In our first in a series of condensed interviews where we interview mixed-faith couples and get right to the heart of the issues they face, we meet with Polly and Justin Brown. Polly and Justin were recently featured on an episode of the Marriage on a Tightrope Podcast and today we are excited to hear their story.

Part 1 – The couple reacts to Justin’s loss of faith:

Part 2 – Polly and Justin share how they arrived at their current understanding:

Part 1

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Part 2

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3 Comments

  1. Peter December 6, 2019 at 9:25 am - Reply

    During most Mormon Stories, we get to see interviewer John. It’s fun listening to counselor John on this podcast. Makes me happy to get some insight that John Dehlin is probably one of those counselors who listen and then shares valuable perspectives and insights on the topic that’s being discussed.

  2. Panhandle Rag December 7, 2019 at 12:46 pm - Reply

    Thanks to this brave couple. I am not in a mixed faith marriage but am suffering from a deteriorating relationship with my 43-year old daughter and family, the daughter having been adopted from the Church. I have now finished the first podcast and have really enjoyed it. My wife and I stopped attending in spring of 2012, and though life in general is better, some relationships are not.

    Justin talked about being able to talk with friends with faith questions. We didn’t have that and that is still hard. We live in a county that lies about midway from Oregon to Montana, the 18th largest U.S. county, where about 90% of the land is National Forest, leaving a fairly small area for population. Our population is 16 thousand with three wards of the Church, and has just as many as in another fairly close county of 32, 000 with 3 wards. But though one couple dropped out before us, they moved away and what few tbms we can talk to can’t even imagine there may be others in the area who went through a faith transition. I have a doctor who is very active with a temple recommend, although he does not believe in the basic doctrine, such as J. Smith and the BoM. He says his wife, a tbm, his friend, the bishop and the SP knows he has doubts, but he is a prominent person in his community. He will only work in the nursery, not wanting to teach what he does not believe. But, he lives 40 miles from me so we only occasionally converse at work.

    John, I hope someday you can have a podcast with adult believing children of a super devout former family. And our family went to church on trips and cam-pouts and we camped out on temple trips, and attended often from driving long distances or riding riding on ferries. And one day, we were done. But, as opposed to Justin going slow with Polly, I failed badly in that respect with my daughter and have probably lost her and our 5 grandchildren.

  3. cl_rand December 14, 2019 at 6:21 am - Reply

    I started out in a mixed faith marriage over 25 years ago. I used to think that if I could get my wife to see that the church isn’t what it claims to be she’d walk away like I did. That created a fair amount of friction in the first years of our relationship as I would expose her to information she simply didn’t care to know about. Somewhere along the line it donned on me that, even though the church never has been what it claims to be, the church is what she needs it to be and that was all that really mattered. Things calmed down considerably after that.

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