the exact opposite. It's like now that I've had these experiences and now I've given these things in, I think I now see clearer the other stuff. You know, there's an echo to it or a backlighting to it, or a song to it or something that now when I'm with my brain there, that somehow or other now I also have, you know, this other ear, this other attunement. And that helps me in my life and it helps me there. And I feel like I'm smarter, you know, because I'm trying to let spirit also have a place in my life. And I'm not trying to make that in any kind of arrogant way. It's just like having the attunement to what's up front and close and then what's deeper and kind of having those be intention with each other is an important thing in my life that I really think that's why I can feel cheerful most of the time. And that's why I can renew my spirit and things when things go tough. So I guess my plea to anybody out there is don't give up on the spiritual life. And you're not betraying your intellect, you're not betraying your rationality, your brain, all the different things that have made you you. If you simply go into meditative spaces or ritual spaces or something and just say, I'm turning off and seeing what might start bubbling up, and I'll just let you know that those energies, I think, will ultimately settle the question for you, that you're something more than just your body as presently constituted, that there's a depth to you that is way beyond what you're imagining just with your head. And that's, you know, once you're there, boy, you're oriented in life. So that was long.

John Dehlin [01:35:58] I love it. I love it.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:36:00] That's my plea. Everybody, be spiritual. I don't care if you're Mormon or not. Try to be spiritual.

John Dehlin [01:36:06] Beautiful. All right, Dan, Well, I love you like a brother, and I'm really grateful you could share your perspectives and that you'd let me throw the hard questions at you. And I think you did a great job.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:36:18] Well, thanks. And thanks, listeners, for throwing those hard ones at us.

John Dehlin [01:36:23] All right. All right. So, yeah. So, listeners, please give your thoughts and feedback to dan up@mormonstories.org and know that in a few days we'll be releasing Dan's interview of me. So look forward to it. Thanks again, Dan, and we'll see you online.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:36:44] Take care.

John Dehlin [01:36:44] All right. Thanks for joining us today on Mormon Stories. If you enjoyed this episode, please help us make more like it by becoming a monthly subscriber@mormonstories.org music for this episode was provided by the Lower lights.

Dan Wotherspoon [01:37:14] When with the wound, heart, anger or mouth, I draw myself apart, searching my soul.

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