Introducing Jordan and McKay

Part 1 of 3 · Ep. 1538

John Dehlin [00:00:01] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, Dr. John Dehlin. It is January 27, 2022, and I am so incredibly excited for today's interview. Carah Burrell, you are writing psychar as always. Are you excited for today's interview?

Carah Burrell [00:00:19] So excited you arranged today's interview? Yeah, I am.

John Dehlin [00:00:22] What were you thinking?

Carah Burrell [00:00:23] I was thinking I've been friends with one of the guests here today. I invited them to come out to the TikTok panel we did at Thrive. And I've just been a fan of theirs for a while and I think people in the Mormon ex Mormon sphere are ready to hear their story. So.

John Dehlin [00:00:39] And the people are introduce them.

Carah Burrell [00:00:41] Jordan and McKay.

John Dehlin [00:00:42] Hey, guys.

McKay [00:00:43] Calm down, everyone.

John Dehlin [00:00:44] Welcome.

McKay [00:00:45] We're not that.

Carah Burrell [00:00:46] Come on, liven it up in here. Scream.

John Dehlin [00:00:49] Okay, so, so let me give just a. I love to give this introduction of like telling my listeners and viewers why they really need to listen to and, or watch this interview. Many of you remember around 10 years ago, I'm. I'm going to get the dates slightly wrong. Maybe it was six or seven years ago. We had Samantha Shelley and Tanner Gilliland on Mormon Stories podcast. This was a really important interview because at the time the Mormon Church was hemorrhaging its millennials.

John Dehlin [00:01:18] And, and we wanted to kind of COVID that. So, so we had Samantha and Tanner on. We labeled it Losing Mormon Millennials. And it was a really important, groundbreaking interview that basically a lot of millennials paid attention to. And it helped kind of, from the Mormon Stories podcast standpoint, kind of shine a light on a generation. And it was so popular, I always say this, that Tyler Glenn, the lead singer for Neon Trees, when he was going through his faith crisis, it was like the video that shows up in the YouTube algorithm that turned him on to Mormon Stories podcast. Well, a new generation has arisen and that generation is Gen Z.

John Dehlin [00:02:01] And what I'm super excited about today is that Jordan McKay, I think for many represent at least one example of a cool, compelling, interesting Gen Z Mormon story. And it just so happens that they have a super successful popular YouTube channel called Jordan McKay. Is that right?

McKay [00:02:24] Yep, yep.

John Dehlin [00:02:25] Now I have haters that are like, why are you always interviewing influencers? And I want to be really clear. This isn't like, oh, let's just pick influencers to bring them on Mormon Stories. I believe in interviewing. Well, first of all, this is Carah's idea. So I mean, if you want to get mad, be mad at Carah.

Carah Burrell [00:02:43] Uh, oh, I just get mine from the universe. The universe just gave me this as an idea, and I just accepted it as a revelation. Thank you. It was a true thing. Jordan McKay obviously deserve to tell their Mormon story. They've got such magnetic personalities. And you guys are hilarious and have good commentary, so bring that energy over here.

John Dehlin [00:03:02] But, Carah, if naysayers or critics were just like, all you do is interview influencers. If you had to give a serious, substantive reason why Jordan McKay are valuable interviewees on Mormon stories, what would you argue?

Carah Burrell [00:03:17] I think it's the point you were just about to make about that there's gonna be different generations of people of why they step away from the church. We interviewed Warren and Cindy Driggs. That's an older generation of who left in the 80s. Now you have Sam and Tanner talking about the millennials leaving. And then we were talking about the younger generation. That's the new generation that the church is trying to hold onto. And we want to discuss what are the reasons that they're leaving? What are the realities that they're waking up to? What was the INOC that maybe you guys are raised with that is a little bit different than me?

Carah Burrell [00:03:46] I'm probably, like, maybe seven years older than you. I haven't done the math yet. I'm not good at it. But I'm just curious to see, like, the younger and younger generations, what kind of their experience is in the church. We don't get that a lot on Mormon stories. So I think that's just a really good insight into the minds of how the church is. Is losing your generation, people younger than you. And I'm sure that you guys will have, like, hopefully a groundbreaking interview that people love and share and that this will, like, have ripple effects for people, like, in your age range and younger. So.

McKay [00:04:15] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:04:16] And also, I'll just add that, you know, we're never going to stop interviewing non influencers. We're always going to have just regular Jane and Joe and other Mormon stories interviewees. We're going to continue interviewing families and couples and parent child. You know, that's our bread and butter. But, you know, influencers are important because, number one, they're seasoned communicators and they bring an audience to Mormon stories just like we help bring an audience to them. But the more that we have people paying attention to these conversations, the better. And so you should want us, in addition to interviewing, if you care about Mormon stories, if you care about the mission of the Open Stories foundation, which is informed consent for everyone, Mormons and non Mormons, but it's also to promote Healing and growth for people, Mormons in faith crisis, but also never Mormons in faith cris and other religious traditions.

John Dehlin [00:05:15] If you care about that and if you care about promoting healing and growth after high demand religions or Mormonism, you should want the biggest audience possible benefiting from this content. And so it's not just this cynical, arbitrary. Let's just have influencers on. It's, it's that it's an important part. You know, when we bring on somebody that pulls their own audience, sometimes we'll get 120,000 viewers, whereas we may only get 10 or 10 or 20,000 without it. So it's not the cynical like for our benefit or their benefit. It's just having influencers in the mix. It's a rising tide that lifts all ships. It helps them, it helps us, but most importantly, it helps our mission.

John Dehlin [00:05:59] That's my argument. But don't worry, dear viewers and listeners, we will always also interview just regular, you know, average Jane and Joe Mormon and ex Mormon. Fair.

Carah Burrell [00:06:10] Yeah, I don't even like the word influencer. Influencer has like almost a negative connotation now. I just think of like content creators.

McKay [00:06:16] I like regular Joe Schmo. Yeah, I don't feel like influencer. That sounds better to me.

Carah Burrell [00:06:20] Do you guys have any brand deals? Like are you guys aren't like out there pimping energy drinks yet?

McKay [00:06:24] So. No, no, we are very scrutinizing when it comes to that.

Carah Burrell [00:06:27] Yeah, exactly. Content creators. And I like how you said that. Are like seasoned communicators. So people who, yeah, draw their own audience or good at communicating the points. You have your opinions and you already have established a platform with an audience and yeah, whatever we can do to collaborate on that is awesome.

John Dehlin [00:06:44] Yeah. Let's face it, if, if you've got a, if you've, you know, there are a gazillion content creators out there on tick tock and YouTube etc, if you've been able to reach critical mass. And by the way, many of Jordan McKay's videos have three to four or five times what Mormon Stories Podcast YouTube channel has. So like, if you're able to communicate effectively with large amounts of people, that's, that's valuable. So anyway, enough said. I hope people don't feel like I'm over justifying this, but I just wanted to.

Carah Burrell [00:07:15] You are.

John Dehlin [00:07:16] We get, we get criticized. All right.

Carah Burrell [00:07:20] Deserve to be here. Yay.

McKay's Mormon Upbringing and Family Life

John Dehlin [00:07:22] All right, so. So you guys have a really cool and important Mormon story today. We're going to do it in two parts. We're going to Kind of do your Mormon upbringings, your respective Mormon upbringings. And we're going to do the story up until the point where you're kind of living your best Mormon dream, which is after you get married and before you have your first kid. And then we're good. That's going to be part one. It's going to kind of be, you know, a Gen Z Mormon story, Jordan McKay. Then we're gonna end that part one, have a little break, and then we'll come back for part two, which will be everything unraveling. Kind of like one one one couples Mormon Gen Z. One Gen Z Mormon couples unraveling. Mormon unraveling. Does that make sense?

McKay [00:08:07] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:08:08] All right, so where does. We'll start? Because McKay is slightly older than Jordan, we'll start with. We'll start with McKay, but then we'll weave Jordan in. So, McKay, where does your Mormon story begin?

McKay [00:08:23] I guess it begins in 1995. I say I'm an elder Gen Z. Really? There's a lot of millennial culture that I really wasn't around for. So even though it kind of gets some negative connotations, I will accept it. I was born into an all member family. I have on my father's side, I have family that goes back to people in the Salt Lake City cemetery that have the little pioneer badge. One of my ancestors is named in the Doctrine and Covenants. We have pretty strong lines on that side. And then my mother intentionally not saying

John Dehlin [00:09:02] who that is just to protect your.

McKay [00:09:04] I mean, it would be far back enough that people would not know.

John Dehlin [00:09:07] But you guys don't use your last names. Let's just be clear.

McKay [00:09:10] No, just.

John Dehlin [00:09:11] And you don't do that. Why?

McKay [00:09:13] We like to have our privacy. We know it's not gonna last forever, but. Yeah. So we're rolling with it. Eventually it will probably come to light, but those who know us, know us anyway.

John Dehlin [00:09:22] But you got the pioneer ancestry.

McKay [00:09:24] We got the pioneer ancestry, yeah. It's not the same last name as our last name anyway.

Carah Burrell [00:09:30] Wasn't he a bodyguard for Joseph Smith?

McKay [00:09:32] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:09:32] Okay.

McKay [00:09:33] Pretty close to the main man on my mother's side. Not as much history there. Her parents joined when my mom was really, really young. They got sealed as a family and I believe the Salt Lake Temple, if I'm not mistaken, my grandparents got married in the Salt Lake Temple. My parents got married in the Salt Lake Temple. We got married in the Salt Lake Temple. So my side has some pretty deep roots when it comes to that. I was born under the covenant, which

John Dehlin [00:10:05] to our non Mormon audience means what?

McKay [00:10:07] That my parents were married and sealed before I was conceived or born.

John Dehlin [00:10:12] Married and sealed in the Mormon temple with their endowments, which means they had an eternal marriage. So a kid born to a couple who have been sealed in a Mormon temple with the eternal marriage, it means you're. You're automatically adopted into that eternal family.

McKay [00:10:28] Exactly.

John Dehlin [00:10:29] If you're righteous. If you maintain your righteousness.

McKay [00:10:31] Exactly. That's why.

Carah Burrell [00:10:33] On your faithfulness.

McKay [00:10:34] Yeah. What makes it pretty hard for us and our journey out of Mormonism anyway? I was born into a medium sized family and so I have three siblings, two older siblings and a younger sibling. Life seemed pretty normal. We were the kind of family I remember when we were a lot younger. We followed the counsel of our stake president that you, in any situation that you possibly can, you don't miss Sunday. You, even if it's, you know, you're wrangling all the kids together and getting them ready for church. We tried never to miss. And we were always, my parents always had callings that I could remember growing up.

Carah Burrell [00:11:27] Even when you went on vacation, didn't

McKay [00:11:28] you go to church a lot of times we would go on a vacation, find a ward that we could go to whenever. Obviously when mobile phones existed, that was a lot easier. We could, there was a lot more tools that we could figure things out. But in the early days it was just, I mean, going to church was part of who we were. When I got.

John Dehlin [00:11:51] How many.

McKay [00:11:51] Go ahead.

John Dehlin [00:11:52] How many siblings did you guys have?

McKay [00:11:55] And okay, so three siblings, two older ones and one younger one.

John Dehlin [00:12:00] Okay, so you're the fourth of five.

McKay [00:12:04] I'm.

John Dehlin [00:12:05] They get that, right?

McKay [00:12:05] No, the third of four.

John Dehlin [00:12:08] Third or four.

McKay [00:12:09] My older siblings are twins, so I'm technically the middle child.

John Dehlin [00:12:15] Oh, okay.

McKay [00:12:16] But it's funny because we were all in the same grade. They were born prematurely, so not to get into too much, but they were held back a year. We all ended up in the same grade. So it was a big graduation party at the end of everything.

John Dehlin [00:12:31] Yeah, three siblings all graduated together.

McKay [00:12:33] A lot of people called us the triplets because we, we were all really close in age. I'm only a year and a half older than them or younger than them. Excuse me. So that was fun having that through all schooling and everything. Everything was pretty simple growing up to the point of baptism. I remember.

John Dehlin [00:12:54] In what ways did your Mormon family look at act Mormon in the home?

McKay [00:13:03] A lot of times we really struggled to. When I was younger, we struggled to do family home evening. But my parents were always trying to keep Us doing family home evening. I can't even count the number of times that we started and stopped and started again with nightly scripture study. I remember when I was really young, they got one of the really big print Book of Mormons that had the definitions of words and little pictures in the margins and things like that. So we would always try to do that. Like I said, they had callings that they would go to. My dad was probably for the better part of my youth in the young men's program when he wasn't in the bishopric. So that was big. My mom was a lot of times in the young women's program and

Carah Burrell [00:13:55] in

McKay [00:13:55] the Relief Society presidency. Never in the primary that I could remember. Maybe primary teacher for a little bit of time. Anyway, everything up to baptism was pretty.

John Dehlin [00:14:08] Did you guys do family prayer?

McKay [00:14:10] Family prayer? When we could. I mean, there was four of us and we were all pretty close in age when I was younger. So doing that kind of thing was pretty difficult. Difficult to say the least.

John Dehlin [00:14:22] What were the don'ts, like, things your family didn't do? We.

McKay [00:14:26] We didn't do having friends over on Sunday or sleepovers. It was kind of before they started to encourage people to not do sleepovers. You wouldn't do that on a Saturday night.

John Dehlin [00:14:40] Word of wisdom stuff.

McKay [00:14:41] Word of wisdom stuff was like, not even tell her.

John Dehlin [00:14:45] Tell our non Mormon listeners.

McKay [00:14:46] So no alcohol? No coffee, Anything like that? Tea? No tea. I didn't even have any tea probably until I was an adult and I was able to rationalize drinking chai. But that's another swearing. Swearing. That was an iffy one. I don't want to, like, say too much, but my parents were a little looser when it came to language, which I think has influenced me to be. If you've ever watched our YouTube channel, anybody who's watching you swear like a sailor. Basically, Yeah. I try to edit out the F bombs when I can, but other than that, I pretty. That's even toned down.

John Dehlin [00:15:26] What about caffeine? Like Coke could you guys do?

McKay [00:15:29] We did drink Coke and things like that. Me, not so much. We would just steal out of my mom's Diet Coke. But my mom for a really long time was a big Diet Coke drinker. And it was weird to me when other families in the ward would come over and they're like, oh, I'm not allowed to drink Dr. Pepper. I was like, I had a Dr. Pepper this morning. I don't know what's going on with you.

John Dehlin [00:15:55] So this is what we call, like a liberal Mormon family because they Actually

Carah Burrell [00:16:00] I wasn't allowed to have caffeine. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:16:02] Because they actually allowed to have cold caffeine. Not hot, but cold and like mild swearing. So you guys were a little on the edge.

McKay [00:16:09] Yeah. And even from that I'm like, wow. Even on the edge of like really fundamentalist or orthodox, however you want to describe it seems.

John Dehlin [00:16:18] Well, your dad's in bishopric, so I mean.

McKay [00:16:20] Yeah, that didn't happen until later in high school.

John Dehlin [00:16:23] What about movies? What were the rules around movies, movies, movies?

McKay [00:16:27] I guess we're pretty liberal on that one because as long as I can remember, we would watch double slow seven movies. James Bond movies.

John Dehlin [00:16:34] Those are our right.

McKay [00:16:36] No, they're all PG13 actually. Yeah.

Carah Burrell [00:16:38] Usually like a good sex scene in there, if I remember my spiritual sexual awakening correctly.

McKay [00:16:43] Honestly. Yeah. Goldfinger.

John Dehlin [00:16:46] Okay, wait, so you could or could not watch R rated movies?

McKay [00:16:49] Not allowed to watch R rated movies. The first R rated movie I remember taking upon myself to watch. That was when Netflix first started streaming and you had to have the little disc to put in the Wii to be able to stream. We watched Black Hawk down when my parents were gone.

John Dehlin [00:17:06] You were sneaking that.

McKay [00:17:07] Yeah. And we were dumb enough to not like do anything to take it out of the recently watched queue or whatever. So my mom found out really quick after. Yeah, we're sneaky.

John Dehlin [00:17:17] See, the sin begins early. The.

McKay [00:17:20] The, you know, you sneak a little morsel of sin and it just leads you down.

Carah Burrell [00:17:23] Builds from there.

McKay [00:17:24] It just builds. So yeah, movies, we did not watch R rated movies. My dad did mention some movies were allowed to. To rationalize things that were of kind of cultural significance. Like Schindler's List and.

John Dehlin [00:17:40] Or Glory. There's always a couple. Like our Glory was a Civil Civil War kind of movie for you. It was Schindler's List.

McKay [00:17:47] Schindler's list definitely was 1.

John Dehlin [00:17:49] Saving Private Ryan is sometimes one that people justify. Mormons can justify.

McKay [00:17:53] That was not on our justifiable list.

John Dehlin [00:17:55] Well, for somehow war is okay. If it's war, it's all right. You see it in our movie.

McKay [00:17:58] Yeah. Kind of weird. Anyway. All right, so there was that consumption media. We were Nintendo 64 kids. So if you play the Nintendo 64. We played the James Bond Goldeneye game like nobody's business. But I wouldn't say that we were kind of. We were also kids who would go out. We lived in a cul de sac

John Dehlin [00:18:21] when I was growing up in suburban Denver.

McKay [00:18:23] Yeah. So we would go out and we had friends that were. We had one neighbor that was our exact age that we would play with on a daily basis.

John Dehlin [00:18:32] Non Mormon.

McKay [00:18:33] Non Mormon. We, as far as our ward goes, we were pretty spread out.

John Dehlin [00:18:39] Okay.

McKay [00:18:40] So even on the next few streets over, we didn't have any members.

John Dehlin [00:18:43] So you settled and had some non Mormon friends, basically, yeah.

McKay [00:18:47] And pretty much all throughout elementary school, we didn't have any Mormon kids in our grade, really, at my elementary school. So we were kind of forced to.

John Dehlin [00:19:00] To interact with the Gentiles?

McKay [00:19:01] Yes, we were kind of. I was kind of forced to interact with the Gentiles, especially when it came to proximity. But those were kind of some of my first instances where I realized that we were different than a lot of people.

John Dehlin [00:19:15] How so? Just in all those ways.

McKay [00:19:17] I remember my friend's mom. She was like, you guys don't drink coffee. I was like, no, because the prophet tells us to. That's what my parents told me to tell people. And she was like, but you know that, like, there's not any more caffeine in coffee than there is in a Diet Coke, right? I was like, that can't be true. That's impossible.

John Dehlin [00:19:39] So of course nobody cares that, like, the sugar or the artificial sweeteners are, like, horrible for you, but somehow coffee. Coffee is horrendous and sinful. It could keep you at. Literally keep you out of heaven. But, like, Diet Coke, like, fill it up.

McKay [00:19:54] Fill her up. Yeah, get the 32 ounce. We'll do that. I've actually quit drinking soda as much as I can. Unless it's like a stressful day. Then you just need the poison, take the pain away.

John Dehlin [00:20:06] Anyway, so overall, was it a happy Mormon upbringing, would you say? At least in your childhood?

McKay [00:20:11] From what I can remember, honestly, yeah. I had no qualms with it. Oh, I actually just remember it wasn't the Black Hawk down incident that I remember that being the first time. It was a sleepover at that same friend's house. We watched a non Mormon. Yeah, we watched a movie called the Quick and the Dead, I think is what it's called. It's a western. It was rated R. And I didn't know we were over there for his birthday and.

John Dehlin [00:20:40] But that's how evil begins.

McKay [00:20:42] That's how evil begins. Exactly. And I remember the next day after we woke up, my brother found the DVD case and he was like, this is rated R. And we watched it and I was like, oh, crap. It was as far as there was. I don't remember there being any sort of sex scenes or anything in it. It was just maybe for gore,

John Dehlin [00:21:03] but it's A slippery slope, brother.

McKay [00:21:04] Yeah, but my. We went home, we walked home. It was two houses down. And my brother told my parents, like, and they were, he snitched. They were pissed because that our neighbors knew that we, we didn't watch rated R movies. And somehow they were able to convince us to watch this movie or whatever. And I, I felt so bad and I didn't even know. It was like the burden of proof on us to make sure that it wasn't. I mean, I was maybe 8 or 9 at the time, but fortunately have

John Dehlin [00:21:41] the atonement, which can make all sins. Though your sins be as scarlet, they could be white as snow.

McKay [00:21:48] White as snow.

Carah Burrell [00:21:48] No. Jesus died. So that we have to utilize the atonement for like the arbitrary ratings of like the motion picture rating board.

McKay [00:21:56] It's just Western.

Carah Burrell [00:21:57] That will keep you out of heaven.

McKay [00:21:59] Yeah, but not after. Not before you feel bad about it, even though you really didn't. You were just going along with the flow.

John Dehlin [00:22:08] I'm in a silly mood. But we're just, I'm kind of highlighting the Mormon shame spiral and how it begins. Yeah, this is how it innocently begins. Innocently.

McKay [00:22:17] Yeah. And you have to laugh or you'll cry, honestly.

Carah Burrell [00:22:20] And how many times have we all sat through a PG13 movie where like, you're like, this is. I'm not feeling good, this is inappropriate. But it's only PG 13. Okay. So it's technically okay. But then there's R rated movies where I was like, there's nothing wrong with this, but I can't watch it because it's our arbitrary standards.

McKay [00:22:33] Yeah. So that was interesting. We were, I, we were pretty, I mean, we were pretty singled out because we were Mormon in my school. So people really knew when I got baptized. I remember we had my first grade teacher there because that was the only time that all my sibling, my older siblings and I were in the same class.

McKay [00:22:57] So that was an interesting time. It seemed really normal that we would just invite my non believing gentile first grade teacher to my baptism because it was just like the thing to do. You spread the gospel. You share good experiences with people that you care about.

McKay [00:23:17] Now I kind of would like to go back. It was funny because she lived in the same neighborhood, so we'd see her at the grocery store all the time. So maybe if I go back, I can corner and be like, wasn't that weird that you came and you sat in the relief society room at the church building and you watched a child like sign away their life and get baptized?

McKay [00:23:38] Because that's kind of the outside perspective that now you. You kind of get from people. Like, I'm telling my friends that we're leaving the church.

John Dehlin [00:23:47] Wait, don't. Don't give away the ending.

McKay [00:23:50] Oh, crap.

Carah Burrell [00:23:51] Jordan McKay are ex Mormons.

John Dehlin [00:23:52] What have I. Oh, stick with the chronology. Brother, sister.

McKay [00:23:56] Yeah, you, like, go back and talk to those people and you're like, man, how did you just let me do these things?

John Dehlin [00:24:04] Okay, so was there a story you wanted to tell about your baptism? Other than that?

McKay [00:24:07] My baptism, it was really important to me at the time. My grandparents, they lived down in Utah county, but they made sure to come out. I remember my grandmother, she made a apple strudel, which was like a big thing, a big deal, because it was like this really labor intensive thing where you make a dough and you stretch it out to basically the size of a table, like super thin, so you can read through it, read newspaper under it.

John Dehlin [00:24:35] Wow.

McKay [00:24:35] And then you put a bunch of apples. You roll it up. She rolled it into a B for baptism, so it fit on the cookie sheet in the oven. So it was for a long time, like a really bright spot in my memory.

Carah Burrell [00:24:48] Really big thing in your family?

McKay [00:24:50] What? Pies are really big family pastries. Yeah, it's just like a really. Yeah, because my. My grandmother, she would hand recipes down to my dad and it's kind of we just rally around food and my family, we're a bunch of foodies anyway, so that was really the only part that I remember was the food. I don't remember how I felt that day or anything, but I remember that it was a bright spot because we had my family there and everybody made a big deal about it, which was being the middle child. It felt few and far between because they were older siblings and a little baby.

John Dehlin [00:25:29] So you were ignored largely, but your baptism was this moment you could feel special, like everybody cared.

McKay [00:25:35] I wouldn't say that I was ignored or anything of the sort in that aspect, but, you know, having a big family to a degree, you feel like everybody's got to get their slice of attention from your parents. So.

Carah Burrell [00:25:51] Slice of crisp apple strudel.

McKay [00:25:52] Yeah, there you go.

Carah Burrell [00:25:54] Cream colored ponies possibly too.

John Dehlin [00:25:56] Is this the reference?

Carah Burrell [00:25:58] Will nobody get this? It's just for me. Doorbells and sleigh bells.

John Dehlin [00:26:01] Oh, right, right, right.

Carah Burrell [00:26:02] You can't say strudel without me just singing a song. Okay, sorry. There you go.

John Dehlin [00:26:06] Really quickly. I grew up in Texas, which.

McKay [00:26:08] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:26:09] It's kind of close to Colorado. And I just. I'm. I'm. You're help. You're making me think about growing up in. Oh, for non Mormons who don't know, there's kind of like Zion and then, you know, there's Utah and then there's the Mission Field. Growing up, the Mission field was every place in the world that wasn't Utah. So Utah is Zion and then everyone else in the world is called the Mission Field.

McKay [00:26:33] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:26:33] And when you grow up in the, quote, mission field. I'm using air quotes. You're not surrounded by where your whole neighborhood is Mormon. You're surrounded by non Mormons. And I'm just remembering that there was something really cool about that because you're different than everybody. And instead of those Utah Mormons that are like, oh, well, they just take the church for granted and they're Jack Mormons and they. They party and they goof off and then they repent right before their missions, there's. There was this idea growing up in the Mission field outside of Utah that you were different, that everyone around you was. Was not the chosen, but you were the chosen.

John Dehlin [00:27:09] So you had to really, like, shine and be righteous to set an example, because you were surrounded by basically heathen pagan people who. Who were wicked and not righteous. Did being Mormon in a non Utah state provide your family and you and you know, with sense of meaning and purpose and identity that was important to you?

McKay [00:27:34] Yeah. And I feel like in a lot of aspects, it kind of made my head big, like, oh, we're not Utah Mormons. Because a lot of my family, they. My extended family, they all lived out here for a long time, on my dad's side at least. So we were like, oh, we are the. The better Mormons because we have to be more righteous. We have to be more faithful because we don't have the temple, like, outside our window when we wake up every morning.

John Dehlin [00:27:57] Are we offending you, Carah, because you are a Utah Mormon, of which we're speaking.

Carah Burrell [00:28:02] Am I? I feel like I'm. I have one foot in each one. I have no identity.

McKay [00:28:05] Grew up in freaking Provo only when

Carah Burrell [00:28:07] I was like, eight. I still. I still have moved around. You.

John Dehlin [00:28:10] You identify with your Ohio roots a little bit.

Carah Burrell [00:28:13] And I was in Arizona before that,

McKay [00:28:14] and I. Ohio's for lovers.

Carah Burrell [00:28:15] Yeah. Round on the end. High in the middle Ohio. Yeah, I. And I. And I moved around enough and I had family outside, and so I thought that that's what it would be like. But then I got to Utah and it didn't feel like everyone was righteous. Felt like everyone was kind of stuck up. So.

McKay [00:28:29] I know, right?

Carah Burrell [00:28:29] Yeah.

McKay [00:28:30] That. That was always the perception I had of it. I was always like, I wouldn't. I would never live in Utah. Here I am. I've lived here for four years now.

John Dehlin [00:28:41] Yeah.

McKay [00:28:41] So, yeah, I did feel kind of like a sense of being better or more righteous and growing up at. At some point. I don't remember along the line. Probably around the same time. If you've ever seen those. Who's your hero? Cringy little, like, CGI posters of Book of Mormon. I will use this word very loosely. Heroes. And I had one of Nephi. And being the middle child, I was less inclined to bicker with my other. My older twin siblings. So I kind of got the nickname of Nephi while they got Laman and Lemuel.

Carah Burrell [00:29:22] Dang.

McKay [00:29:23] I know. And that just puffed my head up even more.

John Dehlin [00:29:26] So you were Nephi in your family?

McKay [00:29:28] I was the righteous Nephi. I was the one who would know the answer to the gospel questions and the one who wanted. I wouldn't say that I was like, always. I wasn't like the kind of kid who was saying their nightly prayers all the time or reading. Taking it upon myself to read the scriptures. I was still kind of a goofball. But for a kid growing up in a place that wasn't Utah, surrounded by gentiles and iniquity, it was kind of like a badge of honor. Like, oh, I'm the better one out of my siblings and I'm the one who's going to be the example for them, even though I was younger than my older twin siblings.

McKay [00:30:14] So that was always fun. That was in between. Probably in between when I got baptized and when I turned 12 and received the priesthood. In that time, things were just kind of going normally. I think I started if. If you don't know me, I listened to a lot of what my parents would consider satanic music.

John Dehlin [00:30:38] Yeah. What do you mean by that?

McKay [00:30:40] I listen to a lot of death metal and like Marilyn Manson. That is definitely a far cry from what I listen to. That is like the. The Wiggles.

Carah Burrell [00:30:51] That's like softcore compared to.

McKay [00:30:53] Oh, yeah. And I. I won't even get into my hatred for Marilyn Manson.

John Dehlin [00:30:58] Okay. The three biggest bands that represent the type of evil music that a Mormon boy should have never been listening to are.

McKay [00:31:07] We'll just go with my current favorites.

John Dehlin [00:31:09] No, back then.

McKay [00:31:10] Oh, back then. Oh, back then, it would have been things like Marilyn Manson.

John Dehlin [00:31:14] So now you're snooty. Absolutely Got you through those teenage years and now you're Too good for Marilyn.

McKay [00:31:22] Exactly. Yeah. And that.

John Dehlin [00:31:25] That's great.

McKay [00:31:25] It's funny because.

John Dehlin [00:31:26] Gratitude, brother.

McKay [00:31:27] I know. Well, I have. I have no gratitude to a sex offender, but that's true.

John Dehlin [00:31:34] Okay.

McKay [00:31:34] We're more like emo horror. Yeah, I did a lot of emo type stuff. The Gateway band, I think, would probably be Fall Out Boy. I'm still big Fall Out Boy fan.

John Dehlin [00:31:44] Okay.

McKay [00:31:44] So I'm not. All right. Not gonna rat on them, but I remember starting getting into heavier music. I remember I played a game, and one of the songs in that game was called Hand of Blood by Bullet for My Valentine. And I was like, oh, okay. This was also around the same time that I got my first ipod. And I was glad it was an ipod shuffle because then I could hide the fact that I had songs like American Idiot by Green Day or.

John Dehlin [00:32:10] Which is considered screamo, Right?

McKay [00:32:13] Hardly. It was just the fact that American idiots said the F word in it.

Carah Burrell [00:32:16] Yeah.

McKay [00:32:17] And the F slur.

John Dehlin [00:32:18] But so this is important because I'm freaking old. I'm 52. So for me, the equivalent for me would have been like, AC DC in my day, in the 80s. But it seems like any Mormon kid who is tuned into pop culture has to confront emerging cool, fun, hip music or edgy music with the. The Mormon teaching that the Holy Ghost gives you feelings of peace and joy and comfort. And so you need to keep your mind and your thoughts pure and clean. So you need to stay away from our movies and you need to stay away from rap. You know, bad, toxic, you know, pop culture with swear words and sexual references. And so you're. How. How is it that you're Nephi and you're freaking listening to Screamo? Like, how do you. How did you live with yourself?

McKay [00:33:07] It was hard. And when people would ask. People would ask me, oh, what's your favorite thing to listen to? I would lie because I didn't want people to know that's what I was doing because I had this reputation of

Carah Burrell [00:33:18] being the Righteous Mormon Tabernacle Choir. No follow up questions, please.

McKay [00:33:22] Well, yeah, and the toned down answer was, oh, Fall Out Boy or Nickelback? I won't rag on Nickelback.

John Dehlin [00:33:29] Nickelback, man, everyone hates Nickelback these days. Okay, so why would Nephi be attracted to Screamo?

McKay [00:33:37] I. That. I'm still trying to figure that out, honestly.

McKay's Teen Years and Doubts

John Dehlin [00:33:40] So what age are you in a

McKay [00:33:41] screamo at this point? I want to say I'm 10 or 11.

John Dehlin [00:33:45] What the heck?

Carah Burrell [00:33:45] Pretty young.

John Dehlin [00:33:46] Yeah, you should be listening to, like, popcorn popping in the apricot tree.

Carah Burrell [00:33:49] I know.

McKay [00:33:49] Right. Kid's bop. Well, and it's funny too because my parents would have. My mom was a headbanger. She listened to ACDC and my dad listened to Led Zeppelin and more on the alternative side of things. So that by the way, you have

John Dehlin [00:34:05] to be my age because you're my eldest's age, so I'm 52. Your parents are. So they would have grown up in

McKay [00:34:11] the 80s age range.

John Dehlin [00:34:12] Any case, parents, we got a lot going on. Let's reach out, let's talk.

McKay [00:34:17] Okay, so. And by that time when I was getting into heavy music, it was classic rock, it was acceptable. You could hear that at a church dance or something like that. So it kind of, I think that kind of growing up with that kind of music kind of set me up to like other things. And so really, mom and dad, it's all you now. But yeah, I would lie about it and I would make sure that I always had my headphones in or make sure my itunes was closed so that my mom wouldn't happen upon it and, and see things. So I feel like that became a contention point later on. And it's funny because my, my parents were like, oh, you won't like that after your mission. And that wasn't the case anyway. So I think that kind of culture influenced me to want to do things like grow my hair out because.

John Dehlin [00:35:18] So you had longer hair in high school?

McKay [00:35:20] No, actually not wanted to. This is the longest my hair has ever gotten.

John Dehlin [00:35:24] Oh.

McKay [00:35:25] When I hit around sixth grade, right before I turned 12, I was wanting to grow my hair out. It was maybe a fraction of this length. It was really long for, for a Mormon, for, yeah, priesthood standards. Definitely not off the ear, not off the collar.

McKay [00:35:43] And I was like, no, I don't want to get my hair cut. And my parents were like, you can let it grow, but when you turn 12, that's when you have to cut your hair because you can't be passing the sacrament and having scruffy long looking hair.

McKay [00:35:58] So I let it go and it never got long enough to look good. It was always just short and looked like I had a mop on my head. And around the church, that was around the time when Justin Bieber had kind of just entered the scene and he had the, the swoopy looking hair. So I started to shift away from the Nephi nickname and get the Bieber nickname.

Carah Burrell [00:36:22] Did you swoop your hair? Did you really?

McKay [00:36:24] I really didn't have enough hair to really swoop it like that. But you tried. I tried, yeah. That was the vibe that I. That I wanted. I was also a lot heftier at that time, so I kind of wanted something that I had a little more control over. And my hair was kind of the thing that I landed on.

McKay [00:36:46] Where was I going from there? Oh. So when I was about to turn 12, we had a. Am I going too quick? Okay. I don't want to, like, gloss over too much. Anyway, I remember we had a really good relationship with the missionaries. And now as I'm older, I'm like, maybe these missionaries were just trying to hang out and have fun, which I think is totally okay, because they were really cool with us. We had a really tight relationship with their family. At one point, we took a trip out to California and stopped in Las Vegas, where one of them was from, and we dropped a package off for his family.

McKay [00:37:31] So we were pretty tight with all of them. But my parents said, once you come home from scout camp, because my birthday was falling on the week that we were going to scout camp for the first time, she was like, this elder's gonna cut your hair. And the next day.

John Dehlin [00:37:49] Why an elder?

McKay [00:37:50] Because he offered to do it for free. We were tight with him. He's like, I'll cut your hair. And I mean for free and have the missionaries do it. I was like, okay, I'll do it if he cuts it.

McKay [00:38:01] So I thought it was really cool. I looked up to the missionaries at that point, which probably was a good thing for my. My parents. So we came home from scout camp that afternoon. That night, he came over, cut my hair. I can't even remember if he did a good job or not. Honestly, it was just wild that he could cut hair. And then the next morning, we went to church, and I was ordained to the office of deacon in the Aaronic priesthood.

McKay [00:38:30] So that was, like, from that point on, I always wanted hair long again. But a. My parents wouldn't allow me to be a priesthood. A young priesthood holder and have long hair. Then once I was of age where I was an adult, I worked at various places I was on a mission, couldn't have long hair. It was just something that I always wanted to do. And like, a small thing, like just my one little thing that I couldn't control over my appearance. And all I was ever told was, no, that's not acceptable. That's not what we do. That's not what a worthy priesthood holder would do. So it kind of felt like almost clipping my wings, and that might be a little.

John Dehlin [00:39:14] Clipping your wings?

McKay [00:39:15] Yeah, because it was like some form of self expression that I had outward that I had very limited control over.

John Dehlin [00:39:24] I mean if we, if we just take a pause to kind of do a reflection, you know, we don't, we don't refer to the Mormon Church as a cult on Mormon Stories podcast, generally speaking, because it's usually not useful. It's offensive. Yeah, but, but it's important to understand cultishness or undue influence with any religious tradition, especially with high demand religions. And Mormonism by any standard qualifies as a high demand religion. And we just know from, from like, you know, Stephen Hassan, the expert on cults, that the bite model behavior, controlling behavior, controlling information, controlling thoughts and controlling emotion. That's all super important leverage points for high demand religions.

John Dehlin [00:40:09] And the b behavior we often don't talk about. But, but looking, having the Mormon identity, short hair, no facial hair, modest clothing, that's all. And listening to the right music, the right, you know, we spent some time talking about swearing, movies, clothing and every. Some people might be like, John, you're wasting time. Let's get to the good stuff. This is how you are conditioned into the Mormon mindset. And when I watch, like I was just watching some general authorities or some like Relief Society presidency members kind of talk and there's just this Mormon way where when they're talking now speaking youth firesides or general conference, you're just like, these people are acting like Mormon robots.

John Dehlin [00:40:54] Like they're just, it's the same dress, the same clothes, the same hair, the same talk, the same cadence. It starts with children, right? Get your hair cut, no facial hair, wear modest clothing, don't drink, don't swear, use the right words, don't watch harmful media.

John Dehlin [00:41:13] It's getting you on that path. And I'm not saying that's all mean or bad or insidious identity. You're going to have an identity no matter what. And if it's not Mormon, it'll be a skater, it'll be a athlete or whatever it is. Everyone's going to have an identity. But, but what we're talking about here is the formation of your Mormon identity. And it's very deliberate. It's very part and parcel with the Mormon way, but it has huge ripple effects 10 or 20 or 30 years down the road, I think is what you might be saying.

McKay [00:41:44] Yeah, and like, you see me clean shaven today. That's how I've been my entire life. I have never not been clean shaven. I've, I don't think I have great facial hair. I'm not really blessed with that, neither am I. But it was just never an option to not be clean shaven.

John Dehlin [00:42:02] But dude, you look like a hippie. That's how it is and it's awesome. But it's so not Mormon, right? For anyone to see a Mormon with long hair, you just don't see it.

McKay [00:42:12] I know, yeah. And I feel like it was probably received as like some form of rebellion, but it was just me wanting to do what I wanted to do or doing what I wanted to do. So it was like this small little aspect that I was able to control. I'm like, I don't even care what people. We get so many comments on YouTube of people trying to like hurt my ego by saying, oh, I thought they were both girls. I'm not that fragile. Don't worry everybody. So it doesn't phase me. It's something that I like and if it bothers you, I don't care.

John Dehlin [00:42:49] But you're saying as a kid you would have, as a teen you would have liked to have had long hair.

McKay [00:42:53] But yeah, and I would toe the line as much as I could and let it grow out. And then my mom, there was always somebody in the ward who could cut my hair. So my mom would be like, okay, you're going over to Sister so and so's on the next street over, she's going to cut your hair. And then I would, I would not even know what I wanted to do style wise because it wasn't really what I wanted to do with it. I would just say, do whatever. And that's really the extent of how I had people help me with my grooming or whatever.

Carah Burrell [00:43:24] So, okay, yeah, I think this hair thing is really highlighting. Well, is the Mormon necessity for conformity over personal self expression.

John Dehlin [00:43:34] Yeah, that's right.

Carah Burrell [00:43:36] Self knowledge. Yeah. And so while people are like, you know, we're going to get a comment from somebody who's Mormon, maybe ex Mormon, she's going to be like, yeah, it's just hair. Or, you know, you're making a big deal of this. Just think about, like John was saying, the conditioning that goes into that. You need to conform to this system. That's normal on a very arbitrary standard sometimes. Because, you know, 100 years ago it was very normal to have facial hair in ways that you're not able to hold callings. Now that you look at pictures of

John Dehlin [00:44:01] Jesus beard and long hair, you will

Carah Burrell [00:44:03] not be allowed to go to byu.

McKay [00:44:04] Yeah, yeah. It wasn't until the recent white Jesus Bible videos that he, oh, he still has a beard there never Mind. I stand corrected.

Carah Burrell [00:44:12] Yeah, he's got like, he's like shirtless and all that stuff on the logo. Now. He would not be able to even like attend the Lord's university as he is.

John Dehlin [00:44:19] No, but it's a really interesting point that I don't think Mormons have thought about, but I know non Mormons don't think about, is that if you look at McKay, a Mormon is like, that dude's got something. There's something wrong going on with that dude. Like, he's probably not Mormon, but if he is Mormon, he's doing something wrong. That's what registers in a Mormon brain. When a man has long hair and freaking. Jesus had long hair and a beard and wore a tunic that showed his shoulders. And it's a. There's this weird. It's okay with Jesus and it was okay with all the past Mormon prophets and apostles prior to David O. McKay, beard, looking scruffy. But in the modern Mormon mindset, somehow that's all bad and evil simultaneously.

Carah Burrell [00:45:06] Right.

McKay [00:45:07] It's a corporation now. We got to present ourselves as such.

John Dehlin [00:45:11] Yeah, it's. It's a weird disconnect.

Carah Burrell [00:45:13] And if I may add to MLK's famous, you know, like, trying to believe in people of all different skin colors and different orientations and different ways that people present themselves in this world, that you judge them on the content of their character and not on their presentation. You could say, and I think that's a beautiful idea. I think that's a Christ like idea and something that I would like the church to emphasize more, that it doesn't really matter what people look like. Doesn't really matter if they wear a white shirt when they pass the sacrament. It doesn't really matter if their shoulders are covered when they come to church.

Carah Burrell [00:45:41] Just be grateful that they're there sharing in community. People's hair is a little bit long. There's not a reason to think that the spirit isn't with them now. But we're kind of trained to look for, like, are they part of the tribe or they're not part of the tribe. Long hair. You're not part of the tribe.

McKay [00:45:53] That's how I see it in group.

John Dehlin [00:45:54] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so. So Nephi is secretly listening to Screamo, occasionally hiding our movies and wanting to have constant long hair. And your. And your Nephi too at the same time.

McKay [00:46:11] I know. Yeah. I was leading a double life.

John Dehlin [00:46:14] Okay.

McKay [00:46:14] Nephi and Bieber, I guess.

John Dehlin [00:46:16] And we're joking about that. And people are going to go, well, that's why he ended up. You know where he ended up is because of. But that's every Mormon ever that's having these internal battles of like the appearance of righteousness and Mormonism. But then you learn to hide and lie parts of you, because you're never going to be able to live up to everything. And so are you saying that you were kind of. Were you living a double life, do you think, or not really, or we're just being a normal Mormon teenager.

McKay [00:46:41] I feel like I was just being a normal Mormon teen.

John Dehlin [00:46:43] I think so, too.

McKay [00:46:45] It wasn't anything more than what I wanted in my appearance and like, the kind of media that I consumed. Because when I look at it, the. The music wasn't really tangential to any of the other media that I was consuming in intensity or anything like that. It was. It was just outside of the norm of what everybody else in my family was listening to. So it wasn't like I was leading a double life or I had these different standards. I still lived the standards of the gospel to the best of my ability. You know, as a teenage boy. I don't think it's possible to not experience something with pornography and things like that.

McKay [00:47:26] So outside of that, I was like, still planning on not dating until I was 16. I lived the word of wisdom to a T. I paid tithing when I could. Up till that point, I didn't have really any income, so it didn't really matter all that much. It was just a formality reason, really, so I could get into the temple and things like that. I would attend our normal baptism for the dead temple trip every. I think we did it twice a year. Not a single time that I didn't end up going, even though there was probably times that I shouldn't have gone.

John Dehlin [00:48:03] What do you mean by that? Explain to our Mormons.

McKay [00:48:07] Yeah, worthiness.

Shame, Purity Culture, and Worthiness Interviews

John Dehlin [00:48:08] Okay, so we're. We're in your. We're in your teen years now.

McKay [00:48:11] Yeah, we'll go into the teen years.

John Dehlin [00:48:12] Okay, so what were the standards of worthiness?

McKay [00:48:15] Which.

John Dehlin [00:48:15] We hate that word. Yeah. What were the standards of worthiness? And how were you living up to them and not living up to them? Explain it in detail.

McKay [00:48:24] In detail. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:48:27] A Mormon kid is taught. A Mormon teen is taught what?

McKay [00:48:31] A Mormon teen is taught that you need to live up to the standards of the gospel in order to enter the Lord's house or the temple, which is different for those who maybe are not frequenters of either of our channels. Is different from where you go to on Sunday in the temple. They do higher Ordinances that only initiated people in the church who have been baptized and who are deemed worthy can enter. So part of those standards are a paying a full tithe, your full 10% of all the income that you earn, living the law of chastity, which is sexual purity in action and in thoughts.

John Dehlin [00:49:09] Which means what?

McKay [00:49:10] Means no sexual interaction with others, no sexual interaction with yourself, like masturbation, no viewing pornography. Things of that nature day hit all the bases there that give the good bishop definition. There's also living the word of wisdom. Not drinking coffee, alcohol or tea, but definitely eat all the meat that you want. Things like no single dates. No single date. Yeah. When you're a preteen, then it's. You're not. You're expected to not be going on dates or, like, having a girlfriend or anything, because that's kind of stuff that would preclude you from entering the temple. So that's just kind of. Did I miss anything that we need to hit on? Really?

Carah Burrell [00:50:03] I think that covers it.

McKay [00:50:04] Yeah. So I would go to the temple a couple times. I probably. I mentioned I probably wasn't worthy to enter the temple because of viewing pornography.

Carah Burrell [00:50:15] I know at this point how, like, we're talking, like, early 2000 and tens, so probably had, like a smartphone at this point.

McKay [00:50:22] Before that. I did not. That was before smartphones. Let's see. I was 12, probably around 2006, 2007.

Carah Burrell [00:50:29] Okay.

McKay [00:50:30] So I didn't have a phone until the. My. I didn't have my own phone until I was in high school a couple years later. So that wasn't really a thing I did. We did have, like, a computer, but it wasn't in, like, a public part of the house. I had my own room, and my brothers had their own room that they shared. And, like, if I was sick or whatever, my mom still had to go to work, my dad still had to go to work. So I was left to my own devices or whatever you want to say. And then, you know, curiosity gets the best of every teenager at some point or another.

Carah Burrell [00:51:12] I wonder what this pornography is everyone's been talking about.

John Dehlin [00:51:14] Yeah, Constantly. Every Sunday. What is this pornography thing that they keep mentioning and they won't stop talking about? Yes, we shouldn't look at.

McKay [00:51:25] Yeah, yeah. By that point, I like my friends. I remember one instance in the fifth grade, my friend had brought a Playboy magazine to school and he hid it in the jacket of a National Geographic magazine. I was like, what? I didn't end up seeing it. But then, you know, curiosity gets the best of you. And then they're talking about it at church. You're like, well, my friends are okay with it. I wonder what's going on at church that makes it so weird. And especially because I'm the lone gentile in my classroom out of like 30 students. Some are the lone believers in my classroom of Gentiles.

McKay [00:52:05] So I'm like, a lot of people seem to be okay with this or seemingly that was my perception. Like I don't know where I could be going wrong at church or anything like that. So that's the kind of stuff that you end up hiding from your bishop because you hide the fact that you listen to emo screamo music from your parents. Why would you tell the truth to your bishop if. Especially if he's not going to know.

McKay [00:52:35] It's just kind of an easy shoehorn into lying all the time. And that, that was kind of something that I noticed was as time went on, it became easier to lie because I would be can't. I would lie about the smaller things all the time.

Carah Burrell [00:52:56] Yeah, that's kind of a common Mormon experience that you start to have to hide semi normal parts of yourself, you know, teen development. And suddenly you're just being very comfortable with white lies that you probably wouldn't have done six months ago. And you're like, this is who I am now. I guess I'm just like a sinning lying machine.

McKay [00:53:13] You lean into it. And for years it was kind of the same in, in that kind of vein where I would, on that worthiness question, I would just lie because nothing would come of it.

Carah Burrell [00:53:25] Right.

McKay [00:53:25] And you could.

Carah Burrell [00:53:26] Some people are riddled with shame. Yeah, I guess that wasn't you.

McKay [00:53:29] Oh, I was still riddled with shame. Yeah, it was just the, the shame or the idea of the shame of my fall from grace, quote unquote, being Nephi. Oh, viewing pornography, that was, that scared me more than just coming clean or, or telling the truth or any. And being caught in a lie. I guess it was less scary than the idea of the perception of me being ruined.

John Dehlin [00:53:56] And, and, and so sometimes our viewers and listeners love that we have a conversation. Sometimes they just want Karen and I to get out of the way and let, let our interviewees talk. But, but I'll explain that there's an important point that I think is worth mentioning here while we're talking about it. I was watching the documentary Lula Rich, which is on Netflix and it's about the MLM industry.

John Dehlin [00:54:21] And why is it that like so many MLMs, you know, new skin, young living Doterra, you know, they. Why are they are so many started by Mormons, you know, and you know, because we all know that at their core, pyramid schemes are fundamentally, are, are immoral. They're unethical.

John Dehlin [00:54:42] People get ripped off. Right? But it's not just that, like, if you talk to any FBI investigator, Utah, like, leads the nation in child sex crimes. Or if you talk to any, like Wall street securities analyst, financial fraud is like, way over quota in Utah. Or if you just look at like porn, secret porn, illegal porn usage, Utah, you know, or depression or whatever, and you just, you go down the list and like, Utah's got this image of like, clean cut, right? No swearing, smiley, happy people. And then you've got this huge. It's not to say that Utah is only bad, but you've got this huge dark side of massive societal ills also happening in Utah, including death by suicide.

John Dehlin [00:55:33] And, you know, that sort of thing. And I, if, if I were forced, as a, you know, as a psychologist, as someone with the psych training in psychology, if I were forced to isolate at least one of the main causes of so much sadness and sickness and mental health problems in Utah. It begins here. It begins with a religion that you're taught is God's one true church. That the truest, goodest thing, teaching you to lie as a child and as a teenager, forcing you to have a public image which is superficial and arbitrary and fake, but clean cut and smiley and toxic. Nice. And then having these secrets of, of lying and hiding things and feeling unworthy and bad and dark.

John Dehlin [00:56:23] And, you know, you do that for 1, 2, 5, 10, 15, 20 years. Really super dark things, including the molestation of children or sexual abuse or all sorts of awful things, can. Doesn't always, but can emerge from that. Yeah. And that's my little monologue diatribe. I, you know, I don't know, Carah, if you have thoughts on that, but I'm highlighting it. We spent a lot of time on your hair and your swearing and the movies, but now we're getting into porn and masturbation and lying and worthiness and temples. I just want to highlight, I think this is where a lot of the dark sides of Mormonism begin.

McKay [00:57:03] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [00:57:04] Would you be comfortable, like, as a psychologist, would you say, is there a healthy way to, to raise somebody in the church as a teenager so that they can have healthy relationships? So people who want to stay Mormon and they want their kids to live these standards, what are they supposed to do? They're stuck between a rock and a hard place. Then, Right, Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:57:20] You, you teach kids that they can tell you anything as a parent, that they are loved unconditionally, that they're good no matter what, that their worth is not based on their mistakes. You get rid of toxic purity culture, you get rid of an appearance culture and you encourage open, honest discussion of everything, including sex.

John Dehlin [00:57:42] It's not that you say, hey, kids just swear like sailors. You say, hey, you know, use language carefully because it means something to different people in different ways. Sex is normal. Alan Mount had a really good TikTok just this week about his son mentioning to him and Katie when they were watching a movie that he got aroused as like an 8 year old. And Alan's response because he had processed Mormonism was, hey, that's normal. It's normal to get aroused during a movie. Your body's, your body's working exactly as it should. So you destigmatize sex, you destigmatize sexuality, you, you take away the toxic perfectionism and the toxic purity culture and you encourage a culture where you own up to things, you're honest about everything, you could talk about everything.

John Dehlin [00:58:28] Voila. And you have kids that are learning to tap into their authentic selves instead of living a fake, superficial, appearance based facade that doesn't represent who they are. You know, Mormons can do that. You can do that if you're Mormon. You can do that if you're not Mormon, but it's harder if you're Mormon.

McKay [00:58:45] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [00:58:45] When you have to separate the shame, like you've got to be able to say like your sexual activity, what you

McKay [00:58:51] choose or choose not to do is

Carah Burrell [00:58:53] not an indication of your worth, is not an indication of who you are as a person. We have to remove the stigmatization of shame and those things, otherwise those conversations

McKay [00:59:02] and things can't happen. Well, it's kind of systemic, I would say, because like in a lot of cases you're afraid to tell your parents because they're going to make you go to the bishop. And you're afraid to go to the bishop because usually he's like, well, do your parents know? So it kind of just perpetuates this fear. And you have, there's, you're either waiting until the, the shame takes hold and you, you finally go and confess to the bishop, or you just go until somebody catches you or something like that. You finally give in. Yeah. You slip up and somebody figures it out and then you're like, oh, well, now I'm forced to go to the bishop and now my parents are going to Know, and so you just get good at it if you don't want that to happen.

Carah Burrell [00:59:49] Yeah. And I think as a kid, I think we all really underestimate how undeveloped our childhood brains are while we're dealing with these big issues of, like, what your hormones are doing and all these things. And I remember thinking as a kid, I mean, you still, like, there are kids who still believe in Santa Claus who are being baptized, and they're, like, trying to balance these two fantasy worlds in their heads of what's real and what's not. And I remember thinking, like, if I confess that the bishop's gonna read my confession from, like, the pulpit on Sunday. That. That was, like, you just make up these stories in your head because you just don't even know, like, what the system is that you're born into.

Carah Burrell [01:00:21] You don't even know, like, how do I process this information? And so you're like, just. I'm just gonna lie. I'm just gonna stay out of it. That's how I protect myself.

McKay [01:00:29] Well, and especially because the. The messaging surrounding getting baptized and everything like that is now your eternal family is basically on the line. And as an 8, 9, 10, up to, like, 12, arguably up to 18 years old.

Carah Burrell [01:00:46] A lot of pressure.

McKay [01:00:47] That's a lot of pressure for a child. These are children.

Carah Burrell [01:00:50] Yeah.

McKay [01:00:52] So to give them the idea that, oh, yeah, this may be just satisfaction now or whatever, but you will eternally pay for it if you don't get it taken care of, is a really big bomb to drop on children for sure. So they gotta adapt. They. I mean, your. Your imagination runs wild and you just figure out what you can do to toe the line to save yourself from embarrassment and the shame of having to be publicly outed or whatever. Even if that's not going to be the case.

Carah Burrell [01:01:30] Right. It's complicated.

John Dehlin [01:01:33] And what is it? Just to be really clear, what is a Mormon boy or girl taught? It means to look at pornography and. Or masturbate. What does that mean about you, who you are, your cleanliness, your worthiness? What messages were you sent? And what did you think about yourself knowing you were doing this. This crime, basically the spiritual crime against. This spiritual crime.

McKay [01:01:59] Yeah. I can think of the. The words of Jeffrey Holland echoing in my head of it will destroy your soul. And I remember they. They kind of. I think that was in the video that we reacted to. They made a. The war on porn. There was that. And then the other one. Oh, no, it wasn't that one. But the messaging was. It's going to destroy Your family and it. You will lose your soul, basically. So that is pretty extreme consequences for a kid to be thinking about. So I remember I would. I would just kind of rationalize, like, how am I going to get myself out of this?

McKay [01:02:46] If I give myself enough space between now and when I finally confess, will it be less embarrassing? Will the punishment be less severe? Will they just kind of gloss over and be like, well, it's been enough time. You don't have to have the public shame of not taking the sacrament or whatever?

McKay [01:03:06] So there was a lot of rationalization, and I was like, yeah, I'll lie to the bishop, whatever. And every time I would. I'd go to the temple, I'd have a great time, grand old time. And I was like, well, if I'm feeling okay about things, you know, why would I come clean, really? So. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:03:24] Yeah. So it can be. I mean, it. It can sound. What's weird is Elder Holland is saying if you look at porn, it can destroy your life. And literally every Mormon boy and most Mormon girls and most Mormon bishops and men are, to some level or another. So if it was so catastrophic, I mean, he's raising the stakes so high that the individual pressure people feel is that they're literally committing sins next to murder. But it's so ubiquitous that if there was any truth to what Holland was saying then, then we would have church societal catastrophe. But that's not what's happening.

McKay [01:04:02] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:04:03] And so it's just this really unhealthy, toxic shame spiral that makes some young men and some women want to die by suicide. Like it's that serious.

McKay [01:04:12] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:04:13] You know, so in some ways we joke about it, but it's really serious. And it's not. We always get this, Carah, that we're. We're pro porn on Mormon Stories podcast. That's not what this is about, right,

Carah Burrell [01:04:23] Carah, I could be watching all the porn I want. I don't believe in God, that no one's gonna strike me dead. And I still don't want it, don't like it. But I. I understand that in a certain context, for certain people, if they have certain values and can find it ethically, that it can be for them. And there shouldn't be any judgment, like, pushed on that. There's. It's a big discussion and it's too wide and large and to have right now.

John Dehlin [01:04:45] But I'm just saying the. The position of Mormon stories is not, go look at porn. Porn's great. That is never our position. It's. It's that we want to talk openly. And we want to correct what we didn't get, which was an open, honest discussion about reality so that we're not all living in darkness and shame, but we can talk openly about it and deal with it in a more healthy manner. That's, that's our position on porn. Let's talk openly and honestly about it instead of in shameful, dark ways that make a bigger problem.

Carah Burrell [01:05:14] Yeah. And is it like a chicken in the egg, like which came first? Because it's like when, when Helen says that your whole life will be destroyed because you're watching this John, from like your psychologist perspective, isn't it? There's an element of like you've been conditioned to already think that your life's going to fall apart. So you've conditioned with the shame that if you view it once as opposed to somebody who hasn't been set up with a lifetime of, it's bad, it's bad, it's bad that now you have, you're stuck in that spiral of shame as opposed to somebody else. If they were taught more like healthier coping mechanisms for like, you know, you don't need to just go masturbate.

Carah Burrell [01:05:45] There's other healthier coping mechanisms that teenagers could be taught as opposed to just like, you know, whiplashing from one to the other of like righteous Nephi and then I'm like a dirty porn watching dude in my bedroom alone. That like that a lot of it has to do with the conditioning and the shame around it is what would make you think that my life is unraveling now? Because that's what they told me is going to happen.

John Dehlin [01:06:06] Yeah, yeah, there's, there's really good evidence in the mental health field that what's way worse than porn is the way that we as Mormons talk about porn. That the way Mormons talk about porn, with all the worthiness and the purity and the shame and the toxic negativity that's an infinite, infinitely more damaging than the porn itself. And again, it's not that we're porn advocates and it's that the way we talk about porn and masturbation in the Mormon Church is literally deadly, if not toxic for mental health and well being, not just of individuals, not just for young men, not just for young women, but for marriages.

John Dehlin [01:06:46] How many Mormon marriages are being ripped apart because of the stakes have been raised so high that if a wife catches a husband doing something that she thinks he shouldn't be doing, all of a sudden he's an evil, dirty, perverted loser. And then what does that do to a marriage like that? That's. So that's what we're about is how do we talk in more healthy ways about it?

McKay [01:07:09] Well, I don't know about you, Carah,

Carah Burrell [01:07:10] but I don't remember any time during my youth experience where any type of masturbation or that talk was directed at women. Yeah, they didn't talk to the girls about that much. No, they didn't. And I find that interesting because again, we just perpetuate the same culture that it's men that do these things, that women obviously would never do such a thing, which we know is not true, but I don't remember any of those talks. We got the sexes next to murder talks, but none of the don't touch yourself ones. Yeah, the guard your virtue and the boys are gonna want it and you gotta tell them no. Yep.

McKay [01:07:42] Yeah, that's about it. And then for the, the boys and the men, it's like a quarterly undertaking, if not more.

Carah Burrell [01:07:49] I was gonna say more.

McKay [01:07:50] So now. Yeah, it's. It's crazy. And a lot of times they're. They're equating it to like a gateway drug that leads to like, sex crimes down the road. Like, oh, it's just one little thing here, but you become more perverted and you're more susceptible to committing like an actual crime.

Carah Burrell [01:08:09] Ted Bundy.

McKay [01:08:10] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:08:11] So no, no, we're taught Ted Bundy started by looking at porn.

McKay [01:08:15] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:08:16] Which, which, the, which the inferences. You'll become a mass murderer.

McKay [01:08:19] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:08:20] If you ever start. And because 99% of Mormon boys end up starting, then they're all living terrorized that they're going to become a massive.

Carah Burrell [01:08:29] Well, same thing with Elizabeth Smart's abuser. I remember them saying the same thing about him too. Yep. Hitler used toilet paper. I used toilet paper. I'm Hitler.

McKay [01:08:39] So that's the logic, basically. Yeah. And I think a lot of people can kind of adopt those, like, identities. They're like, well, that's how it is, so that's how I must be. So they just kind of surrender to the.

Carah Burrell [01:08:53] Yeah. And I know John brings this up all the time, but this is kind of the bread and butter, the playbook of a high demand religion, like manufacturing the problem and then selling the cure of things that are, you know, sexual inclinations or.

McKay [01:09:07] I wouldn't even call it the cure. It's more like the, the long term remedy.

Carah Burrell [01:09:11] Yeah. That you have to keep coming back. There's no actual cure. Yeah. It's a long term treatment plan for eternity.

McKay [01:09:18] Yes. Yeah, that was A it's kind of interesting at the time. All throughout my youth I never remember having any real struggles with my mental health. I was really a happy go lucky kid for a lot of times. And like being in emotional or mental turmoil was really not on brand for me. I was almost apathetic toward people who did have mental or emotional issues. I was like, why can't you just. And this is kind of like a really Mormon mindset to me. Why can't you just choose to be happy? Like I wake up every day and I choose to be happy. Why can't people just do that? Like not recognizing that yeah there might be a chemical imbalance in your brain or there's other to pray more. Yeah, you just need to pray more. You just need to hide your listening to emo screamo music better and things like that.

Carah Burrell [01:10:19] So did you have a growing up in the mission field as John was describing? Did you have any need to like convert your friends? Like teach them that you were so happy you felt responsibility to be happy? Go lucky person because people were looking at you as like the Mormon kid that needs to be. I'm happier because I'm part of the true gospel.

McKay [01:10:35] Yeah. I wasn't really the missionary kid. I wouldn't like invite my friends to church because I wasn't really an outgoing kind of person at all growing up. I wouldn't really say that. I hit my social stride basically at the earliest kind of beginning of that arc in my senior year of high school and not really till I was on my mission really.

McKay [01:11:05] So I was really timid when it came to sharing that kind of stuff. I more was hoping to be an example to people through the way that I lived my life and being like look at my family, they're so happy. But like an explicit invite to come to church or do anything. It really didn't go beyond inviting people to like Wednesday night or mutual activities. Yeah. With the youth and things like that. So I think through middle school, junior high I didn't even the one neighbor friend he did come to us with some to some church activities but anyone outside of that, I don't recall an instance of a non member friend coming and participating in an activity or going to church with us.

John Dehlin [01:11:57] So. So really quickly when we talk about the shame stuff and the temple and temple worthiness and, and the law of chastity. What's. What makes this complicated is there's, there's let's just say a spectrum of scrupulosity. So scrupulosity is religious ocd Basically, it's. It's intense guilt and shame that for some people, is literally a clinical diagnosis. And you've got Mormons. I would even say, like, Carah, on the one end of the spectrum, what I understand about your upbringing, Carah, where you're just like, I'm not taking all this live chassis. Like, it's not that you were, you know, not. Not doing your best to live the typical Mormon life care, but somehow, Carrie, you just gave yourself permission as a teen to just not take it all too seriously.

John Dehlin [01:12:46] You weren't psychologically stretched over the rack of guilt and shame because of how your brain came, whereas other people literally want to die because they're constantly mired in debilitating guilt and shame. As a Mormon kid, Carah, did I mischaracterize you? First of all, no.

Carah Burrell [01:13:08] No. I didn't break any rules. I wasn't sleeping with boys. I maybe would have if a boy liked me, but. No.

John Dehlin [01:13:16] But you weren't hung up on this stuff.

Carah Burrell [01:13:18] No, no. I went through phases of, like, masturbation and watching it porn a little bit throughout my teen years, but I didn't ever feel like I had to confess to a bishop because I was like, I have a relationship with God. What's the point of personal revelation if I'm not able to use it when I really need it right now? Which is not going to the bishop, like McKay said, like, I'm not wanting to involve this guy.

John Dehlin [01:13:36] Yeah. And so that. That's. I would say that's one end of the spectrum where people are just like, okay, I know that the church teaches this, but I'm not going to internalize it or take it too seriously. I can look around and know that all my friends are doing something similar, and the bishops probably are, too. So, like, I'm not going to let this wig me out. Then there's the other spectrum, which is literally like, kids who want to die.

McKay [01:13:56] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:13:57] Because they're like, I'm the only one, and I'm a horrible person and I can't stop. And the more I try and stop, the worse I get and they want to die. Where were you kind of on the Carah versus Scrupulosity kind of spectrum?

McKay [01:14:09] I would say I was probably middle of the road.

John Dehlin [01:14:11] So what was it like for you?

McKay [01:14:12] It was like. Like I said, I was pretty happy. Go lucky. Like, I had this internal struggle of, oh, I'm a bad person, I'm doing bad things, but I was striving to live the other standards of the gospel as well as I could kind of in an effort to like, make up for the bad things that I was doing.

McKay [01:14:32] So I was, regardless of my. My faith in things for a long time, staunchly against anything that would have violated the word of wisdom. I was always really, I wanted to show up and do service and things like that. And a lot of times I didn't have a choice. So we'd just get voluntold to do it by my dad. Because we were, for a really long time, we were.

McKay [01:14:56] There was also the, the aspect that we were basically the priesthood quorum in my ward for a long time because we were the three boys pretty close in the same age. Most of the time we were in the same quorum. We were on the same level. Like when I was a deacon, my brothers were deacons for a couple more months before they moved on to teachers and likewise after that.

McKay [01:15:22] So it was like, oh, I don't want to let the ward down. So I got to show up and do the things even if I don't feel worthy to do them. I don't want to let people down. So there was a lot of pressure in that aspect, but I really didn't let it get to me that bad. It was like, oh, I'm doing this and nothing bad's happening, so why would I do anything different? Yeah, I just kind of kept on moving on, Kept on listening to my, my music and keeping things on the down low that would like, harm my image and just going along with it.

McKay [01:16:00] Participating in scouts and the whole nine yards. That was all pretty much my. My middle, junior high school experience was just kind of growing in that aspect. I excelled in school and a lot of things. So I was like, if I am doing such a bad thing, why is God blessing me with good grades and the ability to get other things done while my seemingly righteous brothers in the same grade level are struggling and having difficulties in school? So that kind of reinforced my position of, oh, well, I can't be that bad if I'm doing these other things good, right?

John Dehlin [01:16:43] Yeah.

McKay [01:16:44] So that was pretty much our experience up to that point. I got a phone when I turned to a freshman. In Colorado. If most people are watching from, like, Utah, sixth grade through eighth grade is junior high or middle school, and then in ninth grade we go to senior high school.

McKay [01:17:08] Things were kind of the same. I remember spring break that year. We went on a big church history trip that ended in a family reunion with my mom's recently found family of her mother who was adopted. We went to Nauvoo, we went to Independence and Visited Carthage. We did baptisms for the dead at the Nauvoo Temple. And I remember that being like a really big thing for me. I was like, oh, my gosh, the.

McKay [01:17:43] The church is so true. Even though I, in the back of my mind was like, I'm doing this bad thing. Even though I know the church is true. I remember getting up in sacrament or fast and testimony, meeting when we came back and just crying about my experience, which was kind of a weird thing for me.

Mormon Theology and Temple Practices Explained

John Dehlin [01:18:02] So let's, let's back up and sorry, some of our listeners or viewers or maybe even Carah might be like, going, man, John, you're really drawing this out. Like, we can. We just get to the, you know,

McKay [01:18:12] but let's get to the snappy stuff.

John Dehlin [01:18:13] But there's a lot of. So I, again, I just realized that over half of our YouTube audience has never been Mormon. I don't know if you guys have pulled your YouTube audience, but over half has never been Mormon. So like. And, and, and so I like to take the time, not only for our non Mormon audience, but also for history's sake, to hear these things described in a little bit more detail. And something we've never done on Mormon stories is in like 1500 episodes is actually have someone explain what it is like to do a baptism for the dead, like from what it is, what's the teaching, what it is, and what it's like to do it. So I'm going to have you do it. M. Is that all right?

McKay [01:18:54] Yeah, we actually just said it barely did a video about.

John Dehlin [01:18:56] Okay, so start with. And we'll reference your video in the show notes.

McKay [01:19:00] There we go.

John Dehlin [01:19:00] But, but start with the doctrine and the theology and then go with the practice.

McKay [01:19:05] This is going to be kind of a reductive version of it, but just for brevity's sake. But the idea is that in order for people to enter the celestial kingdom, which is the highest degree of glory in Mormon theology, you have to have been baptized and in order, because the church has only in existence in modern times since 1830. The idea is that there are so many people around the globe who have lived and died and never got the opportunity to receive the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, which includes faith, repentance, baptism by immersion by the proper priesthood authority, and the reception of the gift of the Holy Ghost.

McKay [01:19:49] So the belief is that in order for people who are in the spirit world, who died in their sins having never known the restored gospel, that they need a chance to get a baptism. So in order for them to be Provided that chance, they're in the spirit world. They can't be baptized physically because they don't have a body.

McKay [01:20:08] Somebody has to be the proxy body for that spirit to receive a baptism. So only in the temple because they need worthy people to do it. Which is really kind of funny that dead people's baptism is dependent on the worthiness of an alive person. But that's neither here nor there.

McKay [01:20:27] You have to be worthy to enter the temple and be a proxy for a person that is dead to be baptized. So just like the normal baptism, which you would do any. In any body of water that you can be submerged to into, people go to the temple. Usually children are doing it because it's the earliest point that you're able to enter the temple at 11. Now if you're turning 12 that year, then you can enter when you're 11.

McKay [01:20:54] You go in and they have a bunch of names of dead people. And how are you dressed? You are dressed in all white in a lot of cases. I don't know if the Denver temple is pretty old, so we had a lot of old, really well loved temple clothing, but just this big, really hefty white jumpsuit. White jumpsuit.

John Dehlin [01:21:17] Polyester jumpsuit.

McKay [01:21:18] Yep. Not soft at all. You would get little white tighty whities and socks. And you would strip down to. In a locker room, just so everybody's on the same page, strip down, put on this jumpsuit. And then you would be baptized for multiple people. Usually when you would go on a temple trip with your, your ward, your congregation.

John Dehlin [01:21:43] And what does the font look like?

McKay [01:21:44] The font is on the back of 12 oxen that are super ornate.

John Dehlin [01:21:49] Like baptismal. Yeah, Big, huge font tub thing. And it's, it's, it's. Imagine ornate.

McKay [01:21:58] Yeah. Like an octagonal hot tub. That's way less fun. Not heat, not very warm. It does smell like chlorine because, you know, you got to make sure that a bunch of people are going to go in there and it's clean.

John Dehlin [01:22:10] Use your imagination.

McKay [01:22:12] So, yeah, so you go down and a older priesthood member, they have to be at least 16. Usually you're going with adults and they'll be the people who baptize you because they're more effective at it. And they've done it. They've been around the block to do it a couple times. You'll be baptized for a group of people. I remember being baptized like 10 or 15 times at the most when I was a kid.

John Dehlin [01:22:39] And I don't know if it's changed, but when I was Doing it a long time ago, back in the Stone age, there was like a computer monitor.

McKay [01:22:46] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:22:46] So you're, you're in this huge tub that sits on 12 oxen as a pubescent teen with some dude and you're standing in the tub and then he's looking at a computer monitor and then he's got these words that he has to repeat. So I, Fred Jones, baptize. You know, I, Brother Jones. Okay, how does it go?

McKay [01:23:11] In behalf of Brother Jones, baptize you for. And in behalf of Blank. Who is dead.

John Dehlin [01:23:16] Jose Guadalupe.

McKay [01:23:18] Yeah, right. Oh, and if you're white and you're having to read Hispanic names or anything

John Dehlin [01:23:23] of that sort, I baptize you for on behalf of Jose Guadalupe, who is dead. Yeah, right. In the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost.

McKay [01:23:30] Exactly. Yeah. And then they would, they would baptize you. There are two witnesses there who now can be male or female, but when I was a kid, only priesthood holders could be the witnesses to make sure that every little bit of hair and clothing was all the way under the water.

John Dehlin [01:23:45] And if a toe dips up, doesn't count.

McKay [01:23:47] Yep. That was always interesting. You would do them a bunch of times. I'm actually tall enough where in my. In the Denver temple. It was a pretty small font. Regardless of whoever was doing it, I would hit my head on the side if they laid me back. So I had to kneel for most of my life because I was just too tall to fit in. So it's not like a big luxurious experience. That was kind of interesting about going to the Nauvoo temple because it's like, it's huge, the font in that temple. And apparently it's a historical recreation of the original font that they had in the temple before it was abandoned and destroyed.

John Dehlin [01:24:31] So

McKay [01:24:34] anyway, I'm getting off, off track from there, but we would go and we do these baptisms really quick.

John Dehlin [01:24:41] This was actually. I'm projecting here, but like when I was going to seminary and at the time Texas didn't have a temple, so we had to go to Mesa, Arizona.

McKay [01:24:50] Wow.

John Dehlin [01:24:51] For a temple. It was like a two day bus ride just to get to the temple. We did it as a temple trip as youth, but I was just told that like Jesus literally walks the halls of the temple and if you don't see Jesus, maybe when you're getting baptized, if you're really righteous, when you're coming out of the water, you fill in the blank, what's going to happen?

McKay [01:25:15] Then you would see Jesus or like the Apparition of the dead person that

John Dehlin [01:25:21] you're getting spirit of the dead person you're getting baptized for would appear. So, like, I literally, when I was getting baptized for the dead and I like, fasted and I didn't swear and I, like, didn't have any sexual relations with anyone. I didn't even masturbate. But, like, when I go to the temple, I'm like, I am pure and I'm in a, like, channel Jose Guadalupe or whoever it is.

McKay [01:25:44] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:25:45] And when I get baptized, I'm going to come out of the water and either see Jesus or host dead Jose hovering above me. That's how, like, for me, I believe this stuff. It was serious. When. How was it for you? How, like, intense was that whole spiritual expectation for you?

McKay [01:26:02] I would say it was the same because a lot of Sunday school teachers, people speaking in church, would describe experiences like that where they were in the temple, not necessarily doing baptisms for the dead, but they would be in the temple and they would have these experiences where in Mormon culture you say the veil is thin, the veil that separates the human, our current existence from the spirit world is thin. And there's like almost you can, like a tool separation between this reality and some spirit world. I feel like I was a little. That kind of made me a little jaded because I never had any experiences like that.

John Dehlin [01:26:48] So what happened? Do you remember? Do you remember, like, wanting that? I remember wanting that, absolutely. Coming out of the water, looking up, no Jesus, no Jose Guadalupe. And it's either like, either I've been lied to or I'm not worthy.

McKay [01:27:05] Yeah, right. Yeah, that. That was exactly the perception and something that I would be kind of wrestling with, or I would convince myself that I had felt something in order to kind of play off my sin that I was living in. So in a lot of instances, I would kind of look at my everyday life and be like, oh, that was the spirit guiding me or something. But never in the moment would I say, oh, yeah, this is what the spirit looks like. It was more just me convincing myself that I was having these sort of spiritual experiences.

McKay [01:27:42] So that was a lot of the aspect of the whole trip that we did because we were going to these places, like in Independence, they had the temple grounds there. That was lesser. But I remember we went to the Liberty Jail Visitor center, and it was a snowy Missouri morning, and we went to the visitor center. We were the only people there.

McKay [01:28:10] We were attended to like kings. So we got the whole experience and we got to stay in there for as long as we wanted. And it was like a really affirming, I guess I want to say faith affirming experience. Like, oh, this is the true church. Joseph Smith was in a jail cell and he was penning the words like, oh, God, where art thou? And he receives this big revelation, like, this is the real deal. Like, no human being who wasn't true in what they were doing would ever let this kind of thing happen. And then later moving on to Nauvoo, seeing all the stuff that the.

McKay [01:28:52] The Mormons had built up in Nauvoo and them telling these really moving stories, and later moving to Carthage Jail, where you can see the bullet holes, I don't know if that's historically accurate. In the door where they shot through and the prophet Joseph jumped out the window and was martyred.

McKay [01:29:13] So all those things just kind of helped me strengthen in that moment, but eventually they would kind of crumble away as my high school career advanced. And I wanted to have more individuality and things like that.

John Dehlin [01:29:30] But. But I think it's important to highlight this because when we talk about the bite model B is behavior. E is the emotion. When you go on these temple trips or you go to these Mormon temples and you engage in these rituals like baptism for the dead, or you go to. It's kind of like sacred Mormon rites of passage. You go to the sacred grove where Joseph Smith allegedly saw God in Jesus. You go to Palmyra or where Joseph Smith grew up, or you go to Liberty Jail or Carthage or the Nauvoo Temple. You're being told all this whitewashed history, all these sanitized versions of, like, Joseph Smith is like Paul Bunyan or babe in the Big Blue Ox like Hercules, or, you know, you're talked about as a teen, like Joseph Smith was this paragon of virtue and strength and righteousness, and it conditions you to give your life to the church.

John Dehlin [01:30:30] Yeah, right. It's. It's what primes you to want to go on a mission and then want to get married in the temple and then want to commit to Give your entire 10% of your income for your entire life to the church. Like all of this teen conditioning is what sets up a Mormon kid to jump on the Mormon train.

McKay [01:30:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:30:48] So it's importantly, Right?

McKay [01:30:49] Yeah. And I remember going to. To Carthage jail and they. They talk about in the script in Doctrine and Covenants, how he was led like a lamb to the slaughter. He knew Joseph Smith was led like a lamb to the slaughter with Hiram, his brother. There's no mention that he had a

John Dehlin [01:31:07] revolver with ever and shot at the crowd coming up.

McKay [01:31:11] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:31:12] Or what he had done to get himself in jail in the first place.

McKay [01:31:15] Oh, absolutely did not know anything about that. It was. He was persecuted for the truth that he was bringing to light, for restoring the gospel and gentiles and people living in sin didn't want to hear it. So they locked him up and they eventually came to kill him. Definitely nothing about sans polygamy. Yep. Or violation of First Amendment rights or anything like that.

Carah Burrell [01:31:41] Sans printing press. Yes. Left out. Yeah.

McKay [01:31:45] That was really faith affirmative. I remember. And like, I come home was fast and testimony meeting. I swallowed my social anxiety and bore my testimony and cried, which was really out of con, out of character for me and my priesthood leaders all like, patting me on the back like, oh, he's such a stud. And anyway, so, I mean, you got everybody else around you saying that you doing the right thing, you're feeling the right feelings. How could you feel that you're in the wrong?

John Dehlin [01:32:19] It's a social conversion at the end of the day. Most Mormon kids born in the church are socially converted in these teen years with all these youth experiences where all their parents and their loved ones are all saying, good job with your righteousness. Good job being worthy. Good job going to the temple. Good job deciding on a mission.

McKay [01:32:38] Yeah. Good job choosing to get baptized at 8.

Carah Burrell [01:32:40] All of those feelings of shame that we programmed you in, like, the way to overcome that is, you know, bear your testimony, get patted on the back

McKay [01:32:48] doing the things that we say are good for you. So.

Carah Burrell [01:32:52] Yeah. And I don't deny there's a lot of good things I. A lot of Mormon upbringing is. Yeah. That love bombing and you're doing service projects and you're part of the community and you feel a lot of love for your leaders who, you know, have full time jobs that they're taking their time out to care about you as a teenager. But there's also, you know, some other, other underlying messages that, that we try to make sure to point out here on the podcast too.

John Dehlin [01:33:13] I mean, it's complicated because on the one hand, you're being taught to be kind. You're being taught to serve, to sacrifice your needs, to help others, to live a kind, loving, righteous life. And what's wrong with that? And to care about family and doing good in the world on the one hand. On the other hand, there's massive lack of informed consent because you're not being told the truth about everything you're being raised in. You're being taught an intentionally deceptive narrative that is the foundation of your allegiance.

John Dehlin [01:33:46] And there's massive undue influence because as you just kind of made a slight joke, when you're eight, can you really make an informed decision? Or when you're 16 and everybody around you is love bombing you for doing the right thing, can you really make a decision without undue influence? Or are you sort of being lovingly coerced into a lifestyle that you don't fully understand until you're 20? Whatever. Right?

McKay [01:34:13] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:34:13] Yeah.

McKay [01:34:14] And like all my family, this was the lifestyle that they were participating in. And I'm not going to say like, oh, they, I blame them for everything that happened in my life because this is more about me and the choices that I made. And this was what my parents were raised up in too. They didn't know anything different. Both of them were like, my mom was there, her parents joined the church when she was really young. And my dad was born into it, and his dad was born into it. My grandpa served a mission, I served, or my dad served a mission. And so it was just the expectation that you, you got baptized because that's what all your family did.

McKay [01:34:52] You go on a mission because that's what all your family did. And so, yeah, there's a lot of messaging there, but it's not to discount the fact that we did things as a family that were enjoyable, that didn't have anything to do with the church and, and things like that. Anyway.

John Dehlin [01:35:09] Yeah. Well, thanks for everyone's patience in us taking the time. I know this is a lot, but if you can just understand that we're also trying to help people who've never been Mormon understand what it's like to be Mormon. So please bear with us. There are a lot of people who write us all the time and say, thanks for taking your time with this story because we, we have, you know, we come from outside and we have no idea. I'm sure you get that on your, your YouTube channel.

McKay [01:35:36] Oh, yeah. There's a lot of things that you people just, it's a foreign concept because it is exclusive in Mormonism in a lot of cases, like baptism for the dead. A lot of huge misconception that we got for a really long time was, oh, my God, they're, they're digging up corpses and like, throwing them in the water. Doesn't that make it gross? So we wanted to clear up that misconception by setting the record straight. And I, I will take a. Like, we are probably in a lot of circles, and you included, considered to be anti Mormon, but we are trying to tell the God honest truth. So anybody saying that we are lying, I. I don't know what your motives are because there's really no reason for me to lie about any of this stuff.

Carah Burrell [01:36:26] It's typically people who are termed anti Mormon that are helping the church progress better. Because I know on that, that video you guys talk about the, like Holocaust victims and people that are obviously died for their faith, basically that the church, you know, it wasn't until people started pushing and embarrassing the church saying to stop doing that, stop baptizing our, our loved ones without the permission they get to the church to change and be more respectful. So it's important to point those things out.

McKay [01:36:51] Yeah, it is. And like I, we go to, I probably go to bat for Mormons more often than anyone would think. And correcting the record and people saying like, oh, they do all these terrible things, because I don't think that any of my Mormon relatives or family members or close friends, friendships, or associations necessarily are evil people. It mostly just comes from the top down. So just to get that out of the way.

McKay's Mission Preparation and Departure

John Dehlin [01:37:23] All right, so thanks for everyone's patience as we kind of did a deep dive there. So tell us where your Mormon story continues.

McKay [01:37:29] Okay, so after that trip to a lot of the Mormon historical sites, that was my freshman year in high school. I remember I got my first. My first smartphone when I turned 14. I bought it with my own money. It was something that I wanted.

McKay [01:37:51] And just to make things short, I was continuing to view pornography and having a phone made it easier. But I was also a young kid, so I was, you know, pretty obviously hiding something. I remember at one point I was getting a little fast and loose with hiding anything, so my parents pretty easily caught on. And like, my dad installed a Internet filter and wanted to keep things like that out of the house, but probably had pretty good suspicion of what was going on, especially since I had a phone and I could get around any sort of internal filter that way. But I remember one Sunday, or like right before this had happened, my dad was like, hey, can I see your phone?

McKay [01:38:49] And I did the real sheepish, like, oh, hold on, let me get do this, or whatever, clear the Internet browser history or whatever. And then the. I think it was the following Sunday after that had happened. At one point I thought my parents were taking a nap and they just like bust in my room. They were on the third floor, the second floor. I was in the basement. And they're like, give us your phone. And it was too late. At that point. I was like, oh, I'm cooked.

McKay [01:39:17] So basically, the reasoning that they gave us, I was like, how did you know? And they basically were like, well, the spirit told us.

John Dehlin [01:39:30] I was like, how do they know what.

McKay [01:39:32] How did you know what I was doing? How did you know I was watching pornography? And they were like, well, we just had a feeling from the spirit. I was like, oh, my God, have I been fooling myself that nobody knew what was going on because the spirit was telling them what was going on, and they just didn't know how to deal with it or.

McKay [01:39:51] Or what. So for a while, they took my phone away. They kind of locked me down. So I wasn't perpetuating this habit or whatever, but it gave me pause for a good while. I was like, how would it take this long for the spirit to tell them what was going on? Because this. This had been going on for a while.

McKay [01:40:15] They made me go to the bishop and confess to him. And for a while there, I felt like a big weight was lifted off my shoulders because I was like, oh, finally somebody caught me. I wasn't gonna go to the bishop myself because I didn't want to feel that shame.

McKay [01:40:31] And seemingly I. I felt better. And I was like, oh, yeah, I'm definitely free of this shame. But at the same time, it was like, why. Why did this take so long? Why didn't the spirit tell them earlier?

McKay [01:40:46] And I kind of just pondered on that for a good while. I hate the word ponder. I don't know why I just said that. Just kind of thought on that for a good long while. And I was like, there's a lot of fishy things about this situation.

McKay [01:41:00] Like, a, I'm just an idiot. I suck at lying. I'm not nearly as good as I think I am. And B, my dad has an Internet filter installed on the computer or on the. It was. My dad works in it, so he had it through the ISP or whatever. And I was like, I bet it logs every time you hit one of those walls. I was like, there's no way that they would have just known out of the blue like that.

John Dehlin [01:41:28] So you think they were trying to make you think that the Holy Ghost had told them that you were looking at porn, that God and angels and

McKay [01:41:37] the Holy Ghost were like, hey, this is what's going on.

John Dehlin [01:41:41] But then you thought about it. You put two and two together.

McKay [01:41:43] Yeah. I was like, that's not what happening. What was happening at all. And now, even later, I'm realizing I was like, the church convinced them. I bet they thought that was what was happening. That God was revealing that to them. That was just their own intuition and their own handiwork catching me in that sin. It really wasn't anything more so it's more. I feel like it was more insidious because my parents thought they were doing the right thing and were receiving revelation of the bad things quote unquote that I was doing when it was really. They are not giving themselves enough credit, in my opinion. So I was like, okay, the spirit of discernment really isn't there. It was just them figuring me out.

Carah Burrell [01:42:34] They knew that I was 14. Is that. How old are you? All I can deduce is that maybe, just maybe our 14 year old might be interested in looking at naked women.

McKay [01:42:45] I'm going off on a. I know, right?

Carah Burrell [01:42:47] Come on, Mom. Come on, Dad.

McKay [01:42:49] I was 15 or 16 at that time. I can't really remember. Maybe I was 15. The timeline doesn't really matter that much. But yeah, I was just blown away. I was like, they really thought that it was the spirit that had told them this. And it was really just. I mean, this is something that I've been wrestling with. Like, I feel like in Mormonism you strip your identity away so much that you can't even give yourself credit for your own intelligence or your own intuition.

McKay [01:43:20] Like anything that is good comes from the spirit or comes from God and. And things like that. It's just kind of demoralizing that like you doing good on a test, you can't even take credit for that because really it was God that helped you do good on that test and things like that.

McKay [01:43:39] So that was obviously a pretty humiliating experience for me because now I was found out. I was kind of the sinful kid. And I feel like that experience left me really jaded. From then on, I kind of took the more what I thought was atheist. It was more just being an edgy teenager, now that I look back on it. But I was basically like, you know what? This is all not for me. As soon as I turn 18, I'm moving out of the house. I'm not going to.

John Dehlin [01:44:14] Okay, so that made you want to distance yourself from the church, that experience?

McKay [01:44:18] Yeah, your parents were trying to police

John Dehlin [01:44:20] your righteousness and it had a backfire effect.

McKay [01:44:23] I would say so. And it took a while. This was kind of an evolution over maybe about a year and a half. I really hit full stride in my senior year. At the start of my senior year, it was like.

McKay [01:44:37] Like I had never been on a date really before that point. I had some Little dating interest that was a member of the church. But I really never gone on a date up until that point my senior year. I ended up dating my first girlfriend. Of course, it was in the same circles that I had always been throughout high school. I was in the marching band, so my first girlfriend was another person in the marching band because just based on proximity, that was the, the easiest person to have a relationship because they had the most obvious common interests with me.

McKay [01:45:10] But around that same time, I was more open with my friends, like in my text messages and things like that, about how I didn't believe in God and I was sick of the church. And I was trying to calculate the amount of time that I spent at church, which was a miniscule amount of time compared to what it's like to serve a full time mission.

McKay [01:45:31] And like my parents would ground me and confiscate my phone and I wouldn't delete the text messages. So they'd be reading the things that I was saying and they were pretty obviously hurt by some of the things that I was thinking and saying because it was just spitting in the face of family history and the way that they, they had brought me up. So in a lot of aspects they were trying to, they were trying to do damage control. In a lot of cases where they would ground me, wouldn't let me leave the house except for school functions and things like that.

McKay [01:46:08] And in order to kind of reign me back in and get me to conform or to be more righteous, all the while, I was still required to go to church. There was no option to not go to church. No option to not go to seminary.

McKay [01:46:26] It may surprise people that I graduated with. I graduated from seminary, but that time it was me just wanting to be done with it, but not really compromising on some of the standards. Like, I was still really staunchly against drinking alcohol, even though a lot of my friends did, or smoking and, and doing things of that nature.

John Dehlin [01:46:56] It's kind of like what we're talking about here is an attempt for you to have your own emerging identity that, that you're, you're, if you're tuning into yourself, you're like, this Mormonism stuff doesn't fit me. It doesn't feel right. I want to emerge and develop my own identity. And that's where the, that's where the plot twist comes, right? Because yeah, as you're now. How old are you now?

McKay [01:47:19] I'm 26.

John Dehlin [01:47:21] Like, as I'm thinking about where you are now, this trajectory that you're starting to develop as A late teen would have gotten you where you are now probably a little bit quicker earlier.

McKay [01:47:33] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:47:33] If it weren't for what happens next, I'm guessing.

McKay [01:47:36] Right. Yeah. And I still continued on that path for a while. So, basically, from the end of my junior year. Whoops. From the end of my junior year into my senior year and beyond that, for a little while, I was like, there's no way I'm going on a mission.

McKay [01:47:56] Nobody can convince me. My brothers were basically just waiting to graduate high school at that point in order for them to go on their mission. So there was a lot of pushing going on for youth to be ready for a mission. And whenever the conversation turned to me, I was like, no, I'm not ready for that. I want to go to college for a year. And that was kind of my buffer of I can get people off my back if I just go to college for a year and things like that.

McKay [01:48:22] So that was kind of the story I was sticking with my senior year. Another instance. And we go back to the music. Thing that I remember was I lied to my mom while my dad was out of town that I had to go to work and work late one night. And instead of going to work, I went to a concert that she said that I was not allowed to go to because of the content of the music.

McKay [01:48:49] The funny thing is, she was looking at the headliner, and that's not who I was going to see. The headliner was far less shocking than who I was actually going to see. But she said, no, I go to this concert.

McKay [01:49:02] And lo and behold, she was impressed by the spirit to show up at my place of work, but maybe also by her hunger for a cookie and learned that I was not at my place of work and was waiting for me when I got home.

McKay [01:49:19] So things like that just really drove a wedge between my parents and I because I wanted to have my own individuality that was not congruent with a lot of the Mormon standards, drove away the spirit, et cetera. And they were trying to get a handle on me so that I could be with my brothers in leaving for a mission.

McKay [01:49:39] By that point in time, I was. I wanted to go to college. I didn't know where I was going to go For a long time. I was the star student in my senior year. I was in two AP classes that I really.

McKay [01:49:54] I really shouldn't have been in, but I undertook it anyway. So I was the star student. My grades would fall toward the end of my high school career, and it seemed kind of on par with Me wanting to leave the church, like, as soon as that was kind of the vibe that I was giving off. Like my grades were slipping and things like that. So it felt like it was a confirmation of I'm in the wrong because all these things are going wrong.

McKay [01:50:26] We ended up going on a second church history trip where we went all the way out to the East Coast. This time we went we Denver to Nauvoo in one day drive. I was grounded because of lying to my parents about going to see my girlfriend instead of going to work. So that was a pretty common theme of lying to my parents about things and getting caught.

McKay [01:50:55] We go to Nauvoo the first day, they were like, you can have your phone back if you apply to byu, Idaho. I want to text my girlfriend, so I'm gonna give them whatever they want. This. The vibe on this trip was vastly different than the first time around because I was extremely jaded. And even the experiences there did not change my mind. This time we went to, let's see, we were in Nauvoo, St. Louis. We drove to. My dad served in Pittsburgh, which at the time included parts of West Virginia.

McKay [01:51:29] So we stayed with one of the convert families that my dad baptized on his mission, visited places that he used to frequent when he was on his mission in downtown Pittsburgh. We stopped by and had dinner with their. One of their daughters in Washington D.C. went up to New York City and then of course hit the Sacred Grove and Kirtland on our way home.

John Dehlin [01:51:55] For those who don't know, these are all like Mormon sacred Mormon sites.

McKay [01:51:59] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:51:59] Kirtland being the main, first major city. Joseph Smith set up shop after he established the church. Missouri being where Joseph Smith declared it Zion, the New Jerusalem, where Jesus would come again. And incidentally in Missouri, where Adam and Eve had the Guard of Eden, happened to be in Missouri as well. And then, yeah, Nauvoo being the city that. That after being cast out of so many other cities, the final city Joseph Smith developed and built with all the his fellow Mormons until he was killed. So these are all the sacred Mormon cities.

McKay [01:52:32] Yeah. And the going to the Sacred Grove is like the height of Mormon spiritual experiences because the. All the messaging surrounding it, regardless of whether they know exactly where it happened or not, is that this is a place where God has been. So it is. You can feel the spirit. It's literal, hallowed ground in Mormon theology. And I remember everybody having such a spiritual experience. And I didn't. I just went along with everything and I was like, I don't See really what the big fuss is all about. And to me, because I was set up with this idea that when you are not living in harmony with the gospel, you don't get these spiritual experience. As I was like, well, I guess that means I'm pretty much on the outs. So we finished up that trip, of course.

John Dehlin [01:53:34] So you didn't get the. You.

McKay [01:53:36] Oh, God.

John Dehlin [01:53:36] Did you try. Are you saying you tried to get that spiritual experience?

McKay [01:53:39] No, I didn't. I figured that if it was meant to happen, it would. It would have just happened, but it was just like sitting in the forest.

John Dehlin [01:53:47] So you go to the sacred grove as a teen.

McKay [01:53:50] So, yeah, the first experience, we didn't go to the sacred grove. It was just more with being at the Nauvoo Temple.

John Dehlin [01:53:56] Okay, so you're okay.

McKay [01:53:57] And then on this trip around, we had the higher spiritual experience where it's not just like fable that God is in the temple, it's. This is where God appeared to Joseph Smith. God and Jesus appeared to Joseph Smith. This is literal, hallowed ground. And I didn't get that same feeling.

John Dehlin [01:54:15] You didn't?

McKay [01:54:16] No.

John Dehlin [01:54:17] How'd you. Were you disappointed at that point?

McKay [01:54:20] No, I was pretty much done. I.

John Dehlin [01:54:24] You're like God if you're there.

McKay [01:54:25] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:54:26] Present yourself. And if you're not, I'm moving on.

McKay [01:54:28] I applied to byu Idaho just because

John Dehlin [01:54:31] I was like, okay, explain to our audience why more Mormon parents would pull that card of like, byu, Idaho or your life's going to be a living hell, you know?

McKay [01:54:41] Yeah, yeah.

Carah Burrell [01:54:42] Especially because with a lot of the stuff we've been talking about this week about the federal investigation and to BYU and, you know, LGBTQ people going there, a lot of people. Number one comment that I've heard on all of our tick tock and Mormon stories comments and all of the pages is, no one's forced to go to BYU without understanding the conditioning. A, yeah. That I want you to explain. And then B, some people don't even know that they're gay. They don't even know their sexuality halfway when they're 18, when they apply to go. But anyway, so yeah, talk about that. That's really.

McKay [01:55:10] That in and of itself, it's like applying that to any religious institution, university or anything and just say, oh, people don't have to go there if they don't want to. That is objectly false. A lot of people are not allowed to go to other universities and if they do, then they have to take on massive student debt, especially when their parents are like, you can go to this school or you can pay for it yourself and go somewhere else.

Carah Burrell [01:55:38] So the choice kind of made in a lot of ways.

McKay [01:55:41] The funny thing was my parents said, if you pay for your own school and choose to go on a mission, we will pay for your mission. So I was like, well, if I'm gonna be paying for it, might as well get a good deal on my tuition. So I applied. I didn't really know what I was going to do at that point, so it didn't really matter where I was going to go.

John Dehlin [01:55:59] I'll just say the reason why the Mormon. For those who aren't Mormon or who haven't been paying attention as Mormons, there's a reason why the Mormon Church spends a gazillion dollars a year on byu, Provo, Idaho and Hawaii. It's because they've done studies that if you get married young to another Mormon and have kids quickly, your probability of remaining Mormon skyrockets. So it's in the Church's vested interest to get all the Mormons from around the world super young, 18, 19, 20 years old at another place where they could meet other Mormons, get them married and get them having kids as soon as possible. Because otherwise the drop off is massive.

John Dehlin [01:56:42] Especially kids who stay in their local colleges or universities hometowns and go to local College. Like over 80% leave, leave the church for sure. So like BYU, the BYU's are critical to the Mormon Church's retention of its, of its members. And so, and parents get that either consciously or unconsciously. And so it's literally, it's very common within Mormonism where even a wealthy parent will say, if you, if you go to byu, I'll pay for your education. Yeah, I'll support you, I'll give you a car, go on a mission, go to byu. I'll give you a car, I'll support you. If you don't go to byu, you're on your own.

Carah Burrell [01:57:24] Yep. And just for comparison, I told my school and my family that I wanted to go to asu. And it as a Provo girl walking the halls of Tempe High School, it was like I was the Antichrist. After I said that, that she wanted to go to a party school, I was like, can I still be Mormon there? And everyone's like, no, everyone's going to byu. So for comparison, I didn't actually go to as, but it's they. You were kind of put in a category. Oh, of like, are you going to be a good Mormon and go to a church school? Are you going to be A heathen.

McKay [01:57:50] Absolutely. It was. And a lot of my extended family, they're big BYU football fans for so long. I was never a sports person. I played in the marching band and I tried to convince.

John Dehlin [01:58:01] You were a band nerd?

McKay [01:58:02] Yeah, I tried to convince people that it was a sport. It's. If you think that. Whatever, it's fine. I love the band. I love music.

Carah Burrell [01:58:09] What instrument do you. You play?

McKay [01:58:10] I played tenor saxophone.

Carah Burrell [01:58:13] We haven't talked about this yet.

McKay [01:58:14] Are we in common?

Carah Burrell [01:58:15] Are we. Do you still play?

McKay [01:58:17] I don't.

John Dehlin [01:58:17] Were you tenor care. Are you?

Carah Burrell [01:58:19] I played alto in the marching band. I am not a band person. I just ate lunch alone in the band, if that means anything to anyone.

John Dehlin [01:58:26] I was not ex Mormon. Band nerds unite. I was percussion.

McKay [01:58:30] Oh, that. Okay.

Carah Burrell [01:58:31] Oh, you thought you were better than

McKay [01:58:32] all of us, the percussion.

Carah Burrell [01:58:33] You probably were.

McKay [01:58:34] I have to say, saxophone players are up here, though. Oh, yeah. My.

John Dehlin [01:58:38] To be. To be honest, I wanted to play the saxophone.

McKay [01:58:41] It's the coolest. Honestly, my. My closest friend group that I'm still friends with that after all these years, all of them played saxophone, so they're the coolest.

Carah Burrell [01:58:54] Nice. Nice.

McKay [01:58:55] So anyway, where was I going with that?

John Dehlin [01:58:58] So you applied to byu?

McKay [01:58:59] I applied to BYU Idaho. Yeah. I. My senior year was not good enough to get into to BYU Provo. I barely graduated. If it weren't for my. I won't say he's beautiful because he got fired for some sexual advances that he made on students, but if it weren't for that guy, I definitely would not have passed and graduated on time.

McKay [01:59:25] That's just because I was a lazy student. I failed my AP classes and I got credit on my AP exams. So if that means anything. Anyway, so I'm. I apply to BYU Idaho. I make it. My brothers leave for their mission the fall after we graduated. All graduated from high school.

McKay [01:59:45] And that coming January, I end up leaving for BYU Idaho. And just to paint a picture for why Mormon parents want to send their wayward children to IOBYU institution of any sort. I had six roommates. One of them was planning to go on a mission after the year had ended. And the other four were all returned missionaries, like recently returned missionaries. So it was like the perfect situation for a parent who wants their child to go on a mission and to be strong in the church.

McKay [02:00:24] And these guys, I. I'm still in contact with one of them because he also has left the church. And he was also seemingly the most firm in the faith. But they were all really. We were all really Tight. And it made me interested in being part of the church again. Even though it took all that year. And a school year at BYU Idaho is different than at other places. I was going to school from January until July with no summer in between. It was just two semesters. But from that time until the end of the school year, I was changing. And at one point right before I moved back to Colorado for the fall, I called up my mom and I told her that I wanted to go on a mission.

McKay [02:01:20] And oh, every Mormon moment, oh yeah, I remember she cried, I cried about it and I was like, yeah, this is something that I want to do.

John Dehlin [02:01:28] What changed your heart? I mean, obviously being at BYU Idaho and being around all these Richard missionaries. But do you know was it a.

McKay [02:01:34] I had two instances. We'll get to the next one in a minute here. But I was dating a girl kind of steadily and as far as the relationship goes, it was a lot more hands off than my previous two girlfriends because she was the first Mormon that I dated steadily. And she broke up with me because she was going on a mission.

McKay [02:01:57] So I think it was probably that weekend or something I called up my mom and was like, I'm gonna go on a mission. Cause now I gotta spite my ex girlfriend. She was a delightful person, I have nothing against her.

McKay [02:02:08] So I moved back from Idaho, moved back to Colorado, I start up work. Cause I had incurred some debt because I didn't make enough money before I left to not have a job. So I needed to work and pay off some debt. At that point I was like, meh, kind of.

McKay [02:02:28] I fell off the wagon again. I was like, you know what? I'm having fun. I have another member friend that a. I'm interested in romantically, I've known for a really long time and we've been really tight friends in my later high school time.

McKay [02:02:45] This friend for a long time we had a big Mormon friend group and we were all kind of turned into Jack Mormons because of each other.

John Dehlin [02:02:56] Which means what we.

McKay [02:02:59] I don't know if we weren't like. Because we would go to church dances, but we would also get in trouble with the law. So we were not always doing what we were supposed to do. We would like go to concerts and things like that.

McKay [02:03:15] But this was the one friend that was left over that I would really hang out with all the time. And I was interested in her. So even better, eventually later on in the fall I we started dating. So everything was going swimmingly. We both kind of had this mutual attraction to each other. For a long time. And it was like, everything's falling into place.

McKay [02:03:38] I don't need to go on a mission, whatever. And then one day she drops the bomb on me. She's like, I won't get married to a non RM RM meaning returned missionary. Someone who hasn't gone on their mission and returned with honor so instantly because her dad had been in the bishopric. At one point I was like, oh, well, I guess I got to fix that. So that week I buckled down again and was like, I'm doing my papers, I'm going to get it turned in before the end of the year.

McKay [02:04:09] And I did that, had everything all submitted. And then right before she went to byu Idaho, we broke up, which was kind of awkward. But she goes off to byu Idaho. And then like a week or two later, I got my mission call. It came in the mail.

John Dehlin [02:04:26] And just really quickly, when we talk about influence or undue influence, like the fact that the Mormon church intentionally or just coincidentally encourages the teaching to young women that they shouldn't marry.

McKay [02:04:42] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:04:43] A man who isn't a returned missionary. It cannot be overstated how powerful of a factor that is in, in bearing undue influence on young men to serve missions.

Carah Burrell [02:04:58] Oh yeah. All I wanted to add is humans have like a natural drive towards sex. Right. Correct me if I am wrong. The only way in Mormonism to have like God sanctioned sex within marriage in a temple, the only way to get the girl to have the sex and to live the, the Mormon dream that you've been conditioned your whole life is to put in your papers to go serve a mission, to go convert people to a religion that, you know, like me and John have been making tick tocks. This video, different videos this week that a lot of more missionaries don't even know a lot about the gospel to begin with, to even know what they're pitching.

Carah Burrell [02:05:31] But I really think it all comes back down to this human drive of like, you have to get married if you ever want to have like God sanctioned sex. It's all within this bubble of like, control. God honoring sex. Yeah. Like, it's all within this, this paradigm that like leads one thing into another, into another. And so I think these discussions are really healthy. Helping people untangle their own conditioning of the reasons why they made the choices that they make. Like serving a mission is a lot more pushed on you than, than I think a lot of people want to

John Dehlin [02:05:59] recognize it's sex and it's just a partner. So you want. We're all biologically wired to have sex and I would argue to have to partner up at least for some amount of time to procreate. But if the church says, yeah, we're

Carah Burrell [02:06:15] going to be the.

John Dehlin [02:06:15] You should want all that. Want that. But we're the gatekeepers. We're going to tell you how and when and where you are going to eventually partner up and have sex. But first you got to give two years of your life being our salesman where you pay to be our salesman. And we're not going to tell you what you're. The details of what you're actually selling, but you got to go spend two years of your life where you pay to be our salesman without all the information and. And only then will you be able to have sex or will any of the girls around or boys want you. You know that that's a lot of

Carah Burrell [02:06:53] ins and it's actually quite explicit. You know, there's jokes on missions where they'll be like, the more doors you knock, Elder, the hotter your wife is.

John Dehlin [02:06:59] Totally.

Carah Burrell [02:06:59] It's very. Those things are very much interconnected.

John Dehlin [02:07:02] Oh, super.

McKay [02:07:03] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [02:07:04] This interview is really helping me distill the Mormon experience in a way I don't think I've ever tried to really delve into before.

McKay [02:07:12] I'm glad I could be the vehicle discovery.

John Dehlin [02:07:15] The sausage.

McKay [02:07:16] Yeah, the sausage is.

John Dehlin [02:07:18] You're the sausage that helps us know how the sausage is made.

McKay [02:07:21] Yeah. Patience. Zero. No.

Carah Burrell [02:07:23] So that, that's interesting though that you said that you broke up with the girl but you had all your papers in at that point or you were already.

McKay [02:07:28] She actually broke up with me and I don't really want to tell this person's story too much. There, there were other factors in that with this person exploring their sexuality and things like that. So anyway, I. It's worth noting also up to this point, I had never broken the law of chastity with another person. I'd had a kind of long term girlfriend. Yeah. I'd never had sex with any other person before. I had kind of a long term girlfriend that we were like, for lack of a better word, jones into make something happen. But this other person that actually kind of put the nail in the coffin on me going on my mission was a huge threat to that girlfriend because she was a Mormon and I was a Mormon and we ended up dating which probably was not a surprise to her.

McKay [02:08:21] So yeah, the messaging, especially if you're like in Mormonism, there's not even any consideration that aromantic or asexual people exist. So it's like you as a woman are expected to get Married to a man who is a strong priesthood holder. And what strong priesthood holder doesn't go on a mission.

McKay [02:08:43] So that's probably the messaging that they received. So that's what they were expecting. And as soon as I was like, oh, if anything further is off the table, what am I doing? I gotta get my ass in gear and put in my mission papers and go.

John Dehlin [02:09:00] And miracle of miracle, McKay has some sort of spiritual conversion and tells him to go on a mission. Wow.

McKay [02:09:06] Totally unrelated to any sort of sexuality.

John Dehlin [02:09:11] Promise of sexual expectations, family love and acceptance.

McKay [02:09:14] Totally independent of all that. I was suddenly converted. I was ready to go and progress. Proclaim the gospel to the people of Honduras. The Tegucigalpa mission.

John Dehlin [02:09:26] Nice.

McKay [02:09:28] So I get my mission call. Awesome. I streamed it on YouTube because it was like a big deal. We had a whole bunch of people. Yeah, it was kind of like the new age. I guess that's really what sets me apart as a Gen Z.

John Dehlin [02:09:43] Social media.

McKay [02:09:44] Yeah. It was like, I can set this up on YouTube, we'll stream it, everybody can watch it and we don't have to have our living rooms so crowded with people. So I streamed it. My mom was shocked when she found out about murder rates in Tegucigalpa, which is disappointing that that's the first thing that people look at.

McKay [02:10:08] But everything kind of went as planned. We ended up going on one final hurrah to St. Thomas with that same family that we stayed in their house in West Virginia that my dad had baptized. They sailed their sailboat down to St. Thomas and we stayed with them for like a week or so right before I left on my mission. So it was like, here's your, your cookie for making the right decision, kind of.

McKay [02:10:36] Even though that was independent of my departure. But come my missionaries, they will typically give a farewell address in the congregation usually the week or two weeks before they leave. Kind of as like a send off. Like, oh, you're going to become a man. And here's like the first bookend when you get back. You'll also have an address so that people can see how you've grown and you're spiritual person now.

McKay [02:11:09] My girlfriend, who was my ex girlfriend at the time, came for that and stayed and we kind of reconnected kind of. She kind of was more leaning toward us having a relationship when I got back. And like we told each other that we loved each other or whatever, which was not uncommon because we were really good friends before that.

McKay [02:11:35] So that kind of rekindled right before I left. So I had something a Girl worth fighting for. In the words of the Mulan song.

John Dehlin [02:11:44] You know, in Saturday's Warrior, which is a famous Mormon musical, there's this song. You like that?

Carah Burrell [02:11:49] Oh, my God, it's my favorite movie. I love it.

John Dehlin [02:11:51] There's this song, Dear John, which is this. This tradition. I don't know if it's a non Mormon tradition. It probably is like, maybe like World War II kind of era. Yeah. Where, where. Anyway, the song is about a Mormon missionary that he promises love. You know, Elder Wally Kessler promises love to Julie Flinders. Right. And then he goes on his mission, but then she Dear Johns him, which means that she writes him a letter that apparently they literally start out Dear John, which is always weird to me, but I'm John, so all my letters are Dear John's anyway, where it's basically saying, I'm breaking up with you because I'm marrying somebody else anyway.

John Dehlin [02:12:31] That whole culture of Dear John Mormon Dear John letters, I just realized, is connected to the fact that it's a Mormon girl's job to get a guy on a mission. Because part of the way you get a guy on a mission is to say, I'll be here when you get back.

John Dehlin [02:12:48] So we love each other. Don't worry. Spend two years of your life paying to be a salesperson for the Mormon Church. Endure death threats and like Real peril in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. But don't worry, I'll be here when you get back. I just realized that the whole Dear John structure is part of the undue influence and coercion where it's a girl's job to get a guy on a mission. And then at some point she's got to hurry and get married because the church wants a married young. So she's got a Dear John and because she finds the next return missionary a month or two after he leaves on his mission. And that's kind of all.

McKay [02:13:27] They're doing the dirty work.

John Dehlin [02:13:28] How? The what?

McKay [02:13:29] They're doing the dirty work. They get him out there and then you're there now what are you going to do?

John Dehlin [02:13:35] Did I get this right or wrong or.

McKay [02:13:37] Yeah, I mean, I feel like that's the majority of the time.

Carah Burrell [02:13:40] That's what I hear is it was my girlfriend or, you know, disappointing my mom or, you know, it seems to be. Seems to be a big motivator.

John Dehlin [02:13:48] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [02:13:49] I had braces till I was 19. Boys did not look at me or in my general direction.

John Dehlin [02:13:53] Yeah, you didn't even have a. You didn't have a chance to Dear John Anybody. You're a child bride. You were a child bride, Carah.

Carah Burrell [02:13:58] I got my braces off and no joke, two weeks later, I met my husband and he snagged me. And then we ran to the temple before any other boys could, like, wave at me.

McKay [02:14:07] So there you go. Okay.

John Dehlin [02:14:08] So anyway, you. You. Some people. So a girl promised herself to you or whatever?

McKay [02:14:13] Yeah, basically. It was not in any, like, certain terms. It was just kind of implied because we were friends for so long.

John Dehlin [02:14:19] It's enough to get you out there.

McKay [02:14:20] Yeah, enough to get me out the door. I glossed over my temple experience. I wish I could share something that was, like, groundbreaking, but I was in it. Like, I have to go through the temple in order to go on my mission. So I don't have any memory of anything that I was like, man, this is really culty or anything. Because it was just something I had to do.

John Dehlin [02:14:45] Did you love it?

McKay [02:14:47] I feel like if there was any sort of alarm, I immediately put that to the back of my brain and stuffed it down. Because we actually. The Denver temple was closed when I needed to get endowed. And we came out here and I did it at the Ochre Mountain Temple because it was the only temple that I had toured before it was open. During the open house period, before it was dedicated.

John Dehlin [02:15:13] Did you have an explicit spiritual experience that got you on your mission or was. No. Okay.

McKay [02:15:19] No, I would say no to that. So I feel like I overlooked a lot in the temple, so I don't have anything really to share on that. I, after that, went up to byu, Idaho, and said goodbye to some friends that I had left.

John Dehlin [02:15:35] Wearing your garments?

McKay [02:15:37] Wearing my garments. I literally. It was Valentine's Day 2014 or 2015. Sorry, Valentine's Day, 2015. I leave the temple, have lunch with my family, and then from there I drive up to Rexburg, Idaho, to see my friends wearing my garments. The first time I did see that friend, and she thought it was so weird that I was wearing garments just like her dad. Thanks for that comparison. Anyway, so it was just a good time.

John Dehlin [02:16:08] You just lost your coolness. Yeah.

McKay [02:16:09] My. My one friend that was really big on the church, he was like, this is the one time that you get to have where you get to live up to the law of consecration and you get to dedicate all your time in talents and effort, as the covenant in the temple says, to preaching the gospel and to building up the church. And that really stuck with me. I was like, okay, I gotta, like, do this for real.

John Dehlin [02:16:34] The way my brother phrased it was You've got two years to serve and the rest of your life to think about it.

McKay [02:16:41] Yeah. That was a huge thing too. All the stories, just people that you hear in your war, they're like, oh, it was the best two years of my life and the best thing I've ever done.

John Dehlin [02:16:52] And bringing souls to Christ.

McKay [02:16:54] Yeah. And I always thought it was so wild. They're like, I. It was the best decision I ever made. Even over getting married to my wife. I was like, she's right there. Really going to say that in front of her. But it was like such a normalized thing that it is literally the most important thing that you can do. And it's the conversion that you experience. It's what makes you a dedicated, lifelong member in the church, is your missionary experience.

John Dehlin [02:17:24] If the Mormon Church had to pick the most important single act that any Mormon could make to seal their commitment or to maximize the probability that their commitment to the church will be for their entire lives, it's their mission.

McKay [02:17:39] It's the mission.

John Dehlin [02:17:40] And so it's no, it's no mistake that that is what every Mormon child and teen is groomed or conditioned.

McKay [02:17:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:17:48] To. To want to do.

McKay [02:17:50] Absolutely.

Carah Burrell [02:17:51] To do it so young.

John Dehlin [02:17:52] Yeah.

McKay [02:17:53] Yeah. And. And I mean, at that point, I was 19 years old. I was legally an adult, but I had no world experience. The. The most I lived on my own was with five other guys who were recently, four of them recently returned missionaries. So it was not any real word world experience. I wasn't like working or doing anything. I lived. And on three days out of the week, I had to go to required gospel church related topic classes. So it wasn't like that groundbreaking. But up until this point, it was, you know, all that I knew. So I was like, well, I guess this is what I'm gonna do. So I kind of leaned into it. So, yeah. I got called to the Honduras Tegucigalpa Mission. I'm trying to say it like normal white people would say it so that people can know where I'm talking about.

John Dehlin [02:18:53] Central America.

McKay [02:18:53] Central America.

John Dehlin [02:18:54] North of Guatemala, south of Mexico. Oh, south of Guatemala.

McKay [02:18:58] South of Guatemala and north of Nicaragua just kind of sandwiched in there. I went to the missionary training center in Guatemala.

John Dehlin [02:19:09] Yeah.

McKay [02:19:10] Which was an experience because this is where I first kind of really realized that all those things that I kind of reclaimed for myself were going to be stripped away, where they made sure our hair was cut. We had a really strict temple president, President Cox, who made sure, because they had missionaries taking photos in the MTC of People in their garments or something. He was like, none of that. They confiscated our cameras, they confiscated our passports. We had a big fence that surrounded. This was a just a single building with little like recreation areas on the premise.

John Dehlin [02:19:56] Is it in adjacent to the temple Vista Hermosa, zone 15?

McKay [02:19:59] Yep.

John Dehlin [02:20:00] Guatemala.

McKay [02:20:01] It's where the guest house. It's what the guest house used to be.

John Dehlin [02:20:05] I started this area on my mission.

McKay [02:20:07] Yeah. So John knows.

John Dehlin [02:20:08] He.

McKay [02:20:08] I went to that temple. Did you end up going in the temple?

John Dehlin [02:20:11] I did. I got to go there. My mission president, as an incentive to baptize people, would reward missionaries with the ability to attend the temple if they got enough baptisms.

McKay [02:20:22] Wow.

John Dehlin [02:20:23] So I got to go through with one of my families through the temple.

McKay [02:20:26] Okay. Yeah, we. I never was afforded that, but yeah, it was. We were not allowed to leave. We were only allowed to go to the temple, which is only a couple hundred meters walk from the front door of the MTC to the front door of the temple. And we were accompanied by guards, which is.

McKay's Mission Experiences Abroad

John Dehlin [02:20:48] No, no.

McKay [02:20:48] Honestly, too much.

John Dehlin [02:20:49] On my mission. On my mission, both my mission president Gordon Romney and his wife were carjacked where they're like, they're at a stoplight and somebody pulls a gun on them and says, get out of your car. And then they drive off with their car. So Guatemala is super dangerous, or at least it was in a lot of 30 years ago. Right. Or 35 years ago. And so it's, It's. You know, there's a. Probably a reason why they had guards

McKay [02:21:16] and probably I, I think that area, for lack of a better.

John Dehlin [02:21:20] It's the wealthiest area in the whole country.

McKay [02:21:22] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:21:23] But that's one of the. What makes it a target.

McKay [02:21:25] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:21:26] Well.

McKay [02:21:26] And when I kind of progress, I ended up meeting people who would talk about literally just up the hill, like visible from the windows of the mptc, some of the like. Because the. The church headquarters for Central America is in Guatemala City, a lot of like area 70s would end up being in that area. So it was, for lack of a better word, kind of the gentrified area of. Of Guatemala City.

John Dehlin [02:21:57] So that was Central America to some degree.

McKay [02:22:00] Yeah. For. In a lot of cases, for Mormonism. Yeah, it's. And I. They kind of drilled it into my head that it was like dangerous outside the front door, which in my missionary experience was definitely not the case.

McKay [02:22:14] But I'm getting ahead of myself. The missionary, the mission president or the MTC president, he. Our first Friday there. I think I got there on a Wednesday or by the First Friday, we had the lights on at 10:35, and he busted in the door and screamed at us for being awake past curfew time.

McKay [02:22:36] And basically used because we would watch old BYU devotionals and BYU Provo MTC devotionals with apostles. And he's like, we're gonna watch a video of a BYU devotional or whatever. I just said, sorry. Mixing my words up of a devotional with Elder Holland. And he outlines that if you don't wanna follow the missionary rules, you can go and start your own church and you can do it however you want.

McKay [02:23:08] And he closes the door and flicks the lights off. And not a single one of us in that room said anything to each other until the next morning.

John Dehlin [02:23:20] It's almost a military.

McKay [02:23:21] Like, almost. He was like a former football coach, I think. So he was pretty rough and tough. I ended up having my first leadership positions there. I was the zone leader, which really meant nothing other than I just needed to make sure all the other missionaries were in line and lights were off and people were in their places when they needed to be. And other than that, I mean, it was like six weeks. We called it spirit prison because we were in the same place for six weeks, which was actually the reduced amount of time it used to be. Did you go for 12 weeks learning Spanish?

John Dehlin [02:23:57] I was two months in the Provo MTC. Yeah.

McKay [02:24:01] Okay, yeah, so eight weeks, I guess. But, yeah, they had reduced it. It was right after they had announced the age change in missionary requirement. So there was a flood of missionaries going through. For us learning the language, it was six weeks. And for people who had already spoke, were already Spanish speaking, they would only be in there for three or maybe two weeks. I can't remember. I think it was just two weeks. So it was expedited and we. We had to learn very quickly.

John Dehlin [02:24:32] How was your mission?

McKay [02:24:34] My mission was a whirlwind experience. I look back on it now, and there's a lot of aspects that I really regret that I was just complacently a part of. But I still do value my experience because it. A lot of aspects of it led me to where I am today, ironically enough.

John Dehlin [02:24:57] How so?

McKay [02:25:00] Really? It was the first time I had ever left the country. One time we were camping in Glacier national park and we went to Canada to the Cardston Temple. That was the most I'd ever left the United States. But being like. Most of the time, I wasn't even in the capital city of Tegucigalpa. I was in the outskirts in the more rural areas. Still in kind of cities, but definitely a lot less urban than where I ended up ending my mission.

McKay [02:25:33] I remember my first companion was from Arizona. I only had him for. No, I think I had him for two cycles. So 12 weeks I had him for. And then after that, everyone. Every companion I had after that was a native Spanish speaker. So the learning curve was exceptionally high after that point because him and I, we were really good friends. We.

McKay [02:25:59] For a lot of time, he had Zika. At one point, we were kind of just ridden or like, bound to the house for a week straight. We really got to know each other well. We had a couple baptisms, and that kind of stuff felt good.

McKay [02:26:15] And, yeah, going forward from there, that helped me to ease into missionary life, where those first six months where people really have a tough time, I felt like I was comfortable being away from home, being in a foreign country, and able to adapt to the really regimented missionary lifestyle and stuff like that. So him and I had a really good experience. My companion after that, we did not get along very well.

John Dehlin [02:26:44] What were some of the highlights and lowlights of your mission?

McKay [02:26:47] Those things early on were the highlights. My leadership positions, I felt like, were a real highlight because it was like adding on to my resume of the. The ideal Mormon man I was.

John Dehlin [02:27:04] Because you could come home and tell people you were leader on your mission.

McKay [02:27:08] Exactly.

John Dehlin [02:27:09] Which is like. It's like the medals on a soldier.

McKay [02:27:13] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:27:13] Mormon soldier boy.

McKay [02:27:15] There's some, like.

John Dehlin [02:27:16] I was ap. I was zone leader.

McKay [02:27:18] Exactly. That's a really big aspect. The weird. Excuse me, like, suffering is the. You're doing the right thing complex. My second area was the hottest region in all of Honduras. They called it the Girlfriend of the sun because it seemed a little closer than everywhere else.

McKay [02:27:43] I kind of wore that as a badge of honor because it was a branch. It was a really hard area. It was really hot all the time, close enough to the ocean that there could be a sea breeze, but in a depression where there was none.

McKay [02:27:55] That area was really hard for me because it was where I struggled the most to find my voice. Just as a human being, it was really hard for me to talk to people. I knew enough Spanish to communicate with people, but I was really still coming out of my shell at that point. So I think I had a couple companions that were a little frustrated with my lack of initiation in talking to people and spreading the gospel.

McKay [02:28:23] So there I was a little down on myself for a little while. The last companion I had in that second area, he was. He was from Tijuana, but he Grew up in Los Angeles, so he spoke English. We had a really good time with him.

McKay [02:28:39] He was the district leader. So we would go on outings basically to do baptismal interviews to make sure that investigators or people who are looking at the church are worthy to be baptized in their understanding the whitewashed version of the gospel that the.

McKay [02:28:58] The missionaries are teaching. And the. The zone we were in was really big. So we. A lot of times it would be like a half day or whole day situation to get on a bus and go to almost the border with El Salvador and interview a person and then go back and proselytize in our own area.

John Dehlin [02:29:18] So what was it like being a white, relatively, you know, affluent, powerful, you know, American, in a rural or semi urban, Central American village or town?

McKay [02:29:37] It was a really novel thing for a lot of people, especially because I'm tall, I'm six three, and this is the blonde hair I've had ever since I was born, and blue eyes. So people thought it was a really novel thing. And I kind of used that to my advantage because people were like, oh, you're white, you're from the United States. And tell me about what it's like to live in the United States. And I would be able to shoehorn that into a conversation about the gospel. A lot of times this was. Looking back on it, I was like, wow, people here are really racist towards me because they'll try to charge me more to. To take a taxi or. Or something like that, or try to speak to me in English. But it was a really. A big sign that I didn't really understand what racism actually was.

John Dehlin [02:30:31] And how about poverty?

McKay [02:30:33] Oh, yeah. Those first two areas, I didn't see it nearly as much. There was a couple families that we did know that. And poverty here is just different in a lot of aspects from poverty there, where people. There's like entire neighborhoods where people. The floor of their house is dirt. And that's just how it always is. And that's how they live their lives.

John Dehlin [02:30:56] And these are countries where adult men can make 30, 40, 50, $60 a day.

McKay [02:31:03] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:31:04] Working super hard all day long.

McKay [02:31:06] Yeah. Or I think it even in a lot of cases there, it was 50, $60 a week or a month.

John Dehlin [02:31:14] Yeah.

McKay [02:31:15] So a lot of people that I would know, they would. All they could afford for dinner was tortillas. Was a huge thing. You just take a tortilla and put salt on it. And that was any given meal that you needed that day.

McKay [02:31:30] So experiencing poverty really was like, wow, this is something that's Kind of difficult for me to go in and say, hey, God wants you to pay 10% of anything that you get to his church, and if you do that, you'll be blessed. And even if it's going to buy your tortillas for the night, like, that's something that you should be doing. And you just have to trust in God. That was something that really was hard for me, especially when it would come up with more impoverished families or a lot of times we didn't get families because the men would be out working and in the fields, things like that. A lot, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:32:13] Other towns, people.

McKay [02:32:14] People don't realize, like, there would be no work to find. So some people would just go and cut firewood and just try to sell it however they could. So you did whatever you could to get.

John Dehlin [02:32:28] We're talking heads of households, men with a wife and multiple children. It's like, I better just go chop down wood and then take my ax and make smaller pieces and then try and sell it. Like, that's people trying to survive.

McKay [02:32:44] And like here it's different. Like, you have to have. There's requirements in order to be employed in the United States, and people are. It's nice to see that people are able to make do, but it's really demoralizing to see that in a lot of cases, what they have to do in order to just survive. So.

John Dehlin [02:33:02] And I guess all I'm saying is there. I always noticed a real power imbalance here. I am, educated, white middle class, from a, you know, the. The most developed country in the world, dressed in a white shirt and tie, going to these villages where, you know, they're struggling just to rub two pennies together and raise Catholics. But it's like, hey, come join our church, and maybe you can be rich and educated and powerful like us.

McKay [02:33:31] Yeah. It's funny, too, because I didn't really do a lot of conversing with Catholics. It was really. The evangelical movement was, like, overpowering a lot of these communities. And it was just such a weird thing for me. I was like, these people belong to a cult where they're, like, singing and dancing and the way. The way they're praying, where they're, like, pacing back and forth. It was just such a strange concept to me because I had only ever experienced Mormonism. I had never gone to another congregation, ever. Yeah, the most I'd ever come in contact with, really any other religion was, like, funerals of people who belonged to different faiths.

McKay [02:34:17] And you didn't have the funeral held at a church house. So Seeing these other, the other way that people operate was just something totally out of my realm. So here I am telling them, hey, you should come to our church. You can't be with God again after you die if you don't get baptized in the Mormon church. I understand that you've been baptized before and you feel like God is blessing you or you have the approval of God of what you're doing, but you really don't.

McKay [02:34:52] So that those kinds of conversations would come up and it would usually be the, the roadblock. But there were also a lot of people who would just kind of drift from one church to the next and whatever made them felt feel good was fine. So in a lot of aspects we would baptize people and they would just find something appealing about a different church and go to another church, which I think is, you know, find somewhere where you're most comfortable. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but Mormonism does.

John Dehlin [02:35:22] But what you're making me think about also is the cultural colonialism aspect that basically you represent a super powerful and wealthy country and a super powerful and wealthy church. There's some unstated implication there. When you're in a Honduran village, it's like, yeah, look at where your church has gotten you. Yeah, look at, look at where my church has gotten me. I'm thinking about my mission. We were baptizing 7, 750amonth. There was a, I think there was a real power imbalance.

McKay [02:36:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:36:00] Or you could even say undue influence of these rich, white, tall, and you're, you're always taller than them.

McKay [02:36:08] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:36:08] And they make a big deal about your blood.

McKay [02:36:12] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:36:12] You're so tall, you're blonde, blue eyed or lighter skinned, wealthy American. And yeah, you can, that's why, I mean it doesn't take a rocket scientist to look at the, the statistics of conversions in Mexico and Central and South America and the Mormon Church and go, wow, the Lord has really blessed the Mormon Church because of all these amazing converts in Latin America. Until you scratch the surface and the activity rates are like 10% and you realize that a lot of these people just get converted because of the power imbalance and the, the promise of spiritual and, or material wealth that, that you assume might come if you convert to the church.

McKay [02:37:01] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:37:02] Not to mention the possibility of maybe getting a visa to the United States if you fall in love with or develop the right relationship with the missionary. I saw missionaries use the impression, you know, because how many Central South Americans want to come to the United States if you had the right relationship where you made them feel like that might be a possibility, that was another way you could persuade, you know, potential convert. Central. Yeah, Potential convert. Right.

McKay [02:37:36] Yeah, there was, that was always something. I remember when I was in my first area, I did splits with a guy and that's when you exchange missionary companions because his companion was the leader. So he, his companion wanted to see how things were going in our assigned proselytizing area. So I went with his companion and he had mentioned how he had a girlfriend in the mission. Kind of. This guy was very open with me, a very green missionary and confided a lot in me. He had a cell phone, a personal cell phone that or smartphone that he wasn't supposed to have.

John Dehlin [02:38:12] A rule breaker.

McKay [02:38:13] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:38:14] Disobedient elder.

McKay [02:38:16] I, I didn't say anything. I wasn't gonna tattle on him because that really wasn't what I was. It wasn't what I wanted to do ever. But I remember him telling me that he had had a conversation with the mission president when the mission president found out. And really I hadn't really even thought about it till this day, but he was essentially like, that's not the kind of person you want to take home and marry. You don't want to marry a native person here. Which now that I'm thinking about it, does not sit right with me at all. Comes from. Because my mission president was white, from Nevada or he, he owns a ranch in Nevada, they lived in Colorado at some point.

John Dehlin [02:39:01] Doesn't matter anyway.

McKay [02:39:02] It doesn't matter. But white, all his kids are white and everything like that comes off pretty obvious. The message is that you don't want any of these dirty Honduran people to be your wife or anything like that. Anyway, so after I kind of came over my. Overcame my social anxiety and things like that, my mission president started to put me in leadership positions. So right before I completed a year's worth of time in my mission, I became the district leader. So I was over a couple different companionships in our geographic region.

McKay [02:39:45] I at the same time was training a new missionary. So that was interesting. I trained a new missionary. Then six weeks after that I. We had to condense the ward to one companionship. So I took on a less new missionary. And then after that guy was transferred out, I had another trainee for a partial amount of partial six week period. And then they put me as a zone leader in a different zone, which

John Dehlin [02:40:20] is a big honor.

McKay [02:40:21] Yeah, it's a huge honor. It's the step below. So you have the mission president, you have the assistants to the president, and then you're the zone leader. So you have a lot of influence over the sister missionaries in your area and a pretty big geographic region. And you are reporting all these things to the mission president and everything, like, and his assistants so that they kind of know what's going on basically at all times.

John Dehlin [02:40:48] So just for the sake of time, any other highlights or lowlights from your mission that really influence things moving along for good or bad?

McKay [02:40:56] Yeah, we had two apostles visit my mission early on. I had then Elder Russell M. Nelson visit our mission current prophet. Current prophet. And we all took it as like this badge of honor. It was like an electrifying, electrifying experience. And it was really faith affirming because he told us a story before it was in general conference that we were like, oh, we were the first people to hear that. Even though he probably had a circuit of missions that he was sharing that story with that was it like meeting

John Dehlin [02:41:34] an apostle of Jesus Christ? I mean, we're taught, you know, Jesus had 12 apostles in the Bible. Now Jesus has 12 apostles and Russell M. Nelson was one of them.

McKay [02:41:44] Yeah, it was. It was the, in my mind, the next closest thing to meeting Jesus.

John Dehlin [02:41:49] Can't meet Jesus. Meet one of his Mormon 12 apostles.

McKay [02:41:52] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:41:52] And so when you met him, was it all that?

McKay [02:41:55] Yeah, it. In my mind it totally was. They were super serious. I got up at 3am to be on a bus to go to the capital city so he could meet with us. We weren't even allowed to bring our cameras. They didn't want any sort of distraction. They wanted a big to do about it, so that was good. I also had the pleasure of meeting Dallin Oaks, who on our YouTube channel. We do a lot of clowning on some, so we're not very fond of him.

McKay [02:42:23] Interesting the one. There's a lot of terrible things that he says when it comes to the LGBTQ community and a lot of lies that he's told about that. Check out our videos if you want to know a little bit more on the details there.

McKay [02:42:41] But for brevity's sake, I did want to share this story because this was the other spirit of discernment experience that I had. Just like any youth or young adult on their mission, I had sexual urges still and ended up masturbating when I was on my mission. And I hadn't confessed it to my mission president at the time.

McKay [02:43:05] And then we had an announcement that Elder Oaks was going to be visiting our mission and my mission president he called me up and I was like, oh, crap. Does he know? Calls me up and he's like, hey, I want you to be part of. We're putting together a missionary choir for Elder Oaks, and we want you to be part of it. I've never been in choir in my life, but I'm musically inclined, so they wanted me to be a part of it. Got ready and did all this stuff the whole time leading up to this experience. I was under the impression that in a lot of cases, in Mormon circles and missionary circles, the idea is that apostles will go to missions and they will weed out any iniquity that there are. That there is using the spirit of discernment.

John Dehlin [02:43:52] Which is what?

McKay [02:43:53] Which is the ability to, through the spirit, discern the true character of people.

John Dehlin [02:43:59] It's basically telekinesis. Like, if you think of X Men or. Like, it's basically what Dr. X can do on the X Men.

McKay [02:44:06] Yeah, right, Exactly.

John Dehlin [02:44:08] It's like Jean Grey. You can peer into someone's soul and know what they're thinking and what they're doing. Right. And I mean, it sounds like supernatural, like superhero stuff, but Mormons believe that their leaders and especially their special witnesses of Christ, apostles, literally have this power.

McKay [02:44:26] Yeah, right. So I. I probably. You probably cannot find a return missionary or current missionary who doesn't know of a story of somebody. Some people, like, a couple years back in their same mission or whatever, where an apostle came or a new missionary president came and shook people's hands and went, you're going home. Like, they just discerned in that moment that's what I thought was going to happen to me. I was like, he wants to shake our hands because he's going to be discerning who we are. So I was like, as soon as I shake his hand, I'm on a plane back home.

Carah Burrell [02:45:03] Like, he knows what his hand has been. Yeah, that's how you do it.

McKay [02:45:08] I wash my hands. I know I washed my hands. Elder Oaks. Maybe that's what saved me, because I shook his hand. I was good. Nothing happened. I was like, did I just pull one over on an apostle?

John Dehlin [02:45:23] And your sin had been, again, masturbating in your mission.

McKay [02:45:28] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:45:28] And you feel like that made you unworthy to be a missionary?

McKay [02:45:30] Totally. I ended up.

John Dehlin [02:45:32] I mean, it was possible that he shook your hand, gazed deeply into your eyes, saw you masturbating in his mind's eye, but said, he's still a good guy and Jesus will forgive him, and I'm going to let this slide.

Carah Burrell [02:45:48] I mean, Thinking about women, not men. He's like, he's fine.

McKay [02:45:53] That would have been all. It's all good, right?

John Dehlin [02:45:55] I mean, it's possible Elder Oak saw you to your very soul, but he deemed you worthy.

McKay [02:46:00] It could. I'm. I'm going back to church. This.

John Dehlin [02:46:03] This.

McKay [02:46:05] This is fixed.

John Dehlin [02:46:08] No, but in your mind, that. What did that mean?

McKay [02:46:11] It was like, I'm good. I was like, there is no spirit of discernment. Because if that were the case, he would have sent my ass home. That moment.

John Dehlin [02:46:20] It didn't make you feel like God was okay with you. It made you feel like what?

McKay [02:46:25] It made me feel like I was above. Or at least that aspect was all baloney.

John Dehlin [02:46:33] So basically, Mormon Church apostles went down a notch.

McKay [02:46:37] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:46:37] In your estimation, in terms of their superpowers?

McKay [02:46:40] Yeah, it was. At that point, it was still. While I do look up to him, I thought he was very in tune with the spirit, but I was like, maybe the spirit of discernment isn't what it's been made out to be. And people. Oh, we get so many people who are like, that's not what the spirit of discernment is. Nobody has ever said that. Yeah. Okay, Then why did I think that?

John Dehlin [02:47:02] We all grew up with these stories.

McKay [02:47:03] Yeah, we all did.

John Dehlin [02:47:04] Yeah.

McKay [02:47:05] And every missionary has had that. Oh, we had these, like, apostleships, and in our mission, it was the Apostolato and people making, like, a inverse reflection of what the church is, where they'd have these evil apostles or. I don't know. It's crazy.

John Dehlin [02:47:23] No, no, no. Like, we'll just do a quick pause and just say, like, another area of undue influence. We all know as Mormons what we're taught about these people. What are. What are members of the Quorum of the twelve Apostles of the First Presidency

McKay [02:47:39] were taught that there were prophets, seers, and revelators.

John Dehlin [02:47:41] Prophets. Seers like Moses, like David, like Peter. They're prophets, seers, and revelators. And there's a term special. What?

McKay [02:47:51] Special witness to Jesus Christ.

John Dehlin [02:47:53] Special witnesses of Christ, which to us being raised, means what?

McKay [02:47:59] Means that they.

John Dehlin [02:48:02] They have talked to Jesus.

McKay [02:48:03] They've spoken to Jesus. They have met.

John Dehlin [02:48:05] Right.

Carah Burrell [02:48:05] And can I just add. I just Googled this on the Church of Jesus Christ dot org. Can I. Can I just make this into a Relief Society lesson? This is from the church. If you go into what is the gift of discernment? It says that discerning of spirits as a gift of the spirit. It means to understand or know something through the power of the spirit. It includes perceiving the true character of people and the source and meaning of spiritual manifestation. Bednar taught that the gift of discernment can help us detect hidden errors and evil in others. That's the number one thing on there. I was like, masturbation is evil. He wasn't able to detect it. No spirit of discernment. That seems pretty clear cut to me that that's what the church is teaching.

McKay [02:48:44] Maybe I didn't know where his hand was either.

John Dehlin [02:48:47] No, no. But we have to understand the undue influence I'm making the jokes about like superheroes. But we're taught that Mormon apostles are buddies with Jesus, have met Jesus on, are special witnesses of Christ and that they have special powers. And so we're. And what do we do when. When they come in the room? Doesn't matter if it's 20 or 40,000 people or a bunch of missionaries at a local stake center. What do Mormons do when a Mormon apostle enters the room?

McKay [02:49:21] You stand.

John Dehlin [02:49:22] You stand.

McKay [02:49:22] Yep. You give them their, their due respect because they are the spiritual leaders.

John Dehlin [02:49:31] I worked at Microsoft. Okay. With Bill Gates. You didn't stand when Bill Gates entered the room, even though he was the founder of Microsoft and a multi gazillionaire. Think about it. In your life, if you've never been Mormon and don't understand other than like the Moonies with Reverend Sun Young Moon or like lrh L. Ron Hubbard with Scientologists, think about any context in your life where you stood just because someone entered the room. Okay. You stand. And Jonathan Streeter on thoughts and things and stuff has an actual video. Carah, we need to add this in the show notes where like it's a developing country and a bunch of an apostle or general authority enters the room and people don't stand.

McKay [02:50:19] Oh, it was Bednar.

John Dehlin [02:50:20] And like it was Bednar.

McKay [02:50:21] I saw that.

John Dehlin [02:50:22] Yeah. And then an area authority, like goes. And like while the apostles turned his back, goes and tells everybody, you need to freaking stand. Right?

McKay [02:50:30] Yeah, yeah, he was. And, and I think he even made a kind of off. You haven't seen comment.

Carah Burrell [02:50:36] No, I have.

John Dehlin [02:50:37] Okay.

McKay [02:50:37] Yeah, he. I think he made a comment about. Oh yeah, like we stand when. When.

John Dehlin [02:50:42] Yeah, because it's giving. It's imbuing people with power that they shouldn't have, that they don't have. But it's making everyone in the church come to believe that these are next to Jesus, superhero, almost divine, like deific entities with the special powers to peer into your soul and see if you were pleasuring yourself the Night before. You know what I mean? We're not making this up. This is part of the undue influence that governs Mormonism that binds and seals people to give 10% of their income and their lives to the church.

McKay [02:51:22] Yeah. So.

John Dehlin [02:51:24] And so for you, it was sort of like Toto pulling the curtain back a little bit. And this, it's. I mean, we don't want to get ahead to your faith deconstruction, but for you, this was a moment where you peeked behind the curtain a little bit.

McKay [02:51:38] A little bit, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:51:39] Yeah.

McKay [02:51:40] So in order to sum things up a little quicker, just a couple points about my mission. The entire time, there were people who experienced getting mugged, saw physical violence between people. In my last area, you couldn't go between the two sides of the area because of rival gangs. There were people who were shot dead on a weekly basis. In my last area, not a single time did I ever feel threatened. When I was in Honduras and it was. Made me see the truth that people just because they live in a developing country are not inherently bad. It's not just because there's a lot of murderous gangsters and wickedness.

McKay [02:52:27] It's maybe stuff on the surface level is there, but it's not all bad people. The best people that I've ever met in my entire life were Honduran people, not even members of the church. I'm just saying, as a whole, a lot of people that showed me the most amount of kindness were not even interested in joining the church. But I grew a lot and it really shifted my worldview to be in this country that for the time leading up to my mission was like, oh, this is going to be a tough thing. You're going to suffer. You are probably going to be in danger. And then to have people like, we'd be walking by on the street and they'd be like, elder, come in, Elder, what are you doing? Sit down, have a nice cold water or whatever and just hang out or whatever. So we baptized people. We had fun too.

Carah Burrell [02:53:21] We.

McKay [02:53:23] We goofed off. Especially in my later times. I had a really difficult companion at the very end. And I want. Difficult is not a very appropriate word for him because he was a really great guy and I really thought he was a respectable person. But a lot of other people in the mission didn't because he wanted to leave. So my mission president wanted me to stay strong. So he put me together with this other missionary so that he would see the light and want to stay.

John Dehlin [02:53:53] And I've thought a lot about this. The elders that were viewed as slackers or as faithless or as leaders. Losers on the mission. From my mindset then, they were weak and feeble and unrighteous.

McKay [02:54:06] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:54:06] But now that I look back, they were.

Carah Burrell [02:54:09] Some of the.

John Dehlin [02:54:09] The ones that didn't want to be on the mission were seeing that it was problematic or weren't liking it or were seeing that it was morally fraught. And, and they, in some ways they were smarter and figured it out sooner.

McKay [02:54:24] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:54:24] And yet you're viewing them as bad and broken and weak.

McKay [02:54:27] And when I think about him now, he was just depressed.

John Dehlin [02:54:30] Yeah.

McKay [02:54:31] Which there's nothing wrong with. He just had a really hard time. He was the only member in his family. People made fun of the way he spoke because he was from a very remote part of Peru. And I just remember one time people were like, they would look at me to translate for him because I seemingly spoke better Spanish than him, which wasn't the case. He just had a really thick accent. So at the end there we. We had a lot of fun. I had. We had a neighboring ward that the people there was a family that liked a recent convert family that liked myself and my companion more than the zone leaders that were in their ward.

McKay [02:55:11] So we would go and hang out and. And do stuff with them. And it really changed my worldview and I couldn't be more thankful for that experience. Even taking part in the neo colonialism kind of you need to change your religion because look where it's got you and look where mine has got me kind of mindset and instilling that in people I do feel bad about. But the social growth that I experience and the worldview change I have to thank for the missionary experience.

John Dehlin [02:55:41] What was the part of your outline about baptizing a drunk person?

McKay [02:55:44] Oh, that was the last person I baptized. It was my. The second to last companion. I was technically his second trainer. So the second six weeks of his 12 week training period I took head of. He was really headstrong.

McKay [02:56:03] He was really a jerk. Honestly. He criticized the way I swept once. But he just didn't want to see that people weren't interested in the church. And he really wanted this baptism of a guy who was the nephew of a lady who was left who was recently reactivated in the church.

McKay [02:56:25] So he wanted to get him baptized. And the morning we go over there to baptize him, he swore up and down that he was done drinking. But we could smell the alcohol on his breath and we loaded him up and took him to the church. He was still lucid enough but we essentially, hey, go sit down in there, we're gonna go talk to the bishop real quick. And the bishop was like, well, does he tell you, is he telling you that he's fine and he hasn't taken a drink? And we're like, yeah, he says he's fine. He's like, then just baptize him, take him on his word.

McKay [02:57:00] And we baptized him and, and I think two weeks went by and he was gone for good. We never saw him after that because he was ashamed to see us because he had taken up drinking again.

John Dehlin [02:57:13] And what made you want to include that in your story? What did that mean to you then or now?

McKay [02:57:19] Just to paint the picture that even though a lot of missionaries are level headed and can read people, a lot of them don't care. They will want to get the baptism to report it to missionary, the mission president, so that they can feel good about the things that they're doing. So we over, I, I felt terrible about it, but I don't recall my companion at the time ever saying anything about it afterwards.

McKay [02:57:47] Just when we went back, we were like, oh, that's kind of sad that he, he left town. We never saw him after that. So that was kind of the, that was the last baptism that I have at that point. Um, we would knock doors and proselytize, but I wasn't really trying that hard because we didn't have any prospects for baptism. Um, it just kind of ended on a soft note and I went home and had my big hurrah and everything. And that's where Jordan and my path intersects.

John Dehlin [02:58:15] And I'll just say when we talk about undue influence in the Mormon church and you know, that sort of thing, it's, it's really, I feel really ambivalent because on the one hand Mormon missions, you learn so much, you get to learn another language, oftentimes you get to see the world, you get to be away from home. It's, you learn so many skills and you have so many incredible life experiences. I am so grateful that I got to be a missionary. And it's, if there's, if there's the most cult like environment in all of Mormonism and the most culty behavior. It's, it's being a Mormon missionary.

McKay [02:58:53] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:58:53] And you're basically shilling for the church, paying, paying to shill for the church when you're not told, spending your parents

McKay [02:59:03] money, in my case, you're spending two

John Dehlin [02:59:05] years of your life, a crap ton of money and time and you're shilling for a church where you haven't been told the truth about the church, you're selling to people all over the world. And it's. It leads to a lot of ex Mormons feeling a lot of shame and regret that they brought people into it sometimes, not always, but sometimes that they brought people into a religion when. When they wish. If they had had all the information, they would have never. They would have never done it.

McKay [02:59:34] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:59:35] So it's next.

McKay [02:59:36] And people don't know. But missionaries are only expected to study the. The bare minimum of the materials. You're not supposed to do any reading beyond their approved missionary studying list, which includes the standard works, which are the Bible, the New and Old Testament, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, the Pearl of great price, Jesus the Christ, written by James E. Talmadge. Our Heritage, written by M. Russell Ballard, I think. And what's the last one?

John Dehlin [03:00:08] Not miracle forgiveness, I hope.

McKay [03:00:10] No, that was prohibited reading in my mission. I think I'm very thankful that I never had to go through that. Never had to read that. I can't remember the last one.

John Dehlin [03:00:24] You can think about it.

McKay [03:00:25] Fake. Well, yeah, you can look up the missionary library. They sell it through the distribution.

John Dehlin [03:00:32] You can't read the paper. You can't watch tv, can't go to movies, you can't date. You can't be out of your companion site unless you're in the bathroom room.

McKay [03:00:41] That's how notably I. I did not know that Joseph Smith was a polygamist up until that point. And I wouldn't have ever read anything on my mission because none of that information is in the approved missionary materials. Yeah. So.

Wrapping Up McKay's Story

John Dehlin [03:00:58] So really quickly, this has been so fascinating. I really appreciate your being willing to go into so much depth.

McKay [03:01:03] I can't believe I talked for so long. I feel bad.

John Dehlin [03:01:06] Don't worry. No, I've been. I've been texting Carah and Carah and I are both loving this. And it's. It's historical. Like, you know, for the history books, people are gonna. First of all, there's gonna be a lot of people that had very similar experiences you. And they're gonna be able to relate to it. And it's gonna. Especially when we get to your faith crisis later, they're gonna say, wow, man, I really connect with everything McKay was saying. And that's gonna be useful once we talk about people leaving their faith, leaving the church and losing their faith. But it's also just historical. Like, this is. These are.

John Dehlin [03:01:38] Or this is oral history. Yeah, that's going to be, you know, existing for decades and centuries. Where. Where, you know, there. Otherwise there wouldn't be this type of information. So it's all super valuable. I'm really grateful. Karen and I talked over text while we were doing this interview. We're going to do something slightly different. So we planned on doing two parts to this, to your, you know, collective story. We're going to do three. So this is going to end part one, which is going to be McKay's Mormon story. So a kind of a guys, Gen Z Mormon, you know, experience. We're going to end part one now, take a little break.

John Dehlin [03:02:18] We're going to come back, we're going to do Jordan's Gen Z, you know, Mormon story. A woman or a female's perspective. That'll be part two and we'll end with her meeting you, basically. Yeah. And then part three will be you guys getting married. And then what happens to your Mormon journey and your faith, specifically from your marriage on. Does that make sense? Yeah. So that's. Is that. Is that okay, guys, that makes.

McKay [03:02:47] I did not expect us.

John Dehlin [03:02:49] Don't worry.

Carah Burrell [03:02:49] Expect me to do.

John Dehlin [03:02:50] It's me. I was just. I was geeking out a little bit, I think, and I was kidding. Carah, are you bored? Are we taking too much time? And Carol, what were you saying?

McKay [03:02:58] Let's get the receipts on these messages.

Carah Burrell [03:03:00] Yeah, let me pull it up right now. I said love it. Yeah. And I said your commentary is really nice and I love asking your psychological perspective. And I totally agree on what you're talking about, that this is like an oral history and that this is kind of like a place in time of what it was like growing up in the same this kind of era. So we don't have very many younger people on the podcast anyway, as a

John Dehlin [03:03:22] Gen Z or too like the Gen Z mission experience, like, just. Just this idea of like Facebooking, Facebook Living, the opening of your mission call.

Carah Burrell [03:03:30] To be honest, I felt really old

McKay [03:03:31] in this is made Carah feel old, which she is the very elder Gen Z experience. Because this was right before, like, we could FaceTime twice a year. But, like, I still had a dumb phone, not a smartphone. And.

John Dehlin [03:03:45] Oh, okay.

McKay [03:03:46] We had email and that was it.

John Dehlin [03:03:47] Yeah. So, yeah.

McKay [03:03:48] Anyway, it was really different.

John Dehlin [03:03:50] And Jordan, sorry we didn't get you much in on this.

Carah Burrell [03:03:52] That's okay. His experience is so much different than mine.

McKay [03:03:55] And so I'll be zipping it for them.

John Dehlin [03:03:57] Are you saying, stay tuned, hold on to your hats.

Carah Burrell [03:04:00] It's just different.

John Dehlin [03:04:01] Are you hyping? Are you hyping your own energy?

McKay [03:04:04] Let's hype it up.

Carah Burrell [03:04:05] Honestly, it's just so different because he has much more of a traditional Mormon experience than I do.

John Dehlin [03:04:10] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [03:04:10] So.

John Dehlin [03:04:11] Well, that is to say, don't go away. Come right back.

Carah Burrell [03:04:15] What does Jordan mean by that? We're about to find out.

John Dehlin [03:04:19] Yeah. If you're. If you're listening later or watching later, part two, just come right back and just binge listen to this epic story, part two. If you're in the live stream, it'll be tomorrow where we broadcast Jordan's story. But regardless, this has been so great. We can't wait for part two with you, Jordan here, your Mormon upbringing as a Gen Zer. Gen Z woman. And then part three will be your. Your faith journey and where all this took you. And you guys are still young pups as far as I'm concerned.

McKay [03:04:51] Yeah. Sometimes this whole pandemic situation, I feel like I've aged more rapidly. But, yeah, we definitely have years ahead of us.

John Dehlin [03:05:00] And you're half my age.

McKay [03:05:04] We won't say anything about that.

John Dehlin [03:05:06] No. Why are you smirking? Carah, what do you say?

Carah Burrell [03:05:08] All I can think about is when I was an adult, I was babysitting people that were their age. Like, I was 21 and I was babysitting a girl who was 14, and that's probably our age difference. And I'm like, oh, times have changed.

John Dehlin [03:05:20] You're old, Carrie. You're old. Basically just. Sorry.

Carah Burrell [03:05:23] It's all right. I'm throwing a big 33 birthday party next month.

John Dehlin [03:05:28] Are we invited?

Carah Burrell [03:05:29] Yeah, you're going.

John Dehlin [03:05:29] Are we all invited?

Carah Burrell [03:05:30] Yeah. I mean, I don't want people to murder me, so I don't want to say too much of where we're going to do it, but.

John Dehlin [03:05:34] Okay.

McKay [03:05:34] Yeah, it's going to be at the. This is the Place monument.

Carah Burrell [03:05:38] Yeah.

McKay [03:05:38] Big 33.

John Dehlin [03:05:40] All right, well, okay. Thanks, McKay.

McKay [03:05:43] Thank you.

John Dehlin [03:05:43] Thanks, Jordan. Carah, thank you.

Carah Burrell [03:05:46] Yeah, this has been really fun. Can't wait to get even more. We got a lot ahead of us. Rest of the story, so it's going to be good.

John Dehlin [03:05:52] Yeah. So this is. You ain't seen nothing yet. Tune for part two and three of our amazing interview with famous, world famous YouTubers Jordan and McKay. You guys are famous?

McKay [03:06:06] Oh, I don't feel like it. I don't like that you don't like it.

Carah Burrell [03:06:08] Do you guys get recognized?

McKay [03:06:10] We have a couple times. But, I mean, it's Salt Lake City.

Carah Burrell [03:06:13] It's so uncomfortable.

McKay [03:06:14] I don't know how to feel about it.

John Dehlin [03:06:16] Yeah, yeah, we'll talk about that in part three. What it's like to be YouTube famous.

McKay [03:06:23] Laughing I. It's bizarre. It's. It's bizarre.

John Dehlin [03:06:28] All right, well, thanks, everyone, for tuning in. Thanks, Carah. You're an amazing co partner host. And thanks, Jordan McKay. We'll see you guys all again soon on part two of your story in just one sec. Thanks, everybody.

Carah Burrell [03:06:40] Bye.

Part Two Begins: Jordan's Background

Part 2 of 3 · Ep. 1539

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, Dr. John Dehlin. It is January 27, 2022 and we are here for part two of what is turning out to be an epic interview with YouTube Internet sensations.

John Dehlin [00:00:16] You guys laugh every time I say that. Jordan, everybody. They have a super successful YouTube channel that's only been around for half a year or a little more and they're already approaching the total subscribers of Mormon Stories Podcast YouTube channel. So we're in awe. We're trying to learn every can, everything we can from them. But most importantly, they have a cool, important Mormon story that needs to be told. We just spent three hours with McKay talking about his upbringing as a Mormon in Denver area, wanted long hair, listened to Screamo secretly, occasionally watched in our movie, and in every other way was kind of a normal Mormon teen.

John Dehlin [00:01:01] We talked about his upbringing, how he got swept into a Mormon mission in Honduras and we left part one with him coming home courageously and valiantly from his mission and ready to marry the love of his life, which ends up being Jordan. But we're not at that point in the story because we need to hear Jordan's Mormon story. So the focus for this, this three part episode is kind of a Gen Z Gen Z Mormon stories. We did Losing Mormon Millennials with Samantha Shelley and Tanner Gilliland, otherwise known as Zelf on the Shelf.

John Dehlin [00:01:42] But we have not really done the Gen Z deep dive. And so that's what this series is. And, and so McKay, thanks for your three hours and Jordan, thank you. Now it's your turn. Are you ready for the spotlight?

McKay [00:01:57] We're going to turn over time.

John Dehlin [00:01:58] Ready for you, Ready for the scrutiny.

Jordan [00:02:00] Ready as I'm ever going to be, I guess.

John Dehlin [00:02:02] And we are joined also by my partner in righteousness and goodness, my co host, the one, the only, Care Barrel.

Carah Burrell [00:02:12] Hey, guys.

John Dehlin [00:02:13] Carah.

Carah Burrell [00:02:13] Hey, John. Jordan. McKay.

McKay [00:02:16] Howdy.

Carah Burrell [00:02:16] Going on, guys? Yeah, it's ready. Let's get into it.

John Dehlin [00:02:18] And Carrie, you. You planned this thing. Why did you want to do this again?

Carah Burrell [00:02:22] Oh, because I just wanted to get paid to spend like seven hours with my friends. That's one reason that. Okay. Also, yeah, they're actually pretty awesome. And I love what you said that like this is going to be kind of a watershed moment. No, like a groundbreaking. This is the Gen Z kind of episode of the. Yeah. Kicking this off of what the new younger generation thinks about the church, their experiences lately. And I also think that they're very articulate, talented, insightful human beings and also witty and Funny and good to look at too. All of the things you mark, all

Jordan [00:02:59] the boxes you said, so many nice things.

McKay [00:03:00] So much deception.

Carah Burrell [00:03:01] No, no.

John Dehlin [00:03:02] Another. Another way to summarize what Carah just said is that Carah is old, basically. Is that what you just said? You're old.

Carah Burrell [00:03:08] I can accept it. I hit my stride when I was in my 30s. That's how I feel right now. Like I'm. I'm really getting into my good years now. So that's not old. I'm just wise.

John Dehlin [00:03:17] So seasoned.

Carah Burrell [00:03:18] Seasoned. Yeah. And they also.

McKay [00:03:21] Canadian steak.

Carah Burrell [00:03:21] Yeah, I don't want to minimize that. You guys also have a great TikTok channel as well, and they participated in the TikTok panel that I put together for the big Thrive Day 2021. So they are multifaceted and have some good things to say and they're just an important part of the Exormon community, in my opinion. So, yeah, we had to wrangle them in here and hear their story start to finish.

John Dehlin [00:03:42] I'm excited and I think it's important to say on a more sobering note that this episode, we should just kind of let people know that, that Jordan, as I've read through the outline of your story, there's going to be a considerable amount of abuse, abuse, and we'll say sexual abuse and maybe even some physical and psychological abuse, which is another theme we've been covering on Mormon Stories podcast. And the truth is, like you, sexual abuse is so rampant in the Mormon Church that it's almost impossible to not cover it. And I don't mean to be glib, but anyway, for. For viewers and listeners who might

John Dehlin [00:04:22] be sensitive or triggered or have their own experience with trauma or if young people are viewing or listening, please practice self care or censorship or moderation, knowing that Jordan's going to be talking about some more heavy stuff. So without any further ado, not to start too heavy, but Jordan, how does your Mormon story begin?

Jordan [00:04:46] Oh, man. Okay, back to the very beginning, I guess I come from more of a non traditional Mormon family. I will say my mother is Mormon and we kind of were Jack Mormons for a little bit. But for the most part my family background is on my mom's side. I have pioneer type energy going on over there, which goes pretty far back on my mom's side. And then my dad is actually a Nevermo, so he's not Mormon nor has he ever been. Him and my mom got together when my mom wasn't attending church, so they were much more compatible.

McKay [00:05:30] Tell him what he says about Mormonism oh yeah.

Jordan [00:05:33] Just to sum up, my father told me as I was getting older within Mormonism that everything I needed to know about Mormonism I would learn from South Park. So. And he wasn't wrong. So he is not Mormon. Never has been. He has been mostly supportive, but he also does not like it. So.

McKay [00:05:54] Healthy skeptic.

Jordan [00:05:55] Healthy skeptic. So kind of from there I feel like because of that I didn't really grow up with religion. A ton like super emphasized in the very beginning. My parents got divorced when I was 2 and so my mom had to work. She was a single mom. I didn't really have a like super Mormon like influx of things in the very beginning. And so we, we essentially went about without doing anything religious for like the first few years of my life. My mom wasn't invested, my grandma wasn't invested. My mom had to. My mom worked full time. So I was with my grandmother like 80 to 90% of the time because she wasn't, she wasn't around. She couldn't be because she traveled. So there really wasn't a whole lot going on Mormon wise those first few years.

John Dehlin [00:06:51] Meaning just, you know, in your first couple years of life?

Jordan [00:06:54] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:06:55] Is that what you mean?

Jordan [00:06:55] Yeah, there was. I mean after my parents got divorced, we moved to Idaho and lived there for a while and we did kind of participate in some things, but not really much that I remember. So it wasn't like I had this grand Mormon experience in the first few years.

Jordan [00:07:18] But my, we eventually moved back to Denver. My mom elopes without telling anyone, which spurred our move back to Denver. And so we kind of just jumped right into Denver lifestyle. My grandma ended up coming with us and we kind of just started over and so my mom remarried and we kind of started navigating whether or not we wanted to start going back to church now that we were in Denver.

Jordan [00:07:51] And ultimately we. My mother decided that she wanted me to have the Mormon upbringing, she wanted to raise me in the church. And so we started going back. We participated regularly. At what age I was.

McKay [00:08:08] Was that right before your baptism?

Jordan [00:08:09] Yes. So I was probably seven at the time. I was about seven. So that was kind of a fresh start, jump back in kind of thing. I don't think I was thinking about this last night. I don't think I was ever blessed either because they weren't participating at that time. So I wasn't, I don't think I was even on church records until I was baptized. So that kind of proceeds, you know, getting back in the church. I turn 8 talks of baptism start coming around and essentially my parents are kind of at odds over what to do with my baptism because my dad was pretty adamantly against it.

John Dehlin [00:08:58] Do you know why?

Jordan [00:09:00] I don't. I know it was a huge point of contention in their marriage because my mother had always said, you know, when Jordan turns 8, she's going to be baptized. And my dad was like, no, she's not. And so I know that was a big point of contention. That wasn't why they ended up getting divorced, but I'm sure it contributed. So.

John Dehlin [00:09:17] So your dad was never Mormon?

Jordan [00:09:19] No.

John Dehlin [00:09:19] Okay.

Jordan [00:09:19] No.

John Dehlin [00:09:20] And you don't know why he was opposed to your baptism?

Jordan [00:09:24] He never said. I never asked him.

McKay [00:09:27] Nope.

John Dehlin [00:09:27] Okay.

Jordan [00:09:28] And he. He was still supportive, though. I mean, he. Throughout the rest of my upbringing, he didn't like it, and he would tell me that he didn't, but he still was positive and, you know, wasn't gonna get into an argument with my mom about it anyway, so they decided to go. We decided that I was gonna be baptized. I think my mom kind of took initiative on that one. And it was awkward for me because I did not have a male priesthood holder in my home, so. Which was somehow always brought up. When you have a single mom and you're in the church for non members,

John Dehlin [00:10:08] non Mormons, what does that mean to not have a priesthood holder in the home in a practical sense? Or is it just a label of shame that really means nothing other than you just feel like there's something missing?

Jordan [00:10:21] It totally is. That's absolutely what it is.

John Dehlin [00:10:23] I didn't mean to put that in your mouth.

Jordan [00:10:25] No, but that's exactly what it is because it's, you know, it's super shame based. And it, it kind of flies in the face of the things that they say now that, you know, women hold some form of the priesthood and can in their homes kind of have that same energy because that's not the way it used to be. And my mom being, like, single in the beginning, when we were living in Idaho, there was a lot of emphasis put on she needed all this support because we didn't have a male in the home. And so we don't have the male with special power in the house because my mom's second marriage was to another person who wasn't Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:10:55] And how would that power be used in a Mormon context?

Jordan [00:10:59] Very patriarchal? No, no, no, no.

John Dehlin [00:11:02] Like practice from a practical sense. What are the Mormon rituals or ordinances that. That of a priesthood holding father would. Would you exercise in the home?

Jordan's Family Dynamics and Church Life

Jordan [00:11:15] It's very ordinance based. It's very family prayer, scripture study, and then it's.

John Dehlin [00:11:20] Well, you can do. You can do prayer and scripture study without a priesthood holder.

McKay [00:11:23] Yeah.

Jordan [00:11:23] But the ordinance itself of baptism, you can't. You can't do.

McKay [00:11:28] There's the. The blessing of sick and.

Jordan [00:11:30] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:11:31] Tell people about that.

McKay [00:11:32] What is that? Yeah. So I guess I'm better equipped to. To deal or to discuss it because it was something that I had in common in my household. But when you were sick, my. Your dad would give you a blessing. You would take consecrated oil that's set apart for the blessing of the sick and afflicted. He would anoint your head, and then he would give you a blessing of health or.

John Dehlin [00:11:54] Which according. And we're getting back to kind of superpowers again.

McKay [00:11:57] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:11:58] According to Mormon folklore, the male priesthood holder putting that oil on. On your head, putting his hands on your head and giving you the blessing.

McKay [00:12:06] Yeah.

Jordan [00:12:07] What.

John Dehlin [00:12:07] Why would he do that? What would. Would be the purpose of that?

McKay [00:12:10] So that you could get better. Use God's ordained power in order to help you heal and help your body do its natural do.

John Dehlin [00:12:20] And if a. More. And. And this is important. We've never really talked about this. If a righteous Mormon mom just plain old praised Heavenly Father to heal their kid, I mean, what's the implication?

McKay [00:12:35] It's not as good.

Jordan [00:12:37] No.

McKay [00:12:38] And what Jordan was saying, it's very patriarchal. Like in a lot of cases, my mom was the one taking care of me. But if my dad gave me. And I'm not gonna say this to like, dig on them or anything, if my dad gave me a blessing and I got better soon after that, all that work that my mom put in to help me feel better is now overshadowed by the. It was the Lord's will to make you feel better.

John Dehlin [00:13:02] Okay, we just triggered Carah. Carah's got a big old mouth.

Carah Burrell [00:13:05] I need to go call my mom and go tell her how much I love her, because my mom did, like, she nursed me back to health when I was sick.

McKay [00:13:11] And then you'd be like, it's dad.

Carah Burrell [00:13:13] And then dad comes in with his priesthood and he's like, healed. And my mom's like, oh, thank you, my savior, you know, and I didn't

McKay [00:13:20] mean to cut in there, but no,

John Dehlin [00:13:21] no, no, we have to dig into this. So there's priesthood, blessings, healings of the sick. There's also the father's blessing, which is a tradition in a. More. Do you guys want to talk about what the Father's blessing is?

McKay [00:13:34] Sure. That was something that we did in most the start of the school year. We would always like, sit around for family home evening on a Monday night and get together and my dad would go around and give us all a father's blessing so that we'd do good in the school year. And for whatever reason, it always worked better for me and not so well for my brother, my older siblings.

John Dehlin [00:13:57] But it's almost like a patriarchal blessing given each year by your dad. But the point is, is that if you're, if you're, you know, in your case, Jordan, if you're a sweet mom, just says a prayer to heavenly Father saying, hey, bless my kid in the school year versus if she had a righteous, righteous priesthood holder in the home who could give a father's blessing, you know, what are the implications, Jordan?

Jordan [00:14:23] I mean, obviously, right, we've got some, we got a power imbalance, we've got some, got some problems there. But that's the thing, that's one of the stark contrasts between McKay and I is I never had any of that.

John Dehlin [00:14:35] Yeah.

Jordan [00:14:35] Like, I didn't know father's blessings were a thing. I didn't know. Like, I was never, like, healed, feeling for the sake, blessed, any type of that. Like, that never happened.

John Dehlin [00:14:44] But here's the thing. Like, it's manufactured scarcity.

Jordan [00:14:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:14:48] Because. Because nobody really believes that. I mean, nobody who's thinking believes that Mormon men, priesthood holders giving healing blessings really cures people of anything, or they would have an obligation to go around and heal the world. But since they aren't, those things are placebo at best. So it's not a real service they're providing other than a, other than the perception of a service. And the same with father's blessings and so on the. So it's two things. It's a manufactured scarcity, It's a manufactured power. But then it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's also a imposed deficiency on a Mormon home with the single mom.

Jordan [00:15:34] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:15:34] I'm sorry, I don't mean to rant, but, like, I'm just kind of processing this on your mom and yours behalf.

Jordan [00:15:40] Yeah, well, it, it's a total. It's a slight. I mean, it's a slight. And even as a kid I was like, this is just unfair.

John Dehlin [00:15:48] The TikTok for sure.

Carah Burrell [00:15:50] Right?

Jordan [00:15:51] It is. And that was the other thing about my baptism is I, because I didn't have one of those people in the home, I had to ask my Sunday school teacher to do it. And that was like a point of. It was almost like a point of shame because it was so highlighted during my baptism that I didn't have a father who was going to be able to do it for me.

Carah Burrell [00:16:11] And so if I can play Mormon's advocate for a second, I was just thinking in my, in my Mormon, if I, you know, go back to my Mormon brain, I probably would have just like, as a Mormon, I would have said, okay, well, God is still a good God. He will hear your prayers. He'll answer them no matter what the priesthood thing is, just at least so that you'll grow up and you'll recognize the difference maybe between not having a priesthood holder in the home and then strive for one and your future spouse. And that will just make you emphasize it more. And it's all part of God's plan.

Carah Burrell [00:16:42] His plan is the nuclear family, a mom and a dad. And you guys should be striving that if your home was broken, quote unquote, that you'll strive for something better and bigger. And that plan all is part of the gospel. So I would have just been like, God's. God's plan is still perfect, but he'll. He'll make exceptions. Did you ever think of things in that terms when you were growing up or did you. Did you just feel slighted?

Jordan [00:17:02] I felt slighted, but my, it was instilled to me that I knew I wanted to marry a returned missionary. Like, I, that's what it set up for me, essentially. But it also, it was also something my mom used to kind of entice me to stay in the church because she was like, you know, things would be easier and you'd have more support and you'd be able to access the priesthood and things if you marry a Mormon man.

Jordan [00:17:29] And so she kind of highlighted those things as I was growing up. And I look back on it now, and it was really just a big emphasis to lead me right in this direction because she's like, look at how it is for us. And I can't do that. And we get treated differently because of it.

Jordan [00:17:45] And even when she remarried, I mean, we had a. She was married to a man and he was in our home, and they still treated her like a single mom. Because he was a Mormon, he didn't have the priesthood. So it's still, even with my stepdad being in the home, it was still a. It doesn't count. Like, it doesn't count.

Carah Burrell [00:18:02] He's not part of like the home teacher circuit in the ward.

Jordan [00:18:06] Exactly.

Carah Burrell [00:18:07] Just like, not part of the Club.

Jordan [00:18:08] Exactly. And so my baptism was awkward in that sense because, you know, other people in the ward attended it. I don't know if your family was there for that or not.

McKay [00:18:17] I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:18:18] So you guys grew up in the same ward?

Jordan [00:18:19] We did.

McKay [00:18:21] I had the same Sunday school teacher that she had that bl that baptized her.

Jordan [00:18:25] So he died a few years ago. I loved him. He was a very nice man. But yeah, it just made for an awkward experience because it was like being paraded in my ward that, you know, my mom and I would go to church alone. And it just was very highlighted for everyone else that even though my mom was remarried, it was just the two of us struggling in our non priesthood place. So that made my baptism awkward. My dad did attend. I knew he felt weird about it, but he did go and he was supportive. I also did have Mormon family come from out of town, kind of. I call him the Mormon patriarch of our family. He attended because it was a big

McKay [00:19:06] deal that notably could have done the baptism but didn't.

Jordan [00:19:10] I didn't even think about that.

McKay [00:19:11] I didn't even think about that either. I. I just thought that they weren't there.

Jordan [00:19:15] No, they did. They came.

McKay [00:19:16] That's weird.

Jordan [00:19:17] That's interesting.

Jordan's Experience of Childhood Abuse

McKay [00:19:18] Okay.

Jordan [00:19:21] Piecing nuggets together as we go along.

Carah Burrell [00:19:23] This is therapy for you as well as all of us.

Jordan [00:19:25] It is, because I'm remembering all these things now and I'm like, oh, yeah, that's interesting. But yeah, so it was, it was a big deal because my, like my side of the family with my grandma and my mom, we were like the kind of the wayward ones because my grandma's sister's side of the family is this perfect ideal Mormon family where there's like hundreds of them. And you know, they've all been bishops and they're all super involved in the church. And then we have my grandma's side of the family with my mom and I and my grandma's other daughter who are not Mormon and are just kind of like chilling.

Jordan [00:20:00] And then my mom and I start going again. And so we kind of got treated like the, the golden children, I guess you could say, as things went forward. So that was my baptism. I think after that point, as I started to get a little older and head into kind of middle school and whatnot, there were. Well, I should backtrack. There was some. When we moved to Colorado, we had lots of family there, so it reignited some family relationships, which is when grooming for my abuser began was because we had moved back he was more present in our lives, and so it gave him more access to me.

John Dehlin [00:20:49] So have you set up kind of the groom? The. When you say abuse, like, this is

Jordan [00:20:54] kind of when the grooming begins. Okay, so it.

John Dehlin [00:20:59] So there's an abuser in your family?

Jordan [00:21:02] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:21:02] Okay.

Jordan [00:21:03] So it didn't start out like, in most experiences. It doesn't start out like, you know, at the drop of the hat. There's usually some build up there. And so there was some things that happened along the lines of, you know, this person's trying to build a relationship with me, he's trying to get closer to me. And it's. And it felt kind of weird to me in the beginning, and I knew there was something kind of off about it, and I even approached my mom about it a few times, and I was like, this is just, like a lot. Like, we just moved back here. I don't.

John Dehlin [00:21:34] You're how old?

Jordan [00:21:36] Nine. Around the. Eight or nine around the time it started happening. And so I was young, and even at that age, I was like, there's something, like, there's something off here. And so it just seemed like this family member wanted to get really close to me and really wanted to develop a relationship with me in the context of other relationships that just didn't seem normal.

Jordan [00:21:58] And he would be really touchy with me, so he would, you know, he'd be grabbing me and, you know, just being, like, overly touchy. And it read weird to me. So I. I brought it up to my mom a few times, and I was like, you know, this is weird. Like, I. I don't know, I might be over exaggerating.

Jordan [00:22:17] And she would tell me, you know, he just wants to have a relationship with you. Like, he just wants to. He wants to get to know you, your family. He wants to, you know, develop this relationship because you didn't have one before.

Jordan [00:22:29] And so I kind of wrote it off from that point and was like, I guess this is just acceptable behavior, because my mom was the one that said it was okay, and I trusted her. And so I kind of just let it. I kind of just let it go. And so it continued.

John Dehlin [00:22:49] Do you get the sense that she just didn't believe it or didn't really understand in the east at first?

Jordan [00:22:56] Yeah, in the beginning, I think she didn't. I. I don't even think she registered that something was off in the beginning. I don't think. I think that was the furthest, like, the furthest thing from her mindset at that point. So me, you know, and I Wasn't outright saying, like, you know, this person's like, abusing me, because I hadn't exactly gone to that point yet. But there was definitely something off. And she read it completely different than I did.

Jordan [00:23:23] So things kind of start to escalate, you know, as I get older and it starts to turn between this abuser and I. It starts to turn more physical. And so when, you know, this family member was close with my family and so he was over quite a bit, and he would, you know, I had older siblings that would, you know, do like late night video game parties and things. And so it wouldn't be odd for him to be at our house in the late hours of the night.

Jordan [00:23:55] And so he had access to my room and he had access to upstairs. So it wasn't out of the realm of possibility. And so that's when kind of things started initially happening was, you know, at night, when he would come over and spend time with my family or siblings, he would just kind of linger.

Jordan [00:24:15] And so that's when kind of I started kind of putting pieces together at that point, because it was like, he's trying to initiate a relationship with me so that I can be more comfortable with him and think that, you know, this is okay and that this is like normal behavior. And to also establish that, you know, he's a well respected family member. And so if I were to say anything, it probably would fall on deaf ears, which it did. But that's kind of when things initiated. So he started sexually abusing me when I was nine, probably eight or nine, probably a year of us being there was when I kind of initiated and I did not do anything about it.

Jordan [00:25:00] I didn't tell my mom initially. I didn't bring it up. Um, I continually told her that something was off. I was like, you know, he's constantly touching me. Like, it. It's weird. And she would. There came a few points in time where she was like, I'm gonna like, I'll talk to him about it. I'll tell him to stop.

Jordan [00:25:19] And I don't know if she ever actually did that or not, but she would say that she would, and then the behavior would just continue. So even when I brought it up to her, and at that point, I think she thought maybe something was bizarre about it, but she still didn't. Like, she would talk to him and it would just continually happen again.

Jordan [00:25:40] And so that was kind of those first few years, and then that kind of continued. He was a. He was a member of the family that was over quite often. And so it wasn't. It wasn't difficult for him to have access to me. And I was so young that I didn't. You know, I was afraid in some respects, to tell my mom because I'd already approached her about things before, and she doesn't really. She didn't really get it. And there was a lot of shame associated. Like, you know, by that point, I had. You know, I had primary lessons I had learned about, you know, some aspects of the law of chastity and things of that nature.

Jordan [00:26:20] So there was some assumptions there, especially as I got older, but there was something wrong or there was something shameful, even though I wasn't. Like, I obviously could not consent, obviously.

John Dehlin [00:26:34] I have a question I want to ask. It's. First of all, I'm so terribly sorry that this happened to you. And here, hearing you tell the story is just. It's making some thoughts or questions come up in my mind, which I think is just a product of me not doing the work to think about this like I should. So only answer whatever you're comfortable with and care if you have anything you want to add. That's great, too. But it just occurred to me that potentially with the child, a child might. How would a child even really understand what's going on if they're the recipient of certain types of abuse?

John Dehlin [00:27:12] Like, I didn't even understand how sex worked until I was a teenager. So it just occurred to me that, number one, a child might be a recipient of sexual abuse and not even really understand what's going on, even biologically or mechanically or physically, depending on what's going on. But also, they might even not understand that it's a terrible or an awful thing.

Jordan [00:27:37] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:27:38] And I just. I guess I don't want to be insensitive or ask questions that are.

Jordan [00:27:44] No, I think that's a good point.

John Dehlin [00:27:45] But I guess I'm just trying to wonder how even. Because I've never been abused that way at all. So I'm just wondering how a child might even process all that.

Jordan [00:27:54] It's. And I think that's the part about it that's so kind of confusing, because at that point in time, I had not even had, like, the sex talk. Right. Like, I had not. My mom had not introduced any of those things yet. I don't think it was. It wasn't too long after that. But you don't know. It's just like this weird thing that's happening to you, and it feels kind of like, to me, it felt weird. Like, it. It felt inappropriate. But I wasn't going to tell anybody about it. Like, I, because I didn't even, it's like you said, I didn't even know how to put things together.

Jordan [00:28:29] You know, like, I wasn't able to articulate, you know, how to even explain this to somebody because I don't even understand it myself. So, like, how do I, like, go forward and explain this to somebody, especially when I've tried to talk to my mom about it and she's not receptive. And so it is, it's just a total point of confusion because you don't

John Dehlin [00:28:47] understand what's going on and you have no power. And, and if, you know, the two people on Earth, the two adults on Earth, where it's their job to keep you safe and protect you, you know, when it, when it's a parent, for example. So, like, I, I, a kid. What's a kid to even think? If it's, if it's an adult who's a trusted family member, then it's got to be, I'm sure for some kids, it's got to be okay because it's a, it's an adult and their family, and they're with me.

Jordan [00:29:16] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:29:17] Like, I, I'm just, I'm just trying to wrap my brain around it a

Jordan [00:29:20] little bit, and it, it's hard because that's, you know, as part of the, the grooming process, that's what it's set up to do. Right. It's set up so that you're more comfortable with this family member that you, you know, they've tried, you know, some of them will try to tell you, like, you know, you can't. We have a relationship now, so you can't tell your parents what we're doing and things of that nature. And that, that never explicitly happened. But it was, I was afraid to say anything. Like, I, this family member was what I considered to be a powerful person, and I was not.

Jordan [00:29:56] Even though I knew something was off and I didn't quite know what to do about it. I also recognized that if I were to share this kind of more explicitly with someone, that if he were to find out about it, that I might be in trouble.

Jordan [00:30:10] And it's, you know, it's. When we're talking about power dynamics with this structure, it's, you know, it's his words being double, triple my age against mine. And in the grand scheme of things, who, you know, who are they going to listen to?

Carah Burrell [00:30:29] Yeah. Reminds me of that. You heard that Oprah quote where she's like, if the molester is any good, then the child won't know that they're being abused. You know, and she got in some hot water over that. But it's basically communicating that you, you don't know you're being, you know, you're not being hit, you're not screaming, you're not crying. But it's something that you'll have the word abused later in your life to look back and reflect on it. Actually, now that I say that, it reminds me of the way that I was a Mormon until I was 30 and I didn't have the words to describe that intuition that something's wrong in here and when you're a kid.

Carah Burrell [00:31:03] I was abused as well as when I was a kid. And so it just reminds me of like, I don't know what this is. I know that my body parts are being touched and I'm touching body parts that I've been told are secret and sacred and that are not. So, you know, that there's something icky going on there that shouldn't be. But I, I can't put a. My, I can't put words to it because they're being so nice to me. Yeah, yeah. So it's just, it reminds me a lot of this parallel of leaving the church where you know something's wrong. But a child or somebody else who's been indoctrinated, you haven't yet come to terms with that.

Carah Burrell [00:31:32] You're allowing your brain to go into the realm of maybe this is bad. I don't know what the word. You know, think of all the words we use in psychology of like gaslighting or boundaries. You don't even know what your rights are. You don't know the words. You don't know what's mentally healthy yet. Cause you're either a child or you've been indoctrinated. You still, you have to come into your own self to look back, you know, with like a thousand foot view and be like, oh, I can put a name and a word to that now. That's how I think of it.

Jordan [00:31:58] Yeah. Because you, I mean, that's your, that's your reference point. I mean, you know something's off, but you can't, you can't articulate it right. You don't know where to, where to begin. So that was kind of the initiation of that and kind of where it began. I'm trying to think of what else I had on my outline from that point. I wrote down too many.

Carah Burrell [00:32:21] I can ask you.

John Dehlin [00:32:22] We can print it out

Carah Burrell [00:32:25] so it Says at that point that you started being. You had some problems being sexually harassed.

Jordan [00:32:31] Oh, I have one in my purse.

Carah Burrell [00:32:33] Okay, I'll grab.

Jordan [00:32:33] You grab it. Yeah, I printed it out. I came.

John Dehlin [00:32:36] Yeah, Good, good, good. So, but your school, was that part of it? The school, sexual harassment, the care mentioned?

Jordan [00:32:43] Yeah, it was. It was interesting because I went to kind of a school and kind of a more impoverished area where there was kind of. There was. It's kind of sad, but there was a lot of like gang type activity going on at like an elementary school level, which is kind of weird in retrospect to look back on, but it was not really a safe area.

Jordan [00:33:11] And so at that same time, I was having a. I was in third grade. I was in third grade. At that same time, I was being sexually harassed by a third grader. And I mean, you think a third grader, it's not like anything insane, but he was making sexual comments to me and I didn't know what they meant. And so I approached my teacher about it and was like, I don't know what this means, but this is what he keeps telling me. And my teacher was like, oh my God. And made a big deal out of it and sent him to the principal's office and called my mom.

Jordan [00:33:41] And so I knew, I knew that something was off. And so then again, I just have this kind of parallel experience of these kind of sexual in nature type things that I don't really know how to explain and I don't really still understand.

Jordan [00:33:58] And it was right after kind of that I got moved to schools. My mom pulled me out and moved me to a different school. And it was right around that point that she did decide to give me the sex talk. And I will give her credit in that fashion that I, you know, I'm a former teacher, I work with a lot of students that grew up here. And the sex talk is not as prevalent here as it is in other places that I've seen. So I give my mom credit for actually having the talk. Because your parents didn't, did they?

McKay [00:34:31] They did it.

Jordan [00:34:32] Wasn't it, like, pretty minor, though?

McKay [00:34:34] It was pretty minor, yeah. My mom read us this picture book where I. Where I come from or something like that, which is really kind of silly or whatever. But I don't know. I didn't ever really feel comfortable talking about sex with my parents. That was the only time that I felt like I could answer or ask questions. And I didn't have any questions at the time. So anything after that, I just went unanswered. Or I found out on my own.

Jordan [00:35:08] So I started putting two and two together at this point, because she has a talk with you, she has a talk with me. And it. I mean, she. She went into detail, as much detail as you can give a third grader without it being, like, too much.

Jordan [00:35:24] And so I put two and two together and started realizing that this wasn't like, okay, this is kind of in the realm of what's happening to me and the way my mom is, you know, within the church, it's heavily framed as within, you know, the bounds of marriage only.

Jordan [00:35:42] And that's the only time or place that that's appropriate. And so it started kind of setting off alarm bells, and I didn't. I didn't know what to do, because around the time of my mom's second marriage, which was in 2005, I want to say around that time, her behavior towards me started to change a little bit in the dynamic of her new relationship. And so she started being subtly abusive to me during that time, at least mentally and verbally.

Jordan [00:36:16] And so I didn't feel like, even after we had this conversation, I didn't feel like I could come to her about those things because of the way that she treated me. It was not like, even at that time, I did not consider my mom to be a safe person. And so I wasn't. I couldn't go to her.

Jordan [00:36:36] And I knew by this point I was starting more to wrap my mind around the consequences of potentially sharing this information. And my first thought was, one, retaliation from my abuser, because I didn't even begin to understand what that would even look like. And two, kind of what it meant for the dynamic of my family and whether or not the bishop would have to get involved and, you know, all these kinds of things. So around this time is also the time that my mom becomes extremely less invested in me and what I'm doing. And I don't know if this was related to the fact that I kept approaching her about the fact that this family member was being inappropriate or if it was because she was much more invested in her marriage at the time, which also could have been it, but her behavior in me shifted quite a bit to where she didn't care.

Jordan [00:37:27] She didn't care what I was doing. She really. It was either. It was kind of a. The dynamic with her and her husband was they would constantly fight, and when they would fight, my mom would turn to me, and she would spend time with me, and I would be like the token childs during that period.

Jordan [00:37:46] And Then we. When they weren't fighting and they were in good spirits with each other, then I was completely ignored. And so the only time that I really would get attention from my mother is when she and my stepdad were fighting.

Jordan [00:38:00] And so I kind of started to recognize this dynamic. And because she wouldn't give me attention or pretend to care the majority of the time, I started trying to do things to get her attention.

John Dehlin [00:38:13] Yeah, she just incentivized you to cause conflict in their marriage. Basically.

Jordan [00:38:18] Basically, yeah. And she. The ironic thing is she would. As years go on, she would get frustrated with how I felt about my stepdad, but the dynamic of their marriage essentially set it up to be that way. So I started faking things. I started faking injuries. I started faking sick because the only. The only time that I could get her undevoted attention is when I was sick. And so I would fake things all the time. I would fake stomach aches. I would. I mean, I went so far as to make myself sick in order to get attention from her because I was so deprived. And that started. I mean, that started pretty young.

McKay [00:38:58] Yeah. Some of these ways that she described to me are really extreme. I think you should maybe share some of those.

Jordan [00:39:07] So when I started faking sick all the time, my mom stopped believing me. Right. As one does when, you know, kids fake sick sometimes. I used to be a teacher. I get it. But it started getting to the point that no matter, you know what, I was actually sick. My mom still didn't believe me. So I would go to pretty intense extents to try to get her to take seriously what I was doing. So I would, like, I would take bleach from under the.

Jordan [00:39:35] Under the bathroom sink, and I would, like, pour it on my legs when I was in the shower to generate. Because I have super sensitive skin, so it would generate this kind of insane reaction on my legs, and then I would put it away, wouldn't tell my mom what I did. And then I would get out of the shower and show her and be like, I don't know what's happening. This just started. Like, I don't know what's going on.

Jordan [00:39:56] And so I did that repeatedly. I did it with bleach, I did it with bathroom cleaner. Like, I did it with quite a variety of things. And you eventually just start running out of. Out of things. Like, I can only do that so much, so often to get her attention. And the more I did it, the less she cared.

Jordan [00:40:15] So unless it was, like, really severe, unless I was like, you know, falling down the stairs or giving myself a concussion, which I did attempt to do that. That was the only way that I could get attention. And even that stopped working.

McKay [00:40:29] Yeah. Sorry if I put you on the spot.

Jordan [00:40:31] No, that's okay. I needed to bring that up because Jordan.

McKay [00:40:33] Jordan, over the course of our relationship, things up. I'm like, oh, that's whatever. And then she will bring up the details of things. And I'm like, whoa, that is not. Not okay kind of things that have happened to you. So in some instances, it's kind of necessary to paint a more accurate picture. It wasn't just laying on the. The heater vent so you feel hot when your mom touches you or whatever.

Jordan [00:41:02] No, it wasn't. I went to pretty intense extents to try to get her to pay attention, and it didn't work. So once my mom got remarried, our family dynamic kind of changed because my stepdad was a different religion than my mom.

Jordan [00:41:18] So we started attending a non denominational Christian church, which I had never been to before. My only experience was Mormonism. That was it. And it was a very relaxed non denominational church. Like, people wore jeans to services. And we went to a service on Saturday night so we didn't have to wake up on Sunday morning. And there were like. The worship band was like rock based, right?

Jordan [00:41:42] And so it was appealing. It was really appealing because it was so different than Mormonism. And so our time was kind of split. We would alternate every other week. I would go to Mormon church one week, and then we'd go to the non denominational Christian church one week.

Jordan [00:41:57] And so we kind of. We kind of fasted between the two. And then around this time is around the time that I start having some health problems that are becoming kind of more prevalent. I was getting constant UTIs, which is a huge sign typically of abuse when it continues happening.

Jordan [00:42:17] So I was getting constant UTIs. I had some other health problems that were kind of happening at the same time, and there wasn't really any explanation that anybody could come up with which involved a lot of doctor's appointments, which garnered some attention from my mom. So I wasn't exactly unhappy about that scenario, but it kept happening. I kept getting UTIs. I kept getting UTIs, and no matter what I did, they just kept coming back. And so it. And I didn't even realize this until probably three or four months ago.

Jordan [00:42:53] And it's still bizarre to me because, you know, as. As I paint this picture, further red flags are going up, right? Like in the context of an adult who's seeing These kinds of things happening, red flags are popping up a little bit.

John Dehlin [00:43:11] Can I ask a question? I just, I'm. Another question is coming to my mind, and that's that if you're so starved for attention from your mom, then the abuse, which should be, in theory, experienced as all negative. I think you just said this. But if it, if it ends up being experienced as, wow, at least I'm getting some attention, then there's this perverse, almost diabolical, like, incentive for you because at least someone's paying you attention.

Jordan [00:43:49] Yeah, that. And that's like, to me, it's like the grossest dynamic of all of this. Right? Like, it's the. It's the screw up your brain type of dynamic. So I don't. I don't feel like I. Even then, I don't feel like I could have told her and she would have listened, which is the most frustrating aspect about this as I continue to paint this picture. Because, you know, as a child, your parents are the ones that advocate for you, right? Like, those are your people. Those are who you trust. And when these, like, even when physical problems are manifesting that are things that I, you know, personally can't control, it's not me, you know, trying to get my mom's attention.

Jordan [00:44:33] It's things that are happening that I couldn't cause. Even that is still going unnoticed. Right? And you can't, as a kid, you can't advocate for yourself because you don't. I didn't put UTI and sexual abuse together. Like, I didn't. I was nine. Like, I couldn't have put those two things together.

Jordan [00:44:54] And so now I look back on that and I'm like, every physical, I mean, physical red flags are popping up now. Now we've got my comments about me feeling like this is weird now I've got these physical manifestations that are happening and this abuse is continuing to go on. Nothing, nothing changes it. It continues as normal. And then I start middle school and some things start to shift. Essentially. Middle school is a tough time for anyone and everyone.

McKay [00:45:30] There's a reason why I glossed over that.

Jordan [00:45:32] Middle school is like, the best I could explain. It is like a disaster. I start to branch out as far as kind of my rebellion. My mom is super controlling, and I didn't really. I knew it, but I didn't realize it until I get. I started getting older because then I started to kind of branch out in what I was doing. So I started talking to boys and started seeking that kind of attention from boys because I wasn't getting it anywhere else. So I had to attempt to get it from the people that I was interacting with at school. And so I started, you know, and it, it wasn't in middle school.

Jordan [00:46:10] It wasn't anything crazy. Like, I would be texting boys and my mom wasn't happy about it and wouldn't like it. And she would emphasize, you know, church teachings to me and say, you know, you can't. You're not supposed to be dating until you're 16 and you're not allowed to do XYZ and I'm not going to allow you to have boys over. And so she really emphasized those things. But middle school is when I started pushing those boundaries.

Jordan [00:46:34] And this is when her controlling nature and severe abuse starts to get. Starts to get really bad. She. I think my mom has some undiagnosed mental things which are obviously out of her control. And she.

John Dehlin [00:46:54] And as we're saying, you're in a social, you know, Masters of Social Work program, so you're being trained as a mental health professional.

Jordan [00:47:04] I am.

John Dehlin [00:47:04] So there you have some training to at least be able to identify the.

McKay [00:47:10] It's not like, symptoms, the criteria, WebMD diagnostic.

Jordan [00:47:14] Like, I, you know, I had to do a whole class on the dsm. Like, like, I, I get it. And I, I'm. I'm not formally allowed to diagnose, nor am I qualified at this point in time. But I will strongly say that her behavior aligns strongly with borderline personality disorder.

Jordan [00:47:30] And so she was 0 to 60 and like, 15 seconds. And I did not, as a child, I did not know how to stay in her good graces. Essentially, I did. Like, I couldn't. No matter what I did, she wasn't ever happy with the outcome. And one day she'd be like, oh, my gosh, you're the best thing ever. And, you know, I'm so glad we have such a close relationship. And then the next day, it's like, she's tearing me down for wearing something that she deemed inappropriate to school or.

Jordan [00:48:04] And it, it's not like I hate to. I'm trying to not, like, play down the things she did, but, I mean, it was either she was enthralled with me and on cloud nine, she was, like, not speaking to me ever, or she was screaming at me like, those were my three things, and there was no in between. And the only time that she would be paying attention to me or enthralled or trying to have a relationship with me would be in the context of her relationship with my stepdad being bad. And so literally, my only other two points with her was her not speaking to me, which was her favorite tactic to use with me, or screaming at me.

Jordan [00:48:48] And I couldn't. No matter what I did, I couldn't escape it. And 90% of the time, it wasn't. I look back now, and I realize that it wasn't me. She took everything out on me. And so my childhood consisted of walking on eggshells because I never.

Jordan [00:49:03] I was gonna set her off somehow, some way. Like, I couldn't. It was unavoidable. And so I essentially just had to get in the mindset of. I mean, I was, like, in survival mode for the good majority of my childhood. I mean, it was like perpetual fight or flight all the time between my sexual abuse and between my mom being totally unhinged and, I mean, screaming at me. It was like, you know, every parent, you know, gets mad at their kid and yells every once in a while, but it was like it was unhinged. Like, it was inappropriate. And so that's kind of where I got stuck.

Jordan [00:49:40] And I'm navigating middle school, and I'm navigating hormonal changes and puberty changes and things that are happening at that time. And I don't feel like I have an advocate because one, I'm still being sexually abused. And two, she.

Jordan [00:49:53] She doesn't care. Like, she. She doesn't pay any attention. She's not. Like, her only investment in me was extremely superficial. Like, it was. My involvement with her was only when it had some kind of benefit to her, and it was usually to get back at my stepdad.

Jordan [00:50:13] And so I look back on that now, and that's. It makes a lot more sense, because at that time, I was like, I. I'm gonna have a crappy relationship with my stepdad because if they're fighting, then she comes to me, and we. You know, there was no.

Jordan [00:50:33] There was no boundaries in my family. When we talk about, you know, therapy terms, when we talk about enmeshment, that was a thousand percent what was happening in my family. There was. There was no boundaries between anybody. Like, we had no boundaries. Everybody overlapped into everyone. Mentally, physically, emotionally. Nobody was separated. Like, we were all just kind of meshed together in this, like, toxic kind of environment.

Jordan [00:51:00] And so that made for a lot of difficult things happening with my mom because she didn't understand that that was inappropriate. So then comes when I start my period for the first time. And this is the funny part about this is probably a month or two ago, maybe Three months ago, I would have told this story, and I would have laughed, and I thought it. You know, I thought it would be funny.

Jordan [00:51:31] And I had locked this little nugget away in my memory until a recent session with my therapist when I told her about it, and I thought it was funny. And she gave me this horrified look on her face, and I realized that it's not funny.

Jordan [00:51:46] So we are camping with extended family members. My abuser is present, and I start my period for the first time. Of course, it's in the wilderness, because, you know, the universe loves me, and that's just what happens. So I was not. We were not prepared for this. I was. I think I was like, 11 or 12.

Jordan [00:52:05] And we're. We're camping, we're in the wilderness. I tell my mom. I'm like, obviously, something's happened here. Like, and I had enough sex talk knowledge that I knew what was going on. And so I get situated, and my mom's like, come here. We have to do something.

Jordan [00:52:22] And I still can't talk about this without laughing because I still think it's so insane. My mom gathers up all of our extended family, okay? There's quite a few of them, my older siblings included. And she. She, like, stands us in a little circle. Like, we're going to have a little pow wow type thing going on.

Jordan [00:52:40] So she puts us all in a circle, and then she makes us all hold hands because it's not weird enough, right? We're just. We're just getting weirder. Um, she said she makes us stand all in a circle holding hands, and she's like, I have an announcement to make about Jordan. And I had no idea what was coming. This hit me like a freight train. I hadn't. She did not tell me. I had no prior knowledge.

Jordan [00:53:03] Nothing. So she's like, I have an announcement to make about Jordan, and she has officially started her period, and she's becoming a woman. And I have never seen my brothers run out of a circle so quickly, by the way, which was funny. But she shared this with all of my extended family members, which I thought was kind of funny. And then I tell McKay, like, a few months ago. And again, McKay's like, my reference, right? He's like my unbiased point of view when I tell him things, and he looks at me like, oh, my God, Jordan, what the hell did you just say?

Jordan [00:53:38] Then I know it's bad. And that's exactly what happened here, is I told McKay, and he was like, that's not normal behavior. And so one the first problem there is my abuser is present for this. And as we know with sexual abuse, especially of children, puberty tends to either start sexual abuse, change it, or stop it.

Jordan [00:54:03] And so that was the number one problem. But then my mother proceeded to tell this story to other people, like random co workers of hers, friends, family, like people that I didn't even know. She started telling this story too, which to me was absolutely mortifying. Right?

Carah Burrell [00:54:19] Like this is not definition enmeshment. Yes.

Jordan [00:54:24] Yeah, 100.

Carah Burrell [00:54:25] No boundaries.

Jordan [00:54:26] None. No boundaries whatsoever. And that was like the prime example that I can think of of her not having any because that was a situation that I look back now on with my therapist horrified face when I told her that it's so, it's so inappropriate and it's just a complete demonstration of her lack of boundaries and her lack of any type of relationship with me to know that that was not something I would have appreciated.

Jordan [00:54:53] And not to mention now my abuser knows and this changes kind of the dynamic of things, right? So that kind of initiated puberty and my mom started to get kind of more unhinged with her behavior because I started to seek out ways to rebel.

Jordan [00:55:21] And I look back on that now is one, I was grasping for any type of safety that I could get my hands on because I didn't feel safe in my own home. And two, I was trying to get from out from under my mom. And a lot of my mentality, especially as a preteen, was my mom was so cruel to me that I was like, I'm going to do the exact opposite of what she says and I'm going to stick it to her and that's going to be my goal going forward, which is essentially what I did, which kind of led me down the, the perceived Mormon wrong path that people don't want their kids to go down.

Jordan [00:56:02] Mind you, my mom weaponized all of the church teachings against me. Quite often anything and everything that she could use against me in a church context made it seem, I feel like she felt less like it was coming directly from her and more she was like pushing this stuff on me because it's what Jesus says and it's what the Lord wants. And you have to follow these things not because I'm telling you to, but because if you like, if you don't, you're going to go to hell.

Jordan [00:56:31] Now mind you, probably the most, one of the most important aspects in talking about my mom is she's extremely Satan centered. My, I feel like my mom is more governed by Satan than she Is by God personally feeling like if she

Carah Burrell [00:56:51] doesn't follow it, there's like demonic forces can take over.

Jordan [00:56:53] Yes.

Carah Burrell [00:56:54] Oh, wow.

Jordan [00:56:55] Yes. So my mom is very intense on the Satan piece and she used this as a manipulation tactic with me.

John Dehlin [00:57:02] And just to be clear, it's Mormon theology that Satan is a literal figure, that that God, heavenly Father and heavenly mother or mothers created all these spiritual children in the pre existence, that Jesus was the firstborn spirit and that his brother was Lucifer or Satan, and that a third of the hosts of heaven, a third of the spirits, spirit children of heavenly Father and heavenly mother or mothers were cast out of heaven in the pre existence. And that they get to. And this almost sounds like Scientology now that I'm thinking about it. Like the thetans, like they all were sent to earth and are all around tempting us and trying to get us to do evil.

John Dehlin [00:57:48] Not just Satan as a spirit, but Satan's children or siblings who are all bad. And so in Mormon supernatural theology, there are always evil spirits trying to get us to do bad. And so your mom, I. And I was going to say, you know, abuse happens in and out of Mormonism. So it's, it's. I love it that you're pulling in kind of the Mormon theological pieces to show that this is a Mormon story.

Jordan [00:58:22] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:58:23] So in all this craziness, your mom now. We're now introducing the Mormon teaching of evil spirits. Yeah, yeah.

Jordan [00:58:30] And she. I've never encountered anybody who focuses on it as much as my mom does. You would probably say the same, right? She. Absolutely. I don't even know how to explain it. It's. I 100, 100% believe it's out of fear. She's motivated by fear more than anything else. And she's very, very against any type of, as you know, as most Mormons are, any type of, like occult type things, you know, tarot cards, astrology, even

John Dehlin [00:59:09] face cards have been prohibited in, in a Mormon context.

Jordan [00:59:12] Yep.

McKay [00:59:12] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:59:13] Scary movies.

Jordan [00:59:14] Yep. She is. And it's not even like a. She doesn't like it. It's like she's like full on scared of it. Like she's terrified of the energy, the evil that that would bring in. Like she has one childhood story of using a Ouija board. Right. As most people do. And that experience, like forever. I think that's part of what contributes to this nonsense, that she had one crazy experience with a Ouija board. And from that point forward she was like, there is, there is evil. Now, this was fueled by my Mormon patriarch family member because he performed an exorcism on someone while he was a bishop

John Dehlin [00:59:58] and he tell us what that is.

Carah Burrell [01:00:01] So I didn't know there were such things as Mormon exorcisms.

Jordan [01:00:05] I did not either until this instance. So this woman in my family members ward had messed with something she wasn't supposed to mess with and had been allegedly. Allegedly and had been infested with demons, evil spirits, things of that nature. And so she essentially was possessed. And so my bishop family member took it upon himself that they needed to do something. And so they went over to her house and she was like, unhinged. They say that she was like, naked and running around like crazy and was just totally possessed by demons and all this crazy stuff. So my bishop family member and his counselor like, essentially tackled her to the floor because they're fighting against her because she has the force of all these demons.

Carah Burrell [01:00:56] Right.

Jordan [01:00:58] And so this just sounds so crazy to tell back, but they're like, she has all the. You know, I walked in the door and I just felt the power of Christ leave the room. Like, I knew the whole house was filled with the devil. I felt like Satan was on the other side of the door and I had to come, you know, face to face with them, and I had to tackle this woman to the ground, to which they did. I'm not sure what they did. I don't know if it was like a, you know, depart in the name of Jesus type, raise your arm to the square type thing or. Or what it was. I don't know if they did a blessing. I don't know what it was. But essentially they tackled her to the ground, did that thing, and they watched the demons descent, ascend from. From her.

John Dehlin [01:01:42] I'm surprised, Carrie, you say you didn't know that Mormon demonic possession was a thing, because, number one, it's in the Bible. And Jesus sees somebody who. He says there's a lot of stuff in the Bible.

McKay [01:01:53] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:01:54] No, but I mean, we believe in Jesus. We believe in the Bible. And in the Bible, Jesus casts evil spirits into the pigs, and the pigs run off the. You know, so I mean, it starts in the Bible, but then, yeah, if you read Mormon doctrine with Bruce Armor Conkey, he tells us not to use the Ouija boards. He talks about evil spirits and possession. But then me growing up, I was told in seminary all about these sorts of stories of missionaries in the Caribbean or in Latin America and encountering a possessed investigator and the missionaries, you know, casting out just like in the Mormon temple ceremony where Satan, you raise your arm to the square.

McKay [01:02:32] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:02:32] And Satan is cast out of the garden. We're taught as Mormon priesthood holders, because women can do this, that. That. That a male priesthood holder, if he encounters someone who's possessed by demons, can raise their arm to the square and using their priesthood, if they're worthy, cast out the demonic spirit. And, yeah, I was told in the MTC of all sorts of demonic possessions and exorcisms as a Mormon kid. So, yeah, that was definitely part of my Mormon upbringing.

Carah Burrell [01:03:01] If I may possess. No pun intended, our comment section. That happens very commonly. I didn't experience that, so it didn't happen.

McKay [01:03:11] Okay, there we go.

Carah Burrell [01:03:13] That's not my experience in the church. That doesn't happen.

McKay [01:03:15] Sorry.

John Dehlin [01:03:16] Everything I just said.

Carah Burrell [01:03:18] No, just kidding. Actually, my mom's a little hippie dippy and she believes in that. She has cast out many an imp, is what she calls them. You guys ever heard that? You ever called them. They're like little. They're like Satan's littler demons. I think that, like. Anyway. Yeah, I have. I have.

McKay [01:03:34] Totally.

John Dehlin [01:03:34] Okay.

Carah Burrell [01:03:35] I have some. You know, we got. We got mom trauma, we got sexual trauma. We're just like. We got all kinds of things come over here.

John Dehlin [01:03:39] But this is where. This is where mental illness combined with a theology, a supernatural theology, can actually become very problematic. And it sounds like, in your mom's case, it.

Jordan [01:03:50] It creates the perfect storm.

McKay [01:03:52] Well, and any other person listening to that would be like, it sounds like that person maybe needed a. A lot of medical intervention because maybe they were having a reaction to a drug or something like that or be some major mental health help because they might have been having an episode of some sort.

Jordan [01:04:13] Yeah, but like, psychosis comes to mind. Not necessarily demon possession.

McKay [01:04:18] Those things couldn't be the thing that you think of first. It's gotta be a demon possession, a demonic possession.

Jordan [01:04:24] So they told this story to my mom, and it. It's burned in my brain, obviously, because my mom's like, the power of Satan, man. The power of Satan. He's gonna get you. It is. You know, I heard more about Satan than I ever did about Jesus growing up. And so she used that to motivate me to do things. So she would tell me, she would say, I had a dream, and Satan came to me in my dream and said that you're doing xyz or. I had Satan come into my dream last night. So what are you doing?

John Dehlin [01:04:59] So it was always discernment again.

Jordan [01:05:01] Yes.

McKay [01:05:01] It's like the inverse of the spirit of discernment.

Jordan [01:05:04] The devil told me, which is so Ironic. It's so funny. I mean it is and it isn't, but that's fully what she believed. And she would use it just like many parents do. With the spirit of discernment is being able to say, you know, this supernatural being told me that you're doing XYZ and I had a dream. So what are you doing and why

McKay [01:05:26] am I being affected by your actions essentially?

Jordan [01:05:29] Well, and here's the thing. And here's what similar to your. What your parents did that one time.

McKay [01:05:34] Yeah.

Jordan [01:05:35] Is my mom would usually. My mom's a master manipulator and she will collect information. She would go through my stuff, read my things, read my texts, anything that she could to garner information out of me. And then she would use the Satan excuse and be like, you know, I Satan appeared in my dreams. What are you doing? So it did this kind of mind warping thing to me that my mom always knew when I was doing something wrong. Like my mom was in on it anytime I did anything. And it wasn't because I was like thinking that she had this, you know, superhuman natural connection to something that was telling her. It was because she was going through my things and knew what I was doing, man.

John Dehlin [01:06:20] Yeah.

Jordan [01:06:20] And so it's a mind thread. It's a total mind trip because I thought that there was truly nothing like I truly thought that she was tuned in to everybody single thing that I was doing somehow because the Lord Satan, whoever the hell was telling her these things.

Carah Burrell [01:06:36] I'm so proud of you. You were able to like talk about this almost like with a smile on your face. I'm like, let's just take a like a pause to thank our sponsor therapy. Jordan can tell us. Seriously, so intense. That is just sounds like a lifetime

McKay [01:06:48] of like private practice.

Carah Burrell [01:06:50] Hashtag private practice out of pocket.

John Dehlin [01:06:53] God.

Carah Burrell [01:06:53] Yeah. There sounds like a lifetime of being manipulated and molded and that you're able to reflect on that, especially going through your social work program now that you can prob. Put better words and understanding to what happened.

Jordan [01:07:04] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [01:07:05] Wow.

Jordan [01:07:05] Totally. And I think I kind of, you know, this is why I pay my therapist the big bucks.

Carah Burrell [01:07:11] Right pocket.

Jordan [01:07:14] I think I've kind of come to the conclusion now that. And the problem with trauma is it sometimes comes to you piece by piece. Right. I'm a firm believer in the brain presents you what you're able to handle at that given moment. And so over the last year, all these things have started to come back to me and I've started remembering things more and it's a continuous process Every few weeks, I bring something else to McKay that he's like, what? What are you telling me?

McKay [01:07:42] Never ever a dull moment.

Jordan [01:07:45] Never ever.

Jordan's Teen Years, Faith, and Family Struggles

John Dehlin [01:07:46] So I'm curious how what your Mormon life was like as a teen and how that weaves into the abuse in your mom. So I don't want to take you off from where you were going.

Jordan [01:07:57] No, that's kind of where. That's where I was going.

John Dehlin [01:07:59] It was not a healthy influence in your life. I'm gathering that.

Jordan [01:08:02] Absolutely not.

John Dehlin [01:08:02] Yeah.

Jordan [01:08:03] So we move into my teen years, middle school. I start experimenting with rebellion more. I start hanging out with boys. I start inviting boys over to the house, and my mom's not there, and I'm getting in trouble quite frequently.

Jordan [01:08:18] And I knew. I knew the rules. My mom would reaffirm to me all the time. You're not supposed to date until you're 16. You're not. Like, even when you're 16, you're not going on single dates. You're not supposed to have a boyfriend. Like, that's. Those are the rules. We're sticking to it. And I didn't care. So I started having boys over behind her back. And luck of the draw, the one day I have one over, then while she's at work, she miraculously comes home at that time and finds me with this boy. We weren't doing anything. We were literally just sitting on the couch talking.

Jordan [01:08:49] So it wasn't like even anything like, scandalous. But obviously she was pissed because, you know, that's against the rules. And so she flies off the handle, goes totally whack. This is probably one of the most prevalent physical abuses that I ever had from her.

Jordan [01:09:08] And that was kind of the initiation of me deciding that Mormonism really wasn't for me. And I didn't want any part of it because all I could see was it shaping my mother into somebody that, one, didn't care about who I was and was much more concerned about the church. And two, no matter what I did, I felt like I wasn't good enough. And I had major religious scrupulosity. I have ocd. And so I had and continue to had up through even the most recent years. I had, like, I had to pray a certain way, I had to say things a certain way. If I didn't say, like, you know, I couldn't just say, I, you know, I pray that my mom gets home safely from work.

Jordan [01:09:59] Because the other implication of that is home safely could be she dies and goes back to heaven. So I would have to specify, I pray that my mom gets home safely to our home. And I had to do that with every single thing. And so it became really, really draining because I couldn't, I couldn't continue to do that. Like it was.

Jordan [01:10:19] I would be praying for hours because there were. It was all my OCD intrusiveness of what if this happens? What if this happens? What if this happens? And I would have to go through all these things, like a checklist to make sure that I was covering everything.

Jordan [01:10:33] And by that point I was just so overdoing that. And plus I was messing around with boys. And so the law of chastity thing is just like floating around in my brain. And I knew I was kind of getting too close to the edge, like I was toeing the line and I knew that.

Jordan [01:10:50] And I didn't anticipate where I was going to go next, but I looked for any sense of safety and attention where I could get it. And so my freshman year of high school, the first boy who showed me any attention was a senior.

Jordan [01:11:10] And I knew, I mean, I had just turned 15. I knew that I should not have been doing this, but I was so desperate for anything that I snuck out of my house in the middle of the night, met up with this 18 year old, and he picked me up, we went back to his house, we ended up having sex. I broke the law of chastity.

Jordan [01:11:32] He dropped me off at my house. I look back on that experience now and I know it wasn't consensual. I didn't know it then, but I know it now. And I.

John Dehlin [01:11:41] He's 18, he's also crying, he's an adult.

Jordan [01:11:46] And I knew I was done for at that point. I had had the chastity lessons in young women's. I had had it pounded into my brain that sex before marriage is akin to murder. And so I basically at that point was ready to call it quits on Mormonism, which I essentially did. I stopped going.

Jordan [01:12:11] I pestered my mom enough about it that she stopped making me go. And I, I think my mom knew that something was happening at the time, but again, she didn't intervene. I pressed her about my sexual abuse again and again. Just saying, you know, this feels weird to me, something's off, I don't think this is okay.

Jordan [01:12:31] And nothing happened. So I continued trying to initiate things with boys. And because I had already broken the law of chastity, I was like, I can keep going. Like, I've already done the thing that's next to murder. Like, I've already done it. And so from this point forward, what's stopping me from continuing to do it again? Because at this point, I'm already screwed, you know.

Jordan [01:12:55] And so that essentially continued to happen for a little while. I got a boyfriend. I got a serious boyfriend. And he, for a while, was my safe place. He was the only way I could get away from my mom.

Jordan [01:13:11] And we, you know, we had a sexual relationship, but it was consensual. And that was the only time, I mean, compared to the previous experience that I had that. And so. And he knows I'm doing this, and I appreciate him because he was a safe space for me while I was one navigating me walking away from the church because I felt like a shitty person.

Jordan [01:13:31] And to all the stuff that was going on with my mom. And so he really was a supportive person for me. And it started to kind of destigmatize the views that I had around sex, because they were obviously warped.

Jordan [01:13:48] The sexual abuse was still ongoing at that time. It was just more infrequent. But it started getting, like, more severe, I don't know if that's the word, more intense. I was more aware of what was going on. And I knew my abuser was a powerful person, and I knew that there was nothing that I could do about it. And so at this point, I feel stuck because I now know what's going on. I understand I have a sexual relationship outside of this that I've had now and I'm familiar with.

Jordan [01:14:21] And I know the first thing isn't supposed to be happening, but I also know that my mom isn't a safe person for me to go to with this information. So the. My mom decides that because I'm being so bad that she needs to do something, so she puts me on a point system.

Jordan [01:14:44] And essentially I have to go through this point system in order to not be sent to boarding school. So she threatens to send me to boarding school because I keep screwing around with boys. And so she gives me an Excel spreadsheet for the summer. And so essentially I'm mortified. Like, I am absolute. I was in the worst depression of my life. I was self harming. I, like, I legitimately thought that I was. She was gonna ship me to boarding school and I was never gonna see any of my family members ever again. I was absolutely, absolutely terrified. And so she told me if I followed this point system for the whole summer and if I earned enough points, then she wouldn't send me to boarding school.

Jordan [01:15:24] And so I did everything in my power. And this was no, like, small Task like I literally had a spreadsheet of things I had to do. I had to do, you know, 15 different tasks during the day. I had to, you know, read my scriptures. I had to do a lesson on the Book of Mormon. I had to do, you know, I had to spend so much time doing academic things, I had to spend 30 minutes reading. It was basically allotted so that every single second of my day was filled. And so I didn't have any opportunity to do anything bad.

Jordan [01:15:57] And I thought my, I mean, my butt was on the line. I really thought that she was gonna send me to boarding school. And I, I cried every day that summer because I literally, I thought I was gonna be shipped away from my family. I was absolutely horrified at what was going to happen. And she, I mean, she told, she sat me down and told me she had one picked out. She told me she had picked out a boarding school and this is where I was going to go. And she led with. Even though I could do all these things and do this point system, there might be a chance that she'd still send me anyway.

Jordan [01:16:28] And so I was, I self harmed. I did pretty frequently. The first time I did it, I showed her and she made me. She was pissed beyond belief. It was an unhinged, screaming fit. And she made me put a band aid over it. She made me swear to my grandmother that I would swear that I would lie to my grandmother if she asked about what I did. And then she made me wear long sleeves in the middle of summer until the scars healed.

Jordan [01:16:58] And so at this point, I'm, I'm desperate. I'm desperate. I'm in severe depression. I have severe anxiety. I'm trying to get over religious scrupulosity and feeling terrible that I'd walked away from the church. And now I've lost this potential protection, you know, that's around me from being in the church because I've, I've committed sin next to murder, right? So Lord isn't affording me any protection.

Jordan [01:17:25] So I was completely on my own. So I make it through that summer, she chooses not to send me to boarding school. She told me probably two years ago that she never was going to, which was real fun information for me to learn.

McKay [01:17:38] Sing on the cake. Well, and even then, your abuser had enough influence that he would convince her otherwise.

Jordan [01:17:46] Well, that's the other thing about this. That's the. I guess that's the worst part is I didn't even recognize the role that my abuser was probably playing in all of that because he tended to be an advocate for me to my mom. And I look back on that now and I used to think somewhat fondly of that because it always felt to me like he had my back to my mom, which is obviously not what was happening. It was a, it was a tactic, it was a grooming technique. So I tell my mom, to this day I regret doing this, absolutely regret doing this, because my mom still considered at this point, even though I was going, I wasn't going to church, my mom still considered herself Mormon. And so probably in my desperate attempt for attention, I tell her that I had sex in the middle of Walmart.

Carah Burrell [01:18:51] What aisle?

Jordan [01:18:54] It. Here's the funny part is she had kind of, I had kind of teased it a bit and said that I had done some things like just ingest. And then she pestered me about it until I told her. So final, like we're in the middle of Walmart and she's finally gotten to me and I'm like, okay, I had sex. Like, I don't know what to tell you. And we have never left a store so fast.

Jordan [01:19:16] My mom was hysterical for at least 3 days. She cried non stop for 3 days. I told her that. And she, I still, like, I can still see the look on her face when I told her. But essentially what she said was, you know what this means?

Jordan [01:19:40] And that was all she said to me for days. And she was, I don't think I've ever, I mean, I had had depression, I was a, I felt low pretty often, but that was a huge blow because I knew exactly what she was talking about. I knew she was talking about the church, I knew she was talking about the law of chastity, that I'd broke it, and she knew that. And so she didn't talk to me for three to five days at least. She wouldn't speak to me because in

John Dehlin [01:20:08] her mind, you've done what?

Jordan [01:20:09] I've committed murder, essentially.

John Dehlin [01:20:11] Sin next to murder.

McKay [01:20:12] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:20:13] That's not exaggeration, right?

Jordan [01:20:15] No, no, not at all. And that's exactly how she treated it. And I didn't know, like, I didn't know what to do. Like I, I, I mean, still to this day I regret telling her. The moment I, the moment it came out of my mouth, I knew it was a mistake.

Jordan [01:20:32] But yeah, that was a mistake. So later on in my sexual relationship with my boyfriend, I wasn't on birth control and we had had a few, we've had one or two pregnancy scares because I wasn't on birth control.

Jordan [01:20:52] And so I told my mom that I wanted to get on birth control. And I framed it. I mean, I have endometriosis. There was a good, there was a good reason, but I framed it in that context and said I needed it for, you know, I needed it to control my cramps because they were so unmanageable.

Jordan [01:21:06] And she had the standard. What most Mormon moms, at least in my experience, say is it's a. Being on birth control is like a invitation to allowing your kids to have sex, which we know is not the case.

Jordan [01:21:23] And. But she. It took me probably six or seven months of trying to convince her to get me on birth control. So she finally puts me on it. Right before that I have a like legitimate pregnancy scare where I had like days late of a period.

Jordan [01:21:41] So I sneak myself to the doctor and I have them do a pregnancy test. Now mind you, I was 16 and I did not understand the concept of every, like anything and everything that you have done in a physician's office gets billed to your parents insurance.

Carah Burrell [01:22:02] So going, oh, damn. Yeah, so damn you. Itemization, come on.

Jordan [01:22:09] So I. Nothing H. Like, you know, it takes insurance a minute to bill things. So I thought I had gotten away with it. The pregnancy test was negative. I thought I was in the clear. I get home from school one night, my mom comes home late from work. It's probably seven or eight o', clock, it's dark out. She's like, hey, come here, I need to take you somewhere.

Jordan [01:22:27] And so I'm confused. She gets me in the car and we drive to a random parking lot, like with. I don't even remember where it was. It was like an abandoned something parking lot. There was nobody there. And we pull in the parking lot. She doesn't say anything to me the whole ride over there. And I'm.

Jordan [01:22:46] I knew I was in trouble. I didn't know what for. And I knew it wasn't going to end. I. I knew it was going to be bad. So she parks the car and she doesn't say anything for like five minutes. So I'm just sitting in the car, we're just staring out the window.

Jordan [01:23:01] And like I said, silence for her is her best manipulation tactic. And so finally she pulls out what I assume was the bill from the insurance and she throws it in my face. And she's like, what the f is this?

Jordan [01:23:17] And so that proceeded to be a hour long screaming session where I didn't get much words in edgewise. I pretended to be stupid, which I honestly don't know how. She berated me for like an Hour. And I didn't give. I didn't tell her what I was doing. I didn't tell her.

Jordan [01:23:39] I didn't tell her anything. And I think she was frustrated that she wasn't gonna get it out of me. So after an hour or so of her screaming at me, she finally gave up and we went home, and that was the end of it. She never brought it up again. She pretty confidently knew at that point what was happening between me and my boyfriend.

Jordan [01:23:59] But at that point, essentially, I break up with my boyfriend. Right around that time, my friend commits suicide, which was. He wasn't Mormon. It was extremely sad and unfortunate. And it was. It was really hard at the time because I was navigating. You know, I'm navigating my sexual abuse at the time. And then that happens. And for whatever reason around that period, because, you know, of course, this is how my life goes, my sexual abuse started to become more frequent, and it. It got worse. And so I. I went to my mom, and I was like, I. I've got to be straight with you.

McKay [01:24:51] There.

Jordan [01:24:52] There's something weird happening. You know, I. I saw this family member. I saw this family member come in my room one night. I saw it, like, with my own eyes. I saw it. And her response was, well, I'm sure he was just coming in to check on you. And so this was instance, 552 of me trying to get her to pick up on what I was trying to say. And finally I. I was at wit's end, so I told her. I was like, I don't know how to get you to understand this. So I'm gonna need you. I'm 16 years old. I'm gonna need you to buy a baby monitor to put in my room that connects to yours. I was 16. So we go to the store really quick.

John Dehlin [01:25:47] Really, I'm just. And. And you. I don't want you to share anything you're not comfortable sharing. But you could frame it as he's abusing me, but you framed it as I. I saw him come into my room. Yeah. And so, I don't know. I'm not trying to get into.

Jordan [01:26:04] No, that's okay. Because the. It's the power dynamic. It's the distinction. It's the fear of me, of retaliation that I'm trying to, like. I'm inching closer to, like, saying, what's happening?

John Dehlin [01:26:15] Okay.

Jordan [01:26:16] You know what I mean? So it's like, in the beginning, I would say, you know, something's weird. Something's off. He's touching me Too much. And now I'm getting closer and closer to that line of. I'm trying to do everything I can to not tell you this, like, explicitly, but you're still not getting it.

John Dehlin [01:26:31] Okay.

Jordan [01:26:31] And so the, the baby monitor was the last possible thing that I could think of to try to establish for her that something was happening in my room at night with this abuser. And I could not get her to wrap her mind around why that was inappropriate.

Jordan [01:26:48] And I don't, like, half the time I couldn't even get her to turn it on. But that's how desperate I was for her to try to pick up on something happening. Like, that's the extent of where I was at at that point. It was the final thing I had.

Jordan [01:27:04] Like, if this doesn't work, then I don't know, like, I don't know what's going to. Like, at that point, I knew that this was the last thing before I basically had to outright tell her what was going on and risk whatever was going to happen to me at that point. And mind you, all of this is happening while in the back of my mind I have these, you know, when I was in young women's, I got the chewed up gum lesson where, you know, the girls that didn't have sex are, you know, these perfect, unchewed pieces of gum that are very enticing to men and the girls who did have sex or the chewed up pieces of gum that nobody wants.

Jordan [01:27:43] And so I didn't feel like I stood a chance. I didn't because one, I was sexually abused, and so that right was taken away from me before I even had the option to consent. And two, like, I had, I did have consensual sexual relationships as a teenager. And so I was like, either way, I'm screwed. Like, I'm totally screwed. And so I, I had reconciled in my mind that there was no hope for me at that point. There was no, there was no way I could return. I did not even consider being able to talk to my bishop about it. I thought that I was too far gone.

Jordan [01:28:25] So all that's bouncing around in my brain at that time. And then my mom decides to have surgery, My mom decides to have a hysterectomy. And that's essentially when everything goes to crap. My mom had the surgery, got super sick.

Jordan [01:28:50] It did not go as planned. Things went poorly. She found out after the fact that she was allergic to narcotics, the medications, the pain pills that she was given. And so she was not in a stable frame of mind after her surgery.

Jordan [01:29:07] She was suicidal. And so we were trying to kind of keep things under wraps with her in our home. And I come home from work one night, and she's in her bedroom with my stepdad, and he's trying to get her away from the guns that they have in the room, and she's trying to grab guns. And so I'm pulling her off of my stepdad, trying to get her away from the guns that are in the closet. And I just knew at that point I was like, I can't do this. And so I knew I had to get her out of the house. So my grandma stopped home on her way from work, and we dragged my mom out of the house and shoved her in the car and drove her to my grandmother's because my grandma didn't have guns, and we knew she was likely going to be safer there.

Jordan [01:29:54] And so in the context of all this, she's fighting with my stepdad, and I'm like, you're fighting with her while she's on drugs. Like, you're. She's suicidal. You can't be having a regular conversation with her at this point.

Jordan [01:30:05] And so they. I essentially let him have it. And I'm like, you can't. She's not in the right frame of mind for this, and I'm tired of her dealing with you at this point. And so I was fine with not going back to my home for a decent amount of time. And I was really frustrated with everything that was going on in our family at the time. And so when we got to my grandmother's, something got into me. I don't know if it was Satan or whatever the hell it was, but something got into me, and I got on my mom's level, and I said, I am being sexually abused by this family member.

Jordan [01:30:48] And mind you, was that the best point in time for me to tell her that? Probably not. But I had tried so many times by that point that I didn't care anymore. And so I told her that. And she was hysterical for days.

Jordan [01:31:11] She cried from sun up to sundown. She was suicidal. Anytime my grandma and I had to take her anywhere, I would essentially have to hold her down in the backseat so she wouldn't try to jump out of the car onto the highway.

Jordan [01:31:22] And so I'm trying to control all of this while she's still in pain from the surgery. Nothing's working. She's suicidal. She's. You know, my grandma and I cannot control her. She's absolutely hysterical every single day. And so my grandma and I finally get to the point where we're like, we can't. Like, we need help. We can't do this. And so we call an extended family member who we consider the Mormon patriarch of our family and the exorcism guy, the exorcism guy we mentioned earlier, and we call him and we say, because he's a priesthood holder, right? And we. It's just me, my grandma and I, so we.

Jordan [01:31:58] I've got nothing. Like, we're. We're. And we're not active in the church at that point. So it's not like I could just call up the bishop and be like, hey, come over. Like, they're. We didn't have anything. So we turned to the priesthood because that we. That was our last hope.

Jordan [01:32:14] And he comes down and is like, okay. She's like, completely out of hand. And so she's a complete danger to herself. And so we have her, we take her to the hospital, and she stays there for a while on a behavioral health hold.

Jordan [01:32:38] And then after she comes out and it is in much a more stable kind of place, they deal with me outing my abuser. And so my patriarch family member essentially conspires with my mom to keep this whole thing under wraps.

Jordan [01:33:02] So they brief my abuser on what happened, and they tell him of the accusation that I've made. I did have a therapist at the time, and I told him what was happening in a very delicate manner. I knew what constituted needing to be reported.

Jordan [01:33:21] And so I framed it in a way where I was like, you know, it could have been a dream. I'm not really sure, because I presented it to him in truth of what happened, and he said, you know, because

John Dehlin [01:33:31] he'd be a mandatory reporter.

Jordan [01:33:33] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:33:33] And you were afraid that he would call the police.

Jordan [01:33:37] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:33:38] Why?

Jordan [01:33:39] My biggest fear was because he's a mandated reporter, that he would have to call the police, I'd have to face retaliation for my abuser, and I might be taken away from my parents because that, I mean, sexual abuse from a family member, that's. That's. To me, it's pretty heavy. And my mind at the time was worth. Like, that's easily something somebody could have been taken away for.

John Dehlin [01:34:01] And even though your parents weren't protecting you, you still didn't want to be taken away from them.

Jordan [01:34:08] That's the worst part about all this. As I look back on that now, and I had become so, like, I didn't realize how bad things were. And I would have rather I look back on it now, and I wish I would have told My therapist, the truth. I wish I would have told him because I now I, I know more, right? I know how kinship placements work. And I know I probably would have ended up with my grandmother and, you know, things would have been different. But, you know, that's all hindsight now. But they decided, they. I told my mom that I had told my bishop or not my bishop.

Disclosure, Self-Harm, and Institutional Failure

Jordan [01:34:46] I had told my therapist about what was going on after I revealed to her that I'd been abused. And she was like, well, that's a problem. So my uncle, we'll just call him an uncle. My uncle and my mom picked me up from school one day, put me in the back of their car. They're like, we're going to the therapist.

Jordan [01:35:08] I was like, okay. So mind you, this uncle that I'm talking about is a twice bishop. He is about as die hard Mormon as it gets. His whole life is based in the church. Anything and everything about him, he bleeds Mormon.

Jordan [01:35:27] So they drive me to my therapist's office and on the way there, they essentially convince me that pressing charges or doing anything along those lines would be a mistake and it would only lead to retribution. For me, it was framed in the mind of, you know, it potentially it puts the family at stake, which when we talk about shame cycle and Mormonism, like, we would rather like dump all of this.

Jordan [01:36:01] We would rather continue to deal with this behavior and conceal it rather than disrupt the perfect Mormon family. That's not so perfect because revealing that would be worse than allowing sexual abuse to continue. So they bully me out of pressing charges.

Jordan [01:36:22] And essentially, I mean, it, it was pretty forceful. I, I knew I really didn't have an option. So they take me to the therapist. They tell me, you're going to go in and you're going to recant everything that you told your therapist.

Jordan [01:36:36] And I said, okay. So I went to the therapist, they send me into his office, I sit down and I don't tell him anything because I, I didn't know what to do. So I understood then that there was an element of therapist confidentiality there, that I could potentially tell him what was going on.

Jordan [01:37:01] And I kind of did in kind of a roundabout fashion. And so I, after the session, I don't recant it because I thought, you know, I was protected by confidentiality. So I walk back to our car, I get in, and the first thing that they say, they're like, did you, did you recant your statement? Like, did you say that? Because they told me I needed to say I made it up. And I Wasn't going, wasn't that it

McKay [01:37:24] was a dream or something?

Jordan [01:37:25] Yeah, something along those lines. Like either say that you imagined it or you were crying for attention or it was a dream or I had to come up with some way that I made it up. And so I didn't. I wanted a therapist. I didn't say anything. And so I come back to the car and I burst into tears and I'm like, no, I couldn't do it. I couldn't, I couldn't recant it. I couldn't make it up. I couldn't do it. And so they drag me out of the car.

Jordan [01:37:50] I was unwilling. At this point, I was kicking and screaming like I, I could not do this. So they stormed me back into my therapist's office. He has, I still remember he had people in the waiting room and they storm back into my therapist's office, bust open my therapist store, throw me on the couch. And they're like, tell him what you just told me.

Jordan [01:38:14] And so I don't know how my therapist didn't think that there was some weird, weird stuff happening here. And I'm sure he wanted 10 foot pole distance between whatever the hell was happening in my family and his involvement in it. But they stood there in the doorway and they said, you know, she just said she made it all up. So she's gonna tell you now that she made it all up.

Jordan [01:38:39] And I, that was it for me at that point. I knew it was. I knew it was all over. So they tell him that I run out of the therapist's office and make it to. I don't even. It was the bathroom and I just cried on the bathroom floor and my mom had to peel me off the floor and throw me back into the car because I was at my wit's end at that point. It was like I.

Jordan [01:39:06] My second time bishop, perfect patriarch family member, had participated in covering up sexual abuse from a family member in the name of protecting the family name and protecting potentially any involvement that he had that I don't know about.

John Dehlin [01:39:30] I mean, I'm just. My mind is blown on so many levels. Starting with the fact that the Mormon leader who had been a bishop twice, twice, it wasn't his immediate reaction. Let's call the cops. But we know that this is how the Mormon Church and the Jehovah's Witnesses and other Scientology, like high demand religions and or cults like rule number one law firm, Kurt McConkey, whoever is, don't involve the police.

John Dehlin [01:39:59] We know that the Mormon Church set up a hotline an abuse, an alleged abuse hotline for these exact cases where when the bishop called Curtin McConkey, the law firm, the first advice was do not involve police. So on the one hand I'm shocked that that wasn't what the bishop's Mormon bishop's first reaction was. And on the other hand, that's every abuse case within Mormonism I've ever heard. So I'm not shocked.

John Dehlin [01:40:25] But then I'm also shocked that they're going to force you to lie and recant it and pressure you. That's the, that's the opposite of not calling the police. I mean, that's the opposite of calling the police. That's worse. That's way worse.

John Dehlin [01:40:42] And then third, that like the people that you love and trust most, they're not showing concern for your well being, they're not trying to get you help and care, make you safe. They're just trying to get you to say it never happened.

John Dehlin [01:40:56] I mean, I can see why a family wouldn't want the family, you know, family members to go to jail. I can see why a family wouldn't want to lose their livelihood. I can see why a family wouldn't want social embarrassment. But I just, I'm thinking about having kids myself and I'm just like, it's just, I can't even, I can't even totally.

Jordan [01:41:19] Well, the basis of all of it is my mom told me from the get go that she doesn't believe me. Straight up to my face, I don't believe you. And there was a lot of blame thrown around around that time too that you know, in a lot of these situations where things get said like, well, what were you doing? What did you do that kind of initiated this kind of behavior?

John Dehlin [01:41:44] Like she was putting it on you. If anything happened, it was on you. Probably.

Jordan [01:41:47] Yep. So I, this was, this happened around my 17th birthday and, and I, I mean it's.

John Dehlin [01:41:56] So there's this idea in Mormonism of an age of accountability where like you're not responsible for what you do until you're eight. Well, there's actually. And of course you're not. But even for teens, if you're raised in a really abusive home, you're being sexually abused, you're being neglected by your parent. Even a teens not, you know, fully.

John Dehlin [01:42:21] So like, you know, I think about the bleach, you, you're bleaching your legs or your self harming. Yeah. That might make your mom say, well, I can't trust her. Or you're acting out sexually because that's that's kind of how you've been taught you can get attention and you have worth.

John Dehlin [01:42:38] And so then your mom encodes either your lingering, you know, or you're sexually acting out as you being a broken, bad, toxic, defective person. You're really just trying to survive. But then it gives your mom her inability to keep you safe and to give you what you need as a parent provides her with justification for then denying any belief or giving any credence to your claims of having been abused.

Jordan [01:43:14] Yeah, that sums it up quite nicely.

John Dehlin [01:43:18] Horrible. Like, what a terrible situation to be in. Like, it's just like my brain can't even do the math.

Jordan [01:43:26] I, it was the most traumatizing thing I think I've ever experienced next to my, next to my C section. But I, like, I, I was out of advocates. Like, the only, the only person I had was my grandma. And she, she believed me from the get go, you know, and she even tried to tell my mom. She was like, if anybody says anything like that, anytime anybody comes to you with a claim like that and says I'm being abused, you believe them. Like that's, that's what you do. And so she was really the only thing I had to cling to during this whole time because she believed me and I knew she did, but she was the only one that I had.

Jordan [01:44:04] And so I remained with my grandmother. And I decided, kind of with my grandmother's support and against my mom's wishes, that I was going to live out my senior year in my grandma's house, which took me away from the frequent access that my abuser had to our previous home.

John Dehlin [01:44:24] I just have to say one more time, I'm really sorry. Like, I'm thinking about McKenna Denson and, and Joseph Bishop and just all the cases where abusers prey on the most vulnerable people. And it's starting to come together for me because if you're severely neglected and abused as a kid, you're going to develop coping mechanisms that include lying and hiding and acting out. But then by lying and hiding and acting out, then you're never believed for anything that you say when you actually come clean. So the abuse leads to behaviors that then allow the abusers and the enablers to completely discredit any position you have. And that's how, I mean, that's, that's it. That's how predators prey on the weak and vulnerable, the most weak and vulnerable, and they're locked. There's, there's. They have no power. They're in a system they can't escape.

Jordan [01:45:27] Yep. That's exactly what it is.

John Dehlin [01:45:30] Because they're not believed.

Jordan [01:45:31] Yep. And you. I mean, I've learned this in my MSW program, and my therapist has said it enough. Usually in this situation, it's not the abuse that causes the most harm and the pain. It's how people in our lives respond to that abuse. And so for me, it's one thing to deal with the sexual abuse as it was. It's 8 million times more traumatizing for me to have a parent that straight up said she didn't believe me and thought that I had done something to warrant that behavior.

Jordan [01:46:01] So I. I told my mother when kind of things. After things kind of mellowed out and my uncle, patriarch person, went back to where he lived and everything kind of mellowed out. I told her, I was like, if you continue to associate with this person, our relationship is effectively done. Like, I.

Jordan [01:46:27] I can't have. Have a relationship with you while you simultaneously have a relationship with this family member, even if it's infrequent, even he's only coming over so often. Like, I don't care. You can't. You can't maintain a relationship like this. And so I stayed at my grandma's, and she told me that she wasn't going to continue to have contact with this person. She told me that she was going to cut off contact, that they weren't going to be allowed to come over anymore. And I believed her at first.

John Dehlin [01:46:55] Which means that at some point she

Jordan [01:46:57] believed you, presumably, maybe. Right.

John Dehlin [01:47:00] Or at least took your threat seriously.

Jordan [01:47:02] Yeah, I think. And that's the sad thing is, I think that's what it was. And that still holds true to this day, is it's. Yeah, if I threaten her with things she doesn't like, then she'll. She'll respond and act. But she told me she was like, I'm gonna break off contact with this person and they won't be around anymore. And I believed her initially.

Jordan [01:47:21] And then one night I had to go back over to my house where I used to live to pick up something, and I saw her car in the driveway. And I was like, that's interesting. And so I was like, okay, I.

Jordan [01:47:40] I went in and lo and behold, he's there. And so I leave. And she keeps. She's like, no, this is the last time. He's not coming over anymore. You know, it's not going to happen again. And I believed her.

Jordan [01:47:59] And then she just perpetually lied to me about it. For the rest of my senior year, she'd Be like, no, he's not coming over. He just came over to drop something off. No, he's not staying. He just needed to, you know, bring something by. Like, she would just give me 5 million different excuses about why they weren't having contact, even though that they were.

Jordan [01:48:19] So I essentially gave up. I. She wouldn't listen. I know at the. I feel like at my core, she still doesn't believe me. And so our relationship was just kind of meh after that. Like, it. I continued things because it was easier for me than to not. And she still quite frightened me quite a bit.

Jordan [01:48:48] And so I kind of just allowed things to kind of fizzle out. And we just had kind of like a surface level relationship. And I was committed to. After all this happened, I was so lost that I committed myself to going back to church.

Jordan [01:49:04] I was so desperate about the situation, I felt like I had nowhere else to turn. And so I turned back to church. And so.

John Dehlin [01:49:13] So in some sense, the church creates this environment where you feel without any resources or hope or any. Any belief that things could ever get better. So you turn to the church.

Jordan [01:49:25] Exactly.

John Dehlin [01:49:26] It's like Carah says, the house always wins.

Jordan [01:49:28] Yep, that's totally what it was like. I. I felt like I had nothing. Like I had my grandmother who has always been supportive, and that was. That was all I had. And so I started going back to church. I got super involved. I got super involved in a relief society. They put me over there since I was aging out of my senior year. Anyway, I was really connected to everyone and everything. I met with the bishop. Very nice man. This was right before McKay's dad became my bishop. And so I. I owned who I was in church. I owned it. I went before the congregation, I said my piece. I told people what I had done.

John Dehlin [01:50:18] Meaning what?

Jordan [01:50:18] I taught a lesson in young women's where I told the girls what I had done. I told the girls that I'd had sex. I broke the law of chastity. I told them that it was a mistake.

John Dehlin [01:50:31] I told them you were the cautionary tale. You offered yourself up as the cautionary tale.

Jordan [01:50:36] I absolutely did.

McKay [01:50:38] The example. Chewed gum.

John Dehlin [01:50:40] Don't be like me.

Jordan [01:50:41] And that's the sec. That's exactly what I said. And I. I mean, I cried. I. And mind you, and this is, you know, kind of a precursor to McKay and I's story, but his mom was in Young Women's at the time, so I shared all of this information in front of my future mother in law.

John Dehlin [01:50:59] But you probably didn't share that you had been abused from a young age.

Jordan [01:51:04] No, I didn't.

John Dehlin [01:51:05] So it's all on you. It's not like I was neglected. I was abused psychologically and sexually.

Jordan [01:51:14] That's how I felt.

John Dehlin [01:51:15] Just, I was the bad person. I was bad and naughty. Don't be like me.

Jordan [01:51:19] That's how I felt. And I. I 100 took it on as all of mine. Like, I didn't. As a teenager, especially going back to church, I didn't pay any attention to that. This. This stuff happened to me because of, you know, I was led down this path because I was abused. Like, I never looked at it from that mindset. I knew this. Like, doing this and going back to church and sharing this with the young women was, like, recompense for me, like, being back. Like, I felt I had, like, dues to pay because I was the. Everybody knew. I fell off the wagon. We went to high school with other Mormons, like, ever. I was the project. I was the kid that never went to church, that all the other Mormon kids would try to get me to go.

McKay [01:52:02] Yeah. I remember one. One of the earliest memories I have of the mention of you was we were at. We were registering for that year at our high school, and my mom mentioned, oh, there's Jordan's mom. I'm gonna go say to hi to her. And I was like, jordan, who? I don't even know who you're talking about in our ward. And that was just kind of the. The vibe that you always had for.

Jordan [01:52:31] I was the black in the beginning, and I. That's why I didn't want to be there. So I knew when I had to go back to church that I had to own my stuff, because that was the only way that anybody in the church was gonna accept me for who I was, because they thought that I was leading this, like, secret double lifestyle and that I hadn't, you know, I hadn't done my dues. I hadn't, you know, use the atonement God to. The bishop confessed my stuff. And so I felt like I had to, like, bear my soul to these people in order for them to accept me.

John Dehlin [01:53:02] There's this line from the musical Wicked. The most celebrated are the rehabilitated.

Jordan [01:53:09] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:53:09] It's a way for you to get. You didn't have credibility, but if you could be, you know, the Savior's like, you know, redemptive object lesson, then all of a sudden, you could be respected in the community.

McKay [01:53:27] Yeah. Suddenly you have value again.

Jordan [01:53:29] Yeah. And that. That was my goal. It was like, if I sacrifice Myself as the, you know, the sacrificial lamb. And everybody's like, you know what? She, she's changed. She's the example. The girls can now look up to her because she's changed, she's made the right choices. And that, that's all I wanted. I mean, I, I needed some kind of support system. And the church was the only thing that I, I figured I had. And so from that point forward, I was more invested in the church than I ever was before. I went to church every Sunday. I read scriptures, I prayed every night. I did.

Jordan's Return to Activity and Temple Endowment

Jordan [01:54:07] I did the Mormon checklist thoroughly, every single day. And I knew that I was going to move to Utah. Like, that was my. That was my goal because Utah is, you know, Zion. It's where all the Mormons are. And so I figured this was the perfect place for me to land. It also got me away from my mom.

Jordan [01:54:25] And so I graduated, I got accepted into the U, and I moved to Utah. And I threw all of my wait time, money, everything into the church. And so I immediately jumped into the YSA ward at the U, which was a bit of a hot mess, but most YSA wards are, especially at the non Mormon church schools.

Jordan [01:54:53] And so I jumped in. I had a calling. I was on ward council. I was at church four, five nights a week. I was, you know, I was super involved.

Carah Burrell [01:55:05] And you're like 18 at this point?

Jordan [01:55:07] Yes.

Carah Burrell [01:55:07] Okay.

Jordan [01:55:08] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:55:08] So you're like the mob become the model Mormon overnight?

Jordan [01:55:11] Basically, yeah, basically, like I. It was like a re. Baptism. It was like a being born again.

John Dehlin [01:55:18] You were born again as Jesus.

McKay [01:55:19] A new creature.

Jordan [01:55:20] It was a new creature, Mormon creature.

Carah Burrell [01:55:22] Were you happy?

Jordan [01:55:25] I. That's a loaded question, Carah.

Carah Burrell [01:55:27] I'm just, I think. Great question because we all know girls like this that grew up like one girl in the ward. She's the one who went off, she had sex. She comes from a troubled home. Like, like, we're so happy she's here at church. Everyone be nice.

Jordan [01:55:40] Yep.

Carah Burrell [01:55:41] And she is the cautionary tale for all of us to go do that, because she was living like a really tumultuous life out there. But now she's in the church and now look how happy she is. Look how cute her outfit is. She's giggling us with us at church. So I'm wondering from your perspective as somebody who's kind of lived that life, because, you know, every, every circle's got a girl who went astray and came back. But did the church make you happy? At least in your mind, you can always look back and say, like, I didn't know what true happiness was. But in your mind, did the church make you happy? Did following the rules and, and sticking to, you know, living with the Holy Ghost, Were you happy?

Jordan [01:56:18] I think at that point I was. I think I had sold myself on the church being my anchor. Like, I had convinced myself that this was my way to fixing my life.

John Dehlin [01:56:34] Of course, like, you know, there's a lot of people that leave Mormonism under this impression that you leave, you leave a high demand religion that means you're going to be happy. But the truth is, is that having an identity, having a moral code, having community, having a sense of meaning and a purpose and, you know, resolved concerns about the afterlife, even a sense of spirituality, a connection to something higher, those are good things. And even if a church that's false or in some ways very abusive is still providing all those things. And there's something better than an imperfect or a flawed or even a semi abusive system.

John Dehlin [01:57:18] And that's no system. Because if you have no system, that means you have no morality, no spirituality, no friends, no community, no sense of meaning and purpose, no resolution for the afterlife, no spirituality. And that's not good. A lone monkey is a dead monkey. So of course you were happy.

Jordan [01:57:36] Yeah, it gave me all the things I didn't have.

John Dehlin [01:57:40] That's part of the rub. Is that the church, any high demand religion, it doesn't matter whether it's Holy Hell, the the or Wild Wild country or Nexium, you know, the vow signed, you know, going clear, pick your cult documentary and the people are going to say, the happiest I ever was in my life was when I was in the full level of devotion to the cult or the high demand religion. Yes, cult members are super happy.

Carah Burrell [01:58:09] Yeah, you know, you're invested in your growth. It sounds like like you, you had lived a certain type of life before and you're like, now I'm invested in my growth and I know how to do it. And especially with the church, you're constantly looking for reinforcements that you're doing the right thing in life and you'll come, you'll get them. If you go to the Mormon Church, you'll be patted on the back for doing your calling, for showing up, for reading your scriptures, for sharing a thought in Sunday school. You have the reinforcements that you're on the right track. And in a lot of ways it is.

Carah Burrell [01:58:37] I remember John in my, in my Mormon Stories interview talking about my mom joining the church when she was younger because she was raised by an alcoholic and it was like, yeah, because it was a level up at that point. Like, she was like, cult fodder is what you called it back then. It was like, yeah, it does make sense.

Jordan [01:58:50] It does. Yeah, it. And that's exactly that. I mean, it gave me everything that I needed. And so I took it upon myself. I felt like I had to be. When I joined my YSA Warden college, I felt like I had to be the people that, like, redirected the wayward women. Like, I felt like I had to be that person. Like, I had a personal obligation to find the women that were like me.

John Dehlin [01:59:14] Yeah.

Jordan [01:59:15] And to bring them back to the church. And I was. I had a friend, and bless her heart, she's still Mormon. I had joined a sorority at the U. And she was one of the only other former Mormon women that was in my sorority.

John Dehlin [01:59:29] Was it the Mormon. There's a Mormon sorority at the U. Right?

Jordan [01:59:33] Well, is there not sorority. There's a Mormon fraternity.

John Dehlin [01:59:37] Okay.

Jordan [01:59:38] There's like, certain ones that have more Mormons than others. Okay.

John Dehlin [01:59:42] I thought there was actually one that was like a faux sorority that was just Mormon.

Jordan [01:59:47] It could be.

Carah Burrell [01:59:48] Okay.

Jordan [01:59:48] I was in an actual, like, charter.

John Dehlin [01:59:49] In a real one.

Jordan [01:59:50] I was an Alpha Chi Omega. But there was one other girl in my house that used to be Mormon. And so I. She was like, you know, I used to be Mormon, but I broke the law of chastity and did it with a bunch of dudes. And so, you know, now I can't get.

McKay [02:00:04] Go back.

Jordan [02:00:05] And so slowly, over the period of like five or six months, I got her. I essentially convinced her to go back to church. And she was like, I need to confess to the bishop. Like, I really need to talk to him about it, and I really need to. I need to get my life in order. But she's like, I'm so nervous to talk to my bishop about my sexual sins. I. I don't think I can do it. And so I told her I would drive her to the interview with the bishop and wait for her in the waiting room while she had the interview with the bishop.

Jordan [02:00:37] And that's exactly what I did. I drove her to the bishop's office and essentially, I guess you could kind of call it a form of coercion, where I basically drove her, made sure she got there, walked her to the bishop's office and waited for her in the waiting room.

Jordan [02:00:54] And I probably regret that now because nobody, Nobody should be forced essentially into making those decisions. But I felt, again, I felt like that was recompense for what I had done. I felt this obligation to fix the other people who had done what I did and give them a chance to not fall into the same patterns that I was in.

Jordan [02:01:24] And I was so passionate about all this. And so in the church, and I knew that I. I wasn't in any serious relationships, and so I wasn't going to get married anytime soon. So I went to the bishop and I said, I want to get endowed.

Jordan [02:01:37] And I thought a lot about that choice. And the church, you know, holds the temple as the pinnacle of Mormonism. And so I knew that was like the next big step.

John Dehlin [02:01:48] Describe endowment to a Never Mormon.

Jordan [02:01:53] You laugh.

John Dehlin [02:01:54] Well, you guys have done YouTube videos

McKay [02:01:56] about this, our most recent thing. Yeah. And over the. It was three hour and a half long episodes in order to just.

John Dehlin [02:02:04] Okay, overview it.

McKay [02:02:06] But.

John Dehlin [02:02:06] So we'll include links in the show notes to your endowment episodes on YouTube where I guess we can talk about this next episode where you actually dress in the. In the temple clothes and. And discuss the signs, tokens, and penalties and covenants and all that. Yeah. But in. In 30 seconds, what is the endowment?

McKay [02:02:27] Go.

Jordan [02:02:29] So my perception was, you know, it's an endowment. So it was an endowment of power onto me that was a special protection

John Dehlin [02:02:40] by the church.

Jordan [02:02:41] By the church.

John Dehlin [02:02:41] In the temple.

Jordan [02:02:42] In the temple. And I. It was supposed to be this, like, pinnacle Mormon spiritual experience experience. Like, it's emphasized, like, this is the house of the Lord. This is. This is the big one. Like, this is the thing that you build up to your whole life, either when you get married or you go on a mission. Like, this is the big one. And so I was invested. I wanted. I wanted to wear the garments. I wanted to have that protection that, you know, that spiritual protection that's associated with it.

Jordan [02:03:08] I thought it. I felt like it made me more worthy as a human being that I was able to go through and do this. And it was. I feel like a lot of it for me was because people didn't take me seriously because I had been a wayward kid. I felt like me going through the temple for the first time and getting my endowments before other people did was like a physical demonstration of me showing people that I'm worthy.

John Dehlin [02:03:34] I mean, there's a level where so much of Mormonism is just beautiful and clean and structured and orderly and edifying and. And that's the whole. That's the Mormonism I grew up in.

McKay [02:03:46] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:03:47] But what's blowing my mind is I'm looking at it from your perspective. Growing up, it was the church that made your mom think you were bad and dirty. It was the church that covered up the abuse. It was the church that drove you to feel so isolated, so desperate, so bad, so sinful, so toxic that you felt worthless and powerless and desperate, such that you would turn back to the church to get all the things that you felt like you were missing or needed to be happy.

John Dehlin [02:04:24] And so there's something super. I know that no one on the Mormon angle, from the believing Mormon angle, from the church's angle, they're just teaching structure and order and righteousness and virtue and goodness. But. But what they did is they completely. I mean, the Mormon paradigm basically sabotaged your childhood and youth, drove you to the point of desperation.

John Dehlin [02:04:50] And then the church presents itself as your only hope for happiness and power. And then they present. The temple ceremony is like. And then that's how they lock you in. They created the deficit and the problem and the desperation. And then they offered themselves up as the solution to it. And then you feel like you, you, you. You don't have power without the church and you don't have hope for happiness without the church. When they created that feeling of worthlessness and desperation in the first place.

Jordan [02:05:24] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:05:25] Am I overdra? Am I being too dramatic?

Carah Burrell [02:05:27] I would just change the wording of they because we have to make sure that we always separate for people who system don't get it. So we're talking about a system, the system versus people who do think that that is the best with the best of intentions, thinking that that does that will set a person up for success. Of course you'll get more blessings. You'll be closer to God if you can be able to do good jobs,

John Dehlin [02:05:44] get a good education, like with people's

Carah Burrell [02:05:46] best intent, that they're thinking this is the best system. This is the fruit that they got. And they think it's a good fruit. Not knowing that there's a whole other problem of a spiral that can lead into.

McKay [02:05:56] But I think it's easier to see it through that good lens when people like, like John or myself were. We didn't have a lot of issues growing up. The church was made for white straight people like us. We didn't have sexual abuse or anything going on, I'm assuming, and definitely on. On my end. So really it was. It just works for us.

John Dehlin [02:06:20] Yeah.

McKay [02:06:21] And when we shift the lens and look at. Through the eyes of somebody who was abused, who the system left for cannon fodder.

Carah Burrell [02:06:29] Yeah.

McKay [02:06:30] Like it's a whole different story.

John Dehlin [02:06:33] And I also just have to add, even with You, Karen, what I know about your upbringing, like women are like ground sometimes girls and women are ground a sausage. But, but they don't, they're not empowered in the church. So like they're stuck. They're. I mean if men need it, the women are worthless without the church and so they, I mean they're just, it's. Yeah, of course they're second class citizens because they're ground down a sausage psychologically by the time they're adults oftentimes a little bit. And so they're like, I don't need, of course I don't get the priesthood. That's what the guys do because I'm not worth much, you know what I mean? Like, oh, I don't know if that is.

Carah Burrell [02:07:13] Yeah, there's a little bit of this element I just remembered from. Remember when McKay was talking about like this girl could only imagine marrying a returned missionary. I'm thinking about to like I didn't share a whole lot about my sexual abuse in my Mormon stories interview because I just didn't feel like it was super relevant. But actually now that I think about it, that is kind of relevant that like I'm sexually abused and I'm thinking the only possible place that I ever want to experience sex ever again is with a return missionary, somebody who will only. I mean that was my idea of the paradigm that I was sealed to.

Carah Burrell [02:07:43] I only want a really like, you know, straight student, like a really good guy who's going to treat me well. That doesn't happen all the time. Return missionary. It's just like it's a bag of, you know, broken toys sometimes. Who knows what you're gonna get.

Carah Burrell [02:07:58] I got me a good one. However, but like as a woman you're not usually like emphasized that you're gonna have your own career and so you're just looking for a future with a returned missionary. That that's kind of going to be your savior. You're not given a lot of the tools to think for yourself, to provide a future for yourself. And so I'm only going to attract a return missionary if I'm super worthy and my purity and my virtue is all intact too. So it does. So when John, when you were mentioning that, that you're kind of ground down to it. Yeah, now that I look back at my Mormon experience and put it like that, I was like, yeah, I probably felt like I was about this big.

Carah Burrell [02:08:33] Like if I looked out at the grand world, I didn't feel like I had. I don't know the way I feel now, which is like an ex Mormon woman, where I was like, I'm a badass bitch. But like, when I'm there looking at myself in the church, I felt about this small.

Jordan [02:08:44] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:08:45] But again, I'm just having this aha moment. Like one of the things that caused me to like really get angry at my bishop at the end of my time as a member, right before I got excommunicated, I started to get really strident. And you know what made me super mad, what made me super mad is my. That I. The temple ceremony had been changed. So basically the Von Wagner guy, who is actually a sexual predator himself, he updates the temple ceremony and they took out a bunch of the barbaric stuff that I always hated. And I hadn't been in the temple in a while. Certainly Von Wagner was his name. And so I'm like, oh, I'm gonna go to the temple. But I was a progressive, you know, Mormon stories, podcast Mormon by then. And I baptized my son and I'm like, hey, Bishop, I want to go back to the temple, right?

McKay [02:09:31] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:09:31] And he's like, well, let me talk to the powers that be, you know, talks to state president, whatever. And it all comes back, no, you can't go to the temple. And I just want to make this point. So like, I was like, that's it. I'm. I'm not going to stay in the church if I can't go to the temple.

John Dehlin [02:09:49] And you women, women in Mormonism are literally structurally second class citizens from the very start. It's not just like, oh, this one ordinance you can't partake of. You got nothing. You got no access to any of the power or the ordinances or the structure. And I'm whining because I can't go to the temple because I have some philosophical interest and curiosity. What would make it so I'm outraged and I'm gonna really be strident. Now, what would make me feel that way when you guys are literally structural second class citizens from birth because of your anatomy? Like, I'm sorry that it's not like I just realized this, but it's.

Carah Burrell [02:10:33] It does sound like that.

McKay [02:10:34] Yeah.

Jordan [02:10:35] Just realize sometimes it just hits you.

Carah Burrell [02:10:37] Yeah, I know. Well, what would.

McKay [02:10:39] From the age of eight, when you get baptized up until you're endowed, nothing.

John Dehlin [02:10:44] But how do you get in half of your population to just accept from birth that they're going to be second class citizens and to not ever feel like it's even their place to object or complain?

Carah Burrell [02:11:01] Gender roles, gender roles, that's my Honest answer. I was like an, I was like an outspoken anti feminist like three or four years ago and I would have told you, I would have said I am totally happy with the second place citizenship.

John Dehlin [02:11:12] When ordained women did their thing and they asked. Yeah, that someone asked Mormons like, do you want the priesthood? Do you want women have the priesthood? More men wanted. More Mormon men wanted women to have the priesthood than the Mormon women did. The Mormon women wanted the priesthood for themselves less than the men wanted the women to have the priesthood.

Jordan [02:11:36] That's the dynamic. My mom used to say, I don't want it. Like I don't want the priesthood.

Carah Burrell [02:11:40] Not only did I not want the responsibility. Yeah. Like, it just sounded like I would have said literally gender roles because God wants men to have this because they need to learn and women are already more advanced than men and we're already good. We, we have our roles in the church, they have theirs. This is God's restoration. Who are we to mess with it?

John Dehlin [02:11:57] And all I'm saying is hearing your story of how you were treated and care, knowing what I know about your story, of course you reach adulthood saying, yeah, that's not priesthood isn't what we get. We just get, we get whatever scraps the church offers us, but we're not going to ask any questions or make a stink. And to this day is 2022. Like ordained women happened in 2012. Like we're 10 years past ordained women and Mormon women don't care.

Carah Burrell [02:12:26] You know, just remember that anything that is counter to the church's teachings that are, that are like culturally acceptable, like, like the feminist movement, it is seen that you are more spiritually advanced if you oppose those movements. So remember, like Benson with the civil rights movement and communism and things. Things, you are more of a righteous Mormon if you side with the prophet over your own instinct, you're spiritually advanced. I saw it that same way too. That like, while the world would say that I should be looking for equality, I am spiritually above that, that I know the Lord's way. You start with the presumption that the church is true and you can, you can make an argument for it. Like I'm just.

McKay [02:13:05] Wendy Nelson put an exclamation point behind everything that the prophet, prophet says and anything else you question.

Carah Burrell [02:13:12] Yeah, yeah. If the prophet said it. Oh, gives me shivers down my spine

Jordan [02:13:17] when he said that.

Carah Burrell [02:13:17] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:13:18] And I'm just saying you talk about grooming. You were groomed. A church, this, unfortunately, this church grooms its women to reach adulthood saying of course, of course I'm a second class citizen, and why would I ever question that?

Jordan [02:13:34] Under the guise of, like, we love women and we're so. Women are so important in nuclear family and like all that crap. It's not true.

McKay [02:13:43] I don't mean to derail more babies

Carah Burrell [02:13:44] for us because that's the only way we're growing.

Jordan [02:13:46] Yep.

McKay [02:13:47] And we're going to celebrate the small differences and like, allowing you to witness in baptisms in the temple. Congratulations.

John Dehlin [02:13:54] I didn't mean to derail your story, but forgive me as I'm having some aha moments or re. Re experiencing something that, I mean, that's

Jordan [02:14:03] up to the point of us getting married. The only thing before then was going through the endowment, and that's probably more of a part three faith crisis, because

John Dehlin [02:14:11] that's the beginning of going through the

Jordan [02:14:13] endowment was what started me down that path.

Jordan and McKay Meet and Get Married

John Dehlin [02:14:15] Okay, so you got super active at the University of Utah, and then. And then at some point, McKay comes off his mission.

Jordan [02:14:24] Yep.

McKay [02:14:25] Yeah. Did you have anything else that you wanted to share that was. There was like a year between her getting endowed and me coming home from my mission? Was there.

Jordan [02:14:32] I don't think.

McKay [02:14:33] Else you wanted.

Jordan [02:14:34] I don't think so. It was just like random Mormon in and out of relationships.

McKay [02:14:39] Yeah. Looking for your eternal companion.

Jordan [02:14:41] Yeah.

McKay [02:14:41] In all the wrong places.

Jordan [02:14:42] Considered going on a mission because I was like 22 and still wasn't married yet or however the heck old I was. 21. 20. However old I was.

John Dehlin [02:14:52] Well, I just.

McKay [02:14:53] She was thinking she was an old maid at 19.

Jordan [02:14:55] Yeah. It's true.

John Dehlin [02:14:57] Well, I just want to say on behalf of our viewers and listeners, like both of you, but particularly Jordan, this episode, like this stuff you're sharing is super intense. It's super heavy, but it's super vulnerable and really admirable. I feel bad. I feel bad for your mom because I, like, Carah was talking to me about free will, and it's all I think about, like, not. Not to. Not to jump to the protection or defense of the. Of the abusers, you know, but, like, at some level, we're all a product of our biology, of our upbringing, of our environments. And so, like, on the one hand, I'm.

John Dehlin [02:15:39] I'm so frustrated at your upbringing, and I'm so frustrated at your abuser and your mom. On the other hand, I'm feeling really sorry for her because how, you know, if she ever hears about this, and she will in like 12 seconds from now, if not, she's already heard about it, it's gonna probably be really hard and Devastating for her, hard for your relationship. And how does anything ever change if we don't talk about it? Like, silence is the enabler, Silence is the killer. And so I'm sad that you have to tell this story. I'm sad for your mom, but I'm.

Jordan [02:16:12] But.

John Dehlin [02:16:12] But I know we do it for the victims, right?

Jordan [02:16:15] Yeah. That's the whole point is this. It's all too common, unfortunately. The amount of women that I've encountered in similar situations like it. It's appalling. The stuff thrives in the church. And I mean, it's not unique to Mormonism, but can you even read all

John Dehlin [02:16:30] the emails you get in your inbox in dms, Carah, of abuse victims in the Mormon Church? Like, you can't even read them all. There's too many.

Jordan [02:16:37] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:16:39] Yeah. So this isn't just like, oh, we're picking the most controversial, scandalous stories. This is like a third of all Mormon women. I don't know.

McKay [02:16:48] You know, anecdotally, I read a tweet this morning of a guy who used to teach institute. Mormon Institute at the prison.

John Dehlin [02:16:57] Yeah.

McKay [02:16:58] And he said in the sexual crimes pods, I think was the word he used. They. Most of them were stake presidents and area 70s and bishops and elders, Quorum's presence and a lot of returned missionaries. And it just fosters an environment for stuff like this to thrive, especially when most of your worthiness interviews are with a single person behind closed doors with a major power imbalance.

John Dehlin [02:17:33] And this loops back to our interview with you, McKay, where you talk about learning to lie from a young age and learning to have a split life of what you present to the public and then what you're doing behind the scenes, plus all the sexual shame, plus all the, you know, like, raising the stakes way too high where it's sin next to murder that may. That is the breeding ground for abuse, you know?

Jordan [02:17:57] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [02:17:58] Yeah. And patriarchy hurts men, too. Like, if it is devastating for women, it hurts men too, for all these reasons. Get rid of patriarchy.

Jordan [02:18:08] Seriously. It just creates a hot mess.

John Dehlin [02:18:11] Yeah. And that's why Carah's my. My new boss. Carah. What. What should I do next? Because you're my boss.

Carah Burrell [02:18:16] Oh. Should take us all out to dinner.

John Dehlin [02:18:19] Okay.

Carah Burrell [02:18:19] Anyway, that's the deal. Yeah. And I just want to also add for our Mormon listeners or nuanced or progressive listeners and things, I am interested to hear your thoughts and comments and questions and always want to hear perspectives from people from all over the Mormon and ex Mormon and never Mormon perspective. And what I kind of Just want to wrap up this part of this segment or this part of this episode is taking myself back to my Mormon mind. I would have heard Jordan's story and seen that as a product of just people not living up to the Mormon standards that they should have been.

Carah Burrell [02:18:54] And then again saying that if only people live the Mormon standards that everything would be fine. But just you open up the court, like there's just, there's a corpse rotting here in this, in this, this system of this Mormon belief that like, we're talking about the stink, we're talking about the effects of acting like there's not like a rotting body just right in our living room right now. And the problem is systemic. Yeah, it's an emperor's New clothes problem. There's a systemic issue here that just people living up to the good old like Mormon standards and practices and following Jesus will not fix. And so I hope people from all over the Mormon spectrum, spectrum will take from this, that this is a systemic issue.

Carah Burrell [02:19:36] There's abuse in and out of the church, we know that. But when you have a system that benefits from people being quiet and shoving things under the rug to protect the good name and not make people look bad and all the things that Jordan just expressed, that is something that we need to call out repeatedly until it hopefully disappears.

John Dehlin [02:19:55] And the solution is pretty easy. It's like, stop teaching that sexual exploration is a sin next to murder. So the stakes are not so high for children, teen or adults. Gets healthy sex education to everyone. Teach about consent to everyone in all areas. Right, Stop. One on one interviews with children and teens and adults where sexual matters are discussed with some random plumber bishop behind closed doors.

Carah Burrell [02:20:27] Oh, I got one. I got one. Stop acting like having natural sexual urges mean that you're possessed by Satan and that good one that you lose, like the spirit and like the power to have the Holy Ghost with you. Recognize what healthy, normal biology looks like and accept it point blank.

John Dehlin [02:20:45] Like, yeah, and just this, the idea of worthiness. There's no such thing as worthiness. You're all worthy. You know, surprise, flash, you know, newsflash, you're all worthy, period. Start there. No such thing as worthiness. No. No need for any man to ask you whether you're worthy. No need for a little plastic credit card to get you into some building as if that then endorses your worthiness. And no one, no one has the right or privilege to judge your worthiness on, on God's behalf. You're just worthy, period, from the start. And then finally, like freaking Kurt McConkey and the law firms.

John Dehlin [02:21:22] Stop. Stop protecting abusers at the expense of victims. Stop advising victims of abuse and their families to not go to the police. Have going to the police be the first line of reaction and get the Utah legislature filled with orthodox Mormons to make mandatory reporting inclusive for Mormon bishops and stake presidents so that they don't have some, some, you know, loophole. How's that? I think that's, you know, can we just do that? Is that a good list?

Carah Burrell [02:22:00] Yeah, I feel like we're at a rally in Rose.

McKay [02:22:01] Yeah, I know, right? It makes me wonder how much the monetary difference would be between having Curtin and McConkey have or counsel people on what to do in order to protect the name of the church and having PR people just clean up the mess behind them. Like, what really would the difference be between the two? Because then at least in the one situation you can morally say we do the right thing and make sure that the law of the land is enforced. Like we say in our article of faith that says that we abide by those things.

John Dehlin [02:22:38] And I, I, we don't want to ever call the Mormon Church occult here, but there's something that we share almost identically with Job's Witnesses, which I think most Mormons would call a cult. Scientology, which I think most Mormons would call a cult.

McKay [02:22:51] We did.

John Dehlin [02:22:51] And that's how we, that's how we handle sexual abuse. And the Catholic Church, frankly, how we handle sexual abuse in the church is identical. It's almost like we share the same lawyers and that they're all sharing secrets. So the Joe's Witnesses, Scientologists, Catholics, Evangelical Christians and Mormonism. Mormons all handle sexual abuse the same horrific way. Sorry.

Jordan [02:23:16] It's true.

John Dehlin [02:23:17] I'm sick of it. I'm tired of it. Yeah, yeah.

Carah Burrell [02:23:19] Because there are other religions who are more transparent in with their finances. There's more other religions that teach, you know, consent and all of the things that John just mentioned.

John Dehlin [02:23:28] Lutheran, Presbyterians.

Carah Burrell [02:23:30] There is definitely a blueprint for how to do it better.

John Dehlin [02:23:33] Yeah, they all do it. Right.

Carah Burrell [02:23:34] There's, there's, there's a blueprint for how to do it better is what I think.

John Dehlin [02:23:37] Healthy sex education, consent classes, you know, no one on one anything. Adults always present.

Carah Burrell [02:23:45] That's why I always, we always try to say that it's the system and not the people. Because we know Mormons, we. They don't want, like, like I think of every Mormon I've ever known who's a genuine good person, they'd be horrified if somebody was covering up sexual abuse and they'd want to out that person and make sure that that never happens in their community. Like we were all Mormon at one time, we would be horrified. We would never want to cover that up. So copies of us in Mormon form still exist out there in the millions in the church. I know there are good people who want to see this kinds of change.

Carah Burrell [02:24:12] And so when we talk about conditioning, the only way that we can actually like is to put the church in a place where they need to move the way that the system operates. And that's why I mentioned, you know, other various churches that have done it better. It's not an impossible task Mormons, to make the church healthier and make it so less and less abuse happens. Like we want that so much. Like don't you guys like every Mormon listening that hates Mormon stories and hates the things that we're trying to advocate for that are healthier around sexual and stuff. Like we all, at the end of the day I think we want the same things.

McKay [02:24:45] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [02:24:45] We're just trying to figure out how we get there.

Jordan [02:24:47] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [02:24:48] Yeah.

McKay [02:24:48] It's just. And they. The church is such a central facet to the membership's lives that when we raise these issues and say we don't hate Mormons, we hate the institutions and the people on the higher up levels of the church are like enabling the very, very small minority of people to do bad things. And people take it as a personal attack. Like we have so much Mormon family still. We don't hate them because they are Mormon. We hate the church that they go to because of what it enables abusers to do or separation of that identity. The toxic.

Jordan [02:25:36] Can't make the differentiation.

McKay [02:25:38] Yeah. Purity culture and, and things like that. So we don't hate you.

John Dehlin [02:25:45] Yeah. We're not anti Mormon, we're anti harming Mormons. We're anti a church that sometimes harms people. Vulnerable.

McKay [02:25:56] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:25:56] Population. So we're here to help the Mormon church be healthier. We're to help Mormons, active Mormons be. Experience less pain and suffering. That's what we're about. That's what we're for.

McKay [02:26:11] Or, and even help the general membership realize that some of the things that go on in the church are abnormal and they're just policy kinds of things.

John Dehlin [02:26:21] Yeah.

McKay [02:26:21] One on one interviews with a bishop

John Dehlin [02:26:23] with a 12 year old girl asking her where she touches herself.

McKay [02:26:26] Like that's not normal.

Carah Burrell [02:26:28] No.

McKay [02:26:29] In any sense.

John Dehlin [02:26:30] Or even tithing settlement like at the end of the year, hey, where's your money? How much did you pay? How much do you make? How much did you pay? Oh, you can't go to your kid's wedding. Not normal. Not normal.

McKay [02:26:41] Not at all.

John Dehlin [02:26:41] Not normal.

Carah Burrell [02:26:43] Sound like a mob boss. They don't like, break your knees or anything. They just break your family eternally. Oh, me.

John Dehlin [02:26:50] Anyway, all right, well. Well, that's part two. That's. So now we've got McKay, and now we've got Jordan. What an amazing seven or eight hours. And we still have the final part three to go. I don't know if we're gonna do it tonight or another day, but we have part three to go, which is going to be they're meeting each other and how. Jordan McKay, you know what happened in terms of their relationship with the church once they met each other, got married and had their child, their son, and what that's meant for their faith journey. And then what led them to become YouTubers? And why do you guys laugh every time I say, like world famous, you know, super famous social influencers. Why do you laugh every time?

Jordan [02:27:37] I don't think it's true.

McKay [02:27:38] And also, it's just imposter syndrome in full swing.

John Dehlin [02:27:41] So it's imposter syndrome if you have videos with Humphreys. Multiple videos with hundreds of thousands of views. Come on, you're a big deal. Own it. You've eclipsed me. I'm retiring. I'm announcing my retirement because Jordan McKay are here. Sorry, you're out of a job because I'm retiring. Well, I mean, Jordan McKay.

Carah Burrell [02:28:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:28:01] Jordan McKay.

Jordan [02:28:02] Dynamic trio.

Carah Burrell [02:28:03] I'm homeless. Can I sleep on that bed in the back of your videos, too?

McKay [02:28:08] That's where we sleep. But, but. Oh, great. Okay, yeah, so maybe we'll have to do the. The Anti Mormon Media Syndicate or something.

Carah Burrell [02:28:19] The Anti Mormon Media Syndicate. That's what they want it to call us.

McKay [02:28:22] I know.

Carah Burrell [02:28:23] The Pro Mormon Media Syndicate.

John Dehlin [02:28:25] Yeah, the Pro Mormon Health and Happiness Media Syndicate.

Carah Burrell [02:28:29] Yeah.

McKay [02:28:30] From the ex Mormon perspective.

John Dehlin [02:28:33] From the formerly Mormon. From the post Mormon.

Jordan [02:28:36] The Mormon adjacent.

John Dehlin [02:28:39] All right, so thanks everyone for tuning in. Hope you have really valued today's episodes. Thanks again to Jordan McKay for their honesty, their vulnerability, their courage, their integrity. Please go make a difference in your Mormon world or your non Mormon world. Be kind to each other, love each other, and come right back immediately. Binge watch part three, where we're going to hear their epic, the epic conclusion to their Mormon story so far and all their. All their adventures as world famous post Mormon YouTubers. And it's like a.

McKay [02:29:16] A psychosomatic response at this point.

John Dehlin [02:29:21] All right, thanks, guys.

McKay [02:29:23] Thanks, Carah.

John Dehlin [02:29:24] Thank you. You're awesome.

Carah Burrell [02:29:25] Yeah, no problem. It's been really fun.

John Dehlin [02:29:27] All right, see you guys for part three.

Carah Burrell [02:29:28] Bye, Season.

Part Three Begins: Life as a Married Mormon Couple

Part 3 of 3 · Ep. 1540

John Dehlin [00:00:01] Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. I AM your host, Dr. John Dehlin. It is January 28, 2022 and we are here for part three of our three part series with world famous post Mormon YouTubers Jordan McKay. Hey, guys.

Jordan [00:00:22] Hello.

John Dehlin [00:00:23] Welcome back for part three.

Jordan [00:00:24] We're excited.

John Dehlin [00:00:25] Did you guys sleep okay last night?

McKay [00:00:27] Oh, as. As good as you can.

John Dehlin [00:00:28] You have a vulnerability hangover at all?

Jordan [00:00:31] Very much.

Carah Burrell [00:00:31] Absolutely.

McKay [00:00:32] And my legs hurt from sitting in this chair for so long. I don't know why.

Jordan [00:00:35] We don't usually sit for this long.

John Dehlin [00:00:37] Well, you guys have been super good. Good sports. And I loved parts one and two. We took it slow. We didn't rush it. Isn't there a Boys to Men song about like taking it slow? It's, you know. Although we've come. You know that song. Anyway, End of the road. You took it slow and take it slow.

Carah Burrell [00:00:57] Your clothes on the floor. I think there's something.

John Dehlin [00:01:00] Okay. We just went to PG 13, like from 0 to PG 13 in like 10 seconds. No. So I love that we were able to kind of really get into each of your individual stories really quickly. Care, Burrell. It is so nice to have you here as co host again.

Carah Burrell [00:01:16] Yeah. Any Boyz II Men references you want from here on out.

John Dehlin [00:01:18] Do you like Boys to Men?

Carah Burrell [00:01:19] I do like Boys to Men.

McKay [00:01:20] Okay.

Jordan [00:01:20] All right.

Carah Burrell [00:01:20] Yeah. I wish I could sing it at karaoke, but I can't hit any of those notes.

John Dehlin [00:01:24] Who can? Nobody can hit those notes. All right, so it's like Steve Perry or Freddie Mercury. No one can. Or Celine Dion. I guess you can do Seline Dion.

Carah Burrell [00:01:33] I can't do Seline Dion.

John Dehlin [00:01:34] Well, you do Seline Dion whether you do it anyway.

Carah Burrell [00:01:37] Just because I want to dance.

John Dehlin [00:01:38] It never held you back not being able to hit a note. It never stopped you from actually singing the song. Or me for that matter.

Carah Burrell [00:01:44] Yeah. But there's the level of runs that Boys to mid has that I cannot. I don't even want to attempt. Anyway, bye. Hi, everyone. By the way, super excited for part three. We're getting into faith crisis stuff now, so hope everyone enjoyed part one and part two. I sure did some heavy stuff, but yeah, thanks for being such good sports. Like being so vulnerable with all of this stuff. It's incredible, really. Thanks, guys.

John Dehlin [00:02:09] And for those who didn't join us for parts one and two, pause or stop, jump to one and two. You'll be really glad you did. I'll give just a really quick recap. We started out with McKay's story growing up in suburban Colorado to a, I would say a typical non Utah Mormon family in many ways. His dad served as bishop.

McKay [00:02:33] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:02:35] And we, we talked about something we almost always talk about in Mormon stories, which is kind of that sexual shame, that early sexual shame that happens in Mormonism that was definitely a part of McKay's experience. But he was also kind of known a little bit as the Nephi in his family, even though he secretly sometimes listened to screamo music or snuck a R rated movie in that his family didn't know about or even said a swear word now and then. But that's kind of like every Mormon boy ever. So a very typical Mormon experience. And I think one thing that was interesting is that there were moments in McKay's teenage years where he's like, I'm not sure I'm really down for all of this Mormon stuff, but the pressure, the social pressures, the emotional pressures kind of always ended up bringing him back.

John Dehlin [00:03:25] And so he ends up serving a mission in Tegucigalpa, Honduras and has a successful two year mission. We talked a lot about that. And at the end of his episode, he's coming home from an honorable two year mission where he served in leadership positions, etc.

Carah Burrell [00:03:41] What I really liked about that episode is we really were able to get to the heart of the problem of social conditioning and pressure to serve a mission condition. And so if we talk a lot, a lot about conditioning on the podcast, I think that episode is really good for explaining that well. And a lot of.

John Dehlin [00:03:56] And just the influence, I don't want to say it's undue influence, but the social and familial and emotional pressures and the conditioning that goes into the formation of a Mormon identity that happens from childhood and extends into those going to

Carah Burrell [00:04:11] a foreign country to serve a mission. It's a big deal. And there's so much conditioning and reasons and girls, you know, that go into that. So that was a very good, excellent, you know, ex explanation of like a kind of typical Mormon upbringing that will be kind of just a really good thing to lay out there for all time.

John Dehlin [00:04:29] I'm super happy with it. So thank you, McKay, for that. And then, Jordan, we had you on for part two. You grew up in the same kind of general area for many of those years with McKay, but you guys weren't like close or anything.

Jordan [00:04:41] No.

John Dehlin [00:04:42] But Jordan, your story was very different. Your parents got divorced a couple years in after your birth. Your mom remarried, but it was definitely a more, I'll say, challenging or difficult upbringing on your end. You were so vulnerable to not only talk about some of the unhealthy or challenging coping that you had to engage in coming from a more challenging home environment, but also you were very vulnerable about the sexual abuse that you experience from a very young age through like your 16th year or so. How that culminated in you actually reporting to your mom and a therapist that you were being sexually abused by a family member.

John Dehlin [00:05:30] And it was kind of a heart wrenching tale because as you got the Mormon bishop involved, you actually told that your mom and the bishop pressured you to recant your reporting of the sexual abuse to preserve the family, but also the perpetrator. And it's just really, really difficult stuff.

John Dehlin [00:05:56] So please go watch it. It's really worth watching. And even more heart wrenching. Even though Mormonism played maybe in some ways a really unhealthy role in your upbringing, you reaching that point of real desperation actually led you to double down your efforts to be a devout, faithful Mormon, such that once you graduate from high school, you go to the U, you join a sorority, but then you also, like, double down in your Mormon faithfulness. And when we kind of ended your episode for part two, you had gotten your endowments even though you didn't serve a mission, but you got your endowments before getting married, which is kind of rare, shows an extra level of devotion for a woman who's not serving a mission.

John Dehlin [00:06:42] And you were like, fully doing the Mormon thing, you know, by the time McKay gets off his mission. Anything else you want to add there?

Jordan [00:06:49] No. Yeah, that was. That was it. I was. I was invested, fully invested at that point.

John Dehlin [00:06:55] Yeah. Yeah. So. So I guess where we. Where we're gonna pick up now is McKay gets home from his mission honorably. Jordan is at the U. And where should we go from here?

Courtship, Engagement, and Temple Wedding

McKay [00:07:10] A couple things I did want to mention that I omitted for brevity in my episode while I was on my mission. I did end up basically serving because I was dating a girl who would not get married to a missionary who hadn't, or a person who hadn't gone on a mission and returned with honor.

McKay [00:07:32] During that time that I was serving, I received basically the Gen Z equivalent of a Dear John, where I started to not hear from her very often, was looking for answers because she wasn't responding to any of my emails on a weekly basis.

McKay [00:07:53] So I logged into my Twitter account and found out that she was with a different person. That's. Yeah, that hurt pretty well. So it's important to remember at this point, I don't have any romantic prospects. When I come off my mission also about six months into my missionary service, my dad, who was in the bishopric, the bishop, was moving out of state. So he was released and my dad was called as the bishop and was the bishop of the ward that Jordan was in while I was gone.

Carah Burrell [00:08:30] That was a young, single adult ward.

McKay [00:08:32] No, the family, just the family.

Jordan [00:08:35] Before I moved to the U, his dad. So my father in law used to be my bishop. So.

John Dehlin [00:08:40] So was he the one that would have signed your. Your ecclesiastical endorsement to go to. Oh, you went to the U. I

Carah Burrell [00:08:46] went to the U.

Jordan [00:08:46] So I didn't need it. But he did sign. I went on a temple. I went on at least one or two temple trips with him and he did. I did do a recommend interview with him at least once. So it's kind of a bizarre turn of events.

Carah Burrell [00:08:58] Yeah, he like knew. Knew all of your situation. Yeah, your situation.

Jordan [00:09:03] Yes. And like we talked about from the last episode, I was in Young women's and I was very vulnerable with the young women about my sexual abuse. Not my sexual abuse, but my transgressions and breaking the law of chastity and being open and honest about it. And that was the same time that my mother in law was in Young women serving as. I don't remember what she was doing, but she was in there too. So I basically bared my soul to my in laws before I knew that they were going to be my in laws.

McKay [00:09:34] So that's an interesting addition to, to some things. But yeah, I come home from my mission right at the end of my two years,

Jordan [00:09:47] literally.

McKay [00:09:48] Let's see, the day after I got

Carah Burrell [00:09:50] home,

McKay [00:09:52] I went and I got a cell phone. And I think the day after that, Jordan sent me a direct message on Twitter, coming back to Twitter again and was like, hey, I don't have your number, but I'm glad that you came home and congratulations on your missionary service. And that's great.

John Dehlin [00:10:15] So what were you thinking, Jordan?

Jordan [00:10:18] I want to be really clear about this because this caused a lot of contention. Okay. He was like the everybody wanted to date him guy coming back.

John Dehlin [00:10:26] He was the hot, the hot boy in the ward retreat, hot. RM in the Denver suburban ward, which

McKay [00:10:32] notably was something that I wasn't used to because I was not very cute growing up, I will admit. So, so.

Jordan [00:10:41] But everybody was waiting for him to come home. He had like a long list of women, Right. That were going to be on his case and I was not planning on being one of those. I was just being nice and generous and being like, hey, glad you're home. Which ruffled a lot of feathers because there was a lot of expectations in the ward that he was going to be lining up with all these other women. And then I said something insignificant and intervened and made a lot of people mad.

Carah Burrell [00:11:09] Yeah.

McKay [00:11:11] Notably, Jordan had a friend who was also in this ward that we were in, and she was very interested. That friend was very interested in me. So that kind of drove a wedge to them once things came to light. But Jordan sent me a message, I sent her my number, and we started chatting.

McKay [00:11:32] I had already registered to go to byu, Idaho, the last few months of my mission so that I could be on track for the spring semester. I got home in March, so I would be right on track for the spring semester. It would only be about six weeks before I moved back up to Rexburg, Idaho to go to school.

McKay [00:11:53] So in the meantime, I had a job lined up for me so I could work a little bit. And most of that time I didn't really do. I didn't go on a single date or anything. It was just back and forth with Jordan over text message and facetime and things like that.

McKay [00:12:12] When the time came to move up to Idaho, I was going to pass through Utah and stop off to have a date with her. But my mom's not a big fan of making pit stops. She just wanted to drive the whole thing in one.

McKay [00:12:28] In one go. And she commented to me and said, I'm not gonna make a pit stop just so you can go and make out with a girl. So that was a fair point. That was a fair point. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:12:43] Anyway, I mean, to quote. To quote setters, where you had been in cold storage for two years, Right?

McKay [00:12:48] I have, yeah. I needed a little warming.

Jordan [00:12:51] That's true.

McKay [00:12:52] To go on. But I was. I was a little patient. And that led me to be a little vindictive, like, oh, my mom doesn't want me to go make out with some girl. Well, before she leaves after the weekend of me moving into my apartment, then I'm going to find a girl and make out with her, which I did.

John Dehlin [00:13:13] Wow. Were you Nephi or Layman?

McKay [00:13:15] I'm confused now we've switched. Yeah, I guess I'm Sam. I don't know. Depending on how you look at it. So that was kind of. That was. At that point, I was still interested in meeting up with Jordan and everything like that, but because of distance, she was down here in Salt Lake City. I was up in rural Idaho.

John Dehlin [00:13:38] For those who don't know what's the driving time between Rexport And Salt Lake City. Four hours.

McKay [00:13:44] Four hours.

John Dehlin [00:13:44] Okay.

McKay [00:13:46] And we'll come to that a little bit in a minute. But I'll pass it over to Jordan so she can share her experience in me being very interested. And then moving up to a school where I mean like historically it's called byu. I do.

John Dehlin [00:14:05] So people tell our non Mormon audience what that means.

McKay [00:14:09] BYU Idaho is basically just kind of tout. And BYU Provo too, but not nearly as much as BYU Idaho because it's less prestigious academically is place where people go and they expect that they will be able to meet a good Mormon woman or Mormon man and get sealed with them in the temple. So a lot of people go there

John Dehlin [00:14:32] with the Mormon meat market. Mormon meat market, right.

McKay [00:14:36] Yeah. And there's a lot of fresh off the mission meat.

John Dehlin [00:14:39] Fresh meat at BYU Idaho and 17, 18 year old girls. Right?

McKay [00:14:44] Yeah. That always did bother me that there was a lot of younger dating going on. Jordan is a year and a half younger than me, but that was within the margin of error. Anyway, I'll turn it over to you to let you tell your. Your bit of it.

Jordan [00:15:01] Well, how long were we talking before

McKay [00:15:03] you got to like that six week. That whole six week period?

Jordan [00:15:08] Yeah, it seems it was anxiety inducing for me because I, we had a connection. Like I knew that when we started talking there was something there. Um, and so we had a few weeks. Like a few. Yeah, we had a few weeks before he went to byu and so I was really trying to like solidify what we had going. I was trying to like put the nail in the coffin, so to speak.

John Dehlin [00:15:29] Was it a text connection? Was it a Voice phone connection?

McKay [00:15:33] FaceTime? We talked non stop and stuff.

John Dehlin [00:15:37] Like it was constant and you connected on around. What types of things? Was it like, was there like Marvel comics? Was it chess? Was it video games? Like, was it gospel? What were your points of connection? Was it just steamy romance? Like what was it?

Jordan [00:15:54] I think it was. I think it was a lot of like romance connection type thing. I think there was a shared. We were both kind of labeled black sheep growing up in the ward and so I think there was kind of a. In common connection there because we were both kind of the odd ones out. And so it's kind of like, oh, the two little black sheep that everybody used to hate on are together now. And it's.

McKay [00:16:18] Yeah, we had shares of like or a shared interest in like alternative music and the Office and other sitcom type TV shows and things like that. So it was a lot of. I would be at work and she'd send me text messages or pictures of her dog and things like that. So.

John Dehlin [00:16:36] So just to be clear, are you Jim? Are you Jim McKay? Oh, I would have said, is Jordan Pam? Is Jordan Pam, and are you Jim?

McKay [00:16:45] I would have said yes at the beginning, but as my years have grown, I've kind of recognized that Jim and Pam are kind of insufferable kinds of people.

John Dehlin [00:16:54] So who do you want to switch?

McKay [00:16:55] I think I'm Ryan and Jordan's Kelly.

John Dehlin [00:16:57] You're what?

Jordan [00:16:58] Oh, God.

McKay [00:16:58] I'm Ryan and Jordan's Kelly.

Jordan [00:17:00] No, I say we more align with Dwight and Angela.

McKay [00:17:04] Yeah. Because we're both crazy and quirky.

John Dehlin [00:17:06] Yeah, I like it. I like Dwight.

McKay [00:17:09] Angela in the later seasons, not Angela in season one or two.

Jordan [00:17:13] I was going to say, have you

John Dehlin [00:17:14] watched the Office at all? Do you even know who we're talking about? No.

Jordan [00:17:17] Carah.

McKay [00:17:18] She's throwing out the boys to men

Carah Burrell [00:17:20] things I have not had time to pick up. What is it called? The Office. Is it popular?

McKay [00:17:27] Might have heard of it.

John Dehlin [00:17:28] You just lost. You lost your comedy card. We're taking your company.

Carah Burrell [00:17:32] I find what I like and I just watch it over and over again. And that is Simpsons seasons two through 11, and I don't go anywhere.

John Dehlin [00:17:38] Which ones?

Carah Burrell [00:17:38] Seasons two through 11 of the Simpsons. Of the Simpsons, I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:17:42] But you also like the hbo, and

Carah Burrell [00:17:43] I watch Kirby enthusiasts enthusiasm and Seinfeld, and I don't really go anywhere else than that.

John Dehlin [00:17:48] All right.

McKay [00:17:49] I feel that, yeah, those were the kinds of things that we connected over. And at one point or another, I was. I was seeing other people and going on dates because I hadn't gone on a single date. Oh, I thought.

Jordan [00:18:05] I didn't know that. I didn't know that.

McKay [00:18:07] Yeah, I was not very. I wasn't trying very hard at hiding it, but I also wasn't very good.

Jordan [00:18:12] It would be like Saturday night and he would stop texting me for like a few hours, and then he'd pick up on Sunday and be like, oh, sorry. I was. You know, things got busy. I was doing homework. I'm like, okay, yeah, yeah.

Carah Burrell [00:18:24] So is that her name now?

Jordan [00:18:25] Just kidding. Yeah, right.

McKay [00:18:26] That was just carryover from my teenage years years, I guess. But eventually I did. I was like, okay, I'm gonna go down and see her. Notably, there was a concert in town that same night. I was like, that works out. I go down. It's actually a local band, Chelsea Grin, but they had a bunch of other bands that's. I've been a longtime fan of them. Not so much since they changed lead singers. Anyway, so I came down, we met up, we went on a date in Chipotle.

John Dehlin [00:18:58] Ooh.

McKay [00:19:00] So that was something that we had shared. We're like, oh, I love burritos at Chipotle. Something that we bond over. Food for me. I mentioned that earlier.

Jordan [00:19:08] Yep.

McKay [00:19:10] Came down and we watched the Office until I left for the show.

John Dehlin [00:19:14] Office and chill. Netflix and chill.

McKay [00:19:16] Office and Chill. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:19:18] Mormon chill. What is Mormon Chill? No, I'm not. I'm not asking.

McKay [00:19:21] It is just making out for us. So Levi Lovin. It was watch the Office for a couple hours, and then for the last, like, 30 minutes before I had to go up and go to the show, make out for a little bit.

John Dehlin [00:19:36] So trying not to violate your covenants, your temple cup.

McKay [00:19:40] Yes. We were both wearing our garments, and we were both, you know, maybe tote. Not yet toe or toeing the line, but.

Jordan [00:19:50] But we were.

McKay [00:19:51] Yes. Very respectful or whatever. This is where things kind of.

Jordan [00:19:55] I would say, notably, this is where contention begins.

McKay [00:19:58] This is where the contention begins. Because when I came down, Jordan was like, I will sleep in my. Cause Jordan lived at her mom's house. She had moved back in, and that whole situation will come into play later. But she had moved back in to her mom's house and said, you can just stay at my house. I'll just sleep in my mom's room and you can sleep in my bed. Totally different rooms.

Jordan [00:20:21] I was like, and my mom's there, so it's not like it. You know, my mom, like, she's not gonna be like, yeah, guys, you know, get to it. Like, there's no way that was happening.

McKay [00:20:30] So, yeah. So I thought, that's all good and cool. I go to the show, and I'm on my way home from. Or back to her house from the show. And I hadn't said any. Anything of this to my mom. Cause I didn't think it was really relevant at the time. So she was like, oh, did you go down and see Jordan? I was like, yep. I went to a show with a former missionary that I had served with, and he had mentioned that he wanted me to take him to a show. So I did. I was like, oh, I'm gonna stay at his house. Ooh. Because I knew.

John Dehlin [00:21:01] So you lied to your mom.

McKay [00:21:02] Yep. I knew that she would not approve of me staying at her house. Because law of chastity, we don't sleep over at girls houses, even if they're sleeping in the same bed as their mom.

John Dehlin [00:21:14] I mean, I Have to also imagine that, you know, if, if this is where Mormonism gets weird. If Jordan had confessed her prior, you know, sins or sexual history to her bishop, which was your dad, your dad could have conveyed that to your mom.

McKay [00:21:34] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:21:35] And there might have been a concern about Jordan having a checkered past, even though the atonement supposedly makes that all good. And so them being worried about your. Your chastity, your. Your. Your purity, your worthiness.

Carah Burrell [00:21:47] Jordan's already got a taste for.

Jordan [00:21:49] That's exactly what happened.

McKay [00:21:51] The. The lusts of the flesh.

Carah Burrell [00:21:53] Y. Thank you. Keeping it classy.

Jordan [00:21:56] Yep.

Carah Burrell [00:21:56] Yeah, yeah. And she mentioned already that in Young woman's. That Jordan's or that McKay's mom did

Jordan [00:22:01] already hear her, so she knew for sure. I did not confess anything to. To his dad while he was bishop.

Carah Burrell [00:22:07] I was paying attention.

Jordan [00:22:08] So yeah, I. I like him. I'm grateful for that. But it's. It was still out there. His mom knew.

McKay [00:22:15] Yeah. So that could have. Very insightful comment there that it could have played a part. I'm not going to say whether it did or didn't because I've never asked them if that really played a part in that. I think it was more I lied to them.

John Dehlin [00:22:29] You lied?

McKay [00:22:30] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:22:30] Okay.

McKay [00:22:31] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:22:31] We'll try not to shame you too much.

McKay [00:22:33] So the thing about lying to your mom and being on her phone plan is when you have an iPhone, she can track your phone. And she noticed that I had gone to the same house that I had departed from, which I had said, your

John Dehlin [00:22:47] mom is tracking your.

McKay [00:22:48] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:22:49] Your geo. Your GPS coordinates.

McKay [00:22:51] Yes. And these are. I'm a 21, almost 22 year old,

John Dehlin [00:22:56] as we sometimes say. A grown ass man. You're a grown ass man.

McKay [00:22:59] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:23:00] And your mom's tracking your.

McKay [00:23:02] My location.

Carah Burrell [00:23:03] Yeah.

McKay [00:23:04] So that was at the time I was. I didn't realize that wasn't really a normal thing. And she even. Yeah. Anyway, I won't go too far into it, but I also rationalized it as, oh, I'm on their phone plan. I might as well do what they say. So the next morning she calls me and she says, hey, I saw that you went back to Jordan's house overnight. Did you get there early in the morning? I was like, oh, yeah, I guess you caught me. She's like, you know that we don't do that kind of thing. We don't sleep over at girls houses and things like that. I was like, yep, I know. It just was the kind of thing that we were. It was easiest to do. So I was able to Rationalize it.

John Dehlin [00:23:46] And she slept with her mom.

Carah Burrell [00:23:49] I left something in her mouth.

Jordan [00:23:51] Seriously.

McKay [00:23:52] Anyway, so that was kind of the rocky start to our. Our little relationship.

John Dehlin [00:24:01] Forged in a lie.

McKay [00:24:02] Forged in a lie. We went to church together that. That neck or the same weekend. We took pictures. And then Jordan posted those pictures on social media, and people, hell broke loose, began to learn that we were going on dates and stuff like that. So do you want to go on with the next?

Jordan [00:24:23] Yeah. I think from that point forward, we had ruffled some feathers, Right. Because there were women in our childhood ward that were planning on going out with McKay. And then I entered the scene and stole all their hopes and dreams away from them. Right. And so I hope they.

McKay [00:24:41] They had other hopes and dreams, and

Jordan [00:24:43] I was just one prospect.

McKay [00:24:44] I. I hope that they were okay.

Jordan [00:24:47] So essentially what happened is a kind of group of girls that I grew up with who kind of viewed me as the. The black sheep, the odd one out, the Jezebel. Yeah, absolutely. And they treated me as such.

Jordan [00:25:04] And so when I started dating McKay, it essentially became a mission to inform his parents of who I was and what I had done and essentially break us up. And that was their goal. And they put in some serious work.

Jordan [00:25:24] They talked with McKay's parents, shared some things. They would, you know, there were some jokes made on social media that my in laws. Well, my boyfriend's parents at the time would post on Facebook that were like subtle jabs at me.

Jordan [00:25:45] Same thing with, you know, his siblings. I was very much not well received on this end of things. And that. That went with the rest of the ward too, because the ward that I grew up in, they. They knew what I did. And so when I started entering McKay's little sphere, things started to go kind of poorly. So that started things on a really rough note.

McKay [00:26:13] Yeah. When I got home from that trip, I lived in the same apartment complex and was still friends with the ex girlfriend that essentially got me out into the mission field. And I remember when I got home, she was like, hey, come to my apartment real quick. I need to talk to you.

McKay [00:26:33] I was like, okay, whatever. She lived down the hall from some of the girls that were in my family home evening group. So I was like, I'll just go over there after whatever. And she essentially pulled me aside and was like, did you know about all these things about Jordan? Has she told you about these things?

McKay [00:26:52] And she had mentioned, like, some sexual sins with another guy that was in the ward that we were in and was like, I don't think she's who you think she is and everything like that. And immediately I text Jordan and was like, this is what she's saying. And this doesn't sound anything like you had told me.

McKay [00:27:18] And Jordan was like, no, that's absolutely not true. So I was like, well, this person didn't even have the guts to tell me on my mission, before anything started with another person, that they were dating another person. I don't really trust their judgment in saying things like this. It sounds like gossip to me, so.

Jordan [00:27:41] Well, here's a really important part of Mormon culture. If you've broken the law of chastity. So about a month into McKay dating, probably around the same time, he's probably only a little bit longer, as someone who had broken the law of chastity, has had sex before. Within the first probably month or two months of McKay and I dating, I sat him down and we had a serious conversation. And I said, this is what I've done. I've had sex. I've broken the law of chastity. This is the people. Like, this is the amount of partners I've had. I laid everything out on the table. I talked about the sexual abuse because there's this kind of perception in Mormon culture that, you know, the construct of virginity is very serious.

Jordan [00:28:20] That's your virtue. And so if that. If you don't have that anymore, then it kind of puts you on the. The lower list as far as potential spouses.

Carah Burrell [00:28:31] Gum needs to know your damaged goods or something.

Jordan [00:28:33] Exactly.

John Dehlin [00:28:34] Your chewed gum, your manhandled Snickers bar. You're the board with the nail that's, you know, got the hole in it from the nail that had been driven in, right?

Jordan [00:28:45] Yep, that's exactly it. And so that was the mentality that I grew up with. Those are the lessons that I got in young women's. And so knowing that and knowing his family, his family is, I don't want to say prestigious, but they are like the model Mormon family. All their kids went on missions. Dad was bishop. Mom's been in a bunch of callings like they're. They're the model Mormons. So when I entered the scene, I knew things weren't. Weren't going to go smoothly. But we had had that conversation, and I had shared everything with McKay and said, this is exactly what I've done. This is, you know, I've laid it all out.

Jordan [00:29:16] And so they started accusing me of sleeping with random men in the ward, boys that I had never. That I had never engaged in, never had in a relationship with. And so that's kind of what started to fuel the fire was they started to make all these things up.

John Dehlin [00:29:30] And technically, in Mormonism, I mean, there's that scripture in the Old Testament, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. So it's basically referencing the atonement that. Okay, I don't like the part that, like, sin makes you dirty or tainted or bloody, but at least there's this idea with the atonement that you should be forgiven, and then it's all wiped clean. But maybe, you know, we're human and maybe some of the. I mean, these girls were competitive, right? They wanted. They wanted the stud. They wanted the RM Colorado stud, and they were just. They were pulling out all the stops to compete with you, basically.

Jordan [00:30:06] They were.

McKay [00:30:07] Basically.

Carah Burrell [00:30:07] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:30:08] And, I mean, life's hard to be, like a hot commodity. I mean, it must have been rough.

Carah Burrell [00:30:12] Yeah.

McKay [00:30:14] And, oh, man, I wasn't malnourished by any means, means, but I was definitely the skinniest. I ate a lot when I was on. On my mission, but I was even in. Despite that, I was still the skinniest I'd ever been in my life. But, yeah, it's funny that the messaging that they. They glean from the Bible of though your skin sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow, in contrast with the. Yeah, sexual or sin of sexual nature is next to murder. Like, you can see where people will be like, oh, yeah, your sins are okay, but it's not like you didn't do it. And we all still remember the terrible thing he did.

Jordan [00:30:54] So he was okay with it. Like, we had that conversation, we talked about it, and he was like, none of those things matter to me. Like, I don't.

John Dehlin [00:31:02] He was, you know, so let me ask about that. So. So there's two things, McKay. I. I could imagine you potentially saying, hey, I. I saved myself. This is. These are. This is Mormon vernacular, probably Christian vernacular. I saved myself. You cheated. Like, you didn't save yourself. I'm going to hold out for someone that is worthy. What. What kept you from holding that against Jordan? I'm curious.

McKay [00:31:32] Probably a year prior to that, that's the exact view that I had held. Um, a lot of other missionaries that I was around, they were like, oh, like I. I say my. That exact same thing. Like, I say myself, you know, I expect other people to do that for me, but there was a lot of growing up that I did in that last year where I realized that it's just a ridiculous worldview to hold that if a Woman didn't not have sex before she got married that she is less than in any way physically or emotionally or anything like that. Because it's absolutely not the truth from the Mormon standpoint.

McKay [00:32:10] I was like, if I have this sort of mindset, like, doesn't that really contradict the belief that I have in the atonement? Like, I more believed in the, the Isaiah scripture than I believed in the Book of Mormon scripture in that aspect. So I was like, it's really childish for me to hold that view and to expect that Jordan should be as sexually pure to the extent that I was. So.

McKay [00:32:44] But there are people out there that that's not the case. I'm sure you've heard a bunch of terrible stories of people saying, coming clean like that, so to speak, and then they have a love interest or whatever that walks away solely on that for that reason or whatever.

John Dehlin [00:33:07] I actually have a close friend who she was sexually active before she was married. She married a guy who quote, saved himself when he found out after they got married that she had been sexually active. He did he revenge cheated on her as a way to get back at her.

Jordan [00:33:28] Oh my God.

John Dehlin [00:33:29] For not, not saving herself. Whoa. And not telling him. And in her mind she didn't need to tell him because she had been forgiven. And so, yeah, we're weirdness. Yeah, sometimes there's some weirdness this goes on.

McKay [00:33:44] I feel like we talk about this a lot on our channel with it's stories like that you hear that it's emotional abuse to, to do something like that. And it was perpetuated by this idea that you should be pure before you get married. If, if she had never said anything like that, he would have gone his entire life and not known at all.

John Dehlin [00:34:06] Right.

McKay [00:34:06] He wouldn't have known the difference at all.

John Dehlin [00:34:08] Let me ask you, Jordan, was it hard for you to like swallow your pride or whatever or to like do that shame parade of like not only confessing to everyone, which in truth is none of their business, but then to like present yourself in a vulnerable way to this returned missionary, have to confess to him your, your sexual history and then feel vulnerable inside, like he may, he may reject me, you know, and by the way, it's not necessarily very rational because like having an experienced sexual partner, there's probably some benefits to that in a marriage. I, I don't want to get explicit, but there's probably some benefits to that. But that's not always the emotional reaction of anyway. What was it like for you to have to kind of do that shame Parade.

Jordan [00:34:59] It sucks. Because I knew there were some things on the line. Like I knew McKay was a returned missionary, and so I knew there was a possibility that this was going to be a big deal to him. But I also, the kind of lingering thing in the background was that family, like I'm entering into a very strongly upheld, strongly viewed Mormon family. And so I knew that if that's the direction that we were going to go, if things were going to be serious, I needed to be able to say I was 100% upfront with McKay.

John Dehlin [00:35:28] Yeah.

Jordan [00:35:28] So that there was no kind of backlash that would come on me later on for not telling him.

McKay [00:35:34] Yeah.

Jordan [00:35:34] But that's why I did it so early on, especially in this case, too, was I didn't want to get in, like a long term relationship and then suddenly have him decide, you know, major, you know, tell him a year in before we, you know, before we get married or before we get engaged and then have you break everything off because you weren't okay with it.

McKay [00:35:52] Yeah.

Jordan [00:35:52] And so that's why I wanted to do it kind of so early on in the process, just to protect myself, just in case that was a deal breaker.

Carah Burrell [00:36:00] Yeah.

McKay [00:36:02] Yep. Purity culture harms more people than it does good. And I will stand by that.

John Dehlin [00:36:08] In your view.

Jordan [00:36:09] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:36:10] So thanks for sharing all that.

McKay [00:36:13] Yeah, that, that was a big hurdle. It was also kind of, it started to drive a wedge between my family and I, especially because of the, the dishonesty on my part and everything like that, where I didn't feel like I could share details of the relationship with Jordan and I because of disapproval for my family for, for any myriad of reasons, especially when it came to Jordan's sexual encounters before we had met.

McKay [00:36:48] So we, I, I would continue to date her. I would find any way that I could get from Rexburg to Utah. I shared a car with my brother. I have two older siblings. One of them was married and he probably would have let me use this car, but I think they only had one at the time.

McKay [00:37:11] And then my other, his twin was single and him and I shared a car. So on occasion, if he didn't have work on the weekend, I would take the car, come down. It wasn't always the best car, so sometimes I would like take a bus or ride, share or something.

Jordan [00:37:29] We're making it work.

Carah Burrell [00:37:30] We were making it work.

John Dehlin [00:37:31] So how long did you guys date for?

McKay [00:37:34] Let's see. I carried out that entire semester, so from around April to, I think July, that I think the semester ended right before my birthday, which was Also a big kind of inflection point with the relationship with my parents because it was the first birthday that I was going to have being home for my mission, and they really wanted me to go home to Colorado and visit them because up until this point, I hadn't returned to Colorado after moving to Idaho. And Jordan lovingly planned a bunch of stuff for us to do for my birthday. And that sounded appealing to be with someone that I had a great relationship with. And I think at that point had told you that I had loved you. Ah, I'm sure we were like, yeah. Oh, by that point we were, like, married. By that we were like, pretty. Pretty deep into it.

Carah Burrell [00:38:32] Right.

John Dehlin [00:38:32] So you dated how long before you got engaged?

McKay [00:38:35] We hadn't even gotten engaged at this point. I think that was July. I told you that just for the sake of time.

John Dehlin [00:38:42] Like, I'm just curious how long your courtship.

McKay [00:38:44] Oh, dated for five months.

John Dehlin [00:38:49] Okay.

McKay [00:38:49] Until we got engaged.

John Dehlin [00:38:50] Okay, sorry. So you dated five months, got engaged, and then how long was your engagement? I'd say five months. Is. There are worse. You know, I mean, yeah, maybe average. And that may shock some of our non Mormon listeners. Like, there are Mormon missionaries that get engaged the week they're. The week off their mission. Like they're 21 years old or 20. Yeah, they get off their mission and they're engaged within a week.

Carah Burrell [00:39:14] But that's people that they already know. I mean, people. I don't want to. I don't want to come across, like, everyone. The first girl and then they get engaged. I mean, you're talking about people who probably already knew that girl, whatever, before they got. But I'm saying, like, yeah, I was engaged within three weeks with Aaron.

John Dehlin [00:39:27] So of him returning home.

Carah Burrell [00:39:29] No, I mean from dating. From like, hi, I'd like to, like, seriously be in a relationship with you to. We know we're going to get married and we're going to and like, get engaged. It was three weeks.

John Dehlin [00:39:37] Yeah, I think Margi and. I think Margi and I dated five months and we were engaged and we're married within 10 months of meeting each other. I don't know if that's fast or slow. There you go.

Jordan [00:39:49] It's like the typical Mormon timeline. I feel like.

McKay [00:39:52] Yeah, it was really quick. Notably, I didn't involve my parents in the. The engagement situation, which was something that my older siblings had both done and my dad had done with his parents.

Jordan [00:40:07] So broke tradition there.

McKay [00:40:09] Broke tradition.

John Dehlin [00:40:10] Okay, so you, You. It took you five months. About five months to get engaged and then you're you already said this, but your engagement lasted how long?

McKay [00:40:18] Three months. Okay, from. Yeah, from so long. I know, right? It initially was going to be longer and then we ended up moving the date up.

John Dehlin [00:40:29] Yeah.

McKay [00:40:29] I can't even remember why. Why was that? Do you.

John Dehlin [00:40:32] Because it's going to be obvious to everybody. But like, if, if you have saved yourself, and I'm using air quotes, you're a 21, 22 year old male, sometimes 20 year old male, and you've never had sex and you're not allowed to have sex. And so this pushes, I think, a lot of young Mormon couples to get engaged super quickly and then to get married super quickly so that they can have sex. And. And maybe there's some good things about that. There's also some clearly bad things about that for some couples because it pushes a lot of couples to get married maybe when they're too young and maybe before they really get to know each other. And what I've dealt with as a coach and a therapist over the years is all these marriages where once the faith crisis unravels, the couple says, I probably wouldn't have ever married you if

McKay [00:41:21] it weren't for the church.

John Dehlin [00:41:21] If it weren't for the church and our rush to get married so that we can have sex. And so anyway, that's just a little bit of like insider info about Mormon courtships. Tell us just really quickly in terms of your faith journey, is there anything we should know about your courtship prior to marriage that plays into your faith journey story? That's important.

Jordan [00:41:40] We were devoted.

McKay [00:41:42] Yeah, we were devoted. We wanted to get married in the Salt Lake Temple. So it was not even a question about do we get, do we elope? Because at that time, if you got married civilly, there was still the one year waiting period before you could get sealed because, I mean, wedding planning is a joke. But that was not even a question. It was, you have to get married in the temple, in the Salt Lake Temple. So we planned everything around that. As soon as there was. They opened the schedule for 2018, Jordan was literally, I think she went into work late so she could be on the phone as soon as they open and call and get a date in order for us to.

John Dehlin [00:42:27] At the Salt Lake Temple.

Jordan [00:42:28] Yep, yep.

John Dehlin [00:42:28] Really quickly. And this isn't me prying. It's just whatever you want to share. Was it hard for you, Jordan, to have been sexually active and then to like, be really serious with someone where you're not allowed to go there and you're not supposed to go there or it could jeopardize the. The plans. And even you, McKay, I think you had probably maybe goofed around more than some Mormon boys. I don't know in that regard. So is there anything you guys want to share about how difficult it was to stay quote worthy or, you know, obey the quote, law of chastity during your courtship? And this is true for probably all Mormon couples, whether or not they're. Either one of them was sexually active.

Jordan [00:43:08] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:43:09] Prior to, you know, their courtship. Is there anything you want to say about that? I'm not asking.

Jordan [00:43:12] I feel like we were pretty hyper vigilant about it.

John Dehlin [00:43:14] Yeah.

Jordan [00:43:15] Me especially, because I did not want to fall back into same repeated habits. And I felt like a lot was on the line with the temple. You know, if you do screw up

John Dehlin [00:43:25] and there's a shame parade of having to. You do the, you do the announcements, you send them out. Everybody knows. And, and then if you sin, you have to like, change the date. This is for non Mormons who don't know. You send out the temple, you know, the, the announcements for the wedding, everyone's excited. And then if you sin and you have sex or even become too sexually involved and you confess it to your bishop, then they'll tell you you have to postpone or change the date of your wedding so that you could repent. And that's another shame parade thing in Mormon culture, because then everybody knows why.

McKay [00:44:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:44:00] And it's embarrassing. Right. They get that. Right.

McKay [00:44:03] A huge shame aspect. And that was definitely something we wanted to avoid in a lot of aspects. I think we toed the line, like with cuddling or whatever. A lot of Mormon couples, they don't do that. Making out with kissing, with tongue or what. I've seen stuff on Reddit recently where they have to explain explicitly what things are or else people rationalize them. But really beyond that, it was both in our minds. This is where the line is and we're both going to hold each other accountable so that we can go to the temple and get married. But there was definitely the, the drive from both of us where we're like, man, I hope we. I wish we could just get married soon. Let's go.

Jordan [00:44:48] There's a sense of urgency.

McKay [00:44:49] There's a huge sense of urgency. And luckily it did come from both sides of the relationship.

Jordan [00:44:56] But we were making it to the dang temple.

McKay [00:44:59] Yeah.

Jordan [00:44:59] I was not about to screw it up.

John Dehlin [00:45:01] Make it worthy.

McKay [00:45:02] Yeah. Originally we had set the date for March, and then we moved it of

John Dehlin [00:45:08] 2018, and then we moved too long.

McKay [00:45:11] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:45:11] Too long to wait. So you moved it up to January. Yeah, January.

McKay [00:45:15] Too much stuff going on, and we're like, whatever. We'll do it in. Oh, I think it was because we wanted to have our reception in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building next door to the temple.

Jordan [00:45:26] Which we did.

McKay [00:45:27] Which we did. Which was great.

Carah Burrell [00:45:29] That's some street Mormon cred right there.

McKay [00:45:31] That is some street Mormon cred. Do we want to talk about our interview with the stake president before? Did you put that in the outline?

Jordan [00:45:40] No, I didn't. So, because he was staying with us for the majority of the time, we got both interviewed by the same stake president to get married and by the same bishop. And so when we went to do our interview with the stake president in order to get our temple recommend to get married, he was a little bit of a bizarre man.

McKay [00:46:04] A little odd.

Jordan [00:46:05] He was a little odd. And after he interviewed us both separately, he brought us back into his office and sat us down and was like, you know, there's some things. Some things that I want to share with you. The most prevalent being. He was like, make sure that you don't use. What did he say? Tools.

McKay [00:46:21] Machinery.

Jordan [00:46:21] Machinery.

McKay [00:46:22] Use both of those words in the bedroom.

Jordan [00:46:24] Yeah, make sure you don't use machinery.

Carah Burrell [00:46:27] It's fine. My backhoe will stay out there. I'll have a bedroom hoe instead.

John Dehlin [00:46:32] No rakes, no shovels, machinery. What was he thinking?

Jordan [00:46:37] It was so awkward. Him and I were just looking at each other like, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:46:41] Does he mean vibrators?

Jordan [00:46:42] I think so.

McKay [00:46:43] Toys? Yeah. And he said, in my experience, they end up causing more problems than they're worth. I was like, okay, that is a really small data set there, friend. Your experience with one woman, it's like.

Jordan [00:46:59] He was very emphatic about it. He was like, do not. That's not sanctioned. That's not of God's law. Like, that's.

McKay [00:47:06] Yeah, like God gave you everything you need to be able to love each other.

Jordan [00:47:10] He don't need anything else.

McKay [00:47:11] I wish there was some way that we could show people that we're not lying when we say this. We've shared this multiple times, and people are like, there's no way. But it happened.

Jordan [00:47:20] It was so awkward. We walked out of that interview like, what. What do we even.

McKay [00:47:26] What do we do?

John Dehlin [00:47:26] I'm waiting for a joke from Carah. I'm just waiting.

Carah Burrell [00:47:29] Oh, my only joke that comes to my head is, Mrs. Stake President. Can I go give her a hug and be like, half life, sweetheart, how you doing? Hanging in there.

McKay [00:47:40] So that was an interesting Part right before we got married and we're like, okay, that's not really how I feel, but okay, whatever.

Carah Burrell [00:47:48] Did you want to take his advice or just, you know, chalk it up to him being a crazy person? The.

McKay [00:47:53] The latter of those two.

Carah Burrell [00:47:54] Perfect.

McKay [00:47:55] Yeah. So no more questions from. We had no interest in taking that advice.

John Dehlin [00:47:59] But for those who don't know, for the non Mormons and even for some Mormons, there was a time when the Mormon Church outlawed oral sex. In the early 80s, Spencer B. Kimball issued a memo telling. Instructing all Mormon couples that sex. That. That oral sex was forbidden in a Mormon marriage. And this is a really interesting side note. There was so much negative response and reaction to that edict that the church withdrew the memo within a year of it being issued. And this is all factual and you can look it up.

McKay [00:48:35] So was it withdrawn? I thought it was just dropped. I didn't think they ever officially withdrew it, did they? I think they just stopped enforcing it. Well, I could be wrong, though.

John Dehlin [00:48:44] No, no, no. I don't know the exact details. All I know is it was discontinued.

McKay [00:48:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:48:49] You know that. That early.

McKay [00:48:50] I think it was like nine months was all it took.

John Dehlin [00:48:53] Yeah. Yeah. But still, for a long time it's been folk wisdom within Mormonism and probably taught by many bishops and stake presidents that oral sex in a Mormon marriage is. Is verboten.

Jordan [00:49:06] Yep.

McKay [00:49:06] Yeah. And I think a lot of those things, a lot of aspects that maybe it was said once, it has ripple effects, like people just repeat it and it makes its way all the way through the church. Yeah.

Carah Burrell [00:49:19] There's a. I have heard of quite a few, especially byu, Idaho professors who have said that sex is only for procreation. And I feel like a lot of the Mormons that I know and like I've been in these, like Mormon sexual groups and stuff, are actually quite progressive. Most Mormons are. Like, your bishop can't tell you not to use toys. If it's just two people in a bedroom alone, no one else can say anything. And then other people will pipe up. Be like, my BYU professor has said this. And so for some reason, I don't know why, there are these like different Mormon people throughout history who like, hate fun. I don't know what's wrong with them. It's like, I thought we were here to create the babies. Come on, guys. Just like, let us, let us experiment.

McKay [00:49:57] But anyway, yeah, just kind of weird. I. I've heard a lot of similar things. Anyway, anyway, so.

John Dehlin [00:50:05] So no machinery. No machinery. In the bed.

McKay [00:50:08] In the bed.

Jordan [00:50:08] Leave your Excavator in the garage. Don't bring a snowblower in.

McKay [00:50:13] So do you want to go over our wedding and stuff like that?

Jordan [00:50:18] Yeah, I feel like our wedding was mostly uneventful.

Carah Burrell [00:50:21] We, we got a good thing to say.

Jordan [00:50:23] It would like in a nice way, like it. There was no, like, big problematic.

Carah Burrell [00:50:28] But you were in love.

Jordan [00:50:29] We were, we were head over heels in love.

Carah Burrell [00:50:31] And had your amazing reception in the Joseph Smith building.

Jordan [00:50:35] Oh, yes.

Carah Burrell [00:50:36] And all your family attended?

Jordan [00:50:38] Yes, it was a. My dad attended and my dad's never been Mormon and so there was definitely some contention there when I told him that I was getting married in the temple because he could not participate.

John Dehlin [00:50:50] Yeah. For non Mormons who don't know when you get married in a Mormon temple, non Mormon family and friends are not allowed to attend the wedding. So they show up and have to sit outside the temple. This is still true in 2022. And kids, you know, non adults who haven't been through the temple. So your own, if you have younger siblings or cousins or whatever, they're not allowed to attend the wedding. Only endowed worthy Mormon adults are allowed to attend. And then if this is just the most mind bending thing of all, if you're not fully worthy by the church's standards, which includes paying 10% of your income annually to the church, even if you're the parent of the bride or the groom or a sibling of the bride and the groom, you will be excluded from the wedding.

John Dehlin [00:51:43] And so the, to this day in 2022, that's one of the most cultish things about Mormonism is family and close friends are often, almost always excluded from the marriage of their child or sibling or parent or family member. And that was, and in your case, I'm thinking about your dad. He loved you. He can't go to his own daughter's wedding.

Jordan [00:52:08] Yeah, I mean, he, you know, as most parents do, was under the assumption that I would one day get married and he would walk me down the aisle. That was kind of his expectation, which rightfully so. And so there was a lot of frustration on his end when that was not going to happen and when he, you know, had to awkwardly sit outside in the lobby with the rest of the people who weren't able to participate, which was quite a few family and friends that we had that couldn't go in.

McKay [00:52:34] And most of the wedding party, I think we had five groomsmen and four bridesmaids and only my older siblings out of the nine, two people were actually there for the wedding.

Jordan [00:52:49] Yeah. So there was, it Was it was mainly just family. And so the. That was kind of it. The reception was great. Every. That's why we had a bigger reception because I wanted to make sure that I kind of made up for the fact that my dad couldn't participate. Which is why we got the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.

Carah Burrell [00:53:07] Did you do a ring ceremony?

Jordan [00:53:08] We didn't.

Carah Burrell [00:53:09] Oh.

John Dehlin [00:53:10] So yeah. And this is culturally just something I want to get on the record. So oftentimes a Mormon couple that feels bad about all the family members or friends that are being excluded from the wedding in the temple, they'll try and do this workaround where they do a ring exchange ceremony as a part of the reception so that at least, you know, people may not get the full meal of the wedding but at least the non quote worthy or the non Mormon friends or family can get the scraps of like seeing some sort of wedding related secondary ceremony or exchange. And then you'll get hardcore Mormon bishops and stake presidents that are like, nope, nothing.

John Dehlin [00:53:54] You are not allowed to have anything that resembles a wedding ever in the reception because then you're just disincentivizing people to get temple worthy or to join the church or to go to the temple. And so you'll get these hardcore bishops and stake presidents that won't allow even a ring ceremony at the reception.

McKay [00:54:09] That's wild.

John Dehlin [00:54:10] So. But you guys chose not to do why? Just for her, Just for Jordan's dad alone. Why didn't you?

McKay [00:54:16] It was, I feel like that was kind of cold of us, but it was, we put emphasis on that we wanted to be sealed in the temple. Do you have anything to add to that?

Jordan [00:54:27] I feel like wedding planning was so stressful. It was the worst. And so by the time that we got to the end of it, I, I would have done whatever. I mean I. We were so ready to be done that anything and everything that anybody asked me about, I was like, I don't care, like do whatever. I'm done.

Jordan [00:54:47] So I don't think we really put a lot of thought into things at the end. And everybody. We have a lot of opinionated Mormon family members who had really set ideas of how things were going to go and what things were going to look like. And eventually we just kind of gave in to those things. There were some things we didn't cave on, but we just kind of, we. I didn't really think anything of it. It. I was still coming from the perspective of my dad wasn't a Mormon and you know, I might be able to change his mind at some Point. But it wasn't going to happen anytime soon.

McKay [00:55:18] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [00:55:18] So.

Jordan [00:55:18] So I didn't really care, which is kind of. I look back on that now, and it's unfortunate, but that was kind of. I don't think there was anything else really crazy about our wedding.

McKay [00:55:27] No, it was a good time. Other than that. Yeah. Rain in January.

John Dehlin [00:55:31] But there is this cultural idea that it cheapens the temple ceremony to have a ring ceremony at the reception, and there's pressure against that. Right?

McKay [00:55:41] Yeah. That's also why we wanted to have the. The reception right there next to the temple, because it's like, this is the central part of our marriage of, like, the central tenet of our lives and everything like that. So it was just kind of to add the emphasis on there. And so.

John Dehlin [00:56:00] So, Jordan, you had already been through the temple for your own endowment, so attending the. So doing your endowment in preparation for your marriage wouldn't have been maybe a faith, a shock to your faith. Was there anything about your Mormon experience from your wedding prior that you want to mention as sort of the beginning cracks of your. Of your faith starting to unravel? Or was it just stuff that happened after the endowment?

Jordan [00:56:29] I. It's a difficult thing for me to talk about now because when I went and got endowed, I wasn't getting married. I wasn't going on a mission. I just thought it was, you know, I. I felt like, because I was unworthy, I had this, like, really intense, almost justification or proof that I needed to have that I was really a member, and I was, like, really in it for the right reasons, and I was devoted. So I'm like, the best thing that I could do is. Is go through the temple. Right. That's like the most committed thing that you can do. And so I. My mother would not tell me anything about it. My grandmother.

McKay [00:57:08] Because of the Satan warning.

Jordan [00:57:09] Because of the Satan warning. You're right. God will not be mocked. Right. And so they. My family was very. Kept everything under wraps, and I have anxiety, and so I was. I was panicked about what was going to happen because I didn't know. And I'm a need to be in control person. And so I looked it up online and I had, you know, one of Mike's videos comes up and I open it and I thought it was fake.

John Dehlin [00:57:36] So these are the, The. The Mormon temple ceremony videos that have been put on YouTube. The full ceremony.

Jordan [00:57:42] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:57:43] Right.

Jordan [00:57:43] And so I watched probably, I don't know, like, two minutes with all the, you know, with all the clothing on, and I was like, this Is staged. I was like, some.

John Dehlin [00:57:52] They're lying.

McKay [00:57:52] This is anti Mormon lies.

Jordan [00:57:54] There is some stupid person who got all these people together.

John Dehlin [00:57:57] You wear a green apron in the Mormon Temple. There's no way. Those weird hats, scarves. There's no way.

Jordan [00:58:03] There's no way. And so I. I didn't believe it. I was like. And then I felt guilty, right, Because I had looked it up, and I was like, oh, my God, now I'm not worthy to go through the temple because I looked this up on the Internet.

Jordan [00:58:14] And so I was like, all right. I prayed about it because I was like, well, now I have to repent because I screwed it up. And so I was like, all right, I'm just gonna go into it and we'll just see what happens. And when it started, I was like, oh, my God. My God. This is not staged. This is exactly what I saw the night or two before, and this is exactly what's happening.

Jordan [00:58:36] And so I thought the whole thing was bizarre. And I felt off about it. And I was kind of, like, rolling with it until the oh, God, hear the words of my mouth chanting bit started. And then that was kind of it for me. I knew something was.

John Dehlin [00:58:51] What do you mean, it?

Jordan [00:58:53] I knew something was off like, that. I feel that when you think about the shelf metaphor for adding the things to your shelf and what eventually breaks yourself when you're talking about Mormonism, I think that was the initial, first shelf item.

John Dehlin [00:59:04] You didn't like the. The chanting?

Jordan [00:59:06] No, it. It felt very culty to me. I didn't understand, like, there's no explanation, really, of symbolism. There's no. The temple prep classes that supposedly prepare you for this experience don't actually prepare you. And if you ask questions and you try to further your knowledge about the experience, 90% of the time, the messages that I got were, you just need to keep going. Like, just keep going more and you'll understand it. And so I did, and I kept doing that, and nothing changed. But that first experience, I was like, this is. Plus I have anxiety. So, like, all the clothes switching and try, you know, it's just a lot.

Jordan [00:59:42] And then trying to remember everything at the end, the phrases, you know, it was just. For a person with anxiety, it's not exactly the most awesome experience. But I knew, like, I look back on that day, and I thought I felt guilty. And I think.

Jordan [00:59:58] I think my kind of off feeling, I thought, was because I had watched it, you know, the night before, and I was like, that's where it's coming from. Because I sinned and I looked this thing up, even though I know I wasn't supposed to, and that's what ruined this experience for me.

Jordan [01:00:13] But I look back on that now, and that definitely wasn't why. But I didn't like it. So when we went through the temple to get married, the only thing that we had to do was the. The little name exchange thing.

John Dehlin [01:00:26] And for. For those who don't know, you're assigned a new name when you go through the temple and get your own endowments. So you could be given the name Isaiah or.

McKay [01:00:39] Whoa, you guessed it.

John Dehlin [01:00:42] Yeah, so. So you could be Ruth or, you know, Sarah or whatever, you're given a new name. But one of these weird kind of sexist things is the husband is allowed to know the wife's name because he brings her through the veil. So the woman can't enter the celestial kingdom or the. The celestial room of the Mormon Temple without the man bringing her into it. But the man, the husband has to know the wife's name so that he can pull her through.

John Dehlin [01:01:15] But in Mormon rulemaking, the husband's not allowed to tell the wife his name ever. So a Mormon couple can be married 50, 60 years, and if they're. If they're obeying the rules, he always knows what her new name is, but she never knows what his new name is. And that's one of those weird kind of sexist oddities, along with the fact that when you guys went through McKay, you would have covenanted. Covenanted with God to obey God, but in the Mormon Temple ceremony, Jordan, you would have covenanted to hearken unto McKay as he obeys God. And so the woman. Hark. The woman covenants with the husband, while the husband and covenants strike it with God.

John Dehlin [01:01:59] Now, because so many feminists and activists on the Internet have screamed bloody murder in the past 10 or 15 years, just recently, the church changed that part of the ceremony without explaining how. It was revelation before, and it was only changed because of people complaining, but somehow it's still revelation after. Well, I think the church kind of avoided mighty coincidence there.

McKay [01:02:24] Yeah, we actually talked about that in. At length in our. Our latest.

Jordan [01:02:29] That language bothered me.

John Dehlin [01:02:30] I was going to ask you whether either the name thing or that language bugged you.

McKay [01:02:36] The name bothered me even.

John Dehlin [01:02:37] What?

Jordan [01:02:38] It bothered you?

McKay [01:02:38] It bothered me even. It was not something that I really wanted to because I saw Jordan as my equal. I didn't see Jordan as my subordinate, which, when you set your marriage up like that, it just does not. I can't imagine where that Sets you up for success where you believe that you're better than your spouses.

Carah Burrell [01:02:59] Yeah, and I, I love that you said that because I want to always make sure that we highlight that just because we're in a system that's very patriarchal and sexist doesn't mean that Mormons in that system are just as sexist as the other ones that can be that are formed in that. And I think my husband is a good dude. I think you were a good Mormon in the church and you recognize the sexism and were uncomfortable with it. Just like, you know, other men might have, like, discarded this new girlfriend because she broke the law of chastity. I think there are a lot of good Mormon men, especially, especially like, that are, have the, like, healthier social conditioning about what.

Carah Burrell [01:03:30] Yeah, just what is more acceptable now versus what was acceptable for our parents, you know, 20, 50 years ago. So, like, I really think that so many Mormon people are recognizing that these things are wrong and uncomfortable. And just like John said, like, when people make enough noise about it, things will get changed. Because Mormons, like, there's a seed planted of equality and justice and revelation that we get from the church that we say this is wrong. Is there any way we can change it? And when we just like, butt up against this orthodoxy, this head that says that we're not going to change it, either you walk away from the church or you just complain enough until something, you know, nuances and like, things, things reform.

Carah Burrell [01:04:06] And so anyway, I just wanted to point out that, yeah, there are really good people in the church that recognize that there's things that are wrong about that.

John Dehlin [01:04:14] And I'm conflicted because on the one hand, I'm happy when the church changes to their credit. Yay. They, they make changes sometimes. On the other hand, they don't own up to, to their mistakes. They don't apologize. And when they make a change, they just kind of quietly make the change, but don't really ever acknowledge that it was bad or wrong before. And so I, I feel bad for them in some ways. They can't win. They're never, when they're never going to please us.

Carah Burrell [01:04:39] I mean, I don't feel bad for

McKay [01:04:40] them, but nor do I.

John Dehlin [01:04:42] They're never going to please us. Okay, so, so the, the sexism in the Mormon temple bothered both of you?

Jordan [01:04:49] Yeah, I considered myself a feminist. By the time I got to college, I considered myself a feminist. So that always, I mean, you went

John Dehlin [01:04:56] to the U. I did.

Jordan [01:04:58] I went to the anti Mormon University. Right. So I was corrupted by the liberal agenda. I know, but it, and it did, it opened my eyes to things that I hadn't considered before. And because of that I felt like there was a lot of things within the church that were not right. And the 2015 thing happened when I was a freshman in college and that

John Dehlin [01:05:18] was a big explain that.

Jordan [01:05:21] So the 2015 policy that the church put out basically stated that any which this kind of confused me in the beginning. So if you have a family, if you have two lesbian gay members of the LGBTQ+ community that have a child, that child couldn't be baptized until they turned 18. And even when they turned 18, they had to disavow their parents lifestyle and essentially say that I disagree with you, you and what you're doing in order to be baptized into the Mormon Church. And that really, it struck a chord with a lot of people.

John Dehlin [01:05:54] This is known as the exclusion 2015 exclusion policy. It all. Another part of it was same sex marriage was declared an act of official apostasy. So even though same sex marriage had been legalized that year by the U.S. supreme Court, the Mormon Church responded to the legalization of same sex marriage by declaring a legal constitutional act of same sex marriage as an. Not only an act of apostasy, but a required grounds for immediate excommunication. And so those two parts of the policy caused so much outrage in the church that within three or four years, the church had to actually rescind the policy, while claiming that it was a revelation to have received the original policy and was somehow miraculously still a revelation to rescind it. God wanted to implement a four year policy that caused so much distress in the church, but it was all part of the great plan. I'm being sarcastic, am I?

McKay [01:06:54] A little.

John Dehlin [01:06:54] Being a little bit.

McKay [01:06:55] That is, that is really toned down compared to how I would have described it, honestly.

John Dehlin [01:06:59] So, so when that policy came down in 2015, what were you saying?

Jordan [01:07:03] I. I was in a sorority, I was at a liberal university. I had a lot of gay friends. I had a lot of friends in the LGBTQ+ community. And so when this came out and people asked me about it, it, I, I had no ability to justify it. Like I could not. No matter how I strung it, there was no way to, for me to explain it because, you know, a lot of. I was the token Mormon in my sorority. So my sisters would come to me and be like, explain to me the three levels of heaven.

Jordan [01:07:33] You know, and there would be things that I could explain and things that I'm like, yeah, I can teach this to you. But then they'd come up to me about that policy, and I'd be like, I honestly don't know. Like, I don't agree with it. Which is one of the first times that I really found myself, like, openly disagreeing with church policy.

Jordan [01:07:50] And so I couldn't explain it. I couldn't tell people why it existed. And I couldn't be like, you know, it's for the betterment of the Lord's children. I couldn't because I didn't feel like that. I felt like it was exclusionary and there was no. There was no reason.

McKay [01:08:03] Yeah. How do you explain a very obviously exclusionary policy? And in a way that doesn't, that allows you to say, yes, we're inclusive, but no, we exclude those people. They're apostates. They should be excommunicated and removed from our church.

Carah Burrell [01:08:20] It sounds reasoning that there was also, like, polygamous families. If you're a polygamist, your kids couldn't be baptized as well. And they were trying to make it sound like it was just anybody who was not having parents that we didn't want to set, you know, parents against child and have them have, you know, be alienated from their parents and aligned with the church. So what we're going to do is we're going to make them have that decision when they're 18 and just completely ignore all of the bigotry that is.

John Dehlin [01:08:44] That.

Carah Burrell [01:08:44] Is that kind of like their reason.

John Dehlin [01:08:45] Inexplicably, their justification was to protect the children. So somehow telling a child when they're 8 or 12 that they can't get baptized, it was somehow an act. It was somehow motivated by a desire to love and protect them. Because maybe in their minds, it would be just so confusing for that child to, on the one hand, be baptized into a church that is also bigoted and. Or condemning the choices in the lifestyle of that child's parents.

McKay [01:09:11] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:09:12] And so in the church's benevolent mind, they were protecting the children, but it just ended up being a disaster.

Carah Burrell [01:09:19] I thought that reasoning was fair. Like, because I was still Mormon in 2015. I thought that that was a good reason for about five minutes until I realized I was like, do they not realize how much bullying and how much exclusion that's going to lead to when you're the only kid who can't have the priesthood, but you're still attending church with your family? Because realistically, how that's probably used as families, like, we all know that there's a mixed orientation couple. They get Divorced. And then you know, one of them is like, you know, a lesbian with a partner. And the other kids still go to church with their dad and they're still completely Mormon.

Carah Burrell [01:09:47] But just because their mom and dad are divorced now, that kid cannot participate in all of the same activities. And why is it? It's because all of these like new homophobic slurs that all the Mormon kids are throwing at your mom or your dad or whatever now. So I saw that in my friend was dating somebody who had that situation so that I saw that front row and like when you. I just. Somebody who has this prophetic prophet seers and revelators can't see how that's actually going to be used to like bully and exclude kids who want to participate in your church was mind blowing.

John Dehlin [01:10:17] Yeah. Jesus says suffer the children to come unto me, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And all of a sudden a Christian church is excluding children systemically, but also requiring children in its own policies to condemn their, their parents marriage, which is, you know, which is protected by law. Requiring children to condemn their marriage if they want to actually join the church at age 18. That was outrageous. But then even worse in the church needed people like us to tell them this because they didn't realize it. By making same sex marriage a mandatory excommunicable offense, they were putting that act of same sex marriage as worse than things that were actually optional in terms of grounds for excommunication.

John Dehlin [01:11:04] So in other words, a rapist rape was an optional offense for excommunication. Sexual molestation, pedophilia, you know, theft, you know, business theft. There are all sorts of policies to this day which were optional in terms of excommunication. You could just be disfellowshipped. For them, they were making same sex marriage worse than rape and pedophilia and we, we embarrassed them to the point where they, they recognize the error of their ways and they eventually changed that. But that's, that's how it was for four years, legal marriage. And that was so bewildering. And I'm sorry we're just ranting on this, but like doesn't the church want, if it's going to be two men, wouldn't the church prefer that they have a loving, committed, monogamous marriage together than to have them not married, not committed and just doing whatever they might do?

John Dehlin [01:11:58] Like you would think the church would celebrate and rejoice a monogamous, committed, long term relationship over maybe some of the alternatives. But no, the church would have rathered them not get married and just live whatever lifestyle, just for whatever political reasons.

Jordan [01:12:15] Yeah, yeah. And I, I couldn't at that point. I had divert. I mean, I was raised pretty conservative and so I'd started to diverge from, from those teachings and I. The same thing. I couldn't. How do you share that in a affirming way to someone as a member of that community? You can't. And so that sat on my shelf for a while, I think. You were on your mission at that time, weren't you?

McKay [01:12:40] Yeah, I basically skipped all that because it was like not even an issue in Honduras.

John Dehlin [01:12:45] Yeah.

McKay [01:12:46] Just culturally. It was not a thing that was acceptable by, by anyone.

John Dehlin [01:12:49] Same sex marriage.

McKay [01:12:50] Yeah. So that I didn't get. I know a lot of other missionaries at the same time were getting like talking points from their mission presidents to be able to avoid any issues or anything like that, but I, I didn't even know the full extent of what that included. I think maybe they sent me an email. I was more interested in email or talking with my family at the time. So it was.

John Dehlin [01:13:15] Let me ask you, Jordan, you. We've already addressed this, but I want to come back to it. What was it like for your dad to be excluded from his own daughter's wedding? Did you ever even talk to him about it and did he ever express his feelings? Most of the people I asked this question say we never talked about it. And I'm just curious how that was for you.

Jordan [01:13:34] We never talked about it. That's gonna be shocking information to you. But we didn't. It was such a point. Like I knew he was so frustrated about it and it made me so uncomfortable that I never brought it up again.

McKay [01:13:45] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:13:45] So he's sitting outside his own daughter's wedding and you didn't even, like, you didn't even feel like it's like, sorry, dad or I love you.

Jordan [01:13:52] You know, it's that Mormon like up on my high horse type thing. Like, I, like, I want to feel bad for you, but I can't because you're like, you're a gentile to not be a part of this when you could be.

John Dehlin [01:14:04] That's the Mormon framing. They could, they could come to the wedding if they wanted. They just need to get baptized and then pay 10 of their income and get their endowments. You're keeping yourself out. It's your own fault.

Jordan [01:14:15] You know, that's exactly how our whole

McKay [01:14:17] time frame excluded him because it wasn't even a year long process. So there was no way.

Jordan [01:14:22] There was no way. But that's How I thought. That's exactly how I thought is that I wasn't being restrictive. It was based on his choices.

John Dehlin [01:14:29] And if you could, if you could tell your dad now, what would you say?

Jordan [01:14:31] Oh, my God, I would apologize 15 times over.

John Dehlin [01:14:33] You can right now.

Jordan [01:14:34] Well, we. I think we. We kind of talked about it maybe once or twice because I think when I told him that we were leaving the church, it was kind of. I was like, you know, I did a lot of.

Carah Burrell [01:14:46] A lot.

Jordan [01:14:46] I did a lot of stupid things I now feel guilty about. But he was like, you know, I. I was hoping at one day you'd get out and see it eventually.

John Dehlin [01:14:56] And we'll come back to that.

Jordan [01:14:58] That's the. That's what I appreciate.

McKay [01:14:59] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:15:00] But we'll come back to that. Okay, well, I just want to give you a chance to.

Jordan [01:15:03] Oh, yeah, that's good.

John Dehlin [01:15:04] Anything else about your courtship or wedding that is relative to your faith journey?

McKay [01:15:09] No. It was kind of funny. We didn't really get a honeymoon because my. My older sibling was getting married in California two weeks to the day later in the LA temple. So we just took time off from work that week. I think Thomas S. Monson, the prophet, died. And I remember we went to the. His gravesite that Sunday and we left flowers. So we were. We were in it.

Jordan [01:15:42] We watched his funeral.

McKay [01:15:43] Watched his funeral. We were home from. From work because we had both taken the week off, so we were really, really deep in it, honestly.

Jordan [01:15:53] We were deep inside. Yeah.

McKay [01:15:58] Do you have your. Your outline?

Jordan [01:16:00] No.

John Dehlin [01:16:01] Oh, it's okay.

McKay [01:16:02] Okay.

Married Life, Parenthood, and Postpartum Crisis

John Dehlin [01:16:02] Okay. So you get married and how did you. What was the understanding either explicit or just assumed that your life was going to go. And I want to hear both of you, like, in terms of, like, education, roles, children and faithfulness in the church. You go first, McKay.

McKay [01:16:26] We'll see how they differ. Actually, we were basically dead set on not having kids for at least five years.

John Dehlin [01:16:34] Whoa, that's unique.

McKay [01:16:35] Which is. Yeah, pretty unique.

John Dehlin [01:16:37] Many Mormon couples get. Get pregnant the first month.

Jordan [01:16:39] We were adamantly against it.

McKay [01:16:41] Yes, we were very against that because. And nothing against anybody who gets pregnant really soon. We just didn't feel like we were comfortable bringing a child into our lives when we didn't really know or feel comfortable with each other fully.

John Dehlin [01:16:54] That might be more of a Gen Z thing. I bet there are more and more Mormon, young Mormon couples in your generation that are choosing that.

Carah Burrell [01:17:02] And were you guys working at, like, I'm sure you had student loans and like, you just know that you're like, I'm not bringing a child into this like studio apartment.

McKay [01:17:10] Jordan was finishing up her undergrad to be a special ed teacher and had incurred a considerable amount of debt because she was going to the U before she was paying instant in state tuition. So.

Carah Burrell [01:17:22] Oh dang.

McKay [01:17:23] That was something that we wanted to get. Yeah. For the first year. So that was something we wanted to get under control before we had any kids. In the meanwhile, because we wanted to pay off those loans, I took a sabbatical or took a time off from going to school. It just was on the back burner for a really long time. I was working every day. Jordan had actually landed a student teaching job right before we got married. That kind of, just as soon as she graduated turned it into a full time teaching job.

John Dehlin [01:18:01] Let me ask in my generation, the, the woman's education or career was really not important. It was kind of deprioritized.

McKay [01:18:10] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:18:10] It would have been all about the man getting the education and pursuing his career and the woman, if she worked at all. In the early years of the marriage, it was to put the man through school, but then it was to have babies as soon as possible. And the goal was to get the woman home bearing kids and raising kids and the man in educated and in the workforce being the primary breadwinner. What was, was there anything about your upbringing, Jordan, that made you want to both pursue an education and a career?

Jordan [01:18:42] I have always been like, fiercely, like motivated. And I was, I considered myself a feminist. So I was like, I don't want any of that. Like I have to stay home in the kitchen pregnant. And I was like, I don't want any of that. So I knew. And I had a lot of passion for special ed and I had a lot of passion for social work and I knew I wanted to do both. So I knew I'd likely have to get a graduate degree. So I knew I was going to be in school for a long time. And so I was just motivated and I.

Jordan [01:19:07] It probably, it didn't occur to me that I was going to maybe end up with someone who didn't agree with that lifestyle. And I thought that that would possibly put me off from members wanting to date me because I was like, I'm finishing school and I'm going to work. Like that's. I'm passionate about these things and I'm not going to just stay home and have kids just because that's what Mormon gender roles have specified. Right?

McKay [01:19:34] Yeah.

Jordan [01:19:35] And so we were kind of unconventional.

McKay [01:19:37] Yeah, absolutely. I did not feel threatened at all that it was My decision that she finish her degree. Well, it was both of our decisions. I'm not going to say that my decision necessarily. There was no way I would be able to change her mind from what she was doing, even if I wanted to. But I didn't want to.

McKay [01:19:56] So it was an unconventional thing. That's not the household that I grew up with. When I was really young. My mom stayed home with us until we were school age and then she just worked a part time job whenever we were at school.

McKay [01:20:12] So it was a different dynamic for me because I always kind of planned on being the breadwinner. But I was definitely okay with making sure Jordan finished off her schooling and getting those loans paid off. So I just had a job down here. I would work full time. Jordan would work and go to school until she graduated.

McKay [01:20:35] And then after that we just kind of coasted for a little while, seeing what we wanted to do. That first year of your full time job, we moved into our first apartment away from family, which was interesting.

Jordan [01:20:52] That's where things started to fall apart. Faith wise for me.

John Dehlin [01:20:55] Yeah, let's get into it. So what was. When did your faith start to really change? I mean, you've already mentioned some of the cracks. Jordan, for you, maybe there were a few cracks for you, McKay. When did things start getting.

Seeds of Faith Crisis and Difficult Church History

McKay [01:21:07] I think notably for me, I can remember because it was right when the, the Honduran caravans started to make their way through Central America up to the United States. If you're from outside of the United States, it was real big to do because everybody, every xenophobic person was out there saying, we need to stop these people when they get to our border. There's no way we can let them in.

McKay [01:21:32] And I will use a little bit of explicit language, but it's not anything that you wouldn't have heard on the news. I saw a lot of people from the war that we grew up in sharing the messaging of these sons of bitches from these shithole countries cannot enter.

McKay [01:21:50] And this was like super powerful to me because I knew people who were in those caravans. People were messaging me. They were like, pray for my uncle or cousin or even mother or father that is traveling to the United States that they'll make it there safely.

John Dehlin [01:22:07] What was going on in Central America or Honduras that was causing people to migrate here?

McKay [01:22:12] Do you know there was a lot of political unrest at the time. A lot of people didn't agree with the President at the time because he was attempting to change the Constitution to allow himself a third term. I can't really remember exactly all the.

John Dehlin [01:22:27] It was just political and social justice.

McKay [01:22:29] There was a lot of. Yeah, and there's been a lot of unrest there since there was a coup back in the late 2000s. So people were just trying to find work and to be able to provide for their families.

McKay [01:22:42] And here are people in my church in the war that I grew up with. One of. My seminary teacher that I had, who was also a primary president at one point, was sharing these things on social media. And I could not believe that people in our church could not have the amount of empathy. I was like, it makes no sense to me. People go to foreign countries all the time and then they come home and they apparently didn't learn anything about any other nationalities or have any empathy for people in other situations. So that really kind of broke me down for the first time where I took a step back and said, how can people say that they love Jesus and they love everybody, but say horrible, nasty things about people they have no idea about?

John Dehlin [01:23:33] Because it seems like Jesus was for the poor and the disenfranchised.

McKay [01:23:37] In, in my mind, this was exactly the opposite. And I saw this a lot with a lot of the other missionaries that I served with. I mean, I. When I was a missionary, I had two companions that spoke out of 12 that spoke English. And that was a total of 18 weeks out of my two years that I was able to just speak English in the house.

McKay [01:24:01] When we would meet up with other missionaries, we'd go to conferences and everything, I would primarily hang out with missionaries that spoke Spanish as their only language. So I really got to know a lot of amazing people from south and Central America. And I really felt for a lot of the, the issues that they had in their, their native countries and everything like that. So it was real punch in the gut when I would see people sharing things like that on social media. So that was kind of the first thing that I remember where I'm like, okay, that's kind of interesting.

John Dehlin [01:24:38] And to drive the Mormon point home, I think Mormons are disproportionately not to get political. We're not getting political, but just to describe the demographics, Utah is one of the most Republican states in the country, along with like Wyoming and maybe a couple others. And, and even though the LDS Church tends to have a pro immigrant stance, which is actually a little bit ironic, generally the Mormon Church is pro immigration, but because so many Mormons and so many Utahns tend to be Republican, We've covered this before. There, there is a lot of anti immigrant Sentiment in Utah and amongst a certain group of Mormons. And that's why you're mentioning it is because yeah, there is a. There is a strong tie between Republican allegiance and the Mormon people and. And that's why it bore on your faith, right?

McKay [01:25:30] Absolutely. Yeah. And it doesn't matter necessarily, but these were a lot of the people who I saw later on that were believing that the 2020 presidential election were. Was stolen. So a lot of those ideas kind of coincide. That was the big thing for me. I remember at that start in right after we got married, up until or between when we got married in the pregnancy.

Jordan [01:25:57] Yeah, we. I feel like with the. With the rise of social media and how I felt about the 2015 policy, I found myself, in my experience, the endowment, I found myself more on the fringe and I didn't know quite what I wanted to do, but I knew I was on the outside. I was still involved, I was still participating, but I still felt like there was something off. And so I termed myself the. The pragmo. Right. The progressive Mormon that wanted desperately to stay in but still was trying to advocate for change from. From within, from the inside. And so I did not frequent ex Mormon spaces online. My mom with her instillment of fear of Satan within me had convinced me that Satan resides in the ex Mormon subreddit. So I avoided it like the plague.

Carah Burrell [01:26:58] Fair. Fair. I'm just kidding.

Jordan [01:27:00] Depending on the day, but I avoided it. I avoided it like the plague. And I very firmly thought if I were to even jump into that realm or read anything from there that I was going to be overtaken by the Satanist xmos. Right.

John Dehlin [01:27:17] I will include the X Mormon subreddit in our show notes because it is the most successful is the largest post religious community on subreddit. On Reddit. Yeah, over like 220000 members. It's. It's a real juggernaut and it's a really important contribution to the post Mormon world these days. So shout out to our slash ex. Yeah, okay.

Jordan [01:27:43] So I, I essentially started to dive into stuff about the church. I started to do more research because I was like, if I'm going to stay, I need to be confident in my decision. And I think there's a lot of things about the church that I don't understand. So I started to do a deep dive and somehow along the way in one of the camera where I was looking in one of the Facebook groups or something, I think it was in faith dirty meetups that Chelsea Homer started.

John Dehlin [01:28:09] You joined that?

Jordan [01:28:10] Yes, I Did tell.

John Dehlin [01:28:12] Just for those who didn't listen to Chelsea Homer. Chelsea Nick Homer's interview. Talk about what? Faith Journey Meet. It's a really important community.

Jordan [01:28:20] It is.

John Dehlin [01:28:21] Talk about it. It's a Facebook community.

Jordan [01:28:24] It's a transition space for me essentially, because I didn't know if I wanted to leave. I didn't know if I wanted to stay. So I had heard about this group that Chelsea created where it's essentially, it's like a catch all for all these women who are Mormon essentially at some point and are trying to figure out what they want to do. They're either like progressive and trying to find a reason to stay, or they've left and they're trying to find community. As of late, I feel like it's mostly people who have left or basically considering leaving.

John Dehlin [01:28:48] It's like thousands of women.

Jordan [01:28:49] Yeah. So many.

John Dehlin [01:28:51] Between five and 8,000 women. Yeah, yeah. And it's huge deal.

Jordan [01:28:55] It was essential for me and leaving because it gave me a space where I feel like I could have been in the middle and I didn't need to decide. I could just stay where I was. And so in that group, and this is kind of what people might say the problem with these types of groups is everybody's voicing their concerns. And you come across things that you hadn't seen before. Right. Because other people are like, have you seen this? This is like ruining things for me. What on earth is this? And so in Chelsea's group, I came across a post one day that somebody made about the second anointing.

John Dehlin [01:29:29] Tell us what the second anointing is.

Jordan [01:29:31] I had no idea what this was until that day that I saw this post. But essentially it's what I would like to call an elitist ordinance that only the very Mormon elite, the prophet, the apostles, the very special people, wealthy donors,

John Dehlin [01:29:47] family of top church leaders.

Jordan [01:29:49] Exactly. That they get. And they don't tell you about it. It's done under wraps. Supposedly it's done on Sundays in the temple and it's by special invitation only. And you don't. It's not a, like, what would you say, a necessary for salvation ordinance. But the piece that got for like, the piece that got me was my understanding of the atonement and then the relationship of the second anointing being that basically no matter what you did, no matter how shitty of a person that you were, no matter what terrible things you did, if you got the second anointing, you're free and clear.

John Dehlin [01:30:23] Yeah. You're. You're told that you've made the celestial kingdom. And unless you murder somebody so you can engage in like embezzlement, fraud, you can rape someone, you can cheat on your spouse, you can abuse your own child. We've actually recently will include this in the show notes. We interviewed the Matt, Matt Purcell, whose grandfather received the second anointing and sexually abused him. And, you know, he must have felt like, I can do whatever I want because I've already made it anyway.

McKay [01:30:51] Calling an election made sure is what they say.

John Dehlin [01:30:54] You're told that you, barring murder, you've made the celestial kingdom and your promise that your children and your posterity until like the third or fourth generation are also automatically grafted in. So it's a way to make wealthy, prominent Mormon donors and influential people not feel bad and sad that some of their kids or grandkids had left the church. It's a way to make them want to keep being loyal to the church and to keep donating, donating their money and to feel better than everybody else.

Jordan [01:31:27] That's totally what it is. And I could not, I could not find anything on the church website. I could, because that's where I didn't want to venture into anti Mormon or ex Mormon spaces. And so I was looking everywhere on the church website trying to find anything about the second anointing and I couldn't find anything.

Jordan [01:31:44] And so that confusion led me to look it up on Reddit, which is where I encountered the ex Mormon subreddit. And I read something from the ex Mormon subreddit about the second anointing for the first time. And I thought I was done for at that point. I thought I had, you know, everything that my mom had taught me about anti Mormon literature and all those things I had just now thrown myself into full force within the second anointing. And I was like, this is, this is bad. Like, I ventured into something that's, that's bad. And so I ended up reading this exmo sub post about the second anointing, which was your interview with Tom, Tom Phillips.

John Dehlin [01:32:24] We'll include that in the show notes too.

Jordan [01:32:26] And I, I listen, like, I listened to parts of that and I was like, I, I can't. I'm like, I know John, John's bad. Like John's bad Mormon community. So I couldn't listen to it. So I listened to maybe like two minutes and I felt so guilty that I had to stop.

John Dehlin [01:32:46] And that's called thought stopping. And it's a way that high demand religions demonize their truth tellers and their whistleblowers. So that Members are too afraid to learn the truth about their own religion.

Jordan [01:33:03] Yeah, and that's what I did. I. I knew, like, I stopped. I couldn't go past that point. I had already felt guilty for what I'd done, and so I essentially let it go. But I look back on that experience now and that was probably the biggest crack in my shelf. Like, I could not get over the fact that I had spent all this time, especially myself, like, I'd spent all this time feeling guilty about breaking the law of chastity and the atonement and all this time and repentance and all these things that I'd done. And I'm like, then these white Mormon elite dudes can do whatever the hell they want and still get there. Where I'm like, I've had to claw like tooth and nail over here to get to the celestial kingdom and they're just walking on in without issue. And so that was. Yeah, that was a little bit earth shattering for me.

McKay [01:33:47] But you didn't just go, you didn't just go quietly on that issue.

Jordan [01:33:50] No, I did for a minute.

McKay [01:33:51] Yeah. Tell them, like, your efforts to reach out to some people and some. The one of these names, what might be familiar to you.

Jordan [01:34:00] So I left it there for a minute and then I was like, I'm going to reach out to the Mormon people that I know that are well educated about the church and try to figure out if they know something about this. Because if I get the information from a Mormon, then it's okay. Right?

Jordan [01:34:19] So I reach out to my institute teacher at the time and I sent him a message. It was a Facebook message because that's how I've communicated with him before. I reach out to him and say, I need to talk with you about this thing that I've heard of and I don't know what to do. Will you please explain this to me?

Jordan [01:34:41] And so I message him and he reads it and I tell him, you know, he's like, what do you want to talk about? And I'm like, okay, I've come across this thing called the second Anointing. And I want you. Because he's like this prestigious, amazing institute teacher at the U.

McKay [01:34:57] Since. Since he's a fellow youtuber, I will drop his. The name of his channel. It is unshaken.

Jordan [01:35:03] He is a. His class, when I was at the U, drew hundreds of people every night. He was probably the most captivating Mormon teacher that I have ever had in my life. And his classes were so full, we had people sitting in the hallways to Listen to his institute classes. It was absolutely unheard of.

John Dehlin [01:35:23] You can use his name unless you don't want to.

Jordan [01:35:25] His name is Jared Halvorson.

McKay [01:35:27] Yeah.

Jordan [01:35:27] And he. He's an amazing speaker. He was a phenomenal teacher, and I was absolutely captivated by him when I was Mormon. And so he has a religious degree for, I'm pretty sure from Vanderbilt. And so his whole thesis was based on reading anti Mormon literature. And so I had such faith in this man because he'd speak. Spent his entire career, his entire education, reading every anti Mormon piece of literature that you could think of. The CES letter, letter to my wife, any and everything. He's read it. And so I was like, okay, this is a big thing that I can go to him and be like, hey, I've read this thing. I want you to explain it to me. And so I messaged him and I emailed him and he read both of them and never responded.

John Dehlin [01:36:10] Sounds familiar.

Carah Burrell [01:36:11] Because there's no good answer.

McKay [01:36:12] That was the end of that.

Jordan [01:36:13] That was the end of that. Because, you know, Facebook gives you the little thing whether or not they've read it. And he read it and he never responded. And so I went one step further and I told my mom, and my mom was very upset about it. So my mom took it upon herself to ask her visiting teachers.

John Dehlin [01:36:28] Told your mom about the second anointing.

Carah Burrell [01:36:29] I did.

McKay [01:36:30] Home teacher.

Jordan [01:36:31] Yes, I did. And because I was like, this is. This is wrong. I'm like, you. You're a part of this. Just like I'm a part of this. And she's like, it's fine, it's fine. Don't worry about it. She's like, I'll ask the home teachers, the ministering, whatever the heck they call

McKay [01:36:43] them now, String brothers.

Jordan [01:36:44] And so my mom asks them, right? She. My mom doesn't know what it is even, really. And she's like, hey, come over so I can ask you this question.

John Dehlin [01:36:53] Can you imagine? You're visiting your home teachers, you're visiting your family. We have a question for you about this thing.

Jordan [01:36:59] She literally couldn't have caught them more off guard. So she and her. One of these visiting teachers that she has is very intense, like letter of the law to the extreme type of Mormon. And so she asked them, what is this? And she told me they looked at her for a minute, and they looked at each other for a minute and essentially looked back at her and were like, this is something that we're not going to be discussing with you. And that was kind of the end of it they told her to tell me that that's not something that I should have been asking about. So I was like, huh, okay, so

John Dehlin [01:37:39] this is, that is literally what my stake president said to me.

Carah Burrell [01:37:43] Really?

John Dehlin [01:37:43] When I tried to talk to him about the second anointing, he said, we will not be discussing that.

Jordan [01:37:49] Yeah, same thing. Like I, every Mormon I went to, it was a dead end. Every time we're not talking about it or they wouldn't respond. And so I knew I had hit something. Like, I knew this was, we'd hit a nerve here. Like something, yeah, something was off. And that's when I told you about it, right around that time, didn't I?

McKay [01:38:05] Yeah. And I was totally blindsided by it. I was like kind of pulled the whole Mormon. Well, there are some things that aren't revealed to us until a certain time. And I guess this is one of those things that I'm just going to not be able to understand until whatever that time is or whenever that time may come.

McKay [01:38:24] So, and all of this was going on, like whenever Jordan had doubts or I had doubts, we would keep them to ourselves because we didn't want to have that aspect in our marriage where there was a wedge driving between us because one person was pulling away from the church and the other one was still staunchly in there. I was afraid that that would happen. So even though I was less faithful in paying my tithing, Jordan would, she would get her paycheck and she would log in and pay the tithing right then, whereas I would go a couple weeks and be like, oh, I don't think I paid my tithing recently and do whatever I thought was fair and call it good.

McKay [01:39:05] Or I, I, for a long time I was not really interested in going to church and wasting a day off because I was working 45, almost 50 hours a week sometimes and at a tire shop. So I was like, I'm not going to waste a day off to go to church. Let's just stay home.

Jordan [01:39:23] It was still three hours at that time.

McKay [01:39:25] Yeah, notably. So I, you know, shirked my priesthood responsibilities and being the head of the household and let Jordan take the lead on a lot of those things. But I didn't really have anything going on that was that deep at the time.

McKay [01:39:42] All the way up until about August 2019. I, because Jordan's mom worked for the church, she said, you should work for the church. And I was like, I'm kind of hating where I had reached the ceiling of a part time employee at my other job of not getting benefits I was like, I'm really not looking to go full time at this company, so I'll make a change. And I got hired on to work at the distribution warehouse off of 17th south in Salt Lake City for the church.

McKay [01:40:19] So for those who are not aware, the church is the authority on distribution of their authorized LDs endowed member only undergarments, temple ceremonial clothing, as well as all of the church print material for the Western hemisphere, it goes through and is printed in that facility.

McKay [01:40:42] So I signed on to work kind of in an intermediary fashion, do part time at the tire shop and do part time in the shipping department at that other job. And that was good for a couple months. And then one night Jordan and I were laying in bed at a late hour like we usually do now. At that point we were only going to bed at like 10:30 every night.

McKay [01:41:07] But Jordan was laying in bed and she mentioned to me out of the blue, I think we need to start trying to have a kid. And she like said her piece. She did a whole little spiel. And throughout the whole time I'm thinking we had, we had agreed that we would do 5ish years before we even considered having a kid. But I feel like this is a revelation from God that we need to have a kid.

McKay [01:41:43] She had recently had a laparoscopic surgery to remove endometriosis lesions. And her OB had mentioned that this was the time. This was the time that she, if she was going to get pregnant, it was most likely at six months after that.

McKay [01:42:03] So I instantly agreed because I thought it was a revelation. And I was hearkening back to the words of our sealing ceremony, where they tell you to go forth and multiply. It was our sacred calling and duty to bring children into the world. And it was time for us to. There was no better time than now.

McKay [01:42:26] We had recently just moved back in. We moved into her mom's house in the basement, and we were finishing the basement to live there on our own. And we're like, this is the most stable position that we could be in. We don't have a mortgage payment and if any medical things go wrong, we can do that. I can quit my job at the tire shop and get a full time gig with the church and then have access to DMBA insurance of our own. That way our child can be insured under it. So a lot of things kind of went off without a hitch. Where I went from a job in the shipping department part time, literally, I think two or three weeks went by and they got me a job in a Different department on full time salary and benefits.

McKay [01:43:16] So that was honestly a godsend. Like just being able to get my own insurance at the drop of a hat was something that I hadn't imagined to do. But this is also a position where you only benefit if you play by the rules. You have to be a card carrying, temple, recommend carrying member of the Mormon Church in order to work in the position that I was in.

McKay [01:43:43] So not any random guy off the street could get a job and just do that. So they do take care of some of the people that work with them in the aspect that a similar job at like Amazon probably wouldn't have benefits. So we, we leaned into it.

Jordan [01:44:04] I, I had succumbed to social pressure. Yeah, I was adamant when we got married that we weren't going to have kids before. At least before that five year Mark and I, we were kind of the odd one out.

Social Pressure and the Second Anointing

John Dehlin [01:44:18] How does social pressure manifest itself as a young Mormon couple? You know, anything you want to share? How does that.

Jordan [01:44:27] I think we underestimate the role that social media plays in that pressure because, you know, with this, millennials are that way too. But with social media and with Mormons, everybody is, you know, social media is a highlight reel. And so you see all these Mormons getting married, you see all these Mormons having kids and we were kind of the odd one out because all our friends had been that we had, that were married, already had kids, and we were kind of the odd one out that didn't, that were married for a while and still didn't have kids. And so the more we began to see those things, the more we were like, we might be doing something wrong here. Like we might be, we're denying God's will for us to just immediately have kids. And we're going with our own wants and desires of wanting to like focus on us and be selfish first.

John Dehlin [01:45:20] It's also, it's always been common in my Mormon experience for people to just say, are you having kids yet? What? Are you having kids yet? You're pregnant yet?

Jordan [01:45:27] Totally. Yeah, that too.

Carah Burrell [01:45:28] I just remembered like the funny. Have you guys seen that tik Tok where it's like, are you dating anybody? No. You are dating somebody. When you getting married and you're getting married. When are you going to have kids?

Jordan [01:45:37] Have kids?

Carah Burrell [01:45:38] When are you going to have another kid? Just leads and yeah, there's always people are just asking, asking. And the thing is, honestly, this happened to me too. You're surrounded by so many people in your Mormon congregation all the time. You can get asked when you're having kids like 20 times a day from different people, so it plays with your mind a lot.

Jordan [01:45:54] So I get that.

McKay [01:45:55] And they throw a lot of caution to the wind in considering that maybe some people have fertility issues or can't have children at all or anything like that. So.

Jordan [01:46:07] So we got that too, because we were in a. My mom lives up on the bench in Bountiful. And so they're. It's a primarily older ward. And so there's a lot of sweet old people in that ward and a lot of them don't have filters. And so we got a lot of those questions. A lot.

Carah Burrell [01:46:23] Oh, Yeah, I had 10 kids at your age.

Jordan [01:46:26] Yep.

McKay [01:46:27] Yeah. And a hamburger at McDonald's costs a nickel.

Jordan [01:46:31] Yep.

McKay [01:46:31] It's a little different now anyway, so, yeah, things were kind of falling into place. We ended up. Jordan ended up getting pregnant really quickly. So our OB was right. Yeah, Honestly, that was probably around November or December of 2019, right before the COVID pandemic started. A lot of the contentions that we had with my parents, we resolved right before we had gone out there and had a little come to Jesus with them and kind of had a little restitution for a lot of the dishonesty on my part and things like that and on theirs. So everything was in line. Jordan's student debt was already paid off. I had a full time job, Jordan had a full time job, and we were ready to just go all in being pregnant for you. I'm going to let. I'm going to turn the time over to Jordan on that one.

Jordan [01:47:38] I had no expectations of what being pregnant was going to be like, you know, having never had children before, but I was not prepared for what it was going to do to me emotionally. Um, I have. And prior to that, I have a variety of mental diagnoses, but OCD and anxiety are some of the big ones. And my religious scrupulosity reared its ugliest head while I was pregnant, especially during COVID I had. We knew nothing. I mean, I was pregnant in the midst of COVID starting, and so we knew nothing about what it was. We knew nothing about what was going to happen at that point.

Jordan [01:48:21] When I was pregnant. We didn't Even know if McKay could be there for when we were going to have our kid. And so there was a possibility that I was going to have to do this alone. And so there was a lot of anxiety surrounding all these things. And then I just had anxiety about making sure that, you know, my baby was healthy and that we were healthy. And so my, my ocd, my scrupulosity just kicked in full gear where I was constantly, constantly praying for things. And like I said in, in the previous episode, it was like, you know, I want our son to be healthy and he has to be healthy and he has to come out alive.

Jordan [01:48:55] And when he's alive, he needs to have an APGAR score of a certain number and when, you know, and it would just go on and on and on and on. And so my pregnancy was extremely difficult and anything and everything that could go wrong went wrong.

Jordan [01:49:06] And so because of this, I developed the mentality that God was punishing me. And so, and this goes back to kind of my law of chastity piece is because I always thought those things were connected. And so I thought that because I had had sex, I broke the law of chastity. You know, I'd repented. But they just, like the church leaders say, there's still consequences. Right. And so I thought this was one of those consequences, was I was going to be punished for what I had done. And this is the way that God was going to punish me. And that's what. By making my pregnancy awful and by having all these things go wrong.

John Dehlin [01:49:46] Yeah, you shouldn't have to feel that way.

McKay [01:49:48] Things like some falls downstairs, constant nausea, constant heartburn, terrible aversion to smells. What other things am I missing?

Jordan [01:50:03] I had like just anything and everything that could go wrong. Yeah, pregnancy went wrong. I mean, we had scares, I. I mean, anything and everything. And I was just absolutely miserable. And so I essentially barely made it through those nine months I get. I convinced my OB to induce me at 39 weeks because I couldn't, I couldn't take it anymore. And my mental health had drastically deteriorated by this point because I decided to come off my medications, which was a mistake. And so toward the end of my pregnancy, I started having some weird, what I thought were like, weird type dream things going on. And so I thought it was like, I don't know, what do you call those?

McKay [01:50:51] Hallucinations or. Yeah, I guess visitation of darkness.

Jordan [01:50:57] I started hallucination at the end of my pregnancy. And so I didn't. I thought it was in. I thought it was like dream related and it was not. So we go, I go to get induced. And since my whole pregnancy had been so difficult, I had prayed faithfully every single day. I'm like, my, like labor is going to go well. Like, it's going to be easy. God's gonna take care of me. Like, things are gonna be fine. And that's Kind of what I had reasoned with myself because I had been punished this whole pregnancy. The rest of it was going to be smooth sailing. And, you know, foreshadowing. It wasn't.

McKay [01:51:35] It did not.

Jordan [01:51:36] It did not. And so labor and delivery goes really poorly. From the moment I get there to the moment my son comes out, we have problems. My husband. My son was having heart decelerations the entire time I was in labor. Nobody knew what was wrong. Nobody knew what was going on.

Jordan [01:51:54] I had numerous experiences from start to finish. They couldn't break my water. My blood pressure crashed to the point that they were, like, basically grabbing crash carts, and 8,000 nurses were running into the room. And, you know, the whole thing was just a terrible experience. And during this whole thing, I'm just sitting here and I'm like, this is my fault.

Jordan [01:52:12] Like, I've. I have brought all this upon myself. And this is, like, the one thing, you know, like, I didn't even really want to be pregnant. Like, I didn't want to go through that. But I felt like this was, again, an opportunity to show my devotion to Mormonism, because I was going to.

Jordan [01:52:29] I went through the temple, and that was a big deal. And then forsaking myself to have kids was another way of proving that I was a good Mormon, right? That I was gonna put down my own crap and forsake all of that stuff in order to be Mormon.

Jordan [01:52:46] And so labor kind of proceeds. Things kind of take a turn, and we end up going into a C section. And so things move really quickly. I was not ready or prepared for that possibility. And we get to the end, they're putting me on the table, and they're like, okay, we're going to check. We're going to make sure your epidural is good. We're going to start poking you to make sure you don't feel things. And I'm like, okay, great. And they start poking around. And the anesthesiologist is like, can you feel that? Can you feel that? And I'm like, yeah, actually, I can. And he's like, I'm gonna fix it.

Jordan [01:53:22] I'm gonna fix it. I'm like, okay. So he does whatever the heck he's doing. I'm not really paying attention because, you know, whatever. And he's like, I'm gonna fix it. And so they move me over to the operating table, and he's like, hey, we should be good. I've adjusted your medication. I've refilled epidural, whatever the heck he said. Um, and so they make the first cut.

Jordan [01:53:42] And I knew that things were about to go very, very poorly from that point forward. Um, from the moment that first knife went in, I knew that I had zero pain control. I could feel every single thing that was happening on that side of my body. I could feel every, you know, trigger warning for Gore, but I could feel every layer of skin being cut as they went through my C section.

John Dehlin [01:54:07] Anesthesia didn't take?

Jordan [01:54:09] Nope. I had nothing. So I sat there, and I couldn't do anything. I laid there, and I went into shock. Like, I could not. I could not fathom that they had taken, you know, this instrument to me. And my son was going to be taken out of me in a moment, and I was feeling all of it.

Jordan [01:54:27] And so I. My body went into shock. I couldn't move. I couldn't speak. I couldn't say anything. I had no idea what was going on around me. Like, McKay at some point, was even talking to me. And I was not. I was not present the entire time during my C section. I was visibly in my mind, floating above the table. Like, I was not even able to stay in my body. And when you think about. Like, when I think about the brain and how it protects people from pain, that's absolutely what I thought was happening is my brain literally could not process what was happening.

Jordan [01:54:56] And so the only thing that I could do is disassociate. And so that went on for quite a bit. I was not able to communicate. There was this entire C section is happening to me, and I'm not able to say a thing. And then they get my son out. I see him. I remember them bringing him towards me. I don't remember if I said or did anything.

Jordan [01:55:18] And then McKay's gone, my son's gone. And they're like, okay, we're gonna start stitching you back up again. I can't say anything. I'm just. I'm laying there in absolute agony. And they're doing something. And then I apparently, like, I twitch or something twitches on the other side of the curtain, and all I hear is my OB go, can she feel that?

Jordan [01:55:39] And the anesthesiologist asked me. He's like, can you feel this? And the only thing I was able to do was nod. And then all hell broke loose in that operating room. Like, it was absolute chaos. Nobody knew what to do. My anesthesiologist was in absolute chaos, fumbling with things, trying to get me painful medication. Everybody was in absolute shock that I was feeling what was happening on the table. And so they.

Jordan [01:56:03] They were like the end of the poor anesthesiologist. I felt bad. He didn't do my epidural. It wasn't his fault. But he's sitting there and he's like, I'm trying to get you pain meds. I'm pushing all these pain meds. I'm trying to give you as much as I can give you. And eventually he maxes out and he's like, I've given you everything that I can give you. And I'm just laying there, and I'm like, I'm in this perfect position to be sitting here thinking this is, like, ultimate God's punishment for me, right?

Jordan [01:56:33] And the whole. The whole experience, I feel like for me was just validation that I had personally thought up to this point that this was all my fault, you know, and I didn't. Like, I realize now that these were all things that I took on me that weren't necessary.

Jordan [01:56:54] But I think about the role that Mormonism played in putting all of these things on me, and that's absolutely what it was. Like everything that I took on that I felt like was, you know, God was punishing me, or this was something that I did or I deserved it, or everything kind of centered from. I didn't repent correctly. I didn't repent enough. I didn't. You know, something that I identified with Mark Oslin's interview was feeling like I didn't confess enough, right? Like, I didn't. There was something that I missed to the bishop that I should have said that I didn't. And so all of these things are, like, rolling through my head of this is why all these things are happening to me.

Jordan [01:57:33] And this is kind of the. Like, the. I don't know what you'd call it, the manifestation of, like, all these punishments. So this is, like the. The culmination of everything. And so I sit there the rest of the time, and I'd feel everything, and they can't get anything under control. And next thing I know, I'm being. I'm wheeled off to labor and to the recovery room, and the poor anesthesiologist gives me a nerve block and tries to quell the pain that way. And that didn't work either.

Jordan [01:58:03] And so at this point, I thought I was. I thought I was free and clear. Like, at this point, I thought I was done. I was like, okay, if I had any, like, recompense to give, if I had to pay what I was thinking for any of my sins, I mean, I was like, that's A pretty big one, right?

John Dehlin [01:58:20] Talk about atonement. Atoned. Literal, but the shedding of innocent. I mean, shedding of blood.

Jordan [01:58:25] Right, exactly. And so my only goal during that whole experience was to get my son out. Like, that was my only. Like, if I died on that table, that was fine. It was just to get him out. And so he was fine. Fortunately, he's great.

Jordan [01:58:38] And I thought I was out of the woods. And so I. In that moment, during my C section, I feel like I kind of gave up on being Mormon. Like, at that point, I kind of realized it was like, this is not.

Jordan [01:58:55] Like, I feel like I'm constantly being punished, even though I'm doing all the right things. I'm checking all the boxes and it's still not working. And so I can't do this anymore. And so I didn't know kind of what was going to manifest after that. But I. I had basically inclined myself that we were going. I was going to walk away at that point. I didn't know what he was going to do.

McKay [01:59:17] I was. This was unbeknownst to me at the time.

Jordan [01:59:19] Yeah. I did not tell him any of this was going on. So we get home, everything gets in order. I've just had this insanely traumatic experience, and everything's just supposed to go on. Life goes on. Right. Nobody cared. Nobody did anything. As, you know, we often see with the medical field and trauma. And so I go home and I'm like, I've consigned myself to being done with church. I'm like, I'm done. I'm done with God. I'm not having any of it. Like, I've given up. And so then I start hallucinating. And I. I didn't know what was going on at the time, but I was absolutely convinced that everybody in my house and everybody around me except McKay was out to kill my son. I was absolutely convinced.

John Dehlin [02:00:05] It's like postpartum psychosis or something.

Jordan [02:00:07] I had postpartum psychosis, so I thought everybody was out to kill my son. And so I didn't sleep. I was awake 24 hours a day. I was constantly worried he was going to stop breathing, and so I would not sleep ever.

Jordan [02:00:24] Which just exacerbates psychotic symptoms. Right. When you're not sleeping. And so all of this is happening, and it occurs to me, I'm like, this is. I've fallen into Satan's power, right? Like, I denounced God in this experience, and now I'm hallucinating weird things, which, you know, with everything my mother's taught me, is just, like, completely in line with Satan and the devil and all of those things. And so I'm like, this is because I denounced Mormonism on that table. Like, now I'm. Now God's punishing me again, even though I'm, like, not thinking that I want to even believe that anymore, but that he's dumped this stuff on me and now he's fully transferred me over to Satan in the midst of postpartum psychosis.

Jordan [02:01:13] And so that goes on for a while. I was delusional. I hallucinated everybody, anybody, and everybody around me I thought was out to kill me or my son. And so it was a very isolating experience because I thought. I really thought I was on my own, and I really thought I was under Satan's power.

Jordan [02:01:34] And so I get put back on medication, I start going to therapy, I get help. I'm able to come out of that period. I get diagnosed with PTSD after my C section experience, and we walk out of all of that. And I did not think I could go back. I was pretty convinced that that was the end of the road for me. I don't know where you sat after.

John Dehlin [02:01:58] Just to be clear. Sometimes people decide they're going to stop going to the church because they decide it's not true. Other times they decide they're not going to go back because it's just making them miserable, but they still believe it's true. Yeah, they're just intentionally becoming Jack Mormons or it's just like, I don't care if I go to hell. It's making me want to die.

Carah Burrell [02:02:21] Right.

John Dehlin [02:02:21] But they still believe it. Where were you?

Jordan [02:02:23] I think that's where I was because I. I had just fallen under Satan's power. Right. So I was very concerned that the actions that I had taken already had a consequence. Like, I was. I had already, like, the church had already reaffirmed for me that, you know, this stuff is real. Like, this is real, and you just announced it and now you're in trouble. And so I wanted badly to believe it. I wanted to think that those things were good and that eventually I was going to see, like, the positive things that eventually come out of the church. But I was like, I. I haven't seen it. And so I feel like that's where I was is I wanted to. I wanted to believe those things, but it was. It was doing serious damage to me.

McKay [02:03:04] There was. There was a lot going on at that time.

John Dehlin [02:03:08] And you're working for the church.

McKay [02:03:10] I was working for the church. I was seeing the Sausage being made. And I there after I went full time after that first little. The start of the new year, really in that of 2020, I started to see a lot of stuff and was like, this is not okay. A lot of tides being wasted. I don't really want to go into. I don't know what kind of legal liability I would have by revealing some of this stuff. But like, they had upgraded a system and because the upgrade was taking forever, they had things on hold that were costing like 15 or $20,000 a day to maintain.

McKay [02:03:54] Just wasted of tithes that people had faithfully given, things like that. Their Covid response was, and we, because of Jordan's pregnancy, were on absolute high alert the whole time with COVID they made a case to the state that they were a essential business, even though all they really had was food storage stuff. And that stuff didn't even come through my department at that time. People were just panic buying food storage materials of dried foods and wheat and stuff like that, where they would receive shipments of it on pallets and they would just take it offload, it off the trucks and load it onto other trucks after they stuck shipping labels on it.

McKay [02:04:45] So that was bad. One time they had a scare where in the very early days of COVID infection, when it was like pretty few and far between, someone in the print division of the same facility had a reasonable suspicion that they might have contaminated other people. They shut the print division down. They kept our division up because they were technically separate buildings. And I felt really shortchanged because that whole week leading up to it, I had gone to the cafeteria, which was on the print division side of the house, and where print division people also ate lunch with us. So I was like, what the hell?

McKay [02:05:29] You're going to shut them down and say that there's no crossover? But a lot of us go and eat lunch over there. I don't know how there couldn't be any crossover, but you just shut up and you kept working like we all did.

McKay [02:05:43] Eventually, I was pretty jaded on work or lunch breaks. I tried coffee before and I was like, you know what sounds really good is some coffee or whatever. So on my lunch break, as soon as the the hour hit, I'd go, I'd run and clock out, run out to my car, run to the Maverick on the corner, get a little coffee as quickly as I could so none of my co workers would see me, and then just like guzzle it down before. It was nice coffee, so I never burned myself. But guzzle it down before I'D go back in to work again.

John Dehlin [02:06:19] I just have to say, working for the church and drinking coffee, those two things don't fit. What the freak are you thinking?

McKay [02:06:24] I know if I. And if I had a temple rec, they would audit you periodically to see if you had a temple recommend, and there would be a little bit of a grace period if you needed to get it, but I would not have been worthy to get a temple recommend at that point.

John Dehlin [02:06:38] What were you thinking?

McKay [02:06:39] I was like, whatever.

John Dehlin [02:06:40] Why were you doing it?

McKay [02:06:42] Honestly, I just wanted to sin.

John Dehlin [02:06:46] You still believe that's good.

McKay [02:06:48] I believed in a lot of the things, and I had a co worker who was pretty on the fringe. And a lot of times he. He'd tell me that he didn't feel like God loved him or things like that, but I would still believe in a lot of the core principles of the church. But even at that time, before our son was born, we would have conversations where we're like, we are never letting him go into a bishop's interview alone.

McKay [02:07:18] We will accompany him, and that'll be that. Or just things of that nature where I was. Even though it was an expectation that I went on a mission, I was like, if he never went on a mission, that would be okay with me.

McKay [02:07:34] So we were kind of getting to the fringe of things where we were like, these traditions or requirements and policies of the church are not as important to us as our own child is to us. I think a lot of people take that or see that and they're like, oh, they're not as committed to the church as you're supposed to be. No wonder they would leave.

McKay [02:07:58] So those things were happening. I ended up. Because Jordan's mental state was extreme, I ended up quitting working for the church. At the time, she also had an online business that she had started up. And I was like, she can do that to keep her busy and it will give us. We had enough money saved up that it was going to be okay for a while until she can get back on her feet. But it was more important for her mental health that I be at home, because while I was gone, she was just watching the clock, waiting for me to come home because nobody else could have our child.

McKay [02:08:41] Sleep schedule was absolutely out of whack because she could never sleep. But I had to go work. So quitting just seemed like the best thing to do. And honestly, it was the best thing to do because given a few more months, I would definitely not be able to rationalize working for the church anymore. We weren't attending in person church, even though there was sometimes they would allow it, it was, I think, when they were starting to first kind of like, oh, we're gonna have like A, B and C congregations and you guys will just trade off Sundays and going and receiving the sacrament and things like that.

McKay [02:09:22] But with a newborn baby and Jordan being in full blown postpartum psychosis, it was not, it was not even on the back burner, honestly. That also brings up the point that it was still an expectation that we were going to bless the baby and give him a name in the church, because that's what you do for those who are not aware when a baby is born, you're supposed to bless them, give them a name, and then they go on the rolls of the church and they're documented as your child and in the year end numbers for births that happen in the church.

John Dehlin [02:10:04] And it's one of those Mormon rituals like baptism.

McKay [02:10:07] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:10:07] That like is kind of expected of everyone.

McKay [02:10:12] Oh yeah.

John Dehlin [02:10:12] And family and extended family and all the ward members are involved. So whether or not this is intentional, if a parent, you know, if two parents weren't sure if they were totally still committed to the church and they just have a baby, all the parents, all the siblings, all the grandparents are saying, when are you going to bless your baby? And it's like, whoa, if we don't bless the baby, everyone's going to know. Maybe we should just bless the baby and just pretend. And these sorts of milestones or rituals, baby blessings, baptisms, and then priesthood ordination for the young men, 12 year olds, 14 year olds, 16 year olds, they all serve this function of just like continually pressuring you to stay worthy, to keep paying your tithing, to keep attending church or everyone's going to know.

John Dehlin [02:11:03] You can't just kind of quietly kind of fade. There's Mormonism doesn't really allow quiet fade. Yeah, the, you know, it's everybody's business and everybody feels totally entitled to ask you, when are you blessing your baby? Right.

McKay [02:11:17] Oh, yeah. And traditionally the blessing of the baby occurs during the Sunday service in the sacrament meeting in front of the entire congregation. The father will get up with other priesthood holders that he's invited to participate. They all stand in a circle, they hold the baby with one hand. They put one hand in and their other hand on the shoulder of the next guy.

Jordan [02:11:41] Notably, the mother usually is not involved.

McKay [02:11:43] No, the mother is not involved.

Jordan [02:11:47] Which I always thought was weird.

McKay [02:11:48] Yeah. But it's. They do the little blessing by the, the inspiration the spirit gives them and then they they hold the baby up in front of everybody, and you don't clap style. Yeah. But it's a big deal. Yeah. The circle of life.

McKay [02:12:08] But it's a big deal. And my parents were like. Because we didn't get together with extended family, they're like, we want everybody to come. We'll come out. Will fly your siblings in. Not my sister or my younger sibling because she was on her mission, but they were hounding us because that's something that they wanted. The first grandchild. They want to have this great pleasure of everybody participating in the blessing of.

McKay [02:12:36] And we were still really cautious of COVID but at the same time, that was an excuse for us to sit back and ponder and be like, is this absolutely something that we are 100% in on so much that we want our only newborn child to be involved with it in a way that they are.

McKay [02:12:57] The name is officially on the records of the church, so I think we both quietly ponder that until the very end of 2021 night. In typical Jordan and McKay fashion, apparently we only talk about hard things at night, but we kind of turned into to each other. And we were like, are we ready to bless this baby into the church, or are we not?

McKay [02:13:25] And I was not 100% committed to it at that point. And you had said the same, I think, and that was the first. And Decatur, really, that we gave to each other that we weren't 100% in like we were before.

McKay [02:13:44] So we kind of proceeded with caution from then on out in. Do we bless the baby? Do we bless the baby in our own home and on our terms? Because we had heard of other progressive Mormons who did that themselves, who allowed the mother to do the blessing of the baby. And we were kind of toying with ideas like that. Um, Did I miss anything?

Jordan [02:14:07] No, I think. I think the biggest thing was we knew we needed to figure it out. And we were on a timeline.

McKay [02:14:13] Yeah.

Jordan [02:14:13] Because there was only so much time that was going to be allotted before family members were like, come on, like, when? When is it going to happen?

McKay [02:14:20] Less than a day. Let's go.

Jordan [02:14:22] Let's figure it out. And so I. We knew we were on a timeline, and so I started delving more into Faith Journey meetups, into that group. I started reading more things. I ventured into the Ex Mormon subreddit more often, and I had heard about Ex Mormon Tick Tock from Faith Journey meetups. I told McKay about it, and I was like, you know, maybe this is something that we should look into.

John Dehlin [02:14:48] What Ex Mormon Tick Tock like, to following it.

Jordan [02:14:52] Yep.

John Dehlin [02:14:53] Why would you be seeing what's up?

McKay [02:14:56] We didn't really know where to turn to know about things. I think up until that point. It's a funny story because literally the day that it happened where. Because I was pretty anti TikTok. Oh, it's just another app. I don't want to download it. But Jordan had decided that she wanted to get a small tattoo. I was like, awesome, let's do it. On our way down, I was, doesn't

John Dehlin [02:15:21] that sound very Gen Z? It's starting to sound very Gen Z.

McKay [02:15:23] It's like, I know, right?

John Dehlin [02:15:24] Get a tattoo. Follow TikTok.

McKay [02:15:27] Fine line tattoo. Yep. So we're on our way down to Provo to get it, and I turned to Jordan out. And it was the first realization. I was like, what if we weren't allowed to go to my sister's wedding because we weren't members of the church anymore? And that was kind of all I said that day. As soon as we get home that night, Jordan was like, let's just download TikTok and see what this is about. And that was like, the nail in the coffin. Honestly.

Carah Burrell [02:16:01] Love to hear it now.

Jordan [02:16:02] Just kidding.

McKay [02:16:03] Yeah, I mean, we downloaded it. I remember seeing videos from ex Mormon Mindy on there, from Exmo Lex, and just seeing a bunch. We were probably scrolling on just the hashtag ExMormon for like three or four hours that night. We were just going through people talking about the CES letter. And I had heard of the CES letter about up until that point, but I had never given any consideration into reading it or anything like that. People talking about Mormon stories, podcast and things like that.

Going Public on TikTok and YouTube

John Dehlin [02:16:39] It's kind of fascinating, like Gen Zers or even people. And this is one of the reasons why I decided to invest in Tick Tock. I was realizing that, like, the church had made everyone scared of podcasts. The church had made everyone scared of the CES letter, you know, and there's different grades of quality of information, right? Like, the highest grade would be, like, real historical books like Michael Quinn or Fawn Brody. And like, well, no, you. You know, no one can do that. And so then there's like, okay, well, there's like the gospel topics essays or like podcasts or the CS letter. And the church had made it be like, well, no one can look at that.

John Dehlin [02:17:22] So, like, that's. It's all anti Mormon. And so, like, literally there's this bizarro world. And, you know, TikTok's amazing, but, like, if you had to kind of rate, the quality of information, kind of the peer review, academic level, scholarship. TikTok's the. But, you know, it's probably the lowest quality on average sort of source for gaining information.

McKay [02:17:45] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:17:46] And so the church had made it. So it's like you're not going to go to more reliable or accurate sources. It's like all we could do is go to TikTok. You know, that's. That's where we're going to go.

McKay [02:17:56] And people making little skits and things like that. But I think more effective is the personal. And despite the fact that they're anecdotal experiences, I mean, a lot of them add up. You can see a lot of similarities across a lot of different stories in such a short amount of time. And that's really affected us, I think.

Jordan [02:18:19] Well, here's the. Here's the spectrum, I think with TikTok is especially when you think about Mormons and ex Mormons, I think the church puts it in such black and white terms sometimes, especially when you're Mormon and you hear about ex Mormons. Mormons, and you're like, oh, my God, they're these terrible people. And I think what Tick Tock does is it kind of bridges the gap because a lot of people on Tick Tock aren't necessarily ex Mormon. They're questioning, they're in, they're out, they're physically and they're mentally out. They're trying to figure it out. And it brings kind of humanity to the spectrum because it's like you're seeing people at all stages and you're seeing people like, with compassion, with humanity. It's not all these people that are out here to just talk crap on the church. And that's just our goal. It's just that we're all in this experience. Experience.

McKay [02:18:58] We do that a lot though, too.

Jordan [02:18:59] We do, but we're all in this kind of experience together and we're all trying to figure it out. And the one commonality that we all have is we're people and we're just. It takes away all the, like, you know, the terminology of ex Mormons are bad, or, you know, progressive Mormons are bad, or we're all just kind of in this hot mess trying to figure it out. And so there's a lot of encouragement in that because there's no, like, you're not going to be excluded if you're questioning, like, you're not going to be treated as the odd one out. Like, you're going to be welcomed into that space, which is. I Think what we really needed at that time was to feel like we weren't alone.

McKay [02:19:36] Yeah. So that that night we were like, oh, this is something we need to look into. And then the next night we were like, let's give the CES letter a look. We were only just going to look at a few pieces. I can't even remember what we were interested in looking at.

Jordan [02:19:52] We were just going to look at like one or two things.

McKay [02:19:54] Yeah. Because we looked at the table of contents and we're like, okay, what are we gonna look into? And then we ended up reading the whole thing in one sitting, three or four hours. It started out as curiosity turning to outrage, just turning into full blown rage at some of the things.

Carah Burrell [02:20:14] Are you a commercial for the CES letter?

McKay [02:20:16] I know by the CES letter you'll get it on Amazon.

Carah Burrell [02:20:20] That is, it's a great description of it. Get yours today.

John Dehlin [02:20:23] Well, we, we, we like to slow down and actually talk about this because like, one of the most unbelievable things about the Mormon experience and something that, that really is one of the main reasons why we sometimes refer to the church as cult like or culty or cultish or as a high demand religion with undue influence is that people get to full adulthood serving two year full time missions for the church, giving two or three decades of their life, or sometimes three or four or five decades to their life without learning many of the most basic and or crucial pieces of information about the church.

John Dehlin [02:21:02] So you're, you're a returned missionary, you're 20 something, you're 20 something, you'RE grown ass adults. And for the first time, for the first time in your adult lives, married with kid, you start reading the CES letter. What were the main things you discovered and why were they shocking or troubling to you?

McKay [02:21:23] I'll let Jordan give her answer first.

Jordan [02:21:27] The first thing that was just outright frustrating to me was the similarities. Like when you read the CES letter and you look. Because Jeremy does such a beautiful job of outlining how similar the two things are when he's comparing things that, you know, the Joseph Smith might have taken inspiration from and then things that are in the Book of Mormon and how closely aligned some of them are, it just was like you really can't. Especially like when we were talking about, we did a video recently about the endowment and the script and the ceremony and the penalties and all of those things. And like when you look at that in context with Freemasonry and the, the Mason ceremonies and you know, the handshakes and all Those things, I'm like, you can't not put two and two together here.

Jordan [02:22:14] To think that there might be some kind of correlation, especially when you start going through the history of. Well, Joseph Smith was a mason and he went through this ceremony two months before he wrote the announcement. And you just start kind of putting pieces together. And then all the things with polygamy. Polygamy had always bothered me in the past, but I never bothered to delve into it because I kind of figured what I would find wouldn't be faith affirming.

Jordan [02:22:35] And so when I finally started reading these things and I got into. I read Fawn Brody's book, I started getting into all these things that all those alarm bells started going off. And it was, it was all things that I didn't know. Like, I knew on a surface level that Joseph Smith was involved in polygamy. I didn't know that he was, you know, potentially having sexual relations with minors. Like those are, those are things that

McKay [02:22:58] aren't children to you.

Jordan [02:23:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:23:01] I wonder if it occurred to you to think about all the sexual shame both of you endured in your Mormon experience, only to find out the founder of Mormonism had actually literally been a sexual predator. Did that. I don't. I can't even assume that you've thought about that now. I'm wondering if it even occurred to you back then.

McKay [02:23:20] It definitely did not occur to me at the time.

John Dehlin [02:23:23] Didn't.

McKay [02:23:24] That's. That's a great thing to bring up and a great thing I will be pondering tonight.

John Dehlin [02:23:28] Sorry, I just. Through that. I don't know about you, Jordan.

Jordan [02:23:31] It totally is because. And the way you, you just put it so simply. And I hadn't thought about it in those terms, but that's probably what.

John Dehlin [02:23:38] What gets me because your behavior was completely normative. Even yours, Jordan. Normative, developmental. Some would even argue healthy behavior. You guys felt like garbage and trash. You're in a church founded by a sexual predator and he's worshiped as a hero.

Jordan [02:23:57] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:23:57] By. By millions.

McKay [02:23:59] Yeah. Even to find the evidence that alluded to that fact, just the knowledge of Jordan's sexual abuse and everything like that was just sickening to my core, honestly. I was like, this is a person that I used to sing us hymn about Praise to the Man. And this is not even a person I would allow myself to associate with in real life.

John Dehlin [02:24:28] You wouldn't let your kid be alone with Joseph Smith?

McKay [02:24:30] No.

John Dehlin [02:24:31] Right?

McKay [02:24:31] No way. Yeah. I would actively oppose anything that any sexual predator would say. So why would Joseph Smith be the Caveat to that. So there was that for me that was a big thing. I was like, are you kidding? At the time I really couldn't even process what was going on.

Jordan [02:24:51] The Book of Abraham was really, oh

McKay [02:24:52] my God, the Book of Abraham.

John Dehlin [02:24:55] What did you thought?

McKay [02:24:55] The historicity of the Book of Abraham for me especially because for non Mormons

John Dehlin [02:25:00] explain what all that is.

McKay [02:25:02] People are like, oh, the Book of Abraham. The historicity of the Book of Abraham, which is another revelation that Joseph Smith brought forth, as it says in the scripture, by translating a papyrus that was found from ancient Egypt that was written by the hand of Abraham, which was further revelation a lot about the, the descendants. It includes the, the skin of blackness, curse of the people of Ham or the origination of people that are black in the world.

McKay [02:25:44] And anyway, I'm getting too, too far into that. But Doctrine and Covenants was my sophomore year of high school and they do discuss like the historicity of the Book of Abraham even in the manual that they were teaching me out of. But one, I was a high schooler going to early morning seminary, which was at 6am before I went to school at 7:15 was when class started.

McKay [02:26:08] And two, I also had a absolutely horrendous seminary class. So a of lot, a lot of times my seminary teacher was crying because we were all a bunch of little a holes to her.

John Dehlin [02:26:20] But you digress.

McKay [02:26:23] But this was not stuff that I had learned about the polygamy aspect I didn't learn about because that was that same year I went on my mission not knowing that Joseph Smith had more than Emma as his wife. I was adamant that he didn't. So I didn't learn this stuff. And when it came to the Book of Abraham and the way that apologetics just explain it, it's like spitting in the face of anybody who has a brain.

John Dehlin [02:26:50] So supposedly Joseph Smith buys these Egyptian papyrus and by the gift and power of God translates them into the Book of Abraham, which you know by his own words. You know, the papyrus should have been Abraham's own words written with his hand.

McKay [02:27:09] Yeah, that's what it says.

John Dehlin [02:27:10] Correlating to what his introduction translation allegedly ended up being. You discover in the scene.

McKay [02:27:18] That is not the case. Yeah, the scroll had been lost and found. And modern Egyptologists say that there's no way that this could have been penned by Abraham because it was just a common funerary scroll. It wasn't even unique. A lot of the, there's little, what do they call them, diagrams or there's hieroglyphic. What do they refer to them as the. In the

Jordan [02:27:50] little circle thing.

John Dehlin [02:27:51] Yeah, facsimiles.

McKay [02:27:52] The facsimiles, yeah. So they have these little facsimiles which were missing bits when Joseph got them and he just filled them in. They have complete versions of these where you can tell that he just straight up made it up where the. The missing bits were. There's no reference to the name of Abraham on those scrolls anywhere. Anywhere.

John Dehlin [02:28:14] The name Abraham. The word Abraham doesn't even appear anywhere in the scrolls.

McKay [02:28:18] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:28:19] And they were written like at least 1,000 years after the time that allegedly Abraham would have lived. And we're not even sure Abraham ever actually existed in the first place, which is another problem.

McKay [02:28:31] So I was like.

John Dehlin [02:28:32] And oh, by the way, all this is in the church's Book of Abraham Gospel topics essay, which we'll include in our show notes. So none of this stuff is anti Mormon drivel. This is all stuff the church now admits.

McKay [02:28:43] Yeah. And I was blown away. I was like, how can. It's not even changed in the text that it is. Like, they could just add allegedly and maybe it would appease me a little bit. But going into the apologetics of it with the Catalyst theory, like, Joseph Smith needed this text or this piece of history to be inspired by the Spirit, to reveal the actual text of the Book of. I could not believe that people thought that way. Like Occam's Razor in my early CES letter, delving into church history, looking at ERA was my best friend. I was like, is it more likely that he needed this artifact to be able to see, receive revelation, and to be able to write this scripture for God, or is it more likely that he just made it up?

McKay [02:29:43] It seems like we're trying to take our beliefs and just write some BS answer as to how it came about. So that kind of stuff was just absolutely infuriating to me. There was other aspects of the polygamy situation where allegedly there were people who didn't want to get married to Joseph Smith who were menaced with an angel with a flaming sword. I was like, why is God so interested that he will send an angel with a flaming sword to a person who doesn't want to get married to Joseph Smith. And yet there are people out there who are being sexually abused that their prayers go unanswered and things like that.

John Dehlin [02:30:32] Because Joseph told some of the women that he approached as prophet, trying to coerce them to be a sexual partner. Hey, I'm only doing this could God, because God sent an angel with the flaming sword, threatening my life to kill me if I don't proposition you for sex.

McKay [02:30:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:30:49] And yeah, it's a great point. Why would God send an angel and a flaming sword so that Joseph could have sex with women that were other men's wives and not send an angel with the flaming sword, frankly. To protect you, Jordan.

McKay [02:31:02] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:31:02] From your sexual predator.

McKay [02:31:04] Yeah. I was like, so it really.

Jordan [02:31:07] Well, and here's the thing about this that gets me too is with that recent news story about that BYU professor that was sexually abusing that girl. This is why Joseph Smith in this mentality is problematic. Because we use that same kind of.

McKay [02:31:23] Oh, yeah, I just.

Jordan [02:31:24] Same manipulation. Joseph was like, you know, I'm this, I'm a prophet and the Lord is telling me that I need to do this with you because that's what is needing to happen. And if you don't follow what I'm telling you, that there's going to be consequences. And then we have this BYU professor who sexually assaulted this girl and told her the same exact thing. I feel inspired me that I need to be with you. And the Lord inspired me to do these things with you. And I'm like, we don't recognize that this has real intended consequences.

John Dehlin [02:31:54] And the bizarre thing is that professor probably believed it because just like Nephi, you know, Nephi was told by his emotions or by the Holy Ghost that he should kill Laban. Why wouldn't. If polygamy is enshrined in Doctrine and covenants section 132, which it is, it's still Mormon doctrine. Polygamy is still Mormon doctrine. In Mormon scripture today, it's not too far fetched if this seminary teacher or this BYU professor is worshiping Joseph Smith as the man most righteous next to Jesus, which is also Mormon teachings.

John Dehlin [02:32:32] And polygamy is Mormon scripture. And Joseph Smith got revelation that he should practice polygamy. And this is. This is so many people in the modern era. Why wouldn't a Mormon man these days who feel sexual attraction to some teenage girl all of a sudden feel like they're receiving a witness. It's really their hormones. But feel like they're receiving a witness from the Holy Ghost that they're supposed to take on an extra concubine or wife.

Jordan [02:32:59] Exactly.

John Dehlin [02:32:59] There's all that justification and precedent for repeated sexual predation.

McKay [02:33:04] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:33:05] Which is the history of sort of sexual predation within Utah male Mormonism. So it's. It's all right there.

McKay [02:33:12] And something I had just realized is in the Book of Mormon, they justify Nephi killing Laban and Lopping up his head, which is pretty brutal. They. By saying that it's. It's important that one evil man perish to save a nation of people. Or that's just paraphrasing. But how could that evil better than

John Dehlin [02:33:31] one man perish than a nation dwindle in unbelief?

McKay [02:33:34] In unbelief. Yeah. How could that not be extrapolated to other serious crimes? Like it's better that one person gets sexually abused so that she can be pregnant with my child. Who's. I mean, the delusion can. It has no bounds in a lot of cases. So enabling ideas like that is just dangerous.

Jordan [02:33:57] So we read the whole thing that night and we stood up after reading that and we looked at each other and we said, okay, we're done.

McKay [02:34:06] Done. Never going back.

John Dehlin [02:34:08] And what was the year and month? Do you remember?

McKay [02:34:12] Let's see, that would have been February 2021.

Jordan [02:34:14] 2021.

John Dehlin [02:34:16] Yeah, last year, about a year ago, basically.

McKay [02:34:20] Um, I think the next day we were kind of inspired by

Carah Burrell [02:34:26] what's.

McKay [02:34:26] What are their name? Kyle and Nisha.

John Dehlin [02:34:30] Okay, so you're naming now. Tick Tockers.

McKay [02:34:32] Yeah. Inspired by.

John Dehlin [02:34:33] Yeah. Talk about really quickly because, you know, now's where we start. Probably the seeds of your own involvement in Mormon. Ex Mormon. Tick Tock. And then. And then YouTube, it's probably starts. Talk about how TikTok influenced you. I know you've talked about it a little bit in terms of like gathering information. Yeah. But let's spend some time talking about how TikTok integrates influences, questioning Mormons and people. Mormons who are starting to leave the church because it's probably having a massive influence. We probably don't even fully understand in 2022 what the real impact of TikTok is going to be for the church because just Mormon Stories podcast, thanks to Carah and all the interviewees, you know, has over 120,000 followers after only seven months.

Carah Burrell [02:35:27] Yeah. And I just want to also add, I loved that Jordan was talking about the second anointing. Really, like being the big shelf item that she had. And I have found anytime I've uploaded anything about the second anointing, that is the one that makes Mormons the most angry, the most questioning of like, I've never heard of this. That's the issue that I really think. And people would never know about it unless it's, you know, just on their for you page coming up. Unless you go out and seek it, which a lot of people don't. Like you said, it's really hard to find information about that.

Carah Burrell [02:35:53] So it's this podcast. It's other ex Mormons, like, you know, finding the info and presenting it. And sometimes, unfortunately, it. It pushes people into faith crisis, which is never really our intention, but it is our intention to let people know what is going on between, you know, you just being in Sunday school and actually what's going on with the elites in the Mormon church.

McKay [02:36:11] Like behind closed doors, baptized member, you. I feel like you were entailed to total transparency.

Carah Burrell [02:36:17] Totally.

McKay [02:36:17] At all times.

Carah Burrell [02:36:18] Yeah. So that's the beauty of ex Mormon TikTok and just TikTok in general. There's so many good things that come from it.

Jordan [02:36:23] But.

Carah Burrell [02:36:24] Sorry, go on.

John Dehlin [02:36:24] Yeah. It is not like we're trying to like, take everyone out of the church, but like, again, informed consent. If people are going to give their lives, their reputation to two years of their mission service, 10% of their income for life, their decisions around education, around career, they're going to make all these decisions, endure sexual shame for sometimes a decade or more, feel when they're dying on the operating table of a C section, that this is God's punishment for normative sexual exploration that they did in high school. If the church is going to, you know, turn it up to 11. All that pressure, all that pain and all that suffering, it better be true. And they better. They better be giving everyone all the information. And so tell us, tell us what role Tick Tock played in your final unraveling and your. Your eventual post Mormonism. Take us through it.

McKay [02:37:16] I remember seeing Kyle and Nisha and

John Dehlin [02:37:19] they're the first ones.

McKay [02:37:20] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:37:20] So we've had them on Mormon Stories podcast. Yes, we'll add them. We'll add them to the show notes,

McKay [02:37:25] their YouTube them, Adam and Cherelle, who actually live pretty close to us, which was kind of cool.

Jordan [02:37:32] Actual agency.

McKay [02:37:33] Actual agency.

John Dehlin [02:37:34] These are Tik Tok handles.

McKay [02:37:35] Yeah, we like them a lot. We saw them and they were couples sharing their story.

John Dehlin [02:37:39] So you're a young Mormon couple and then you've got these other young Mormon

McKay [02:37:44] couples, similar elder millennials. Yeah. So we're like, let's share our story. Because maybe. Cause it seemed like a lot of people were getting like, gleaning a lot of like or identifying with their experiences. And I was like, maybe there's somebody out there who could benefit from hearing about us. And we sat down one night and just kind of gave a brief explanation of how we were. Had gotten to the night before where we decided, yep, we're done. Adios, everybody.

Jordan [02:38:16] And the response, I don't think we Were prepared for the response. The response was overwhelmingly positive. And coming from Mormonism and transitioning out of Mormonism, there's a lot of fear. And you bury your soul on the Internet with a lot of these things and say, you know, I'm questioning my religion or I'm walking away and. And this is all new to me. And then you're just met with this community who loves and supports you and is like, you know what? I've been there. I've done that. We're here for you. We'll buy you coffee. We'll like, we'll transition you into your new. Help transition you into your new lifestyle. And I don't think we were really prepared for that.

McKay [02:38:55] No. Just making a couple videos that one night. We got a pretty decent response. So we're like, maybe we will make more videos about things that we're learning now that we're really looking into this with a new set of eyes. And the response just kept coming. We were really quick to get a thousand followers, which I think is still the same way. But I'm lost.

John Dehlin [02:39:20] Were you afraid to put your faces in, you know, faces out there and even your names?

McKay [02:39:24] Yeah, we didn't even really set it up very anonymously at the start.

John Dehlin [02:39:33] We were like, whatever your names was, nothing else anonymous.

McKay [02:39:36] We just made sure. Yeah. Initially we were like, let's go through and find as many of my family members that might stumble upon us and block them off.

Jordan [02:39:45] So that's what we did first. We went through our contact list and blocked every single one of them who was on TikTok.

McKay [02:39:50] Yeah, there was a lot of preparation that went into.

Jordan [02:39:53] Because we hadn't told any family members yet. So if they were to encounter any of that, we were going to be screwed.

Carah Burrell [02:39:57] Never get drunk and let your finger slip and do the like, sink contact. Yep, never do that.

Jordan [02:40:02] Exactly.

McKay [02:40:04] So we got to a thousand followers, which on TikTok allow or opens the door to allow you to live stream.

Deciding to Leave and Share Their Story Openly

John Dehlin [02:40:12] I have to ask you one question. Sorry, go ahead. Lots of people lose their faith but don't feel like they want to come out publicly.

McKay [02:40:18] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:40:19] Number one, because they're going to face opposition sometimes, you know, being cut out of wills, sometimes being cut out of family relationships. You know, I won't let you be around my, you know, cutting you out of inheritance, cutting you out of family discussions, not letting you be around their children or their grandchildren. Like they're huge potential social costs for speaking up. So a lot of people who lose their faith, number one, will just stay in the Church, but just become what's called a pimo, physically and mentally out because they don't want to face the potential consequences of leaving. So, like, that. That's one stage of, like dealing with a faith crisis.

McKay [02:41:07] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:41:08] For those who have privilege and. Or a little more courage or ability, the next phase would be quietly leaving, but doing it quietly. Right.

McKay [02:41:17] Which is what we were able to do.

John Dehlin [02:41:19] And then. And then the next stage is which is the most bullshit or the most privileged, whatever you want to call it, is actually being outspoken. What made you guys choose the most bold, the most risky? Let's say it's the most dangerous of those options.

McKay [02:41:36] Honestly, I feel like a big motivator was the outrage of things that we didn't know, that we wanted to make sure that other people knew and knew it was okay that they felt that way.

Jordan [02:41:51] The sexual shame thing was a big one for me. Yeah, it was like the purity culture. All of these things were. Were handing down to. To boys and to. To young women. And it's. It's damaging. I mean, this stuff stays with you for.

Jordan [02:42:05] For people up to decades of their lives that they're spending this much time and effort and especially with people with religious scrupulosity when you're like literally suffering and turn internally with these things and it's like, it doesn't have to be that way. Like, it doesn't have to be like this. And I think that was our whole goal is to come across as, you know, one, we're normal human beings. We don't have horns, and we're not doing Satan's work, despite what people might think. But that, one, it's okay to question, two, it's okay to leave. And three, it needs to get out there that this is. It's not what people say it is.

McKay [02:42:39] Yeah, yeah, it was. It was pretty wild in that aspect. And just learning how privileged that we were to be experience of experiencing a faith crisis at the same time and knowing that that was like, for lack of a better term, a huge blessing that a lot of people didn't have. A lot of people fall into a faith crisis and their spouse doesn't. And that's a part. A piece that will break a lot of people's marriages.

Jordan [02:43:11] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:43:12] Yeah.

McKay [02:43:12] So for us to be so still devoted to each other and be able to walk away from the central tenet of our lives for basically for my entire life and for the better part of Jordan's adult life, it was super. I mean, it was. We were super lucky in that aspect. So we wanted to share our story. Once we unlocked live streaming, we would get on and there would just be floods of people who would come by and ask questions, who just wanted to know more, who had never heard about it and just had a Mormon roommate at one point or dated a Mormon in high school. And they were like, what's up with caffeine? Why can Mormons drink Coca Cola but they can't have a coffee?

Jordan [02:43:58] And I think the one premise that stood out, I mean, when we first started is we told people, whatever question you have, we'll answer it. Like, you throw us a question about Mormonism, no matter what it is, and we'll tell you the answer. And I think that really appealed to people because, you know, they were like, well, nobody would tell me about this. Well, nobody would tell me there was a connection to Freemasonry. Well, nobody told me that Joseph Smith was a predator. Like, you know, and so we really opened ourselves up and we're like, yeah, we used to think that. Or yeah, that's absolutely, absolutely. We used to believe that. And I think that kind of resonated with a lot of people that we were willing to be vulnerable and honest about it.

McKay [02:44:33] Yeah, yeah, that's always kind of been our, our modem, our MO really is just transparency in anything. And people will throw questions at us and they're like, I don't know if this is inappropriate to ask of you. And in a public sphere like that, like, normally it would come off as inappropriate to be like, did you have sex before you were married or did you fool around before you were married? But for sake of transparency and so people can understand the aspects of Mormonism and how people experience that intense sexual shame and things like that, we will always answer those questions and tell the full story because we really never had any incentive to lie about anything. There was nothing to gain from that.

Jordan [02:45:26] Well, nobody told us the truth about any of those things anyway.

McKay [02:45:28] Yeah, no one would give you a straight answer. So we wanted to tell about those quirky things of our stake President telling us not to use tools because it's a true story. It's things that happen behind closed doors in these kinds of interview. We want to tell people that you wear these crazy outfits and you get new names and there's so tokens of handshakes and signs and penalties in the Mormon temple, just like there are in Masonic rituals. And because, I mean, what better way to do it than condense down information in a 60 second TikTok? Like, yeah, information.

McKay [02:46:12] Nowadays you have what, 10 seconds to get People's attention before they scroll on. So if, you know, not everybody has time to sit down and read Von Brody or stuff from the Tanners Lighthouse Ministries and Utah Lighthouse Ministries or even the CES letter which is way condensed down version of those sources. So, you know, 62nd TikToks is a great way to get information out there and get people in the know about what's going on.

Carah Burrell [02:46:50] All right, let me ask you. I had to answer this question when I was in that seat. John asked me and you just said that in the name of transparency and you'll answer the question. So the question that I get a lot, I'm sure you get a lot is, well, all you're doing is existing just to what, tear down the church. What are your intentions? Do you want to tear down the church? What I know you just mentioned transparency and wanting to get the information out, but is there, is there an aspect of just. Are you guys angry ex Mormons that just like are bitter?

McKay [02:47:22] Absolutely.

Carah Burrell [02:47:23] Yeah. So how do you answer those questions when they come up for you?

McKay [02:47:26] To borrow a phrase from our friend Jen, a channel called Fundy Fridays, we are overweight, sexually broken losers who are dedicated to people knowing the truth about what it is to be Mormon and things like that. I'll let Jordan add on to that.

Carah Burrell [02:47:45] If that destroys the church, so be it.

McKay [02:47:47] Yeah, I know if speaking the truth tears down your organization, that's not my fault.

Jordan [02:47:55] That's always been what our point is. And like speaking heart, like speaking out about injustice and oppression and that's, that's important and that's part of what happens in the church.

John Dehlin [02:48:08] I mean it's a weak sauce church. If, if the all powerful creator has his. Has his plan built with his power and omniscience thwarted by, by two Gen Zers with the TikTok account.

McKay [02:48:25] A little app that people are scared to download because it's from China or

John Dehlin [02:48:30] no, that is weird.

Carah Burrell [02:48:31] You got a trillion dollars in the bank and you're taken down by Chinese app.

Jordan [02:48:34] And I think that's one of the best things about TikTok is the church especially now is so one, into information control and two with the rebranding away from Mormonism is trying to shape things and wrap things into a more enticing and appealing thing that really isn't Mormonism anymore. Right. To kind of draw you in. And I think one of the best things about TikTok is they can't control that narrative on TikTok. Like the LDS hashtag, the Mormon hashtag are completely out from under them, they have no control over those things.

McKay [02:49:01] Yeah. Because on Google you can pay for those ad spaces that are right at the top of the results page, but on a hashtag, it's fair game.

John Dehlin [02:49:11] If only the church had a prophet, Syrian revelator to foresee the coming of TikTok. And no, they need to get ahead of the game.

Jordan [02:49:18] Right. They need to prepare.

McKay [02:49:19] It's so funny because they're always like, oh, we were so ahead of the curve on tobacco, but dang, he did not see TikTok coming out of left field at all.

Jordan [02:49:28] But TikTok people are core whores now anyway, so I guess it doesn't.

McKay [02:49:33] Or whore would use TikTok.

John Dehlin [02:49:35] But there. But you are also to your point, Jordan, there's that. Was it J. Reuben Clark, who was it that said, if we have the truth, we cannot be harmed. If we have not the truth, we should be harmed? Is that kind of what you were saying?

Jordan [02:49:50] That's exactly what it is. Like if it, if these kinds of things and if people telling their stories are what, you know, brings it down, then it's a weak sauce.

McKay [02:50:01] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [02:50:02] And to be honest, it usually is stories like you can put up as many informational things as possible, but as John likes to say all the time that you have an emotional conversion to this church and you kind of have an emotional deconversion sometimes. And Tik Tok is so personal sometimes you can really like empathize with somebody across the screen. And people are so vulnerable. There's so many different voices. And so, yeah, that's really what it is. It's. People telling their stories are going to make the church crumble. Like you should maybe make it so their stories aren't so freaking sad.

John Dehlin [02:50:29] Yeah. Because in one minute you can, if you pick the right little song or the right little meme where you're telling your story, your Mormon story, and it starts out happy and you're maybe using photos of your childhood or your mission and then you break to the part where it starts to fall apart and your life gets sad. A TikTok, a one minute TikTok can have a really significant.

Carah Burrell [02:50:51] It's even easier than that emotional punch. It's Katie, the human showing her before and after her dress as a Mormon. You know, people do like to do those ones of like what I look like when I was a Mormon. What did I look like now? And it's like, I gotta go with the hot one. I'm sorry, sorry. People always do that one. The, you know, the knee length shorts and long Sleeve shirts were not hot enough. So it's literally, it's just images and stories and TikTok is, has such a good way of people being able to tell the story and it's so accessible. How's the church going to stand a chance?

John Dehlin [02:51:21] How can they compete? Like if, if they get on TikTok and encourage and start to create content for TikTok and encourage the members to look at the faith promoting content.

Carah Burrell [02:51:31] The.

John Dehlin [02:51:32] The algorithm is going to also pull ex Mormon content.

Jordan [02:51:36] Exactly.

John Dehlin [02:51:37] So the church is kind of.

Carah Burrell [02:51:38] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:51:39] It can't win.

Carah Burrell [02:51:39] Just to clarify, the. A huge difference between YouTube how it normally would be is that YouTube algorithm should. Could, you know, the church could pay to have better spaces there. But it's up to you to what. Click what you want to click on. Just to clarify, TikTok plays videos for you and you just see it until you swipe away. So, so it's just going to continually play something. The church can't keep you in a safe zone with videos just coming at you that continually. So if anyone's not on Tik Tok, I just want to say it's a game changer.

John Dehlin [02:52:08] It is.

McKay [02:52:08] Yeah.

Jordan [02:52:09] Well, and they can't, they can't compete. I don't know. Is owl fox caraway still on there?

Carah Burrell [02:52:13] I don't know. I told her that I look forward to working with her though.

Jordan [02:52:16] It's. That's the thing though is I'm like they're going to try to get Mormon influencers on there.

John Dehlin [02:52:21] Good luck.

Jordan [02:52:21] It's just not going to work.

John Dehlin [02:52:23] The other thing about TikTok is, you know, one video goes viral, it can hit a, it can hit a million people in like a day. Like you. I, I've been, I've been YouTubing. We've been YouTubing for 10, 15 years. However many years we don't have a video that's gone over like 150, 200,000 views in like over 10 years in TikTok. Literally you can, you can hit a million people with a one minute video in a day.

McKay [02:52:48] Only got a million views. It's like, oh, it's like freaking chump change. What cases?

John Dehlin [02:52:53] Not for us.

McKay [02:52:54] On TikTok, not for us. It's like we're grateful, we're grateful for another thing at all. You look at the big creators, like on YouTube, a lot of views on a given video is like 100 million views. But like, I mean big creators on TikTok, they get billions of views on individual videos.

John Dehlin [02:53:15] Yeah.

McKay [02:53:17] And there's probably a lot more that goes into that.

Jordan [02:53:19] But that's the thing though is it doesn't take like an influencer in order to get there. Like you can be a regular human being with just a kick ass idea and it takes you, you know, you don't have to have like this kind of platform or anything in order to get to that point. Like it's not going to discriminate.

Carah Burrell [02:53:32] Yeah. Like levels the playing field in a different way.

McKay [02:53:35] You're limited on your hashtags and things like that. So really it's just up to the algorithm knowing what people are wanting to see. And they want to keep people on the app and they're like, they, they spent a little too much time watching that Nuance Hoes video. These guys are kind of similar. Let's throw McKay up there, suiting up in his temple ceremonial clothing. And then I want to talk about

John Dehlin [02:54:01] that, but I just thought of a historical reference like John Lennon, you know, with the Beatles, got in trouble by saying that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus, which at the time actually was semi true.

McKay [02:54:14] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:54:14] But he got in big trouble for it. I think the Tick Tock algorithm is more powerful than God, I would say. Is that fair to say?

McKay [02:54:22] It's funny because you see people, they have like epiphanies about their sexual orientation because they liked particular things and the YouTube or the, the Tick Tock algorithm caught on to that and they're like, oh, I guess maybe I'm not as heterosexual as I think I was, or things like that.

Jordan [02:54:41] So yeah, TikTok's always a powerful thing.

Carah Burrell [02:54:44] Everyone question everything.

McKay [02:54:45] I know.

John Dehlin [02:54:46] No, I'm just saying, like there's that. I don't know if you memorize that, that Wentworth letter or whatever it was, you know, no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing. You know, like, yeah, TikTok can stop the work from progressing. Right.

McKay [02:55:01] TikTok and YouTube are the.

John Dehlin [02:55:03] the forefront.

McKay [02:55:06] Yeah. All the anti Mormon literature, as extremely invaluable as it is, is gotten to the point where the Mormon Church has just countered everything that it could possibly offer and new ways have arisen. So.

Jordan [02:55:23] Out of the ashes.

McKay [02:55:24] Out of the ashes of those things. So, so.

John Dehlin [02:55:27] So did you guys first dress in temple clothes on Tik Tok or on. Okay, let's talk about that. Because like Killen is a really good example of a famous Tiktoker Post Mormon Tik Tocker. She's like roller skating in her temple clothes.

McKay [02:55:40] I think that was the one that inspired us to do it.

Jordan [02:55:43] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:55:43] Yeah. So she's she's loved and hated. She also gets death threats. Talk about that decision. Because on the one hand, it's, you know, transparency and informed consent.

McKay [02:55:57] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:55:58] On the other hand, it's considered something that's very, very sacred and special to Mormons and deeply, deeply offensive to be dressing in temple clothes at all, let alone roller skating. So talk about your decision to kind of cross that barrier.

McKay [02:56:16] Oh, man. I remember doing it because we were absolutely mortified to doing anything in public. And that for the first video we did didn't go off as well. But there was a trending. There was a trend of people doing, like a little transformation to this Mike Posner song. If you were around, you know exactly what we're talking about. But we're in the car, we're just driving, kind of lip syncing along to the words. And then suddenly there's a shift into the chorus of the song and we are in our temple ceremonial clothing, just driving in the car, going on as scheduled. We particularly picked a road that was out by the airport where there's just some farms.

Jordan [02:57:07] Literally the middle of nowhere.

McKay [02:57:08] Yeah. And I remember I pulled off to the side of the road in between properties, so I could be as far away from any houses that I could be. Because the chances of those people being Mormons or members of the church were probably pretty high. Was pretty high. So we pull off, wait for a clear gap in cars. There weren't very many. And then we just like pull all the ceremonial clothing out of the envelope, throw it on as fast as we can.

Jordan [02:57:36] We're going at the speed of light here.

McKay [02:57:38] And get back on the road so we can get the shot of it. I'm not driving. Jordan is. But we were terrified. We were. As soon as we were done with it and happy with it, we pulled over again, ripped all the stuff off and threw it in the little envelope

Carah Burrell [02:57:51] and continued our way, terrified, filled with anxiety. So it was a temple ceremony again, is what you're saying.

McKay [02:57:57] Yes, exactly. This I love when I make John laugh that hard. That time was a little less anxiety producing or inducing because that was really the first time that we had put on the ceremonial clothing since pre 2020and definitely the first time I'd ever put on the clothing when I was not in the temple. And even though I was 100% done, I was like, this is just a huge interpolation of Masonic rituals and really vague biblical references in Exodus when it comes to the tabernacle or the Temple of Solomon, whatever. But even then it was just that Cognitive dissonance because it had been drilled into my head. This only goes on in the temple. And people, laymen, people, the Gentiles, they don't see that when you put it on. So we were terrified, honestly.

John Dehlin [02:59:02] But this is. This might be a generational difference because my generation might leave the church, but probably wouldn't talk about the temple publicly.

McKay [02:59:10] No.

John Dehlin [02:59:10] And would never ever consider to be appropriate or constructive to publicly dress in the. I mean, Ed Decker did it, and even ex Mormons hated Ed Decker for, like, parading outside the temple ceremony in the temple clothes. And it's a generational thing.

McKay [02:59:28] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:59:29] And I don't know if, like Zelf on the Shelf, they're kind of more millennials. I don't know how much they.

Carah Burrell [02:59:35] Tanner has for his videos, but Sam hasn't.

John Dehlin [02:59:38] Yeah. So, I mean, that's. That's a generational difference. It seems like Gen Z is more willing to push the edges far. I don't know if that's like South Park's influence or. Or like Big Mouth or what types of media influences or what would make a Gen Z are way more willing to push envelopes as a post Mormon than maybe millennials or definitely people in my. Do you have any theories on why you guys are more comfortable doing something like that?

McKay [03:00:07] I don't know. It's almost like a reclamation for me.

John Dehlin [03:00:12] What do you mean by that?

McKay [03:00:13] Like, reclaiming these clothes. Like, anybody who is like, you need to take that off. That's like sacred to us. I'm like, these are just the clothes I got married in. That's all it is to me now. If it holds significance to you, like,

John Dehlin [03:00:26] to me, then don't dress that way.

McKay [03:00:28] Don't dress that way. Yeah, obviously. And even funnier is we, on those videos, before we showed anything, would put content warnings for true believing Mormons respectful. So they wouldn't see that.

John Dehlin [03:00:41] Of course you call respectful.

McKay [03:00:43] That didn't matter because. Because they would just go, oh, they're gonna. They're gonna wear the clothes. I'm gonna type up my hate comment on how faithless they must have been. And like, whatever.

Jordan [03:00:54] I don't know. I feel like. And this might be the MSW little social worker coming out of me, but I feel like Gen Z is kind of more adamantly looking at systems and systems of oppression and being like, this isn't working anymore and we need to figure out why it isn't working. And in order to make it work, sometimes we have to tear things down. And I think that's. I think that Plays a role. And they're a little bit more willing to kind of push the envelope in. In order to send a message and be like, this needs to change.

McKay [03:01:23] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [03:01:24] What about the argument that, like, all you're doing is, like, creating more divisiveness? That even if somebody was on the fence, you know, in Mormonism, now look at the ex Mormons. They're so disrespectful. They are possessed by Satan. If they would do this.

John Dehlin [03:01:37] Ooh, yeah. For fulfilling the stereotypes of angry, disrespectful ex Mormons.

McKay [03:01:43] Honestly, I think because there is a spectrum of post Mormonism. There are people like Mormon Stories Podcast that have true believing Mormons or apologists or people on just as much as they have us. Maybe not just as much. I don't know what the mix is really. There are people like us who are, to a lot of people, extremely offensive because we are willing to tear down those systems that we were part of. We are willing to call out purity, culture as being harmful to basically everyone, patriarchy as harmful to everyone in a very unapologetic manner. And I feel like it resonates with a lot of people the way that we do it. And that probably doesn't resonate with a lot of people. And that's fine because there's other sources that they can go to and be like, okay, this is a little more palatable for me.

John Dehlin [03:02:40] You basically just made the point that. That older generations have a higher tolerance for systems of oppression and younger.

Carah Burrell [03:02:46] No, it's.

John Dehlin [03:02:47] I mean, I know everybody gets a little bit marinating in that. A little bit.

Carah Burrell [03:02:52] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:02:52] I have more tolerance for that maybe.

McKay [03:02:55] Yeah. And it's not your fault. You were just steeped in the system for so long that I thought it

John Dehlin [03:03:01] was just I was being classy and respectful. Turns out,

McKay [03:03:05] it turns out I've been disrespectful.

Carah Burrell [03:03:07] Every generation has to push the envelope where the older generation thinks that they're just a bunch of, like, young know nothing losers, and our generation's better. So everyone pushes the envelope. And then your kids will push the envelope. My kids will. And we'll be like, no, I would never do that. I graduated in 2007. We were respectable back then. Back when I was.

McKay [03:03:25] We had some class.

John Dehlin [03:03:26] Well, I appreciate you guys making me look respectful. Okay. I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you for making Mormon Voldemort. You're redeeming Mormon Voldemort. Actually, Voldemort is a character in a book series called Harry Potter. It came out before you guys were no, his family.

McKay [03:03:44] Yeah. Oh, that was a really interesting thing. We read Harry Potter growing up. I have some really updated, not so good sentiment about. About J.K. rowling, but that's beside the point. Nonetheless, nonetheless, we started doing those TikTok lives and the longer form livestream we would stream from like the moment our son went to sleep until like 2 or 3am sometimes, which was usually a span of like 8 o' clock until 2 or 3.

Jordan [03:04:17] You knew. You're usually up around that time.

John Dehlin [03:04:19] Those.

Carah Burrell [03:04:19] Look at old days.

Jordan [03:04:20] They were back when we very first started. We had a tight community back then.

Carah Burrell [03:04:24] Why do I have time for that anymore? Is it because we like got jobs out of doing the TikTok? That's what we did basically when we didn't have the job. I was doing this. You weren't doing your YouTube channel. Now all that free time is eaten up here and on your YouTube channel.

Jordan [03:04:37] Right. Oh my gosh. It makes so much sense now.

McKay [03:04:39] Absolutely. Yeah. Because TikTok kind of fell to the back burner because we were interested in doing the longer form content.

John Dehlin [03:04:48] I'm thinking about when we had young kids, how in the world. At first I was thinking, how in the world do you find time to TikTok and YouTube? And then I thought, oh, I know you're not going to church and reading your scriptures and doing your home teaching and preparing your lessons.

Carah Burrell [03:05:02] You have more time guarding your virtue takes all night.

McKay [03:05:06] Exactly. So that inspired Jordan was like, why don't we start a YouTube channel? And we can. We have more than 60 seconds and we have. That was when there was only 60 seconds. You couldn't.

John Dehlin [03:05:18] Have you guys been followers of YouTube?

McKay [03:05:21] I've been, yeah. I've been a user of YouTube probably since I daily watched like people like Philip DeFranco back in like 2009 and had been continuing on with that. Lots of old YouTube culture, like stupid things like epic meal time. And so I had seen the progression of YouTube in the modern age, basically from its early stages of. It's just a site where I go on occasion because somebody emailed me a funny video to.

McKay [03:05:54] It's like the main source that people go to for news and things of that nature. So I kind of knew some of the ins and outs of YouTube and I'd seen enough people's channels to see kind of the things that they do. And right now we are really limited by our equipment, but I've been able to pick up on some of the things that like Philip DeFranco really pioneered the jump cut. And before Him. Jump cuts were just like a super negative thing to employ. And. And now it's just like speaking your native tongue.

John Dehlin [03:06:30] What's a jump cut for?

McKay [03:06:32] So for the uninitiated, a jump cut would be. Rather than doing everything in one take. And if you need. If you mess something up, you restart the take. You just cut out all the bits that were wrong and just slap them together in one cohesive thing. And a lot of times, if you do it right, you can just. It sounds like one continuous sentence, but the video obviously doesn't reflect that. So you can see that people's heads are in different ways, but it makes

John Dehlin [03:07:01] them shorter, punchier, more entertaining, right?

McKay [03:07:05] Oh, yeah. And you can do a lot of things like that. So I was. Jordan had mentioned it and I was like, I don't know if we really. Because I was like, I need to. If I want to do it, I want to live up to, you know, some of the people who write live

Carah Burrell [03:07:17] up to the jump cut.

McKay [03:07:18] No. And I had no videography experience, no audio engineering experience or editing skills. We had imovie installed on our imac, which, for whatever reason, I bought one of the better imacs the year before. Tender Mercies of the Lord, I guess, because that allows us to edit our videos.

Jordan [03:07:39] But that was all we had.

McKay [03:07:40] Yeah, that was all we had.

Carah Burrell [03:07:42] That's really quite. You learned all the editing and everything?

McKay [03:07:45] Yeah, we had a little tripod and a ring light already from Jordan's business. So we would set up the tripod and the ring light and we would. I would use my little. My Apple watch to start and stop the video and we would record a little video and just throw it in imovie and take out some parts that maybe we didn't like, and we throw it up on YouTube.

Jordan [03:08:07] And I was like, oh, that's really sad.

McKay [03:08:09] It was archaic.

Jordan [03:08:11] We. Yeah.

McKay [03:08:11] For our standards.

Jordan [03:08:12] It was the best we could muster at the time.

McKay [03:08:14] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [03:08:15] This is like six months ago.

Jordan [03:08:16] Yeah.

McKay [03:08:17] It looks so bad now.

John Dehlin [03:08:18] Back when we were young.

Carah Burrell [03:08:20] Yeah.

McKay [03:08:20] We had no microphones. It was just going off my iPhone.

Jordan [03:08:23] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:08:23] But here's the thing. Here's the thing. And we've made this point previously. The Mormon Church is a hundred billion, multi hundred billion dollar organization, possibly a trillion dollar organization. And some newlywed couple, you know, from home, with scrappy, with. With no video experience and minimal equipment, can just start a channel and in, you know, the period of a few months, start releasing videos that get hundreds of thousands of views.

McKay [03:08:58] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:08:58] How does the church compete with that?

McKay [03:09:01] I know and they have like whole videography and marketing teams behind theirs. And they have to pay to get a lot of the same attention that we just organically get. I'm not trying.

Carah Burrell [03:09:14] That's not.

McKay [03:09:14] It's kind of a humble brag.

Jordan [03:09:16] But, yeah, that's why you can't compete with that. And I. That's why to me, I don't think for Gen Z and Millennials and others, I don't know how sustainable the church really will be in the future. Because if this is what takes it down, I mean, Gen Z and Millennials aren't going anywhere.

Carah Burrell [03:09:31] And it's. Your audience is probably similar to ours that there's a lot of never Mormons who just want to understand the church. So majority the pool of people you could even convert, smaller and small, smaller people have Internet access are probably not the ones that missionaries are going to be knocking on the doors of very much longer.

Jordan [03:09:46] Exactly. That's. The majority of our audience isn't Mormon, so. Or hasn't ever been Mormon, which is

McKay [03:09:51] interesting, but it's been.

John Dehlin [03:09:53] I mean, which makes the missionary efforts more and more feudal, right?

Carah Burrell [03:09:57] That's what I just said. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you got me.

John Dehlin [03:10:01] Are you eating?

Carah Burrell [03:10:02] Yeah, that's why I was talking like this.

John Dehlin [03:10:04] I'm gonna call you out.

Carah Burrell [03:10:05] We've been here for three hours. I don't have any food in my mouth. I just don't want to spit peanuts over there. So what are your. From your YouTube channel, at least where you cover? You must be passionate about the subjects that you cover because sometimes you have to research them.

Jordan [03:10:19] Right.

Carah Burrell [03:10:19] And you have to like edit them for hours and stuff. So what are the topics that you were. So that you were most passionate about covering? What are like the funnest ones to do that you like talking about that are maybe just more pop culture references. So just like talk about some of your favorites from your YouTube channel.

McKay [03:10:34] I'll let you take over.

Jordan [03:10:35] Okay, let's see. We started. We started with just kind of funny stuff. Like we. We started with honor code stories, honor code horror stories. So we got on the. The Instagram account. I think it's BYU honor code.

McKay [03:10:53] Yeah. Honor code stories. There's a couple different ones.

Jordan [03:10:56] There's some. Oh, yeah, there's some stuff in there, man. So we, we took our. Some of our favorites down and just did like a live react reading them and that.

Carah Burrell [03:11:06] Do you remember any of them, like off the top of your head?

McKay [03:11:08] Oh, the stories.

Jordan [03:11:10] No, there was one that I remember where it was someone like. So this roommate got a Package from Victoria's Secret. Right. Scandalous at byui. And so her roommate encountered the package and called the honor code office on her because she had a Victoria's Secret package. Because inherently that means that she's breaking the honor code somehow.

Carah Burrell [03:11:32] Oh, no.

McKay [03:11:34] Sexy underwear means sexy actions, I guess.

Jordan [03:11:39] And it's.

Carah Burrell [03:11:40] That has been true in my case, post Mormonism.

Jordan [03:11:42] Just kidding. But that appears they're like, because to the non Mormon, to the Nevermo, to people who aren't religious, they read things like that and they're like, who on earth is doing this? Like, why do you guys go to byu?

Jordan [03:11:58] Why is this a thing? And so I think those things captivate people. And then we've spent more time like we've. We started a temple series about what happens in the temple and kind of walking people through it because the videos are out there. But it, if you don't know the ceremonies and you don't know what's going on, it's not going to make any sense to you.

Jordan [03:12:17] And so we walk people through the whole experience as you would if you had never, like if you were a member and you were going through it for the first time. We didn't tell them anything. We didn't tell them what was going to happen. We were like, we're going to throw you into this experience as if you were really a Mormon and we're going to tell you what they told us so you can have that full experience.

Jordan [03:12:36] And so that's what we've been working on. And it's super interesting because you have all these people who are not Mormon who are walking through this experience as if they were, were. And they're like, what the hell? Nobody told you this. I'm confused. I don't know what's happening. And we're like, yes, so were we. That's the point that we're trying to drive home.

Carah Burrell [03:12:52] Oh, man, I bet that's so validating. It's like, thank you.

Jordan [03:12:54] Yes.

McKay [03:12:55] Yeah. And it kind of gives us creative freedom. I remember we were discussing. Because we're like, we want to react to the, the hidden camera video of the, the endowment. I was like, how are we going to do it? This is going to have to be a multiple episode thing. And Jordan's like, I think we need to start off by telling him this and this and this. And then I was just like, you know what? Let's let it happen to them. Like it happened to us. We just went in with some prior knowledge, no preparation, because the preparing to enter the holy temple really doesn't give you any idea of what's going to happen. So I was like, let's just run through the reaction to it. We'll give people pointers. Like we're whispering in their ear as they're. What do you call it? The chaperone.

Jordan [03:13:43] The escort.

McKay [03:13:44] The escort. And we'll just let it happen to him like it happened to us.

Carah Burrell [03:13:49] So it's like a very sacred Mystery Science theater.

McKay [03:13:52] Exactly, yeah.

Carah Burrell [03:13:53] Of anxiety and discomfort.

McKay [03:13:55] Yes.

Jordan [03:13:56] And that's, that's the thing is, I feel like that's the aspect of that experience that people are the most shocked by as they're walking through this. And they're like, wait, so because it's one thing to watch Mormons, like, supposedly participate in the ceremony. Right. But then it's one thing for us to walk you through it. And they're like, well, aren't I supposed to understand the significance of this? No, not right now. Do I understand what it. Like, what. Why am I putting this on? We don't know.

McKay [03:14:23] You are not told.

Jordan [03:14:24] It's a whole other thing for them to understand just how weird it is.

McKay [03:14:27] Yeah, it goes on the right shoulder because that's what the officiation. So that's what you're doing. And that was even kind of born out of. We were doing. We'll get back to it on our channel. But we were talking about influencers in. In the Wild who are Mormons. A lot of people who you may be.

John Dehlin [03:14:48] Family vloggers, right?

McKay [03:14:50] Family vloggers.

Jordan [03:14:51] Really big. Like Instagram.

McKay [03:14:54] Yeah, Instagram. And they're. They're Mormon. And you don't even know because it's not part of really their brand identity.

John Dehlin [03:15:01] You don't talk about it. And don't you highlight that a lot of them don't wear garments.

McKay [03:15:05] Yep, that. And that's where the, the more the temple stuff came out of, because we were like, they are misrepresenting or they are misrepresenting the religion by saying that it's a personal choice. Because it is not. You made the choice. The personal choice was when you, you made the covenant, the covenants with God, and you promised that you would wear this garment at all times.

Jordan [03:15:28] And it's hypocritical because you think, and I mean, some of these influencers bring in quite a bit of money. And so when you think about the church and when you think about tithing, you start to put two and two together. And it makes sense because why would they come down on these people who are contributing all this money?

John Dehlin [03:15:42] Yeah. Whether it's the Osmonds or certain rock stars, you know, the church has always had a double standard where wealth. The famous Mormons can drink or can have affairs or cannot wear their garments, and the church lets it slide. Either talks to them privately or ignores it or handles it behind the scenes or just gives them a pass. And the church has been doing this forever. But you guys are calling them out on it.

McKay [03:16:10] Yeah, absolutely. Because, I mean, I can imagine being a bishop and you're like, you see all the tithing receipts. Oh, this family's yearly tithing settlement is like, almost or over a million dollars. Am I really going to be so scrutinizing on them? Am I going to get a call from the area presidency if suddenly the tithing income was quite a bit. Yeah. Dropped by a factor of 10.

Jordan [03:16:37] Well, the part that bothers me about the influencer thing is it makes Mormonism more palatable. And that's how they actually is. That's how they preface these things, is they're like, well, garments. It's a personal choice. And I don't wear them because, you know, it's. It's something that's. I have chosen not to. And I'm like, that's not what Mormonism is. And you're leading people to believe that things have changed and that Mormons are more progressive now.

John Dehlin [03:17:01] Yep, we're cool.

Carah Burrell [03:17:02] Yeah. There's a. The perfect example is what we were talking about at dinner last night with Shay Carl, portraying how happy he is because he's Mormon and, like, he probably. They helped baptize.

Jordan [03:17:13] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [03:17:13] He's a family guy and he had such, like, an outgoing personality. And I think that was. He directly said, like, I'm so happy because I choose to be happy, because everything leads back to the gospel. This truth that I'm in. If you want it, by the way, it's right here, like, link in bio or whatever, you know, like. But then it comes out later on that he's having, like, an affair and he's drunk all the time. And he admitted that he was actually just drunk a lot of the time. The happiest vlogs where he was the funniest and the best was actually he looks back and that was drunk Shay. And nobody had any idea that this guy who was pitching Mormonism on us was not living it. Yeah, it was weird.

McKay [03:17:46] Yeah. I think he kind of fell from grace from that. But, like, if it had happened, if any of those situations that happened to any other YouTuber, there would have been. I mean, it's not none of my business if you're, yeah, it's not, not faithful to your wife, especially if you're just making goofy videos. I'm like, that's shitty. But okay.

McKay [03:18:05] But yeah, it's, it's people misrepresenting the Mormonism that I lived in and allowing people to say, yeah, maybe that's something I want to take part in. Or it's in there on their website, there's a little place where you can get a copy of the Book of Mormon for free. And I'm like, this is, you guys aren't painting the picture like it really is.

McKay [03:18:29] There's a lot of damaging bits. This is even the whitewashed version of the whitewashed version of the gospel that the missionaries give out. It's just showing that we're a happy family, we love each other, and oh yeah, it's because of the church that we go to and the gospel that we've received and accept as true.

John Dehlin [03:18:48] Yeah, I, I once did a little exercise where I like took the 10 most recent Mormon Stories podcast videos on YouTube and average the total views compared to the 10 most recently released YouTube videos by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. And average the total number of views and Mormon stories actually won. And what's, what's, what's powerful is that your videos are now doing better than our videos are doing. And, and so you guys are actually blowing the church away in average views. So the church has, it claims to have 16 million followers. We know that it really only has 3 to 4 million followers.

John Dehlin [03:19:31] But even at 3 to 4 million followers, you, your scrappy little seven month startup young couple, you're achieving way more average views on YouTube than a, than $100 billion if not a trillion dollar church. And I'd feel sorry for them, except they've been withholding the evidence and the truth and the information and misrepresenting the church for like almost two centuries. So they kind of have it coming to have their metaphorical rear ends handed to them by freaking a Gen Z cup, you know what I mean? Yeah, like they kind of had it coming to them because they deceived way too many people for way too long.

McKay [03:20:14] Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Jordan [03:20:16] That's exactly what it is. And the whole Mormon influencer thing is just a rebrand. And I wouldn't, I've always wondered if there's an agreement between high level Mormon people within the church and influencers because it perpetuates this idea that Mormons are normal and we, we just live this nice lifestyle and we're a nice family, and I'm always like, I wonder if there's, like, an NDA in there somehow where. Where we'll slip a little to you to the side here, if you continue to promote Mormonism in a positive light.

McKay [03:20:47] Yeah. It would definitely wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility.

John Dehlin [03:20:50] No. The church is on record as pulling together over the years, over the past decade, pulling in bloggers, pulling in Instagrammers and Al Fox, Caraway. Even Chelsea Homer was a part of this early on, bringing them to church headquarters, whining and dining them, cutting financial deals with them, book deals, negotiating with them, book deals with them, saying, you scratch our back, we'll scratch yours.

McKay [03:21:16] Yeah.

Jordan [03:21:16] You know, that's absolutely what. And it's misleading because people outside of Mormonism who follow these people are like, oh, they're getting a totally different look at Mormonism than anybody else would.

John Dehlin [03:21:27] And the weird. For me, the most unethical and strangest bizarre part of it all is you look how many people has the Mormon Church excommunicated or threatened with excommunication to the point of them resigning just for speaking the truth about Mormon Church history or Mormon Church doctrine on Facebook, on Instagram, on TikTok, on Twitter? Like, the church is harassing and excommunicating people for telling the truth about Mormonism while the church is paying social media influencers to deceive the world about Mormonism.

McKay [03:22:03] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:22:04] And the church itself is misrepresenting and deceiving the world about Mormonism. So they're punishing the truth tellers and they're rewarding the. The deceivers.

Carah Burrell [03:22:15] And with all of that deception, they still. Their numbers are flatlining.

John Dehlin [03:22:19] Yeah. Yeah.

Carah Burrell [03:22:20] They're doing everything from every angle.

Jordan [03:22:23] It's still not working.

McKay [03:22:24] They are still not working. Guys see the release. Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:22:26] Are we dancing on. We're not dancing on their grave, though.

Carah Burrell [03:22:28] I was just about to say. I was like, John, did you just say that we're winning? Can. In. In unrelated news, can I have next week off? Just.

John Dehlin [03:22:34] Yes. Yep, you can. You can have. You can have the year off. Car. You are released.

Carah Burrell [03:22:39] Oh, like paid maternity leave. But I don't have a baby.

John Dehlin [03:22:42] How about unpaid help? Unpaid celebration leave celebration.

McKay [03:22:47] Rest your life.

Carah Burrell [03:22:48] Oh, man.

John Dehlin [03:22:49] I would. My listeners would revolt if you bailed, so I think you got to stick around. Sorry.

Impact, Community, and Closing Reflections

Carah Burrell [03:22:54] All right, fine. All right, I'm taking it. It's for you people in Faith Crisis who are from that flatline. We're here for you, I guess.

McKay [03:23:02] There we go. Yeah. It's it's been a crazy ride. We had another youtuber help us out with learning some stuff. He introduced me to editing software. He was like, go get a camera. Go get this one. He has some.

John Dehlin [03:23:16] What software do you use?

McKay [03:23:17] What, editing software or Adobe Premiere Pro? Yeah, it was funny because Jordan already had Adobe, Adobe, the whole package deals. Creative Cloud already got that Tender mercies from the Lord and. Yeah. So we learned a lot from that. Got a little bit of a boost and everything has just kind of been on the up.

John Dehlin [03:23:39] Yeah. Like, I think like Today in late January 2022, we still have more subscribers than you guys, but, like, you're. You're gonna. You're gonna pass this soon. I don't know where Xmo Lex is. Last time I checked, she was in the 30s. But yeah, you. You guys are. Your trajectory is you're going to become the most most successful and popular Mormon or post Mormon youtubers. I think talking about Mormonism, truthfully, I'll just give that.

McKay [03:24:09] Yeah, yeah.

Carah Burrell [03:24:10] A disclaimer, not a competition. Nobody, like everybody special Kingdom.

John Dehlin [03:24:14] I'm not speaking about it competitively. I know if I was competitive, I wouldn't be having you on. But. But it's about in. It's about influence. It's about like, impact. Like, I care about impact.

Jordan [03:24:25] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:24:26] And you guys are having an impact, you know?

McKay [03:24:28] Yeah. And we like there to be. They have the cafeteria Mormon. I like there to be anti Mormonism cafeteria where people are post. Well, I'll call it post Mormon Cafeteria where people can go to. If they don't like us, go. Go to Lex or go to Zelf on the Shelf or go to Mormon Stories or Streeter.

Jordan [03:24:49] Yeah.

McKay [03:24:50] Yeah. There's all kinds of people out there in different flavors to offer. Something that I really liked Most recently in YouTube was watching H3 podcast because it had Ethan and Hila Klein couple on their podcasts and they're like meme lords and just bullshit a lot of times. But like, I think that's really appealing to people, to have a. A couple people who are like, mutually invested in, like, the ideals and values that they hold, talking about the things that they care about, talking about bringing truth to light and. And things of that nature.

Jordan [03:25:28] Yeah, I think, I think that's. Now we're just plugging along. We weren't prepared for any of this. If you would have told us a year ago that we'd be sitting in front of you, I think we would have laughed.

Carah Burrell [03:25:40] Did you. I won't let John ask this question because he always was like, okay. You said 2010. I was about a year into Mormon Stories Podcast. That's always, like, the pinnacle in time, but obviously Mormon Stories podcast has been huge this past year, and there's no escaping it, so. So were you able to, like, have any, like, share any space Mormon Stories podcast in, like, listening to anything that helped you in your journey? If the answer is no, that's fine too.

McKay [03:26:06] Absolutely.

Jordan [03:26:07] For sure. We did. We've listened to so many things. I think we listened to all of John's story.

McKay [03:26:12] Yeah. Your excommunication story. Listening to the Tom Phillips.

John Dehlin [03:26:16] You mean my recording of my conversations with my stake president about my excommunication?

Jordan [03:26:20] Yes.

McKay [03:26:22] Listening to it from the perspective of a fly on the wall in the rooms.

Jordan [03:26:26] Yeah, that was super helpful. The second anointing one was really helpful.

McKay [03:26:29] Yeah.

Jordan [03:26:29] Tom, Mark Oslins was amazing.

McKay [03:26:31] Oh, yeah, I love Mark.

Jordan [03:26:33] What else? Kimberly Anderson's huge fan of Kimberly.

John Dehlin [03:26:39] Watching Tiktoker shout out to Kimberly.

Jordan [03:26:40] Yes.

McKay [03:26:41] Mike Norton's one we gleaned a lot of importance out of as well. So there was.

Jordan [03:26:48] Yeah, we've listened to so many. Well, and plus, we. We take pieces from them as we go because we'll get into one and then you'll interview somebody, and then we're

McKay [03:26:56] like, oh, crap, we gotta go to

Jordan [03:26:57] this because this one's good. So now we have to go watch this one.

Carah Burrell [03:26:59] Note to self, make less interviewers or interview less people so that there's more time to just listen to a full.

McKay [03:27:05] Well, we have a. We have a habit of only listening on 1x speed a lot of times. So we got to dial up the speed so we can fit more in, too.

Jordan [03:27:12] Yeah. But no, this has been instrumental for us. And like I said, when we were first considering it, like, I knew how the church portrayed you, and I had believed it. And so I didn't think that there was ever a chance that I was going to listen to anything that you produced because the church had painted you as anti woman.

John Dehlin [03:27:29] And now.

Jordan [03:27:29] And now it's totally different. I don't see you any different than any of us who have the same mission, but you were just the one who kind of led the charge when this wasn't really a thing.

Carah Burrell [03:27:41] Thanks, John.

McKay [03:27:42] The first memory I have of learning who you were was that video on Twitter that Kwaku had posted. The Inglorious Bastards clip with your name overlaid.

John Dehlin [03:27:54] That's what you first learned about.

McKay [03:27:55] Yeah, that's when I first. Because I had seen. Yeah. So good job, Quake. You kind of led me down. Shout out Midnight Mormons.

Carah Burrell [03:28:03] Honestly, like, the most violent clip. And you're like, who's this? John de Lin? Clickety click.

McKay [03:28:08] Yeah. I was like, who the hell is that? Oh, this is the guy that does the billboards.

Jordan [03:28:11] Okay.

Carah Burrell [03:28:11] It's worth his face getting bashed in in a meme. That must be worth Googling. I'll Google this podcast.

John Dehlin [03:28:17] Even if the church responds, they're promoting us.

McKay [03:28:19] I know.

John Dehlin [03:28:20] So, I mean, they can't win if they don't respond.

McKay [03:28:22] Backfire.

John Dehlin [03:28:22] If they don't respond. We dominate all the platforms. If they do respond, they're basically. It's free advertising for us.

McKay [03:28:29] Yeah.

Jordan [03:28:29] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:28:29] They lose.

McKay [03:28:30] Everything is fair game at that point.

Jordan [03:28:31] It is. No, but that's. It's full circle. It's weird. It's full circle. I did not think we would end up here.

McKay [03:28:38] Yeah. Or end up in a channel like we're at right now. Honestly, I. We bought the camera equipment and the recording equipment on a whim, and now I'm like, man, we should have invested in better stuff off the bat, because now we already got.

Jordan [03:28:53] We didn't think we would get here. We didn't think.

John Dehlin [03:28:56] And now YouTube is. I mean, YouTube can pay you decently, so you can start to make a little bit of money, right?

McKay [03:29:01] Yep. So that's what we're planning on using to finance upgrades and things like that. We have a Patreon. People like us so much that they will pay monthly money to us to

Jordan [03:29:12] financially support us, which is, like, insane.

John Dehlin [03:29:15] So you have a Patreon?

McKay [03:29:15] We have a Patreon. Yeah. Some people. There's a little thing called coffee. Kofi. I don't know how the hell you say it, but they can buy you a coffee, just, like, send you $5 through PayPal, and it kind of facilitates that whole interaction or whatever. Things like that have just been a godsend to Super Chats.

John Dehlin [03:29:35] Super chats on YouTube.

McKay [03:29:36] Yeah. I actually just barely set those up. Last week we started doing premieres. Because of the limitations of our current camera stuff, we can't do YouTube live streams very effectively yet. So hopefully when we upgrade camera equipment, we'll be able to live stream on YouTube and just diversify the ways that we get messages out. We still have our TikTok, although we don't really post very often there because YouTube does take up a lot of time, and we usually. We will. I mean, we're only given the hours of the night when our son is asleep. That's when we get it done. Jordan's in grad school, so really that's, that's the only time that we're left in the day. So doing YouTube and TikTok at the same time just doesn't really allow for a lot of time.

Jordan [03:30:26] It's a lot of work.

John Dehlin [03:30:27] But it's amazing you guys have gotten so popular releasing about one video a week.

McKay [03:30:31] Yeah, yeah, right. Someday. At one point we were trying to do so much at a time to just get our faces out there.

Jordan [03:30:38] Burns you out.

McKay [03:30:39] And it just really burns us out too, because people are like, oh, you guys are just obsessed with Mormonism. And now we do one video a week. And I'm like, I literally think about the church one time a week when we're getting ready for a video. Honestly, a little bit more recently because there's more preparation going in for the. The temple videos. I have to edit down the video that we're reacting to and then.

John Dehlin [03:31:02] But anyway, so you're a stay at home dad, right?

McKay [03:31:05] So I'm a stay at home dad. Yeah. I am definitely like the priesthood's worst nightmare, you know, when it comes to traditional Mormon gender roles. I cook, I do laundry. A lot of times I take care of our son. And Jordan is off doing her MSW and.

Jordan [03:31:25] And I don't cook. So we really are like the moment nightmare over here.

Carah Burrell [03:31:28] My.

McKay [03:31:29] My favorite thing that I've gotten in recent times, the other day I got a KitchenAid mixer. Like probably one of the favorite things. I bought it probably in the last five years.

Carah Burrell [03:31:42] Have you made bread yet?

McKay [03:31:43] I haven't yet.

Carah Burrell [03:31:45] That's what I like.

McKay [03:31:45] I use it to make pavlova.

Carah Burrell [03:31:48] What's that?

McKay [03:31:49] It's a meringue based dessert that. It's really disputed where it comes from, but we got the idea from Bluey, the kids show.

Carah Burrell [03:31:58] Great.

McKay [03:31:59] From Australia.

Jordan [03:32:00] So it's Australian and it's really good. But anyway, yeah, so we'd. Mormon gender roles did not last very long.

McKay [03:32:07] No.

Jordan [03:32:07] With us, but well.

John Dehlin [03:32:10] Fun. Well, any other things you guys wanted to make sure and say or talk about before we start to wrap it up?

McKay [03:32:18] The only thing I will say is people may. And a lot of times I second guess the kind of impact that we are making. But probably 10 times over the amount of people that I baptize on my mission have messaged us and said, hey, this has helped me to finally make the decision to remove my records from the church or to step back or even just to start questioning. So that's what makes it worth it to me because I feel like I played a part in peddling that whitewashed version of Mormonism to people who otherwise already had established traditions and cultures. And now I'm helping to kind of undo that, or at the very least, sway people away from ever being put in that situation where they're getting that whitewashed version of Mormonism.

Carah Burrell [03:33:13] Post Mormon repentance.

Jordan [03:33:15] Yes.

McKay [03:33:15] There you go.

Jordan [03:33:16] That's perfect.

McKay [03:33:17] My restitution.

Carah Burrell [03:33:18] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:33:20] Anything else you want to say, Jordan?

Jordan [03:33:22] No, I think that sums it up pretty well. We're grateful to you both for having us on. I still don't feel worthy.

Carah Burrell [03:33:29] No, I want you guys to feel worthy. And I also want you guys to really thank us for being on, because we are about to thank our listeners who they're gonna go to. Your Patreon and your Venmo. What's your Venmo?

McKay [03:33:41] At Jordan and McKay. You can find us.

Carah Burrell [03:33:43] Yeah, yeah. Jordan McKay. And they're gonna throw a couple bucks their way, right, Just to help them up, upgrade their equipment because, oh, Rising Tide lifts all ships, right? So go support these people. Just like when I was sitting in that chair again, like, a year ago, and John said, support nuance. Ho. And then I had my Venmo's come in, and I was like, great. This buys milk for a week, like, and much more. But anyway, it's a. It's like a struggling young family. Like, it really makes a difference when people are spending a lot of their time after their son goes to bed just to put out this kind of content that's helping and this retribution that McKay just talked about.

Carah Burrell [03:34:15] So please support them and make it so it is, like, financially sustainable that they can keep doing this content. Cause obviously they're good at it. So please support them, upgrade their con. Mormonstars listeners come through and like, I.

McKay [03:34:26] I will just share out of transparency. These are the kinds of microphones we would like to have, especially because there are a lot of people on our channel who are deaf or hard of hearing who, in order for me to get good audio for all the other listeners and for YouTube to pick up the captions well enough, I have to speak with my mouth on the microphone, and you can't see my lips. A lot of people have commented on our channel, said, we can't see your lips. And it helps me to be able to see that. So I want to upgrade microphones just so people can read our lips and be more accessible.

Carah Burrell [03:34:59] In luck, John. A new program at Mormon Stories is we give our guests anything in the studio that they want to walk away with. Is that okay, John?

McKay [03:35:10] He's got how many Years behind it. We'll let him know.

John Dehlin [03:35:13] You know, we got these like last year.

Carah Burrell [03:35:17] Don't worry, because yours are going to be coming. Mormon stories listeners are going to support you.

McKay [03:35:21] Thanks, everybody.

John Dehlin [03:35:21] Yeah. All right. Care. Anything else you wanted to ask them before we take off?

Carah Burrell [03:35:27] I am just grateful that you guys came in and we're so vulnerable and all I have to say is I love you guys and I support you and just thanks for such a great, like eight hours. Yeah, so.

John Dehlin [03:35:40] And I just want to say, you know, again, lately I've been getting, I mean, our most watched episodes of late are when we've interviewed people that have their own audience. And so, you know, if people want Mormon stories to grow, you should want me to interview influencers as part of who, who we interview. So I hope you guys, even if you don't like it, listeners and viewers that we sometimes interview influencers, I hope you can care enough about the mission and the cause to see why it's smart that we do this. Yeah, but, so, so there's that. But I also just want to say that I, I no longer take the view that it's like only the courageous people who become, who become outspoken about leaving the church because there's just a lot of people who can't.

John Dehlin [03:36:32] There's a lot of people, it'll wreck their marriage. It'll. They'll lose their inheritance, they'll lose their job. They don't. They're not in a place mental health wise or just relationally where they can afford to. So I understand that it is a position of privilege to be able to speak out. And I hold no judgment on people that need to stay quiet for whatever reason. And I'm just going to say that one of the other reasons that I feel very strongly about interviewing people who do speak out is because I believe it's an act of courage in an act of integrity and it's an act of sacrifice to do so because there's a lot of things you could be doing with your time.

John Dehlin [03:37:17] There is a social cost. There is a just living with the fear of, of what the repercussions might be, let alone the very real. Like, you know, with Jordan, with your mom, like, on the one hand, you're, you're speaking out for abuse victims to stop the abuse. On the other hand, this is probably isn't going to be the best thing for your relationship with your mom or with other family members or McKay. Your family are still, you know, your siblings are still in the church, your parents are still in the church. Like, it's. It's a huge act of courage and a huge act of personal sacrifice to spend your time and your money and your resources this way, never knowing if you're going to get any financial compensation.

John Dehlin [03:37:59] And even then, is the money worth it? And so for me, it's just. It's a matter of respect and gratitude to give you guys support and to shine a light on the courageous, heroic work that you're doing, because you're really helping correct the wrongs that the Mormon Church has perpetrated on 200 years of its followers and of the general public. So on behalf of Carah, on behalf of me, on behalf of our listeners and all the people whose lives you've blessed, not to mention the never Mormons that might convert to the Mormon Church without informed consent, without all the information, you might be helping prevent people from doing damage to their lives by joining the church without all the information. So on behalf of all of those people, a heartfelt thank you from us to you.

McKay [03:38:52] Thank you. Honestly, it's. It's. People like you have paved the way for us to have a voice. So, yeah, there's definitely acknowledgement that needs or, you know, credit where credit is to that people like you definitely got the ball rolling.

Jordan [03:39:07] So, yeah, we're honored that you even know who we are and think that what we're doing is great. So.

John Dehlin [03:39:13] Absolutely. Well, it's our pleasure. Well, thank you so much for spending, what, nine hours more than you probably

McKay [03:39:22] wanted to be with us.

John Dehlin [03:39:25] Well, we appreciate you coming. Thanks so much again. And Carah, it's always a delight. You know, people don't understand with Carah. She's running the microphones, she's running the mixer. She runs, helps with lighting and cinematography. She's the producer. There's so many people like, why'd you have Carah on? Things were fine before. And in addition to the wonderful commentary she provides, she's doing a heckload of work behind the scenes, everybody, right, Carah?

Carah Burrell [03:39:49] Yeah. And only occasionally checking the comments on Mormon Stories TikTok for like a slam dunk response when I don't have anything to say here. And I was like, where else can I be so snarky? Let me check the TikTok real quick. We're doing good on there, by the way.

John Dehlin [03:40:02] And by the way. Yeah. Follow us on TikTok Mormon Stories podcast. TikTok over 120,000 followers. We're going to try and hit. What's your goal? 200,000 followers by when, Carah?

Carah Burrell [03:40:12] I will answer that after. I just want to say one other thing. That's a huge celebration, John. I just did the math. This is the first week since I've worked here that I've worked 40 hours a week and that. And when I have more hours, and the only reason is because my sister just was able to start babysitting my kids this week. And so I've had enough time. So now with I have literally 15 extra hours to work here and to do more TikToks and do more social media work, I am really confident that we could get to like a million at the end of the year. Like, I really think we could make

John Dehlin [03:40:40] that a million TikTok.

Carah Burrell [03:40:42] A million TikTok followers.

John Dehlin [03:40:44] Oh, my goodness.

Carah Burrell [03:40:44] Yeah. Why not? January, I'll make 28 ghost accounts.

McKay [03:40:48] I'll do it.

Carah Burrell [03:40:50] Yes. Be really, really nice and just like all of my snarky comments. Great.

John Dehlin [03:40:54] Yeah. And thanks to you Mormon Stories listeners, your increased donations have gone to support Carah. They support Gerardo, who's helped with cinematography, thumbnails and co producing and co hosting. They go to Brooklyn who does our editing. They go to Jennifer, who does a lot of our time codes and show notes. We just hired Jen now who's helping out with events. We're going to be talking more about that. It goes to John Larsen who's doing really valuable content now. Margi's going to be stepping up her content creation. So, like, we're going to be bringing some more heat as well. In 2022. We're going to give you guys a run for your money.

McKay [03:41:30] What we love to see. All right. Is that okay?

Jordan [03:41:32] We're here for it.

McKay [03:41:33] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:41:33] Rising tide lifts all ships.

Carah Burrell [03:41:35] Just so you know, if we do start making content with jump cuts, we were already planning on it before you suggested it. We already knew that, McKay.

McKay [03:41:41] We didn't.

Carah Burrell [03:41:41] We didn't.

McKay [03:41:41] Like, we didn't.

Carah Burrell [03:41:42] We weren't just like, oh, McKay said it.

McKay [03:41:44] Let's do it.

Jordan [03:41:45] I am the.

McKay [03:41:45] I am the ex Mormon jump cutter.

John Dehlin [03:41:48] No. Check out the understanding Mormonism.

Carah Burrell [03:41:50] Dethrone your jump cutting ex Mormonism.

John Dehlin [03:41:51] I was way heavy handed, ham fisted with my jump cuts on the Understanding Mormonism channel. Have you seen those?

Jordan [03:41:56] No.

Carah Burrell [03:41:56] Okay, can I tell the story?

Jordan [03:41:57] I've never told this story. Right.

Carah Burrell [03:41:59] During my faith crisis, I watched an understanding Mormonism video of John and I knew John already got a lot of hate and stuff, but I was like, I don't want to say anything mean, but his jump cuts on Understanding Mormonism, I believe. Put it in the show notes so you can all go find my comment when Carah was just a Little nobody commenting on YouTube. I said, like, john, I love you, but these jump cuts have got to go. And he responded with a lot of people like them. And I literally have weaseled my way since that comment on YouTube to work here and be in control of the jump cuts. It's all coming up, Carah.

Jordan [03:42:28] It all came together.

John Dehlin [03:42:30] All right, well, thanks again, guys. Thanks, Carah. Thanks to everyone who supports us and support Jordan McKay on YouTube, on Patreon, wherever you can support them on Venmo. And also, if you value the community and you value what Mormon Stories does, we would love your support. We lose donors every month.

John Dehlin [03:42:50] We're trying to increase our services, which means our payroll is greater. We need to sustain or grow our revenue. It's not going to me. It's going to our staff and to our increased services. So as you support Jordan McKay also, please consider supporting Mormon Stories podcast. Click on the donate button@mormonstories.org, become a monthly subscriber, whatever you can do. And we'll just grow this big, bright, beautiful world. And the truth is, we're more honest about the Mormon Church than the Mormon Church. Jordan McKay, you may not like their temple. You know them dressing in temple clothes. Jordan McKay are more honest about the Mormon Church, then the Mormon Church is honest about the Mormon Church. Am I wrong?

McKay [03:43:30] I go to bat against real anti Mormons who are never Mormon, who will say things. I will correct the record to make sure it is the correct. Somebody said, oh, they hold Jesus or Joseph Smith in higher esteem than Jesus. And I was like, I have quoted Doctrine and Covenants right here. They do not think that. A lot of people do, but that's not the Doctrine and Mormon Church.

John Dehlin [03:43:55] We're your friend too, because we're helping you become more honest and to do less harm with your own members. So we're not anti Mormon. We're helping you Mormon Church, whether you know it or not. So. All right, everyone, thanks so much for joining us. Please follow us in the comments, make comments, subscribe to us on YouTube, on TikTok, on Instagram, on Facebook. Subscribe to these guys. Share our stuff everywhere. Give us positive reviews on YouTube, on Facebook, on the Apple podcast app, on Spotify. We need your support. Please continue supporting us and we'll see you guys all again very soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Bye, everybody.

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