Welcome and Episode Introduction

John Dehlin [00:00:28] Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. And I should say Mormon Stories Live as well because we're live streaming on Facebook and we're excited to have people joining us. We've already got 58 people who have joined. It's April 27, 2017 and today we are continuing our series on people's meetings with Mormon general authorities. We've had several We've had Jake and Meg Abhow talk about their meeting with Elder D. Todd Christofferson about their gay son. We had Lance the Miles family talk about their meeting with Marlon Jensen and we have had others as well. And right now it's spacing me. But we are now going to be interviewing Scott Duke, who is known amongst the Utah Valley post Mormon community, but also on Facebook and is a great guy.

John Dehlin [00:01:27] He comes to me highly recommended by Steve Holbrook, who's one of my favorite people in the world. But Scott Duke has a really interesting and important story to tell about a meeting with the General Authority named elder Christoffel Golden Jr.

John Dehlin [00:01:45] So that's going to be the focus of today's episode. Before we totally dive in, I just need to make a few announcements. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, we want to make sure you understand that everything we do on Mormon Stories is supported by the Open Stories foundation and we require we rely on listener support to be able to continue. So if you are not a monthly donor, we would love you to consider subscribing. Go to MormonStories.org, click on the donate button and sign up for 10 or $20 a month, whatever you can afford.

John Dehlin [00:02:20] You can pick your amount and those donations are tax deductible. We're fully transparent and all the money goes to support the mission of the Open Stories Foundation. So please do, please do support us and we'll keep providing you with this great content.

John Dehlin [00:02:36] In addition, just want to always announce the events that we have coming up with the open storage foundation. May 4th through 5th we're going to be in Fort Collins, Colorado doing a one and a half day workshop in a beautiful venue. We're really excited about that. July 7th and 8th we're going to be doing a Texas Retreat in Dallas. We hope San Antonio, Houston, Austin, Oklahoma City and Dallas and all the surrounding areas will join us. Please join us for the Texas Retreat.

John Dehlin [00:03:03] Registration will be hopefully up in the next few days. August 11th through 12th we'll be doing a mixed faith marriage retreat two day retreat in Salt Lake with Dr. Julie D' Azevedo Hanks and myself. She's a believing, faithful psychologist. And I am a former Mormon psychologist. And together we'll be leading a mixed faith couples retreat that's going to be fabulous.

John Dehlin [00:03:30] Seattle, Washington, is September 14th through 15th. October 20th, 22nd is Sydney, Australia. And then we're really, really excited to announce Northern California in November. All the registration info will be up@mormonstories.org click on the events calendar or you can go to mormontransitions.org events. But please join us in these events. We would love to have you. And again, we hope to have registration information up in the next few days.

John Dehlin [00:03:59] So without any further ado, we're going to try and do this interview in about an hour and a half. And we're really excited to have Scott with us. And Scott, this is your first time to Mormon Stories podcast, so I just want to say welcome. Thanks for joining us.

Scott Duke [00:04:14] Thank you. John, you probably won't remember this, but I actually met you a couple years ago. We were next to each other at the urinals in the men's room.

John Dehlin [00:04:26] Of course, I remember fondly where was

Scott Duke [00:04:30] was at an event of yours.

John Dehlin [00:04:32] Okay, cool.

Scott Duke [00:04:33] Utah. But I didn't say anything to you at the time because it's socially awkward. But we were washing up at the sinks later on and I introduced myself.

John Dehlin [00:04:42] Oh, well, it's nice to see you again, Scott.

Scott Duke [00:04:44] Sorry, I wrote about that in my journal.

John Dehlin [00:04:46] Oh, my gosh. In your urinal or in your journal?

Scott Duke [00:04:48] My journal, of course.

Scott's Mormon Background and Upbringing

John Dehlin [00:04:51] All right, well, today we've got a really cool story, so let's dive in. Scott, tell us a little bit about your Mormon background and we'll get to the parts that lead up to your meeting with elder Christoffel Golden Jr. Of the first quorum of the 70.

Scott Duke [00:05:09] Okay. Well, I come from good pioneer stock. I have a good Mormon pedigree. All 16 of my great great grandparents were Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:05:20] Oh, wow.

Scott Duke [00:05:21] Yeah. And so, and you know, going back even further through some lines, I'll go back six or seven generations. Parley P. Pratt is probably my most famous ancestor. I come through his 10th wife, Anne Agatha Walker. I have other relatives, one who was in the Mormon Battalion. I have a great great grandfather, Robert Stone Duke, who would have been seven years old in Nauvoo at the time when Brigham Young transformed into Joseph Smith. A lot of people recorded that in their journals later. Also, I had a great, great grandfather or three greats who he was a first counselor in the first presidency of an apostate section called the Church of the firstborn in about 1860.

John Dehlin [00:06:21] So lots of lots of pioneer blood,

Scott Duke [00:06:24] Lots of interesting people in my family. Yeah. But my experience in the church was pretty typical. I had a good, happy childhood in the church. My parents, you know, my mom was in the Relief Society presidency and my dad and the bishopric and, you know, we had family nights in scripture study. It was a pretty typical experience.

Scott Duke [00:06:46] I don't know that I took the church too super seriously as a kid. I mean, I always believed in it. I always just assumed it was true because everyone that was around me believed in it. I never did not believe in it, but it was maybe around age 17, I actually started to take it a little more serious and read the Book of Mormon for the first time.

Scott Duke [00:07:07] And I probably would have read it, you know, maybe five times before my mission. And, you know, that last year, before my mission, I remember taking religion super seriously. I would give out copies of the Book of Mormon to co workers.

Scott Duke [00:07:21] I would give the Book of Mormon to other members of the church and challenge them to give it to somebody. And I remember reading the entire missionary library, and I was particularly persuaded by arguments that would appeal to reason and logic, like chiasmus, for example, or, you know, going through lists of points of the true church that. That are unique to Mormonism, Things like that.

John Dehlin [00:07:53] Good old chiasmus. Love chaos. Yes.

Scott Duke [00:07:59] So, yeah, so at age 19, I got called to serve a mission. I went to the California Riverside Mission. I remember when I first arrived there, it was in May, and It was about 100 degrees, and the members told me to enjoy the weather while it was cool.

Scott Duke [00:08:19] It ended up getting to, like, 126 that July. So they really just threw me. Threw me into the furnace to start off my mission. But I had a good experience. I fully believed in what I was doing, and so it was enjoyable. I felt like I was a part of something important and good.

Scott Duke [00:08:43] Some things that troubled me a little bit on my mission. There were a few times we had African American investigators who were scheduled to be baptized. And I struggled over whether or not I should let them know about the previous racial ban.

Scott Duke [00:09:02] I felt like, you know, if that were me, that's something that I would want to know about. And I remember talking to a lot of missionaries about it or other people in the ward, and the consensus was, no, you shouldn't tell them that.

Scott Duke [00:09:16] You know, if they're in the church for a while, they will. Their testimony will get stronger, and then when they finally do hear about that, they'll be okay with it. But you can't. You can't tell them that. Right off the bat. And that didn't quite sit right with me.

John Dehlin [00:09:30] It's kind of like false advertising, right?

Scott Duke [00:09:33] Yeah. Yeah, it is. So is there anything other than that about my mission or.

Mission Experiences and Early Seeds of Doubt

John Dehlin [00:09:40] No. I mean, whatever you think would. Was there anything about it that kind of maybe planted seeds for your faith crisis other than. Oh, sure, yeah.

Scott Duke [00:09:51] Yeah. I mean, in Southern California, there's enough people that. That know about the church, particularly people from other churches. They study this in their. In their church classes. They have lessons on Mormonism and how to, you know, talk to missionaries. So I found out about the Adam God doctrine. I found out about blood atonement. Trying to think of some other things that I found out about masonry and the connection to the temple, things like that. And at the time, you know, it didn't weaken my faith. I didn't feel I always had a way, a defense that I was able to employ to deal with those things, you know, even if it was just, well, I don't understand it and I'll set it aside.

John Dehlin [00:10:47] Yeah, that makes sense. So you got exposed to a lot of those things. Sure, yeah.

Scott Duke [00:10:52] And a little bit it kind of left a bad taste in my mouth because some of the literature that people would show us, I could see that there were errors in it. It was kind of done in a sloppy way or in a really negative way, like calling the church evil. And that just didn't. I'm like, that's crazy. You know, I had one. One person say, well, if you go watch the God Makers, you'll know that Mormons actually worship the devil. And I just rolled my eyes. So I think some of the stuff put out by the Christian right is really over the top and can sour people on really investigating further. And I think some of the exposure to that may have kept me from looking at things for maybe another 10 years or so.

John Dehlin [00:11:32] Sure, sure. Yeah. It's like, if it's over the top, then there's just no credibility. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Scott Duke [00:11:43] Okay. So after my mission, again, very serious about the church. I remember I would get the conference talks on CD and listen to my car. I was that kind of a member of the church.

John Dehlin [00:12:00] That's pretty intense.

Scott Duke [00:12:02] Yeah, yeah. That's something my siblings have pointed out to me and made fun of me in years since. So I was going to school and working, and I would eventually meet my wife. Now, I had had some experiences maybe starting on my mission and in the years that followed where I felt that God had spoken to me and that he was preparing me for the possibility that I was going to be a stepdad.

Scott Duke [00:12:39] Kind of difficult to explain exactly how that came about. I think just on my mission I would see men who were in that position and I had a great deal of admiration for them for taking on a responsibility that really wasn't theirs.

Scott Duke [00:12:56] And then the first couple of women that I dated after my mission had kids and I felt like maybe there was a pattern here, like God was preparing me for, for that possibility. So when I did meet my wife because of that, and she had had some spiritual experiences regarding what her future spouse would be like, we just felt like each other fit the bill perfectly. And we ended up talking about getting married. Married after 11 days of dating.

Scott Duke [00:13:32] We didn't make it official for a couple more weeks after that. But that's certainly something that the teaching of personal revelation can lead people to do is to make really important life changing decisions because they feel they've had a revelation. And maybe that's not the best way to make major, major life decisions.

John Dehlin [00:13:55] Yeah, I remember that as a kid, just like, oh, I just had a thought or I just had a feeling. Is that God? Maybe that's God. But your brains and your feeling, your brain's gonna. Man, you're all manufacture all sorts of thoughts and feelings and if you just start chasing after them or really holding on anything, maybe sometimes it works out and sometimes it can probably not work out, you know.

Scott Duke [00:14:15] Yeah, yeah, so. So we got engaged and we had an experience that it bothered me a little bit, but probably not as much as it should have at the time. We had to go through the sealing cancellation process for her because she had previously been married, she had three young kids and her first bishop that he really drug his feet on getting this process going.

Scott Duke [00:14:44] And then she eventually would move into the ward where we were planning on living together. She moved into the house prior to the marriage and the bishop there, he got on the ball and started working towards the cancellation process. But it was a little late in the game and we were concerned that it might not go through before the wedding date.

Scott Duke [00:15:06] And so one day my fiance and I, we went down to the Manti Temple just to do a session together. And we asked to meet with the temple president. And we said, we're planning on getting married, we don't know if we're going to be able to get sealed.

Scott Duke [00:15:21] And he said, well, it shouldn't matter either way. You should be able to get married in the temple because if the sealing cancellation goes through, then no problem, you can be sealed. If it does not go through before that date, then you can just be married for time only in the temple.

Scott Duke [00:15:37] So we went ahead and put on our wedding announcements that the wedding would be at the Manti Temple. We just didn't use the word sealing and we figured our bases were covered either way. And then the, the day before the wedding, we still had not heard back from the first presidency on a decision.

Scott Duke [00:15:56] So her stake president called church headquarters and he was given the decision that they had made. They hadn't mailed it out yet, that they had gone ahead and canceled the ceiling, but that they had put a one year restriction on her getting sealed again and that as part of that, she was not to get married in the temple at all.

Scott Duke [00:16:22] You know, this is the day before our wedding and you're not supposed to be angry about this because these are decisions made by prophets, seers and revelators. I mean, if you had a wedding planner that messed up your wedding that bad, you'd be furious.

Scott Duke [00:16:39] But so we had to, just last minute, we had to find a bishop to marry us in her parents backyard. And he didn't even pronounce my last name properly, which, it's not a difficult last name. And it just kind of ruined our wedding day, you know, And I wonder how many people there thought, oh, yeah, sure, they couldn't get married in the temple. I wonder why, you know, but anyway, I'm still hearing you, right?

John Dehlin [00:17:18] Oh, yeah, totally. No, no, no. Okay.

Scott Duke [00:17:20] I, I thought I saw you.

John Dehlin [00:17:21] I coughed for a second. I coughed.

Scott Duke [00:17:24] No, no, I didn't hear you.

John Dehlin [00:17:25] Yeah, I had you on mute because I was coughing for a second.

Scott Duke [00:17:27] Oh, okay. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:17:29] So, yeah, so yeah, they kind of, they can really mess up a really sacred special event sometimes because of the bureaucracy.

Scott Duke [00:17:40] Yeah. And that didn't shake my faith in them as prophets, seers and revelators. You know, that, that to me falls in the category of, you know, being men.

John Dehlin [00:17:51] Sure.

Scott Duke [00:17:51] I don't expect that Jesus stands over their shoulder and whispers into their every single thing that, you know, every decision they make. But. But I didn't let it bother me. It probably should have, but anyway, so do you want to move into my faith crisis?

John Dehlin [00:18:08] Yeah, man. Just. Yeah.

Faith Crisis and Discovering Church History Problems

Scott Duke [00:18:10] Okay. So this would have been 2011, about July, I think. And I was on Facebook and on the little sidebar there was an ad for MormonThink.com.

John Dehlin [00:18:23] i remember those.

Scott Duke [00:18:24] Yeah. And it was a very neutral looking ad. It didn't scream anti Mormon or anything like that. It just said something like, interesting new information about the Book of Abraham. Wow. Well, I'm interested in interesting new information about the Book of Abraham.

John Dehlin [00:18:43] I can see the part of the papyrus above your shoulder.

Scott Duke [00:18:47] Yes. I have facsimile one behind me. That's. It means a lot to me. So I have it in my house now. That's awesome, because this, this, this here is what kind of started the wheels rolling in my head. So, yeah, I read up on all about the Book of Abraham. I had no idea. I mean, my mind was blown. And here I am, like 36 years old. I have never heard any of this. After going to church three hours a week my entire life, seminary mission. How did I not know this?

John Dehlin [00:19:23] Yeah.

Scott Duke [00:19:24] And in just like a matter of a few minutes, I think my testimony went from like 99% to like 50 to where I'm like, this could go either way. I don't know if this is true. I've kind of described it as being like an out of body experience. So if you've seen movies like Ghost with Patrick Swayze, he's murdered and he can actually see his body and he's freaking out because he's here and his body's here and, you know, he can walk around it. And that's kind of how my testimony. All of a sudden, for the first time in my life, my testimony is outside of me. I can look at it and examine it from a perspective I'd never had before. And it was really kind of exhilarating and yet frightening because I'm thinking, wow, what if I come to the conclusion this isn't true? How am I gonna tell my family?

John Dehlin [00:20:27] Right?

Scott Duke [00:20:28] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:20:30] It's scary.

Scott Duke [00:20:32] Yeah. But that Book of Abraham, that just blew my mind. And I. I began to see that this was a pattern with Joseph Smith of things that he would do. You've seen the movie the Little Mermaid, the Disney.

John Dehlin [00:20:46] Yes, I have.

Scott Duke [00:20:47] So there's that seagull. And you remember Ariel will come to him with the. She's interested in human stuff. So she finds these artifacts on the bottom of the ocean. She brings them to the fork, and she trusts that he knows what he's talking about because he lives up above the water. These are common items. And that's why it's funny to us in the audience, because it's a fork or a tobacco pipe. And he tells her that it's for combing your hair or for making music. And to me, that's what these Egyptian papyri are. I mean, to Egyptologists, this is a lion couch scene. You know, it's very common. Or a hypocephalus. It's a very common item. Those are as common to Egyptologists as a. As a fork would be to us. And when he. When they see what he interpreted to mean, it's just. It's hilarious.

John Dehlin [00:21:42] Right.

Scott Duke [00:21:44] And it's really like when they call the thingamabob.

John Dehlin [00:21:47] The fork a thingamabob or something like that.

Scott Duke [00:21:49] It's a. It's a dinglehopper.

John Dehlin [00:21:51] Dinglehopper, that's right.

Scott Duke [00:21:52] Yeah. They're bringing stuff to Joseph Smith. What is this? Oh, that's a dinglehopper. You know, and he just acts all authoritative. And it wasn't just the book of Abraham. This is all over the place. They'll say, well, what is this, this skeleton that we found here? Oh, this is Zelf the White Lamanite. Or what are these? This pile of rocks? Oh, this is an altar that Adam and Eve built. And just always coming up with stuff like this, it's just a pattern you'll never find anywhere in Mormon history where Joseph Smith was asked something and he's like, you know, I don't know. Huh.

John Dehlin [00:22:25] He always knows exactly what it is.

Scott Duke [00:22:28] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:22:28] But not.

Scott Duke [00:22:29] Yeah. And so. So I was having the issues with, you know, I decided I was going to just look at everything. I did not want to be blindsided by finding out something in the future that I didn't know about again. So I made a decision to just leave no stone unturned. I'm gonna look at all the information I can. And I tried to do it from both. From both perspectives, like you would if you were a jury member. So I would try to give equal. Equal time to both arguments, so to kind of check myself and make sure I was being objective. Another thing that started to bother me was the. The problems with just epistemology. How do we know things? The Holy Ghost not being credible, you know, meaning.

Coming Out to His Wife and Family

John Dehlin [00:23:23] Meaning emotions can't reliably be viewed as facts or evidence.

Scott Duke [00:23:31] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:23:31] I mean, other people feel the same emotions about their religion. So whose emotions are true?

Scott Duke [00:23:37] Exactly. I could point to times in my married life where my wife and I would pray about something important and. And we would come up with different revelations from God. And it's like, well, how can I be getting one thing and her another if we're, you know, tapped into the same source or, you know, just stories about Paul H. Dunn telling stories that were fabricated and people feeling the spirit, things like that. So it wasn't just, you know, these factual things, but it was just the whole epistemology begin to unravel for me.

Scott Duke [00:24:16] So I Actually stayed in the closet for about a year. And where I told you earlier that I went from about a 99% to 50% over that next year, that just slowly began to erode. And I knew eventually I needed to say something to my wife. You know, I probably should have said something initially, but just the culture of the church shames people for having doubts so severely that I wasn't comfortable doing it initially.

Scott Duke [00:24:42] And I was also thinking, well, maybe I will gain my testimony back and I won't have to, you know, trouble her with this. But as it turned out, things went the other direction. I. I found out that a friend of mine was actually a contributor on the Mormon Expression podcast.

Scott Duke [00:25:05] Tom Perry is a former co worker of mine. And so I actually came out to him. He was the first person I came out to as a non believer. And then maybe a month later I finally did come out to my wife.

Scott Duke [00:25:21] There had been something that had happened at church that day that had just set me off and she could see that something was bothering me and so it came out probably not in the way I wanted it to. I hadn't really planned out how I wanted to say things and it was really awkward.

Scott Duke [00:25:38] But so at that point there was a little bit of a weight lifted because I was no longer in the closet about my disbelief. But the angst from that was replaced by now there's this tension in my marriage.

Scott Duke [00:25:57] And over the next couple of months there were several interventions from friends, family members who all felt that they had something that they could share with me that would help. And I got kind of the full spectrum. I have people in my life who are very New Order Mormon type believers who came to me and offered their perspective. And then I have very conservative thinking, very literal minded friends that took another approach. So I kind of got the whole, the whole array of apologetics. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:26:43] Shout out to Tom. I love. Tom's a good guy.

Scott Duke [00:26:45] So yeah, Tom's a good.

John Dehlin [00:26:47] Shout out to Tom Perry.

Scott Duke [00:26:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:26:50] So you're in full crisis mode and it's stressing the marriage.

Scott Duke [00:26:54] Yeah, yeah, it is. So one of my friends who had approached me trying to. We met two or three times and he was sharing his perspectives with me. He worked at the church office building and he was able to arrange a meeting with Christoffel Golden Jr. And when I was presented with that, I'm like, absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:27:20] Now a lot of us know the name J. Golden Kimball. Is there any connection or do you even know?

Scott Duke [00:27:29] I would think not, because this fellow is from South Africa, so he's A white guy, but has the cool accent.

John Dehlin [00:27:40] Got it.

Scott Duke [00:27:41] So, yeah, So I accepted that because, you know, I was trying to model for my friends and family that when you are trying to learn the truth, that you should look at both sources. You should go, you know, and so that was an opportunity to do that. And also, if I ended up leaving the church, I didn't want to do so. If I didn't feel that I had fully given the church an opportunity to make its case.

Scott Duke [00:28:10] And I wanted my family to see that I had made that effort. And if I hadn't, I could see them going, well, he really didn't try to make it work. You know, we had that meeting with the general authority. He didn't want to. I think, you know, maybe he just really didn't want it to be true, But I just really wanted to be objective and hear all sides. And so I took my friend up on the opportunity to meet with him.

John Dehlin [00:28:35] So what year was this about?

Scott Duke [00:28:37] This was 2012.

John Dehlin [00:28:38] Okay.

Scott Duke [00:28:39] The meeting took place on November 15th. I remember it was right after Romney lost the election, maybe a week or

John Dehlin [00:28:47] two after the second time.

Scott Duke [00:28:49] For the second time.

John Dehlin [00:28:50] Yes.

Scott Duke [00:28:51] When he was an actual nominee for the Republican Party.

John Dehlin [00:28:55] Yeah. Right.

Scott Duke [00:29:00] So my friend told me that Elder golden wanted both me and my wife to come down and meet with him, as well as my friend was going to be there with us. And I was trying to figure out why he would want these other two folks in the room. This was my faith crisis, and I kind of felt like having them there might hinder maybe my ability to speak freely and openly because of the social construct.

John Dehlin [00:29:36] Totally.

Scott Duke [00:29:38] And I wasn't crazy about that. I also thought it might hinder Elder golden wanting to speak openly because I wanted to get into these issues, and my wife really didn't want to hear these things. And I thought he might not want to bring up anything that would trouble her. And so I suggested to her, I said, you know, honey, I'm gonna be bringing up some pretty heavy stuff. If you don't want to hear that, you might not want to attend. And so she decided to opt out. She went down there with me and waited in the lobby of the church office building. But she didn't go up to the. To the room.

The Meeting with Elder Christoffel Golden Jr.

John Dehlin [00:30:16] Really quick, Scott, I'm gonna. I'm just gonna interrupt and let you know that John A. John writes that you baptized him on your mission.

Scott Duke [00:30:23] I did.

John Dehlin [00:30:24] So one of your converts is tuning into your interview today.

Scott Duke [00:30:29] I love the Johns. They were like, when I gave my mission farewell, that was like My story of my golden family.

John Dehlin [00:30:39] How does it feel to know you've got one of your baptisms? Listening to your exit story now.

Scott Duke [00:30:44] I think it's excellent.

John Dehlin [00:30:45] Okay. I also want to give a shout out to Bill Rill. He just told us that recently you heard Elder Rasband say in conference that if we have multiple promptings, we should always follow the first one. So that was similar. I've heard the opposite to our epistemology dilemma. Rasband says, go with the first one. You've heard. Go with the second one.

Scott Duke [00:31:07] I've heard that if the first impression isn't right, that eventually, you know, you'll start to.

John Dehlin [00:31:13] Yeah, the one that works out was the right one.

Scott Duke [00:31:17] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:31:17] Okay. Got it. All right. Oh, sorry. That's. We sidetracked you. Okay, so your wife's in the. Your wife's in the waiting room. It's just you and Elder Golden. Is that right?

Scott Duke [00:31:27] And my friend. That set and your friend.

John Dehlin [00:31:29] Right. Okay.

Scott Duke [00:31:30] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:31:31] All right. So my friend takes me 2012, around. What month?

Scott Duke [00:31:36] November.

John Dehlin [00:31:36] November 2012. Okay, got it.

Scott Duke [00:31:39] Yeah. So my friend comes and gets me, and we go. We go down a level. We go through the cafeteria, through, like, a parking garage, and over to the church administration building where Elder golden has his office. His office was adjacent to Quentin Cook, I believe.

Scott Duke [00:32:02] And so we went in there, and Elder golden couldn't have been more kind or gracious. He just. He said, you know, I really appreciate you coming here to meet with me. I wish I could get out more to meet with the members, but, you know, my duties prevent me from doing that as much as I'd like. So thank you so much for coming. And I was like, you're welcome. And he said, well, what brings you here to talk with me today?

Scott Duke [00:32:29] And so I told him of how I had found information online that I described it as being woken up from, like, a dream. You know, here I am on the outside, and I'm having serious doubts. And I told him I'm having doubts in the areas of history, Egyptology, biology, geology. I listed several ologies.

Scott Duke [00:32:55] And he said, well, we are not going to get into any of that because those are just symptoms of the true problem, which is your loss of the spirit. And once we can get that back, then all that other stuff will come into focus for you.

Scott Duke [00:33:16] And, you know, I just felt these were not small concerns that I was bringing. I was not, like, concerned because the prophet misspelled my name on my mission call or some petty thing. These are heavy concerns, and for him to just wave them away.

John Dehlin [00:33:35] This time it's polyandry, Right?

Scott Duke [00:33:37] It's polygamy.

John Dehlin [00:33:38] It's Book of Abraham.

Scott Duke [00:33:39] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:33:40] Tell us really quickly the major issues again. You talked about Abraham.

Scott Duke [00:33:45] Okay, so the Book of Abraham was really like the biggest one in the middle of all these other ones that

John Dehlin [00:33:50] were kind of peripheral, that it's not a translation.

Scott Duke [00:33:53] Yeah, yeah, that was huge because that was what woke me up. But then when I started looking at everything else, it was Joseph Smith being married to 14 year old girls to other men's wives. The tactics that he used to strong arm these girls into marrying him by holding salvation in front of them at ransom, you know, by telling them that he was going to be destroyed by an angel if they didn't marry him.

Scott Duke [00:34:23] The Book of Mormon problems, the anachronisms, the plagiarism, the Old Testament was an issue for me. Just God in general being a genocidal maniac in the Old Testament did not align with the Jesus of the New Testament for me.

Scott Duke [00:34:44] So this, this wasn't just Mormonism and Christianity. I mean, this is just. Yeah, it's very big and epistemology. So those are some of my big issues. And he just, he just waved them away. Well, we're not going to get into any of that. That's not important.

Scott Duke [00:35:01] And I felt like I had shown up for like a football game with a tennis racket. Like we weren't even on the same page as what we were going to be accomplishing at that meeting. I came prepared with questions and he's like, no, no, we're not, we're not doing that.

Scott Duke [00:35:18] Like, okay. So then one of the next things he said, he said, you know, I have met with several people who have been former CES instructors, former bishops who have lost their testimony. And when they sit here before me, every single one of them, they are just a shell of the person that they once were.

John Dehlin [00:35:48] So that's just like, just like Don Clark's interview with Trevor Haugen where he basically says, you'll never be happy. You know, you think, you think, you know, Mormons may have their problems, but non Mormons have a. Have it really bad. You know, it's just this fear tactic. It's almost like an abusive spouse saying, you can't be happy or healthy without me. You know, that's. That tactic comes up almost every time someone meets at the General Authority. And it's one of the most disgusting, offensive things you can say. Right?

Scott Duke [00:36:22] Yeah. And I didn't take it. I mean, he may have meant that they were a Shell in the sense that they were, like, broken and depressed. But I also took it to mean, like, just morally just a shell. You know, by the way.

John Dehlin [00:36:34] By the way, maybe sometimes people struggle after they've left the church because they've been rejected and disowned and abandoned and ostracized by the people they love most.

Scott Duke [00:36:48] Sure.

John Dehlin [00:36:49] Like, you know, that's something that hopefully he can become educated and sensitive enough to understand, even though that's going to be rare because most of the people I know thrive. So, yeah, yeah.

Scott Duke [00:37:02] This does not encourage me to open up to him about my questions because he's telling me that anyone that he sees that disagrees with the church is, in his view, a shell of a person.

John Dehlin [00:37:13] Right.

Scott Duke [00:37:14] I mean, that would be like if you were to interview someone who's maybe a recent convert to the church and they agreed to come on. And then you said, now, before we get going, I just want to let you know that every convert to Mormonism I've ever met, they've got like a brainwashed, glazed overlook about the. You know, if that's what you think of me, I'm. They're not gonna wanna talk to you. Not that you. You think that, and I know that you don't, but if you were to

John Dehlin [00:37:41] say something like that, I should just say that the people are upset. The commenters are saying things like, Marie writes, where will you go? That's the rhetoric that's been used lately. Patricia writes, wow, that is so demeaning. Amanda writes, that's so insulting. You know, people hate lots of frowny faces on. On Facebook for that part of the story.

Scott Duke [00:38:06] Yeah. So at this point in the meeting, I just kind of, in my mind, I say, you know, I'm not. I'm not doing this. This is not what I came here to do. And I've been insulted, and I'm just gonna be quiet and listen to what he has to say and take it into account and move on.

Scott Duke [00:38:28] So I really didn't engage much. I kind of disengaged at that point. So let's get into some of the really interesting things he said, though. So he was telling me that he was listening to a radio program locally and they had an atheist on who was disparaging people for having faith.

Scott Duke [00:38:54] And then Elder golden says, now what this atheist fellow doesn't realize, and this is not something that the prophets will talk about when they go on Larry King Live or whatever, but the thing that this atheist does not realize is that there are men who walk the earth today who no longer require faith in order to believe in the Father and the Son.

Scott Duke [00:39:22] They no longer require the scriptures as their primary source of information about deity because they have had a sure witness. And then he said, I am one of those men.

John Dehlin [00:39:41] So he kind of pulls the special witness of Christ card on you. Yeah, yeah.

Scott Duke [00:39:47] And then he would later say, with the exception of living at a different time and place, I have essentially had the same experiences as Joseph Smith. So what is he trying to say there? I mean, go back to your days.

John Dehlin [00:40:08] I've seen God. I've seen God in Jesus.

Scott Duke [00:40:10] Yeah, that. That's what he's trying to convey. And that's what my friend. What My friend was just. You could see him just going crazy hearing this. He was loving it. Yeah. Well, let's talk a little bit about whether or not I think he was lying, shall we?

John Dehlin [00:40:35] How did you feel when he said that?

Scott Duke [00:40:37] Well, you know, I. Actually, for a moment, I did feel a little bit of what I would have at one time described as the spirit. And I think that that might be because, you know, in the church, we kind of get programmed. We have these neural pathways that are developed.

Scott Duke [00:40:54] I still get it when I hear a hymn. You know, there's just. It's like a Pavlovian type of an effect where certain buttons are pushed and you get a reaction. And all my time growing up in the church, I assumed these men did speak to God and Christ.

Scott Duke [00:41:14] But you go on faith that they do. You don't have that evidence. And so then when someone gives you a piece of evidence that that is in fact true, there's sort of a reward mentally, you know, in your brain you get from hearing that.

Scott Duke [00:41:29] So my friend was just. His reward centers were going off the charts here and that. But I got a little bit of that, which I just think is from. From the programming. But I think that's really the only time. And not that I trust feelings anymore is the thing. So even though I felt that I'm checking myself mentally that, you know, I'm not going to believe something just because I feel a little twinge of emotion. Anyway.

John Dehlin [00:42:00] Right.

Scott Duke [00:42:01] So.

John Dehlin [00:42:02] But that's a pretty heavy card to lay on somebody. I've seen God Checkmate. You know, it's like, boop, checkmate. I've seen God of Jesus.

Scott Duke [00:42:10] And I've heard. I've heard of stories of them saying things like that where they'll just say, well, it's too sacred to talk about. But I think this is about the most explicit description of something like that. I'D heard. So I was a little taken back by that.

John Dehlin [00:42:24] And we can say, oh, my gosh, that's powerful. Maybe he has. But, you know, Jim Jones or David Koresh or just name your cult leader, they claim to see God in Jesus or to be God in Jesus. Like, does that make it true? You know?

Scott Duke [00:42:38] Well, it's not a testable claim. That's the thing. The problem with Mormonism, though, is that all the claims that are testable fall flat. And so, you know, that doesn't give a lot of credibility to, like that. And, you know, Joseph Smith taught. See, I got the quote here. He said, that which is wrong under one circumstance may be and often is right under another. God said, thou shalt not kill. At another time, he said, thou shalt utterly destroy. So whatever God requires is right, no matter what it is. And that would include lying. And if. If lying, you know, increases someone's faith, you know, maybe the means is worth the end.

John Dehlin [00:43:26] Right.

Scott Duke [00:43:29] You know, and in the early days, we know they lied through their teeth about polygamy. And the 11 witnesses, you know, they said that they saw angels, they said they saw the plates. But then later, when they were pressed for details, they would admit that it was not so much in a.

Scott Duke [00:43:49] A literal, material sense, it was in a visionary, spiritual sense that they saw and felt these things. And so I think you can redefine terms in your mind, and then you don't feel like you're being dishonest when you say it.

Scott Duke [00:44:03] And I probably did the same thing on my mission. You know, I would say I know the church is true, and I didn't know, but I think I redefined in my mind what it means to know something that you can know in a. In a hopeful sense or something. And. And eventually I got to where I could look people in the eye and say it, and I didn't feel dishonest.

John Dehlin [00:44:24] Yeah.

Scott Duke [00:44:25] And so I think there may be some of that going on. Another thing he said, he says, no, I'm going to tell you this, but I cannot talk about it any further because I have been commanded not to. And see, that's a red flag for me because, you know, police investigators will tell you that it would be like on the second or third or fourth layer, questioning, where a lie starts to unravel. And so he's saying, well, I'm going to make this claim, but you can't ask me any questions about it. Like, well, okay, under this. This guise of it being sacred.

John Dehlin [00:45:00] Right. Yeah, I'm going to. I'm going to just jump in with a couple comments as you're gathering your next thoughts. Tiffany writes, scott is a high school friend. Great to hear your story. That's Tiffany Duncan.

Scott Duke [00:45:13] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:45:14] Cameron writes, elder Golding came to my mission also in 2011 and he was just as dismissive. So Cameron's not a big fan of Elder Golden. Danny writes, I served in South Africa from 2003 to 2005 and had several chances to hear golden speak. And I was randomly interviewed by him because he was on the presidency of the area, of the area Authority. Even as a believer, I did not like this guy. He seemed pompous and arrogant, which was a strong contrast to Elder Snow, the area president who always seemed so loving.

John Dehlin [00:45:46] Leah writes, true believers can't imagine outside their religion a life outside their religion. They claim nothing else is out there. This is interesting. Cicely writes, listening from South Africa. So we've got a South African listener she says grew up in the church with Elder Golden. Not surprised at his response. I am thriving and happy after my own exit. So a lot of people who have met Elder golden didn't love him, you know, at least of my listeners. Christina writes, how rude, insulting and abusive in terms of his reaction to you.

John Dehlin [00:46:23] So, and then Paul writes, self delusion does not equal. Sure witness. Sorry, Golden. So lots of comments about Elder Golden. Alright, so what's next? What happened next in your story?

Unusual Stories Elder Golden Shared

Scott Duke [00:46:36] Okay, another interesting story. He told me about a time when he was on assignment in another country and he was taken to see a woman who was possessed with a demon.

John Dehlin [00:46:53] Okay.

Scott Duke [00:46:54] And when he walks in the room, she looks untestable.

John Dehlin [00:46:57] Right. How would you know if somebody had a demon? Right, right.

Scott Duke [00:47:01] But she, she, she looked at him and like in this demonic voice she goes, I know who you are. And yeah,

John Dehlin [00:47:13] and, and, and what happened according to him?

Scott Duke [00:47:16] Well, he, the point of this story was that we can allow Satan to get into our lives and it doesn't necessarily need to be a major sin. He said that the sin that this woman was guilty of that allowed Satan into her life is that she liked.

Scott Duke [00:47:34] So apparently you can become like full on demonically like Linda Blair for gossip, spinning around. Because for gossiping. This is where he's really starting to kind of lose me. Because I had said earlier I kind of felt some emotional buttons being pushed. But you know, even as a, as a believing member, the idea of demonic possession always seemed silly to me. When I would read the New Testament, I thought, well, look, these people that wrote this did not know what mental illness was. Clearly that's that was what was going on here. And Jesus just healed them of some sort of mental illness.

Scott Duke [00:48:14] I didn't really believe in it much, even as a believer. And so this was just kind of cartoonish to me, this idea of this woman that thinks she's possessed.

John Dehlin [00:48:23] Right.

Scott Duke [00:48:24] And it made sense to me that it's. It was in another country, too. I think that's more prevalent in other countries where people are more superstitious and. Anyway.

John Dehlin [00:48:33] Right. Okay, so he pulls out the demonic possession story.

Scott Duke [00:48:38] That was interesting.

John Dehlin [00:48:39] Yeah.

Scott Duke [00:48:40] He. He also told me that, in his opinion, the reason that Joseph Smith may have been called as a prophet was because he was the most pure and holy vessel on the earth at that time. And I'm thinking, you know, didn't I tell you at the beginning of this meeting that I had studied history? And you can't. You know, if he had said, you know, for whatever reason, despite his many flaws, God chose this imperfect. You know, I could have accepted that a little easier than that. Joseph Smith was the most pure and holy vessel. I mean, Warren Jeffs is about as pure and holy a vessel as Joseph Smith.

John Dehlin [00:49:29] So he's not speaking your language when he's speaking.

Scott Duke [00:49:31] He's losing me now.

John Dehlin [00:49:33] Yeah.

Scott Duke [00:49:35] Another thing he said is. He said, you don't ever need to worry about whether or not the church is true. You just don't need to worry about it. And he said, I would counsel you to not ever lay a hand on any material that is critical of the church, even if it contains facts, because even if the things in it are true, it's not so much a matter of truthfulness. It's the spirit in which it was written. And at this point, you know, I had been studying, like, psychology of cults. You know, I knew that all the other groups do this. They. They tell you not to look, and that's not what you do. If you are confident that you have the truth, you encourage people to look at both sides. So red flags everywhere.

John Dehlin [00:50:25] Yeah. I'll just jump in and say that when studying cults, you learn about the bite model, which is that sort of cult behaviors try and they control your behavior, they try and control information, they try and control your thoughts, and they try and control you through emotions. And so, yeah, trying to limit the information that you access is the sure sign of something really wrong. I'm going to just also just throw out there that Heather, your sister has joined us.

Scott Duke [00:50:55] Hi, Heather.

John Dehlin [00:50:56] She says, I had the courage to learn more about church history because of Scott. I have my own doubts but this helped me resolve to leave the church for good. A couple funny comments about the idea that gossip can lead to demonic possession. Phoebe writes, how in the world are any people not possessed then?

John Dehlin [00:51:14] And Jessica writes, good gracious, the entire Relief Society of the church is in big trouble if gossip leads to demonic possession. So I thought that was funny. So anyway, and then Sean writes, I can't get my mind around a person who would actually say that they had seen and talked to God and Jesus. How does someone live and breathe knowing they said that? I mean, if he's actually seen it, that's one thing. But, yeah, if you sort of assume that God and Jesus aren't there, then it either means he's lying or deluded or has some sort of. He's sort of interpreted his life experience in a way that's very aggressive. Anyway, just a few.

Scott Duke [00:52:00] And they're being duplicitous because he'll tell me this in private. But then, you know, they go out in public and like Larry King says, so your people say that you talk with Jesus. And he goes, oh, it's not like that.

John Dehlin [00:52:12] You know, and that's what I think. That's what Joseph Fielding Smith did when he was in front of the Smoot hearings when the under oath, when the US Senate was, okay, are you really a prophet? And he was like, well, you know. And that's just.

Scott Duke [00:52:27] He said he gets inspiration, but he hasn't had a revelation as. As the president of the church, I think.

John Dehlin [00:52:34] One more thing. Tyler Reese writes, I'm a friend of Scott's from way back. I've studied much of the same things Scott has, and I still believe in the church. One needs to be wary of the spin that has been put on history and other documents. All the best to you, Scott. So Tyler's warning us. Tyler's warning us about the spin, that it's just the spin.

Scott Duke [00:52:54] I encourage looking at both sides.

John Dehlin [00:52:56] Yeah.

Scott Duke [00:52:56] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:52:56] Okay, so what happened next in your story? This is great.

Scott Duke [00:53:01] So, okay, so he asked me, he goes, so how have you felt here as we've talked today? And, you know, it had been over an hour maybe, going on two hours of this meeting. I didn't want it to last any longer. So I just said, well, you know, I've had some of the same feelings as we've talked that I remember feeling earlier in my believing days, which is true, I had had one or two little feelings of what I would have described as the spirit. I didn't tell him that I was going through a mental checklist. Of cult tactics. But I did say, you know, I felt some of the feelings that I felt previously. And he goes, well, you know, I feel a different spirit about you now than I did when you first came in here.

John Dehlin [00:53:47] Oh, wow.

Scott Duke [00:53:48] Which is. He's lost. I'm further away than when I first came in. But, okay, so his discernment was off. And then he said, you know, if you're. If you and your wife were ever here on Temple Square, I'd like to meet her. You should bring her up to my office. And I said, well, you know, she's actually here. She's out in the lobby. And he goes, you know, I would really like to meet her before we conclude our meeting.

Scott Duke [00:54:12] And so I say, okay. So my friend and I, we go back out, we go across the parking lot, we go up to the lobby, we get my wife, we go back. And so now he has the three of us.

Scott Duke [00:54:27] And he says, no, Brother Duke, I'm not going to let you leave without getting a blessing. Okay, sure, give me a blessing. And then he says, no, no, after I give you a blessing, I want you to give your wife a blessing.

John Dehlin [00:54:48] What do you think? What do you think's going on here? What's the tactic or technique?

Scott Duke [00:54:52] Well, he's trying to do the same thing that they do when they try to get you to bear your testimony when you really don't have one, hoping that in the bearing of a testimony, you will gain your testimony.

John Dehlin [00:55:03] And the emotionality of, like having been given a blessing and then putting your hands on your wife's head and her earnestness for you is going to manufacture strong emotions that then he's going to say, see, that's God testifying to you.

Scott Duke [00:55:18] Sure. And I felt that way every time I gave a blessing growing up. I'd give my kids father's blessings before they would start school. And I felt love for them when I would say the things I wanted for them in their lives. That's not the spirit. I don't believe that. That's pretty natural. But then he wants me to feel that. And so he gives me this blessing. And the whole time, I'm just. I don't even remember what he said, because I'm thinking, how do I get out of this?

Scott Duke [00:55:50] So the blessings over, and now it's my time. I'm supposed to give a blessing. And I said, you know, Elder Golden, a couple weeks ago, my wife wasn't feeling well, and she asked me about giving her a blessing. And I told her, you know, I really don't have faith in what I'm doing anymore. It would be dishonest for me to give you a blessing.

Scott Duke [00:56:10] I'm hoping that he's gonna take the hint and go, okay, obviously you're not comfortable with it, but he says, oh, no, no, no, no. Don't you worry about that. You just say whatever your desires are for your wife, and God will honor your blessing.

Scott Duke [00:56:26] I mean, I'm really not even what the church would consider worthy. I don't have a testimony, you know, but he wants me to exercise my priesthood and say something that he's asking me to lie. And I've talked to people since, and they say, oh, well, if I was in that position, I would have just blessed my wife that she would leave the church with me.

Scott Duke [00:56:48] I'm like, would you really? I mean, had I done that, that would have effectively caused my divorce right there. You know what I mean?

John Dehlin [00:56:54] Yeah. For many it would have. Yeah.

Scott Duke [00:56:56] Who would do that? And so just with the social constraint, I just. I gave her a short blessing. I just felt sick about it the whole time because I knew I didn't believe in what I was doing and that I was giving my wife false hope that wasn't there.

John Dehlin [00:57:17] That just feels very manipulative. And I'm. Eric writes, elder golden is super manipulative. It's terrible. Melissa writes, this is unbelievable. So manipulative. Cameron writes, sounds like a wonderful dose of emotional manipulation to me. I mean, it's. That is just incredibly manipulative to do that in front of your believing wife. Yeah, that's awful.

Life After the Meeting and Leaving the Church

Scott Duke [00:57:42] So the meeting's over now, and we're leaving. And my friend.

John Dehlin [00:57:47] Okay, so wait, so you did or you did not give the blessing?

Scott Duke [00:57:50] I did give a blessing.

John Dehlin [00:57:51] Okay.

Scott Duke [00:57:53] It was very short. I just. I wasn't very specific, you know, just general, you know, good things for my wife. Sort of a blessing.

John Dehlin [00:58:05] Yeah.

Scott Duke [00:58:05] But I felt uncomfortable the whole time, of course. So now the meeting's over, and my friend that had escorted us there, he needed a ride home because he had. His bus had left because he'd stayed later than he normally did. So we were giving him a ride home.

Scott Duke [00:58:23] And then we stopped. We stopped off in Lehigh because my wife was meeting some friends of hers because it was the opening night of breaking Dawn Part 2, and they were having a little movie night with the ladies.

Scott Duke [00:58:39] And so after she got out of the car, my friend says, well, that's really nice that you allow your wife to go out so often. And it sounded a little misogynistic. I said, well, do you not allow your wife to go out to the movies? And he goes, well, she really doesn't like to go out that much, but I don't mind occasionally if she's done her chores. He said, if she's done her chores.

John Dehlin [00:59:08] Oh, wow. Would you just try to be funny?

Scott Duke [00:59:10] No. That's what I thought. My jaw dropped. And he goes, you think I'm kidding? I'm not. Oh, how are we friends? I don't. So anyway. But my friend, the whole time, he's wanting to know what I'm thinking. Well, so are. You know, you're back in, right. You know, what are you thinking? And I kind of felt like, you know, if you've ever gone to one of these timeshare presentations, they want you to make a decision right there.

John Dehlin [00:59:33] Yeah, for sure.

Scott Duke [00:59:33] You know, they don't want you to go home and think about it. He's trying to get me to. Okay, you're back in. Right. And I'm like, you know, I really just need time to think about what happened back there and process it.

John Dehlin [00:59:42] All right.

Scott Duke [00:59:43] And I didn't want to tip my. My hand too much, what I was thinking.

John Dehlin [00:59:46] Right.

Scott Duke [00:59:50] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:59:51] So they want to close the deal while the emotions are still high.

Scott Duke [00:59:55] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:59:57] Classic. Classic sales technique.

Scott Duke [01:00:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:00:00] Yeah.

Scott Duke [01:00:02] So. So that was on Thursday, the meeting. For the next couple of days, I'm just going over in my mind the manipulation, particularly that part about me giving a blessing. That was just eating at me. I felt a lot like it's what they do in the temple. You know, they get you there, and your friends and family are all here. Nobody's gonna get up and walk out of the temple.

John Dehlin [01:00:29] Right, yeah.

Scott Duke [01:00:30] You know, and historically, they used to have you get endowed on the same day as your wedding. So they were holding your wedding over you. If you got up and walked out, not only do you look silly in front of your friends and family, your wedding is now off. I mean, come on. Like, free will and choice? I don't think so.

Scott Duke [01:00:52] And so, yeah, it reminded me of the temple thing. And I was just thinking of all the times in my life that I'd kind of been corralled into believing and thinking what I do. And I was just. I'm getting angry. And I'm also thinking about times in my life when I should have been offended by the church, and I wasn't.

Scott Duke [01:01:16] So one instance of that was like, I told you my wedding day being totally screwed up. Another thing that came to my mind while I was in this angry state was when I was 18 years old, and I was preparing to get ready for a mission.

Scott Duke [01:01:39] I was. I was still having a difficult time not masturbating. And my bishop was comfortable with me going on my mission. It wasn't. It wasn't that frequent. And his feeling was, look, you know, all young men struggle with this.

Scott Duke [01:02:03] It's not out of control. This is not that habitual. You're gonna get into the empty sea and the environment there, so spiritual. I think by that point, you'll. You'll be able to be free from the habit. I'm comfortable sending you. But my stake president was quite insistent that he not send out any missionaries that were not completely free of that habit.

Scott Duke [01:02:21] And so I was meeting with my stake president every couple weeks. And on one instance, he asked me, he goes, no. Are you viewing anything in connection with this? And I said, well, you know, we have cable television, Cinemax. This was like before people really had the Internet much.

Scott Duke [01:02:40] And then he told me, he said, if you do not overcome this, the day will come when you will not be worth a damn to anyone.

John Dehlin [01:03:01] Yeah. Now this is when you're. This is when you're a teenager, right?

Scott Duke [01:03:04] Yeah, I'm 18.

John Dehlin [01:03:05] Yeah.

Scott Duke [01:03:09] And, you know, I really. I didn't believe him.

John Dehlin [01:03:13] You know, I always feel. How did that make you feel?

Scott Duke [01:03:15] I was horrible. I mean, I already felt embarrassment and shame over this and. But I. Again, I don't think it. I let myself feel what you would normally feel. I kind of suppressed. And that's why it's now coming out as I'm deconstructing the church. This anger now is finally coming out years later. But I don't think I really believed him at the time, that I would not be worth a damn to anyone. That's a pretty extreme statement. I always held the apostles on a pedestal, but I figured the local leaders were kind of winging it quite a bit of the time. And so I'm like, well, that's just his opinion. And I didn't take it too seriously. But, you know, this. A certain type of personality type, this could drive someone to suicide. A statement like that.

John Dehlin [01:04:01] Right.

Scott Duke [01:04:03] That's just so, you know, if people need a reason to not let their kids be alone with the priesthood leader, there's. There's another one you can add to the. So I'm going through this in my mind, and I'm just becoming angry. I'm at work. This was on Saturday, and I kind of had a little mental breakdown at work. And I went. I found a restroom and I went in and I took off my garment tops and I didn't have any underwear to change into, so I just cut the marking out of my knee so I wouldn't be wearing garments.

John Dehlin [01:04:40] Oh, wow.

Scott Duke [01:04:41] Because I just. I'm not going to be controlled anymore, you know.

John Dehlin [01:04:45] So this is now we're back to after your meeting.

Scott Duke [01:04:48] Yeah, this is after my meeting. I'm thinking of this, all these experiences in the church and all the manipulation I've been through, and I'm just not going to be controlled anymore. So.

John Dehlin [01:04:59] So you go to the bathroom of your workplace?

Scott Duke [01:05:02] Yeah, I was actually out outdoors. I worked outside, but I found a restroom. And.

John Dehlin [01:05:09] And you take off your garment top?

Scott Duke [01:05:11] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:05:12] And what else?

Scott Duke [01:05:13] And then I cut the knee mark out because I didn't have any underwear to change into, but I didn't want to be wearing garments.

John Dehlin [01:05:18] Oh, my goodness.

Scott Duke [01:05:18] Like, well, I'll take the knee mark out and then it won't be garments.

John Dehlin [01:05:21] Oh my gosh. That's so. That's like a cinematic moment. I could see it in a movie. Like, you must. Were you crying? You must have been really upset.

Scott Duke [01:05:29] Yeah, yeah. But when I did that, it was just like there's this weight lifted. I was able to, you know, finish my work day fine without, you know, being bothered by this anymore.

John Dehlin [01:05:40] So you were becoming overcome emotionally.

Scott Duke [01:05:43] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:05:44] I'm so sorry.

Scott Duke [01:05:45] So that night, Saturday night was, was date night. So I decided probably not to tell my wife that night that I was. That I was done. But the next morning when it was time to get up and go to church, I let her know, no, I'm. I'm not going. I am. And I told her, you know, what happened with, with Elder golden just kind of sealed the deal for me. I mean, I was almost all the way there. It just was the final nudge.

John Dehlin [01:06:10] Right.

Scott Duke [01:06:13] And so she went. I think she went to just sacrament meeting. I don't think she took the kids because she was upset and didn't want them to see her upset. And then she went and actually met with my friend who had. Had gone to the church office building with us. He called me, I talked to him for a little while, but I just kind of set some boundaries. I said, you know, we're done having all these discussions now. My mind is made up. And he's like, well, okay then. So the next little while was just okay. So that was. That was Sunday. Next day is Monday. And my wife had scheduled family picture day for that night. And she let me know that she did not want me to be in the pictures. And I'm like, so I.

John Dehlin [01:07:09] She didn't want you to be in the family pictures.

Scott Duke [01:07:11] Yeah. And I'm like, so I feel like I'm being kicked out of the family. She goes, no, no, I'm not saying I want a divorce. Just right now. She goes, I don't even. I don't want to be in the pictures either, because I'm upset. I can't pretend to be happy. So I'm just going to tell the kids that we're just taking their pictures. We're just doing, you know, children's pictures today. Okay.

John Dehlin [01:07:37] All right.

Scott Duke [01:07:40] So she goes, but after we get back from. From the pictures, I think you should sit down and tell the kids what's going on. So. So that evening, they get home, by

John Dehlin [01:07:51] the way, people are going to say, that's over. Dramatic. I have a very close friend who told his wife he didn't believe anymore. And her reaction was, I want a divorce. And this was after 20 plus years of complete, devoted service to the church and to the family. And it was as immediate as the words were uttered. Yeah, it totally, totally happens all the time, right?

Scott Duke [01:08:18] Absolutely, absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:08:21] It's why I do what I do. It's why the open stories. Foundations exist because families are being destroyed, period. Yeah.

Scott Duke [01:08:31] So we sat the kids down. I told them that I had had a change in my beliefs. I no longer believed in the church because of some information I had learned online, which I had double and triple checked. I remember some of the kids crying, some of them kind of being indifferent. I had actually a stepson who at this point, we had been on parallel tracks investigating the church, and we didn't even know about the other. So my oldest stepson at this point was mostly out as well, mentally. But some of the other kids were upset. My second oldest called the bishop, and he came and he took this boy for a ride around the neighborhood and explained to him that he is now the Nephi of the family.

John Dehlin [01:09:25] So manipulative.

Scott Duke [01:09:28] And then maybe 10 or 15 minutes later, I went up to my daughter's room to see how she was doing. And she was laying on it. She was laying on her bed, and she was clutching this little baptism book that we had given her a year earlier when she'd been baptized.

Scott Duke [01:09:51] There was a page in there that said mom's testimony, and then the opposite page said dad's testimony and blank lines. We had written our testimonies in this little scrapbook, and she had taken a pen and she had X'd out my testimony.

Scott Duke [01:10:07] And she said, so. So you don't believe in any of this. Now, I said, well, let me see. And I looked over what I had written. The last three words that I had written were I love you. So I took her pen and I circled those words.

Scott Duke [01:10:31] And she just started crying and we hugged each other. And I think that's what kids need sometimes. They conflate believing in the church and loving your family, you know, and they just need to know you still love them. So.

John Dehlin [01:10:56] I'm so sorry. That's so moving.

Scott Duke [01:11:00] Yeah, but you know, the thing that the church, because you know the church is supposed to be perfect, when something like this happens, members, they can't blame the church. So they either start blaming the doubter or they even blame themselves.

Scott Duke [01:11:20] My wife blamed herself. In fact, my friend that had been at the church office building with us had told her, he goes, you know, I kind of wonder if maybe if you hadn't been off with your friends that night, if you had been there with him that night after the meeting, if maybe he would have come to a different conclusion.

Scott Duke [01:11:42] Blaming her for, for going out that night, making her feel that it's partly her fault. My daughter later would, would blame herself. She came to me one time, she goes, dad, I think I know why you left the church. And I said, why? Why is it that you think I did that?

Scott Duke [01:12:00] And she says, well, in my baby blessing. Now when she was a baby, we had actually transcribed. My mother in law took shorthand and wrote out all the things I said in the blessing and we printed it off for her to have. My daughter said, well, in my baby blessing, you blessed me that I would be a peacemaker.

Scott Duke [01:12:24] I hate this. And she goes, I'm not a very good kid sometimes. And so you think that because that didn't come true that the church isn't true. I just, I hate that, that people and my mother, you know, same thing, she's like, well, this a great track record I have with my children who have left the church. I just hate how because the church has to be perfect, we have to look to ourselves to put the blame, you know, Anyway,

John Dehlin [01:13:08] it's just heartbreaking. Yeah, I'll just say I've been putting together a list of ways that religion harms people and splitting up. Well, the shame, the shame is rising to the top, just causing people to have so much shame. And then right next to it is it divides families. And a kind of a third on that is that it creates scarcity so that it can present itself as the solution. And so it tells people, you won't be with your family in heaven unless, you know, by default, unless you have the church in your life. And it just raises the stakes and just can tear families apart when the church claims to be all about families and what a terrible burden to put on a little kid.

Scott Duke [01:14:02] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:14:04] And you and your family.

Scott Duke [01:14:06] Can I make a clarification? I just thought of.

John Dehlin [01:14:08] Sure.

Scott Duke [01:14:09] When I had talked about my meeting with my stake president as a teenager, I actually had two stake presidents around that same time. So anyone that knew me growing up, I don't want them to confused which stake president I'm talking about. So this would have been the. The one that was the stake president in the late 80s to early 90s. It was actually when they called a new stake president when. It was when I decided to try sending in my papers again.

John Dehlin [01:14:37] Sure.

Scott Duke [01:14:38] So anyway, I don't want to malign the wrong person.

John Dehlin [01:14:42] Sure.

Marriage Struggles and Moving Forward

Scott Duke [01:14:43] Anyway, so where am I in my story? So. So marriage problems now. It was very frustrating. I remember being told countless times how I had chosen not to believe and trying to defend that I had not chosen this. You know, I mean, you take anything that you don't believe in, Santa Claus, whatever, now choose to believe in it. You can't just choose to believe in something you don't.

Scott Duke [01:15:20] But yet I was told I had chosen to believe in it. And we started talking about divorce. And, you know, if you've ever been in a testimony meeting where there's a recent convert and they say, you know, when I joined the church, my family disowned me.

Scott Duke [01:15:36] And how do Mormons react to that story? I mean, there's an audible gasp in the sacrament meeting room when someone says they were disowned by their family for joining the church. You know, and yet without even catching the irony, members of the church will then turn around and do the exact same thing to their family members.

Scott Duke [01:16:00] And so I remember at one time asking my wife, I gave her a hypothetical situation. I said, no, what if we had both been raised, say, Catholic and we had got married and we had decided we were going to raise our children the Catholic Church. And then one day the LDS missionaries knocked on the door and you heard their message and you believed that it was true and wanted to join the church. Would I be justified in divorcing you for changing your beliefs?

Scott Duke [01:16:32] And I don't even think that the analogy computed with her. She just. It didn't seem to make sense to her, but to me, it's the same thing. You know, you've changed your beliefs not because you chose to, but because they changed. And now we're talking about divorce.

Scott Duke [01:16:54] So I was told that I had broken my covenants. Now, at this point, really, I was still for the most part, living an LDS lifestyle. So by breaking my covenants, that means I wasn't wearing my garments and I wasn't taking the sacrament because I did not feel comfortable doing that because I felt like it was lying. But you know, I. I wasn't using profane language. I wasn't breaking the word of wisdom. I was staying faithful to my wife. You know, I was even willing to, in a sense, pay tithing. I said, now if tithing is a deal breaker for you, I'm willing to take 10% and give it to a good charity, you know, which essentially would be doing God's work.

Scott Duke [01:17:42] It's just not going to the church if I won't give it to the church. But I was willing to pay tithing if that was a deal breaker. But so I guess I was breaking covenants because I didn't believe.

Scott Duke [01:17:57] Anyway, yeah, things just were not going well with my wife and she had asked me to move out at one point and it looked like divorce was imminent. And at that time, I wrote a letter to Dieter F. Uchtdorf because I felt like of all the general authorities, he might be the most open.

John Dehlin [01:18:18] Yeah. Around 2012, he was really hitting some home runs in General Conference.

Scott Duke [01:18:23] Yeah. In fact, he had just given a well known talk about was the doubt your doubts talk.

John Dehlin [01:18:31] Oh, okay. That wasn't my favorite.

Scott Duke [01:18:34] Well, it was in that same talk that he did say some other things that I remember you were happy with. He talked about how, you know, people often think that you leave because you're offended, lazy, or want to sin, and it's not that simple. That's the same talk that he said. That.

John Dehlin [01:18:51] That's right.

Scott Duke [01:18:53] So this is my letter I wrote to President Uchtdorf. I said, dear President Uchtdorf, I am one of the members of the church that you made reference to in the latest General Conference. I have come to a firm conviction that the church is not true. I doubted my doubts before. I doubted my faith. And my reasons had nothing to do with being offended, lazy, or having a desire to sin.

Scott Duke [01:19:16] I appreciated your words to the membership to discourage such stereotyping and your sentiments of respect to those who take a different path. I don't know that the church leadership is in the practice of taking advice from apostates, but here goes.

Scott Duke [01:19:33] If there were only one thing I could ask of you, it wouldn't be to refund my tithing or anything like that. The one thing I would ask is please, please, please would you counsel the members who to not divorce their otherwise good, devoted, loving spouse due to his or her loss of belief in the church?

Scott Duke [01:19:59] Ideally, this would come from a member of the First Presidency during General Conference. Please give this thoughtful consideration. Thank you. Sincerely, Scott Duke. That was my letter. I was surprised to get a response because I was told that letters to general authorities just get forwarded to your Stake Presidency.

Scott Duke [01:20:25] This was his response to me. Dear Brother Duke, thank you for your recent letter in which you shared your thoughts and feelings. I am grateful you read or listen to my talk at the recent General Conference in which I spoke to those who have doubts.

Elder Golden's Follow-Up Letter

Scott Duke [01:20:41] I am grateful for the service you have provided to so many as a church member and full time missionary and as a husband and father in your home. God has been aware of you and mindful of your struggles. As I mentioned in my conference address, I invite you to come and join with us.

Scott Duke [01:21:00] You have specific talents and experiences that are needed. There are contributions only you can make. You are loved by your family and have influenced many others for good during your life. And the Lord wants you back as a loving father. He will present you with opportunities and individuals to help you as you turn to Him. Please know that you are his beloved son and he is anxious to bless you. With kindest regards, Dieter F Uchtdorf. So he didn't even mention the main thing that I was writing to him about. He just invited me to come back.

John Dehlin [01:21:33] How'd that make you feel?

Scott Duke [01:21:37] I would have just as soon not gotten a response at all for him to just avoid the very thing that I was pleading with him to address.

John Dehlin [01:21:46] Because that made you feel what?

Scott Duke [01:21:47] Yes. Just like Elder Gold made me feel. Made me feel dismissed.

John Dehlin [01:21:54] Made you feel dismissed?

Scott Duke [01:21:56] Yeah. You know, and they know that this is a problem. They know that there are couples getting divorced over this as being the main issue. And they're aware of it. And to the extent that they don't address it, I feel like they're complicit.

John Dehlin [01:22:15] I've said this in a previous episode, but I'll just say this. I had two meetings with Elder Holland Apostle Jeffrey R. Holland, and in the second meeting I told him about the way that the faith crisis issue was tearing families apart. And I specifically asked him if the church could come out with a statement basically saying that losing one's faith should not be grounds for divorce if the marriage is healthy and good in all the other ways. And he literally said to me, maybe when the church is more mature.

John Dehlin [01:22:49] We'll be able to say things like that. But right now, we're not in a position where we're able to say things like that. And at the time, I. I felt a lot like megab, how you have blood on your hands, not metaphorical blood, because, you know, maybe this isn't as severe as the LGBT suicide situation, but certainly many, many wrecked families are on the heads of the brethren. Thousands and thousands, and they keep happening every week.

Scott Duke [01:23:17] Yeah. So after that letter, my wife actually did let me come back to the house, but I spent the last year of my marriage on the couch. We were kind of in a stalemate where I didn't want to be the one to initiate divorce proceedings, because I was not going to play into that narrative that people leave the church and then they leave their families. And I think at the same time, she didn't want to give me any leverage to be able to say, hey, look, kids, see what happens? See what religion does your mom divorce me over religion. So I don't think she wanted to look like the bad guy. So for the last year, we were just kind of roommates until eventually one of us pulled the trigger on the marriage, and that was that.

John Dehlin [01:24:10] I'm so sorry.

Scott Duke [01:24:11] Well, thank you. It's okay. So I'm just. I'm kind of busy right now. I'm working two jobs because I'm paying the child support and the alimony, so. But I find some time. I'm involved with the Utah Valley Post mos, the Oasis community down here to some extent, and that's been rewarding. I resigned from the church, actually, and in my resignation letter, one of the one movie that I've really resonated with is the movie the Truman Show. The story about Truman, who is absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:25:02] It's a classic.

Scott Duke [01:25:03] He's raised in on a motion picture studio. Basically, he doesn't realize his entire life is a TV show, and. And he finally figures it out and is able to leave. And so at the end of my resignation letter, I wrote, P.S.

Scott Duke [01:25:23] in case I don't see you, good afternoon, good evening, and good night. And I don't know if the people at church headquarters had any idea what that meant. I knew what it meant, and I wasn't entirely trying to be flippant with that comment either.

Scott Duke [01:25:40] One thing I really like about that movie is, you know, at the end of the movie, Truman could have left, slamming the door behind him, stomping out, angry at basically being a captive all this time. But in the moment that he. He Chose to say that it was kind of like he was taking a graceful exit and forgiving these people, you know, even though they, they may not have deserved it. Right.

Scott Duke [01:26:07] So, yeah, I ended my letter. Yeah. And my, my bishop called my parents on their mission in Boston to let them know that I was trying to resign. I think it's funny though, you know, like as missionaries, we can bump into someone who knows nothing about Mormonism. We can teach them two discussions in a week and commit them to being baptized.

Scott Duke [01:26:34] We can get an 8 year old to commit to what religion they want to be for the rest of their life. But at almost 40 years old, I cannot be respected enough to make a decision about my religious beliefs without my bishop calling my mommy and daddy, you know,

John Dehlin [01:26:55] but that's humiliating and degrading.

Scott Duke [01:26:59] Yeah. Anyway, so.

Reflections on What Could Have Been Done Better

John Dehlin [01:27:09] Before we have you talk about kind of what you believe now, you may have something else you want to say, but I do have one question, if that's okay. Just to kind of try and be as constructive as we can. If some general authorities or some church administrators were listening, we know they listen. And if they were gonna take some suggestions on how general authorities could do a better job, what advice? What would you say? What could they do? What could have been done better? What could have Elder golden done? Or Elder President Uchtdorf, what could they have done better?

Scott Duke [01:27:52] Well, with Elder golden, you know, if he had said, you know, I know a lot of members struggle with these questions. I want you to feel free and open to share with me whatever your doubts are without judgment. I'm not going to think less of you. I just want you to feel free to share what's on your mind. That would have helped tremendously rather than, well, there's something you're doing wrong. If you don't agree with the beliefs of the church, you'll be a shell of a person. You know, just making me feel welcome to share my doubts without fear of judgment, I think would have been tremendous.

John Dehlin [01:28:34] Right. So stop with the fear tactics, stop at the emotional manipulation, stop with the judgments and stop with the sort of boundaries of what you can and can't talk about, but instead just listen and show empathy and Christ like love, basically.

Scott Duke [01:28:51] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:28:52] Okay.

Scott Duke [01:28:52] And with Elder Uchtdorf, if I would have just felt some, he, you know, you know, my heart goes out to you because of this heartbreaking situation you're in. And if I even felt like, you know, maybe he was on my side, even if the other 14 weren't there yet, you know, that would have helped. But he just he just didn't even address it, you know.

John Dehlin [01:29:14] Yeah, so don't ignore.

Scott Duke [01:29:17] It'd be better just not to write back. Ignore the issue that I was concerned with.

John Dehlin [01:29:23] Yeah. I think this. This touches on a theme that goes across every single one of the stories we've heard so far about general authorities. They are ignorant. They don't have good answers. They're unaware of the problems. They don't have even basic levels of understanding or empathy for people's situations. They're sort of.

John Dehlin [01:29:45] They're sort of like the king who has no clothes, but no one's willing to tell him. When it comes to knowing their sheep, they're like shepherds who don't know their sheep. And so when the sheep comes, let's say it's hot and the sheep has all this wool, they don't even know the sheep is hot and know that they should be shaving their. The wool. You know, they just. They're clueless kind of bureaucrats who are. Who show, except for maybe the rare instance, like Elder Jensen, they just show an incapacity for empathy and awareness. Whether it's because they are too busy to learn what's going on and really understand, which calls into question their role as apostles of Jesus Christ.

John Dehlin [01:30:36] They're either too busy or they are uninterested or incapable of genuine empathy and understanding, which again, calls into question their role as witnesses of Christ. That's my analysis based on what we've heard so far.

Scott Duke [01:30:57] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:30:57] Yeah. Well, that's tough. Anything else you want to say before we kind of wrap up with your what you believe now?

Scott Duke [01:31:06] No, I'm good. Let's. Let's move into that.

Current Beliefs and Closing Thoughts

John Dehlin [01:31:08] All right. Well, yeah. So first of all, your story was incredibly moving and touching, so thank you. We've maintained over an average of over 200 viewers, and that's a lot for a show. We don't even announce beforehand. Thousands of people are going to see this, and a lot of people are going to be touched and moved. So thank you. We always like to end Mormon stories with our interviewees sharing what they do believe. Now, so if you had to give your version of a testimony, and it doesn't have to be religious at all, if that's not part of what you believe. Now, tell us what you do believe in.

Scott Duke [01:31:47] Okay. A few. Well, several years ago, I was teaching a primary class, and the lesson was on the two great Commandments. And I came up with this visual aid to help the kids understand it. So the two great commandments, Jesus is asked by a lawyer, what are the two great commandments. And he says, to love God and to love your neighbor. And on these two commandments hang all of the laws and the prophets.

Scott Duke [01:32:19] And so as a visual aid, what I did is I got two dowel rods I labeled one love God and the other love your neighbor. And then I got several wire hangers from my closet. I labeled each of the hangers with different commandments so there would be, like, don't take the name of God in vain. Keep the Sabbath day holy.

Scott Duke [01:32:40] Or there might be don't kill, don't steal. We were trying to decide which rod, you know, this hanger should hang on if it's love God or love your neighbor. We decided that, you know, don't take the Sabbath day holy. That that should probably fit better on love God.

Scott Duke [01:33:00] Don't kill, don't steal. Pay fast offerings. Those probably fit more on love your neighbor. And so my beliefs now I have just set the love God one aside, and I believe in everything and anything that you could fit on love your neighbor. Those are my beliefs. Now.

Scott Duke [01:33:28] I also have sort of a secular view of judgment day that kind of motivates me to do the right thing. So in Christianity, the idea is that one day we're going to stand before God to be judged of him.

Scott Duke [01:33:44] The scriptures call it the great and last day. And the idea is to be able to live in such a way that when you look up at God, you can do so with a clear conscience. And I now have a view of my.

Scott Duke [01:34:05] My death. I don't know how I'm gonna go. It could be suddenly in a car accident or something. But I have this image of me lying in a hospital bed or something with all my friends and family around me.

Scott Duke [01:34:20] And the idea is that I want to live in such a way so that I can look up at them on literally my last day and have a clear conscience, knowing the decisions I made that affected them were moral and right. So that is kind of how what I live by.

John Dehlin [01:34:45] Beautiful.

Scott Duke [01:34:48] Well, Scott, did I lose a connection with you?

John Dehlin [01:34:51] No, no, no, no.

Scott Duke [01:34:52] We're here. Oh, Scott, your screen froze, so I.

John Dehlin [01:34:56] Okay, no problem. Well, Scott, I just want to say that was a beautiful, moving, and a touching story. The comments are lighting up. We're not going to have time today to answer all the comments and questions that have come in at the tail end. I encourage you to go view it because lots of people are loving what you wrote.

John Dehlin [01:35:17] They love your beliefs now. They love the papyrus on the wall behind you. They're sorry for the pain they're connecting. There's some more elder Golden Stories in the comments. Some people want to know if you ever thought about faking it.

John Dehlin [01:35:34] Some want to know how your relationship is with your children, with your stepchildren. So if you get a chance, please go visit those comments in our interview now. I just want to. I want to thank everyone who's tuned in today. We had a great audience, great comments and questions.

John Dehlin [01:35:52] They really added. I want to thank everyone who supports the Open Stories foundation, all the donors that make it possible. If you did enjoy today's interview, please consider making a monthly donation@mormonstories.org just 10 or 20 bucks a month can keep us afloat. We're transparent. All the money goes towards the mission of the foundation, which is to support people affected by religious transitions. And I want to thank Amy Grubbs and Cody Layton, who are on the staff of the Open Stories foundation, who make all this possible.

John Dehlin [01:36:29] And we just want to thank all our supporters and listeners. Please like our Facebook page. Please share these interviews with others. Please email us@mormonstoriesmail.com if you've got any feedback or questions. Feel Feel free to comment on the blog and just know that we love all you guys and we hope you enjoy. If any of you have stories of general authorities that you really need to tell, I might be willing to try and sneak a few of those in.

John Dehlin [01:36:55] So please let us know if you've got a story that you just have to tell about a meeting with the general authority. Maybe we'll do these once a month or something. But regardless, Scott, it's just been a wonderful time to spend with you, your beautiful soul. Let's hang out sometime that's not in the bathroom, if that's okay.

Scott Duke [01:37:14] Okay, sounds good.

John Dehlin [01:37:15] Say hi to the friends down in Utah Valley and our good friend Steve Holbrook. And thanks for sharing this beautiful story on Mormon stories. You hang in there, brother.

Scott Duke [01:37:25] Okay? Thank you, John.

John Dehlin [01:37:27] All right, take care. Everybody loved having you and we'll see you soon.

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.