Introduction and Sam Young's Background

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Birdie [00:00:36] The kindly light amid encircling gloom

John Dehlin [00:00:43] Lead

Sam Young [00:00:43] thou me on the night is dark and I am far from home.

John Dehlin [00:00:53] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It's August 24, 2016. We are recording live in the basement of my home in North Logan, Utah, and I'm very excited to have today's special guest. Some of you will know him. I'm guessing that most of you won't, but you'll all be glad you got to know him. After today's interview, I'm going to turn the camera around. Today we are going to be interviewing a friend of the family, someone who I've known for I don't know how many years. Sam. 30 years.

Sam Young [00:01:33] So at least 30 years. Yes.

John Dehlin [00:01:35] Probably 35.

Sam Young [00:01:36] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:01:37] His name is Sam Young. Hi, Sam. Welcome to Mormon Stories.

Sam Young [00:01:40] Well, greetings John and Jamie and Mom.

John Dehlin [00:01:44] Yeah, yeah. So we're here with Sam. Next to him is his sweet mom, Birdie with a T. Hi, Birdie.

Birdie [00:01:51] Hi.

John Dehlin [00:01:52] Thanks for joining us. And then remotely, we have Jamie Hannis Handy, who many of you will know as someone who has hosted Mormon Stories at various times and has been on panels. We're recording Jamie's video over Skype, and we hope to find a way to merge the audio and the video together into something seamless. Jamie, thanks for joining us on Mormon Stories.

Sam Young [00:02:19] Thanks.

Jamie Hannis Handy [00:02:20] So glad to be here.

John Dehlin [00:02:22] All right, so why did I want to interview Young is. Let's see. Sam, I'll do my best to introduce you and then we can go from there. Sam and my dad started a business called Barter Systems Incorporated in Houston right around 1976. 77. When did you come on, Sam? It started out as Exchange Enterprises, and then it turned to Barter.

Sam Young [00:02:47] Yeah, the late 70s.

John Dehlin [00:02:49] Okay. Yeah. But once I moved away from Katy, in Houston, I didn't have any contact with Sam for many, many years. What I do know about Sam is that eventually he ended up staying in the Houston area, Sugar Land area, and became a bishop of the LDS Church there. In the Sugar. What was the word?

Sam Young [00:03:14] Sam, you were bishop of Maplewood First Ward.

John Dehlin [00:03:16] Maplewood First Ward. And that's near Sugar Land, is that right?

Sam Young [00:03:19] Well, no, it's more inner city Houston.

John Dehlin [00:03:21] Okay, but. But somehow Jason Moore and Lynn and Bill Moore got to know you.

Sam Young [00:03:26] Well, Bill was a bishop about the

John Dehlin [00:03:28] same time and you were met in the same building then. Okay, so the Maplewood ward met in the Sugar Land time.

Sam Young [00:03:34] There was no Sugar Land wards.

John Dehlin [00:03:36] Okay. Yeah. And so I, you know, I think, I think it's fair to say that Sam was as TBM true believing Mormon as they come for decades and decades. But I was really surprised to get a phone call from Sam. I want to say it was about a year ago. I don't know exactly when it was, but Sam was starting to talk to me about how his perspectives on the gospel were changing. And so it's interesting to have a former bishop talk about, you know, what things led to a change of perspective on the gospel. But what's more interesting or additionally interesting is that Sam's taken a really interesting approach. Instead of just sort of getting angry and leaving the church, he's made the very interesting decision to stay active in the church, but to vote opposed at any ward or stake or general conference level sustaining. And so imagine in a Houston ward, in a Houston stake, whenever the stake presidency comes or the ward council comes, or even a general authority comes for some type of state conference, or they're all sitting around in the general conference, watching general conference in the building. Imagine when the time for sustaining comes, Sam Young votes opposed. And so not only that, but he's also started a new blog called what, Taqueria?

Sam Young [00:05:09] No, the blog is invisibles, cubit of all things.

John Dehlin [00:05:13] Okay, but he started a blog and he started to encourage, at least locally, the open and candid discussion of difficult issues with immormonism. And that's the Taqueriya initiative, is that right, Sam? Okay, so this is a, this is a form of sort of activism that remains engaged but isn't maybe as, let's just say diplomatic, as the Dan Witherspoon sort of approach. It's definitely more of a stay, but vocally oppose. What's going on now, Sam, we're going to dig into all this, but did I characterize things accurately or would you?

Sam Young [00:05:54] Pretty much, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:05:55] Is there anything you would change or add?

Sam Young [00:05:57] No, we'll add or change that as we go along, but that's pretty accurate.

John Dehlin [00:06:01] How about you, Jamie, Anything you want to add?

Jamie Hannis Handy [00:06:04] No. I've known Sam for probably 30, 35 years as well. He was the bishop of the neighboring state growing up and just always had the highest regard. His family was seen as loyal and a Mormon's Mormon. That he was an outstanding bishop and raised his family and his daughters are similar in ages to me and just high regard, High regard for him.

Sam Young [00:06:27] Well, that's very nice of you to say.

John Dehlin [00:06:30] Thanks, Jamie. And Jamie, please feel free to jump in with any question at any time. Is that all right?

Jamie Hannis Handy [00:06:37] Perfect.

John Dehlin [00:06:37] We're super happy you're with us. We love having you on Mormon stories.

Jamie Hannis Handy [00:06:41] Thanks.

What the Church Meant to Sam Growing Up

John Dehlin [00:06:42] All right, Sam, so let's just start talking about kind of what the church meant to you in your early years growing up and in your adult years prior to things going a bit askew.

Sam Young [00:06:56] Well, I was always totally believing, totally obedient, living the gospel. Well, I don't know about totally obedient, but basically following the commandments and rules and just doing what you're supposed to do. As I grew up, Went to seminary, graduated from seminary. I mean, all the typical things. Served a mission in Guatemala and El Salvador. John.

John Dehlin [00:07:25] Oh, wow.

Sam Young [00:07:26] And that was a wonderful experience. I still look back on that time as such a delightful thing. Went to byu, graduated with a degree, moved to Houston, was very active in the church. All the typical callings that people would have served as a bishop for five years.

John Dehlin [00:07:47] Which years do you remember?

Sam Young [00:07:49] 91 to 96. Now, most callings. You asked me what dates, I couldn't give them to you immediately. That one I know. 91 to 96. Five years and four months to the day. But I did enjoy being a bishop. And looking back on it, I still look back on it with very fond feelings.

John Dehlin [00:08:10] Did they ever call you to the High Council after?

Sam Young [00:08:12] Well, I was on the High Council before I served as bishop and I was on the High Council a few years later. So I've served on the High Council probably a total of maybe six years.

John Dehlin [00:08:23] So five years as bishop, six years

Sam Young [00:08:24] on the High Council, Stake young men's president for five years, Ward or the high priest, group leader for three years. Anyway, so there's a lot of.

John Dehlin [00:08:38] You got the pedigree going on.

Sam Young [00:08:39] Oh, hey. And I had a lot of unique callings where it is not. It's not a calling. In the handbook where they asked. They called me, hey, we want to do this particular thing. It's in scouting. We've not been able to get it to work. We've been trying to do for the last couple of years. And so they called and asked me to do it. That was A lot of fun. Three and a half years ago, the stake president and my bishop asked me to start going to a different church. They asked me to start going to the Baptist church, a little Baptist church that's within our ward boundaries that was a black Baptist church, but it was founded in 1869, four years after the Civil War ended. So that point in time, these are all plantations. And the plantation owner gave his former slaves a plot of land, said, as long as you hold church here, the land belongs to you. Well, it thrived, was a great, Did a lot of great, provided a lot of great services for the black community in that area. And you can imagine all the struggles that they went through after the Civil War. It wasn't an easy transition to being a slave or the racism that existed. There was. And then going through all the years of civil rights. This building, their church was torched in 2007, I believe. And so it was. Most of their building was burned down, except a little chapel. They were down to eight members. The stake president and bishop somehow got in touch with them or met them and thought. The stake president said, I'd like you to start attending and look for ways to help become friends. Look for ways to help. This is not proselyting. This is not preaching the gospel. We want to help them. Because he said, I think this is a valuable congregation for our community to survive. So that's what I've done, has been my calling for the last three and a half years, or my calling, my assignment in the church. So anyway, there's. And today we're great friends. Our church is great friends with this little black church. They participate. Our stake president, two stake presidents, our bishop. They've come and spoken at various events that we've had there for the community. They have come to numerous music programs that we've had in our church and given prayers. So it's just been a really good, a really fun thing to do in the church. Satisfying, valuable.

John Dehlin [00:11:21] Okay, so that sounds really fascinating. Maybe we'll talk a bit more about that talk just to give us some one minute, two minute sense of what the church has meant to you in your life prior to struggling with the church, to you, to your family.

Sam Young [00:11:39] I think I made a big mistake my entire life. And Jamie's dad tried to correct me on this, but he wasn't successful. My problem was I always put the church number one. They were my number one priority. God the church, the prophet. That is what I'm focused on. I'm showering in the morning, I'm thinking What else I can do in my calling? Who do I need to reach out to? What do I need to organize what events? Anyway, it was. I put. And so, Jamie, one day I had a meeting with your dad. So I was on the high council. Her dad was in the stake presidency. And they had given me one of these odd assignments that had taken a huge amount of time. He was averaging 20 hours a week for this other assignment. And I had a calling besides that. And when it was over, he said, sam, we just had a meeting with the general authority. And the general authority said this to the state presidencies that the priorities are, number one, family, number two, employment. I'd never heard anybody teach in church that employment is anywhere in the top three, family employment. And then your calling said, sam, I don't want you to lose your family. Family, employment, and then church. I kind of had it backwards.

John Dehlin [00:13:06] So again, talk about what that meant to you and your family. Was it positive?

Sam Young [00:13:11] Oh, it was positive, I believe.

John Dehlin [00:13:14] How was it positive for you to be a member?

Sam Young [00:13:16] Well, I loved what I was doing. I loved serving. I loved serving people. I loved the callings that I had. I think it was a great benefit to my children, too. They look back on those years because we were constantly reading the scriptures, praying. I constantly was talking about cool things I'd found in the scriptures. And it's fun now for the kids to quote back. Remember, dad, you said this. You said this. Anyway, the kids look back on it with fondness that their dad was involved in these things.

John Dehlin [00:13:45] What did the beliefs mean to you? The beliefs of the church, the doctrine, the teachings.

Sam Young [00:13:51] Well, I totally believed everything. I didn't really sit down and consider the. What are the ramifications of polygamy? It just.

John Dehlin [00:13:59] But what was positive about the beliefs for you in your own life?

Sam Young [00:14:02] Well, I'm not sure I know how to answer that question or what you're trying to get to.

John Dehlin [00:14:07] No, I mean, just. I want you to talk about the good. Why you loved it.

Sam Young [00:14:10] Well, the theology, I thought, made sense that God's our Father, he's like us, we're going to progress and receive everything that he has. I love my family. What a great thing that we can be sealed to our families. And that's still a wonderful, appealing thing. The thing that no other church that I know of has a theology where those that didn't hear the gospel and were baptized in this earth, it doesn't matter if they hear the gospel, are baptized. We have that opportunity. The work that takes place in the temples, I think that Is a. I always loved that teaching that we. That Christ includes everybody. Nobody is not going to get a chance.

John Dehlin [00:14:54] So. And what about your identity? Was your identity wrapped up with Mormonism?

Sam Young [00:14:58] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:14:59] In what way?

Sam Young [00:15:03] Well, I felt like we had something special today. I don't want to say we had something better, but that's what it was. We've got something better. We've got something that. The only true church upon the earth. I mean, hey, this is something you want to share. You do want other people to join the church. Yeah, yeah. My identity was absolutely locked into being a member of the church, being Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:15:31] So you were super happy. You were loving the beliefs, you were loving the service, you were loving the community, the identity. It sounds like you were living the Mormon dream.

Sam Young [00:15:43] Well, it sounds like that, but you know, I'm not telling the whole story. You want the whole story? Well, okay. So my wife, she'll say, sam, you've had concerns for a long time, but I didn't recognize them because I'm a total believer. But for a long time I wrestled with we're the only true and living church upon the face of the earth. What does that mean? So frequently I'd come home, I don't know how frequently did it happen? Five times over 60 years. I don't know how many times it happened, but my wife remembers it and my kids remember it. What does that mean? And so over time, when you kind of figured, okay, maybe we can look at it this way. This is what it means. The word only doesn't mean there's just one. It also means if you look it up in the dictionary, it means the absolute best. This is the only restaurant in town. Well, it's not. It's the best restaurant in town. So maybe I could look at it. We're not saying it's the. There's no other churches that are true. It's the best true. Anyway. So I struggle commonly question that and the question that we say we know things. I could more easily accept that the kids knew because they know Santa Claus is real. They know it. So that's their mentality. But an adult to say they knew. I would question that. But frankly, I knew. But I still asked the questions, even though I would say I knew also the callings. Well, I did my. I know I did a good amount about complaining about the callings, but mostly it was that where is everybody else? 30 of us were supposed to show up here and there are three of us here. We're the other guys that committed to this.

John Dehlin [00:17:33] You were frustrated when Other people weren't pulling their weight.

Sam Young [00:17:36] Yeah, yeah. And I'm sure there were a lot of people frustrated that I didn't pull my weight when I didn't pull it. But so my wife would say, sam, you've had problems with the way the church operated and these are just some examples. But as far as I was concerned, I was 100% a believer in everything. So I never questioned Joseph Smith, questioned the history of the church. Of course I hadn't. I read the church's history of the church. I read all that church history stuff. But the bad stuff would have gone over my head or the stuff I didn't understand. I'm not even going to think about that because I know it's all true. This just gives me a framework of some of the stuff that happened.

The Beginning of Faith Transition

John Dehlin [00:18:16] So what happened? What. What sort of caused a change in course for you? What did it begin? Where could you trace its beginning?

Sam Young [00:18:25] I'm blaming it on you, John.

John Dehlin [00:18:27] What? I didn't do anything.

Sam Young [00:18:29] It's your fault.

John Dehlin [00:18:30] I didn't do it. Anything.

Sam Young [00:18:31] Okay, then we're going to blame it on your dad.

John Dehlin [00:18:33] What?

Sam Young [00:18:36] So I'm going happily along and loving my calling, loving church. I love going to priesthood and sat. You know, all this stuff. I was still loving all that. And I was in my kitchen.

John Dehlin [00:18:50] What year? What year is this?

Sam Young [00:18:51] About 2014.

John Dehlin [00:18:52] This is two years ago.

Sam Young [00:18:54] So May of 2014. I heard about the essays. Well, okay, well, fine. The church released more information. It just went over my head. I had no interest in going, I've got stuff. I'm doing okay. I've got my calling. I got all these friends of mine over this other church that were loving and Anyway, so when somebody mentioned the essays, I'm not going to go there. I just don't have any interest in reading more stuff about whatever it's about. But then in June, a couple of my daughters, maybe three of them, were in the kitchen doing something and one of them said, well, it looks like Kate Kelly is going to be excommunicated. Well, I've never heard of Kate Kelly. So I asked them, well, what's this about? Why is she going to be excommunicated? And they said, well, she's doing stuff to. She's advocating that women get the priesthood.

John Dehlin [00:19:49] Now, who is this you're talking to?

Sam Young [00:19:51] To my daughters.

John Dehlin [00:19:52] Okay, your daughters bring you.

Sam Young [00:19:53] So I got three daughters, two or three daughters that had said, Kate Kelly, excommunication. Well, why they want the priesthood?

John Dehlin [00:19:59] And how old are your daughters at this time?

Sam Young [00:20:01] Well, they're all grown in their 20s, 35, 30s. In the 30s. Those three will be in the 30s.

John Dehlin [00:20:07] Okay.

Sam Young [00:20:09] And so as soon as they said these women would like to get the priesthood, well, that turns me. That turns my ears off. I don't care about that issue. Okay, that's weird for a woman to receive the priesthood. That's just weird. Okay? That's not the way things are done. So I had never given any thought to women having the priesthood and then them saying that she's going to be excommunicated because of what she's doing. Just asking the question. Well, fine. So I just go back to my thoughts. And then they said, and it looks like John Dehlin might be excommunicated. Now my ears perked up.

John Dehlin [00:20:51] Now, did they know that you had worked with my dad?

Sam Young [00:20:54] Probably, but they had no idea. They wouldn't remember. No, they wouldn't have remembered that.

John Dehlin [00:20:59] So did they know that you would have known that name?

Sam Young [00:21:02] No.

John Dehlin [00:21:03] Okay.

Sam Young [00:21:03] So they innocently mentioned your name. And when I heard it, I thought, well, Delin. That is a very uncommon name. I only know one Delin, and that's Dave Delin and his family. And he had a son named John Dehlin. And I've been trying to get in touch with your dad over the last several years and haven't been able to find him. So all that worked in my mind. Okay, I'm gonna go see if I can find John Dehlin. So I went and Googled you.

John Dehlin [00:21:32] That was hard to find me, I'm sure.

Sam Young [00:21:34] Well, it took me months to find you, John, so up you popped. There's Mormon stories. I'd never heard of Mormon stories. And so I started reading some of your stuff. I started. I don't think I listened to any podcast yet, but I went to the Mormon Think website that all got. So there's all this controversy about the essays. So you got the essays, and they've got the response to the essays. Well, great. Now I'm going to go read those essays. So I read the essays now while I'm doing this. So today, looking back, okay, I have a certain understanding day after going all the way through that. But at the time, I was still in a stage of super innocence. Oh, this is interesting. This is interesting stuff. There was nothing challenging that would raise my questions initially. So as I started this journey, I think the first thing I shared with my wife, because I'm literally, when this started, I'm now spending three, four hours or more every day. A lot of it was when I got in Bed for the next three or four hours, I'm going to be reading and I sharing stuff with my wife. And I share the Seer Stone. Well, that sure sounds weird. The Seer Stone. I've never heard of that before. And my wife said, well, I think I've heard of that before. And it is weird, but, you know, and we rationalized how that would work. You can rationalize around that one. But as you progress from one issue to the next, I'm starting to get more and more anxious and now starting to question as the months roll on. So this is from June until November, so four or five months.

Confronting the Gospel Topics Essays

John Dehlin [00:23:24] I have a question. Why didn't you just tune the essays out? There are a lot of members that don't know about them, or if they hear about them, they just ignore them. Why did you keep reading, especially when it started to make you feel uncomfortable?

Sam Young [00:23:38] Well, so one of the things, okay, I'm a normal guy. I'm not a historian. I'm not a scriptorian. I'm not an intellectual. So I'm just a normal guy, not any special. But reading the scriptures. I loved the scriptures. I loved drilling down and figuring out, what does this mean? I don't understand what this means. How can we take science, some meaning out of this that would apply to my life? I found very. For all the talk we have about reading the scriptures, I found very few people that want to talk about scriptures, about doctrine, about history. My focus was the scriptures. When I found somebody, man, I latched onto them because we could have a conversation about what this means. Oh, how does that work? What does this. Anyway, so I've always had an interest, and that's one of the things that the kids remember from their childhood. They love that. So when I started reading the essays, I'm fascinated about how this works. Okay, the temple would be another example. I was fascinated by all the stuff that went on in the temple. There's got to be symbolism here. What is the symbolism? So that's what I'm thinking about in the temple. What does all this mean? But anyway, so why did I focus on the essays? Keep reading the essays? Because I wanted to know what was going on. I wanted to. That's just. That was my mentality for my entire life to try to make sense of something.

John Dehlin [00:25:13] Of the Gospel?

Sam Young [00:25:14] Yes.

Jamie Hannis Handy [00:25:16] Do you think as members, we're taught to crave it? We're supposed to crave knowledge, crave after learning, and to suddenly see that someone else has written these essays where they're diving into it? You feel like no one else is diving into it. Somebody's written these. You know, I find it interesting how many people won't read them, because I really feel like the church culture has created a craving inside people for greater spirituality. And so every member's first response is to commit to reading their scriptures longer, to commit to attending the temple more, to crave further light and knowledge, to crave for more. And so I think there's an incredible desire to want to know more. I think it's human nature, but I think that the church in particular has cultivated this idea of knowledge is the greatest asset that we can take with us. It is the ultimate goal of our existence. And I think you're just exemplifying it.

Sam Young [00:26:12] So from now on, when you have a hard question, John, we'll have Jamie answered it because you said exactly what I wanted to say.

John Dehlin [00:26:18] That's awesome. Thank you, Jamie. Thank you.

Sam Young [00:26:23] But so as time went along, I started to have the gut wrench that is there problems in the church? And then we talk about free agency. We had a lesson in free agency. It progressed to being angry. Okay, so my wife was good until I got to the angry state.

John Dehlin [00:26:41] Okay, wait real quick. So the essays that affected you most, just tell us which ones. The ones that really made you feel the most unsettled.

Sam Young [00:26:50] Well, I'm not sure the essays were what made me feel unsettled. The essays, for example, the race and the priesthood. I'm going like this. Hallelujah. That, to me, would be an illustration of, we have prophets today to come out and say, we condemn our past racism. We disavow the theories which were really doctrine. They're working around that word that we disavow, doctrine. But really they're disavowing and condemning our past racism. Hallelujah. I can get behind that. That makes me say, I want to raise my hand in support of the apostles and prophets when they say something like that.

John Dehlin [00:27:39] So you like the race essay?

Sam Young [00:27:42] I wish we could study that in church.

John Dehlin [00:27:43] Okay.

Sam Young [00:27:45] Because it is so good. That is a faith for me, that's a faith affirming thing.

John Dehlin [00:27:50] Okay. Even though the prophets kind of led us astray on that issue, it's faith affirming.

Sam Young [00:27:55] Why now? Why did you say the prophets kind of led us astray?

John Dehlin [00:27:59] Okay, John, So even though the prophets led us astray, it's still, to you, a testimony of prophets.

Sam Young [00:28:06] This is the. Okay, so I've got problems with the only true and living church, but living church, it's a living church. Something that's living Grows and changes. Here is a. I mean, it's giving me goosebumps that we have this wonderful thing that we can now look back and say, that was wrong. We did something wrong. Hallelujah. The apostles and prophets are saying, we're not perfect. We make mistakes. Well, good. We committed a gigantic one.

John Dehlin [00:28:34] Okay, so you like the race essay? Any others?

Sam Young [00:28:38] Well, I don't think the other ones were really faith affirming. The other ones were. Got me questioning. Because when you. One of the. I started to lose credibility. Not started until I lost credibility on what the church has to say about our own history and doctrine, because they have not been forthright about everything. There have been distortions, there have been lies. We've lied about things. And the church is open about things we've lied about.

John Dehlin [00:29:13] So for you, the biggest hit of the essays was an acknowledgement that the church hasn't been open and honest.

Sam Young [00:29:19] That was a big part of it. Yeah. But then from there I went to everything else. So, I mean, to a lot of other things, like your podcast, like John Larsen's podcast. I ordered a bunch of books. Now, see, this was still in a time when I was nervous to let anybody know I'm sharing stuff with my wife, but I don't want her to know I'm reading anti Mormon stuff now. So I ordered a bunch of books.

John Dehlin [00:29:44] What were the most influential books?

Sam Young [00:29:46] Well, Grant Palmer's was great.

John Dehlin [00:29:48] So an Insider's View of Mormon Origins.

Sam Young [00:29:50] Michael Quinn's book. I can't remember which one I read,

John Dehlin [00:29:52] but that was Mormonism in the Early Magic Worldview. Or was it Origins or Extensions of Power?

Sam Young [00:29:58] No, so the one in between those two. Anyway, I read Michael Quinn and the other. No man Knows my history.

John Dehlin [00:30:06] Fawn Brody.

Sam Young [00:30:07] Yeah. So Fawn Brody. When I was growing up, she was the Devil, and now I've got the Devil's Book. So I ordered the books. I had them shipped to my office. I didn't want anybody to see them shipped to my office. I put them in the truck, in my car, and I would shuttle them from home to work. So at that point in time, I. Isn't that silly that we have that stigma that we can't hold in our hand? A book written by Michael Quinn or certainly Fawn Brody. Anyway, so those were some of the books that I read, probably the most influential books. I had already read Richard Bushman's book, and it didn't put any doubts. I read about polyandry, but it didn't register with it.

John Dehlin [00:30:48] It's contextualized in a Way to where you would say, there's no problem here, everything's as it should be.

Sam Young [00:30:53] And he helps. That's right. He gives reasons for that happening. But it also is written. Okay, I want to quote Bushman later on here. I'm sure his book was very readable for most people. For me, it was hard to read. It was not an easy read. Fawn Brody's book, that's an easy read.

John Dehlin [00:31:15] It's a compelling, interesting read.

Sam Young [00:31:17] Well, it's easy to read. Some authors you write and it just flows. And Bushman's, it probably flowed in more of an academic way. And so I was kind of trudging through it. I got through the whole thing, but then said, okay, good. I read Rough Stolen Rolling, I'm going to put it on the shelf. And then many years went by. I think it's when it first came out. So that was several years ago. But he's now said some stuff that I love that he said I should say.

Jamie Hannis Handy [00:31:48] So when I read no Man Knows My History and Rough Stone Rolling, I could relate so much more to Fawn Brody's treatment of Joseph Smith, in particular the. The Kirtland Safety Society when she contextualizes it with how many banks were failing and that everyone, every bank in Ohio failed. Every single one of them. They didn't know what they were doing. And he wasn't doing anything that anybody else trying to run a bank wasn't doing. And just kind of contextualizing him as a man understanding these mistakes are being made by men all over who don't understand the complexities of finance versus Bushman's, where you're having to. I could understand that in Bushman's, he's trying to justify how this decision to form a bank by God, led by God to do this, would fail. Those leaps became reading the two of them together. He was trying to create a gap and then bridge it. And I found her contextual, her understanding to be more understandable. I could understand the financial world at the time. I couldn't understand how God would lead it that way. And they. The way they presented it, it just became more and more that I favored her explanation.

Deepening Doubts and Emotional Struggles

Sam Young [00:33:01] So by November, it seemed like there were issues in not just the Seer stone. There's issues with everything, every single issue, there are problems with it. So in November, I decided I got to look at what would I think if I step back and as a third party, disinterested party, looked at all these issues. What would I be saying? Well, I would be saying it's not true. You've got all this evidence here. So I got to the point where I said, I do not know anything. This. To an outsider, I think this is what they'd conclude. I don't know anything. I don't know if Joseph Smith is a prophet. I don't know if the Book of Mormons is true. I don't know if the church is true. I don't know anything. And that is. That was kind of a low point. Talk about gut wrench. Every. Almost every day I drive to work where my stomach is turning over these things. I ended up going to see a psychiatrist, psychologist, a counselor on two occasions, and she gave me a book to read that was super helpful. But what was the book? A Ragamuffin's Gospel, something like that. Ragamuffin is in the title. Okay, so it didn't have anything to do with.

John Dehlin [00:34:21] How did it help you?

Sam Young [00:34:23] Well, it helped me come to terms. Come to a. Okay, so. Helped me form a theology that worked for me.

John Dehlin [00:34:34] So it's kind of a practical approach to belief.

Sam Young [00:34:36] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:34:36] Okay.

Sam Young [00:34:37] Well, yeah. Yeah. I'm not even sure if I'd say that. This guy tells a story, and the conclusion of his story, I'm looking at if I'm going to worship Jesus Christ, that's what I'm going to believe in right there. So it helped me form a theology that today.

John Dehlin [00:34:54] A Christian theology.

Sam Young [00:34:57] Yeah. I still consider Mormonism a Christian religion, but it's more towards a Christian religion. But frankly, if I'm in an apologetic phase, which I don't want to be today, I could take that approach and say, this is Mormonism, Everybody can be saved. Everybody's got a chance, but they take it a little bit further anyway. I don't want it. That's okay.

John Dehlin [00:35:20] That's fine. So you got depressed and you needed a psychologist to help you get a little bit undepressed.

Sam Young [00:35:27] I was. I think I went more there because depression. And it's not that I don't even. I don't think it's chemical impression. You just felt bad. Okay. I felt anxious, I was angry. And so I thought she could give me some tools to deal with it now for two sessions. I never got any tools to deal with it, but I got two books and one of them was great.

John Dehlin [00:35:49] Okay. Okay.

Jamie Hannis Handy [00:35:50] So. But I think it's worth, I guess, diving a little bit deeper because anybody who has read these things and has had that gut feel, it's. Why are you so anxious? What did you feel like you had to lose? What. What were the Risks. People who are not members of our church don't understand the risks people feel in even getting that book in the mail. I don't, I don't know that everyone understands how, how entrenched the idea that you have to lock step in the attitudes, the ideas and the beliefs of everyone. And if you're not, you really risk social suicide. It's a form of. And I think that's. I don't know, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but that's where the anxiety comes from. Is this. I don't know that I can say this in front of someone else. This is a social complication.

Sam Young [00:36:47] Well, I probably didn't think it through that hard because I had the experience with my family. So I'm going through this. Got a daughter and her husband and two other kids living with us. Kids are over all the time. I'm talking about this all the time. And initially it was that innocent talk about stuff. Did you know this? Did you know this? And then it got to the angry talk. So my family's in turmoil. Yeah, that probably was the biggest problem. But I was also looking at this is what I believed my whole life. I had a concern about free agency, that if they give us this much information to make a decision, but there's this much information out there. Do we really have free agency? Are we being dictated? We know you'll make this decision if I only give you this information. Well, I'm an adult. I want to have all the information to make the decision. Not all adults want all the information. I'm good with that. But I wanted all the information. So November 2014 is when I reached the point I don't know anything. So I kept studying. And it's a turmoil kind of studying. I'm still active, I'm still going to church. And I've never quit going to church. I love my church, by the way, and I'd like to talk about that a little bit. I'm still going to the other little church. So frequently it's five hours a day at church, ours and theirs together. But by the summer of 2015, I'd kind of reached the point that, okay, everything keeps falling apart as far as the belief structure. But we've got the temple, we've got the sealing ordinances, we've got being in heaven with our families, the temple. And as I thought about it, the temple, the center of the temple are the covenants. Without the covenants, the temple is kind of an empty ritual, just a ritual. Not empty, just A ritual with the meat. The meal is the covenant you're making. And so the temple, I kind of felt like that is my last thing that I want to work through. So I started searching to figure out what the temple covenants meant over the course of the next three months. So June, no, July, August, September. That was my main focus. I'm bringing it up in priesthood. I quickly got shut down that you do not discuss temple covenants outside of the temple. We managed to have a discussion about one temple covenant, and I found out nobody really knows what it means. In fact, when I tell people what the consensus of that covenant was, everybody shakes their heads, no, that can't be right.

John Dehlin [00:39:34] That was chastity, right?

Sam Young [00:39:35] That was chastity, yes.

John Dehlin [00:39:38] You were like, asking if masturbation violates the law of chastity right now, what the heck?

Sam Young [00:39:43] We have to talk about that, John.

John Dehlin [00:39:45] I read it somewhere. That's how I know. No, we don't have to talk about it. We can talk about whatever you want.

Sam Young [00:39:51] So the question was, the law was on the law of chastity. And since I'd been shut down every time I decided I'm going to blurt this question out right at the beginning. If you're married, been to the temple, is masturbation a sin? The teacher said, I'm so glad you asked that, Sam. I wanted to bring that up, but didn't know how.

John Dehlin [00:40:11] Cool.

Sam Young [00:40:13] So we had an amazing discussion. Now, I had already been discussing this with friends and family, like my mom. I asked her about it, too. I don't think I've ever talked about that with my mom before, but I asked several people.

John Dehlin [00:40:27] What's that?

Birdie [00:40:29] I'm in the medical field here.

John Dehlin [00:40:31] In the medical field.

Birdie [00:40:32] I had been told about how good that was for me.

John Dehlin [00:40:35] Okay, so mom knows it's good. Okay,

Sam Young [00:40:40] well, the conclusion. Not everybody participated in the discussion, but it sounded like people thought, it is not a sin. Now, I'm not asking any other context, just us right here, married men, been to the temple. It doesn't violate that law of chastity covenant. Here's what the result was. It's not a sin as long as you check in with. With your wife first.

John Dehlin [00:41:12] Your mom is laughing.

Sam Young [00:41:16] Okay, I'm not sure I'm glad I'm doing this interview anymore, John.

John Dehlin [00:41:23] So your point was that we talk about these covenants, we make them, but we don't know what they mean.

Sam Young [00:41:28] And there's a simple one. Okay. By the way, somebody chimed in after that and said, no, masturbation is next to Adultery, which is next to murder. Okay, well, good. Then we obviously have different pages. I talked to 11 people before this meeting. 11 members of the church, all active. Well, let's see, one wasn't active, but all active members of the church, family, friends, one high priest, group leader. And out of those 11, one said, It's a sin. Five said, you know, I'm not sure, but I don't think it is. I asked, why do you feel uncomfortable saying that? And it was because I'm not sure what the church would say about it, but I don't think it is. The other five said, well, absolutely not. It's a sin. So there's a covenant. That simple question. Now, I've got tons of questions.

John Dehlin [00:42:21] Can I ask you a question about that? So I did an interview. I'm doing a series on missionaries and returned missionaries. And in my interview with this guy named Trey, he talked about how tormented he was over masturbation on his mission. And he was asked every month about it. And he decided that if anyone ever asked him that again, he was going to ask the mission president back, do you masturbate? And it made me wonder. I think there's an obvious answer to this question, but I don't think we've ever talked about about it. And here's the question. What do you think the probability is that Mormon bishops masturbate? Like, no, no. There's probably a perception that they don't, that sometimes young men have a problem with it, that maybe your occasional semi active believing man does, but that like true believing Mormons and especially true believing Mormon bishops don't masturbate.

Sam Young [00:43:22] Well, I have no idea about that except I'm in a high priest group. One man that's never been a bishop said it was wrong. Only one man. I brought it up with other local leaders that I don't want to mention their statement. They were not willing to make a statement on whether or not it was a sin. So I don't know if it is. Of course people do. Now here's my problem with it.

John Dehlin [00:43:50] So you're betting that what percentage of Mormon bishops masturbate?

Sam Young [00:43:53] I have no idea. I don't want to bet on that.

John Dehlin [00:43:55] Okay, okay. All right. But you think it's probable that some do or many?

Jamie Hannis Handy [00:43:58] Dr.

Sam Young [00:43:59] Absolutely. Okay, now, so here, here's the problem. So this guy was tormented. How many tormented? Why can't we say it's a sin or not a sin? If it's a sin, then all those people that don't think it's a sin. Well, Jesus, if they don't drink tea, they can't go to the temple, they can't have the sealing blessings. But now they're engaged in this activity that may be a whole bunch worse. But we need to know that because if people are engaged in it and they say it's not a sin and it is, well, their salvation is at risk. Now let's say that it's not a sin, which many people said it wasn't a sin. What about all those like this missionary that are in torment right now? The person sitting next to me in church, he may be in torment.

John Dehlin [00:44:50] They are missionaries. They are applicants who aren't allowed to go on missions because they masturbate, right?

Sam Young [00:44:54] So we know that for youth, we know that for missionaries it's clear cut, okay, we teach that. I'm not saying whether we should or not, it's just clear cut. All I wanted to ask was, was about the temple covenant. Then what about the temple covenanted guy or woman that's sitting in my pew that is tormented? I can't get rid of this problem, Jesus, I'm just not worthy. They carry around all that guilt. Well, maybe they should. But all the other people that say it's okay, they don't carry one whit of guilt. Why don't we free that guilt by saying what it is or what it isn't, right?

John Dehlin [00:45:30] And that's just one example of the many temple covenants that we make without understanding what we're actually meaning when we say it.

Sam Young [00:45:37] So I, during that three month time, I was very disillusioned because as I asked people about the temple covenants, asked my leaders about the temple covenants, asked my friends about the temple covenants. Well, they're all temple going folks. But yeah, they would say, of course I know what the temple covenants are. Of course I know what they mean. Okay, so let's start. Let me just ask you because I want to be informed at this point. I haven't gone through the whole process of disillusionment. I'm anxious to hear what people are going to say for these questions because certainly they have all thought it through because they're all telling me, we know what they mean. So you start asking the questions and after just a few, it's obvious they don't know what they are, they don't want to keep going. So they'll say something like this. Almost every one of those interviews finished with Sam, why do you even want to know this? I'm looking at really, why do I want to know what My temple covenants mean. So after three months, that was the last thing for me to look into in the church is the temple covenants are not meaning. There's no meaning to the temple covenants. Nobody cares about the temple. And I'm exaggerating, I'm judging, but that's the way I felt at the time. Nobody cares. They have no meaning. We go for cultural and social reasons and to feel like, hey, we're doing good things, we're doing what we're supposed to, as opposed to, aren't the covenants. It's like going to a meal and saying the most important thing is the napkin and the tablecloth and the flowers on the table. No, you want to have the meat. The meal's worthless without the meal. So at that point, I started saying, well, what about Christianity? Let me look into Christianity. Christianity. So I studied that for maybe three months. Listened to. I don't know if you had podcasts about that.

John Dehlin [00:47:26] You probably did, like Bart Ehrman and the historical criticism of the Bible, that kind of stuff. Or what.

Sam Young [00:47:33] I can't remember who, but I listened to podcasts, I read books, I listened to interviews. I listened to the atheists. I can't remember their names.

John Dehlin [00:47:42] Just about how the Bible has problems, historical problems.

Sam Young [00:47:46] And after a few months, I'm realizing, no, the problems are not unique to Mormonism. Mormonism's problems are unique to Mormonism. But Christianity, looking at the Bible, there are every bit as many problems, at least in my point of view, there were. And so then I was. So that took me through the end of the year, and then I was just kind of where. Oh, and then the November thing hit November 2015. 2015, yeah. So the gay thing was announced, by the way. When I was going through this study of Christianity, I kind of started looking at morality. Why didn't I look at morality before? And started coming to different conclusions about the stories we have, the prominent stories, like Abraham being asked to kill his innocent son, and he says, okay, I'll do it. What is that? Do we really want that as an example? Or Nephi being told, kill the guy that's drunk in the street, cut his head off and go take the place.

John Dehlin [00:48:51] Why not just make him fall asleep? Right?

Sam Young [00:48:54] That's right.

John Dehlin [00:48:57] So during all this time, were you talking to your bishop? Were you trying to get help? Were you talking to your state president?

Sam Young [00:49:05] Yeah, that's a good question. So November of 2014, I said, I don't know anything. I keep studying all the turmoil, all the loneliness of. I'm the only One going through this, at least that I know. I can read about them online, but that's not the same thing as in

John Dehlin [00:49:27] your ward and state.

Sam Young [00:49:28] Yes, people, you can. So probably In December of 2014, I found out that one of my sisters, that somebody in my family had basically lost her faith and left the church. Okay, I didn't know. I knew that she had questions, but I didn't know her. So I said, okay, great, I've got somebody I can talk to. So we had phone conversations about things. And then I found somebody in my ward that happened to be on one of your obscure podcasts, some conference you had, and this person's name was mentioned. And so I thought, jeez, I called him, invited him to lunch, and there's a little game, a little dance you have to do before you really start talking. Because he didn't know where I was, I didn't know where he was. So you're not sure. Sure you are ready to share stuff yet. You don't know if it's safe to share stuff. And after a few minutes, we managed to get there and had a wonderful talk about his journey, which had preceded mine by about four years. And the next week, I met with the bishop. Called the bishop said, I'd like to come to talk to him. And my purpose there was not to be Pose questions because a lot of the questions, the questions were starting to be answered, probably not the way the church would want me to answer them, but they're being answered, but not to the point where I wanted to say, look, I'm leaving the church. They're just being answered, these questions in ways that made sense to me. But what I wanted to talk to the bishop about was we need some type of forum for. For us to be able to talk about these things, to talk about our history, to talk about our doctrine. I know that it has been painful for me. It's been challenging for my family who wants to get a divorce because we found out some historical issue is a problem and it comes between you and your wife or your family. So I was proposing that we need some place to. Well, unfortunately, the interview did not go very well. So I did meet with the bishop. By the way, I have a wonderful bishop. I think this is the first time he was ever confronted with somebody whose faith was changing and didn't know exactly how to deal with it. But I've met with him since, and he is super. But at the time he told me, there's nobody else questioning besides you. And I'm thinking in my head, I just met with a guy in I ward last week and today I know several people. So I met with him. I then met with the stake president about three months later for my temple recommend interview. And so he had heard that I was posing questions. And so we had about almost a 3 hour temple recommend interview. But it was wonderful. He wasn't judgmental. He was wanting to. He read a lot of scriptures. He talked about faith and says, look, that's where I'm at. I don't know anything. But faith is what's important to me now. You're talking about faith in Jesus Christ. Yeah, I have faith in Jesus Christ. I don't know if he exists, but that's not. And I'm sure I didn't have those wording back then, but we talked about this thing of there needs to be a place to, for people to talk and I'd talk to somebody else, another leader. Basically what I got was we can't talk about these issues, not at church. We can't talk about the issues. And at that point in time I was kind of okay, I can see that. Well today, well, we'll talk about that later. But. So I did meet with the bishop, the stake president.

John Dehlin [00:53:15] And the answer you got was we can't talk about it publicly.

Sam Young [00:53:18] Well, in church it wasn't that clear. My frankly, I don't remember exactly what was said but came away that they're not ready for this. It looks a little bit too dangerous. And I can get that. Do you really want to sponsor an alternate Sunday school class where people are going to go bash the church in the ward building? I can get that.

John Dehlin [00:53:43] So you're left with the impression that you weren't going to be able to talk about this at church or with leaders in a way that wouldn't be effective.

Sam Young [00:53:52] I'm sure the leaders would be willing to talk about it. You know, two and a half hour or three hour interview for a stake with a.

John Dehlin [00:53:59] But that it wouldn't be effective to talk to them about it. It wouldn't be helpful for you to talk to them.

Sam Young [00:54:07] Yeah, yeah. Or maybe it was. I didn't want to. I've been a bishop before. You're super busy with all this stuff going on. I wouldn't have had answers to any of these questions. They don't. I know they don't have good answers to all these questions, so why even pose the questions to them?

John Dehlin [00:54:25] Okay, okay, so you did try. Now you were about to talk about the policy in November 2015.

Discovering the Law of Common Consent

Sam Young [00:54:33] Okay, so I kind of resolved that, look, morality is important and morality doesn't change from one second to the next. That it's okay to kill your son in one minute and the next is, no, nobody else can kill your son. That God's going to tell you to kill your son and that's okay. No, no, that doesn't make sense to me. I got to look at it some other way. The way I came up with was Adam and Eve. Our whole religious. Our religion is founded is started with Adam and Eve. On disobedience. They disobeyed right at the very beginning. They passed the moral test of disobedience. They disobeyed and that was a good thing. God was expecting them to do that. It brought the human race into existence. I look at Abraham, good man, wonderful man, but a test was posed to him. He made not the right choice. He could have said to God, you've told me already that murder is wrong. For me to take the life of my son is not the proper thing. So you've told me that already. Now you're telling me to kill him. I'm going with your first commandment, God. And if that's the wrong decision, that's still what I'm going with, that I'm going to tell you, heavenly Father, I'm not going to do this. I believe God would have been great with that. That that would have been what he wanted. Somebody that has learned to think. And we talk about Abraham, the great things about Abraham. However, there were lots of problems as a result of this. If the founding story of Islam and Christianity going back to Abraham was. Abraham was told to kill Isaac and Abraham said, no, killing others is wrong, period. What kind of wonderful story could we be telling the Christians and Muslims? You don't kill people. Look at Abraham. He told God that it's not right to kill people, but rather we have all his descendants. The Jews and the Muslims, the whole world.

John Dehlin [00:56:50] And the Christians and the.

Sam Young [00:56:52] Yeah, yeah, and the Christians, yeah. So I'd made the decision. I'm going with morality. When something confronts me, I'm going to look at it. Is it moral? So when the norm. When the November decision came out, as soon as I heard it, I was driving to work. When I heard that, I was devastated. I looked and said, that's an immoral thing to take children and say no blessings from you guys because your parents are gay. What is that? Anyway, so when the November hit, that was a real struggle for me when November hit. But I hadn't really settled on a path yet. That's When I wrote a letter to the stake president saying I was voting opposed in the next state conference.

John Dehlin [00:57:43] Okay, so talk about that. So you decided that morality was the most important thing. What made you decide that you wanted to vote opposed?

Sam Young [00:57:52] And I'm not sure that saying morality is the most important thing. That morality has got to be a gigantic consideration.

John Dehlin [00:58:00] Sure, but had you heard about the voting opposed initiatives that Micah Nicolaisson and others, you know, the guys who stood up in general conference and voted opposed,

Sam Young [00:58:14] but I hadn't heard of an initiative or anything. I knew they'd voted opposed. That I found out later on. I found out before my next conference that it had.

John Dehlin [00:58:23] I think it was called the any opposed movement, and they had several people go to general conference and vote opposed.

Sam Young [00:58:30] So I know they knew they'd done that. But I was. You know, things are fuzzy as you're going through this, so.

John Dehlin [00:58:38] No, but. But the. What's different is you were doing it. You were thinking about doing it locally, and that's a whole different deal than like doing it at general conference in Salt Lake but then going back to your ward and no one really makes the connection. Right. So in some ways, what you were contemplating, I think was even more. I don't know, I want to say courageous because you have to. You know, they say don't poop in the nest where you make your home. Right. Some would say you're soiling the nest where you have community. Right. So anyway, so what made you think about that?

Sam Young [00:59:15] Well, I had already been studying the law of common consent, and we'll talk about that, I hope. Work through what that all means. And it became a beautiful law to me. I'm looking at. This is so gorgeous.

John Dehlin [00:59:29] We could talk about it. Now. Is now not a good time for you? Did you want to save it?

Sam Young [00:59:33] Okay. No, let me go down to my notes.

John Dehlin [00:59:39] Okay. All right. All right, We've got notes.

Sam Young [00:59:42] The law of common consent. I saw on some Facebook group that I follow someone had. Because I'd said something about voting and whatnot, and somebody sent me quoted DC1. I'm going to forget it. 124. 144, I think it is, actually. I've got it here.

John Dehlin [01:00:09] It's not 144, I can tell you that.

Sam Young [01:00:11] 124, verse 144.

John Dehlin [01:00:14] Okay. Okay, got it.

Sam Young [01:00:16] Okay. In this chapter, Joseph Smith is told by Jesus Christ. So Jesus is talking to him. I want you to call Brigham Young to this position. I think it was the president of the quorum of the 12, but he goes through a whole bunch of callings that he is dictating to Joseph Smith. And then he gets down to he is done telling him what to do. And then he gives this commandment to Joseph. He says, and a commandment I give unto you, that you should fill all these offices and approve of those names which I have mentioned or else disapprove of them at my general conference. And I'm thinking this, this stunned me that Jesus Christ, he's made a decision, but he's saying, you know what? Go get the people's opinion on this. Let them vote on this. And he didn't give Joseph an option. He said, I command you to do this. As I thought about that, John, I'm thinking, Jesus Christ, we're taught Jesus Christ knows us, knows us by name, cares, loves about us, loves us unconditionally. But here I'm looking at Jesus Christ respects and honors me enough that he says, sam, I want you to give the leaders of my church your honest opinion. Talk about value. That right there starts to bring tears to the corners of my eye that Jesus, God wants my opinion. Okay, so that got my attention. And I started then looking at the law of common consent and kind of making sense of it in my mind. God has established two parts of the governance of the church, but forever I only considered one part of the governance of the church, the leadership that he has put in place. The apostles, the prophets and so forth. The apostles and prophets, you've got that important part of the leadership, but then you've got the entire rest of the. Of the church that's part of the governance of the church. And these, what I want to work you through here illustrate that very plainly. And I was wondering at one point in time, is this a. We talk about a restoration. Joseph said that polygamy is a restoration of laws, that ancient laws. Well, I don't know if that's right or not. But what about the law of common consent? Is that a restoration? Well, listen to what it has to say in Samuel 8, 7. And the Lord said unto Samuel, hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee, for they have not rejected thee, they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. So at this point in time, the people want a king. It sounds like God doesn't want them to have a king. Samuel is trying to sort this out, but God is saying, listen to everything. Listen to them. Where are we hearing that today? Listen to the membership of the church, prophet. Listen to what the people have to say. We've got no venue. We've got no way to give feedback. That part is absent. But here is Samuel being told, you should listen to everybody, and then it's over. The king thing I'm looking at, perhaps most of my life, I have actually rejected God because I view the prophet as I would a king, that he dictates the rules and I follow. Does that mean that really I've rejected God in place of the leadership that he's put into place? Well, I don't know if that fits exactly, but what I know is here that I want to not reject God, that I want to look to God. He's given us the law of common consent. He said, prophet, listen to all that they have to say, Mosiah. So now we're in the Book of Mormon. Now, it is not common that the voice of the people desireth anything contrary to that which is right. The voice of the people. Why would God be telling Samuel, listen to the people? It's not common. They're going to get it wrong. But it is common for the lesser part of the people to desire that which is not right. Therefore ye shall observe and make it your law to do your business by the voice of the people. So here we have taught in the Book of Mormon. Very uncommon to have this big group choose something wrong. It's common to have a minority. Okay, I support, although I voted, opposed, I sustain, and I support our prophets and apostles as prophets and apostles, as the leaders of the church, however, the majority, it's hard for them to get it wrong. Easy for the minority. Would 12 be a minority? Would 15 be a minority? Would one be a minority? Here we've got it in the Book of Mormon that it's more likely that the big group, rather than the little group, the little group needs input from, and that's the way God has set it up. So then in the Doctrine and Covenants, we talk about iced tea. So I was with somebody yesterday that's a member of the church, ordered iced tea while I ordered Diet Coke. Iced tea is against the word of wisdom, but it's never mentioned. Never says tea. It says hot drinks, never says cold, hot drinks. And then it says, it's not a commandment. This comes by way of not a commandment. So it's not a commandment. You got to do some kind of twisting. You got to get somebody to tell you, the prophet, to say, okay, that really means tea. It means iced tea. So it's kind of obscure. The law of common consent is right there in front of us. Three Times it mentions common consent. The very words common consent. Never iced tea. But three times it mentions common consent. Five times it gives an example of common consent being used in the doctrine of covenant. So eight plain times about the common consent that I know of, there may be more. And listen to these two things. All things shall be done by common consent in the church. All things. God told the Samuel, listen to the voice of the people in all things. That kind of sounds like a restoration of a principle to me. D&C 28:13 for all things, things must be done by common consent in the church. Where's the wiggle room on that? And then on the church website and I think this is McConkie, I'm not sure but this is obviously on the website about common consent. Not only are church officers sustained by common consent, we do that. But this same principle operates for policies, major decisions, acceptance of new scripture and other things that affect the lives of the saints. Policies, major decisions. You know, if they said we are asking for a vote to accept the gay policy and then we're going to ask for sustaining of the apostles. Well, I would vote yes to sustain the apostles. But the way our system is set up today, we don't have that option. So all things are wrapped up into who controls that policy. And that's why I decided to vote no on it. And so you ask the question, what are the policies, major decisions that affect a lot of members of the church, that there's no common consent. Where did we do common consent for polygamy? Where was the boat? Yes, we want to live that law. Joseph and the other apostles were living it in secret and telling and lying about it. They couldn't tell the truth. Now maybe they had good reasons to lie about it, but they weren't asking for a sustaining vote. I think later on they accepted scriptures that include DNC132. So maybe they did vote on it when they accepted a scripture. But what I know they got rid of it with common consent. They ask for a show of hands to get rid of the thing. Well, wouldn't it have been nice if we'd voted on it beforehand? The major group of people that they usually don't get it wrong, but we got it right when we voted it out. But they had to do a lot of voting. It wasn't just one vote. They had to go to wards, they had to go to stakes where there was some. There was a tough law, tough thing to get rid of in the church, the exclusion of the blacks. Where was it presented in to the membership. We want to exclude blacks from the priesthood and the temple and all the doctrine that goes along. We want to exclude the blacks. There is no vote. In fact, our apostles today says we don't know where that came from. There was no revelation. We can't find any revelation about it. They fell victim them to the circumstances of their times. I'm good with that. That makes sense. Yeah, that's right. But we didn't vote on it. Would we have had 140 years, whatever it was, of blacks benefiting from the priesthood if they put that up to vote for the people? I don't know, but it wasn't done. But to get rid of was put to the people to vote it out. Yes, but we should have had at the beginning. Okay, Temple marriage exclusion. That's a policy that affects a bunch of people. Okay, mom, I'm just going to tell on you here. So my mother has left the church. Brings a little tear to my eye to say that. She said the first thing that put a crack in her doubts in her mind was attending my marriage. My mom, my dad, my wife's mom, dad, some of my brothers and sisters, all of my wife's brothers and sisters attended my wedding by standing outside of the temple being excluded from that temple ceremony. Where was that policy ever put up? So that has aided my mom all these years. It eats at meat now too. Looking, there's nothing. Actually, it may be most of the countries in the world, but certainly many countries in the world. If you go to Mexico, if you go to England, if you go to almost any country in Europe, you go to New Zealand. There's no marriage exclusion policy. We need to get rid of. We need to put that up for a vote. It never got in with a vote. We need to get rid of it. A vote that needs to be brought up. Or how about building a. I don't know if it was a billion or a billion half or $2 billion. Let's say a billion dollars. They spent a billion dollars on them all. Why didn't they put that up? Where's the common consent for that? Why don't they put that up for a vote? And we got a 99% of the church says yes. Yes, let's do that. How many of the members of the church in Chile, in Australia, in England, hey, in Africa that they're poor as dirt. How many are going to say yes, we want to spend a billion dollars on a mall. Why don't we put that up for a vote? Or how about this in our wards if you got common consent, we ought to be doing common consent in our ward. We are doing things that affect members of our wards that I didn't know about until just recently. And Jamie, you shared, maybe you want to chime in and share your recent experience, but here's what. When I grew up, I was never asked about masturbation in one single youth interview. So I never thought to ask that. I was asked once on my mission by my mission president. That was the history of me being asked about it as a, in the church, as a bishop. I never asked that question once. Oh, you 12 year old girl that doesn't know me and we're behind a closed door. I want to ask you, do you masturbate? That never even crossed my mind. Why would I even think to ask anybody that? My children, thank heavens, were never asked that. But now I find out it's a common practice in the church. Where's the common consent for that? Why can't we in the ward put that up to a vote? Do we want our young boys and young girls to go behind a closed door with an adult man alone and asked, do you touch yourself down there? Why don't we put that up front? A vote anyway. So do you want to chime in, Jamie?

Concerns About Youth Interviews

Jamie Hannis Handy [01:13:44] I, I just can confirm. I attend the meetings with my, I attend the interviews with my daughters. And I was blown away. I, we were in an interview, my daughter was 12 and she was asked, you know, point blank, do you look at media that stimulate you and give you the desire to touch yourself down, down there? And she didn't know what they were talking about. And she replied, my mom checks my social media. She was very confused and I was shaking. I could not believe that the questions were being asked to my 12 year old. This wasn't a temple recommend interview. This wasn't even an interview with the bishop. Even if she did know what it was and even if she had been participating in that sort of behavior, why would a counselor in the bishopric be prying? Yeah, it led my family to meeting with our bishopric and laying down very clear that our children are not to be asked and that they cannot attend interviews on their own. And he asked it in front of me, which I don't think that the man had any ill will. I feel he was trying very hard to do what had been asked of him.

John Dehlin [01:14:55] When was this, Jamie, when was this

Jamie Hannis Handy [01:14:57] directing you to ask these questions? And they assured me it came from the stake leaders.

John Dehlin [01:15:01] Jamie, what regional. Jamie, when was this?

Jamie Hannis Handy [01:15:06] It's been, let me think how Old she is now. So it's been three years.

John Dehlin [01:15:10] Okay, all right, just checking.

Jamie Hannis Handy [01:15:12] Yeah, so three years. But it blew me away that this is getting asked. I was never, ever, not once asked about it. And I don't know, I don't understand, but I was told that they are told to conduct probing.

Sam Young [01:15:30] Oh, geez.

Jamie Hannis Handy [01:15:31] Terrible, terrible word. Probing. Interviews to root out evil at the very beginning. And the bishop assured me that he would rather root it out in the youth than deal with a problem that presents itself when someone's married and had kids. And that was their justice justification. And I said, I. I clearly can't change your behavior or, you know, the state behavior, but we have autonomy over our children, and that is not to be asked of our children.

John Dehlin [01:16:00] And so, Sam, your point is that things like this need to be put up to the vote of the. Of the members of the membership so that they can be consenting to the policies and the. And the doctrines that are put before. Now, my immediate reaction, as I was hearing you read those scriptures, the immediate reaction was, oh, you're right, the brethren aren't obeying the law of common consent. And then I realized, no, no, no. Every ward conference, every state conference, every general conference, we're all voting every single time. So that's not the problem. The problem is not that they're not obeying the law of common consent. What's the problem?

Sam Young [01:16:42] Okay, so I look at this. We got two parts of the government. You got the leaders. They're supposed to propose stuff. They're supposed to make policies. They're doing their job.

John Dehlin [01:16:53] Yeah, they're doing their job.

Sam Young [01:16:55] Now, I've been pretty viciously attacked for what I'm going to say here by people that said. Anyway, just not viciously attacked. People have given me pushback. People that have left the church have given me push. People that are questioning, people that don't like the policies have given me push back on this. But I'll just say it. We're not doing our job. We're shirking our responsibility. God has given this law of common consent, that this group right here, it's uncommon. They're going to make a bad decision, that they're going to support something that's wrong. These guys are proposing them. We're accepting everything, not requiring that we are supposed. That everything is supposed to be done with our approval. Jesus Christ has asked for my opinion. He's asking for our opinions, and we're talking about it behind closed doors. I'm now talking out in the open here, but that is not Good for the leadership of this church. There's another scripture that says it's by sad experience we've learned that when a man gets a little bit of authority, he's talking about priesthood, they immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion. So if we give total authority, total power to somebody rather than a little. Is there a possibility that unrighteous dominion can lead in. It's right there in our. Right there in front of us. We as a church membership. I'm a fellow citizen in the church. It says that in the Bible. I'm a fellow citizen, yet I act like I am a subject that is going to take dictation from the king. That's not the way it's set up. President Monson doesn't view it as he's a king. He's doing fine. We're not doing fine. We need to be voting.

Voting Opposed for the First Time

John Dehlin [01:18:52] So what was that like the very first time you. When was it? Tell us about the very first time you voted. Opposed? Is that how you describe it? What did you, what do you call what you did?

Sam Young [01:19:03] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:19:04] All right, tell us about it.

Sam Young [01:19:05] So, Jan, with the gay policy, okay, this is not right. Now maybe I'm fine with everybody thinking it's right, but I don't. And it's my morality I need to be concerned about. And so I sent. I contacted the Executive Secretary of State to find executive stake secretary to ask him when is the next state conference. He said it's going to be in December. Well, great. But it was a special state conference broadcast from headquarters. No voting. I was disappointed. Okay, well, fine. So we had another state conference coming up in June, January. So I sent a letter to the bishop and the stake president saying I'm planning on voting opposed. And here's why. I detailed the reasons why I think the policy is why I object to the policy. And I got an email back from the state president. Thanks for your notice. It's a special state conference in January, so we won't be voting. So we had two state conferences in a row. And I thought, oh, stink. So the next conference was general conference in April. So I had all that time to think about it. And that was good because I chose my path in February of that year, of this year, chose what path I want to be on. So my first voting opposed was at general conference in our Stake Center. There were only four, 14 people there. Ten of them were full time missionaries. Four of them were. Well, they're all people I knew. Two of them are my ward, but I have those. My stomach isn't There's a difference between your stomach turning and having butterflies. I had butterflies big time. And then I was saying geez, do I do this front of the missionaries? What are they going to think? I don't want, I love the missionaries, I want to support them, what they're doing. But I, when it came time I raised my hand and voted opposed and put it down and kept looking forward. I don't know if anybody looked at me, but there were most people behind me. There were four missionaries in front of me.

John Dehlin [01:21:19] Now as you're voting opposed, is it purely because of the November policy or were there other reasons?

Sam Young [01:21:25] Well, now there are other reasons, but that was the reason then.

John Dehlin [01:21:28] That was the reason then. Okay.

Sam Young [01:21:30] And still is the reason that I plan on voting no, but there are other reasons at this point.

John Dehlin [01:21:34] So was there any repercussion from voting no that first time?

Sam Young [01:21:38] Yes. So I, President Uchtdorf got up right after the voting and said President Monson whispering may I hear that? I need to remind anybody that voted opposed because I think there were some that voted opposed. Now that conference that is right to contact your stake president to discuss it with him. So okay, good. Then I right there in the meeting immediately typed a email off and sent it to the bishop and stake president notifying them. It was noticeably awkward with the people that were there when I, when the meeting was over. Nobody's seen anybody vote no.

John Dehlin [01:22:13] Isn't that amazing?

Sam Young [01:22:14] So you don't know what to do?

John Dehlin [01:22:16] Millions of members, you know, multiple times a year, nobody ever votes no.

Sam Young [01:22:20] Yeah. So you're thinking he is an enemy. He hates the prophet and apostles. No, I don't. I love the apostles and prophets. They need to hear. They've been told to listen to what we say and we're not saying anything. They need what Jesus Christ has told. Told me to give them, told us to give them. But I just go and shake everybody's hand and say hi and chat and the uncomfortability goes away immediately. Now may come back, but it's right then it was fine. The stake president gave me a call the next week. We met with. He and I met with the bishop, had close to a three hour interview again about this. We didn't talk much about the reason I voted no. That probably occupied about 30 seconds because I'd already explained the whole thing in the email I'd sent to him in January. So they all knew. And I explained it again. In fact I think I copied. I explained it why I did an email. We talked a lot about the law of Common consent and other things. And it was a delightful interview. Turned out. Well, the question immediately came up, Sam. Actually, after we talked our 30 seconds about why, which I'm fine with that, it turned to we're here to consider how this affects your temple recommend. How would you feel if you lost your temple recommend for voting no? And my response was that I would view it as an egregious example of unrighteous dominion. Jesus has asked me for my opinion. He sent them to get my opinion. If I give my opinion and imply punished for it, I think that would be unrighteous dominion right there. And they were great with that. And we talked about the law of common consent and other things for a good while. And it was just. They were really, really good about this.

John Dehlin [01:24:19] Okay.

Sam Young [01:24:22] The next one was a ward conference that was a little bit more. More nerve wracking, a little bit more butterflies, even though I voted no already. Now I'm in front. Now these are all. This is my ward, another member of the board.

John Dehlin [01:24:38] Is it the ward you had been bishop over?

Sam Young [01:24:40] No.

John Dehlin [01:24:40] Okay. Okay.

Sam Young [01:24:43] This is the ward that I've been in for 18 years.

John Dehlin [01:24:46] Okay.

Sam Young [01:24:47] And so I. Fortunately another member of the ward voted with me. Really There were two of us that raised our hands opposed. I got no call from the bishop of stake president because we'd already talked the whole thing out. They knew I was going to continue to vote opposed. But then you start getting the uncomfortability with some of the members and you can notice that they're uncomfortable and I think I've termed it mild shunning someplace. I think that's the wrong term. I think they're just uncomfortable. They don't know what to make of it. But there's not been an opportunity to talk about it. When I tried to talk about it, I was politely

John Dehlin [01:25:34] shushed in high priest's group.

Sam Young [01:25:36] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:25:36] Okay.

Sam Young [01:25:38] So. And I'm okay with that. But I wish we could talk about the law of common consent at some point in time. But that's never in any lesson manual we talk about. The next one was state conference and I'd already been told by the fellow that voted no the first time that he got family pushed back. And I can understand that. So he wouldn't be voting opposed the next go around. So it was just me. So the voting was 1000 to 1. So the 1000 won out on the policy is good.

John Dehlin [01:26:12] And wasn't there a general authority on the stand?

Sam Young [01:26:13] There was general authority on the stands. So I'm sitting about three or four rows Back, he's sitting directly in front of me. And I didn't plan that. It just happened to be that he was directly in front of me. We had a nice chat beforehand. He walked around, really nice guy. Stephen Snow, Elder Snow. I was really impressed with his personability. And then what happened with him after the meeting? So he, when I raised my hand no and I voted opposed to the first presidency and to the quorum of the 12, voted for everything else. So he saw that. And then afterwards it turns out he is a relative to my son in law. And so my daughter ran up there and had a nice chat with him. After a while I went up there and chatted with him and just mentioned you did see, I hope you notice that I voted for you. And he looked at me and said, yes, I saw how you voted. And have you talked to your stake president about this? And I said I did. I said I already did. And he said, that's exactly how it should work. I'm thinking, yes, that's exactly how it should work. So I thought that little interchange with Elder Schwarzenegger know I value that interchange as kind of a validity that you know what, the church is supposed to work this way. And frankly, I think it works better this way. It's the way Jesus Christ has established it. And part of the reason that we had racism in the church for 150 years was we did. We're not obeying the law of common consent. Okay,

John Dehlin [01:28:02] so have you had a chance to vote since then or is that the last time?

Sam Young [01:28:06] No, you get to vote now. Look, how important is this to the Lord? He doesn't ask to do it. We vote for president once every four years. President of the United States. And our church talks about how the government of the United States was in the Constitution, was established by God, inspired by God. Well, you know, he kind of did that as a pattern of what he does in his own church. But still we only vote four times, once every four years. It's so important for God that he has us do it four times a year. Not once every four years. We vote 16 times for every time we vote for President of the United States. I view this as super important, especially when you couple it with the scriptures. Samuel, hearken unto the voice of the people and all things, all things must be done. So it's four times a year. The next opportunity we have is general conference. So we vote at both general conferences. The Saturday session, I think it's the Saturday afternoon session and then the ward conference and then the first state conference. Of the year. The second state conference of the year, There is no voting. So four times a year, we have the opportunity. Now. I really think they should be breaking the policies, breaking the things out that affect everybody, that we ought to be talking about things on the ward. We're a long, long, long, long way away from that. But we may be closer to two people at state conference striving to obey the law of common concept.

Calling on Members to Vote Opposed

John Dehlin [01:29:43] So are you calling on members to vote opposed if they oppose the November policy? And what other things do you oppose now besides the November policy? Those are two questions.

Sam Young [01:29:55] Okay? So, first of all, I don't want to convince anybody that they should vote opposed. I know of many members of the church who would like to vote opposed. Jamie's probably not one of those, but I know many who would like to vote opposed. But they say something like, I'm afraid to. I'm afraid that what my friends in the quorum will think, I'm afraid what my family will think. I'm afraid how it will affect my business. So far, everybody I've talked to, it's the fear factor. Well, we shouldn't have this in the culture of the church. We should have the cult in the. In the culture of the church that we have. Actually, I would like to read something else that was said. We haven't talked about temple covenants, but temple covenants now are big to me. So I was disillusioned with temple covenants after September of last year and did not want to go back to the temple until, I don't know, a month ago. A month ago. And I'm still thinking about how do you make anything of meaning out of the covenants when it seems like nobody else does? And I don't want to be judgmental here. I'm sure everybody. In fact, today I believe people have meaning in those covenants where I didn't a year ago. But I had this little epiphany as I was thinking about the covenants, driving by myself in a car on a long drive where all I could do had the opportunity to just think. And the thing came that here is what the temple covenants mean. They mean what you and God determine. You're making it with you and God. You're not making the covenant with the prophet, with the church, with your quorum. You're making it with God. You, me, and God get to determine what those temple covenants mean. So now I went back to them and said, oh, this is so cool. I don't have to ask anybody. Nobody can tell me in fact, I was grateful that everybody said, why are you asking what these questions mean? Nobody had answers. I'm glad they didn't, because now I can look and say, what does it mean? So now I've made sense out of a lot of the covenants. One of them is we make a covenant to obey the law of God and his commandments. I've made a covenant with God to obey his. His laws. The law of common consent. It says it's a law, and specifically that it's a commandment that is meaningful to me to go to state conference now and vote. I am voting because of my temple covenants for several reasons, but that's one I want to obey. Christ has told me we got this governance over here. This is important stuff. You've made a covenant to obey the law of God. So anyway, so here's one of the things that the law of common consent. Now I want a covenant here. Yikes.

John Dehlin [01:33:08] Well, the thing that I think is, I mean, you make a really compelling case that we're not living up to the commandments, that this is a law, and that members are just silent about it. But if it's only you that's doing it, then you're just some crazy guy in the Maplewood Ward that everybody just kind of laughs off. This doesn't become significant unless other people do it. Is that true?

Sam Young [01:33:39] No. No. First of all, that other people are not doing what they're supposed to do. I didn't make their covenants. They've got a covenant. They've got their own covenant with God. They're going to sort out what they mean. Perhaps they support all the policies. Perhaps they want to vote opposed and can't for one reason or another. I'm not saying they should. Okay. I'm saying if you want to vote opposed, I wish you would. Christ needs you to. Here's what I was looking for. So with regards to the law of sacrifice, I had a lot of questions about what the law of sacrifice meant. But here's an apostle, because they don't usually tell you what the things mean. They basically say, don't talk about them. But here is something that McConkie said about the law of sacrifice. That we are willing to sacrifice our character, our reputation, our honor, our applause, our good name. So I'm looking at, okay, I've made a covenant of sacrifice to God. I've got an apostle that's weighed in on what I should be sacrificing that is now part of my covenant with God. I'm willing to Lose my good name, my reputation. I don't want to lose my character. I don't think I'm losing that. But I'm willing to lose my reputation, my applause, my honor amongst the church, and I've actually added to that. I don't want to lose my membership in the church. I love the church, But I'm willing to obey my temple covenants to the point of excommunication. If I get excommunicated because I'm voting a certain way or I'm saying, you know, speaking up, well, I'm willing to follow what McConkie had to say there.

John Dehlin [01:35:29] So anyway, so along that lines, has there been backbiting or gossip or evil? Speaking of you and your reputation that you're aware of in your ward or stake, how are people treating you?

Sam Young [01:35:45] Well, I don't know if there's evil. I don't think there's evil speaking. I've got wonderful people in my ward. Has there been gossip? Absolutely, there's been gossip. When I raised the question about the law of chastity, friend of mine came and said, you know what? To the men that were in that meeting. He was not in the meeting. They came and said, we're really worried about Sam. Well, I'm glad people are worried about me. He's got a problem with masturbation, and we think he ought to go home and talk to his wife about it.

John Dehlin [01:36:12] Because you had mentioned it in another meeting.

Sam Young [01:36:15] Because I'm asking that question, trying to sort out, is this a sin or not? So does that mean. Anyway, just kind of funny now my wife quit coming to church.

John Dehlin [01:36:26] She doesn't go anymore?

Sam Young [01:36:27] No, she goes now, but a good while ago, she quit coming to church. And I asked her, why you don't come? And she gave me two reasons. Number one, I don't want to go there because people are gossiping about you. Oh, jeez. And two, I don't feel the spirit because you are looking for the problems in people's. In stuff that's presented. So you say that's not true. That's not right. Well, that didn't feel good to my wife, and I shouldn't have been just doing that. But I was in that angry stage where I'm going to church and I am keeping track of every testimony that's given and Jesus never being mentioned. And it's, you know. And so for those two reasons, she wasn't anxious to come to church. She still believes in the church, and I'm glad, and I support that belief 100%. But she's now started coming back because I've reached a stage in my journey that the anger has passed and I've got a rational, scripture based, covenant based, temple based path that she appreciates. And we can sit in sacrament and I can enjoy it every bit as well, not every bit as much, but still enjoy the things in church that there are already. Enjoy all the fellowship and friendship and good people. And there are good things. There are lots of most things are good that are taught.

Jamie Hannis Handy [01:37:57] So is it exhausting?

Sam Young [01:38:01] Is it exhausting?

Jamie Hannis Handy [01:38:02] I mean, you know, I think there are people that would like to vote opposed, but the level of time it would take to convince their leaders that they are trying to be a person of integrity, that they are trying to obey the law of common consent. The hours that you've spent, it's a luxury to have, have that as time. I think for many people the social stigma and the ability based on leadership roulette to really revoke a lot of your membership privileges. Being able to participate in your grandkids and your children's baptisms and weddings, all of those things hang over the balance that if you don't have the time and the energy to meet with them and explain to them and talk to them and, and guide them along, Cliff notes them along through what it is because I don't think many people consider it. I can see how it would be fatiguing that for so many people. They simply aren't enough hours in the day to bring everyone up to speed around them.

Sam Young [01:39:05] So John asked the question, does it do any good if I'm the only one that's voting no? First of all, if nobody votes no, I'm okay with that. Okay. Their issues they make. If somebody decides to leave the church, I don't have any problems with that. Somebody wants to come back to the church, I don't have any problems with that. Somebody stays in the church. Well, I certainly don't have any problem with that. I'm doing that so they'll make their own considerations mine is that so? Here's in February the decision I made, the choice of the past life is going to follow is that I'm going to follow the teachings and example of Jesus Christ. I'm going to make him my Lord, my Savior. He's the one. I don't know if he exists, but that's not a principle of his gospel. It's faith in Jesus Christ is the principle. Faith in Jesus Christ not knowing that he exists. So I'm embracing the faith in Jesus Christ, his teachings and Principle. Now I've gone and made temple covenants if I have to, if I can't. By the way, when I made that decision, it was like a load came off my shoulders. I don't need to search anymore. I don't need to figure out anything else. There's a lot of stuff I need to figure out. But as far as my path, I'll follow that. And it makes my wife happy, makes my kids happy. It makes some people at church happy. Not all, but it makes me super happy because I like the teachings of Jesus Christ. Now, since I'm staying in the church, I've made covenants. If I obey those covenants and somebody doesn't understand what I'm doing and obeying the covenants, I don't feel like I have to explain my covenants to somebody. I would like to. I'm hoping this will help explain some of that. My blog. That's part of the reason I started the blog.

John Dehlin [01:41:04] What's the name of the blog again?

Sam Young [01:41:07] Invisible's Cubit, which John, for your information, that is code for God's day. Paul. We hear all kinds of descriptions. That's not me, right?

John Dehlin [01:41:21] No.

Sam Young [01:41:22] I've heard all kinds of descriptions about God. Okay, has all kinds of names. Paul in the New Testament referred to him as the invisible God. Now I know it's kind of a play, maybe a funny thing. I'm not making fun. I'm looking at saying the invisible God. The Apostle Paul called him the invisible God. Well, you know what? Have you ever seen God, John?

John Dehlin [01:41:45] No, I haven't yet.

Sam Young [01:41:46] Do you know why you haven't tell me? He's invisible.

John Dehlin [01:41:51] Oh.

Sam Young [01:41:52] Anyway, Paul said he's invisible. I don't know anybody that has seen God. Okay, so he may have a form of a man. I would like that to be the case. I don't know if it is or not. I would like to be able to go to heaven and hug him. I don't know if that's the case or not, but I know today he's invisible to us. We do not see him anyway. So invisible and then cubit. So the Book of Abraham. The apologists have all kinds of reasons of what happened in the Book of Abraham. And the pieces we have. Well, the thing was longer. I don't go through all those apologetic things. But what we do have are the facsimiles. Joseph Smith specifically translated the facsimiles and said, right here, this means this right here, this means this right here, this means this. One of those in Egyptian, this means, was this a Day in heaven, a day on Kolob or near Kolob or wherever it is. A day in heaven equals a cubit. So a day equals a cubit. It's right there. In my scriptures, translated by Joseph Smith, I've got the facsimile of God. It says that right there. Says that a day equals a cubit. So when you get to heaven, John, you'll know at least one word. You should know three other words, but at least you'll know one word in heavenly language. When they say cubit, you'll know. Oh, they're talking about a day right there.

John Dehlin [01:43:21] Okay, got it.

Sam Young [01:43:21] So invisibles, Cubit is God's Day.

John Dehlin [01:43:23] Is that.comor.org or what?

Sam Young [01:43:25] Invisiblescubit.WordPress.com okay, excellent.

Why Sam Stays in the Church

John Dehlin [01:43:32] So Jamie's question was, is it tiring you out to do this? And your answer is you don't feel like you owe anyone any explanation?

Sam Young [01:43:42] I want to give explanations, but if I can't, then you're okay, I'm going to obey my covenants.

John Dehlin [01:43:47] And you're saying it makes you feel like you're living a clean conscience. And you said it makes your wife happy. That actually surprises me because I would think your wife would say you're bringing all this tension and negative gossip about our family in our home ward, and she would just be really uncomfortable with the distress of that.

Sam Young [01:44:07] So she's seen the whole journey going from. This is interesting. This is interesting. This is weird. This. What? What?

John Dehlin [01:44:13] To angry.

Sam Young [01:44:13] I'm angry. They taking away my free agency.

John Dehlin [01:44:17] The fact that you're less angry.

Sam Young [01:44:18] Oh, yeah. That's huge.

John Dehlin [01:44:19] That for her, that makes it okay that it's still.

Sam Young [01:44:22] Well, that and the path I've chosen. And I, Although I may not be able to explain this to everybody, I've had plenty of time and still have plenty of time to talk with my wife about it. So to talk about following Jesus Christ, that's a great thing. She loves that. To go to church and bring something back. Great. To look and say, here's why. Okay, so when I went back to the temple a few weeks ago after this covenant thing and came away with wonderful things about my covenants, she was so happy that I went to the. So, I mean, she is very happy with the path I've taken. Now, if I had taken the path I want to destroy the church, she probably would feel very uncomfortable. Maybe not want to go to church, but I don't want to destroy the church. The church has wonderful things in it. Wonderful, wonderful things. It's got some Bad things. That's why I vote.

John Dehlin [01:45:12] So some would ask, why not just leave? Leave the church? You probably no longer believe this is the one true church. You probably have all sorts of doubts about Joseph Smith. I'm guessing you doubt the historicity of the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham. And so why not just leave it? What keeps you hanging on? And is it honest to stay if you don't really believe it?

Sam Young [01:45:37] Okay, well, first of all, you're making some assumptions.

John Dehlin [01:45:40] Well, I actually don't know where you believe, so I'm just presenting some questions, actually not making assumptions.

Sam Young [01:45:47] I really don't have many questions anymore.

John Dehlin [01:45:49] Okay.

Sam Young [01:45:49] I've resolved most of the questions. And, you know, you had a podcast with three active members of the church, Gina Colvin being one of them. And I don't know any of these people. I've never corresponded with them ever. And I posted a comment that I wasn't. That wasn't a very satisfying thing. I was going there with cool ideas of what you do and stuff, and they're kind of moving in and doing things different than me. But I was disappointed in that episode. And I posted that in the Facebook group. And by golly, Gina responded. And one of the things she said, and I don't know if it was on the Facebook or PM or where it was, but she said, I actually don't give a damn about history of the church. That got me thinking I'd already decided my path and whatnot. So this was just a month ago, two months ago, But I thought that was a really interesting thing. I don't give a damn about the history of the church. And I realized that kind of describes where I'm at, too. I care about the history of the church. I've drawn conclusions about the. Of history, history of the church. But what I do going forward, it's going to be colored by that, but it's not going to make the determination of where I go. If the Book of Mormon is not historical, well, okay, it's not historical. Big deal. Adam and Eve, I don't believe is a true story. I believe it was a metaphor, a glorious, wonderful metaphor. I decided that a year and a half ago, go to the temple for the first time in almost two years and see that portrayed what a beautiful metaphor that is. I got stuff out of that I'd never seen before. So for the Book of Mormon not to be historical, why? Yeah, I can't get it. Why That's a big problem.

John Dehlin [01:47:45] Okay. So just to push back a little bit, and I don't I personally love what you're doing. So this isn't me being antagonistic, but it is a little bit weird to have you quoting scripture as the basis of your position when you may not even believe that there's a God or a prophet behind the scripture that got produced.

Sam Young [01:48:09] Okay. And the reason that's weird is the orientation or the culture that we've somehow developed that we know everything. As opposed to take something on faith. I'm willing to take some things on faith. Jesus Christ, I'm willing to take that on faith. Adam and Eve. There's too much evidence that the Adam and Eve story is a nice story.

John Dehlin [01:48:33] So do you have faith that the Book of Mormon is historical? Or Book of Abraham, or Doctrine and Covenants?

Sam Young [01:48:39] Okay, so that would be a whole different podcast.

John Dehlin [01:48:42] Okay, that's fine. You don't have to answer if you're not.

Sam Young [01:48:44] But what I have faith in is taking things that are valuable and can direct my life. There are some things in the Book of Mormon that I don't like that we hold up on a pedestal. That Nephi murdered a man, I got problems with that. But there's some things I love. When you're in the service, you can pick the things that you love. I can take those things to direct my life. Common consent. Well, let's say the Book of Mormon. There was no revelation for the Book of Mormon I like, or for the Doctrine and Covenants I like what it says. All things must be done by common consent. Hey, I want to take that and move forward. And it's a language that we're used to speaking already, that I can communicate with my friends, and it communicates with me, communicate resonates with my children.

John Dehlin [01:49:33] So it's sort of a pragmatic view of the gospel. It's less about truth claims for you, and it's more about if it's good, if it produces good behavior, good community. You're fine having faith in it, regardless of its divine origins. Is that right? Is that correct?

Sam Young [01:49:53] Yes, absolutely. So take Jesus Christ. I don't know if he exists. I hope he exists. But his teaching about the Good Samaritan, I've got faith in that. That. That is a wonderful teaching. I want to embrace that and go out of my way to help people. That the priest that's a church member, the Levite, the priest that's a priesthood holder. The Levite that's a priesthood holder. And then the Samaritan went out of his way. The Samaritan is a guy that everybody loathed. He's the guy that went out of his way. Maybe it is. You got the CH priesthood holders, then you got the excommunicated Mormon as the Samaritan. And he's the guy that went over and helped, helped out the. Whatever it is. I want to be, I can have faith. I have faith in that. I'm embracing that to move forward, to direct my life.

John Dehlin [01:50:47] Okay, that's reasonable now. So you are, you are not calling on other members to follow your example and vote opposed.

Sam Young [01:50:56] I've asked people, are you opposed to this? Yes, I am. So why don't you vote opposed? Everybody has told me, actually, 22 people around the world have messaged me and said we're going to vote no at the next opportunity. Actually, now it's 21 because one of them just resigned. But 21 people. So that's not very many. But I'm not saying you should vote opposed, but consider the governance that Jesus.

John Dehlin [01:51:23] You're asking people to consider this approach and hold it right to your mouth.

Birdie [01:51:27] Okay. John Delan has just asked my son Sam whether this was difficult for him. It was kind of. The answer was kind of avoided. So I wanted to jump in and say it was difficult for him because I saw it. And he would call me my daughter, who would call me and say, sam calls me almost every day trying to convince. Convince me that I shouldn't leave the church or that I should believe this or believe that or why don't you believe in this? And why don't you believe that? And then when it got worse and Sam became angry, then he was calling me very frequently and discussing this stuff. So I know it has been very, very difficult for you and a lot

Sam Young [01:52:21] of the reason that. So I'm past most of that and you have to bring it up to your memory, but I used to call it. It's not just a faith transition, it's a gut wrench faith transition because it really is a gut wrenching experience. But I feel like I'm past that of this point.

Family Members Respond by Resigning

John Dehlin [01:52:42] Okay, Liddy, for a moment, do you just want to share your feelings? And I was really surprised to hear that you. That you decided to resign. And I'm just curious if you go ahead and pick up the microphone one more time. I'm just wondering if you're comfortable sharing a little bit about why you made that decision and how you feel about your son's decision now.

Birdie [01:53:08] Well, I'm proud of my son for speaking up because so many people are fearful. They doubt things, but they don't dare speak up. Because I've heard people say, well, I doubt that. I'm not sure about this, but for me, I didn't get angry. It just happened over a long period of time. Time. And like my son told you, it started with when I was prevented from attending his temple marriage. And my other children. I have six children and one of them didn't get married in the temple, but the others have, and I have missed them. My last daughter that just got married in the temple, she was never religious and suddenly she decided they. They better get married and have their children sealed to them. So I did attend her marriage and I did attend some of my grandchildren's marriages. They did not mean anything to me. I loved the marriages out of the temple better than the ones in the temple. And I don't know why. Maybe it's because I was unworthy, because I didn't pay a full tithing. I was unworthy to attend my own children's. The major decision in their life. And so that kept cracking and cracking and cracking my, my shell. Until then I discovered I had by watching the agony of my children. I have two grandchildren that are gay and their parents went through absolute hell. They didn't want to believe it. And those children are excluded from everything. From work, from friends, from the church. They're cut off from everything. Well, they've come to their own now. But when that policy came out, I thought, that is the last straw. And then I heard about the second anointing, and that was really what broke the camel. It just was.

John Dehlin [01:55:37] What about the second anointing bothered you?

Birdie [01:55:39] The second anointing I had never heard of. Here I am, I'm 85 years old, and I had not never, ever, ever heard that. And I asked a friend of mine and she said, oh, her husband's so religious, he would know. And it was something about the eternal calling they made sure, or something in the doctrine.

John Dehlin [01:55:58] But what was disturbing about the second anointing for you?

Birdie [01:56:02] That we are told all along and brainwashed that we're going to be saved. And all of us, if we go to the temple, we're going to go to the celestial kingdom, and we have that opportunity. But then the anointing makes for sure that certain people will go to the celestial kingdom no matter what. They, they're chosen. They're above the rest of us and the rest of us. What the hell is going to happen to us? If Maybe they've done 10,000 people, but they've done it for years and years and years and years and years and they're supposed to keep it secret. But Tom Phillips came out and it isn't secret and probably other people have come out. But if it happens to you and you are the chosen one and you are for sure made for sure, you can go to exaltation near the highest kingdom. And no matter what you do or say, whether it's adultery, whether it's cheating, lying, doing anything except murder, you will still go to the celestial kingdom. Now to me, that is wrong, wrong, wrong for what happens to the rest of us who weren't chosen. And so that that did it. And I just decided I could not be a member. I am going to be among the ones that are counted as non members. I couldn't believe those lies and those secrets one more minute.

John Dehlin [01:57:40] So you resigned at what age?

Birdie [01:57:42] I resigned 85 and 85. I resigned last Saturday after hearing Kate Kelly speak.

Sam Young [01:57:50] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:57:51] You may be the oldest person ever resigned from the church.

Birdie [01:57:55] Well, maybe that's so, but I might. My grandmother lived to be almost a hundred. I could probably live to be 116 for all I know. But I'm resigning because I want my name on that taken off that board and put on the board of those who resign. Because I believe in the truth and I want to be honest, I cannot live a lie. And I just simply can't. And I've announced to my family that I have resigned and I am no longer a member. So according to our church, I've lost all my blessings, everyone. But that doesn't mean anything to me because the church doesn't mean anything to me.

John Dehlin [01:58:40] What do you think about what Sam's doing?

Birdie [01:58:42] I think it's wonderful. Wonderful because it he is one is able to stand up and speak what he believes in. And I am proud of that. And I think that maybe by staying inside he might get some of the members there questioning or thinking like we should be thinking. And we're told not to think, just obey, period. And so I'm very proud of my son.

John Dehlin [01:59:17] All right, thank you, Liddy, for your comments. All right, Sam. Well, that was nice to get your mom's your perspective a little bit.

Sam Young [01:59:26] Just so you know, as we're driving up here, she said now there's no way I want to participate in this interview.

John Dehlin [01:59:34] What do you think about your. What do you think about your mom resigning?

Sam Young [01:59:38] Well, I have a whole bunch of friends now who have resigned or been excommunicated. I think that. So I view there's one of the scriptures I came across that helped me through figuring things out is first corinthians I hope I can still quote scriptures. John.

John Dehlin [02:00:02] Well, please.

Sam Young [02:00:03] First Corinthians, chapter 13. It's all about charity. Never faileth that beautiful thing about charity. But it says, charity will never fail, but knowledge will go away. I'm thinking, how cool is that? My knowledge is gone. And Paul said that. It happened to Paul. And then he said that as a child. Let's see. When I was a child, I thought as a child. I spoke as a child. I understood as a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things. So I feel like I've put away childish things of how you look at things. That I'm a man. I give everybody else the same credit. That you're a man, John. Well, you're a woman, so you're a man or a woman. Jamie, we're adults, okay? Adults think God gave us a brain to think we can evaluate what is best for us, for our family. If the best thing is for somebody to resign, I look at them and say, you've made a great decision. I support that decision. Godspeed on that journey. We're not on different paths. We're on the same path. You're out of the church. I'm in the church. But we're on the same path of life. And you're my friend. I don't look down on you. I've not taken any better choice than you have. In fact, maybe I made a worse choice than you. But you certainly did not make a bad choice by leaving the church. I support that. So mom leaving, hey, I support that. What I found. I have had a few bad experiences where I said I was staying in the church and why. And then I get big pushback from people that have left the church.

John Dehlin [02:01:37] Yeah, people hate that.

Sam Young [02:01:39] But it's amazing what a little validation and recognition means to people. These folks, they're all my friends now who have pushed at me. And I said, look, I get where you're at. I love where you're at. You've made a great decision. Hallelujah. Godspeed on your journey. And I'm your friend, period. No matter what. The church does not determine my friendship or my love anyway, so that's what I think of Mom's decision. She's an adult and has made a decision that works well in her life.

John Dehlin [02:02:11] Jamie, can you still hear us?

Jamie Hannis Handy [02:02:14] I can still hear you.

John Dehlin [02:02:15] All right. Do you have any final questions for Sam before we wrap it up?

Jamie Hannis Handy [02:02:20] No, I just. I think we've covered the main issues and just helping other people know that if they're Feeling that same gut wrenching worry about social stigma. I think it is empowering to see his approach, to recognize that we are fellow citizens in the church and we do have a voice and there are avenues for us to speak, speak up about the things that we see that trouble us and that worry us and that cause concern. These are legitimate and valid concerns that people have. And I think more than anything, so many people feel unvalidated in, in their life experience that somehow they are lacking, that somehow they. I think there are individuals in our wards and stakes and in our neighborhoods whose mental health is suffering because they have no avenue to discuss their issues, their worries, their fears. I think, you know, I think Sam's idea of the taqueria and meeting together is just a beautiful, beautiful opportunity for people who feel completely alone and feel isolated. And so I just want to give kudos. I just think, I think there's a whole lot of people finding themselves in the same situation and unsure how to press forward. And everybody's path is different. And it's just, it's so refreshing to hear a different version, a different path. And I hope that it inspires other people or again, I just want people to think, think through what they do. Hopefully people will think about this and think about the ramifications of creating such a rigid social structure where people, where we have 100% voting. I don't even think North Korea has that. But there is danger when everyone in the room is thinking the same thing. No one is thinking. And that's what I see as the biggest problem in our community right now, is that we aren't thinking

Sam Young [02:04:28] one thing.

John Dehlin [02:04:29] Thank you. Thank you, Amy. Thank you, Jamie.

Voting With Your Feet Versus Staying

Sam Young [02:04:33] This thing about people leaving the church, so they are voting, they're voting, they're voting with their feet. Like I know a lot of people have left over this November policy, a lot of leftover history over, doctrine over. There's all kinds of reasons, reason that people leave. But would the church rather have somebody vote with their hand or vote with their feet? Personally, I would prefer to have somebody have my friends who have left have had the option of looking at, okay, I don't like this stuff. I can vote. My feelings about this, Jesus wants me to vote as opposed to the only choice is to leave. I think the church, I think my bishop, I think my stake president would rather have the members that are about ready to leave or I've had members say, this event happens in my life, I'm going to leave. This event hasn't happened yet, but it's going to happen as the years go on. Other members that I'm hanging on by my fingernails. A high priest group leader told me that the other day, a ward mission leader said, it's getting harder and harder to go to church as a ward mission leader and do that calling. Well, I'm looking at, wouldn't it be better if we could vote with our hands rather than just leaving? Leaving is a good choice. That's a great choice. But if you are looking for a way to stay and it's hard, that may be one of the choices. Is that Jesus. I love this concept. Jesus trusts me. He trusts us. He's taught us that in the scriptures. He trusts us and needs our opinions to get to our leaders.

John Dehlin [02:06:17] All right, any final things you want to say to the listening audience that you haven't said so far? Well, I want to make sure we covered everything. I assume we have, but if.

Sam Young [02:06:29] No, there's a ton more stuff. But I want to make sure we say this. Someone has said that the church doesn't give apologies. Well, I think I've heard some authorities give some good apologies. But that kind of bugged me when I heard somebody say we don't give apologies. I happen to be the church sitting right here in front of you. Well, I'm not the church organization. The church also can be its members. So, Jamie, you are the church. You are one part of the church. We, the members in the church, are the church, the people. I want to apologize for the church. For me. I think Jamie would say the same thing. But I know there's a lot of people that would like to apologize.

John Dehlin [02:07:16] I'm feeling left out here, Sam.

Sam Young [02:07:19] I know John would like to apologize. Okay. But John is always already been standing up for all this stuff. But I want to apologize for the way we have treated the gay community. We have gotten it wrong at every step of the journey. When I was young, I was raised being taught that they were perverts. They are going to hell. There is something horribly wrong. So all my gay brothers and sisters, it turns out my best friend in high school, I didn't know he was gay. He probably was trying to figure that out. I know he was trying to figure that out, but he was being taught the same thing. You're pervert. So he's trying to avoid that. And anyway, we got that wrong. You were okay, so that's number one. We should never have been teaching that. I wish the prophet had told us that. But that was wrong. I went along with that. Two, we were taught that gay people were Made the choice either their dads didn't love them enough or they engaged in certain things that caused you to go gay. That. Well, let me apologize. I want to apologize that we thought you consciously made the choice one day. You know what? I think I want to be gay. I think I want to be with a man. That. That's. Science is now saying that's not the case. The experience of every single one of my friends that was gay, my two nephews. That's not the way it works. That is not the way it works. I'm sorry, we got that wrong. The BYU shock therapy, that was shocking. When I read about that and then found. So how do we get this so wrong as a church that we think we can cure gay people by putting them in front of pornographic same sex sex acts, attaching electrodes down there and then shocking. If you are physically aroused, shocking you. They had control of the shock. They would turn it up to the highest shock because they wanted to get rid of this perverted thing that they'd been taught was wrong their whole life. It turns out a fellow that I met right as soon as I got to my mission in Guatemala was one of those that this was done to. Well, of course it doesn't change you from gay by watching a gay video and then being shocked. Well, he's left the church. But those kind of experiences leave scars. I'm sorry we got that horrible thing wrong. Pray it away, John. Your research said that praying, trying to pray the gay away was the. The most harmful of any treatment. So I got another friend, my best friend in Houston when I was single. Turned out this is an issue now. Fortunately, he's married. He's been able to make the marriage work, but it has been a real challenge. And he told me the very same thing. This was the worst thing that I went through. Praying to Heavenly Father, I wasn't worthy enough. I wasn't doing the right things. I wasn't righteous enough for God to be. Bless me. It doesn't work that way. I'm sorry we said it did. I'm sorry we told you to do all that reparative therapy. What a humiliating thing, this reparative therapy that we referred people to. It didn't work. I'm sorry that you had to endure that. The humiliation, the degradation of going through that treatment, that did not work. Okay, I've got more things to apologize for, but I'm going to stop right there. I just want to apologize to the way we have treated gay people in the church. I wish the prophet had spoken up and let us know this is wrong or that we could have done common consent on something with regard. But we do have that opportunity right now with regards to the thing they just did, which is if you're gay and you get married, we're going to excommunicate you and effectively excommunicate your children for the next from 8 to 18. They have no blessings. Now, I believe that's wrong. I apologize to my gay brothers and sisters about that. Okay, so there you go.

John Dehlin [02:11:41] That's it. That's your testimony?

Sam Young [02:11:43] There's my testimony, yes. My apology. So there's my apologetics.

John Dehlin [02:11:48] All right, all right.

Sam Young [02:11:51] But if you want my testimony, I do want to say I love the church. I wanted to keep going. I want our leaders to. I like a lot of things about the leaders, but I want us to get to start obeying the law of common consent. So there's why, if they reverse this policy, I think I would keep voting no. Because we're not obeying the law of. At least I'm not obeying the law of common consent, and I'd like us to be doing that.

Final Reflections and Closing Thoughts

John Dehlin [02:12:15] Do you think you'll get in trouble for doing this interview, or do you think you won't get in trouble?

Sam Young [02:12:20] Well, here's the deal. I've got a temple covenant of sacrifice, and I embrace the idea of. I'm willing to lose my honor, my good name, my reputation, my applause, and my membership for living my temple covenants. I can't imagine getting in trouble for this. My wife has told me so. People have told me I'd be excommunicated. You told me that if I did this interview at one time, if it gets much traction, and I've had other people just voting no at state conference. So I asked my wife before state conference, what happens if I get excommunicated? What would you think about that? She said, sam, never. Number one, the church would be wrong to do that. Number two, you would walk away with your integrity intact. So I've got my wife's support for following Christ in the Church of Jesus Christ, trying to sort out my temple covenants and obey them

John Dehlin [02:13:23] feeling good.

Sam Young [02:13:25] Well, it probably wouldn't feel good if that happened. I just can't imagine it happening. But that is not going to happen.

Jamie Hannis Handy [02:13:33] I think it's a beautiful thing, though, because I think I made a decision, too, to be a little more vocal and participate in some of these podcasts. And not everyone appreciates what I've done. And with our Mormon theology and our Mormon upbringing and this, the way they've painted this Mormon Judgment Day, where at some day I'm going to have to stand in front of the Savior and look at the things that I've done. And it is a very freeing thing when you realize that going against the grain is a more defensible position for me to take personally with the Savior at some day than stepping in line. And for me, that was the cognitive dissonance. And it's a beautiful thing. I can defend being kind and accepting and attending the wedding of two people who've decided to commit themselves to each other. I can defend loving them and loving their children to Jesus. I don't have any problem if that day arrives. And the kindness and the mercy and the respect and honor of their agency and their path, that's something I can defend. It's defensible. The risk that I would behave in an unkind manner and then be told that I should have been more kind. It's indefensible. I have no way to defend doing something that I perceive as unkind or unloving or just the level of judgment that one has to take to behave that way. And I just. I could no longer defend that position. And so who knows if this day will ever come where I have to do it. But if I have to defend myself, I'm confident I can defend myself, and that's all that matters. And at that point, it freed me to be able to in my own way, not trying to draw attention to a lot of things or the things, but to live my life with the integrity I feel I needed to. I have to be able to defend my life. And that's what it comes down to. And that to me, is the crux of everything that I learned. And the only way that got me here was the gospel. I arrived at this point because I was taught of my agency and my freedom and my ability. And I have have to be able to defend how I live. And people don't have to like it. They don't. But I can defend myself.

Sam Young [02:16:09] Yeah, that is such a good point. Again, you said what I would like to be able to say, organize and say in my head, you need to write that kind of thing on a blog. But there is something that is so freeing. I feel that very same thing. You got a light, A load that is lightened. You feel. Feel free to do what is right.

John Dehlin [02:16:29] Do what is right. Let the consequences follow.

Jamie Hannis Handy [02:16:32] Yeah, I saw somebody sent me a little meme, you know, and it was that obedience is pushing your morality onto someone else. And morality is taking account. I am going to be accountable for my decisions. I am not going to push my decision making ability onto another person and let them be the fall guy for me. The Nuremberg defense. I will not be a participant in that line of thinking.

Sam Young [02:17:01] Yep, yep.

John Dehlin [02:17:03] Thank you, Jamie. Bless you. Thanks for joining us today on the podcast.

Jamie Hannis Handy [02:17:08] You're welcome.

Sam Young [02:17:09] Well, great to see you and great to talk to you in person, Jamie. Well, not almost in person almost, it seems, in person.

John Dehlin [02:17:16] And, and so, Bertie, thank you for joining us on Mormon Stories.

Birdie [02:17:23] Thank you for letting me.

John Dehlin [02:17:26] It's a pleasure to have you. And Sam Young, what a treat. Thank you for your courage. Thank you for your intellect, for your passion and for your example. It means a lot and I hope good things come from it.

Sam Young [02:17:42] Well, thank you very much, John. I have a great deal of respect for you even though you've been excommunicated.

John Dehlin [02:17:48] Oh, thank you. Well, I hope you don't suffer the same fate.

Sam Young [02:17:52] Yeah. Okay.

John Dehlin [02:17:55] All right. So listeners, I'll turn the camera back around just for a second. I want to thank you guys for joining us today on Mormon Stories. It's been really fun. Please join us@mormonstories.org to ask Sam questions to express concern. Also, if you guys decide you want to vote no, then that's your choice. If you do, please check in with us and let us know how that goes. We'd love to cover that and to give exposure to it for anyone who decides to dissent. Also for those of you who support Mormon Stories financially, thank you so much. For those of you who haven't yet contributed, please know that your donations are what keep keep this program alive. You can go to mormonstories.org you can select in the top right how much you want to contribute monthly. All your donations are tax deductible. Those donations go directly to the foundation to keep things alive. My salary's set, it's fixed, but we have all sorts of expenses to keep this going. Finally, mid October, October 14th, 15th and 16th, we're having a retreat in New York City. We're going to have some great people there. Abby Huntsman, the daughter of John Huntsman Jr. And Kerry Sheffield, both of whom work for Fox News. They're going to be at the retreat. Clark Johnson, one of the original cast members of the Book of Mormon musical, will be there along with maybe a couple other people who are post Mormons or transitioning Mormons who have worked on Broadway. We may have another special guest or two. So please consider going to mormontransitions.org and registering for that retreat. It's going to be fabulous. But again, thank you for joining us on Mormon Stories. We appreciate your support and we look forward to many more podcasts ahead. You guys take care. And again, thanks to Sam and Jamie for joining us today. You guys take care and talk to you guys soon. 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.

Sam Young [02:20:22] Make me whole

Jamie Hannis Handy [02:20:27] when with a wounded

Sam Young [02:20:31] heart, anger or malice,

Jamie Hannis Handy [02:20:38] I draw myself

John Dehlin [02:20:41] apart, Searching my soul.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.