Introduction and Tanner Event Recap

Steve Pynakker [00:00:01] Welcome to Mormon Book Reviews, where an evangelical encounters the restoration. I'm your host, Steve Pynakker, and look who's in the house. Johnny D. Welcome to the program.

John Dehlin [00:00:12] Who's in whose house?

Steve Pynakker [00:00:13] That's what I'm saying. Actually, I'm in his house. And we're doing a very special episode of Mormon Book Reviews. And I want to thank you so much, John, for taking the time. We were originally supposed to shoot this yesterday, and scheduling conflicts got in the way with my airfare, and, dude, you're. You're, you're traveling later today, and you're taking the time to come on my program. That is so awesome.

John Dehlin [00:00:33] Well, it's because you're awesome and cool and so loved, and you're a dear friend, and I'm a huge fan and supporter of the work you're doing. So why wouldn't I make time for you, Brother Stephen?

Steve Pynakker [00:00:44] Yeah, well, a little over a year ago, I wouldn't have imagined any of this happening, and.

John Dehlin [00:00:49] And now you own this place. Basically.

Steve Pynakker [00:00:51] I. I just, I get embarrassed when I say that, but, you know, it's like when I went to Richard Bushman at the Mormon History Association, I. I told him how well the channel was doing, and then I said, you know, if you ever want to come back on my program, you're more than welcome to come on. And he looks at me and he says, well, this time you'd be doing me the favor. I'm like, whoa. I started blushing and I was like, okay, but now you're embarrassing me, Richard. Nice guy. But, yeah, that's really how far it's come, you know, and it's pretty wild. But I don't really. I'm not here to talk about me, but we did that for your show.

John Dehlin [00:01:21] Okay.

Steve Pynakker [00:01:22] So we're going to talk about you. Oh, and we're going to talk.

John Dehlin [00:01:25] I don't know about that.

Steve Pynakker [00:01:26] First of all, we're going to talk a little bit about what happened last night. Okay. You helped. Well, Jen, of course, and Allison did an awesome job organizing a special invite only, kind of an exclusive crowd of people that were able to celebrate the life of Gerald and Sandra Tander via. And also honor them with the new book that came out written by my good friend Ron Huggins, called Lighthouse. Lighthouse, Right. Yep.

John Dehlin [00:01:48] Yeah. That was a super enjoyable evening.

Steve Pynakker [00:01:51] It was. And it was great to. You could tell. I mean, I was always. I always like to read a room and just watching Sandra and talking with her and then just seeing how she was responding. And of course, it really. What I really was interesting to me is when the women were speaking, I noticed she was really, really responding to them because she recognized how difficult it is in this world to be a woman and navigate these waters. And, and so it really was great that Jen and Allison and many of the Lynn Wilder was on and just, it was great. And it was just a nice, intimate affair, and I was glad to be part of it, and I was glad to be sitting right with you and Radio Free Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:02:31] And I'm like, okay, yeah, it was super fun. She's a legend. And I said last night that anyone who's ever done anything interesting in Mormon studies, let's just say from the mid-1960s on, stands on the shoulders of Sandra and Gerald Tanner. And something that I didn't mention that I, That I should have is like, you know, there, there are lots of people trying to do interesting things in this space. There's few that have done it or will do it for 60 years. And, and she's, she's, she's just a legend in so many ways. I, you know, people come to me and say, how have you done Mormon stories for 18 years? And then Sandra Tanner says to John, hold my root beer, basically.

Steve Pynakker [00:03:21] Yeah, that's right. Great point. Great point. That, yeah, she is the goat. I mean, you're, you're the goat, too. But I mean, Sandra, I mean, she's on another level, man.

John Dehlin [00:03:29] She's on another level. Yeah.

Steve Pynakker [00:03:32] Yeah. So that actually kind of leads me to my first question, and this is actually courtesy of our mutual friend Randy Bell, who's in the house.

John Dehlin [00:03:38] I'm already worried. No, I'm excited. Excited. I'm honored.

Steve Pynakker [00:03:41] So I'm just gonna read what he sent me today.

John Dehlin [00:03:43] This is the Revenge of Randy Bell coming, Coming to John Dehlin.

Steve Pynakker [00:03:48] So, John, we just honored Sandra Tanner in the launch of her book. So when is your book coming out? And do you have a working title?

John Dehlin [00:03:57] The. The longest. The longest delay ever should be the title, like, the book that Never got written. Should, should that be the title? Like, I've been wanting to write a book for a while, but I, I, I mean, this is a really serious question for me because, yeah, I feel like what I've done, 1700 episodes, probably 2000 hours of content, like, more content. Like, yeah, people want it and need it, but at the same time, there's a part of me that thinks, like, I need to write a book. Like, I need to, you know, approach different spaces and enter into different spaces to reach as many people as possible. And that's just One big gaping hole. On the other hand, I just feel this huge responsibility now that Mormon Stories. I mean, can I blow your mind for a second?

Steve Pynakker [00:04:47] Sure. Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:04:48] Do you know that Mormon stories viewership and listenership more than doubled in the past year?

Steve Pynakker [00:04:55] Yeah, I watched your numbers, man. It's crazy.

John Dehlin [00:04:58] Like, and we've been growing exponentially ever since we started, so to double in our 18th year is crazy. But I was telling our fam last night driving home from the Sandra Tanner event, just because we. When. When we have more viewers and listeners and even when we get more donations. The weird thing about my mind is I don't go to, like, okay, now I can relax. It's more like, wow, I have more of a responsibility than ever to use this platform to alleviate suffering and promote healing and growth. And so I just makes me want to work harder. So I'm like, gender. And it's not. It's not like I'm sitting there. It's just. I'm just reacting to forces and acting based on my emotion. But I'm just. It's almost like I have a compulsion to. To record interviews, and that just gets in the way of things I'd really love to do. I would love to do more social commentary, commentary on Mormonism, commentary on Mormon current events. I would love to do more shorts on. On Instagram and YouTube and TikTok, and I would love to write a book. Not to mention what. I love to do more retreats and workshops and do coaching. But it's hard to justify any of that when one episode of Mormon stories can reach 150,000 people. And so. And by the way, like, who reads books these days? Now, obviously you do, and a lot of people do, but, you know, there's this voice in my head that's like, okay, you can do a podcast that's going to reach 150,000 or 200,000 or 300,000 people over a year or two, or you can write a book that maybe will be read by 10,000 or 20,000 people. And writing is just freaking hard. Like, writing is so hard that by the time I get home from doing two or three interviews in a week, I just don't feel like I have the energy to write a book, but I desperately want to. And that's why this is a really serious and kind of tormenting question. Randy's been kind enough to offer. You know, he's written, like, a gazillion books, and he's offered to kind of mentor me and coach me. He did that years ago. And I haven't taken him up on it. I almost feel like I need to take a sabbatical to write a book. But then if I take this sabbatical, does my listener viewership bail? Do I lose them? And then if I hand it over, do we lose our momentum? So I, I honestly feel like I have kind of. I don't want to. They're kind of golden handcuffs. I have golden handcuffs because of Mormon stories that I feel like keeps me from writing a book and I hate it. But that's where we are. If. Help me, help me, dear viewers and listeners, if anyone wants to help, help me figure out this problem. Yeah, I would love your help.

Steve Pynakker [00:07:44] Well, just like, you know, in all the. They had the different hosts for Jeopardy. Trying them out and everything like that, and it did seem to work. They did find some equilibrium and people became fans of particular people. And now we got what, Ken Jennings, he's going to be the co host now with Mayan Biolac or whatever girl from Blossom. And so there was an. Which, of course, Alex Trebek passed away. We don't plan on you passing away anytime soon. But there's a, there's a model of possibly.

John Dehlin [00:08:11] Are you offering to take over Mormon stories for a year, Stephen Pinegar?

Steve Pynakker [00:08:14] No, I'm not, of course, because you're gonna lose like a ton of bodies. Like, I'm not listening to that evangelical Yahoo.

John Dehlin [00:08:22] No, I mean, yeah, I've thought about that and like I was trying to build care barrel up to be able to kind of do this. She obviously, I mean, it's a tough space. This is a really tough space. I don't know if it's tough for you. This space is tough to be in. And, and Kara just for her mental health and so like Gerardo's got a full time job and Jen's brand new and I don't know, I don't know who would take over for a year, but if there's someone out there that would, that would, that would do a really good job, that wouldn't disappoint the listener and the viewer base, that would be a dream come true. And then I could pay him and, and then I could write a book and then hopefully come back and still have a show to return to. So that's, I'm open to that. I just don't know who that would be. So do you have, do you have ideas?

Steve Pynakker [00:09:09] Well, this is the thing. You know, Randy and I were talking about it and he said about 80% of the book has been written because you have you already have the transcripts of all your programs? You can work them. This is the other thing that I observed yesterday is you put together this beautiful tribute to Sandra Tanner, and it was awesome. And it was you kind of showing all the Christ, like, attributes that Sandra Tanner has. And you just kind of paralleled the life of Christ with Sandra, not in a blasphemous way, but in a loving way and showed how. Because, you know, honestly, when I came on this program, I wrote to Christopher Thomas and I said, listen, the goal of my program is to have nothing more than have the love of Christ be shown through me. Right? I want Christ to use me. And Sandra Tanner has that same thing. You know, she has Christ operating through her life, and you see that and you recognize that. So I go to you afterwards and you're like, yeah, I took about 10 minutes on this thing.

John Dehlin Reflects on Writing a Book

John Dehlin [00:10:07] So I know you're trying to be glib.

Steve Pynakker [00:10:09] No, you weren't being glib.

John Dehlin [00:10:11] I was confessing my. My inkling, my penchant for procrastination.

Steve Pynakker [00:10:15] But. But that, to me, shows me that if you can craft something so beautiful in 10 minutes, I know you can craft the book. You can do it.

John Dehlin [00:10:23] Yeah, well, I want to. So you're just. You're just making me feel worse.

Steve Pynakker [00:10:27] I'm trying to encourage you. I know I have book in my title. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:10:32] No, no, I. I would love to. So between you and Randy and the viewer and listener audience, let's make a goal for 2022, 2023 to help me figure out this problem.

Steve Pynakker [00:10:43] And I think you can do it. 90 days.

John Dehlin [00:10:45] I. I believe you. I believe you.

Steve Pynakker [00:10:48] I don't think you.

John Dehlin [00:10:48] But is it a memoir? Is it a memoir? What is it? Is it a memoir? Is it like, you know, the. A biography of Mormon stories, the podcast? Like, I don't even know. What is it about the church's truth claims and what I've.

Steve Pynakker [00:11:01] I wouldn't do the church's truth claims. You wouldn't know because that's what the show is doing. I think it's important to tell your story, but also maybe use this. Look, I get Mormon stories all the time. People send me their life stories on, you know, I. You get them all the time. You showed me when we had breakfast. You know, like, I get this all the time. You know, you have impacted so many people's lives, and I think that it could also be your Mormon story, but also others. Mormon stories maybe intertwined into it, people's lives who were affected, and so you would tell your story. But you would tell. Because I think it's so important. Like. Like, okay, Rebecca Biblioteca comes on my program. She has over. She's this housewife. Nobody knows her. She was a librarian for 15 years at BYU, and now she's been viewed over 10,000 times on my channel, and nobody knew who she was. Her Mormon story has been told on my channel. And I think that's the key thing, too, is. Is you provide that vehicle. So it could be a combination of your story and other Mormon stories. And I think it's. I don't. I just don't think the idea of, like, we don't need another book that goes after Mormon truth claims. There's plenty of evangelical publishers that have put that kind of stuff out to begin with, and secular and atheist and all that, that's just my take. That's just how I feel initially, you know, top of my head.

John Dehlin [00:12:12] And then, honestly, when I hear that in my mind, my mind says, who really cares about John's story? Like, and I know that. I know that there are a lot of people that are grateful for Mormon stories and they're grateful for me, but I don't. In my mind, there's a voice that says, nobody's gonna really care.

Steve Pynakker [00:12:28] Okay? So that's. You got to work on that yourself, because that. That's a psychological thing. There's a lot of people who love you, John. I love you. I think you're awesome. And this is the thing, folks, you don't understand. John Dehlin is a human being. And a lot of people don't realize that because they've either put him on such a high pedestal that he's almost like, oh, John, John, I've had dinner with you. And it's like, you're a freaking movie star here in Utah. But then there's other people that hate you with a passion. And it's like, they don't really know John.

John Dehlin [00:12:55] Yeah.

Steve Pynakker [00:12:56] You know, there's. You're kind of a caricature for a lot of people. And so everybody just kind of projects onto you. And so that's why I think it's important that you tell your story, because they don't really know you. Like, I. I've gotten to know you because I even told you early on, I said, the Lord brought me into your life to be your friend first and foremost. You know, he showed me. I was going to be on your program. But to me, my. The whole point of my program, this endeavor, is relational, and I really mean that. Like, I even said, if this Interview doesn't see the light of day. I don't care because having this conversation with you is the most important thing. And I really feel that's what the Lord's leading me to do, is to be your friend. But also. Listen, John, people want to hear your story and I would be honored. I would be excited to read that book and I'll, I'll even try to give it a good book review. But I'll be honest now.

John Dehlin [00:13:52] I mean, now I'm less incentivized than before. Well, thank you. That's, that's kind and that, that would be, and you're a dear friend, so thank you. That's really kind. And yeah, I do, I do feel, I do feel like I'm polarizing and I do feel grossly misunderstood by my haters, by my critics, and I do feel misrepresented by, by many people. And I also hate adoration or worship or like. Yeah, I, I appreciate people's gratitude, but I, I've made mistakes that I would love to talk about because I'm not like, I've learned from my mistakes. I'm not proud of my mistakes, but, but I also feel like I, I'm not hanging my head low. I feel like I've learned. Me and Margi and our family have benefited, so I would love to tell, tell the warts and all kind of story just so that I can do my best to kind of help people see at least where I've been coming from and what I'm more about. So anyway, we've already talked about me a lot more than I'm comfortable this episode. So how can I, can I start interviewing you now? I got some questions for you.

Steve Pynakker [00:15:19] Sure. We can go back and forth. That's fine. I, I, this is a conversation. This is a conversation.

Steve Pynakker's Background and Faith Journey

John Dehlin [00:15:24] Welcome to Mormon Stories Today. I'm John Dehlin. Today we're here to interview Stephen Pyticker. Hey, Stephen.

Steve Pynakker [00:15:29] Hey.

John Dehlin [00:15:32] That's solved my discomfort of that's why I asked the question so I don't have to answer them.

Steve Pynakker [00:15:37] Oh, this is great. This is great. This is just so awesome. Well, like I said, okay, folks, so keep your eyes out. You never know what's going to happen.

John Dehlin [00:15:43] Hey, has God told you that I'm supposed to write a book? Because that might be an incentive that I need.

Steve Pynakker [00:15:47] Well, I think Ran God told Randy and then he told me.

John Dehlin [00:15:51] Okay, all right, all right. If God says, if God says I'm supposed to write a book, then gosh darn it, I'm gonna write a book.

Steve Pynakker [00:15:57] Absolutely. So, hey, I've got relationships with 14 different publishers, so I can, I can help you out too on that. So, John, thanks for answering that question. I know you're not super comfortable in certain things, but I appreciate it. So I want to kind of go. I know a lot of you, of course, have priority. Watched John's interview with Rick Bennett and I'm going to kind of follow, go back in time a little bit and have John's story. But I'm going to take. Take a different tactic. Okay. Because I want to hear John, first of all, you're raised in the Bible Belt. Katy, Texas, football. Football is king and Jesus is Lord, right?

John Dehlin [00:16:33] Yeah, that's right.

Steve Pynakker [00:16:34] Yeah, totally. And so you're basically a Mormon kid growing up in that world.

John Dehlin [00:16:41] Yeah.

Steve Pynakker [00:16:42] I want to know what your interactions were like growing up in a predominantly evangelical, Christian, fundamentalist world. Just kind of describe to me interactions and maybe we could go to maybe when you were young and realized, oh, I'm different than everybody else, I'm going to, I'm going to be treated a little differently because I'm not a Baptist or an evangelical.

John Dehlin [00:17:07] Oh, wow. Oh, I, I said to you, man, what are we going to talk about that we haven't already talked about? That's a fun question. So thank you. Yeah. So. So I moved. So born in Boise, lived there a year, lived in Foster City, California, in the Bay Area for a year. Then there's five years in Dallas where I'm just a kid. My, my social interactions were primary in church and being home. Moved to Houston when I'm eight. And then, and then those elementary school years and junior high years, I was kind of. I had a couple friends that were not religious at all who like, I played with on my street. But I, you know, other than church, church was my social outlet through middle school along with like middle school athletics. But I wasn't super social. So high school, Katy High School represented kind of my entrance into any significant non LDS social arena. And it was. I haven't spent a lot of time reflecting on how difficult that was because, you know, West Memorial elementary and Junior High is just people in my subdivision. But as soon as I go to Katy High School, this is a high school centered in downtown Katy, Texas, where. Which was like a rice farm community that existed back before Civil War times. So it, there were slaves, you know, working on rice farms in Katy, Texas, pre Civil War. And as far as I know, and there was still, I don't want to call it a slum, but there was an area In Katy, where all the, you know, 100 years ago, where all the slaves lived and that had just migrated into an area where all the people of color lived in that rice town. Very super segregated. Like my high school, Katy High School used to have the old drinking fountains that said whites and coloreds, like, on the drinking fountain. So there was, first of all, this real undertone of racism and like, athletics. I was on the basketball team. Athletics was where the. The whites and the. And the blacks, I'll say white people and black people kind of intermingled, whether it's football or basketball. But other than that, everyone sat at their own table. The. The. The black kids sat on their lunch table, and the white kids sat in there, and we didn't intermingle. There were some people of color in my honors high school classes, but that was an exception. Otherwise you would have had no chance of speaking to a black person, even though a third of the school were African Americans or Latino. So really racially segregated growing up. But then also there was this weird combination of local natives that had thick southern accents and that had been there for multiple generations. And then people from the oil boom of the 70s and 80s, tons of people moving in from all over the world, building up the suburbs as these oil companies were expanding in the 80s. But at Katy High School, it was the legacy families that had lived in Katy for a long, long time that were kind of of the highest social status. And I. I had no clue about any of these dynamics until I started going to school. And I realized which are the wealthy families that. That had influence and pull in the community, in the athletic program, in the academics, in the management of the town. And I realized I was a complete outsider. Nobody like I, you know, whether kids running for class office or student body president or who gets to be quarterback or even who starts on the basketball team, could be heavily influenced by these powerful, entrenched families. And these powerful, entrenched families were largely evangelicals.

Steve Pynakker [00:21:28] Okay?

John Dehlin [00:21:28] They were. There was Katy Baptist Church. There was. There were other, you know, evangelical churches around, and that's where all the power was. And I think my first real confrontation with that was when I kind of developed a crush on this girl named Stephanie Thompson. And her dad was a. He played basketball for Katy High School, you know, a generation before. He was a rich guy, big house, oil guy. And Stephanie likes me, and she was like a cute girl, played volleyball. I'm like, whoa, Stephanie Thompson likes me. Like, whoa, this is going to be good. You know what I mean? And so I started getting to know her. We start sending notes or whatever you did back then, and then she tells her parents about me and they say to Stephanie, you can't date him. Cut it off because you.

Steve Pynakker [00:22:27] They knew you were Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:22:28] Yeah, okay. And. And so she just cuts it off. And I'm like, what happened? And it's like, I can't. My parents won't let me go out with you. So that was, you know, that I don't want to sound like, you know, I'm. I'm straight, white, you know, whatever, privileged male in a million ways. So I don't want to make it sound like I was abused or like had it really bad. But that was, that was discrimination. If there's discrimination, that counts, right? I'm not going to date you because your religion, imagine saying, I'm not going to date you because you're black, or I'm not going to date you because you're white, or I'm not, you know, that that's, that's discrimination. And I felt it and, and it was painful. And it was painful to be always be on the outside of those power circles within. And that wasn't the first time. I also had my closest friend Joey Dolan's. We were in honors classes together and we would all sit by each other and play together and have fun together. He was a charismatic Christian. I want to remember the name of that church. But it was like a local highly charismatic church that was smaller. Good. And Joey Dolan's and his family were part of it. And we were the closest friends for probably three years. And then his parents were like, you got to get away from that guy. So I lost like my best friend. And I never. He never really said it. He just kind of ghosted me a little bit towards the end there. And so that was, that was painful. And that's one of the just really bizarrely compelling and powerful things about a high demand religion is that that persecution reinforces in some ways a positive identity. Because at the same time, my church is saying, oh, you're a Saturday's warrior. You were. Say you were one of God's elect. You were valiant in the pre existence. That's why you're Mormon and you were sent to the earth to usher in the coming of Jesus Christ and you are one of the noble and great ones. And then you get your patriarchal blessing when I'm 16 or whatever. And it's like, you will rise in the morning of the first resurrection and you will, you know, I'm like, oh man, I'm one of God's chosen. And like all these loser evangelicals, like, yeah, they think I'm lame, but that joke will be on them, you know what I mean? So like it actually made me feel in a weird way better about myself. Like that persecution kind of accrues to, to blessings and additional worthiness and valiance. It's just a trial that I can overcome and become even stronger. So it wasn't like I was running around high school sad and I was student body president, you know what I mean? I became captain of the varsity basketball team. I wasn't going to let those fetchers drag me down, you know what I mean? And I'll just also say this, that I remember. Are you feeling something?

Steve Pynakker [00:25:27] Oh, no, no, I'm good.

John Dehlin [00:25:28] Okay. I also will just say that I remember when Katie, Katie Baptist, whatever, they had a movie night, God Makers, where it was Mormons and other cults, you know what I mean? And they show the God Makers and they probably did that multiple times. But I remember one time specifically I ride by and I see the thing and I'm like, Mormons and other cults. What, what cult? Like, I'm like, no way, we're not a cult. You know, like that's, we're the one true church, like you guys are. So I remember going to high school and finding my religious friends and having debates with them about like original sin and Adam and Eve and, and what, what, what, what, what's a Christian? What's not a Christian? You know, what Christ did and didn't do. Who has authority? Does authority matter? Is the Bible perfect? Is it not? And you know, I started getting into those sorts of discourses in high school and I just, I felt like, I felt like they, you know, just the idea that the Bible's perfect because Mormon had, Mormon had seated in my mind that the Bible was flawed and the Book of Mormon was perfect. And so I, I'm like, these people are crazy. They're going to say the Bible's perfect. Like Judas dies explicitly in two different ways. They can't even get the, the words on this sign at the crucifixion, right. All four versions of the Gospels have different wording on the sign above.

Steve Pynakker [00:27:00] And these are things you were knew about then?

John Dehlin [00:27:02] Totally.

Steve Pynakker [00:27:03] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:27:03] Oh yeah, yeah. Because I would, I, I was, I was regional scripture chase champion as a freshman. I was, I did all four years of seminary. I hardly ever missed. I was super devout Mormon kid. I was Nephi and I read the scriptures and so I would read the Bible and I would find discrepancies, and I would, you know, kind of like a mini Bart Ehrman, but just like a super mini Bart Ehrman. And I'm just like, the Bible's got all sorts of problems and it contradicts itself. And I would bring this up to my evangelical friends, and they'd be like, nope, the Bible's perfect. And I'm like, you people are like blind followers. And of course, I didn't see myself that way, but I also wasn't, because during that same time period, I'm thinking, you know, I remember very specifically, and I probably told the story before, I remember very specifically thinking, huh? So, like, I think my church is true, but they think their church is true, and these other people think their church is true. Well, why? Why are we what we are? And then I thought, well, it's probably because our parents taught us that. And so then I thought about, okay, if Mormonism is true, what percentage of the world is Mormon? And I divided the number of Mormons in the world was probably 5 million at the time or whatever by the number of people in the world. And I got, like, less than 1/2 of 1%. And even then, I was just thinking, like, man, God, like, okay, you say narrow is the gate and feeler be the find it, but that's a pretty awful success rate if this is God's one true church. Like, I don't know, that feels a little bit lucky. It feels a little bit fortunate that I just happen to be born into the one true church. But I. I'm going with it because it makes me, you know, like, I mean, I didn't mind feeling like I was better than everybody. And that was a fundamental part of my Mormonism, because even though I was hurt by and disappointed by the judgment of all my evangelical Christian friends, I thought I was better than all of them. And I was taught that we were better than all them. Their churches were broken and fallen and, you know.

Steve Pynakker [00:29:09] Yeah, and you're persecuted. It's just. It's showing. Like, hey, man, I'm in the. I'm a warrior. I'm in the battleground. And, you know, I'm. I'm defending the faith. And so it's. It's a great feeling to have in one sense. But a question I have for you is, what does a debate with an evangelical in high school look like? Would you guys yell at each other? Stream? Would it be civil, Just kind of?

Evangelical and Mormon Dialogue Experiences

John Dehlin [00:29:31] No, I would never yell. Never yell.

Steve Pynakker [00:29:33] Would they yell at you?

John Dehlin [00:29:34] Huh?

Steve Pynakker [00:29:35] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:29:35] No. No. It would be like, I'D be if this would be. This is typical John de Lin. Like. Like, it's like, hey, so what do you. What does it mean to be saved? And they'd be like, well, it means, you know, you. You go to church and you. You hear a really inspiring thing, and. And then you stand up and you say, I believe. And you go up to the front and you do whatever it is, and then from that point forward, you're saved. And I'd be like, huh? So, like, it doesn't matter what you do after that, you're going to heaven? Yep. Doesn't matter what you do. And I'm like, what if you kill somebody? And they're like, well, you wouldn't kill somebody if you'd been saved. And I'm like, well, I bet there's people that have been saved who then killed somebody. Well, maybe they weren't saved. You know, we'd go around and around, and then I'd be like, well, like, really? God's just that one moment. And then like, you're good. But then I'd be like, what about all the people who live in India? You know what I mean? And then they'd give me some answer like, well, they're screwed. Screwed. Or I'm like, really? So God's got screwing all those people, you know, and then it's like, okay, well, no, because then they'd say something like, well, there's a way that they can feel the light of Christ in their heart and accept Christ even though they don't know his name. I'm like, okay, wait a minute. So, like, they've never heard of Jesus or the Bible, but just because, like, something in their heart, they're like, what? Like, you know what I mean? And so it would be like that. And it would usually just sound like, okay, well, thanks for sharing. And, you know, it. I don't. I don't remember it. Ever get. You know, be like that.

Steve Pynakker [00:31:01] Okay, yes.

John Dehlin [00:31:02] Just. Just civil, playful dialogue that when it got a little bit heated, maybe we'd just get distracted and go do something else.

Steve Pynakker [00:31:10] Did an evangelical ever show genuine interest in your faith?

John Dehlin [00:31:16] Like. Like, to the point of wanting to take.

Steve Pynakker [00:31:19] No, just like, really wanted to know, like, what do you believe and what did like about Jesus and God? I mean, just actually, rather than try to convert you, but actually just were they. Did they ever show any interest in your faith at all?

John Dehlin [00:31:31] There might have been a few. There might have been a few. Like my. Yeah, my friend Chad McMillan, who was an offensive lineman at University of Texas. He was kind of semi Christian and we would have. He, he came to church with me. I brought him to church. I think I attended Katy Baptist Church at one point or another, probably because of a girl I was dating. I don't know. And I, I, I think I had some genuine dialogue with, with some where they showed interest in Mormonism and, But I don't remember if they brought up God makers, like questions or criticisms. I, I don't know that they ever really landed with me. I probably would have either just tuned them out or dismiss them because I hadn't been really exposed to kind of legitimate challenges to Mormon truth claims at that point. Or if I had, I had my guard up.

Steve Pynakker [00:32:30] Okay. Okay. So you had mentioned that you re. You recall possibly attending Katy Baptist, did you?

John Dehlin [00:32:36] I definitely attended Katie Baptist.

Steve Pynakker [00:32:37] So tell me, how many different Christian churches have you, did you visit while you, I mean, while you were living in Katy growing up, did you go to other friends? Did you go to that charismatic church you were talking about?

John Dehlin [00:32:47] No, I never went to Joey's church. I felt afraid and I felt like they wouldn't want me there. I don't know that I attended anything other than Katy Baptist Church, honestly.

Steve Pynakker [00:32:56] And do you remember having any impressions of what you felt when you attended a service?

John Dehlin [00:33:01] I mean, I think I felt like it was kind of cool, like different. Yeah. Yeah. And by the way, have you ever heard of Chuck Swindoll?

Steve Pynakker [00:33:10] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:33:11] You have? So my dad, I grew up with my dad. So my dad, he experienced some church discipline in my middle school years, and he was in a state calling at the time, was disciplined and he was never the same after that. It was not communicating anything, but just had some church discipline and it was kind of public and embarrassing and that always, like, felt wrong to me that he was so publicly shamed and that our whole family was kind of marked by that experience in a very public shaming way. And I don't know what else it was, but my dad was always kind of a Jesus Mormon. Have I ever talked about my dad? Have you ever heard me talk about my dad and Jesus?

Steve Pynakker [00:34:00] You know, I've watched so much your stuff. I'm sure it's in the memory base.

John Dehlin [00:34:04] Okay. But it's not fresh.

Steve Pynakker [00:34:05] I would like to hear it. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:34:06] So my dad, My dad was the kind of guy. I think Randy will appreciate this. My dad was the kind of guy where if you're driving down the road and somebody's car is. He pulls over and he helps them with their car. And if, you know, we're you know, if someone in the ward needs to move, my dad's there, you know, and if somebody, you know, if somebody needs help, you drop everything to help them. And that, that is my dad still alive. That is my dad. And he would always bear a super strong testimony of the Savior. It was just Jesus, Jesus the savior. That's my dad. It still is my dad to the point where when I, when I actually got my mission call, he was like, hey, I need you to know a couple things. I was like, okay. He's like, the temple ceremony, not a good thing. You're not. I, I, I'm, he told me, he said, I never enjoyed the temple. It was weird. And I really wish the temple was a place you could get edified and uplifted and instead it's boring and weird.

Steve Pynakker [00:35:12] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:35:13] And I, I'd never heard him talk like that before my mission, so that was surprising to me. But the other thing is when I'm in the MTC and I'm jumping ahead when I'm in the mtc, Ezra Top Benson, my cousin is prophetic and he's on his flood the earth with the Book of Mormon thing. And so I'm like calling home for whatever reason at a dental thing, and I'm like, dad, dad, the Book of Mormon. And he says to me over the phone, while I'm in the mtc, son, I have to be honest with you, I've never really liked the Book of Mormon. I'm a New Testament guy.

Steve Pynakker [00:35:46] That's great.

John Dehlin [00:35:47] I'm like, what? Wow. What, dad? Like, you know, at the time, I'm like, dad, that's what, have you heard the prophet? Like, what are you doing? And he's just like, I'm just being honest. I've never really. I, I'm, I'm a New Testament Mormon.

Steve Pynakker [00:35:58] Wow.

John Dehlin [00:35:59] I was like, huh. So, so, so that, that, you know, that always stuck with me that, like there was something that there are rings of kind of what's important. And I learned from my dad that what's really important is, is being kind and serving people. That doesn't mean he never got mad or made mistakes and, but serving others. You know, I, I kind of mentioned this yesterday in my thing with Sandra. Like, Jesus the savior deeply shapes me and my character and how I look at life. And that's why I don't, you know, people want to call me an atheist sometimes or even anti Christian. I don't think of myself that way. I think of myself as someone who, whose identity is forged in the, in the Similitude of Jesus. Because I incorporated this idea that material possessions aren't what life's about. Making money isn't what life's about. Fame and fortune, laying up treasures is not what life's about. What life's about is alleviating suffering, sticking up for the marginalized, and doing good in the world. And that's all that matters. And so, you know, later, even when I graduate from college, I, I'm like, what do I, I want to do that. How do I get paid to do that? And I was, maybe I'll go, maybe I'll be. I would. For a while I was looking into being military pastor. What are they called?

Steve Pynakker [00:37:42] Chaplain.

John Dehlin [00:37:43] A chaplain. Oh, like, maybe I'll be a chaplain.

Steve Pynakker [00:37:45] Interesting.

John Dehlin [00:37:45] But then like, I don't know, like, I don't want to be in the military. And so even while I was at Bain and then at Arthur Anderson and then ultimately at Microsoft, the whole time I'm like, how do I spend my life helping people? Software is fine for now, but I gotta find a way to alleviate suffering, promote healing and growth. And all of that comes from my Christian upbringing. So, you know, I care about truth. And so I have always asked hard questions about God and Jesus when I was a Mormon and now, and I, I only want to believe in something that's true. So I'm not like, you know, I still have skepticism in me, but I think it's healthy skepticism. But to say I'm like against Christ or against Jesus or anti Christian, I'm not. I deeply admire and respect who Jesus is. I feel like my life, my whole trajectory of life is informed, is a, is a extension of the Christianity that I was raised with and Mormonism to some degree. And that, that comes in large part from my dad and probably from the things I took away from my Mormon upbringing.

John Dehlin's Born-Again and Spiritual Experiences

Steve Pynakker [00:38:56] Okay, it's great that you're talking this way because, you know, you had talked about how earlier your friends went to you said, well, you know, you feel this conviction and you go up to this, you do altar call and then you ask Jesus into your heart and then you're saved. And, and because I'll ask Christians what is a born again experience? And they'll explain, they'll basically tell that that's the pattern. And I always go to them and say, you know, there's just one little problem with that. That's 19th century Christianity. None of that's in the Bible, including asking Jesus into your heart. And so I, I look at it this way, in their mind, that's being Born again, but it's not in the Bible. It's 19th century, just like Mormonism is. Right. And so I have a view of salvation is that, you know, what are their fruits? Do they have. Are they exhibiting the fruits of the spirit? And if I see the fruits of the spirit operational in a person's life, to me, that's. That's what we go by. And so this can be controversial, but I see the fruits, and I think you have a ministry, and I think that the Lord is using you. And it's. I'm not here to go and say, you know, John de Lynn, you need to go up and do that altar call and ask Jesus into your heart. Because I think that's a very superficial view of Christianity. I don't want an easy faith, man. I want a hard faith. I want a challenged faith. And you. That's what you've been doing. And it just sounds to me, as you're telling your story, it's like, okay, yeah. And it reminds me a lot of myself, too. You know, I. I challenge. I would. I would challenge pastors. I would challenge, you know, oh, don't go there. Don't ask those questions. Because there's a very similar dynamics going on with evangelicalism as well. So I think that, you know, when I. I say the Lord brought me here and all this kind of stuff, I think that. And I told you before, I said, john, I think I. I think you're going to be a pastor one day. And in one sense, pastor doesn't mean that you're going to be a pastor of a church. You are, in one sense functioning in a pastor, pastoral capacity. And so I kind of look at it as that you're doing, in my mind, a Christian work. And. And so I. I just want to honor you because, you know, and this is the thing, man. I have evangelicals. Oh, John Dehlin. He's progressive or he's gay affirming. And they just, they shut you off, man. And that, quite frankly, pisses me off because it's unfair to you. And I don't. I think evangelicals out there that criticize John Dehlin, you don't know this man. You don't know his heart. And if you spent some time with him, you would see the fruits. And I think that's important that people hear that.

John Dehlin [00:41:35] Well, I appreciate it.

Steve Pynakker [00:41:36] I'm not. Look, God's the ultimate judge.

John Dehlin [00:41:39] Yeah.

Steve Pynakker [00:41:39] He decides, but, you know, that's how I look at it.

John Dehlin [00:41:42] Well, thank you. I got a little chills. I used to associate that with the Holy Ghost. So maybe that's the Holy Ghost, or maybe that's just my neurochemicals, but it feels good either way. So thank you. Two things there. I'm dying to respond. So you said it's a conversation.

Faith, Doubt, and LGBT Questions in Religion

Steve Pynakker [00:41:56] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:41:56] Number one is like, I'm thinking, like, just at the Sandra Tanner thing, there's some people coming up to me who are kind of like, you're a little bit LGBT friendly. For me, I'm like, first of all, what did Jesus ever say about the LGBT question? Ever? One word. There's not one word. He never said a word about it. Never. And then the other thing is, like, you really think that if Jesus were here in 2022 and, and he's interacting with LGBT people, he's not loving them and supporting them and being affirming? I mean, I don't know. Like, Jesus wasn't about, like, this behavior is good and this behavior is bad to the average person. He was critical of, like, the, the hypocrites. Right. He was critical of the priests and the, and the judges and the lawyers and the, and the people in power, but he wasn't running around calling out the, the traits or characteristics or even sins or mistakes of the normal person. Not at all. So I'm just wondering what Bible these evangelicals or these Christians are reading.

Steve Pynakker [00:42:59] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:43:00] Like, what are you basing this on? Like, and, you know, I, I, I want to also touch another thing, but do you want to respond to that or.

Steve Pynakker [00:43:08] Well, I, you know, that is, that's, that's a great point, John, because, you know, obviously, and I look at this way, there are things about the LGBTQ movement that I don't agree, I don't like and, or agree with. I think it's got, it's politicized, but I'm going to divorce that because this isn't about LGBTQ as a movement. It's about LGBTQ as individual people. Yeah, right. And I'm on a one, on one level with folk, you see, and that is about relationship. So, yeah, Jesus would embrace LGBT people and he would love them, and he would not be holding signs. You know, God hates Fs. Right. That in the, the Westboro Baptists do. And a lot of these ministries hold the same signs, similar signs during general conference. You know, they're. I don't have much use for those people. They're just full of hate.

John Dehlin [00:44:00] Yeah.

Steve Pynakker [00:44:00] So, yeah, there's a spirit there against gay people that is not Christian at all.

John Dehlin [00:44:07] Yeah. Yeah. Because. Because anyone who's, you know, if, If There's a large percentage of any population that feels driven, want to take their lives. Those are the people you love and show compassion and kindness to. Not. Not stick your. Your boot on their neck and make it harder. Yeah, right.

Steve Pynakker [00:44:29] Absolutely. Yeah. That's the, the abuse that we're seeing within Christian, American Christianity. I'm very concerned about the direction that it's gone.

John Dehlin [00:44:36] Yeah.

Steve Pynakker [00:44:37] It's being used to hurt people and, and also to try to control people. And that's very scary to me. So, yeah, evangelicals, we need to, you know, like, I was talking to Jeff McCullough, hello, saints. And I was like, dude, I'm not going to get too specific in my criticism because I don't want to get political. But I said, evangelicals have fallen for so much BS that they believe from particular individuals that they really believe is to be true. And these are outside of Christianity, so we'll leave it at that. And I said, why in the hell are we so concerned, evangelicals about Mormons when our, when it's a mess on our side, a complete disaster? We need Jesus.

John Dehlin [00:45:18] Yeah.

Steve Pynakker [00:45:19] We need Jesus.

John Dehlin [00:45:20] Yeah. Amen. Okay. And then the second thing I wanted to say is going back to being saved and having a ministry and that sort of thing. I don't. I feel I said yesterday with Sandra Tanner that I've been. I've been traumatized by, yes, Mormonism. And honestly, I think to be human is to be traumatized. I don't care what I was raised in. I think I probably would have felt traumatized by almost anything I was raised in. So this isn't a dig on Mormonism per se, but I definitely feel like I. I felt betrayed by my church. And so because of that, I, you know, my, My hesitancy to do God's speech or even Jesus speech, or to believe or trust anything fully, I'm scarred by that because I just don't want to be fooled again. Right. And so on the one hand, you don't hear me doing a lot of God talk or, or Jesus talk. On the other hand, I don't ever feel like my goal with Mormon stories has been to take people's faith away from, let's just say, good God belief. Right. Or to take people away from good Jesus belief that that is about kindness and love. I do want to ask the hard questions so we're not believing wrong things or bad things, but so what? I mean, this is a long way of saying, while you don't hear me framing a lot of my life in terms of God and Jesus talk, I've already told you how Jesus informs pretty much everything I do as far as God goes. Like, I can remember the walk where I'm like, In Logan, it's 2004, 2005, and I just, I'm listening to my ipod, probably before the iPhone even came out. And I'm listening to like, oh, there's this thing called a podcast, you know what I mean? And, and I'm listening to Mike Norton's podcast called the Church is Not True, you know, very subtly named podcast. There was another one called Catholic Mormon. There are a couple Mormon themed podcasts before mine and I'm listening to that. And you know, if Joseph Smith had a theophany or whatever, I had one, I had one like walking, doing my four, four mile, five mile walk every morning in North Logan where it was like, it was almost as if, well, I didn't hear a voice, but it was almost as if I heard a voice saying, you need to do this. And so I don't call that God, not because I know what it was or wasn't, but just because, like, I'm traumatized to ever use that word. But like, does that really matter? Like if you say I have a. You believe that God told you this or that, or you've been inspired for this or that, and I just say I felt very strongly that I should. One of the reasons I hate the atheist agnostic, believer divide is because I don't know how much of a difference there is between the feelings you get that motivate you and the feelings that I get that motivate me. I, I think it's kind of the same feelings and maybe you're comfortable using a certain set of nouns or adjectives to describe it. I use different nines or adjectives because of the trauma I've experienced. But like, I don't like the term atheist or agnostic to then be a divider where we're having different experiences. And you know, even when I think about kind of my conversations with Randy, like, I don't, I am not the person that just reduces every experience down to neurochemicals. That's just not me. It never has been. That doesn't mean I'm in a hurry to ascribe divine, a divine source to everything that I feel. But I do have an openness to free flowing energy and to a bigger driver of, I mean, a creative force. There's clearly a creative force. Like clearly, like clearly there's something that, that was moving temporal existence towards the creation of life and then the evolution of life. That is a creative force. Now, whether you want to call that random, which is weird and unlike, I mean, I can't say it's unlikely. Maybe it's all random, but that's just, to me, that's just as weird and as ridiculous as that. There's some power of force. And I've been saying this since the beginning of Mormon stories now, when I was a believing Mormon or semi believing Mormon, I just decided to call that God. Whatever it is that like is making the human species or just the animal kingdom and then the human species advance, learn more, advance in technology, grow, develop. I'm going to call that God because there's something going on. Right. And I've never lost that. I just, I don't like having to pick a side of like I'm pro God or I'm an atheist. I don't like either of those. I don't like either of those because I think they're polarizing and I think they, they. Those sorts of categories tend to divide more than they unite. And so I'm interested in just saying you call it what you call it, I call it. I choose to not give it a name, but let's just vibe in the fact that we both are rejoicing in the beautiful creation that is and that there's some meaning and purpose that makes me do what I do. I heard something like a voice. I don't know what it was exactly, but does it matter if you call it God? And I'm like, I don't know, does that matter? Is God going to keep me out of heaven because I didn't call it God, right. Or if I'm serving people, but I don't do it in Jesus's name, but Jesus is what informed my service. And is that keeping me out? Like, I don't, I'm not interested in any theology that's any God that's like that picky about who gets to live with him for eternity versus not, not into that kind of God. If there's a God that's like doing that, I'm out, right?

Steve Pynakker [00:51:25] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:51:26] But if we can just dwell in a space to where we call it slightly different things, but we're all unified in the values and the meaning and the purpose and the wonder and the celebration of life and, and joining in, in the alleviation of suffering and the promotion of health and well being, can't we just do that and not let religion be something that makes friends feel like they're not close and connected? And I'm just Kind of going off.

Steve Pynakker [00:51:51] No, but I actually appreciate you saying that, John, because this is the thing. Even Christians out there who might be critical of maybe what John just said and maybe critical of what I said,

John Dehlin [00:52:00] what would they, what would they criticize?

Steve Pynakker [00:52:01] Well, because I, I should be telling you, John, it's either you turn or burn, repent. You need Jesus, right? That's what I'm supposed to be doing. And that's what evangelicals are saying. You know, they criticize me. You're saying that I'm. I'm here to witness to you and I'm supposed to convert you. Well, my, you know, Lord told me early on, you don't do the converting. He does. In other words. And it's not even about conversion. It's about. The idea is that you just allow him to work through you and don't try to get the arguments right and try to make these points. And look, oh, I showed John this and I was able to show, you know, because I think there's a lot of Christians who would love to have this opportunity, and they can just freaking, you know, open up the Bible and start preaching at you. Well, you know, you ain't listening to that because you know that they're coming in here with an agenda. They're here to. They want to convert you. And my idea is, well, wait, look at what John is doing, how you're helping people, and what you said about alleviating suffering. Why can't we all, even if we disagree with each other on. On theology and religious views, why can't we all jump on the idea of alleviating suffering and helping people and just working together in that sense? Why can't we go and volunteer at the Sikh temple when they give out food to people all the time? You know, beautiful religions that do good things. I think we should focus on those positive attributes as well. Allow Christ to operate through your life wherever you're at. And this is the other thing, too, John, he's like, look, I was an atheist for a long time, okay? I know what it's like to be traumatized, and I know what it's like to be angry with God and be hurt. I went further than you ever did, right? And so I know the pain and all that, all that I went through, and it was. It was traumatic, you know, and this is, this whole endeavor is part of the healing process. I, Even when I was first starting the channel, the idea of it being a ministry, and I use that word very. I don't, I don't want people to Think. But it is kind of a ministry because what happens off camera is kind of the ministerial aspect of the program where people reach out to me and tell me their stories and look, dude, part of the thing I look at it is this way. You had no intention of starting a ministry and I didn't have any intention of starting a ministry. I'm using these words just to. Because of how we're helping people. Right. And that's why I think that's when. Where I believe the Lord's hand is in something, is that you didn't plan it. He did. And he will. Look where I've come from. What you've done in, in your time period is tremendous. Even in the past year is remarkable. What's happened with my channel, it's pretty amazing. And I. It was no, it was through no effort on my part. It was. I mean, I made an effort and all this kind of stuff. Yes. I put in the, the hours of study not knowing that it would lead to the channel. This is the thing. Like, there was no me, no planning of doing this. Originally I was going to do a low carb channel to help people lose weight. Right. It was that bookcase that I looked at that kept on. I was, wait a second, I could do something with that. So that's where I think there. That's where God's in the matter in my sin, in, in my worldview is because it's. You see, I. I live in a Christian community and we have all these people. I have a ministry. I have a ministry and it's like a. It's just kind of this little. They're not really doing anything. They just like to brag about this ministry that I have and they're not really doing anything. And it's not growing and it's not flourishing or any. And it's really not. It's their ministry, but it's not God's ministry. And as long as they think it's their thing, then it's going to be their thing. I think it's because you didn't go in with this. You didn't know where this was going to lead to. I didn't know where this is going to lead to. So I look at it. That's kind of like the. That's the God part. Does that make sense to you?

Building Mormon Stories from the Ground Up

John Dehlin [00:55:41] Does. And every year, like, I didn't know. First of all, when I left Microsoft in 2004, podcasts didn't exist yet.

Steve Pynakker [00:55:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:55:49] But I left Microsoft because I wanted to be a part of this solution. So, like, it was literally like that Indiana Jones movie where he's got to take that step into the darkness, thinking he might fall, but then the. The. The. The tile reaches up to meet his foot, and then he takes the next step, thinking he's going to fall, and the tile raises up. That's exactly how it was for me, because it was like, okay, I'll move to Logan, I guess, and leave a couple hundred thousand dollars a year and all my stock options behind to make, what, $15 an hour with four kids and a wife who doesn't work outside the home? Okay, I guess I'll do it. I don't know what I'm gonna do. So, like, I moved to Logan, and then, like, I go to Sunstone, right? And then I meet all these cool people, and I'm like, well, these are cool people. Like, whoa. And then, you know, and then I learned about podcasts, and then I buy the microphone, and then I start one. Even then I'm like, I'll never be able to make money off of this. I'll just have to, like, do this as a side gig. And then slowly, over time, you know, I get my PhD and people start donating to the nonprofit. And, yeah, I'm able to do it full time now. Every step of the way, I felt like there was a power. There was, like, wind behind my sail window. And I always thought of that as. I mean, again, I'm traumatized. So do I go, that's divine. I don't know. Yeah, I just go, I don't know. But it's. There's something. Because, like, every. Every step I've taken towards trying to do good, informed by the teachings of Jesus, by the way, and Mormonism, the. The influence and the power, the donors or the talent or Gerardo or whoever, raise up and help. Help me do it. So I guess I want to say to your Christian friends, and sometimes I've wanted to say this to you or Randy or others, like, how am I not already saved in the sense? How am I not already converted? How am I not. What. What is it that is needed here other than I add the word Jesus to what I'm doing? Like, is that really what God cares about? That I say the word Jesus when I do these things that I call myself a Christian, or does he care that I'm just informed by that and doing it and literally dedicating? I work. I work 18 hours a day on this. Cause literally, I sleep six hours on average. And the rest of the time I'm doing this like what, what, what else? Christians, what else do you need? Like, really? No, and I'm not saying, I'm not trying to defend me.

Steve Pynakker [00:58:26] Right.

John Dehlin [00:58:26] This is a theological question. Like, if I'm literally trying to take people out of a harmful cult that hurts people. And I know that's, it's also a high demand religion and it's also a beautiful religion, but from my perspective, the Mormon Church was started by a charlatan sexual predator who probably had good intentions too. And it's a big jumble mess. But the difference between David Kressho and, and Warren Jeffs and Jim Jones and you know, Keith Renary, he's a lot more like them than he is different from them in terms of how he ran things. So if I'm spending my life helping people wake up from at least the intellectual bondage of that, but maybe the spiritual bondage of that, and, and then giving them the freedom to then decide other things, including interviewing people like you and Chris Thomas and, and other Christians to say, hey, if this is, and Sandra, like, hey, if this is the path for you, follow it. Like, if that's not saved, if that's not, if that's not worthy of God's love and respect and, and like his presence, if I die, what, what, what is the criteria? You know, I, I'm not, I, I want, I want you to actually answer that question.

Steve Pynakker [00:59:53] You know, it's really interesting.

John Dehlin [00:59:54] What do I need?

Steve Pynakker [00:59:54] So you say the term Christian. Well, the, the term Christian was the name that was given to us by outsiders. So that's, that's a descriptive thing. But also the other idea of Christian is like people would say, well, how could you call yourself a Christian and be a Democrat? Or how can you, this is the world I grew up in. How can you be. And I said, and even as a kid, I said, well, wait, a Christian is somebody who follows the teachings of Christ. That's the basic definition. And I said, so you can be, you can call yourself a Christian because you follow the teachings of Christ and still be not the evangelical Bible thumper that you, you know, that you think is the only true Christian. So there are progressive Christians. There are different attributes of Christianity that are different. The dominant strain here in the United States tends to be the evangelical one. That is the world that I identify with. But I also recognize that it's of shortcomings. So this is the thing. How can I go and say, look, I, I, I look at this way, I don't go to people and say, well, yeah, I think you're a Christian or you're not, I just say, okay, what are the fruits? Right? And, and like I said earlier, I see fruits of the spirit operating in your life. So that gives me, like, enough to say, okay, I see enough there that I think that there are Christlike attributes operating in your life. I can't go and say John Dylan is going to hell because he didn't have the salvation experience that I had or that you had, because I think that's unfair to you. And it doesn't, doesn't. It doesn't jive with me anymore, that kind of stuff.

John Dehlin [01:01:25] But I'm kind of wondering why that's even in the realm of consideration for a Christian. Like, you know, what do you mean by that? Like, like really like people. Like, I'm faithful to my wife Margi. I'm a Jill. Tell you, I'm a devoted husband. I'm a devoted father.

Steve Pynakker [01:01:46] Okay?

John Dehlin [01:01:46] Like, I'll tell you what. They live my life trying to alleviate suffering and pursue truth and to help people heal and grow, right? And, and when I think I'm being honest here. When I, I've read the Bible, I've read the New Testament, when I have studied the words of Jesus and the Gospel of Jesus and what he's about. What is he about? He's about forgiving people. He's about having empathy for people. He's about serving. He's about clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, helping the poor, sticking up for the sad and the broken and the marginalized, standing up to power, eschewing materialism, and then spending your life trying to create peace. Now, maybe you could say I'm unchristlike in, in the sense that sometimes I s. You could say I sow dissension and not peace. But Jesus didn't always sow peace. Jesus kind of kicked ass sometimes. And, and Shirley was polarizing and contentious. So, so if, if I'm, I'm no. I guess I'm no better or worse than Jesus in that regard, in terms of, like, we're talking about, that people feel passionate about. But, like, how, what, what is it about the ministry and teachings and the Gospel of Jesus that I'm not living? I'm not saying I'm a great human, so. But I'm just saying what am I missing? Christians? Like, what am I missing?

Steve Pynakker [01:03:18] Okay, this is the question. This would be. The question is you, you talked about the life and teachings of Christ. What do you. What are your thoughts about what he did for us at the cross?

John Dehlin [01:03:31] Well, so that's a, That's An. I don't know. That's. Well, okay, no, let's say what I know. What I know is, and I said this about Sandra. What is, what is the similarity between Jesus and Sandra? They both gave their life for the teachings of Jesus. Sandra's worked 60 of her, 60 of her 80 years. She spent, she spent living her understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ. She gave her life for Jesus. Jesus gave his life, sacrificed his very life to stand for what he was teaching. So to me, at a minimum, that's what he did on the cross. He died. He. He cared and believed so much about what he stood for that he was willing to give his life for that. Now that, that is amazing. Like that is. And I'm trying to do that. When I gave up my stock options and my $200,000 a year, I'd be a, I'd probably be worth 5 or 10 million right now if I'd stayed at Microsoft for sure, maybe more. That's me trying to do what Jesus did, walk away from the money and pursue. So, like I'm, and, and me getting my PhD in psychology and then following this ministry now for 18 years or 20, depending on how you count, that's me trying to give my life for these same sorts of things. So, so anyway, at the cross, Jesus gave his life for the things he stood for. And that's at a minimum what, what his sacrifice means to me. And let me just say, if he was just immortal, if he was not the son of God in any unique superpower sort of way, and he was just a dude who got nailed up to a cross and experienced all that pain and suffering without the added energy of a superhero, you know, because if Superman gets beat up, yeah, it looks painful, but he's Superman, so is it really a big deal? Because he's going to heal and then he's going to be a Superman again. But if that's the only life Jesus had, and if he really felt those nails in his hands and the sword in his side and the thorns on his head and that blood that he spilt was his last, that to me, that's a bigger sacrifice than if some superhero takes a one and a half day nap and then he's back being a superhero again with even more glory. So to me, it doesn't diminish the sacrifice of Jesus. If he was just mortal. To me, it makes it more amazing and even more respectful. So I, I know that's good. I know these words are going to sound super blasphemous, but I'm operating in the world of like, we don't know, nobody knows. Like, believe me, anyone who thinks you know what Jesus was about, you're just like the Mormons that know what Joseph Smith was about. We all have emotion based opinions about our worldview. And if you think your emotions are more valid than a Mormon's emotions or a Muslim's emotions or a Hindu's emotions, you haven't really thought deeply enough to realize you should have epistemic humility, which is you don't totally know. You are just really persuaded by your emotions. And that's the, that's the most. And atheists are exactly the same way. Randy, atheists are persuaded by their emotions, right? They, they have just as little right to be, to have certitude as anybody else, right?

Steve Pynakker [01:07:19] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:07:20] We're all operating on our emotions. Now I do think that there's a value to science of gathering evidence and like trying to act in a way where data supports. So I'm pro science, but of course there's corruption and flaws and problems in science too. But anyway, all I'm saying is, is like nobody knows what happened after Jesus died, in my opinion. And there's accounts of him doing miraculous things, but there's accounts of Warren Jeffs doing her miraculous things and there's accounts of Joseph Smith healing the sick in Nauvoo and there's accounts of Bhagwan Sri Rajneesh and Sai Baba levitating from the ground in India. And there's more people than follow Mormonism that say they saw Sai Baba levitate and will bear their testimonies of that. So what do we do with all that? My answer is you have epistemic humility. You believe what you believe, that's fine. I'm not trying to say Christians don't believe in Christ, but I'm saying don't tell me you know, right? Don't tell me you know.

Steve Pynakker [01:08:24] I agree with you entirely, John. And the reason why isn't Christians out there, if you're listening, you really haven't taken the time to delve. Because I delved a lot. I read a ton of books and studied it and, and came to the conclusion for quite a while there that I was an atheist. You've taken the time to really study Christ, to study the Bible, to really ask the hard questions. Okay. Which I believe. This is how I look at it. God gave us up here the most sophisticated, complex instrument in the universe, the human brain, right? He gave us this, the creation, he gave us the Word, which is Jesus not the Bible. And he gave us the creation for us to operate under. And the second, we try to put things in a box or put things in categories and try to. And then simplify everything. Look, we. You're dumbing down things and people aren't thinking. So you've thought these things through. You've had your dark night of the soul. I've had my dark decade of the soul. And we've had issue. You know, I, We. We've both been persecuted and hurt and all these kind of things. And I look at it this way, like, I'm not going to judge you because you didn't say the exact right theological term that a Christian would want you to hear, because they'd want to hear you say Jesus is God, and then on the third day, he rose from the grave. That's what I believe. Okay. But I also recognize that just because you don't utter that theological statement doesn't mean that God isn't operating through you and that you aren't exhibiting Christlike attributes. So it's, it's much more muddy. And like, I had a new person who just found my channel today says, I don't. I'm not sure where you're coming from because there's a lot of gray area, and you need to speak truth to these Mormons. Like. Well, actually, I'm thinking there is a lot of gray areas, and we need to understand that because it isn't simple. It's very complex. Does that make sense?

John Dehlin [01:10:12] Yeah. And, you know, I was at the Center Tener event. There's a lot of Christians there, and I hear rumblings that a lot of them are nervous about me or don't like me or whatever. And I just say, if you don't see me as your fellow soldier Christians, I want to know what Jesus you're worshiping. I want to know what. I want to know what you're reading in the Bible. If I'm not saying, like, be okay with me. I'm saying if you don't view me as like a fellow soldier with you, I want to understand what you, what you think Christ was about.

Steve Pynakker [01:10:43] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:10:43] And I'm not. I'm not trying to say I'm this great guy. I'm not. That's not what I'm saying. I just want to know. I know what I live my life doing and trying to do. And I'm just saying, I just want to know why I'm not saved. Why do I not meet your criteria for being saved and not just okay on the margins. I want to know why you guys aren't just like, say, man, John's one of us. He doesn't use quite the same words, but he's like one of us. Like there's this hesitance, like, oh, well, you know, John, you're not so bad. Like, I want to know why you don't think I'm one of you.

Why Dehlin Has Not Embraced Christianity

Steve Pynakker [01:11:17] You know, I was talking to a Christian apologist who's based here in Utah a couple of weeks ago and I went to him, I said, you know, the advantage that I have is that I am not a minister and I don't, I don't have to go to some denominational a board to explain what, what I just said on my podcast because this doesn't fit the party line. But you know, churches are denominations are man made institutions. Right? And these people.

John Dehlin [01:11:39] And that's what Jesus stood against.

Steve Pynakker [01:11:41] Exactly. So like, yeah, that's my whole point is that this pastor acknowledges that. Like, like, yeah, you know, like I'm limited to how far I can go and say things I know. And that's where, that's why they can't give you that. They can't tell say those things to you. But this is the other thing, folks. I don't think anybody has the right to go to somebody and say you're saved or you're not saved.

John Dehlin [01:12:02] Totally. Jesus literally said judge not. Yeah, literally said that.

Steve Pynakker [01:12:05] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:12:06] Like, you can't argue with that. Judge not. So cut that out. Exactly. I even like to swear, cut that out.

Steve Pynakker [01:12:13] You know, and we're keeping that in, we're keeping that in, folks. We're not cutting that out.

John Dehlin [01:12:16] And by the way, I don't judge Christian. I think Christians are beautiful. Like RFM said it, but I thought it too. Like, man, if being a Christian makes you want to be kind and loving. And by the way, Chris Thomas, you, Randy, Allison, Sandra, there are some amazing Christians who just, all they do is say, how can I do good today? And like, if Christianity is what informs that, I'm not taking that away from anyone. I'm saying more, more cowbell, more Jesus.

Steve Pynakker [01:12:44] Okay. Amen. Preaching. Okay, this is the thing. I, I totally agree with you and, and, and John, I mean it, it really, I see all these other Christian apologists who are just trying to basically just win arguments and show how, how smart they are. And dude, I'm talking to some of these guys and they don't have a clue what they're talking about when it comes to Mormonism. They're, they're so superficial in, in the doctrines and everything like that. So they, they haven't, they, not only have they not taken the time to examine their own faith, they haven't even taken the time to examine Mormonism. And that's why I feel like what I'm doing is, is doing something completely different. Right? Because I want to have these real adult conversations rather than these stupid petty arguments. And I think that what you're doing with your channel is we're having these adult conversations and you're talking to everybody and whoever would, you would love to have every, you would love to have everybody come on your program. Now unfortunately, because of where you're at, that's not where you're at right now. Because you know, everybody has put you in a category in a box. And see, that's what I mean. I'm about getting rid of the gatekeepers. And then people say, well you can't go on that program. I think BYU professor should come on this program and talk to John's program and of course by professors come on mine, but they should be coming on yours too, John, because look, I look at this way, look at the Catholic Church, okay, they're going to can when they, when they were going to canonize Mother Teresa, right? So okay, we're going to canonize her. But we have, when we do this, we have to have a, what was called in the past a devil's advocate. So what do they do? They, they fly Christopher Hitchens to the Vatican to be the person who says this is why I think Mother Teresa should not be a saint. Now that's a very mature church. Yeah, I want a, I want to see a church that says John de Lynn, man, we don't like a lot of what you're doing. But you know, I mean there are, there are people in who are critic very highly critical of the Catholic Church and they're still taking communion every Sunday. And I think that that's, that's what I like about Catholicism is that they'll say, hey Hitchin, Christopher, come on our dime and tell us why Mother Teresa is a horrible human being.

John Dehlin [01:14:58] Yeah, it's super weird that like all the, all the things I was talking about on Mormon stories prior to the essays are basically what ends up in the essays. And you know, all the things I was complaining about in terms of the church's positions on LGBT people other than accepting same sex marriage, the church is now conceding and all the stuff Sam Young was fighting for about one on one interviews and weird sexual questions. Now the church is Changing and all the stuff ordained women was fighting for and women and the church is now trying to move towards. And it's, it's really weird that a church that claims to follow Christ can't have the grace to say, you know what, all you people that we excommunicated, that we're now actually following your advice and moving in the direction you were pushing us. You, you had a lot of good things you were doing and, and we, we got emotional and we were afraid and we kicked you out and we shouldn't have, and we love you and we're sorry and thank you for helping us move in a direction we know we needed to move. That's literally what happened. But it's weird that a church that bears the name of Christ can't follow that basic Christian teaching of, for, of like, apologies, of like, you know, making restitution, saying you're sorry, trying to do better. It's really weird that a church that claims to follow Christ has the position that they will neither seek nor offer apologies and that they're not about Christlike reconciliation. Now, having said that, I also want to take a stand for Mormons being Christian because you meet Patrick Mason and you tell me he's not Christian.

Steve Pynakker [01:16:44] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:16:45] You meet Fiona Givens, tell me she's not a Christian. Like Mormons. There are, there are hundreds of thousands or millions of Christ like Mormons who believe in the same Jesus you do, who, who are propelled to alleviate suffering and to be kind and to do good in the world. And I, I, I don't think evangelicals or Protestants or any branch of Christianity, like, has a leg up on acting in a Christlike way when we're talking about the rank and file members of the Mormon Church. And so, you know, once David Bacavoi got super mad at me because he felt like, because of a thumbnail, I, I issued that said from, from Mormon to Christian. I think it was Randy, it was your interview. Yeah. Super mad. And like, how dare you say that Mormons aren't Christian? Like, I, I believe that if, if, if Christians, if Christians exist Mormon, many Mormons qualify, just like many evangelicals probably don't qualify. You know what I mean? Like, so I just want to go on the record and say if Christians exist, many, many Mormons qualify, even if they, they still hold space for Joseph Smith or the Book of Mormon.

Steve Pynakker [01:18:02] Yeah. And that's the thing too, because you have these creedal Christians who just basically say you have to recite the creeds. That's what makes you a Christian. And that's not really, that's, that's a man made idea because the Bible doesn't say that. You know, I would say I could recite the creeds, generally, be in agreement with them, but. And so in some people's minds, that would make me a Christian. But see, again, there's all these outside things, things that have been added on since, since Jesus's time that define what you are as a Christian. And I do think, like when Christ says, you need to give away all your possessions to follow me. Yeah, right. Nobody's doing that. Right. So we have to take these things into account as well. The one thing I will say though, too is folks like now what you had described about all these things and how the church has changed, you could argue that this is a type of Reformation Catholics, you need to remove the excommunication of Martin Luther. Yeah. You know, that would be the ultimate thing that you could do because, you know, he helped reform that church as well. So that's 1,1,1 how I would look at it is that, yeah, rescind the excommunication of Martin Luther. And I also think that, you know, because again, all these are institutions that are run by men primarily. And whether it's evangelical, whether it's Catholic, the church, Jesus Christ, Latter Day Saints and all these different groups, we have to have some humility about what it, what we do know and what we don't know about Christ and his teachings and about the historicity of all these things. We have to be humble because like Paul says, we all look through a glass darkly. And so because of that being the reality, I mean, it's like, yeah, you know, I, we just need to be humble in our approach. Try to foul Christ, try to exhibit Christlike attributes. Be humble and just say, you know what, I'm just gonna try to love somebody today. I want to listen to somebody because, you know, this is the thing, people don't listen to other people. And I didn't realize until I started my podcast, because I know all these people, I know all their stories, and then I start telling them what I'm doing and they're not interested. They don't want to ask any, like, what's the name of your channel? They wouldn't ask about it. So I recognize, like most people are so caught up in their, wrapped up in themselves. And that's the problem is that you're so doing so much navel gazing that you don't see the person on the side of the road that your dad saw. See, that's the thing. So you need to open your eyes to your fellow man. Human and, and love them. And, and I, I think that's, that's, that's, that's what it's all about. So these Christians, they have blind, they have blinders on just like a lot of, but we would criticize, you know, members of the church. Jesus Christ.

John Dehlin [01:20:40] Yeah. I seem to remember a scripture in the New Testament that said pure religion, this is King James, you know, Bible. But pure religion before God is to, is to feed the hungry and, and serve the poor. Like that's pure religion.

Steve Pynakker [01:20:56] I think, I mean, that's, I mean that's, look, look, foundational to Christianity is to be a friend and to love your neighbor.

John Dehlin [01:21:03] Yeah.

Steve Pynakker [01:21:03] No greater love.

John Dehlin [01:21:04] Yeah.

Steve Pynakker [01:21:05] Than to give your life for a friend. Well, guess what? There were atheists, and there are atheists and foxholes. There are atheists who gave their lives for probably their fellow Christian soldiers by landing on that grenade. So that atheist's last act was to give his life for a friend. Yeah. So I'm not going to sit in judgment of these people.

John Dehlin [01:21:24] Yeah. Beautiful. So back to your question about the resurrection of the cross like I did. So I don't, I don't know if implicit in your question about what happened on the cross was, did Jesus die and then resurrect after three days? Is that kind of what you're asking?

The Cross, Resurrection, and Christian Essentials

Steve Pynakker [01:21:38] I, I think that we start at the cross, Right. I know you guys also guard this. Suddenly we can, you know, but I think the cross is central, the cross is central to Christianity. Right. It's the central, what happened at the cross, the sacrifice that he gave. And, and we believe as Christians that he did die and then he rose from the grave. I mean, I know you probably wouldn't make that statement.

John Dehlin [01:21:58] Okay, here's the deal on that, right. And this is again why I, I, I will never identify as atheist or agnostic. Right. Because I, while I can't say that I know if Jesus resurrected, if I said that, it would be a matter of just like, what stories I was exposed to in my life and then what social pressure I experienced to believe that story and then what emotions I felt which are easily manipulated. Like, I don't, I can't say whether Jesus resurrected, but I'll never say that it didn't happen.

Steve Pynakker [01:22:32] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:22:34] And I'll never try and convince people that it didn't happen. I, and I don't think you'll ever be able to hear once on Mormon stories where I'm like, Jesus never got resurrected. Like Jesus doesn't exist. You'll, I don't think you'll ever hear me say that because I don't think I've ever seen it.

Steve Pynakker [01:22:51] You'll have people come out and say it and give, like, why, you know, like a John Larsen or something like that. You'll let, you'll give them voice to that. But you're, you're saying that, hey, I want people to say if Jesus, they don't believe Jesus rose from the grave. That's what their beliefs are. That's. But so don't confuse who you have on your program is necessarily being your beliefs. Right.

John Dehlin [01:23:08] Like, I've had Terrell Givens, I've had, you know, I've had Joe Tippets, I've had tons of Christians, you know, and I just believe in interviewing lots of people to get lots of different points of view. But yeah, don't confuse that with me advocating for one point of view or another, because I will never say that Jesus wasn't divine or that Jesus didn't resurrect or that there is no God or that there is no afterlife. But what I will say is, I will say two things. I don't know, but I hope. Do I want to continue living? Do I want to live forever? Yes, I do. Okay, so if I'm just totally subjected to my confirmation bias and my motivated reasoning, then I'm a Christian, right? Yeah. Hallelujah. We all get resurrected and I'm going to live forever. The problem is I'm trying to be honest and say I'm waiting for evidence that's gonna, that's compelling enough for me to really go with that, because I've been fooled before. Right.

Steve Pynakker [01:24:12] I get where you're coming.

John Dehlin [01:24:13] So it's a question mark and it's, I, I, I would even say it's a hope. It's a hope that when I die, I live on. And if Jesus, if Jesus did resurrect, and through him I'm able to resurrect and live on, I'm going to be the first one that's excited. Yeah, but I don't know.

Steve Pynakker [01:24:31] Right.

John Dehlin [01:24:32] I'm not sure. I hope. And is that faith? Hopefully that would qualify as faith. But I'm not sitting around. See, the, one of the problems I have with Christianity is how it's been used to oppress the poor and the, the vulnerable to say to them, do all these things we want you to do. So we could extract money and time and labor from you to make corporations and businesses or churches or countries More wealthy and your life is a crap hole. But it's okay, because when you die, everything's going to be golden, golden paved. You know, angels and jelly beans and lollipops and, and choirs like I. And. And I don't like putting off joy to, to sit in oppression right now. And I don't like saying screw the earth and, and screw the mortal existence and the problems because we're all going to die and Jesus is coming soon. And it's the afterlife that matters because there's also a chance that this is the only life we get.

Steve Pynakker [01:25:39] That's right.

John Dehlin [01:25:39] And so my focus. My focus is going to be on this life and what's here. So I spend very little time worrying about the afterlife and even fearing my death or wondering if Jesus was really resurrected. Because as Jesus said something like, for the evil of today is sufficient. I'm misquoting him. But like, he said something about, take no thought for tomorrow, for the evil of today is sufficient. And what I mean by that is the poverty, the ignorance, the polarization, the suffering. It's all right, you know, one of the. It's all right here, right now.

Steve Pynakker [01:26:15] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:26:16] All over. And one of the problems I have with Mormonism is like, let's go to the temple and do these stupid, empty, culty Masonic ordinances that supposedly dead people may or may not accept when there's literally like, people starving and people who can't read and people that are being abused and poverty and injustice and war and famine. Let's spend a gazillion amount of dollars and 5 million people's spare time doing these dead, fake ordinances in these opulent buildings that Jesus would have raged against while all around us is homeless and, you know, illiterate, abused, poor, starving people. Makes no sense at all. And so, like, I never liked that. I don't like a Christian emphasis in the afterlife, okay? If it takes any time or money or effort away from the problems that exist right now, okay?

Steve Pynakker [01:27:23] You know, and I get that, dude, because, you know, within the Christian context, look, you have these conquistadors who they made sure before they bashed the brains in of those children that they got baptized first, right? So I recognize that's so awful. I mean, just think about that, right? That's. That. That's Christian. That's my heritage, right? And so that's the world. And again, and Protestants, man, you guys did some nasty things too, okay? So let's not pretend that we weren't just sobs as well, okay? So. Because I think it's it's only fair that when you criticize the church, Jesus Christ, Latter Day Saints, I think you criticize all the institutions, all the churches. That's why I never joined. I'm a baptized Christian, but I never ever joined a church because I think we're missing the point in that regard. You know, like I tell people, I don't care what building you go to on Sunday morning. Do you have a personal relationship with the Savior? And what does that mean? Well, it means, does your interaction with the Savior mean that that motivates you to do the very things that, to go out there and help the poor, help those are suffering, help that, that transgender child who's been thrown out of their parents home, Christian home, I'll add. Right. So this is the thing I look at it is that we just got to show love on an individual level, on a relational level. And, and that's how Christ operates through you. It's not about how much money you give. It's not about you going and checking off certain boxes. And I'm talking to Christians here. I ain't talking, I'm just talking to Christians. And anything about that, like, what did you do to help make somebody's life a little better today? You know, what did you do to show kindness maybe to that clerk at the grocery store who is having a really bad day? Did you treat them with kindness or did you maybe make their life a little worse because you didn't like their attitude or something? Right. You know, so that's the whole thing is it's, it's, it's a relational thing, it's a day to day thing. And, and, and, and that's, and slowly I got motivated. But yeah, you're right, you know, I don't spend a whole lot of time thinking about the afterlife. I, I'm kind of with you on that actually. And part is, and like even like, like as an atheist, I quit believing in hell. That's one advantage, you know, being atheist. At least there's not suffering. That's one way of alleviating sufferings. There's no hell. I don't know what to do with a lot of the theology because I'm still growing. But again, I think that the idea is what motivates you if you want to help people. And that's why I say you're playing like a ministerial pastoral role. And I just, I don't know, I, it's just a fascinating journey that we're both on, I think. John.

John Dehlin [01:29:50] Well, it's so fun to be on it with you, I will say I will. I will concede one thing.

Steve Pynakker [01:29:58] Okay?

John Dehlin [01:30:00] Like, I am not as kind as I want to be.

Steve Pynakker [01:30:04] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:30:05] I am not as grounded as I want to be. I'm not as thoughtful as I want to be. I'm not as meditative as I want to be. I'm not as compassionate as I want to be. I'm not as much of a peace builder as I want to be. And I don't think that secularism is. Is necessarily making that better for me. Right.

Steve Pynakker [01:30:29] Right.

John Dehlin [01:30:30] And for a long, long time, I've thought two things. I've thought, who are the really kind people I know? You know what I mean? People like, oh, you know, I don't mean to elevate anybody, but, like, you know, you or Randy or Allison or Chris Thomas, they're these people. There are people that are just like, john, how can I help you? I don't want anything from you. How can I help you? You know, like, there's this beautiful woman, Emily, I think is her name. Like, I'm super sad. I forgot her name when I moved into my house in. In. In Holiday. She's a locksmith, and she's just like, john, do you need keys done? I'm like, yeah. She's like, man, I just love you. Can I. And she comes over and she, like, does all the key stuff for our new house. And she doesn't charge me. Like, what are you doing? She's just like, well, you know, I'm a Christian. She didn't say it this way, but she's just like, you know, hey, man, I love you, and I just want to do something nice, you know? I mean, it's just like, what. Who is this? What are you doing? You know what I mean? Like, there's these people, like, you know, Randy. Like, Randy. Like, I. I've talked about Randy. Like, he's the dude that stays behind and puts the chairs away, right? He's the guy that's, like, running around to lots of different people and saying, hey, let me give you a little financial support. You know what I mean? Let me fly you here. Let me give you my house. Or let me. You know what I mean? I'm just like, who's this guy? What. What is this? You know? And. And it's just like, they're informed by Christianity. It's their belief in Jesus. And by the way, I'm not dumb. I know that there are atheists and secular people or. Or Muslims or Hindus or whatever that are just as kind or more so I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is I'm not as kind as I want to be. I'm not as peacemaking as I want to be. I get angry. I, I do sow contention. I get mad at apologists sometimes or neo apologists or I just don't sow peace like I wish I did. And I think about if I was constantly daily thinking about Jesus. Right?

Steve Pynakker [01:32:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:32:42] Like if I did, if I did join a Christian church that wasn't offensive and off putting to me and I was attending a church weekly and, and reading, I don't know, the Jeffersonian New Testament or something. Right. And I was just constantly immersing myself in a figure like Jesus daily and had some type of worship. Would I be more of the man I want to be? And sometimes I think I would. And so honestly, like when John Hamer, John Hammond, I way, way back, he's like, dude, what we need to do. We brainstorm. And was like, dude, what we should do. We had this conversation. It's like, okay, LDS church isn't working out. Let's take over Community of Christ and reorient it so that it can be a home for progressive Mormons. We had that conversation back in like 2005, 2006. And then he went and did it. I mean, he didn't do it, but I mean he's doing it.

Leaving Mormonism and Finding Community

Steve Pynakker [01:33:42] Yeah, that's true.

John Dehlin [01:33:43] And, and part of me wished I had kind of joined him. Right. But there were just some things that I didn't feel right to me.

Steve Pynakker [01:33:51] I got it.

John Dehlin [01:33:52] But, but I, I wish I'll say this right now, I wish, I wish I could have a Sunday church experience where I'm with people that are cool, people that share my values, who sing together and meditate together and pray together and worship together and do good together and make each other, but most importantly, make me want to be a kinder, more peace sewing individual. I wish I could have that. And I tried to create with Oasis and I tried to create it with Thrive and I've tried to experiment with secular communities and we have not, we've not come close to cracking that nut,

Steve Pynakker [01:34:43] you know, And I think, you know, because actually I want to, I want to be at that place too. I want to attend that service as well.

John Dehlin [01:34:48] Let's start that church. Stephen.

Steve Pynakker [01:34:49] Well, if, if what? If we made a church that made Jesus the center of the church.

John Dehlin [01:34:57] Well, is that a real question? Do you want to pursue that?

Steve Pynakker [01:35:01] I'm saying that to me. To me, I don't see a whole lot of Churches where Jesus is at the center. That's the problem.

John Dehlin [01:35:07] Why is that so hard? Why is that so hard?

Steve Pynakker [01:35:12] Because, man, you know, because if we, we build a building and we have, we have bureaucracies and this is, this is endemic in all churches is, it's the same thing played out all the time. And I say, isn't it weird that

John Dehlin [01:35:26] in 2000 years we can't figure that out though?

Steve Pynakker [01:35:28] Yeah, that's the thing. That's why I look at all this stuff as man, A lot of just, it's just all man made stuff.

John Dehlin [01:35:33] And won't we fall prey to the same things that other churches? If we start our church, Stephen, you

Steve Pynakker [01:35:38] know, I, if we start our church will be different. You know, that's a great, that's a great question, you know, and I, you know, I have some ideas in my head of how you could set something up that makes sure that Christ is at the core of it and then you keep, you keep out all the other nonsense like there will be no flags in our church or if there's going to be flags, all the flags are in the church, you understand? Like, in other words, it has to be inclusive, but it's also here, like folks were here to worship Jesus. Actually one of the groups that is most interesting to me is the Church of Jesus Christ of bickering tonight, people, because I've attended their services and I never heard any politics talked. People stand up, they give testimonies about how they love Jesus and how it's changed their lives. It's very Christ centric church and this is a church that Joseph Smith founded. So to me it's almost like there's ways of doing it. And I also think that there's probably these small storefronts, there's Jesus probably shows up at those churches too, you know, in, in, in those areas. So that's, there are places that just love Jesus and they want to worship him. But the thing is they're tiny, they're not very popular because, you know, people like to go to the prestige church. They actually like the fact that their pastor lives in a mansion and drives nice cars. You know, that it's such an American materialistic thing. That's why I never could feel comfortable in many churches in America because I just don't see a whole lot of Jesus there. So yeah, I don't know. I, I, I can't go on camera and say, yeah, okay, John de Lynn, let's start a church, you know, but I, I, I, I, I don't know if that's where the Lord wants me to be. But I also say the Lord, you know, six months from now could be doing something completely different. That's the other thing I want to mention to you too.

John Dehlin [01:37:19] Okay. Wait, can I. Yeah, please.

Steve Pynakker [01:37:20] Yeah, yeah, please.

John Dehlin [01:37:21] Will you put a pin in whatever you're about to say?

Steve Pynakker [01:37:22] Sure.

John Dehlin [01:37:22] Okay. So when Margi and I knew that Mormonism wasn't going to work out for us, there was like, there were two one year periods where I went inactive and then reactivated. And then once the church excommunicated me, we were like, we had been conditioned to believe. How can you raise healthy, moral children without a religion? Like, so we attended for sure an Episcopalian church, like a Presbyterian church. We did a Quaker thing. We attended a Unitarian church, probably, and Community of Christ. And none of them, none of them felt right for me. So, like the Episcopalian church felt too old, high, high churchy, it too Catholic, you know, and I'd been conditioned to think Catholicism was evil, you know, so, like, it felt too Catholicy. Even though I. I thought their theology was more progressive, the Presbyterians just, it felt like a dying church. The Quaker. Quakerism was cool, but you just sat silent. And that was the most excruciating hour of my life, was just being silent for an hour, not listening to anything and not saying anything. Like, shoot me now. I think it's. There's value in that. But it was just aversive to my existence. But, But I attended the Unitarians and it felt like a political rally.

Steve Pynakker [01:38:54] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:38:54] And even though my politics. I think I have some conservative political views and some progressive, but because of largely being informed by a Christian upbringing, like my support for the LGBTQ community and for women and for other things, lead me to kind of sometimes be a social progressive or social liberal. And that's informed a lot of what I do, even though that's kind of where my social politics lie. I think fiscally I'm more conservative. Militarily I'm progressive because I hate war. And I think Jesus did too. And so I've. And that's complicated. But anyway, even with all that, I don't want to go to a church to have politics. It felt. I don't want you to. I don't want this to be a fundraiser for, like, global warming. That's not why I'm going to church.

Steve Pynakker [01:39:43] That's right.

John Dehlin [01:39:43] I don't want some. Even if I support the politics, I don't want. I, for some reason having politics intermingle with church just felt gross to me.

Steve Pynakker [01:39:52] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:39:53] So Unitarians didn't even work. And then community of Christ. Like, I love Steve Veazy. He's one of the most spiritual, righteous people I feel I've ever met. Wise and smart and kind, from what I saw, could be a facade. But like, that's what I experienced. But how do I be in a church that's built on Joseph Smith?

Steve Pynakker [01:40:17] Right.

John Dehlin [01:40:18] I wouldn't be in a church built on Jeffrey Epstein or Keith Ranieri. Like, no, that's a hard no. That's a. That's a non starter for me. Even though I know Joseph Smith did good things and had good intentions. It was a complex guy. Can't start, can't build a church on Joseph. So as much as I love John Hamer and respect community of Christ, so like. But then if you just strip it down to just a Bible church, there's these things. There's the fact that in the way the world thinks about things, Christianity is, is one, is one world religion that is not all in it. It exists sort of in a separate place than secularism or Judaism or Islam or Hinduism or pick all the other world religions. And then you add to that that it's separate from all the others. Plus Jesus saying, I am the way and the truth of the light. No man cometh the Father, but by me narrow is the gate and few there be that, find it exclusive. I don't like exclusion. I don't like anything that says, we're right and you're wrong. We're in, you're out. I don't like that garbage. Like, I know Jesus said it, but I don't like it. I want to. I want a theology that's like, we are all in this together, period, period. And I don't know how to be a Christian in a way that doesn't immediately trigger or pull or denote or connote that other people are wrong and are in the wrong path. And I don't want any. I don't want to be a part of anything that sort of like immediately signals we're right, you're wrong. And I don't know how to engage in Christianity without that baggage. Yeah, I know there's ways to redefine Christianity so that it encompasses the world. But even if you do that, even if you do a neo apologetic Christian progressive reinterpretation of words so that Jesus means everything and God means everything and Christianity means the world and everybody's Unitarian Universalistically included in that, to the rest of the world, it still means exclusivity. As soon as you say I'm a Christian, and I need that problem. I need someone to help me solve that problem. If I'm going to say I'm a Christian because I just am sick of the divisiveness now, that's going to be. People are going to say that's weird because they're going to view me as one of the most divisive people. But the truth is, I don't like divisiveness. But I also believe in standing up for truth and against oppression. And so I'm stuck in a conundrum. But I'm sick of divisions. I'm sick of the polarization. Political polarization in the United States drives me crazy. That we can't agree on. Wait, is the vaccine a real. Is the. Is Covid a real pandemic with a real vaccine that helped keep us all from dying? Or is Fauci the most evil person on the world and it's all a fake, and it's a money grab from corporations, and it's a fake disease that didn't exist? Like, 40% of America thinks one thing and 40% of America thinks the other. And those are. Those two positions couldn't be farther apart. And same with whether the election was valid or not or, you know, whether QAnon exists or not. Like, I. I'm sick of this world where super large groups of people have totally different perspectives on reality and can't agree on even fundamentals of reality.

Steve Pynakker [01:43:56] Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm with you, dude.

John Dehlin [01:43:58] And. And by the way, like, if you pick those two groups, one of them is a lot more associated with Christianity than the other.

Steve Pynakker [01:44:07] I know.

John Dehlin [01:44:07] And it's not. It's. It's. It's. It's a very problematic of the two groups. It's a very problematic group. Now, both groups are deeply problematic.

Steve Pynakker [01:44:15] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:44:16] So I'm not.

Steve Pynakker [01:44:17] Yeah. Because the secular religion is just as bad as the Christian religion in many ways. This is the thing I told you when I was on your program, dude, I left Christianity. I was an atheist. I come back to the village, and the village is a freaking. On fire.

John Dehlin [01:44:29] Yeah.

Steve Pynakker [01:44:29] Okay. So. So I, I see the same things that you see and identify them as well. But, you know, one of the things I stuck the pin in is that, you know, you. You heard a voice In 2005 or 4, I had a spiritual epiphany right around Covid time. I. I believe it was. It's. It kind of started when. When watching with Christopher Thomas, the interview, and it moved me in that trajectory, and then I had this moment where I had this piece that surpasseth all understanding. When everybody else was in fear and they're panicking, I was at peace. I had all the anxiety, depression, all that was removed from me. I believe that in one sense, John, be prepared to hear another voice. And I think that once you hear that voice again, I think that you'll. Then everything will fall right into place. Where none of it made sense to me before, it didn't make any sense why I did all the Mormonism and everything. But now, after everything, looking back at it, it's like, okay, now I get it. You and I identify the same problems. We get pissed off over the same things. And yet I've gotten to a point. See, I think that we're just. We're both in parts of our journey. I. I kind of reached a part where, okay, I feel the Lord's using me. And just to show love, you know, I had.

John Dehlin [01:45:48] I see us as fellow soldiers in the. In a common fight.

Steve Pynakker [01:45:50] I think that we are not on

John Dehlin [01:45:52] fight in a common effort.

Steve Pynakker [01:45:53] Dude. There was a person who commented on your. Your page. I remember this person saying, I'm Church of Christ. This is, you know, Christian restorationist. And I didn't believe it was possible that you could be gay and a Christian. But after watching Steve's interview, I've changed my mind. And I had people contact me throughout the world. Christians, atheists, Mormons, saying, you rocked my world telling your story. Well, okay, see, this is how it starts.

John Dehlin [01:46:22] Yeah. Yeah. Hey, man, I like it. That's called faith. You're showing faith. Yeah, Yeah, I love it. Yeah. So, yeah. But do we call it Christian? Do we call this thing we're doing Christianity?

Steve Pynakker [01:46:34] I think following Christ, you're a Christian. If you're following Christ, you're a Christian. And you know what? You don't let them define it. You define it yourself. You know, I had Christians say, well, you're not an evangelical because you don't check off all the boxes. I'm gonna. I'm. I'm reclaiming the name evangelical. I'm going to use that label. But I am at the center of me. I am a Christian. Culturally, I'm an evangelical, but I want to have Christ at the center of my life, and that's all that I operate under. And I don't care what you call me. I don't care what you think of Christians. I just want to show the love of Christ in me. And you know what? Atheists reach out to me and tell me how much they appreciate so I know that a chord is being struck with people and I think that this is how it happens. Because look at it this way, modern evangelical Christianity is on a collision course and it's not heading in the right direction. Dude. And I feel like in one sense Lord has called me. Because once it's a disaster, once this edifice collapses, we need people like us, like Christians like me, that will be there to pick up the pieces for all those shattered lives that are going to be happening. Because guess what, the same thing's happening on our side too, John. Same, exact same thing. And that's why I feel like I was placed at this time. The Lord showed me that the period in the 1990s, somebody told me, I told somebody, I said, the Lord showed me that the period of 2020 to 2030 is going to be called the second great disappointment. Because within all the calendars of evangelicalism, Jesus, we, we should be in the second or third decade of the millennium now, based on what all the dispensationalist doctrine that was being taught in the 19th century. Once we get past 2030 and we start keep on going and going, all of the end time doctrines that are being taught in the evangelical church are just. Would be. Will become just as much of a joke as the Jehovah's Witnesses end time predictions were. So now we got to be prepared for a post apocalyptic Christianity. In other words, Jesus didn't come when he was supposed to come. And now we have to live in the real world that exists and not this imaginary world that at any moment we're just going to fly away. And I think that's a more adult Christianity.

Metaphors for Faith and the Future of Religion

John Dehlin [01:48:47] Amen to that. But let me. So I love that. And let me just give you a metaphor, okay. And this I got from, I think Richard Wirthlin, Mormon apostle.

Steve Pynakker [01:48:58] So

John Dehlin [01:49:00] all of us calling ourselves Christian. Let's liken that to all of us playing the tuba. You know where I'm going and that's great. A big tuba orchestra where we're all playing the tuba. There's super cool things about that, but like church of tubas. So what about the violins and the percussion and clarinets? Are they not welcome?

Steve Pynakker [01:49:25] Right?

John Dehlin [01:49:26] So why not have a church? And this is basically, I think what Unitarianism is, right? It's basically saying, let's have a church of like, call yourself whatever you want to call yourself. And Christians, tubas play an important role. So we want tubas in the orchestra. They're a crucial part of the orchestra, but they're not the orchestra. And everyone's welcome. Call yourself what you want. We need Christians, but we also need Mormons and post Mormons and we need Jews and we need Muslims and we need atheists and agnostics. And it's a church that's an orchestra, not a tuba orchestra.

Steve Pynakker [01:50:01] Yeah, but the problem is with the Unitarian Universalist churches, it's just a bunch of aged people. It's a dying church.

John Dehlin [01:50:06] So then, okay, so what if they just haven't figured out the right formula?

Steve Pynakker [01:50:09] Well, I think the problem is, is that if you don't, if you don't define yourself in a certain way and you just let anything goes, that it just leads to. And again, this is the thing. I'm not about building a new church. I'm not, I'm not. Because these are man made institutions. I think that institutions that take that position are destined to fail. That doesn't mean that on an individual level we can't have a, a place where all are welcome. I think that we can do that. I understand what you're saying, but again, I'm not trying to build an institutional church. I think the body of Christ is all the believers that want to follow him, that want to emulate him, and they want to have Christ operate through their lives even if they don't even know his name. I think that that's, that's who that's got, that's those, those are his people. And I don't know who they are. You know, I, I just know that when I see fruits from somebody, then I know, okay, that is a fellow, a fellow believer, a fellow person. I want to fellowship with a fellow worker.

John Dehlin [01:51:08] But I think what I have never gotten over, okay, is my Mormon upbringing where two or three hours a Sunday I'm meeting with cool people. I've got leaders that care for me. I'm listening, inspiring things. I'm, I'm believing that I'm part of a cause, I've got an identity. I'm handed a morality where otherwise I would have probably messed a lot of things up. I've got, when my family's struggling, I've got other leaders that are telling me I'm great and that I can do good things. And I've got, I've got something that I can believe in and work for that motivates me. And wherever I travel in the United States or even world, I've got friends in that city or town who will literally let me stay in their house even though they've never met me before. Right. And, and education is valued and family is Valued. And kindness is valued. Like that was awesome, that Mormon dream. Now of course there was the patriarchy, but that didn't bug me so much. I wonder why. Oh yeah, you know, the homophobia was awesome. But again, that didn't bug me so much. The racism was annoying, but you know, didn't bug me that much. Like, I'm joking, but like, of course there were the major problems. But like, that's a pretty awesome model, dude.

Steve Pynakker [01:52:31] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:52:32] And one of the reasons why the Mormon church hasn't collapsed in the age of the Internet is because it's still adding value to people's lives. And if it wasn't adding value to people's lives, they'd bail.

Steve Pynakker [01:52:42] Right, Exactly. Yeah.

Still Longing for Religious Community

John Dehlin [01:52:43] So my point is, is I still want the orchestra, bro. I want to go to church with you dudes.

Steve Pynakker [01:52:50] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:52:50] And cool women and non binary people and, and, and awesome. I wanna, I want a Sunday experience where I'm singing with my fellow homies inspirational things that make the hair on my arms stand up and I'm hearing a sermon not about stupid, like, like authoritarian garbage, but like, hey man, I helped people and this is how it made me feel better. And you should help people too. And hey, hey, I was struggle with being kind and here's some things I learned and now I'm, I'm more kind. Try this thing out. And like, you know, when my kids are feeling lonely or struggling or want to meet somebody, when my kids want to meet somebody to find a special someone in their lives, they can go to some activity, dances and picnics and, and meet cool people and find their mates or their special someone and, and build a happy, healthy life from there versus like trying to figure that out through social media apps. Like, I just think we've lost something. I don't know that like doing a bunch of podcasts and like random one off meetings through social media. I don't know that that's going to get humanity where it needs to go. I, I guess I still believe in the church model in many ways.

Steve Pynakker [01:54:11] Okay. Yeah, I can see. Well, there's utility in the church model. I can see they can do a lot of good. I'm just saying is that as we go into a postmodern world, people are leaving institutions altogether. Right. And they don't even add, they don't even ask the question, what is the true church? That's not even something, something anybody even cares about anymore. So as it was, as we are in this postmodern world, we're going to see a radical transformation of how people do view their religion and how they engage it. So I look at it this way as like, I helped create my own community. Like, I stayed at a friend's house last night who's a Mormon. And I, I've been able to do that in some level, on a small level, but I think that we can all build intentional communities and we can. And again, these, what we're doing in this world is building those communities. Now, I know like you said, you did Oasis and you did Thrive. I thought Thrive was doing really great. You had thousands of people there. But you've told me, you know, there's been issues and problems. But again, that's because there always are going to be because we're, we're men, in particular men, and we, we tend to screw things up and we tend to just mess it up. And so that's why I kind of look at it is just try to be grounded. Like I said, I believe it's Christ operating through me. And I think that's what led me into this whole endeavor. And that's all I can say. I can't really go to you and say much more than that, dude.

John Dehlin [01:55:27] And I want to build a secular slash spiritual slash religious mega church that like every town. It's like Rick Warren, but he's good with everybody. But it's, but it's also Rick Warren and their, their spouse and non binary and trans partner. Like, I want like this combination new age secular, spiritual, religious megachurch that like, come, come one, come all.

Steve Pynakker [01:55:55] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:55:56] Find love. Teach the gospel of kindness and, and service and charity and love and community and friendship and goodness and, and let's sing together and have potlucks and bring potato salad or cheesy, cheesy potatoes with corn flakes on them or jello, whatever it is. Bring your treats programs and like golden green balls and everything without the bigotry.

Steve Pynakker [01:56:26] Okay?

John Dehlin [01:56:26] Why can't we have that? Come on, man.

Steve Pynakker [01:56:28] Okay, you want, you want Mormonism in your own image, right? No, I get what you're saying and I understand that because I know that most people have a need for community, like an institutional community, a place that they can go to every Sunday. And I get that. And I think that it's just more, I think it's important I look at this way in one sense. If you have a personal relationship with Jesus and you're grounded with him, then you can go anywhere, any Sunday and still be in communion with him on a personal, individual level. And so then you just don't let that bishop, that Pope, that pastor or whatever, get in your way of having that relationship with Jesus. And that's kind of how I look at it. That's how it works for me. But I recognize I'm kind of a iconoclastic individual. I do my own thing, and I understand that. You know, John, I. I promised you that this interview is only going to be a couple hours long, and I know that you are traveling, so I. I want to wrap this up out of respect for your time, because I know we could easily go.

John Dehlin [01:57:25] I'm having too much fun, bro.

Steve Pynakker [01:57:26] Okay, well. Okay, well, then we'll.

John Dehlin [01:57:28] I can go three more minutes, But I also know that. That not every. Not everyone's into super long form, so. Dude, we can do this. We can, like, have a part two another time, too, so whatever you want.

Steve Pynakker [01:57:37] Oh, you want to do a part two?

John Dehlin [01:57:39] Dude, I love this stuff, man.

Steve Pynakker [01:57:41] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:57:42] The question is, would viewers and listeners even care?

Steve Pynakker [01:57:45] Well, remember, it's my show.

John Dehlin [01:57:46] That's right.

Steve Pynakker [01:57:47] We're using your studio. It's my show. You can do what you want, you know? Okay, so we're just gonna produce on the fly here. John, I want to thank you so much for coming on Mormon Book Reviews today.

Closing Reflections and Farewell

John Dehlin [01:57:57] Yeah, man. Well, thanks for what you do, and thanks for being my friend more. More than anything else. But also thanks for being a place that can live out the Mormon Stories vision, maybe a little bit more than I've been able to, which is a place where Sandra Tanner and Richard Bushman both feel comfortable appearing. That's what I always wanted Mormon Stories to be. And I'm thrilled that you're creating that space along with Rick Bennett and hopefully others will, too. And so thanks for what you bring to our community.

Steve Pynakker [01:58:32] Thank you. Thank you very much, John. I. I was going to ask if you had any final words for my audience, but I think those are good final words, unless there's anything else you'd like to say.

John Dehlin [01:58:39] Yeah, man. Help me write a book.

Steve Pynakker [01:58:41] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:58:42] Please. I'm being held captive by my podcast. Help me write a book.

Steve Pynakker [01:58:47] I think that this is the episode that launches the John de Lynn book, folks. You watch out for it.

John Dehlin [01:58:53] And then do you promise a Mormon book review episode on my book if I write a book?

Steve Pynakker [01:58:57] And I might even let you come on my show to talk about it. How's that? You know, a couple of things, folks. I, first of all, want to thank John again for coming on the program. I just want to point out that I wore this Joseph Smith for President T shirt. I bought this at the Redbrook store in Nauvoo. Illinois. I have to give the community of Christ a shout out because freaking we had John Hamer come on and Lachlan McKay, an apostle and a direct descendant of of Joseph Smith come on and do the very first interview for the Joseph Smith photograph. So I have to honor community of Christ. I do think you're awesome. I don't think kind of go for your whole progressive liberal thing too much, you know. And your church services are a little too, I don't know, I'm charismatic. So I like, you know, I like us. I like, I go to churches with people rolling the floors, you know. But either way, Community of Christ, you're awesome. And John Dehlin, you're awesome.

John Dehlin [01:59:45] Thanks, man. You're awesome.

Steve Pynakker [01:59:46] Thank you. And so just want to remind you to like and subscribe and don't forget to hit the notification button for when a new episode comes out. I just also want to remind you that we are on all the major podcast formats. There's links in the description so you can check those out. And also if you want to support our channel on Both Patreon and PayPal, there's links there as well. And don't forget our merch store, mormonbook reviews.com we are adding stuff all the time. So folks, thanks for joining us for this and stay tuned for part two. Next time I get out to Utah, be well people.

John Dehlin [02:00:14] Give this guy money. Become a monthly donor to monthly book review. Steve deserves a good, you know, 80k, 100k a year salary to pay for what he does. So donate to this guy. He's worth 10 bucks a month or 100 bucks a month. Support content creators that are doing good in the world. Give him your money. Thank you.

Steve Pynakker [02:00:37] Thanks John. Appreciate it.

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