Welcome and Conference Introduction

Part 1 of 2 · Ep. 343

David Scott [00:00:07] So welcome, everybody, and my name is David Scott. I'm chair of the communication department here at Utah Valley University. I'm involved in research on religion and culture and media. Some of that crosses over to religion and Mormons and media and culture. So I'm excited to hear from some of these presenters. Today the presenters will speak for between hopefully 15 and 20 minutes each. Around 20 minutes, I think, if all goes as planned. And then after all three have given their presentations, then we'll open up the floor for questions and we'll pass a mic around so that your questions will be heard on the streaming video.

David Scott [00:00:43] So people watching at home or in their offices will hear that. Okay, so let me first. Yes. Is there a separate mic or another mic for the room? Because if I yell, the problem is then it's too loud on the streaming video. Is that better? Can you hear me now? There we go.

Scott Gordon [00:01:21] We got it.

David Scott [00:01:28] So what I said was everyone has to put a hundred dollar bill in an unmarked envelope and pass it forward.

John Dehlin [00:01:32] It's not working.

David Scott [00:01:35] I think he needs that one for the streaming video, though. Do you need this mic for the streaming video? Okay, so we'll need both mics. So we want to leave that one with the speakers, I suppose, or let me.

David Scott [00:01:51] Okay, so we'll pass this mic over to the speakers. All right, so welcome everybody, and it's a pleasure to have you here. I won't be formal any longer. Can we have all of the presenters all come up on the stand, if they would?

David Scott [00:02:06] We've got looks like free water. Some of it looks like it's already been consumed, but not sure who drank out of that one. So again, welcome on behalf of Utah Valley University. We have three illustrative speakers today. The first speaker is John Dellen, who is presenting on why Mormons leave and how the Internet is helping.

David Scott [00:02:35] And John is. I lost my notes. Those of you who have the program can read along with me. But John is currently working at as president of the foundation of Apologetic Information and Research Fair. Is that right? No. Oh, that's Scott. Sorry, got too many names here. John is a PhD student. Are you a candidate or student at this point?

Scott Gordon [00:03:04] What's the difference?

David Scott [00:03:05] Have you defended your. Are you writing your dissertation or taking classes? All right, so he is a doctoral candidate in clinical and counseling psychology at Utah State University. That's an important distinction to make. Sorry about that. So go ahead. The microphone is yours and we look forward to hearing your comments.

John Dehlin [00:03:33] Thank you.

David Scott [00:03:35] How do I.

John Dehlin [00:03:36] Do you know how I start this? Yeah. Do you know how I turn it on.

Scott Gordon [00:03:49] Let's see.

John Dehlin [00:03:50] I put it on computer, computer.

Scott Gordon [00:03:54] Here we go.

John Dehlin [00:04:16] Welcome everyone, and I want to thank so much Utah Valley University for inviting me to speak today. I was in the restroom with my father just a few minutes ago and he reminded me that I needed to always make sure and keep things positive. And that made me extra nervous because the truth is the things we're talking about today are really difficult. I have tried to take some of the sharp edges off the presentation, and I think there are a few areas of hope. But if it ends up being a presentation that makes you a little bit sad, I hope that you can maybe just channel that as you think about the people that we're talking about.

John Dehlin [00:04:57] Because in some sense that that might not be completely inappropriate. But I'm excited to have you here. On November 11, 2011, Elder Marlon K. Jensen was asked the following questions during a visit to Utah State University Quote, has the church seen the effects of Google on membership? Is the church aware of that problem?

John Dehlin [00:05:21] What about the people who are already leaving in droves? Elder Jensen provided the following response Quote we are aware. Maybe I'll just say this. I often get this question do the brethren really know? They do. And I'm not speaking of me. I'm Speaking of the 15 men that are above me in the hierarchy of the church.

John Dehlin [00:05:42] They really do know and they really care. And they realize that maybe since Kirtland, we have never had a period of, I'll call it apostasy like we're having right now, largely over these issues. End quote. In a desire to bring more visibility and understanding to this growing problem, a survey was designed and administered by the Open Stories foundation in the summer and fall of 2011. The participation criteria for the survey were as follows 1 the participants must have once believed that the LDS Church was true, and 2 they must no longer believe that it is. The survey was administered via snowball sampling through various means, including email, Facebook, prominent Mormon blogs, and online forums where formerly believing Mormons congregate.

John Dehlin [00:06:27] A total of 3,086 respondents were included in the final analysis of these data, which can be found at the website 1whymormonsquestion.org this presentation seeks to review some of the highlights from the study and to briefly explore how the Internet is helping formally believing Mormons navigate their lives post belief. It is important to acknowledge that this survey focused on a specific group of disbelievers, I.e. those with historical, doctrinal, theological, cultural, and social issues with the church, who also spend a lot of time on the Internet. This survey did not draw from a randomized sample and does not claim to be representative of all LDS believers. Now to the findings.

Survey Findings on Mormon Disaffection

John Dehlin [00:07:10] Finding Number one the respondents as a group appear to be relatively well educated, with higher than average income, and with notable levels of prior church leadership experience. 97% of our survey respondents had at least some college education, 60% are college graduates, and 31% hold graduate degrees. Regarding income, 43% indicated an annual income of $80,000 a year or more, and 29% of over $100,000 per year.

John Dehlin [00:07:43] Regarding leadership callings for our female respondents, 42% served in young women's presidencies and over a third in Relief Society presidencies. For our mayor respondents, three four served missions, half served in elders quorum presidencies, and one out of five have served in bishoprics or 20%.

John Dehlin [00:08:06] Interestingly, 20 of our participants have served in stake presidencies, five have served as mission presidents or in mission presidencies, and one respondent served for five years in one of the quorums of the seventies. Finding Number two the traditional explanations as to why people lose their testimonies do not appear to apply to this population.

John Dehlin [00:08:29] According to our data, only 4% cited being offended as a reason for losing their faith. Similarly, only 4% indicated a desire to drink alcohol or to have extramarital sex as reasons. Qualitative responses suggest that such accusations are experienced as deeply hurtful to this group.

John Dehlin [00:08:48] Respondent 3129 wrote, Stop assuming people who leave do so because they are offended or want to sin. Look at church history and all its inconsistencies and you will find the answer. I left the Church. No one offended me. I enjoyed the ward members and

Scott Gordon [00:09:07] still

John Dehlin [00:09:07] consider them to be my friends. I obey the law of chastity and word of wisdom. I am faithful to my wife. It's the history. And it's not just a single issue. They compound each other until you realize something is fundamentally wrong with the picture and the stories you have been fed and the emotions you have been feeling were all based on falsehoods.

John Dehlin [00:09:27] Finding number three the 10 most common issues contributing to disbelief are in decreasing order Cease to believe in the church's doctrine and theology studying church history 3. Losing faith in Joseph Smith as a prophet 4. Loss of faith in the Book of Mormon 5. Loss of faith in the general authorities of the church 6. The church's stance on homosexuals and Proposition 8 7. The church's stance on women 8. The church's stance on race issues, including both blacks and Native Americans 9 not feeling not feeling spiritually edified at church and 10 the church's historical stance on scientific matters.

John Dehlin [00:10:12] Finding number four in the qualitative responses, there are a few additional themes emerged that merit consideration. They are the following one Feeling judged for not conforming socially, financially or politically to the norms Number two the constant emphasis on this being the one true church Number three Unrealistic expectations of church members with regard to time, money and behavior and 4 the church's handling of its finances specifically related to its lack of financial transparency and the church's investment in the construction of the City Creek mall.

John Dehlin [00:10:52] Finding number five the 10 biggest historical issues are the following. Tying it first place are one the issues of polygamy and polyandry, polyandry being Joseph Smith's marrying of other people's wives and 1B issues with the translation of the Book of Abraham not matching the original papyru from which it was purported to have been translated Number two the denial of priesthood to blacks. Number three DNA evidence in the Book of Mormon Number four Masonic influences in the LDS temple ceremony Number five Multiple and conflicting versions of Joseph Smith's first vision story.

John Dehlin [00:11:31] Number six Anachronisms such as horses and steel in the Book of Mormon Number seven the denial of priesthood to women Number eight Issues regarding the authenticity or credibility of the priesthood restoration Number nine past church positions on science, age of the Earth, evolution, etc. And 10 Joseph Smith's use of a peep stone in translating the Book of Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:11:54] To provide just one illustration, Participant 2612 wrote, the largest factor for me was polygamy by Joseph and the dishonesty involved. Sneaking and lying to those you care about taking other men's wives just sounds like something Warren Jeffs would do and every part of me said that this was wrong and not something God would want a real prophet to do. It made me suspicious and started my search for truth.

John Dehlin [00:12:23] Finding Number six It is rarely one or few issues that lead to someone's disaffection. Instead, it appears as though our respondents metaphorical shelves are collapsing from the weight of numerous major issues. On average, Survey respondents cited 15 major factors and 13 minor factors as having an impact, indicating that there was not simply one or two issues that led to disbelief. On the contrary, many issues appeared to stack up until belief was lost.

John Dehlin [00:12:51] Participant 2612 continued, There are just too many things that do not add up. One or two historical problems may be okay, but there were too many things to put on the shelf and the walls came crumbling down. Finding number seven it is clear from the qualitative responses that the perception of a lack of transparency and openness on the part of the Church regarding its history is a major cause for disaffection for these participants.

John Dehlin [00:13:19] Respondent 1857 the problem was not so much the history of the Church, which is really accessible in many good general history books. Rather, it is the discrepancy between what I was learning about Joseph Smith and church history and the sanitized version that I had been taught by LDS leaders my whole life. If LDS leaders had taught the truth about Joseph Smith from the very beginning, then I would have never left.

John Dehlin [00:13:43] Respondent 113 as for history, in some cases the fact that the Church actively hides some elements of its history is worse than the actual events themselves. Finding Number eight While we are aware of many fine people working in the field of LDS apologetics, including Scott, it is apparent from the qualitative responses that for many of our respondents, LDS apologetics are not always helpful and in some instances may actually accelerate disaffection, especially when done poorly or with condescension. Respondent 2844 wrote, As I studied church history and uncovered many controversial historical evidence, I would frequent LDS apologetic sites for Answers, Farms, now the Maxwell Institute, Shields, and Fair.

John Dehlin [00:14:31] I soon discovered that those sites rarely dealt with the controversial evidences, but rather often skirted or obfuscated the issue and and frequently resorted to personal attacks on the individuals who were publishing historical information from Respondent 1865 please stop the ridiculous apologetics. Their circular reasoning and logical fallacies do more harm than good.

John Dehlin [00:14:56] Finding number nine while 56% of our respondents no longer attend church, it's interesting to note that 44% of our respondents that no longer believe the church is true still retain some level of church activity. Finding number 10 for those who remain active in the church, it appears as though they overwhelmingly do not feel comfortable discussing their faith crises with ward members, church leadership, friends, and some family members. The list of those who still have been told little to nothing by those who are struggling includes the ward members at 92%, extended family at 85%, friends at 74%, children at 73%, bishops at 72%, and parents at 66%, providing a clue as to why some might not be comfortable speaking with their bishops.

John Dehlin [00:15:50] Respondent 172 wrote, in addition to the historical inaccuracies, I discovered, my testimony was destroyed by judgments I received when I brought questions to my local ward and stake leadership. Instead of helping me find answers, I was accused of being in sin and stripped of my temple recommend.

John Dehlin [00:16:09] Based on this and other responses, it appears as though LDS bishops may be ill equipped to deal constructively with the challenges facing this population. Finding number 11amajority of respondents indicated that their disbelief has led to high or extremely high costs to their relationships, spiritual or mental health, or employment.

John Dehlin [00:16:31] Numerous stories that we have gathered in preparation for this presentation help to illustrate the extent to which families have been destroyed over these issues. I will read only one I was the fifth child in my family to go inactive. Seven children total, but the first child to officially resign from Mormonism. I told my family and my husband's family we were taken out of wills. We went from being the first choice to raise my nieces and nephews upon a death by will to never being able to raise a niece or nephew if a sibling died.

John Dehlin [00:17:02] My dad told me that when I announced that I had resigned, he felt like he had been slapped in the face, sick to the stomach. Then my dad proceeded to tell me that I had caused him more pain and anguish than the six other kids combined. I have a brother that has fathered 10 kids. He has abandoned six of them.

John Dehlin [00:17:20] Yes, a real deadbeat dad, three marriages, an affair, $100,000 in debt. Some of his kids are drug addicts, teen pregnancy. But I have caused more pain than my messed up brother and all my siblings combined. I'm happily married to my first husband. My husband got an MBA at a top university. We are financially solvent. I had two children. One of my kids was born with many delays and diagnosed on the autism spectrum at age four after many countless therapies he is nine and a half, totally mainstream and just about considered recovered.

John Dehlin [00:17:52] My daughter is beyond amazing. 4.0 GPA, all star athlete, beautiful, respectful. She is the dream grandchild and we get nothing. He didn't see her perform on stage at a university when she was 6. Didn't see her qualify or win. State has never come to a concert, performance or sport meet of hers. Ever.

John Dehlin [00:18:13] The two years after my resignation every picture of me was taken down in the house. He couldn't even look at a picture of me, even a baby picture. He just kept hoping that the neighborhood would never find out and if someone asked how I was doing he didn't know how to answer. He is just embarrassed and confused.

John Dehlin [00:18:32] Finding number 12 disbelievers who remain active in the church indicated significantly higher mental and spiritual costs than those who go inactive or resign from the church. In other words, staying active in the church as a disbeliever for many is perhaps the hardest and most damaging of all scenarios, Participant 3330 provides some clues as to why activity is so difficult for non believers. It's a very destructive reality of our Mormon culture that those that feel they are struggling with intellectual aspects of our religion and or culture end up in a position of isolation. We often feel like we have no choice but but to quietly, tight chestedly continue on in a church we're not sure we believe in anymore or throw in the towel altogether.

John Dehlin [00:19:18] It is the loneliest, ugliest feeling to exist in a community that you feel completely outcast from because of an otherwise perfectly wonderful need. You have to understand rather than to just Accept finding number 13 perhaps the most saddening portion of the survey involves the ways in which marriages have been affected by the fallout from participant disaffection.

Impact of Faith Crisis on Relationships and Marriage

John Dehlin [00:19:44] 28% of still active respondents indicated paying a high or extremely high cost in their relationships with their spouse. The following qualitative responses perhaps capture best the impact that LDS disaffection is having on marriages and families. Respondent 1080 I wish that the Church allowed me to participate as a non believer as I experience it now, unless I pay tithing, have a temple recommend, etc. I can't participate in the rituals ordinances that are so important to my believing family, baptism, priesthood ordinances, temple marriages. I think simply allowing unbelievers to participate in these types of events will make a huge difference in my family relationships. Right now they're just a painful reminder to my family, so I just end up not attending these events at all.

John Dehlin [00:20:32] From my perspective, the Church is dividing my family, not bringing us closer together. Respondent 3076 My wife divorced me because I had critical doubts over the Church's divine leadership on the issue of homosexuality. The Brethren's attempt to protect the sanctity of marriage from homosexuals to some degree resulted in the dissolution of my temple ceiling.

John Dehlin [00:20:54] Respondent438 we desperately need a General Conference address telling spouses to not divorce an otherwise good spouse over non belief. I have several friends who have been divorced over primarily this issue and my own marriage is still on the rocks due to it, even though I am fully Active and Respondent691 Tell your bishops and leaders to tell their members to not divorce their spouse when they leave the LDS Church. My husband was advised by his bishop to divorce me. We had 10 children. It was awful. The Church says that families are the most important. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

John Dehlin [00:21:29] And finally, finding number 14 while 76% of respondents indicated no desire to return to Church and dad, here's some happy news. It is worth noting that 24% of respondents indicated that they would be willing to come back under some circumstances.

John Dehlin [00:21:46] The main conditions given for returning were the Number one greater openness and acceptance towards those with doubts and or non literal beliefs Number two More transparency and upfront information about historical issues and controversies Number three More acceptance and treatment of homosexuals and Number four More respect, sensitivity and equality for women Last Tuesday I posted the following question to my Facebook page.

John Dehlin [00:22:20] For those of you who have lost your faith in in the one true churchness of Mormonism, how has the Internet helped you make your transition easier or better? Within minutes, I received dozens of thoughtful and heartfelt responses that I will group into the following categories.

John Dehlin [00:22:35] Number one the Internet has helped these people to not feel so alone and to find new communities. Monica Whitlock writes, I shudder to think how much more agonizing my transition would be without the community of support available on the Internet. I don't feel alone and I know I'm not crazy.

John Dehlin [00:22:54] Rob Barton wrote, the Internet became my new ward. Hillary Hunt added, the friendships I have now feel 100% more authentic. Jack Cadence Steele wrote, I found people who are willing to offer a listening ear and a shoulder to occasionally cry on.

John Dehlin [00:23:12] Second, the Internet has helped to accelerate the learning process through informational sites like MormonThink.com and podcasts like Mormon Expression, Mormon Stories, and Mormon Matters. From Jennifer Ball Kunz, what would have taken two decades of exploration, doubt and confusion ended up being just a few months. Because all the resources I needed were easily accessed, I was quickly able to at least find my direction from those who have gone before me.

John Dehlin [00:23:40] Number three the Internet has helped them deal with overwhelming emotions. Martha Cook Arndt wrote, a lot of my harsh, negative attitude softened as I was able to read other people's experiences and see how others addressed issues. Janelle Brinton added, online support is where I found the most peace and healing.

John Dehlin [00:23:59] And Ashley Petty Murbach wrote, without the Internet, my problems and questions with the church would have festered to an unhealthy degree. Total depression, identity crisis, possible divorce, loss of trust in self, total aloneness. No one to talk or admit to. No safe space. All of these were mine and would have been for years and years longer if it had not been for the Internet. To the Internet, I truly owe my current happiness.

John Dehlin [00:24:27] Number four Somewhat surprisingly, some indicated that the Internet has helped them to either reclaim or rejuvenate their relationship to the church in more authentic ways. Holly Bloomwell wrote, I was able to claim my Mormonism instead of pushing it away. I am a Mormon and an agnostic and that's good.

John Dehlin [00:24:46] Ben Doleman added, On the Internet, I found so many examples of thoughtful people that had grappled with these issues. These people shared a perspective that made me realize I didn't have to throw out everything good because of some problems.

John Dehlin [00:25:01] Number five and in perhaps some of the most dramatic instances, some respondents claim that the Internet literally saved their lives. Liv Appleton shared, PostMormon.org literally saved my life. If it was up to me being left with how my family treated me, I would have killed myself.

John Dehlin [00:25:19] Another Anonymous writer noted, the Internet has literally saved me. I would probably still be suicidal from it all if it were not for the one of a kind support I have found on the Internet. I cannot express how much comfort I have gained from being able to have this access to people and information. It is not a stretch to say this is one of the reasons I am still alive today.

Personal Reflections and the Why Mormons Leave Initiative

John Dehlin [00:25:39] For the past few minutes for the last few minutes, I would like to share a few personal reflections. In 2001, while studying my heart out as an early morning seminary teacher, I experienced my own crisis of faith as I turned to family, friends, ward members and ward leadership for help. I encountered landmines at every turn, turning to the Internet for support out of almost desperation, I was disappointed to find either apologetic or antagonistic resources, and almost nothing that sought to be a neutral support for me in my journey. This led me to start Mormon stories podcast in 2005, and since then I've interacted with well over 2000 disaffected Mormons from all over the world.

John Dehlin [00:26:20] In all these interactions, perhaps no story has touched me as deeply as that of Marco, a third generation Mormon from the Netherlands. Biochemistry, PhD, father of three returned missionary, former elders, quorum president, young men's president, ward mission leader, temple worker, and institute teacher. A few months ago, Marco shared with me his story. He wrote, although losing my faith in the LDS Church was not a pleasant experience, the main cause of my pain was the sorrow I was putting my wife through.

John Dehlin [00:26:52] Instead of a worthy priesthood holder, she now had an atheist at her side. Prayer and scripture study as a couple and as a family, which for years had brought our family peace, were now awkward and uncomfortable moments. I could hardly stand being at church anymore.

John Dehlin [00:27:07] Only the thought of half the family going to church was actually worse. I was making my wife live a temple marriage by herself. I could stay in the church for her sake, just going through the motions and shutting off inside. But that would mean our children would be raised in the church and set up for the same pain I was going through.

John Dehlin [00:27:26] I remember being on my way to pick up my mother in law to babysit as I burst into tears. I had just run a red light at a crossroad. On entering the highway. I wanted to hit the brake but was compelled to keep my foot on the gas.

John Dehlin [00:27:39] I realized I had become an actual danger to myself I my surroundings. I was disgusted and frightened that I might not be able to resist carrying out the horrible thoughts that had been forcing themselves on me. I just wanted my pained soul to end. As I saw no way forward, the option of ending things permanently for me and my wife and children became an option that was constantly on my mind.

John Dehlin [00:28:06] Later, Marco shared with me that he knew it was time to reach out for help when he found himself running the same red lights on purpose with his wife and children in the car with him. I'd like to end this talk by bearing a solemn witness of sorts regarding the thousands of Latter Day Saints like Marco who are losing their testimonies of the church. Number one, their issues are legitimate.

John Dehlin [00:28:30] Number two their motives are overwhelmingly genuine. Number three their pain and suffering are real and are significant. It is our hope that the Y Mormons Question Initiative can serve a constructive role in building greater awareness, empathy and support, and less judgment and marginalization to those who struggle.

John Dehlin [00:28:54] For those who are interested in accessing the survey and potentially sharing it with friends, family, ward members and ward leadership, I encourage you to download the findings@whymormonsquestion.org and to do your part to join us mourning with those who mourn and comforting those who stand in need of comfort. Please look for more surveys, podcasts and screencasts from us in the weeks and months to come ahead. And thank you for listening.

David Scott [00:29:34] John. My apologies again for screwing up the introduction. So now we're going to hear from Scott Gordon, who is the president of fair, and look forward to his comments.

FAIR's Mission and History of Mormon Apologetics Online

Scott Gordon [00:30:04] Well, as the introduction said, I'm the president of fair, and most people actually should say president of an organization known as fair. And the reason most people call it FAIR instead of the full official name is because the full name is long and difficult to remember. The full name is the foundation for Apologetic Information and Research.

Scott Gordon [00:30:24] Name often confuses people because of the word apologetic. So here's a bit of knowledge that's obviously worth the price of admission to the conference today. Get what you pay for, right? So people are often confused and they ask why we're apologizing. But the word apologetics does not mean to apologize. It has its roots in the Latin apologeticus or the Greek apologeticos. Hear the difference there? Latin, Greek, all you experts out there. Kas Kos Right. But apologetics is the branch of theology that is concerned with defending or proving the truth of Christian doctrines.

Scott Gordon [00:30:58] Michael de Groote from the Deseret News summed it up by saying, being an apologist means never having to say you're sorry. The word apologetics and apologists unfortunately has emotional baggage today. As John mentioned in one of his comments, very much like the term cult, which is often misused as a pejorative, the word apologetics means to some that we are apologizing for our position and to others that we're giving unsupported polemic opinions. Neither viewpoint is correct.

Scott Gordon [00:31:28] So just as a start, our mission statement is Fair is dedicated to standing as a witness of Christ and His restored Church. Our mission is to address the charges leveled at the doctrines, practices and leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Mormons or Mormons with documented responses that are written in an easily understandable style. We'll use current scholarship, scripture, church doctrine, historical literature and sound logic, and constructing faithful, well reasoned answers.

Scott Gordon [00:31:57] What we do is provide answers for people who are looking for information to counter criticism of the Church. Many in our audience are spouses, other family members or friends of people who have left the Church and are looking for, as they put it, the truth about the issues.

Scott Gordon [00:32:14] So where did fair come from in Internet years? We are really old. Remember the Internet finally allowed full commercial traffic in 1995. So before YouTube which was started in 2005, before podcasts which was in 2004, before blogging started 1999 and even before Google in 1998, there was Fair on the Internet in 1997.

Scott Gordon [00:32:40] We began with the America Online message boards. Back then, the two major methods of communicating on the Internet were message boards and chat. The religion message boards on America Online were controlled by Christianity Today and they tended to ban or put restrictions on Mormons they saw as too strident or too effective in their discussions. We had quite a conflict with AOL and the Christianity they group.

Scott Gordon [00:33:06] The message boards on AOL were a place where people would come to ask questions about Mormonism. There were essentially three groups there. First, there are the people who asked the questions. Second, the anti Mormons who were lying in wait to pounce on any unsuspecting questioner in order to enlighten them with their version of the truth.

Scott Gordon [00:33:26] And third, a small group of Mormons also Lying in wait to rebut their perceived falsehoods put forth by the anti Mormons. In our conversations, we observed two things. First, we recognized it was difficult for one person to be an expert in everything. Some read Greek, some understood theology, some understood philosophy. That would not be me.

Scott Gordon [00:33:47] Some understood history, but very few understood everything. The second thing we recognized with the same question came up over and over and over and over again. So we decided to create a website as a repository for our good answers. That way we didn't have to type out our answer each time, but we could simply provide a link.

Scott Gordon [00:34:08] Eventually, we decided to incorporate and create our own message board. Our main purposes were to create a repository of good answers to help train students in apologetics, to share information, to create a place to discuss Mormonism on the Internet, and to not allow anti Mormons to control the discussion in the public square.

Scott Gordon [00:34:28] We started with a few articles, a message board, and what I call a message board style. And by message board style I mean one that is mostly about winning the debate and is often confrontational. Over time and with a change of leadership, we decided that debate was not the proper role of fair. We decided that FAIR was there to provide information, not to debate.

Scott Gordon [00:34:54] Eventually our message board became a problem for us. Even though at the time it was one of the most active LDS websites on the Internet. We had to sever all ties with was an open message board that attracted both believers and non believers. And that made it interesting and exciting.

Scott Gordon [00:35:10] But we started reading fair's position on various topics on other websites on the Internet. We would read that FAIR said this or FAIR said that, or fair's position was this. And frankly we didn't know what they were talking about.

Scott Gordon [00:35:25] We would try to figure out where they got that idea. And we eventually figured out that people were quoting someone's post from the message board. And frequently we didn't even know the person who made the post. And sometimes it was even an anti Mormon being quoted defining fair's policy.

Scott Gordon [00:35:42] So people were interpreting the kind of organization FAIR was based on the message board posts. So of necessity we cut those ties. That's what it looks like now. That's not ours, but that's what it's gone into. We now have a website.

Scott Gordon [00:36:01] For some reason I can't get rid of that little pencil in the middle and my mouse isn't doing anything to help me. Anybody know what to do there? Well, it's okay. So I have a website@fairlds.org which contains several articles as well as a topical guide and then with the advent of Wikipedia, which was formally launched in 2001, we created our own wiki@fairmormon.org to provide a place for our volunteers with different points of view to collaborate on the answers. Now I do want to mention something else.

Scott Gordon [00:36:35] FAIR is an Internet based group of volunteers. There currently are about 100 people in our volunteer email list. Sometimes we have more, sometimes we have less. On our list we have conservative members. People assume that automatically if you're with fair, you must be a really conservative member. But we also have liberal members.

Scott Gordon [00:36:52] We have bishops, we have stake presidents, we have mission presidents and higher as well as Relief society presidents and workers and nursery leaders and primary pianists. We have Republicans, we have Democrats, we have libertarians, we even have socialists, we have members with same sex attraction. We have a member who was an ex FLDS member, We have ex anti Mormons on our list and all of them are volunteers for fair. At one point we even had a Catholic on our list.

Scott Gordon [00:37:21] So what did we have in common? We had one thing in common. We all believed that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints really was restored by Jesus Christ through Joseph Smith. I should add, except for the Catholic, he didn't believe that. He was just interested in the scholarship.

Scott Gordon [00:37:38] So. So going on the Wikipedia was good because it allowed us, with our differing and divergent viewpoints, to collaborate on answers that are given. Typically, one volunteer would write an answer to an email that we received, which would then take that answer and put it on a Wikipedia article.

Scott Gordon [00:37:56] And then other members of the group would suggest changes or point out weaknesses. Since we have a wide variety of opinions, this has led to responses that are by and large reflective of that variety. Our philosophy is that sunshine is the best disinfectant. So when criticism have arisen about the church, we send our team busily scurrying to their private collections, to the universities and to the archives to dig up anything they can find on the topic.

Scott Gordon [00:38:23] We try to look at things in context of the talk given, in the historical context of the culture, in the context of other comments made by the same speaker in and others of that time period. I find that many, if not most anti Mormon arguments are rebutted simply by going back to the source documents and by understanding the culture of the day.

Scott Gordon [00:38:44] And many anti Mormon arguments can be framed by the phrase Joseph Smith is a false prophet because. And you just go and fill in the blank. Now, sunshine leads to a variety of outcomes. Often it shows the quote is out of context, but occasionally it shows the quote is quite correct. Then you have to move on to the next question. Does it matter?

Scott Gordon [00:39:08] For example, does it make the Church less true when you have two apostles arguing opposing sides of the evolution issue? Sunshine can lead to other interesting things. For example, Gerald and Sandra Tanner of Utah Lighthouse Ministries have long made the claim that there have been 4,000 changes in the Book of Mormon.

Scott Gordon [00:39:28] Well, actually it started with him claiming there were 2,000 changes and they upped the ante to 4,000 changes later. But after careful research, we at FAIR can definitively state that that is a lie. It is false. There are not 4,000 changes in the Book of Mormon.

Scott Gordon [00:39:46] The number is much closer to 105,000 changes. Now, most of these changes are simply punctuation or spelling. The few changes that are more than that have been carefully studied and well documented. But there are other common anti Mormon tactics that we run into. For example, we have documented in many popular articles and books about Mormons. Mormons are frequently described as claiming, admitting, confessing and alleging, whereas non Mormons affirm, acknowledge, say and testify.

Common Criticisms of the Church and FAIR's Responses

Scott Gordon [00:40:24] Another common tactic is the claim the Church is hiding the information. Two quick examples. Many are upset when they learn that Joseph Smith practiced plural marriage. Everybody knows Brigham Young practiced plural marriage, but if Joseph Smith did it, that's bad and the Church must be hiding it. Or they learn that Joseph Smith may have used a hat and a seer stone while translating the Book of Mormon.

Scott Gordon [00:40:45] The typical claim is the Church has been hiding this or has been dishonest about it. Here's a short list of where you can read about Joseph Smith's marriages. Of course we have Lesson Manual in 2007 Ensign 1992 N sign 1989 Ensign 1978 Ensign 1977, New Era 1973 and of course there's always the DNC Section 132 that talks about plural marriage.

Scott Gordon [00:41:08] As far as translation with a stone in the hat nsign 1997 nsign 1993 nsign 1998 nsign 1997 and the friend 1974 that talks about that. So we always note the children's magazine entry. The fact you may not have heard about something in a Sunday school lesson does not mean that it's hidden. Too many members believe that we teach history in Sunday school classes. That is not what we do.

Scott Gordon [00:41:37] We use examples from history to teach gospel principles. You can learn about history from my book about history, not from a church lesson manual. And speaking of anti Mormon literature, non Mormon scholar Lawrence Foster says they always assume the worst possible motives in assessing the actions of Mormon leaders, even when those leaders faced extremely complex problems with no simple solution, goes on to say every bit of evidence, even if it could be most plausibly presented in a positive way, is represented as yet another nail in the coffin being prepared for the Mormon Church. There is no spectrum of colors, only blacks and whites, good guys and villains.

Scott Gordon [00:42:24] Speaking of villains, Fair has been declared the villain on more than one occasion. In 1995, we were sued by Utah Lighthouse Ministry was a groundbreaking lawsuit. Remember, Internet's been fairly new, so it was a groundbreaking lawsuit where after a victory for Fair in Utah federal court, it was appealed to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeal in Colorado, where we again prevailed. The discussion centered on what constituted commercial use on the Internet.

Scott Gordon [00:42:53] That's important because commercial speech has restrictions put on it that other speech, such as religious or political speech, does not. And one of the arguments put forward at the time was that if a website linked to a place that sold books or had book reviews such as Amazon.com or if it had banner ads, it therefore became a commercial website and was subject to those free speech restrictions.

Scott Gordon [00:43:21] So those of you who enjoy freedom of speech on the bloggernacle and on the Internet can thank Fairness Fair. Better yet, you can donate to our legal fees. That would be helpful. And with apologies for those who've heard me relate my next story. I've told this before.

Scott Gordon [00:43:37] I had another experience where life met my Internet life met my on the ground life when a pair of individuals not favorable to fare sought out my home and knocked on my door. I wasn't home, but my wife and dog were. It was then announced on a prominent Internet website that they had visited the World Headquarters affair.

Scott Gordon [00:43:56] They proceeded to say disparaging things about my house, about my wife, and even about my dog. They pointed out that my lawn needed to be mowed, which is true. And I was on the Internet. Probably I'm not mowing my lawn.

Scott Gordon [00:44:13] My wife looked frightened and oppressed and that I had a yippee little dog at the time. It pretty much upset everybody in my household. So some time has passed now. So I've moved beyond that. And of course my wife, being the good person that she is, has forgiven them too.

Scott Gordon [00:44:31] But my dog's still pretty angry about it. So getting back to the concept of sunshine being the best disinfectant, we have a conference every year where we provide an opportunity for scholars to discuss controversial topics within a faithful LDS context. We have it in August up in Sandy.

Scott Gordon [00:44:52] We pulled in experts in population genetics to look at DNA in the Book of Mormon. We talked about the Kirtland Egyptian Papers, the Book of Abraham Papyri, the Kirtland Banking Society, Masonry in the Temple, Black LDS history, plural marriage, same sex attraction and much more.

Scott Gordon [00:45:08] We started to expand out with more projects and websites. We did a full review of the Joseph Smith DVD which was put together by some prominent anti Mormons. The newsroom@LDS.org even provided a link to that review. They have since linked to many other articles that we post.

Scott Gordon [00:45:23] We prepared background for Sunday school lessons to point out areas of potential controversy and misinformation. One project that changed my life was we created blacklds.org complete with a discussion of the priesthood ban and history timeline where we put black LDS history side by side with Black American history. For those who wonder, Yes, I did work with Margaret and Darius and several others.

Scott Gordon [00:45:46] We as a people have not done enough in that area and we need to stop both the race baiting. And the glossing over of facts in our discussion in this area. I'm going to do a Joanna here as Marvin Perkins, an LDS member who happens to be African American, mentioned to me just last week.

Scott Gordon [00:46:14] A big difference between our church and many other churches on this issue is that our church has done an excellent job of documenting all of its racism and racist remarks. Fair created a blog. Here's the side by side we do.

Scott Gordon [00:46:30] Fair created a blog and a podcast website@fairblog.org that deals with some very sensitive issues. We've recently had a series of Latter Day Saints with same sex attraction. We also recently addressed both polygamy and past racism in the church.

Scott Gordon [00:46:45] Fair's podcast, called the Mormon Faircast, is a winner of the 2011 People's Choice podcast Award for Best Podcast in the Religion Inspiration category. Fair created an online bookstore where you could find books from the various universities and publishers. We carry lots of books you would have a hard time finding at Deseret Book.

Scott Gordon [00:47:06] As I like to say, we carry all the boring books that normal people don't buy. We started a Fairlds.org YouTube channel. We also put together a Twitter account and a Facebook page. There's our Twitter account. We even put together a page about Mormon Temples at mormontemples.net Fair sponsors a page done by Dr. Daniel Peterson called Mormon Scholars Testify. In other words, it's not a fair thing, but we we sponsor it and we keep it going for them.

Scott Gordon [00:47:41] One of the unique characteristics of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is its emphasis on education and scholarship. This has led to higher education levels among LDs and the US population in general. And the number of LDs who have completed post secondary education is significantly higher than it is for the US Population.

Scott Gordon [00:47:59] Studies have shown that among Latter Day Saints, higher levels of education are strongly correlated with higher church attendance and and higher levels of devotion. This differs from the reverse correlation one finds in many denominations. I was just reading blog comments from one person who left the Church long ago who said he still likes being involved with Mormonism because of its scholarly discussions.

Scott Gordon [00:48:23] FAIR has three free E newsletters. We have a monthly FAIR journal which I edit. We have a daily press clipping, a daily press clipping called Ferris Front Page which includes links to both positive and negative articles about the Church and the press. And then we have a website and newsletter for our newest venture called MormonVoices.org well, and that's where you can actually sign up for the newsletters on our website there's MormonVoices.org while Fair's writings are directed internally to members of the Church, Mormon Voices attempts to interact with the non Mormon press and with the Internet comments to make a shameless plug. At this point we're looking for volunteers who don't make, don't mind making comments on articles to help us with that.

Scott Gordon [00:49:08] We're always looking for volunteers there. Now many people, when you say the word anti Mormon, especially in the LDS community, they immediately think of this group Temple Square. Of course you get signs like this, which is a little interesting, But their target seems to be newer converts or the youth or recent converts with evangelical backgrounds. And often it's simply fence building with their own congregation to discourage sheep stealing.

Scott Gordon [00:49:51] The brand of criticism that seems to affect LDS members is the secular argument against the Church. Typically these arguments revolve around history or some contradiction in understanding or even a loss of belief in God. These contradictions often lead to a painful sense of personal betrayal, as John so adequately or so expertly relayed.

Scott Gordon [00:50:13] So what's the difference between an apologist and an apostate? We both read the same literature and come to completely different conclusions. Apologists strongly believe that learning more builds faith and is not a path out of the Church. So what's the difference?

Scott Gordon [00:50:34] Is it our worldview? Is it our choice? Is it our desire for the Church to be true or false? Is it our desire for belonging? Either belonging to the community of the Church or belonging to the community of the secular world. As one person put it recently, belonging to the 99% group.

Scott Gordon [00:50:57] That's something you're going to have to decide for yourself. I've read the good the bad and the ugly about the church and have dealt with it for a long, long time. As I said at the beginning, fair is old in Internet years.

Scott Gordon [00:51:11] I suppose Internet ears are all like dog ears. I look at it through the lens of a New Testament scripture, John 6, 67 and 68, and this is after many of Jesus disciples didn't like what Jesus said and left him. It says, then Jesus said unto the twelve, will ye also go away? And Simon Peter answered him, lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. Within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I find the words of eternal life. Thank you.

David Scott [00:52:01] Thank you, Scott. Up next is Rosemary Avance. Am I pronouncing that right? Rosemary? I met Rosemary, by the way, at a conference on digital media and religion, international conference in Colorado. And I was actually planning on skipping out and going to lunch and buying some souvenirs because it was in Boulder, Colorado. And then I saw her name on the panel and that she was doing a subject similar to what she's talking about today. So looking forward to hearing what she has to say this time because I missed lunch over it last time.

Rosemary Avance: Mormon Identity and the Internet

Guest [00:52:36] I really appreciate the invitation to be part of this conference. I'm a scholar of communication. I'm from the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, where I'm interested in studying religious identity and how people talk about their faith and how people make choices to be parts of particular communities.

Guest [00:52:54] And so because of my academic background and trying to build up my CV to get a job, I've been presenting at mostly academic conferences related to my discipline of communication. So usually when I present at a conference, there's a Mormon in the audience. This is the first time I've presented to an audience of Mormons, so this is a new experience for me. So hopefully you'll enjoy some of my research. Earlier this morning, Joanna mentioned sort of a need for qualitative and ethnographical research into what identity means to Mormons. And that's really the question that I'm interested that's the question that I'm proposing to investigate in my upcoming dissertation.

Guest [00:53:36] And this is sort of a little small taste of the kinds of questions that I'm interested in as a scholar, a non Mormon scholar, I should add, studying religion and studying how identity is narratively developed. And so you'll see from my title, seeing the Light, Mormon Deed, Conversion narratives, and diyas and parentheses, which is a really cutesy little way of saying, I mean, conversion and deconversion narratives in on and Offline worlds. So I'm interested in testimony, and I'm arguing that testimony is a narrative form that former and current Mormons share.

Guest [00:54:12] So it's some common ground. And this might be the bright side to some of these. I mean, this is a really interesting panel to put together and I'm really proud to be on this panel. And I think this is sort of a thread we can see that can hold some of this together and maybe take away some of the depression from the idea of defection when we think about communities and when we think about what it means to belong.

Guest [00:54:36] So as we know, and as you know intuitively, the Internet is very vital in this increasing expression of Mormon identity in the public space. Now, Mormons have all these venues now to express their identities and to develop identities online that weren't available to them in the past. And so it can serve these community reinforcing roles. And this comes from normative sources like lds.org and mormon.org, apologetic sites and places where Mormon voices can join into secular conversations and help correct misperceptions in the media and the gathering place. The blogger nackle the idea that you can fellowship with like minded believers online.

Guest [00:55:24] But as the Church recognizes, affirmation is clearly not the only role of the Internet in religious identity. And as John has pointed out, this is seen as a problem from the Church's perspective increasingly. So in this presentation, I'm really interested in the other side of the religion and digital media question, which is hopefully not playing into any moral panics about the Internet and the danger of the Internet for faithful Mormons searching online.

Guest [00:55:55] In the case of Mormons, the Internet obviously can serve as the source for information that can lead to disaffection or doubt or a change of identity to a more heterodox identity. So I have a little personal anecdote. As a scholar of Mormon who is not Mormon, I began studying Mormonism by taking the missionary lessons.

Guest [00:56:17] And I took the lessons from a retired couple that was so gracious to give me their time even though they knew I was doing academic study of Mormonism. I was really interested in the stories that they told me. They told me the same things they would tell me if I were a potential convert.

Guest [00:56:33] And they told me all about Joseph Smith and they told me some really great stories and they gave me a lot of literature and they told me if I'm interested and I want to learn more about Joseph Smith, that they would bring me books and pamphlets and all kinds of resources that they had. But then they said and they got really quiet and really serious. They said, but please don't Google Joseph Smith.

Guest [00:56:55] And so I did. As soon as they left, I googled Joseph Smith because I wanted to know what's the problem with Googling Joseph Smith. So when I googled Joseph Smith, and this has been a few years ago, but even at that time, the church had their search engine optimization. So when I googled Joseph Smith, the very first thing that popped up is the sponsored link from the church. But then right after that was anti Mormon sources or sources that are about exposing the church as a fraud. So I could see clearly why they didn't want me to Google Joseph Smith. They didn't want me exposed to that type of information.

Guest [00:57:23] So the fear of that information is real and ongoing, as my experience illustrates. So in my work on Mormon identity, many heterodox and former Mormons that I've interviewed have explained that the Internet, and this echoes what John said was when he said that the Internet is the second ward for former Mormons, it's now their new ward.

Guest [00:57:45] So I found that many former Mormons and heterodox Mormons literally say that the Internet is their sanctuary. It's the place where they fellowship. And this is not just former Mormons, but heterodox Mormons who may not have viewpoints that are in line with literalist interpretations of the Book of Mormon.

Guest [00:58:06] So I'm making sort of a broad thematic approach to the idea of narratives and testimonies. And that is to say that narratives of conversion and deconversion, these are the stories you tell about how you became what you are. And these in online and offline spaces are ways of creating and sustaining ritual communities. And your identity is a result of that community to, to which you belong. And so when I talk about the narratives, I'm specifically talking about literally the testimonies that are offered. But I'm also claiming that there's a corollary for former and heterodox Mormons. There's a story that they tell about who they are that relates very closely to the idea of testimony.

Guest [00:58:47] So I'll explore a little bit that discourse for you to show you exactly what I mean. So I draw on two sources of ethnographic data. And I'm the first source is interviews offline with 17 Mormons. And in these interviews, I asked Mormons to tell me to share with me as a non member their testimony of the church. And then I took those narratives after transcribing them, which took hours.

Guest [00:59:14] After doing that, I took those narratives and analyzed them in relation to official church discourse. And by that I mean testimonies of the general authorities, essentially. So I took testimonies of the general authorities, and I looked at them for narrative structure, how they're composed, what they relate, and then I compared those with the stories that the members told me. And so when I analyzed that, I argued that the Mormons that were offering me their testimonies have similar testimonies to the general authorities. And the general authorities, in turn, modeled their own testimonies after the Joseph Smith experience.

Guest [00:59:48] So, and I'll get a little more into the details of what I mean by that. So the idea is that members are able to kind of richly embody the Joseph Smith experience when they offer their testimony. And I think this is something that is implicitly acknowledged by Mormons themselves. But then in this project, I juxtapose that first source of data with online participant observations at two sites, websites, that some of you would probably be familiar with if I told you the names of them. But in keeping with, you know, norms for anonymity, because this was an academic project, I'm making up names. And the names are the Path and the Escape, and so on these two boards, these are two very different kinds of communities for two very different kinds of.

Guest [01:00:33] The path is heterodox Mormons and the escapist former Mormons. So I juxtaposed the testimony ideas from the first source of data that I gathered with the stories that were told on these two boards after doing participant observation and interviews with members of those boards.

Guest [01:00:52] So don't get confused as I juxtapose these three groups and I sort of interchange and talk about them, hopefully you can keep up the craziness. Okay, so first, let me sort of illustrate. I'm sure you'll be familiar with the taxonomies that I have laid out here. And these are just sort of my own analyses of these types of sites. And these are two specific websites. So the path is generally sympathetic to the Church.

Online Narratives of Doubt and Faithful Testimony

Guest [01:01:18] They draw a nuanced distinction between being Mormon and believing literally in the book. So you can be Mormon, you can get value from that identity without having a literal interpretation of the Book of Mormon or the Church's history.

Guest [01:01:31] They generally want to remain Mormon, but they have some sort of issue with the Church's history, history, moral positions, politics, structure, et cetera. And they see the Church overall, broadly, as a source for good in the world, as a positive source, but that it needs some progressive change within its structure in order to be most effective. So those are sort of the themes that come up there. And they want to nuance truth claims. So what does it mean for something to be true? There can be truth in all things and they want to nuance whether or not the Book of Mormon is true by talking about, well, what do you mean by true?

Guest [01:02:04] So maybe truth is relative for the Pathist. And then they also they see the website itself as a forum. These both are message board based websites and they see the Path as a forum for learning and intellectual and spiritual growth. So that's the purpose of the forum.

Guest [01:02:21] The people on this website are not necessarily out, and I say out, they're not necessarily known to be to hold these beliefs about the church, non literalist beliefs, to their family and friends in the real offline world. So online they have these viewpoints that they share and this is a community where they can freely share those views. And then in contrast, the escape is sort of very different from that forum.

Guest [01:02:45] These are antagonistic to the Church. They have left the church or they consider themselves on their way out. Some of them have not actually left, but they generally take issue with all aspects of the church, from the history to the practices to the people in the church. And they find few redeeming qualities in the institution or the culture of the church. So unlike the Pathist, the escapists don't see the church as a force for good in any way. They see Joseph Smith and modern day prophets as frauds and liars or as deluded psychopaths.

Guest [01:03:19] They see the members themselves as deluded or brainwashed members of a couple cult. I mean, you've all heard these tropes before. This is not new. So. But similarly to the Pathists, these people are not all necessarily out. And I think John pointed to that when he illustrated with the graph so much more cleanly than this.

Guest [01:03:39] A lot of them are still participating in services. Some of them are leading Sunday school. Right. So as I explored these communities and I read their stories about how they came to inhabit these identities, I noticed some really strong, striking parallels with the narrative testimonies that had been offered to me in my other project that I conducted. So obviously they just held different stories, right? Believing and non believing stories, these are very different. But all three groups are creating testimony about who they are and why they believe what they believe. And they use narrative scripts to do that. So these are canonic forms for ritually expressing your identity.

Guest [01:04:19] And so the ways that Pathist and escapists talk about their relationship to the Mormon faith and to faith more generally follows a normalized structure that emphasizes these cohesive narrative elements. So this is just sort of a maybe less interesting idea about where I'm coming from, why I'm doing it this way. I sort of take a social constructivist perspective to religious identity, which is to say there's no such thing as Mormonism out there.

Guest [01:04:45] Mormonism as an identity is something that's created by interaction, by ritual, by participation. So praxis creates Mormon identity. Right. So the things that you say about what it means to be Mormon create the idea of Mormonism. That's not to say there's no such thing as the church, because obviously there is a church, but it's just to say that when you want to understand what it means to be Mormon, then you need to ask people and you need to their stories that they tell, construction Mormonism as they tell those stories. These are just some interesting theorists, if you're interested in that.

Guest [01:05:18] And I also draw on John Durham Peters here and his idea of the communicative impulse behind the spiritual impulse behind communication. So John Durham Peters is a communication scholar, very renowned, and also a practicing Mormon. And his. His book is really about how there's this impulse in human behavior when we try to communicate with one another. There's this impulse that we're trying to obtain, this meeting of the minds or this touching of souls, he calls it like an angelic impulse to try to become one with one another through our communities. And so that's why we form communities. I mean, that's why we have rituals of testimony.

Guest [01:05:57] We share our stories. We try to convey the essence of who we are with one another. So, but if this impulse is at the heart of what it means to be human, as Peters claims, and if it finds one of its prominent expressions in religion, what does that mean for people who don't have religion or who have lost religion or who are losing religion, or who have a different kind of religion than the officially sanctioned version. So I'm interested in the ways that those individuals who find themselves sort of on the margins or outside the bounds of the institutional religion, they can still embody these impulses, this human yearning to meet the minds and touch the souls of other humans.

Guest [01:06:40] So here's the data that I gathered at these sites, and first, I'll start with the escapist narratives when they talk about how they came to leave or to be on their way out of the Mormon church, the ways that they talk about that. And here I'm just comparing that with the faithful testimonies that I mentioned, that I gathered in offline interviews.

Guest [01:07:02] So as you can see, this is the script and they almost exclusively follow it to some degree. So there's usually on these websites, there's usually a form that's dedicated specifically to telling your story and telling the story of how you became doubting or questioning your faith.

Guest [01:07:21] And the parallels here are really sort of uncanny. So both converts and, or both the faithful testimony and the escapist testimonies here talk about a moment where they receive some kind of momentous information, this information that threatens to challenge their worldview. So for a faithful Mormon, this is the seed of the gospel being planted, and for a former Mormon, this is a seed of doubt being planted in their mind by some type of information that they received.

Guest [01:07:47] So in the faithful case, they zealously seek more information. The people who gave me their testimony said they read the book, they read the Book of Mormon from COVID to cover and couldn't put it down. Whereas the former Mormons told me that they couldn't stop reading non Mormon, anti Mormon websites or books that were not sanctioned by the church. So they're zealously seeking information from two very, very different sources.

Guest [01:08:12] Both tell about an affective response to the information that they receive, which is really interesting to me because the escapist narrative is framed as rational, scientific, whereas the faithful testimony is framed as an experience that one has. So in the faithful testimony case, they talk about seeing the light, being filled with the burning in the bosom, being filled with peace and warmth, and ultimately a feeling of peace and surety that they know the truth.

Guest [01:08:37] Former Mormons say a light came on, they were filled with anger and ultimately they were filled with the feeling of peace and surety that what they knew was the truth. So it's the exact same thing. Right? And for former Mormons, then they go after they have this experience, they bear their testimony about it. And this is ritualized in fast and testimony meetings. It's ritualized in exchanges with non Mormons like myself. It's highly ritualized through missionaries. I mean, the whole rite of passage of Mormonism, it's very evangelistic in its expression to tell the story. It's important to tell the story.

Guest [01:09:13] And for former Mormons, this actually in the code of conduct on this website, it says this is not a form for bearing testimony. And they say that to keep people from proselyting Mormonism to the former Mormons, but in fact it is bearing testimony. They continue to bear their testimony and are very evangelistic in their fervor of freeing people from Mormonism. So it's an attempt to convert, to deconvert rather than to convert. But it's the same impulse, I would argue.

Guest [01:09:43] So the Path is different, obviously, because these are still people who find value and substance in what the Church has to offer. So unlike the Escape, the Path emphasizes that individuals must come to their own conclusions about the church and own that through faith and rationality, and blending faith and rationality with modern ideas about evidence and intellect and proof.

Guest [01:10:11] So the members here are heterodox in their approach to their own faith. And the Path, like I said before, is less vitriolic and less apologetic than the Escape. But anger and sadness are still main themes here, and loss, as people come to terms with a religion that they once thought was perfect, and they begin to question some aspects and may see it now even as less than inspired.

Guest [01:10:33] So despite the array of experiences, obviously this encapsulates. I mean, the term heterodox itself sort of encapsulates a broad swath of experience that are potential on this website. But there's still some formulaic. There's some important formulaic elements to the stories that they tell on these sites.

Guest [01:10:50] Like members of the Escape, they previously occupy a position of normativity in regards to their church. So they're orthodox, and in their practice, they believe the Church to be true at one time, and they accepted the history and doctrine of the Church on the Church's own terms, and usually on the Path. They begin this story by giving their Mormon bona fides. And I'm sure you've seen this if you're a frequenter of websites like this, where it starts by saying, you know, my pioneer heritage and I served a mission and I was married in the temple. And so it goes through a list of things to show how invested this person was in the church and that they really were a real believer at one time.

Guest [01:11:27] And so then it goes. It goes from that to describing this momentous event, similarly to the other two I described, where they talk about a piece of incendiary information that sort of interrupted that idyllic relationship to the faith with more or less catastrophic results. So this is a heterodox community. So some of them do not believe the Book of Mormon is true, but they still see value in the church, whereas others do believe the Book of Mormon is true, but they want to qualify, qualify what it means to be true.

Guest [01:11:54] So an escapist might tell about anti Mormon information that they encountered that sort of upended their worldview and sparked all these questions and doubts. But Pathists tend to tell of social or cultural failings of the Church that disappointed them.

Guest [01:12:11] And then from there, they move to negotiating their relationship with the church on their own terms. So they are not assenting to the church and they're not rejecting the church. They're occupying a liminal space. Of course, it'd be interesting to do a longitudinal study of the types of users of the site to see if they eventually occupy a position of full ascent or if they eventually reject the church outright. That's obviously unknowable at this point, but just like on the Escape, there's some ironic posting guidelines for the Path that says this is not a forum for bearing testimony or trying to raise polemics against the church.

Guest [01:12:44] But despite the fact that their testimonies are obviously very different, their personal accounts are still testimony because they're establishing points of affinity with other members of the group and they're welcoming others to do the same, to share testimonies and to share how they have experienced difference from the church. So the experience of difference relates them to each other and an experience of sameness within the community of the Path itself.

Guest [01:13:12] So among faithful Mormons, testimony serves this ritual function, creating and maintaining religious identity and offering testimony. Testimony is created by saying, I know the church to be true. One comes into that knowledge of knowing the church to be true. In fact, church leaders have told people, you know, the best way to get your testimony is to bear your testimony. So in saying that you know the church is true, you come into the knowledge and into an obligation to the church and to the ritual community that is the church.

Guest [01:13:41] So what do we make of deconversion stories? So I'm arguing that questioning and former Mormons are engaging in this ritual of sharing, and it binds them in a spiritual community. And it also imagines a worldview, a totalizing worldview. Similarly to Mormonism and to them, this worldview is predicated on logic and rationality.

Guest [01:14:04] But it's still, they say, rather than emotion and faith, it's predicated on rationality and logic. But still they discursively mirror the same experience, including the affective portion of that experience when they give their testimonies. So believing Mormons obviously put their bodies on the line for the richer communities. But often this is online. Often these doubting and former Mormons do not.

Guest [01:14:29] There is something at stake for them to come out in the real world as doubting or former or heterodox in some way. So they have this vested interest, they're afraid of these risks that John mentioned, losing their family, being ostracized. And these are themes you see on these sites.

Guest [01:14:48] And they also opt for anonymity to shield their believing spouses from scrutiny and embarrassment. Even if they're not afraid that they'll be left, they. They don't want to cause that kind of harm or pain. So one member of the Path said he recognized the sensitive nature of being public with my spiritual journey. So Mormons who don't toe the line in belief or practice are afraid of disappointing their family and friends, and they run the risk of ostracism or even excommunication, which has been a threat in the past.

Guest [01:15:17] So I think at this moment, where religion and modern technology are sort of starting to collide in a big way, we might expect to see erosion of religious impulses. And you can make the argument, as people disaffect from the church, that that might be what's happening. But this isn't the erosion of the impulse for communion and for fellowship. It's a different manifestation of that impulse. And people are finding communities and they're finding fulfillment in other ways than the traditional way. So we can rethink a little bit about what it means to belong to a spiritual community. Thanks.

David Scott [01:16:11] Okay, so instead of opening directly to questions, let's take a. We have the panel discussion in 15 minutes. Let's take a 15 minute break and then come back, those of you who can or want to, and then we'll have the panel discussion open to questions and we can have a more. Less formal way of having a conversation with our panelists. Thank you.

Panel Q&A Begins

Part 2 of 2 · Ep. 344

Scott Gordon [00:00:07] Okay, so we're going to get started on this last session. You could all get in your seats. So this is our opportunity to have Q and A and interlocutor discussion. So I think I'd like to start by just asking the panelists if any of them have a question for each other, and then we'll proceed to some questions from the audience.

Scott Gordon [00:00:50] I found the presentations. I found with the presentations of the other guests fascinating. I especially liked the deconversion thing there, but I also liked the personal stories that John gave. So just a comment. So, Emily, could you get. There's a mic over there.

Scott Gordon [00:01:08] I'm trying to run the show solo right now, so sorry, we need to get this on the mic. So maybe what we could do first is take your question, then they could repeat it. I'm just curious if from the apologetic standpoint, from the orthodox standpoint, if, you know, there's really a sense of how difficult these struggles are for people with respect to, like, a crisis of faith.

Scott Gordon [00:01:40] That's a really good question. That's an exceptional question. And the answer is, I mean, I should say the perception is that fair is the conservative. I'll put it, as one person put it, strong arm of the church that's going to go there and force the issue on down everybody's throat.

Scott Gordon [00:01:57] The reality is we have a number of people with fare who have returned to the church who were away and have come back. We have many, many, many members. In fact, I would say probably a majority of our members have family members who have left the church. And so I think that most of the fair list members not only understand that, but really have a deep feeling for people who have left the church. Now, you don't see that on the message boards, which goes back to. On the message boards, you have a number of people who kind of hang around fair but aren't fair volunteers.

Scott Gordon [00:02:38] And so I see a number of names there on all the LDS message boards, and people kind of assume they're fair because some of the fair people will talk with them and banter with them, but. But they're not the fair volunteers.

Scott Gordon [00:02:49] I agree it's very disheartening. I know that one of our board members and myself have both gone through periods of not doubting the church, but things have happened within the church that have been very painful and difficult for the family to go through.

Scott Gordon [00:03:10] So, you know, it's one of those. I feel for you sometimes. It gets into the discussion, though, as you know, who's read the most literature or if you read the Literature. How can you possibly believe or how could you possibly not believe? And it gets into that argument. And the next argument is that comes up with, well, then you must be lying for the church or lying for the Lord or something, because if you read that, then you would know that it's not true or. Or you would know that it's true. I mean, you get that on both sides.

Scott Gordon [00:03:42] It gets into one of my favorite gospel hobby horses, the blacks in the priesthood issue, where people on both sides have sinned, as we say. We have people who use that as a stick to beat the church with, who don't really care about the African Americans who just want the stick to beat it with. And we have other members who pretend like nothing's ever happened and everything's fine and. And say things that are painful to people. So, you know, we both sinned. Anybody else on that?

Rosemary Avance [00:04:19] I mean, I have no idea. But I do know that it's a recurring theme that the people going through these experiences do not feel understood. So, I mean, whether they are understood or whether people know what it's like to experience a crisis of faith, I mean, I don't know. But I do know that increasing sympathy and increasing open arms can go a long way to sort of help. Help them feel that they're being understood or that they're at least being listened to.

Methodological Discussion on Online Mormon Communities

Scott Gordon [00:04:51] I had a methodological question for Rosemary. It was really interesting. The two groups that you identified online. And I'm wondering.

John Dehlin [00:04:59] I don't have a sense, but I'm

Scott Gordon [00:05:00] wondering if what your sense. Others who aren't participants in those communities and their experience, the ritualistic component of community that you identified is really fascinating, but I'm wondering if, is it your sense that there might be another group that doesn't participate, or do you feel like this kind of.

Rosemary Avance [00:05:21] Absolutely.

Guest [00:05:22] And that was.

Rosemary Avance [00:05:22] Actually, I'm glad you said that, because that reminded me of a question that I had for John, which had been, you know, he identified who his sample was and how they obtained the sample by going through various websites that are for people who are already active online in that area. So, I mean, absolutely, there are Mormons who are not interested or former Mormons or questioning Mormons who are not interested in engaging in community online, either because they don't have the cultural capital to participate in those types of communities or because they're not interested. They don't have an axe to grind. They don't have issues of pain and resentment. I mean, full disclosure, my husband is a former Mormon, and he is not. He doesn't I mean, he's not anywhere participating online. It's not part of his internal psychological needs to express that in that way.

Scott Gordon [00:06:16] My question is for John and maybe a follow up from Rosemary. You're a social scientist. My dad was one of the first Mormon psychiatrists and he used to say to me, for every complicated, there are at least 100 simple solutions and they're all wrong.

Scott Gordon [00:06:34] And I'm interested in how you'd separate in the data the other complicated issues of life that aren't connected with the church. You know, between the time you're 15 and 60, which I'm almost 60, the variables that obtain are, are manifestly prolific.

Scott Gordon [00:06:58] And so when we say the church this and the church that, and they're leaving because of this and that, when there are financial issues, there are all kinds of things that make somebody's life troublesome and then how they respond with their family or with the church and what the church means to them or how much time they can dedicate to the church and so on and so forth become more complex and complicated and compromised because of everything else that's going on in their lives and in their world. Is there a way to get reliable data that sort of parses that?

John Dehlin [00:07:32] It's a great question and it's something that I personally can easily lose sight of. I had a mother, a 28 year old mother of two children. She had lost three children through miscarriages. She married at age 18 and she's the daughter of a current member of the quorum of the 70. And she just internalized so much guilt and shame somehow in her LDS experience, which is not everyone's LDS experience, but it was hers to the point where whenever she would come home from Relief Society, the extent to which she felt so inadequate and sorrowful at church led her to take out a razor blade and cut little gashes into her leg.

John Dehlin [00:08:28] And that was the only way that she felt that she could deal with the pain that she was experiencing at church. And for her, the answer, her only answer to keep herself from cutting was to stop going to church, which wasn't acceptable to her father, who's currently again in the quorum of the 70. And it was very easy for me to just say the church is causing people to, to cut. And that's just not at all fair. Lots of people cut outside of Mormonism and lots of ex Mormons probably cut. And lots of.

John Dehlin [00:08:59] Just take your pick. And so it's very easy for us to think that we can reduce things down to one or two factors, and we can't with marriages. I think it's most easy to fall into that category because I think all of us will agree that marriages at their best are very difficult. And so when a marriage fails, it's very easy to say that it was the church that causes it. And that's sometimes simply the field.

John Dehlin [00:09:25] You know, religion becomes the battlefield that the battle is waged on, but it's really not necessarily about religion at all. So I don't have a perfect answer for you other than to just concede your point, which is that these things are complicated. Life is messy in and outside of Mormonism, and we have to use caution to not be too reductive.

Rosemary Avance [00:09:45] I mean, the only thing I would add to that is that as he was talking about that, I'm thinking of the corollary, which are the testimonies of the faithful Mormons. And in many cases that I talked to converts the church, the reasons that they gave were different than what the testimonies I presented today. So a lot of converts will talk about converting for the social practices. They liked the church's social positions, or they converted because they were interested in dating a Mormon. So I think that it cuts both ways. We certainly can't know every factor, and I don't think individuals can know every factor that contributes to decisions to leave a faith. But we also can't know the other side of the coin. I think that's important to keep in mind when we're thinking about identity and how it's shaped.

Scott Gordon [00:10:28] Kind of a random thought, not related to the questions, but John just reminded me of something, as I'm currently talking with a woman online whose husband has left the church, and he's a good man, and she's struggling with it. What do I do? And should I divorce him? Or what should I do? And I'm strongly encouraging her to stay in her marriage and to try and find things they can work on and go to counseling and do whatever they can do because he's a good man and such. But the difficulty he has, and it came up when you had it, what she has is he's become an evangelist where he's so strongly that you have to leave the church, your kids have to leave the church, everything.

Scott Gordon [00:11:03] And she's fine with saying, just let me go. Just let me continue on. She says, you know, I can't let you continue on something that's not truthful. And so the only out that she sees at this point is divorce. And so, you know, so I'm encouraging, well, you Know, go to counseling, get something else. Because obviously there's got to be some middle ground somewhere.

John Dehlin [00:11:25] I'm just going to add one quick thing. I'm sorry, I just thought of something else. Well, I'm in my third year of a clinical psychology PhD and I work at the Utah State University Counseling Center. And while I think it's careful not to be too reductive, I'm going to now play the opposite side and say that four out of the five clients that I'm currently seeing right now are male university students, returned missionaries. And they call themselves addicts. They speak about their lives in terms of being sober, sobriety.

John Dehlin [00:12:04] They're members of a 12 step group. And the main reason that they came to psychotherapy is because they occasionally masturbate. One of them masturbates about once every three weeks, but he's had his temple recommend taken away. He's no longer able to take the sacrament. So when his parents came to visit him, you know, in his student ward, they noticed that he wasn't taking the sacrament.

John Dehlin [00:12:28] And you know, these young men are experiencing a great deal of shame and guilt over how somehow they've internalized and processed conversations about masturbation and pornography. And there are, I think there are things that we might do culturally that really do have direct impacts. And so while we don't want to be too reductive, I don't think we want to turn a blind eye to maybe some of the ways we have conversations that really do have direct impacts on people.

Why People Reach Different Conclusions from the Same Facts

Scott Gordon [00:13:06] I just have a quick question for John. It's actually a little two pronged question, if I could. People often study the same facts or issues and come to vastly different conclusions. Some have their faith strengthened while others have their faith destroyed by the same information. To what do you attribute this difference in outcome? And why do you feel that the stories of those who have suffered a negative outcome should be privileged over those with a positive outcome?

John Dehlin [00:13:34] When you say negative and positive, what

Scott Gordon [00:13:36] do you mean destroy faith, enhanced faith?

John Dehlin [00:13:41] Okay, that's a really hard question for me to answer because I'm one of the ones who has lost faith. And so my perspective is going to be really biased. What I can say is that

Scott Gordon [00:14:01] to

John Dehlin [00:14:01] some degree disbelief appears to be a luxury. And we even saw this a little bit in our data. The more income you have, the more freedom you feel to question and to be honest with parents and siblings and children, et cetera. You can just imagine that if you're financially independent and you don't have to worry about losing your job and you don't have to worry about being written out of an inheritance.

John Dehlin [00:14:29] You might feel the freedom to inquire, without reservation, a little bit more than somebody who's got a job that, you know, may be associated with the church and who needs that inheritance and who can't afford to sever social ties that the church might, you know, benefit them from.

John Dehlin [00:14:52] And so I also think that if we were to do a multifactorial analysis, what is the person's spouse like? Are they open minded or are they rigid and harsh and dogmatic? That might be a factor in whether someone's willing to really look honestly at the data.

John Dehlin [00:15:16] What happens when they look honestly is a totally separate question. But I think there are factors in one's environment that are going to make it more or less likely that they can actually look objectively at the data. Other factors might include, you know, if you're just imagine if you're making $30,000 a year, struggling to raise your kids, maybe you're a single mom and your ward is just this critical social support for you, and you enjoy it. Your interests in actually looking at the data objectively are going to be very different.

John Dehlin [00:15:52] So, you know, I think that that's sort of. Those are sort of the barriers to just being able to look at things objectively. And I guess, Scott, I'll just refer a tiny bit to something you mentioned in your talk. You were kind of asking about the differences between apologists and apostates.

John Dehlin [00:16:12] But I do think that when we're raised as Mormons and we're raised from two years old to say that I know this church is true, we're programmed for belief. And if you don't believe me, just look at the fact that 99.9% of the world's population wasn't raised Mormon and they don't happen to believe the same things we do. You know, I mean, you know, belief is very much something that you most often inherit from your family, and then it gets ingrained in you.

John Dehlin [00:16:44] And so it's very hard to step back and actually look at the church and say, is it really true? And I think one of the differences between maybe the critics or apostates and apologists is that apologists sort of start from the decision that the church is true, and then they kind of figure out how to defend it at any cost. And by, I don't want to say by any means necessary.

John Dehlin [00:17:09] And Sky, I shouldn't speak for you, so you can tell me if I'm mischaracterizing apologists. But I've never heard. I don't hear apologists often. I've never seen Grant, you know, Palmer interviewed on the Fair, you know, podcast. I've never seen, you know, Michael Quinn interviewed on the. On the Fair podcast. I think that, you know, I've never heard the Fair podcast interview a homosexual who tried reparative therapy and it failed. And. And it just doesn't feel like there's an attempt to really objectively balance the issues. I just think that's not the Mission affair. But someone who has some reason actually start questioning, you know, and ultimately they become apostates.

John Dehlin [00:17:55] I think those people say, I'm willing to balance the evidence and go where the evidence lies. And I do think that's a difference. And I think all sorts of life experiences shock us into being willing to look objectively.

Scott Gordon [00:18:12] Yeah, I was with you until you said at any cost. And then I went like, no, no. Obviously there are difficult things with any. With any faith community. We heard about that this morning, about how the Brother Faulkner, he commented that no matter if you look at history, there's going to be messy things in there. And anytime you have human beings involved in any endeavor, it's going to be messy. There is a great quote by Gordon B. Hinckley that talks about how if we look back on in our past and we start criticizing the individuals involved, then there's a lot to criticize, but how much more amazing it is the church came out of that environment where we had so many people with so many weaknesses. I've read Grant Palmer's book, and that's why he's not on the Fair podcast.

John Dehlin [00:19:07] So,

Scott Gordon [00:19:10] yeah, you know, we have historians that come in and we have other people who. Who deal with those same issues, the same issues that Grant deals with, but just not. But we just feel that they have a better. More. Let me rephrase this. They have a more scholarly approach to it. See, that would be the difference is, you know, probably one group looks at us as being polemic and being biased where we look at. And we say we're trying to get the most objective view out there. And that's. So we want to get the scholars who deal with the primary source documents and people who have training in scholarship and such when we can. Now, we do mix it up where we do also have other people who are hobbyists and such who also speak. But yeah, if he were to speak, he would be. Well, anyway. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:20:06] So you're saying fair seeks objectivity.

Scott Gordon [00:20:09] Yes, Yes, I know. Disbelief.

John Dehlin [00:20:15] See,

Scott Gordon [00:20:17] picture disbelief.

Rosemary Avance [00:20:23] You did say in Your statement or your mission statement that you start from a faithful position? I mean, you start there.

Scott Gordon [00:20:29] Yes, absolutely. Well, it's not objective to start from a position of disbelief either. What we have is both sides have biases. Everyone has a bias. Every researcher has a bias, every scholar has a bias. And you have to understand your bias. And we're up front about our bias. Our bias is we're believing members of the church. That's our bias. And so anything you read from us, you have to understand that as you read the conclusions of anything we write, that this is written by a believing member of the church. Now, when you're reading the facts of what we write, we try to get the facts from every place we can.

Scott Gordon [00:21:04] We go back into the archives, we go into the various books, we look at the positives, the negatives, we look at all that, and we try and put all of the facts out there so that anybody reading it can. They make their own decisions based on what those facts are, the conclusions. Yes, there are, and they have the bias, whatever it is. But then again, it also goes into who is fair. And the assumption is fair is the. You know, fair is a. That I hear often is fair is the very conservative. The parents who do terrible things to their children when they leave, the families that ostracize people.

Scott Gordon [00:21:40] You know, that's the assumption of fair. And that's not us. We have liberals in our group. We have conservatives in our group. We have ex Mormons who've returned in our group. We have a number of people who've gone through a number of different life experiences. And if someone shows up and tries to.

Scott Gordon [00:21:57] So we have a variety. And when someone starts to espouse one of those more dogmatic positions, they're pretty quickly shouted down on our fair volunteer list, because we have that variety of background. Anyway, I know people don't believe what I'm saying here because it doesn't fit with the. Doesn't fit within our. What was the term that was used earlier this morning? Our glyph.

Scott Gordon [00:22:22] It doesn't fit within our glyph. All right. Mormonism isn't the only faith dealing with disillusion and disaffection, and it's not the only faith dealing with apologetics. So my question is, in what you've seen and done, and maybe, Mary, you can definitely add to this as well, how has Mormons responded to disaffection or have dealt with it or done apologetics, especially in light of the Internet age, how does it differ from. Or does it differ at all? From how other religions are dealing with these things.

Mormonism, Disillusionment, and the Role of Apologetics

Rosemary Avance [00:22:59] I think there are characteristics of Mormonism that make it very compelling and maybe more illustrative example of these kind of dynamics of the potential things that can happen during faith crises. And these characteristics range from sort of the all encompassing.

Rosemary Avance [00:23:21] Mormons give so much of their time and their life and their. I mean, they commit fully or they're expected to, they serve callings and they serve missions and these are volunteer positions and they attend church and they're required to make sacrifices in their lives that may differ from some other religious groups.

Rosemary Avance [00:23:40] So they're highly invested when they get to these points. At least the people that I've spoken with, they all invested a lot. And it also has a characteristic of literality, teaching that something is historical and true and that there is archaeological evidence and there's linguistic evidence and DNA evidence for something that's a little different than, you know, most Protestant or Catholic or other, I mean, any other group. And it has to do with the youth that Joanna mentioned of the church.

Rosemary Avance [00:24:16] It's a young church. So it's easier to sort of look at some of those things with a critical eye because the evidence for some of those things might be there and people can look at those types of things and come to very different conclusions. Obviously those things are cited as reasons why the church is true and reasons why the church is false. But I think some of those characteristics of the church are just not the same for other more established faiths and also the church because its difference and competitiveness with other branches of Protestant Christianity make it a target in the media so much more than other faiths in this particular moment. So it's a compelling moment to study that identity shift because all these factors are sort of converging.

Scott Gordon [00:24:59] I think we haven't done a good job, quite honestly, and I think that there are questions that come up. John articulated them quite well in his study, the various questions that came up. A gentleman asked me about the Book of Abraham earlier.

Scott Gordon [00:25:15] There are other issues that, I mean, over the years with Fair as we do our conferences each year, we try and think of things that are troubling to people and, and try and find people who can address those issues and bring up or do research in it or address it somehow. And there are still issues out there that there's not a lot of what I would call good apologetics. And by good apologetics I would define that not necessarily as the most persuasive, but as someone where someone has actually gone through and done good research and gotten Good information that people can look at and do scholarly work on and such.

Scott Gordon [00:25:56] Hi, thanks for your presentations. And one of the things I appreciated about this panel is the sense of there are people out there who are hurting and that it's important for us to show compassion and kindness. I think that should be our number one takeaway. John, I was wondering if, if you have a sense from your study of the guilt and shame and hurt that people feel, do you have a sense or is there any way to measure how much of it is because of pressures they feel from God, from heaven, from. This is affecting my standing in the eternities versus a more horizontal. This is about my relationships in my community.

Scott Gordon [00:26:40] Like you said, the single mother. What am I going to do about money and things like that? Or is it all kind of mixed up together because of, because of the way the Mormons connect community to heaven?

John Dehlin [00:26:51] One particularly stark finding from our data is that something like 55% of those who lose their faith in the church become either agnostic or atheist. And I'm curious to know whether other faith traditions have such a casualty rate in terms of belief in God.

John Dehlin [00:27:13] And so I think there's one of the most difficult things that people experience is the attempt to try and take their external locus of control, which is sort of God and their priesthood leaders and sort of the rules of Mormonism, and figure out a way to sort of redirect that to an internal locus of control where they get to decide what's meaningful or worthwhile or important to them. And that's a really hard process. You just see these people who are like, I want to break away, I may want to try a cup of coffee, I may want to not go to church on Sunday. But there's this training, this programming that's so ingrained that they, they are constantly questioning themselves and constantly doubting whether they have the ability to discern what is right for them without an ensign reference or, you know, a general conference talk that they can use as guidance.

John Dehlin [00:28:11] And so there is a lot of self doubt and shame early in the process. But I think for a lot of these people, the more they study and the more they sort of get a big picture, they realize just a lot of their beliefs fall to the floor. And at that point when everything's falling to the floor, then you can decide what you want to pick back up again.

John Dehlin [00:28:40] And then it, then it absolutely no longer is a matter of God and divinity, because either you reinterpret your view of God as something that will only be loving and kind or you jettison the idea of God altogether. But very few of these people maintain a stern, judgmental type of God in the end of their process. And so then it very much becomes what's the social collateral damage of honesty, openness. John mentioned in your presentation that Marlon Jensen said that this is a season of apostasy.

Scott Gordon [00:29:25] Is there any sense of what that

John Dehlin [00:29:27] means in terms of real numbers or

Scott Gordon [00:29:29] any speculation what that means in terms of real numbers?

John Dehlin [00:29:32] And I think he also mentioned in that same discussion that the church was

Scott Gordon [00:29:37] working on some sort of program or modification of curriculum to try to address that. Any feel for what form that will take?

John Dehlin [00:29:52] We've actually on Mormon stories, we've done two recent episodes on demographics in the church. And something that's very clear is, is a few things that are really clear. Number one, the number of people we claim in the 14 million number, you know, the national censuses, I don't know what the plural is for census across many, many countries show that the number of people who identify as Mormon is very different from the number we claim on our rolls. And most of the professional, you know, demographers. Is that a word that I'm familiar with, sort of put the activity rates in the church at about one third.

John Dehlin [00:30:33] So 33% of all people who've been baptized are actually attending church. About a third. We don't even know who they are or where they are. They're just on the rolls. But they maybe got baptized when they were eight and never showed up at church again. And I think if you. If there's some podcasts I've done on, you know, the church in Chile and in Guatemala and in other places, you'll find activity rates in third world countries around sometimes 15%, sometimes 20%.

John Dehlin [00:31:06] And in the United States, demographers are saying that sort of growth in the US Is either flatlined or is starting to decline. And in the Western world, it's definitely. And in Asia, it's definitely on the decline. And so I think Elder Jensen was right and had it accurate. I've been able to meet with a few general authorities who have confirmed this is a problem. And there definitely are attempts to figure out how to address these issues. But these general authorities that I've talked to who have asked that their names not be mentioned, I'm not trying to quote some fictitious person, but it's very hard to make positive change in the church, even if you're an apostle.

John Dehlin [00:31:53] I've been told that that doesn't mean that you just kind of get to say what's going to happen and what's not going to happen. Change can be very slow and very methodical. So getting the History department and the curriculum department and the correlation department and CES all on board and then to get the first presidency and the quorum of the 12 to get unanimous consent on some type of significant change can sometimes take decades. And I think that's why some of the social issues that the church has been a little bit late to the party on addressing has taken sometimes so long. And so I think, I think they are making attempts, but I think they're going to be complicated because these general authorities that I've talked to, when I've asked them about Book of Abraham or polyandry or they don't have good answers.

John Dehlin [00:32:46] And so what do you do? Do you introduce these, do you sort of try and placate the 2 or 3% of your membership to sort of make them feel better and risk exposing or infecting the other 95% of your active membership to these problems when you don't have a good answer? I think what you do in that situation is exactly what they're doing, which is you try not to talk about it too much and maybe get some specialized pockets of people like Fair and Fit and Maxwell that will try and address these things in a sort of quiet, behind the scenes way. But as soon as you sort of open it up, it's just a Pandora's box and you're inviting your own demise.

Scott Gordon [00:33:31] Yeah, John brings up a couple very good points there. The one thing I think is interesting when you talk about activity rates though, we have an interesting one person said to me the other day that all politics is local politics. And the same is true in Mormonism. All Mormonism is local Mormonism.

Scott Gordon [00:33:47] And what that means is we sometimes take our own. We look so hard within ourselves and we become myopic about. We think of ourselves as being somehow special or different than everybody else. And you say, well, that's a good thing, that church teaches you to do that. But I'm talking about things like activity rates and such.

Scott Gordon [00:34:06] Other churches also have similar activity rates we have where people join and then fall away. There's lots of transitions with various churches. Now the LDS Church has more of a problem than some because we have such high demands on our membership. You know, you can't smoke, can't drink, don't do coffee, you know, tithing.

Scott Gordon [00:34:27] Time commitment. There's quite a time commitment for being a Mormon. And so it's, you know, it is more difficult being a Mormon. Than being say Presbyterian or, or some of the other faiths out there, some of the other denominations out there. So that leads to the inactivity rate or probably a little higher than some. We have to recognize that, as one person said, that the problems that we deal with, everybody else deals with too. One of the differences are, is we tend to hyper focus on it. If you talk to your average Baptist and you ask them about his church history or her church history, you'll have some difficulties.

Scott Gordon [00:35:05] I had difficulties going to the Southern Baptist libraries and trying to get information from them and such because Mormons do such a great job of documenting everything. And that's not the case in some other faith traditions. The librarians are very helpful, but they just don't have the information all documented like we did. We wrote everything down.

Scott Gordon [00:35:23] And so as we look at our faith tradition, we say, isn't that terrible? Isn't that awful what happened in the 1950s or the 1850s or the 1840s? And very similar things happen in other faith traditions as well. But it's not part of their discussions, it's not part of their community discussion that's going on or their Internet discussions. They just kind of walk past it and don't even think about it. And if you ask them about it, they probably won't know.

Transparency, Church History, and Navigating Faith Crisis

Scott Gordon [00:35:56] Thanks everyone for being here today. This is really eye opening. A question I have. My faith had its origins in a very polemic environment. Faith crisis brought me into the church and many crises along the way. I want to ask this question. How much of these faith crises, the pain that they seem to generate, do you think is attributed to a lack of transparency to just information blindsiding people? You know, for family, home, evening, our family, we're now studying who the wives of Joseph Smith were and who the husbands of those wives were. You know, I don't want my kids to grow up having a one sided faith. And so my question is how much is it is attributable to being blindsided?

Rosemary Avance [00:36:40] I mean universally in the cases that I study, it was always a case of information that they hadn't known before or an event that happened. So but that I think is what differentiated the pathist that I talked about from the escapist was that the pathos that tended to be an event, something happened. Whereas the escapists, it was information that they felt had been withheld. And I mean, maybe it was withheld, maybe it wasn't transparent. I guess those are two different ways of saying the same thing. In these cases where people may not have the resources to find some of these well hidden things in church history. So, I mean, I think it depends on the outcome. But in the case of people that left, that I studied, it was across the board, exactly what you're saying.

John Dehlin [00:37:34] I think, Scott, the part of your presentation where I got most emotionally activated was when you were listing all the different instances where the Church has mentioned the peep stones or the, or the.

Scott Gordon [00:37:49] I told her there's one part of my presentation that's going to be a hot button. So that was it. Okay, good.

John Dehlin [00:37:55] And it's true, it's true that the Church has talked in the ensign about, I guess, Joseph's plural wives and the, you know, the peep stones in the translation. But I think it's also true that, that every single time the Church has visually depicted the translation process for the Book of Mormon, they have never, that I've ever seen depicted it visually as, as, as the data show it actually happened. Richard Bushman himself has said this is a really bad thing and I think it is deceptive. I think they know, they know how the translation happened because they published it, yet they don't visually represent it that way and they continue to mislead people.

John Dehlin [00:38:45] And as far as polygamy goes, Joseph Smith's polygamy, how many of you have ever heard mention of one of Joseph's plural wives in sacrament meeting, Sunday school, Relief Society, Seminary Institute, BYU religion classes? You know, how many of you have heard it? So the people from Farron Farms raised their hand and nobody else. And we're all lifelong members of the church, 30, 40, 50 years in it. And so the Church could fix this problem.

John Dehlin [00:39:19] And putting it in an obscure article here or there, I think is very different from the complete honesty that we're taught to maintain as, as members of the Church. You know, honesty isn't sort of hiding things or mentioning them somewhere obscure. It's saying, here's the full truth, here's the complete truth. And let's talk about it as I understand it, in the Brigham Young manual, the priesthood manual, they actually changed the text where Brigham Young would refer to his wives and they actually changed his own original words to say wife.

John Dehlin [00:40:00] Right. And so I, I, you know, this is a, this is a position, this is an apologetic position that is just really frustrating because I think, I think, I feel that the right answer is to say we need to do better. We need to be more honest as a church. We need to be more open. People deserve to know if you're a convert, if you're investigating the church. You deserve to know that Joseph had 32 wives, that eight of them were married to other men and that several of them were teenagers. You deserve to know that because that speaks to the character and the credibility of the person that you're being asked to believe in.

John Dehlin [00:40:39] You deserve to know that if you're being taught the Book of Abraham or the Pearl of Great Price, that the, that the manuscript or the scroll that it was based on actually by all Egyptian Egyptologists account bears no resemblance to the actual text. And if you're black, you absolutely deserve to know before you're baptized that the church called you dark and loathsome for about 150 years before they decided to let you in and have full fellowship. I just think that's just honest and I think we should admit that.

John Dehlin [00:41:14] And I feel sorry for apologists and I'm saying this sincerely, I feel sorry for them that they have to do the speaking for the church. You guys may not feel sorry for yourselves, but. But I think you're in a very hard position. It's almost like the spouse of an abusive husband who has to make excuses for the husband's behavior. I feel sorry that you have to do that. I wish that the people who were in charge were explaining their actions and behaviors and weren't relying on you to do it at arm's length. And I mean that with affection.

Scott Gordon [00:41:50] Thank you. I think it's interesting because I agree with John on the artwork completely that the art we have in the early book, in the Book of Mormons, we had the Blue Book, Books of Mormon were. Or Book of Mormons, however you want to say it, right, that it did not show the way that it was written. It was an artist's rendition. The difference is I look at that and say, look at that artist's rendition. That's not accurate. Based on what's written in all the church documents. John looks at that and says, look how deceptive the church is being. And they published the inside. But the question is, how many pieces of artwork do the general authorities make? Zero. They don't paint. You know, we have.

John Dehlin [00:42:31] But could they commission.

Scott Gordon [00:42:34] But they didn't even commission the ones that are there. They didn't even commission those ones. Those are ones that an artist made and then the church bought it from them. Clearly. But yes, Legacy, the like. Wait, wait, wait for the, wait for the microphone. There we go. The, the film Legacy seems to feature

John Dehlin [00:42:56] the plates right in front of Smith.

Scott Gordon [00:42:59] Yes, it does. And that was done by again, a filmmaker who my thought was he Got it wrong.

Rosemary Avance [00:43:05] I just wonder how many converts have access to those articles from the 70s before they make their choices to join the church.

Scott Gordon [00:43:11] Well, there again, it goes back to his other comment about Brigham Young. And yes, they did take the word wives out and put wife in and put it in brackets. And I disagree with doing that. But you have to go back to why? Is the manual there? Is the manual there to teach history? Is the manual there to talk about polygamy? No, the manual is there to teach about how husbands should treat their wife.

Scott Gordon [00:43:32] And the issue the church has to deal with is we have some crazies out there. And I'll say that crazies. And I'll use that word. I'll know I'll get beat up for it later. That will take that as some sort of permission to go out and do what the church doesn't want them to do is go back and say, hey, let's talk about wives again. Let's talk about polygamy again. As far as the blacks issue, that one's off the table for me completely. Because if you say, well, golly, the church needs to talk about how badly they mistreated blacks, let's talk about what Billy Graham said about blacks.

Scott Gordon [00:44:07] It was bad. Let's talk about what other church leaders said about blacks. Let's talk, you know, it wasn't a mob of angry Mormons in Little Rock keeping those nine children from going there. That's the question. I mean, that's the issue is you say our argument is, as apologists, gee, we're just as good as everybody else. That's not a very good position. But it's no worse than other positions. And to sort of use that as a stick when you don't care about the African Americans, all you care about is using it as a stick to beat up black or beat up the church. To me, I think that's disingenuous anyway.

John Dehlin [00:44:42] I don't think I've ever met a person that didn't care about the blacks, first of all, personally, I mean, not a credible person in my experience. But this argument that the church is in the place to learn history, if you look at the way I kind of see it, is that the church leaders use history when it suits their purpose.

John Dehlin [00:45:07] And sometimes they don't always use it honestly. So the classic case is the one about Thomas B. Marsh. We've all heard that Thomas B. Marsh left the church over the fact that his wife got in some dispute over the milk strippings. And if anybody has actually read the actual History. Thomas Marsh left for some very credible reasons that related to violence that was being perpetrated on, you know, a certain town, as I understand it, in Missouri. But when the church tells that story, they'll use history even wrongly if they think that it's going to suit their purpose. And so I don't think it's fair to say that the church is in a place to learn history when history is. Is used to one's advantage, when it's convenient.

Scott Gordon [00:45:56] I agree the Thomas Moss or the Thomas Marsh story shouldn't be used anymore. But I think what happens is you have human beings that are looking at stories and such and they're putting together their talks and they're saying this is a great story and they may have learned it that way and it's wrong and I'm hoping they don't use it anymore. If it's all right, I'm going to change course a little bit in the name of agreeing to disagree. Maybe I've made a simple observation and

Guest [00:46:33] that's all it is.

Scott Gordon [00:46:33] I have nothing to back it. But as I'm observing the dynamics in my own family and the dynamics of those I interact with both at church and now outside of the church, I'm noticing at least I think I'm noticing some sort of a trend in that those that are becoming disaffected or feeling that the church might not be true tend to be at least, at the very least interested in the social sciences if not having a background in the social sciences. And those that tend to maybe stay or want to stay or participate in apologetics, they tend to not have that same background. And again, this is a simple observation.

Scott Gordon [00:47:15] I have no evidence to back it. I would wonder, ask the panel if you agree with that observation and if you do, do you think that's causation? Correlation? Neither. Just looking for some discussion on that topic. I think there's a recent study that showed the number one major that where people left the church was English, that I could have guessed that.

Scott Gordon [00:47:39] You know, I read that in a newspaper article. It must have been either two or three years ago. I don't remember the study, but I think there's correlation. I think you have some self selection going on that explains my student evaluations. Could be, I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:48:00] I have the same theory. Humanities and social sciences can be more associated with disaffection than let's say, engineering correlation.

Rosemary Avance [00:48:13] I did notice. I don't really have anything to say about that, but I did notice when I visited. Mormon scholars testify that there's a whole bunch of Mormon academics on that site, but there are very, very few in the humanities. So there's correlation for you too. I don't know what it means. There's a few in the corner, but other than that.

Guest [00:48:46] Psychology graduate here who had the pleasure of last week telling one of my close mission friends that I no longer believe in the church. And he asked me in our conversation if I was anti Mormon now. And I didn't really know how to answer that.

Guest [00:49:07] I participate in a variety of online communities, some of them the escapist probably more than the pathist. In my discussion on the community, we kind of discussed this term anti Mormon, and a lot of us don't really like it. I think an artifact that many ex Mormons bring from their experience in Mormonism is this deep desire to be understood by others.

The Term Anti-Mormon and How It Shapes Dialogue

Guest [00:49:40] And we want our Mormon friends to understand where we're coming from. We kind of find that in my discussion online that anti Mormon is a very loaded term. Feels seems like maybe it comes from one person suggested the term anti Semitism, which you know, from I think a general understanding is like a hatred of everything, you know, Semite from the Semite tradition, from Jewish tradition, including the people themselves. We think of the Holocaust.

Guest [00:50:17] And in my experience and many others I've spoken with, none of the ex Mormons hate in the strongest sense of that word, which I think is a very strong word. None of us hate Mormons at all. We dislike many of the things they behaviors, perhaps in culture, but we do not hate.

Guest [00:50:41] And so I guess we've heard that term a couple times today, anti Mormon. I'm curious to get to the question, how do you define it? So the whole panel, or do you define that term? What can we use to define who is an anti Mormon and who is just an ex Mormon? When I start saying things, when I become an evangelist of, you know, ex Mormonism, I still have trouble with that term even when do I become an anti Mormon?

Rosemary Avance [00:51:16] So I have a chapter in my dissertation that I'm hoping to write on former Mormons and I'm sort of grappling with that myself, whether that's a term imposed on a group against their will, whether it's a fair term at all.

Rosemary Avance [00:51:29] And the reason that I tend to think it's not a fair term at all is because if I were to issue a call for interviews and I requested anti Mormons to participate, no one would respond to that. That's not a group of people that identify. I mean, there's no such thing as people who identify that way. There are people who are passionate and there are people who are vitriolic, and there are people who are very angry. And there are Internet trolls, which is a whole other thing because they troll everywhere, not just in certain places. But I don't think I would find anybody willing to do an interview that self identifies as anti Mormon.

Rosemary Avance [00:51:59] So, I mean, personally, I don't find that concept useful except when it speaks to the identity of Mormons themselves, which is a very fraught identity that's filled with the passive feeling like they themselves are being targeted and they themselves are outsiders. And so the term anti Mormon sort of communicates some of that feeling of a threat to their identity as Mormons because others are out to get them with their. With their literature and their hate and their anger towards us for being different.

Rosemary Avance [00:52:30] So, I mean, it's useful when you think of it as a term that reflects back on the creators of the term more so than, I think, a specific demographic group that's out there somewhere.

John Dehlin [00:52:41] And I'd just add that the use of the word cult to describe the church is probably equally offensive on the other side of that equation for believers, and I kind of think of both cult and anti Mormon is the N words within Mormonism. I don't think they deserve thoughtful consideration at all as being credible terms to be used.

Scott Gordon [00:53:07] I'm going to be a minority position here. I know. First of all, I know there are critics of the church, and I have no problem with critics of the church. I have no problem with people disagreeing with the church. I'm sure my esteemed panelist here doesn't agree with everything the church does. She's not a member. And I know that John doesn't agree with everything the church does. So you have critics. But when people start calling me a liar, when people say I'm engaging in lying for the Lord, I hear that constantly, over and over and over again. When I hear people saying the church is purposely going down a path of deception, I call them anti Mormons because they are going on a path that is polemic, that is just very negative toward the church. Now, can someone disagree with the church? Absolutely. Do you disagree with the gay rights things? Prop 8?

Guest [00:54:02] Sure.

Scott Gordon [00:54:02] Are you an anti Mormon for doing that? Absolutely not. But if you go on a systematic. The Internet trolls, for example, and such, where. Where the church can do no right and everybody who's outside the church can do no wrong. And no church historian is a good historian, but every church historian outside the church is a great historian. I Call them anti Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:54:25] I just wonder if it might be more accurate and constructive to call them hurt or in pain.

Scott Gordon [00:54:33] No,

Rosemary Avance [00:54:39] I just had a question in regards to some of that. I don't understand where there is any place in the church for spin doctoring. The church asks on temple recommend interviews if you are honest in all your dealings. One of the problems that I had was I found information. I didn't automatically go to anti sources, but going to church sources I found information that made it very clear to me that the church had not been open and honest in all its dealings with me yet. It expected that from me, but

Scott Gordon [00:55:16] it

Rosemary Avance [00:55:16] was not exhibiting that same behavior. I have a problem with that. I don't have a problem with expressing that sentiment, but I don't think that makes me anti Mormon because I'm not the one who lied. I didn't lie. How does that, how do you reconcile that?

Scott Gordon [00:55:39] I wanted also with my no comment. I know it was a little bit flippant because I know there are people who are hurt who I would not call anti Mormon. People who are ex Mormons, lots of ex Mormons, I would not call anti Mormon. To me, the difference is those who actively campaign against the church, they're anti Mormon. In your case, there again the church lied. I'd have to talk to you. Who lied. Are we talking about the, you know, some.

Scott Gordon [00:56:06] Frequently it's a no, I see. I don't, you know, is your bishop lied or your stake president lied or you know, so. Yeah, see the Book of Abraham's interesting because there's, there's. Well, see and I would disagree with you because there's things in the Book of Abraham that Joseph Smith couldn't have known. And there, so there's positive apologetics for the Book of Abraham as well.

Scott Gordon [00:56:37] There's negative, there's negative apologetic for the Book of Abraham. In other words, there are two sides on that. There are two different sides. And so to just claim one side and say the other side's lying is not really very productive and very helpful.

Guest [00:56:59] I'm a social constructivist, so I believe religion is a social construct. And I'm wondering if part of this discussion that has to do with the anti versus right devout, the church versus the individual. It seems to me that a lot of these bifurcations are artificial and yet those are kind of self instilled by the emphasis on the structure within the church itself.

Guest [00:57:26] Right.

Guest [00:57:26] Where there is emphasis on hierarchy and order and structure. And so people get caught up in the idea of the institution being this sort of overarching source of truth. Whereas in the early church, it seems to me, based on what I've read, that wasn't the tradition. There was a lot more bottom up. There was a lot more room for debate and disagreement, which is a lot like other Christian churches, Baptist churches. You can go to one Baptist church and hear one thing, you go to another Baptist church and the preacher will have a different point of view. So the emphasis isn't on the church as an institution and a structure, but it's more as a church in terms of as a body of believers who sometimes vary in their belief systems and yet still feel part of the group.

Guest [00:58:10] How do you think the church has kind of done that? Or how do you think that maybe the church or members of the church can get past that bifurcation of being either all in right or absolutely true or absolutely right in everything versus being allowed the ability to learn about Joseph Smith and the other wives to learn about these other factors without undermining the credibility of the overall spirit of the church.

Scott Gordon [00:58:38] Either want to take that or

John Dehlin [00:58:41] do

Scott Gordon [00:58:41] I start my own relationship?

John Dehlin [00:58:45] I don't know if this will come across as humorous or as interesting as it was for me, but when I was having lunch with one of the general authorities in the church, he made the comment to me, who are the brethren?

John Dehlin [00:59:02] I don't know who they're talking about when they say the brethren. Because from his point of view, it was not a monolithic, unified body of people operating as automatons in a unified direction. Now that's the public face for probably some very good organizational reasons that they put forward.

John Dehlin [00:59:24] But he made it very clear to me very specific differences he had with very specific colleagues of his. And it was clear that his job might be just about as frustrating as anyone's to try and make positive progress from within.

John Dehlin [00:59:40] And. And then a different general authority that I spoke with told me about a conflict that he had with with another person whose name you'd know. And it was very clear then too that there was just lots of people trying to do their best from their own perspective. And I think your point is very well taken, very well articulated.

Scott Gordon [01:00:05] I definitely agree with John on that one. So I think that there are 12 brethren in the quorum of the 12, plus the first presidency. And I think if you go in there on pretty much any issue, you'll find 12 different opinions on it. We saw that. In fact, I was quite surprised with your survey when talking about people left over science. And my thought was science, what science church has a Statement that they have no position on science or on evolution or whatever it is. And yet I continue to see. I left the church because of the evolution issue. It's like, no, there is no position on evolution inside the LDS Church, although there are many members, bishops, stake presidents, probably mission presidents who do have positions on evolution.

Church Doctrine, Science, and Sustaining Church Leaders

Scott Gordon [01:00:43] And then forward that as if it's the church doctrine. As you know, if you go to the temple, you'll learn that certain things about evolution aren't true. And it's like, well, no, the Church has specifically said there is no position on evolution.

Scott Gordon [01:00:55] So, yeah. What is the church? Church is a collection of individuals with differing opinions. Yeah. Being the son of a biologist, of course, evolution is something that came up a lot in my family. You know, as my. Again, quoting my father on something else he used to say, you can believe anything you want in the church. You just can't teach it.

Scott Gordon [01:01:20] What that means. What that means is that there's a great latitude of belief that you're allowed to be of the church. You're allowed to believe a number of things. You could even believe that the Book of Mormon is not literal and still be a good strong member of the church if you want to.

Scott Gordon [01:01:37] But if you're teaching other people, then there's a. There's a doctrinal, you know, well, you teach out the lesson manuals. You teach what the lesson manuals say, which is things that help build people up, inspire people, bring the spirit in. Those are things they teach things to try and, you know, be more honest, be more open, those types of things. But as far as personal beliefs, you can believe anything, pretty much, almost sure.

John Dehlin [01:02:10] And it's a very painful place to be where you can't express how you really feel about something. And that's a problem. If they say, you know, pay, pay the tithing, obey what we say, believe every. Believe whatever you want, but just be quiet about it. There's something very invalidating and hard about. About walking that road. The other thing I'll say is that when it comes to science, part of the complexity is that. That the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve are all sustained as prophets, seers and revelators. So when they write a book like Manage Origin Man, His Origin and Destiny, or when they make public statements

Scott Gordon [01:02:58] or

John Dehlin [01:02:58] they publish doctrines of salvation that's distributed in church bookstores or in the church distribution system, what are members to do who aren't caught up in this sophistication that we're all. Or alleged sophistication that we're all sort of caught up in. They're left to believe what Joseph Fielding Smith said because he was a prophet. And if the church would do us the favor of reminding us that just because a prophet see a revelator says something, we don't have to believe it, I think that would take a lot of the pressure off. But because they don't happen to ever mention that, then it becomes a little bit more understandable why members would see the scientific issues as a problem because they simply believe the prophets, seers and revelators at their word.

Scott Gordon [01:03:53] No. And you know, it is interesting how things get propagated because we have that series. And yet at the time, you know, that was one of the issues. Again, they had two apostles that debated the issue of evolution.

Scott Gordon [01:04:05] And I remember it was uvu. They had a big or not at Utah State University. Gosh, my university is mixed up. Sorry. I know they had an issue where they. Where one of the apostles was not treated well because he came in and people were holding up the man's origin or destiny, saying, you know, are you being a true apostle? Are you doing what you should be doing?

Scott Gordon [01:04:32] We do have to have. I think a lot of it comes down to when you talk about critic or apologist, a lot of it does come down to mindset. What is the church? How monolithic is the church? And if you view the church as a monolithic, it's always right. Every person who speaks is always right. Every book that's always written is always right. I can pretty well guarantee you're not going to be in the church a long time because there's differing opinions. And if you happen to pick up the wrong differing opinion, then it's going to be a problem for you. Wait for the microphone.

Guest [01:05:13] I'm not meaning this critically, I'm meaning this sincerely. As an apologist, how would you then on your website explain to a member of the church who wants to hold a temple recommend, for example, who believes in the temple, and it's important to them and their family.

Guest [01:05:30] How would you tell them to interpret the question of sustaining leaders as prophets, seers and revelators, given the fact that you know and understand. And again, this is not intended to be critical, but you understand that they don't all speak as seers and prophets and revelators. In fact, I do remember doing a search in the standard works of the LDS Church and found nowhere reference to anyone being a prophet but the prophet. And so I'm not sure when that transition occurred in the church's history, but I'm just curious how you would tell members of the church who are struggling with questions about things like that to go about answering that question.

Scott Gordon [01:06:09] I think that Joseph Smith said it well, that prophet is a prophet only when acting as such. And Brigham Young went on to say that there's not a single revelation. I don't know. I know I can't quote him now off the top of my head, but it's in paraphrasing that the revelations we get that, you know, we understand correctly, you know, we don't. The revelations we get, we don't always even understand and don't communicate them properly is kind of the paraphrasing of what I interpret the meaning of what he said.

Scott Gordon [01:06:36] So, you know, I think that we have to look at what the general authorities try and be very careful these days. They try to say things that are helpful for our salvation, are helpful for our lives, have to do with, you know, how we should live and practice the orthopraxy, as they say, you know, go to church, pay your tithing, don't do these things, do these things. So I've noticed the church has recently tried to narrow its conversations more to things that are gospel oriented. But those things that are not strictly along the lines of salvation and such, they are free to speculate in and, you know, whether which football team's going to win.

Scott Gordon [01:07:21] Obviously nobody would say, gee, that was the prophet speaking or that was the apostle speaking, therefore I must believe. And so you get to the where is that line, you know, as they speak, where's the line where they. Where I must believe it or I must not believe it.

Scott Gordon [01:07:37] And I think that, you know, looking. The other thing you have to look at is the church believes in continuing revelation, and continuing revelation means the church learns and grows as well. And I think what we do is we often go back to the evangelical fundamentalist viewpoint that if you go back far enough, you're going back to the original source documents of the Bible, you find the truth, you have to always look back, back, back, back, back. And in the LDS Church, we have too many members that do that where we say we have to look back, back, back, back, back, when really we're trying to go forward, forward, forward, forward, forward, and cast off our old things that we didn't know.

Scott Gordon [01:08:12] We're trying to grow and learn from it and move forward. And so I think what we have to do is focus on the recent comments. The more recent comments give more weight to those than the older comments. And I think it's just the opposite. We tend to do is that only

Rosemary Avance [01:08:25] if they've been sustained as doctrinal. I mean, this whole process is bizarre to me as someone who was not raised so I'm sure I'm a scholar of Mormonism who has devoted countless hours to trying to sort out this whole process of how something gains authority. Because, you know, when you study religion, the idea is that if someone is in a position of authority, then they can speak normatively. Right. Even if. If it's not considered doctrine, it has weight and that weight has consequences whether or not it's doctrinal. So I'm wondering, the recent example with the race denouncement on the website where the church issued a statement, is that doctrine?

Rosemary Avance [01:09:02] I mean, where's the doctrine about race? Where's it officially? I mean, doesn't it have to be like put in DNC to be doctrine? I mean, that's what the official process says happens at the end. But I don't know that there's been anything put in there recently.

Scott Gordon [01:09:17] Yeah, I would, I would say there is no doctrine about race other than it's not an issue. But they've said it more recently.

Rosemary Avance [01:09:23] So they could say anything at any time and then change.

John Dehlin [01:09:25] And that is.

Scott Gordon [01:09:26] Right.

Rosemary Avance [01:09:26] Change it the next day. And that would be.

John Dehlin [01:09:29] The prophet is the spot. The prophet is speaking truth when his mouth is moving.

Rosemary Avance [01:09:35] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:09:35] And it can be in the Doctrine and Covenants and be declared as non doctrinal as we saw when Gordon McHinkley was asked about polygamy and he said polygamy was not doctrinal. So we're at a point where anything can be anything.

Rosemary Avance [01:09:52] Yeah. Makes it really difficult to study, just so you know.

John Dehlin [01:09:58] Welcome to our world, Rosemary.

Scott Gordon [01:10:00] I feel your pain. We're out of time. I'd like to just invite you the. The Orem Institute of Religion has. Is sponsoring a social this evening, a reception. And that will run from 5:30 to 6:45 over at the institute. And then at 7pm we will be doing the annual Eugene England lecture which Patrick Mason will be delivering. Blessed are the Peacemakers Toward a Mormon Theology and Ethic of Peace. So let's give one more round of applause to our. That'll be here. Yeah.

Guest [01:10:36] So there.

John Dehlin [01:10:37] Here.

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