Mormon News: Friday, May 25, 2022

Guest [00:00:00] Foreign.

John Dehlin [00:00:06] And welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast, Mormon News edition. It's May 29, 2026 and we are experimenting with a new format that we're that, that we've received pretty good feedback on so far, obviously. Joining me today is Megan. Hey, Megan.

Guest 4 [00:00:29] Hey. Morning, John.

John Dehlin [00:00:32] And Megan is co anchor for this pilot program of Mormon News. And Megan, tell everyone what, what your normal channels are.

Guest 4 [00:00:44] So I broadcast Monday through Friday over on generally unquotable YouTube, Tik Tok, Spotify, Facebook, Instagram. That's where you can find me.

John Dehlin [00:00:53] Yeah. And you do you cover daily Mormon news? And so the thing that we're experimenting with is kind of a weekly Friday Mormon News Summary brought to you by Megan, with occasional analysis and thoughts by yours truly, John Dehlin. So, Megan, I'm always stunned by how much, how much news we have. Tell us, tell us what the stories are for this week.

Guest 4 [00:01:24] We're going to be talking about Mark Lamb, a prior sheriff in Arizona who is running for office and a scandal involving him and how church leaders were allegedly involved in some cover ups there. We're going to be talking about an LDS stake president who's been charged with fraud. Spoiler alert, he might have bought himself a boat. We're going to be talking about how the church stopped, how the church stocks have lost billions. And a quick reminder, those stocks were initially invested from excess tithing. We'll go on to a BYUI student who was arrested and what he was arrested for, how in Auckland, New Zealand, the young single adults have been given an interesting challenge from General Authority 70 Peter Muirs. And then finishing up with the the church's annotation system. What does that look like?

John Dehlin [00:02:19] And is it working for members experiencing discipline? Right.

Guest 4 [00:02:24] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:02:25] Yeah. Well, we've got a lot, a lot of COVID We want to thank everyone who's joining us on the live stream. We welcome your comments and questions. If you want to send your questions or comments to Super Chats, it'll make it so it's easier for us to see them and to share them. Want to thank everyone who donates to Mormon Stories Podcast, Neopa Stories foundation that makes all of this possible. And yeah, and also we welcome everyone who just joins us by listening or viewing afterwards. We, we love having you. So. All right. All right, Megan, let's jump in to our first story. Tell us about the American sheriff or about America's sheriff at America's Mormon Sheriff.

Mark Lamb: American Sheriff, Mormon Sheriff

Guest 4 [00:03:13] Yep, his name's Mark Lamb. This is actually the COVID This picture is a cover of a book that he Wrote. And the tagline there, right under American Sheriff, it says traditional values in a modern world, which I think is something that Mark presents as being very important to him. The book included a description. Read about the core values that has shaped Sheriff Lamb into the person he is and is becoming, including faith, family, love of country, courage, perseverance. And he published this back in the late fall of 2020. So it's kind of giving you an idea of how he presents himself publicly.

John Dehlin [00:03:52] Yeah, he's kind of branding himself as a Christian and obviously for PR purposes, but maybe even for political purposes. We know that faith can. You know, projecting yourself as being a person of faith can be positive for your political prospects. Now, presenting yourself as a Mormon may or may not be good for your reputation politically. I'm getting vibes more of generic Christian than Mormon per se. How about you?

Guest 4 [00:04:30] Yeah, he's not saying faith, family, and heavenly Father, or, you know, he's saying freedom, faith, family, not freedom, heavenly father, family. You know, he'll use words like God and which in Mormonism, I mean, at least when I was very active, we said heavenly Father. We didn't say God often.

John Dehlin [00:04:47] Yeah, but when he talks about Christianity, I'm pretty sure he identifies as Mormon. And we're going to be covering that now. So should we go to the first video?

I Saw The Face Of Jesus

Guest 4 [00:04:57] Absolutely. I want everyone to just react to this in real time, because the first. First time I heard it, I was surprised at where it went, where the story went.

John Dehlin [00:05:06] This is the first time I'm actually hearing this, so I'll be reacting live as well.

Guest 4 [00:05:09] So awesome.

Guest 2 [00:05:12] I've seen it now. You know, I was on my mission in Argentina and love that place, by the way, and I was working in this one area, and I actually had two companions at the time. Normally you have one companion. I had two. I had a. A new guy from Argentina and had a new guy from Idaho, and we had had this day scheduled out, and the day wasn't going well at all. Everything was canceling, cancel, cancel, cancel. And it was just one of those days where finally, where it's like, hey, should we just go home, go back to the apartment and just cash it in for the day? I mean, it can't get any worse. And as we were getting standing on the corner, we're standing on this one corner, and we see this old man, a bum, just crossing the street, dirty, just shuffling, can't even walk. He's just shuffling his feet, and he's getting close to the other side, but he's crossing the road and we' standing on the corner, kind of talking about whether we should go back to the apartment or not or whether we should help this guy. And at the very end, I said, you know what? Let's just help this guy. So we walk across the street, right as he's getting to the curb, and he's trying to step up on the curb, he starts to fall. And we literally get there right when he's falling, and we catch him, and we kind of stabilize him, and we're talking to him, and we can't understand what he's saying. We don't see his face. His face is down. He's mumbling. And so we can see he's walking over towards this kiosk. And so we start to walk to the kiosk. At that point, the sun's still out, but it took us probably 40 minutes to get to the kiosk. Really was probably only about 30 yards.

John Dehlin [00:06:50] Yeah.

Guest 2 [00:06:51] And so we finally get to the kiosk, and now it's getting dark. And so there's a light above the kiosk. And so we asked the guy at the kiosk. We're like, hey, where does this guy live? And he says, oh, he lives right over here. And we said, well, does he usually get something here at the store? And he says, yeah, he usually gets milk and candles. And so we said, well, can you give us some milk and candles? And we'll pay for it. And while we're standing there and my two companions are there, this is the moment, you know, you're referring to is we. It's kind of a light above us and getting a little dark. And I'm standing in front of him, and my two guys are standing on the side of him. And at that point, he. We hadn't seen his face. He was dirty. Dirty hair, dirty clothes. And he looked up at me, and undoubtedly it was the face of Christ. And he just looked me straight in the eyes. And then for probably what seemed like, you know, 30 seconds, but it was probably only a few seconds, and then he put his head back down, and we never saw from. We never saw his face again. And I looked at the two companions to the side, and, you know, you what? We could feel something had just happened.

John Dehlin [00:08:11] And also the other two saw and felt the same thing you did, without question.

Guest 2 [00:08:17] I could call that guy in Idaho today and say, do you remember the story of the old man? And he would know exactly. I mean, we. We knew exact.

John Dehlin [00:08:27] Whoa, homeboy saw Jesus.

Guest 4 [00:08:30] Yes, I know. I wish I would have been recording my face the first time I listened to that, because I was like, oh, I want a mission story from him. And then I started listening. I was like, I got more than I bargained for here.

John Dehlin [00:08:43] Wow.

Guest 4 [00:08:44] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:08:44] What are your reactions to that, Megan?

Guest 4 [00:08:46] Well, it gives me some insight into his. I don't want to say character, but kind of how he perceives himself and this story that he's telling out there and how his mind is working that when he was on his mission, he saw Jesus. And, you know, now he's in this position of power and that's the story that he's choosing to tell. So it was. I was trying to get an idea of what does Mark Lamb think? How does he think, what does he think about himself? And yeah, I mean, it was pretty eye opening to see that he will go publicly and tell a story that he saw Jesus.

John Dehlin [00:09:25] I mean, what it reminds me of, just for those who have never been Mormon and are trying to make sense of all this, like, I do remember growing up attending early morning seminary as a Mormon kid in high school. And my seminary teacher would occasionally tell a story like this. The story usually went, you know, my. I was. You probably know the story, Megan. I was driving down the road and my car, I got a flat tire and it swerved off. And then I was trying to change the tire, but I couldn't. And then a man or three men show up and they helped me change the tire. And then I look, I go to, like, grab a dollar to thank them and I turn back and they're gone. And usually it's sort of like it was John the Beloved, who according to Mormon doctrine is still alive, or the three Nephites, who, according to the Book of Mormon, they're still alive. This idea of seeing the Savior face to face, however, is actually very, very rare in my 50, whatever years of having, you know, or 46 years, however many years it was until I stopped attending. That's quite rare. And, you know, it's just been Deborah Snuffer kind of starting around 2013 and beyond where I started hearing Mormons claim they saw Jesus. How about, how about you?

Guest 4 [00:10:47] Yeah, same. I. In my ward one time, it was a woman who was in a wheelchair and had toppled over alone. And then the three Nephites came and helped her up. But, yeah, she didn't claim Jesus. And that's right. You know, you hear about it with Joseph Smith and maybe in the Kirtland era when they're doing the Pentecostal things. But nowadays it's usually three Nephites John the Beloved, not Jesus. Yeah, it's right.

John Dehlin [00:11:09] Even Mormon apostles, as I understand it, in, in the past 10 or 20 years have tried to tell members we have not, we have not had personal visitations from Jesus. So stop asking us and stop expecting that. I think Oaks may have said that at some point. I think Bednar may have said that at some point.

Mark Lamb: Running for Office

Guest 4 [00:11:31] Well, and in the last conference, Uchtdorf said that he knew he saw with his spiritual eyes.

John Dehlin [00:11:37] Yeah.

Guest 4 [00:11:37] Yeah. So they're, they're trying to maybe distance from actually having seen Jesus.

John Dehlin [00:11:43] Well, that's a. So that's a pretty bold way to start. So I'm sure that Mark Lamb's behavior reflects the fact that he has stood in, in our Lord and Savior, Jesus's presence. So let's, let's go to the next video, shall we? Is there anything you want to say about this next clip?

Guest 4 [00:12:02] This one he said shortly after he told the Jesus story. And it's actually going to be a little foreshadowing, I think.

John Dehlin [00:12:08] Okay. All right, let's go and play it. Affect how you campaign.

Guest 2 [00:12:13] We always have a joke in our family, says, you want to know what you did wrong in life? Run for office. You'll find out.

John Dehlin [00:12:19] Yeah.

Guest 2 [00:12:19] Whether you did it or you didn't do it, you're going to find out.

John Dehlin [00:12:24] So I wonder why his family has a running joke about running for office. Do you know if he has family members who have run for office? Like, is this a family tradition?

Guest 4 [00:12:35] I don't know. Yeah, I wasn't able to find anything about his extended family, so.

John Dehlin [00:12:40] Okay. Okay. So he's basically kind of inoculating his audience to say, hey, everyone who runs for office is going to have some dirt. Okay.

Guest 4 [00:12:51] Yeah. It's okay. Everybody has it.

John Dehlin [00:12:53] All right. Well, I mean, that's probably true to some degree.

Guest [00:12:56] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:12:58] So let's, let's go. Go forward. Keep going, Megan. I'm dying to hear. I'm on the edge of my seat.

Guest 4 [00:13:04] Yeah. So AZ Central came out with some pretty scathing articles about him this past week. This one, women say Mark Lamb sent explicit messages and made threats. That's the headline.

John Dehlin [00:13:18] Okay. All right. And then. Is this a video clip?

Guest 4 [00:13:23] Yes. This is also from azcentral. So not only did they come out with a full front page article in paper and online, but then they did two short videos and we'll watch clips from them.

John Dehlin [00:13:36] Yeah. Okay. All right, let's roll the first video.

Mark Lamb on His Run for Congress

Guest [00:13:40] Mark Lamb has spent a decade building his national brand around traditional values. The former Arizona lawman is running for Congress on a campaign of faith, family and freedom.

John Dehlin [00:13:52] Okay.

Guest 4 [00:13:53] So, yeah, just setting up his character once again. The way he presents himself along, you know, with his book to seeing Jesus. He's running for Congress now and his entire Persona has been around. You know, he's got that cowboy hat on and he's got his boots and he's the all American hero.

John Dehlin [00:14:11] All right, and we've got our first, our first super chat in Megan for Sunday School president. Looks like you got a fan at least.

Guest 4 [00:14:19] You know, I'll only do it if I can be the general Sunday school president, not this ward level stuff.

John Dehlin [00:14:25] Okay, all right, all right, I support it. Okay, what's this next slide?

Mark Lamb Uses the N-Word

Guest 4 [00:14:32] So along with the explicit text that we're going, we're going to see, AZ Central also uncovered messages where it says, Mark Lamb behind the scenes in 2016 during his campaign for Pinal County Sheriff. You know, with his brand, faith, family and freedom. This text, which he is texting on a BNI Facebook page, which stands for Border narcotics. Border Narcotics Intelligence. He says, I can certainly. Okay, let's see. The first person says, I think Dave had a case of not only his back troubles, but also burnout. And he said, I can certainly sympathize with that. Hahaha. And then the Guy responds, yeah, BNI's guy. BNI guys work like. And then he uses the N word, to which Mark responds, hahaha. So you don't do anything. Making a very racist joke there.

John Dehlin [00:15:28] Okay, yeah, so. So that's using the N word. Yes, I would say. How do we Let me just back up and just say generally on Mormon stories, even if we're talking about a child abuser, and of course we are opposed to all, all forms of abuse. Like I've always tried to have the mantra of systems, not people. In other words, when I cover something on Mormon stories, I want to know to what extent the church is either behind or enabling or empowering or neglecting, you know, an aspect that affects the membership instead of like going hard at the person. So, and also there's always this complicating factor, Megan, of the fact that any religion with a decent number of people is going to have murders, any religion or secular people are going to have racists, are going to have abusers of misogynists or whatever. And so it's also something that I try and do is not pin things on Mormonism or the church that really are just traits commonly found in the general population. Unless we think that for some reason they have a Mormon tie to Mormon Culture, Mormon doctrine, Mormon theology. So in terms of using the N word, what's your analysis from that kind of context? Because there's going to be people of all religions maybe that are racist or say the N word. So what would your thoughts be in that context?

Guest 4 [00:17:06] It's hard because of the way that he's presenting himself. He's standing up in front of everyone and saying, I'm a good stand up guy, you can trust me.

John Dehlin [00:17:16] And I'm religious.

Guest [00:17:18] Yes.

Guest 4 [00:17:18] And as a sheriff, he doesn't represent just white folks.

John Dehlin [00:17:22] Yeah.

Guest 4 [00:17:23] He represents everyone.

John Dehlin [00:17:25] Yeah.

Guest 4 [00:17:25] And, and is supposed to be protecting everyone. And I wish I did know more about, I mean, I know a little bit about his background. He moved around a lot, which I know. John, you're very fond of saying travel is fatal to prejudice. That great quote he spent his growing up here is a lot outside the US So for him to come in here and make comments like that, it actually seems a little confusing to me.

John Dehlin [00:17:52] Yeah.

Guest 4 [00:17:52] With his background.

John Dehlin [00:17:54] No, that's fair. Well, I'll just say on the one hand, the Mormon Church does have a long, long, long history of racism. Whether it's the Book of Mormon calling dark skin a curse, whether it's the priesthood and temple ban on black members that lasted for 150 plus years, you know, top church leaders fighting the civil rights movement. So I mean you can say that historically Mormonism has had a big race problem and still has some theological or doctrinal race problems. I will say in recent years Mormon prophets have stood up in general conference and publicly condemned racism, which I, I give them credit for that. Right. It's weird that, that Mark didn't get that message as a, as a, someone who presents himself as a faithful Mormon because he really is defying Mormon, modern Mormon prophets when he uses the N word. And then the only thought that comes for me there is is this the type of thing like, you know, you can get excommunicated these days for having a podcast or even a support group that is too sympathetic to people who doubt or question the church. Can you get church discipline for using the N word and talking about, about black people disparagingly. Have you ever heard of the church disciplining someone for, for being racist or using the N word? Megan?

Guest 4 [00:19:20] No. Well, and I think it would be difficult because they have not yet removed the scripture in 2nd Nephi 5. 21 that says very plainly that dark skin is a curse.

John Dehlin [00:19:32] Yeah.

Guest 4 [00:19:32] So how would they win that?

John Dehlin [00:19:34] And they haven't apologized for the priesthood ban or the, or the Temple ban or some of those past teachings.

Guest 4 [00:19:40] So no, they use the word disavow, which means we don't take responsibility for that is the definition of that word. It's not we're sorry, it's. That was in the past and let's leave it there.

John Dehlin [00:19:52] Also, I'll just try and be fair. To the church's credit, they have donated to the naacp, I believe, to black affiliated civil rights organizations in the past few years. So, you know, let's just say that we can't really pin this on the modern church, but we can't ask the church whether this is something that they want to add to their list of discipline worthy offenses because it is speaking. It is disobeying the prophets, seers and revelators in modern times. Fair?

Guest 4 [00:20:27] Yeah, fair.

John Dehlin [00:20:28] Okay. All right, we have another super chat sending you all the love and support, John. I assume that materiel is, is referring to the lawsuit where the Mormon Church is suing and in my opinion, defaming and smearing and trying to bankrupt Mormon Stories of the Open Stories Foundation. So thank you material for that, that donation as well as to and Stevens 9631. All right, well, let's go ahead and go to the next slide, Megan, and, and see what else we have. It looks like he's not just going after black people, he's going after LGBT people. Tell us about this slide.

Mark Lamb Laughs At Homophobic Comments

Guest 4 [00:21:11] Yeah, so I was trying to kind of stay in a timeline and going back to 2016 when he was running for sheriff. Mark Lamb laughed at homophobic remarks in a 2016 exchange with Nick Steele, the same person. So Nick says, besides, we think Bideaux. I'm not sure how to pronounce that name, but it's another person in politics is a. And then they've actually redacted that part and you can see it says, yeah, blank, blank, homo. And then Mark responds, ha, ha, ha, ha ha. So he's having these conversations where this type of stuff, he's, he's okay just laughing at a remark about someone else who is also in a political position. And he, he thinks it's funny.

John Dehlin [00:22:00] Yeah. And I would say the church wouldn't like, you know, church leaders probably generally wouldn't like LGBT people being referred to as homos or in discouraging ways. At the same time, the church does have policies that, that discriminate against LGBT people. And so that's not going to do well for encouraging members to be loving and affirming to LGBT people because they're viewed as second class citizens. And or as sinful members of a particularly heinous category. Within a Mormon context, yes.

Guest 4 [00:22:39] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:22:39] Yeah.

Guest 4 [00:22:40] I mean, even so, President Oaks, before he was prophetic, said that if he had a son who wanted to bring a partner over, another man as his partner, you know, he. He maybe would have him over, but he couldn't stay the night and he wouldn't show him off to his friends.

John Dehlin [00:22:56] Yeah.

Guest 4 [00:22:57] So it's this I can kind of I can love you behind closed doors situation, but I can't publicly say that your relationship's okay.

John Dehlin [00:23:05] But I would also say the leaders have made comments publicly saying we should show love and support everyone, including LGBT people. So I. I certainly wouldn't say leaders would condone that language. Which again, begs the question, would they ever discipline someone for using disparaging comments? And I'm unaware of any instance of that ever happening. I am. I am aware of people being excommunicated for, like Natasha Helfer teaching ethical mental health principles, or Sam Young advocating for the rights of abused children, or Jeremy Runnels or Bill Real for teaching truthful Mormon history. So, yeah, I think the church, maybe. Maybe the feedback for the church is add things to what you discipline your members for so that your full values are represented in church discipline, not just ones that benefit certain aspects of your. Of your beliefs. All right, what's this next video clip?

Steve Bannon on the Sexual Scandal

Guest 4 [00:24:06] So this one is going on in the AZ Central clip about the sexual scandal. So we've kind of set up. He. He wrote his book. Well, you know, he ran for sheriff. He wrote his book. He had those messages in there with some homophobia and some racism. And now more is coming out. So this is the next bit of that.

Sheriff's alleged sexting and intimidation of women

John Dehlin [00:24:26] Okay, now we're getting to the. To the spicy stuff.

Guest [00:24:30] An investigation by the Arizona Republic and azcentral.com found sexting an explicit photo swapping via social media accounts and phone numbers connected to Lamb and two women who say he tried to cover up the actions using threats and intimidation.

Guest 3 [00:24:45] Lamb was in his first term as Pinal county sheriff when a woman said he threatened to send state police after to prevent her from posting about their relationship. The message from a usernamed Mark cited the state's revenge porn statute. Another woman said Lamb got in her face and told her there would be consequences if she kept talking about what she knew.

John Dehlin [00:25:07] Okay, what are your thoughts on that, Megan?

Guest 4 [00:25:12] He was allegedly with these women having some sort of relationship. And so there's two different women that they're going to talk about a lot. There's actually a third that they mentioned, but these two women. And when things start to go away, he doesn't like, then he's using his position as sheriff to try and silence them, which adds another layer to it.

John Dehlin [00:25:34] Yeah, like, like again, like, I don't, I don't really try on Mormon stories to put individuals on the shame parade for mistakes they make. You know, even, even Joseph Smith or whoever. It's one thing what personal weaknesses they have or frailties. If there adds to that a real abuse of power. Like in this case. Well, in Joseph Smith's case, he's claiming to be God's mouthpiece on the earth. And then using that credibility to threaten or intimidate 14 year olds into marrying them or their parents. That abuse of power combined with is. Is. Becomes deeply problematic. And it just seems like from what I just heard, he's using his power as sheriff, as a law enforcement officer, allegedly to, to silence or intimidate women who might want to tell the truth about him. Is that what I just heard?

Guest 4 [00:26:35] Yep. Okay. Allegedly. That is what he did to keep them quiet.

John Dehlin [00:26:40] And we should say everything in this entire newscast is alleged. We don't, we don't have enough access to facts to be able to know for sure if anything. This newscast is for sure fully substantiated. But we like to rely on, on, you know, news reporters like AZ Central so that we can, you know, at least have some credibility. So what's this next clip about?

Guest 4 [00:27:03] Yeah, it's continuing on, so. Okay, we're going to see what else he's done.

John Dehlin [00:27:07] Okay.

Guest [00:27:09] Lam is on track to win a congressional seat in the conservative East Valley. We found a trove of texts, explicit messages, and sexual images that women say Lam sent them before and after he became sheriff.

Guest 3 [00:27:23] The Republic used several methods to verify the materials. Messages include distinct characteristics that indicate they came from Lam's cell phone and social media accounts. In one, a Facebook messenger user named Mark sent a close up picture of a penis with an offer to measure it. The user's avatar matches an image Lam has used on his Facebook profile photo. A second woman said Lam showed her a similar photo in person. Another picture, a selfie of a couple having intercourse, was texted from a phone number that matches Lam's cell phone. The text came with a message telling the recipient to think about that being you.

John Dehlin [00:28:03] Okay, so now we're talking about sexting and kind of really sexually explicit messages. What, what are your thoughts on that, Megan?

Guest 4 [00:28:13] Well, if all of this was happening with Mark's knowledge, his wife's knowledge, and the knowledge of the Women and they all knew and they were consenting adults, then that would be fine. They, they would be allowed to have the sexual relationships that they want to have. The problem for me comes in where he's possibly trying to hide it and then publicly presenting himself as someone who would never do this thing. Because we all know that in the Mormon Church you don't get to go outside of your marriage for sexual reasons. You don't get to sex people and still be considered a worthy member. I mean, by the per the handbook, that shouldn't be happening in someone who is a worthy Mormon member.

John Dehlin [00:29:06] Yeah. So I think the fact that he's made as his brand a Christian and a Mormon complicates this. I mean, I guess, I guess no, no one's perfect in the world. So that's true. On the one hand, you could, anyone who presents themselves as anything could, could have skeletons in their closet where they could be condemned for. But if you, if you shroud yourself in a certain identity that means something to the world, very specific in the case of Christian and Mormon to the world, it could mean, for example, the church's standards on the law of chastity and marital fidelity and stuff, then

Guest 2 [00:29:50] you

John Dehlin [00:29:50] know, that, I guess that opens up fair game for people to say, wait a minute, you're presenting yourself as one thing, but what the behavior behind behind the scenes is something very different.

Guest 4 [00:30:00] Yes, exactly. If, if he wanted to be a, be a swinger, I mean if that's what they call this, and he has consenting adults and he's not putting himself out there as this bastion of Mormon morality, Christian morality, then that's okay. That's okay. You get to have sexual preferences and be a sexual person. But him combining the two people in his ward, I'm sure were not assuming that this type of behavior was going on. And the, the Christian contingent who really look up to him maybe still don't believe that this behavior ever happened.

John Dehlin [00:30:43] It's interesting. A couple things are also interesting for me, Megan, and I want to hear your thoughts on this. So one is that, one is that, you know, I, I, you know, we have talked on Mormon stories in the past about, let's just say Mormons or members of other high demand religions or just people in the world in modern times experimenting with ethical non monogamy or swinging or polyamory or whatever. And I have no idea whether those types of practices are more or less or equally prevalent in ex Mormon communities as they might be in the general population. I just know that, you know, you hear about it from time to time. But what I'm always surprised to hear is that swinging communities sometimes are alive and well within faithful Mormon communities. That there are stake presidents and bishops and members of Stake High Councils and prominent Mormon members along, let's just say the Mormon Court or the Morator, the, the Book of Mormon belt or whatever, from Utah, Idaho, Arizona, where faithful Mormons are engaging in non monogamy kind of type behaviors. And that, that's always surprising to me, but I've heard it enough from credible sources, including from people who are engaged in that behavior, to just be really stunned to realize faithful Mormons engage in this behavior just like anybody else. Is that surprising to you? Is that something you've also heard of or experienced?

Ex-Mormons Are Reportedly Swinging in the Church

Guest 4 [00:32:22] So that is not something that I ever heard of or experienced when I was an active member. It would have shocked me as an active member to, to be sitting in the pew at church and look around and think that any of those people were engaging in that type of behavior. I have heard about it since leaving and you know, being more open to even thinking about things like that. And for bishops and stake presidents, I, I think it's natural for people to have different sexual drives. In Mormonism, it's just not really an option. And so there's all of this secrecy and lying and hiding, which I don't think is healthy. So I, I wish that, I mean, Mormonism had more sexual education, more openness around sexual health because then a lot of this stuff gets pushed into the shadows with people who maybe don't have a lot of education around sexual health. And then it comes out maybe in ways like Mark Lamb, kind of sideways where he's embarrassed that he did it, but he still wants to do it. And now he's threatening these women. You know, it comes out in, in unfortunate ways when normal, natural could be healthy sexual behaviors don't have to be this way. But yes, as an active Mormon, I would have been shocked.

John Dehlin [00:33:46] Yeah, I first learned about this as, as an active Mormon and it shocked me. And I guess Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is, you know, that whole show started from, you know, rumors and allegations of soft swinging amongst faithful Mormons. So that's, it's, it's this idea of swinging that brought Mormons into the national spotlight over the past few years. So it's clearly a thing. And clearly this is just another anecdotal data point of more faithful Mormon swingers. The other thing I was just going to say is, on the one hand, you know, politicians shrouding themselves in Christianity while At the same time, totally not living up to and or violating even basic Christian moral standards. It's almost become the norm in 2026. Like, I grew up in the 70s and 80s where a Dan Quayle or someone like that, a politician who really seemed to be squeaky clean, would run for office as a conservative Christian. And they pretty much were squeaky clean. And so that meant something. And when, let's just say when Bill Clinton was caught in his scandal in the White House, you know, one party made a big. A big issue of the fact that he wasn't living moral kind of Christian values, right?

Guest 4 [00:35:19] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:35:20] But nowadays it's really common for politicians who call themselves Christian or voters who call themselves Christian to not really care about the personal sexual behavior of the people they vote for or the even the Christians that they vote for. And so on the one hand, this seems scandalous and hypocritical. On the other hand, it almost seems normal in 2026 to me.

Guest 4 [00:35:49] Yep. No, I have noticed that as well. And I've really been trying to figure out how we got there, why that's happening. And I something that I was thinking about is that almost an end justifies the means type of thing. Like when I was a teenager, I went to a fireside one time and the guy showed up in a tux and he said, I'm in this tux because everyone here tonight is just so high caliber. And it's this idea of if you show up in a tux and you're saving people and you're doing all these great things in your public life, it. It maybe get you forgiven a little bit for what you're doing on the side. Like I'm doing all this. Good. So Heavenly Father will forgive me for these indiscretions or God will forgive me for these indiscretions I have on the side. Because in this moment, as a sheriff or as a politician, I helped this person or I did something nice for this person or I, you know, like almost compartmentalizing the two and to the point of if I do so many good things publicly, maybe I have a little leeway privately. Not something that I personally can do, but I was trying to understand how, how that happens. I can stand up and say faith, family and freedom and at the same time be threatening someone who is going to expose that. I'm not really doing what I'm saying I'm doing.

John Dehlin [00:37:21] Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's fascinating. Let's go ahead and jump to the next clip. What's this next clip?

Guest 2 [00:37:29] More.

John Dehlin [00:37:29] More of the same.

Guest 4 [00:37:30] Yep.

Steve Lamb Denies Having An Affair

John Dehlin [00:37:31] All right, let's run it.

Guest 3 [00:37:34] Lamb did not respond to a list of specific allegations sent to him by the Republic and to his campaign. In past interviews with other media, he has denied having affairs and has brushed off allegations of sending nude photos.

John Dehlin [00:37:48] Okay, so he's denying these allegations.

Guest 4 [00:37:52] Yes. And so the allegations started back in 2017. Ish, I think. And he even denies them in his book, from what I understand. So it's that also, that ability not just to do one thing in public and one thing in private, but when the allegations have come forward, to be able to just brush it off. And that's something else I don't understand, because I can't do that. When somebody even says something even slightly, you know, unflattering about me, I carry it for a while. Like, I have to process it. And this seeming ability to brush it off, I don't understand that.

John Dehlin [00:38:25] And did. Did I hear that he is a leading candidate for U.S. house of Representatives? Is that part of why he's in the news?

Guest 4 [00:38:33] Yes.

Guest [00:38:33] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:38:35] State congressional seat, but a federal Congress. Yes.

Guest 3 [00:38:39] With.

Guest 4 [00:38:39] With an endorsement from the president. So.

John Dehlin [00:38:42] From the current president?

Guest 4 [00:38:43] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:38:44] Okay. What's this slide about?

Guest 4 [00:38:47] So, yeah, it was just more of that. So this was another article. This is from 2024. It says, however, Lamb disputes any affair and cast Peacock, which is one of the women, Tammy Peacock. She was the first woman who came out and started publicly saying, you know, we've been having something going on behind the scenes. She had text messages from him that she posted, eventually posted publicly, and talked about how he threatened her. So, yeah. However, Lamb disputes any affair and cast Peacock as not credible, citing her criminal history and current unemployed status. I'm telling you that I didn't meet Tammy Peacock until a few months into my campaign, Lam said, and I never was alone with her.

John Dehlin [00:39:27] I mean, it could have been him, his wife, and Tammy.

Guest 4 [00:39:30] Yes, absolutely. Maybe he wasn't alone with her. We don't know. But, I mean, it's just.

John Dehlin [00:39:39] It's.

Guest 4 [00:39:40] It's his ability to just. This doesn't involve me. I don't know what you're talking about. Almost. You know, just. Yeah, it's fine. I'm busy. I'm. I'm sheriff. I got my hat on. I'm doing public appearances. And this Tammy lady, she's. She's an alcoholic or whatever. You don't need to pay attention to her.

Sheriff's Deputy Threatens to Launch Revenge Porn Investigation

John Dehlin [00:40:00] All right, let's run the next clip.

Guest [00:40:03] Screenshots of sexually charged messages from a woman named Tammy Peacock show detailed discussions of meetups and intimacy. In one Facebook message, the user named Mark sent a smiling selfie of Lam in a car and included the sheriff's former home address in San Tan Valley. Peacock was an alcoholic and addicted to drugs. The user Mark, wrote in a Facebook message that he loved her.

Guest 3 [00:40:28] Peacock kept an extensive record of the messages, and later, when the relationship appeared to sour, she started posting them online. She also shared them directly with women before her death in a 2021 traffic accident. Peacock posted obsessively about Lam for years. In 2019, she said, he threatened her with a revenge porn investigation. Facebook messages show a username Mark invoked state laws that come with time in prison.

Guest [00:40:57] The message said that the Department of Public Safety was, quote, handling this if she stopped posting. The user said he would ask investigators not to proceed. The former Pinal county attorney said Lam wanted to have two women, including Peacock, charged with criminal harassment over their posts, though no charges were filed.

John Dehlin [00:41:18] Okay, so that, again, for me, just speaks to the abuse of his power, using his contacts and power in the law enforcement community or judicial system to silence or coerce or punish people or threaten them. Yeah.

Guest 4 [00:41:34] Yes. And I, Tammy, I don't think grew up a member, but the other woman involved is a member or was a member. And I, growing up in the church as a woman, always seeing men in all the positions of power, even today, if I got pulled over by a police officer, I've actually never had a ticket. But if I got pulled over and a police officer was giving me a ticket, it would be terrifying for me because of that, the way that I view men in positions of power. So to have someone coming after me like that, that would be a really motivating thing to get me to be quiet.

John Dehlin [00:42:14] Yeah. Yeah. One of our viewers and listeners writes, this is Megan 2. 2602. I was in the ward with Lamb, Oram and Oaks. I don't know who that is.

Guest 4 [00:42:25] They're the bishop and stake president. Okay, we'll talk about him a little bit. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:42:29] My dad was in the state presidency and lived on the same street as Mark at the time of the scandal. So glad you are talking about this DB Who's DB

Guest 4 [00:42:40] I don't know what that's referring to.

John Dehlin [00:42:42] Okay. All right, let's go and play the next clip.

Former Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb accused of sexual improprieties

Guest 3 [00:42:48] Patience. About Lamb's personal life have repeatedly threatened to upset his political image. One of his political opponents sent out mailers and flyers in 2020 saying he had engaged in sexual improprieties. The rival also submitted a complaint to the Pinal County Board of Supervisors saying Lam Targeted women. The material included screenshots showing Lam used his official campaign Twitter account to exchange sexually charged messages or arrange meetups with women. A Colorado law enforcement officer told the Republic she had planned an intimate getaway with the sheriff after exchanging messages and cell phone calls. Rumors about Lamb's behavior came up again this year in a legal claim against Pinal County.

Guest [00:43:31] And a San Tan Valley woman blames the former sheriff for ruining her marriage to one of Lam's closest friends. She said Lam encouraged her husband to have relationships with other women behind her back, including Lam's wife. She said Lamb not only betrayed her, but also the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and its core values of faith and family. She asked church officials to investigate.

John Dehlin [00:43:56] Okay, so that's where this really becomes even more of a Mormon story. Because now the question is, if these rumors and allegations have been around for so long, and now we know that members were reporting Lamb's behavior to look, you know, ward or stake leadership. What. How did they handle it? Right. Yeah.

Guest 4 [00:44:18] Yes. It's. It's getting more and more involved, and that's. So that last clip was where the third person came in. So Tammy Peacock was the first one who started coming out publicly. And then during his campaign, there apparently was a law enforcement officer from Colorado who was arranging a meetup with him. They never. Her name is never mentioned. And then the third woman, who is in Arizona and is the one who eventually alerts bishops, stake presidents, church leaders.

John Dehlin [00:44:48] Yeah. Well, I want to just shout out to AZ Central because it's clear they have done their homework, because this doesn't look like just specious, fake, you know, hit job kind of allegations. This. This looks like a pretty substantive thing. So what's this? This is Arizona Republic article.

Guest 4 [00:45:07] Yeah. So this was the front page. It says Mark was a trusted and loved priesthood holder. Mark taught gospel doctrine. Janelle was in the Relief Society presidency Standard said, referring to the church's organization for women.

John Dehlin [00:45:21] Hey, this is this month. This is an article from this month. Okay, so this is pretty current.

Guest 4 [00:45:28] Yeah. So they came out with this, and then they made the short videos on YouTube to kind of give a sum up for people who hadn't seen the article.

John Dehlin [00:45:36] Okay. AC Central is the same thing as Arizona Republic. In this article.

Guest 4 [00:45:40] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:45:40] Who are just listening. It says, he messed up my life. LDS church checked into sexual impropriety claims regarding Lamb, sex threats and quote, america's sheriff. This is America's sheriff. What? Oh, my goodness. Okay. All right. Should we go to the next clip?

Church Leaders Protect Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb

Guest 4 [00:46:02] Yes. Yes. Set this up.

Guest 3 [00:46:05] LDS leaders initially protected Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb after allegations that his sexual improprieties had upended the lives of at least two women. Jillian Stannard said when she made formal complaints to the church, a bishop told her that Lamb was his close friend and neighbor. Lamb was the newly elected sheriff. The bishop said it was complicated. Then officials said they didn't want to take any action until Lam and his wife came forward on their own.

Guest [00:46:32] After months of silence, church leaders acknowledged in texts they had a problem with the Lambs who held positions of authority in the local ranks of the LDS Church.

John Dehlin [00:46:42] Yeah, so immediately I'm wondering, first of all, what callings do they have? And, but aside from that. And again, just for the sake of trying to have some journalistic integrity or balance here, I'll just take, I'll just try and put myself in the position of church leaders. Let's just say the church leaders, someone reports something to them, it could be someone with credible allegations. Maybe they do or they don't provide any evidence. Maybe it could be someone with an extra grind or somebody who's not healthy. Like, how much can we even blame church leaders for not necessarily just immediately believing and even taking action versus having discretion and saying, let's wait until we gather more information before we jump the gun. What are your thoughts on that, Megan?

Guest 4 [00:47:33] Well, this is a bishop and stake president, and they're not trained attorneys, they're not law enforcement officers, and yet they are put in a position to almost be a judge and a jury. It's, it's not a good position to be put in for either of them. So likely they're doing what they think is best in an impossible situation because this information shouldn't be something that they're trying to almost litigate. I mean, they're put in a position to try and be the judge of someone, and they don't have any of the supports that, I mean, our justice system has a lot of problems, but they don't have any of even the minimal supports that the justice system has.

John Dehlin [00:48:21] I'll just say I, I average at least one daily application of Mormon stories podcast where abuse is alleged. And early on, I tried to, like, investigate every abuse allegation to make sure they were credible, that there was evidence. And it's, you know, I had to realize I had to rely on law enforcement to, to, you know, to do those sorts of investigations because I just don't have the resources as a podcaster to vet every claim. You don't want to get sued for defamation. You don't want to falsely accuse somebody.

Guest 2 [00:48:56] Right?

Guest 4 [00:48:57] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:48:57] But at the same time you want to believe victims. But at the end of the day, all you can do is rely on law enforcement and the judicial system to do its job or really good reporters. And then if really good reporters or the legal system or the judicial system find credible evidence and, or conviction, then I'm more likely to be able to cover that type of story. So I'm just trying to look at this from multiple sides and even, maybe even give the church leaders the benefit of the doubt.

Guest 4 [00:49:29] But yes, well, they're also up against a sheriff.

John Dehlin [00:49:33] Right. Harming the church's public image because what church stake president in Arizona is going to want it all over the headlines that a Mormon sheriff is abusing women who's a faithful member of a local warden stake? Right?

Guest 4 [00:49:51] Yes. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:49:52] So the good name of the church is being threatened. And so there are also incentives to cover this up or to, or to delay it or to ignore it or to wait. Because you'd never want to soil the church's good name. Right?

Guest 4 [00:50:06] Yeah. And I think the bishop at the time was a, I want to say a home builder, something along those lines. I might have written that down later. But yeah, I mean, definitely not someone equipped to deal with this type of scandal and this type of information. You know, potential scandal and information. He doesn't know what to do with it.

John Dehlin [00:50:24] Yeah. Really quickly, I'm asking everyone. I'm going to welcome everyone joining us on the live stream. Please like and subscribe to this episode. Please give us a thumbs up. Please subscribe and while you're at it, go over to Generally Unquotable and like and subscribe her stuff as well. Let's grow her channel as we grow this one and we just thank everyone for joining us. Let's go and go to the next clip.

Mormons Reacting To Mark Stannard's Affair With

Guest 3 [00:50:48] Stannard was one of the women who says he tried to silence her. She had just gotten married to one of Lam's closest friends in 2017. She said just weeks after their wedding, she discovered evidence that her new husband had a years long affair with Lam's wife Janelle and Mark Lamb secretly encouraged it. She said Lamb was part of a Facebook messenger group chat with Stannard's husband and another woman. Screenshot show Stannard said that chat included photos and conversations about sexual liaisons.

Guest [00:51:19] She was horrified. Stannard said her husband confessed and gave her access to his phone and computer. She saw naked photos of women including Janelle Lamb, along with a trove of messages. She downloaded all of it.

John Dehlin [00:51:33] Man, a Couple things I'm reacting to all this kind of first, first reaction. First of all, I know that this is probably common, but I can't imagine being on any social media platform, even if it's private, sharing sexual images of myself or my spouse or any family member. Because wouldn't you just know, or even just sending anyone a sexual image ever? Because yes, you would just know that. You would just know that that could be shown somewhere. So it's kind of mind boggling to me, take the Mormon out of it. Than anyone on the Internet is kind of ever sending sexual images ever to anyone.

Guest 4 [00:52:18] You know what I tell my kids, John, is if you don't want it on a billboard, don't text it to somebody.

John Dehlin [00:52:23] Oh that. But then that active, faithful Mormons are in private social media platforms sharing sexual explicit information with each other, about each other's spouses, with each other's spouses and other people's spouses. Again, I'm just like, what are these people thinking? What are these Mormons thinking? Right?

Guest 4 [00:52:45] And then they're at church on Sunday and he's I think, teaching gospel doctrine at this time.

John Dehlin [00:52:50] Like I was going to ask you, Megan, does that mean that they just don't believe that they're atheists or agnostics or like, you know, don't believe the church is true but are just acting as Mormons to fake it? Or is it possible that in their theology they've somehow reconciled and maybe using Joseph Smith's polygamy, maybe using weird polygamous ancestry or spiritual justifications like with Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow. What do you think the likelihood is that they actually do believe in God and Jesus and Joseph Smith in the Book of Mormon and they still believe somehow that there's spiritual or religious justification that makes their behavior not immoral? Or do they believe it all and they just know that they're sinners and somehow feel like they're still worthy enough to be a member in good standing? Because I'm guessing they all had temple recommends, right?

Guest 4 [00:53:50] Like I, I would think so. I haven't gotten a confirmation on that, but they definitely didn't ever stop going to church.

John Dehlin [00:53:56] Yeah, like I, I guess we're speculating, but I'm just trying to get in their heads to ask do they really believe or are they just like non believers acting as Mormons but living it up secretly?

Guest 4 [00:54:09] That's what I've been asking myself all week. And like I said previously, I, the conclusion that I came to is that maybe they think that the good they're doing in public kind of cancels out the things that they're doing in private. Or like you said, maybe there's some polygamy justification there. Like, if I could marry these other people, I would. But, I mean, they're already married. But that didn't stop Joseph Smith either. So.

John Dehlin [00:54:36] Yeah. Really quickly, one of our viewers, Ross Vist? N 41, says, Is this really a story? I mean, I understand the question. And again, I don't like Mormon stories to just be targeted at people's mistakes or even just click bait. But this is a guy who's likely to run for the House of Representatives. Yeah. He was sheriff. And who's using his law enforcement influence to silence and, and coerce women. Yeah, I think it's a story. So, anyway, I, I, I hope we're always classy, Megan, but I think, I think we're being classy. So.

Guest 4 [00:55:20] I think so, too, because we are trying to figure out how this happens. Right. Not just that it's happening. We're not sitting here saying this is happening. You know, be shocked with us. No. Why does this kind of stuff happen?

John Dehlin [00:55:32] Yeah.

Guest 4 [00:55:32] Let's discuss it. Let's think about it. Let's be super curious about why this is happening. And if I'm in Arizona, is this someone who I would want to represent me in any way as a sheriff or so I can make an informed decision?

John Dehlin [00:55:45] Yeah. And I'll just acknowledge that, that liberal Mormons, ex Mormons, secular people, atheist agnostics, have scandal and infidelity and impropriety. It's in other religions, and, you know, it's, it's everywhere. I tried to really give that type of disclaimer at the beginning.

Guest 4 [00:56:04] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:56:05] So, anyway. All right, let's keep going.

Stannard's story of the Lamb scandal

Guest [00:56:08] Stannard was determined to have a reckoning against the Lambs for what she saw as betrayals of her friendship and the core church principles of faith and family.

Guest 3 [00:56:17] She took her evidence to the people she trusted most, church leaders. Stannard said when Lamb found out she had reported him to the church, he got in her face and told her there would collateral damage if she kept talking. Stannard took it as a threat. She said the sheriff was telling her to be quiet about his behavior and how it had devastated her marriage. Lamb told her in a text that, that it was wrong for her to blame him and in the same message, ask for her forgiveness.

Guest [00:56:45] Stannard said she thought the church would thank her for coming forward, for doing the right thing. But local bishop Lee Orem and stake president Dan Oakes responded with equivocation. Record show. So Stannard went over their heads

John Dehlin [00:57:00] really quickly. One of my favorite humans commented, summer rain. Hey, Summer rain. Submarine rights. Corruption within institutions should always be a story, whether it be in politics, religion, or any group with power. So. Okay. Yeah. So. So. So anyway, his wife was involved. Bishops and stake presidents got involved, and apparently they didn't act like the victim felt they should. So what is. So what's this next clip about, Megan?

The Priesthood Privilege in the Dan Oaks Case

Guest 4 [00:57:35] Well, it's continuing on, but one thing I wanted to mention was I. I probably would have thought the same thing, right? If I had witnessed some sort of behavior and I went to my bishop, I would have been conditioned for them to respond in a certain way. I would have felt like they have discernment. They have access to more power to Heavenly Father and Jesus in the Spirit because of their keys and their position, you know, their priesthood keys. And I would have thought the same thing that she did, that this is a big thing. These people are stepping outside their marriage, and the bishop would. I would have thought the bishop would have done something about it.

John Dehlin [00:58:13] Yeah. Yeah. There's this idea of protecting the good name of the church, and part of that is not having people who are presenting publicly as Mormons and public officials acting in ways that betray the church's values. Privately, I think the church would have a vested interest in that.

Guest 4 [00:58:30] But as an active member, I just would have thought, well, they need to confess and the bishop needs to deal with it. There needs to be a court. I wouldn't have seen the more corporate side of the church. I just would have thought, this bishop is the judge in Israel. That's what we're told. Right? And he needs to know and he needs to take care of it.

John Dehlin [00:58:47] I mean, you know, I think about, like, so many people that I interact with. All they do is they make a Facebook post about, like, the Book of Abraham or a tweet about the CES letter or, you know, a Facebook comment or an Instagram post about Joseph Smith's polygamy, which is factual and indisputed. And oftentimes they're called in front of church leadership and their memberships threatened and. Or taken away. So, like, we know the church can. Can react to member misbehavior, like, as we said in Texas, a duck on a June bug. But. But I. I'm wondering how they reacted when this guy was reported to them. So let's go ahead and play the next clip and see if they reacted to. To him in the same way. Hello and welcome to the Arizona Family Institute. We're so glad to meet you and look forward to working with you. Who's this guy?

Guest 4 [00:59:46] Okay, so that's Dan Oaks. That was just a little clip. He is a therapist.

John Dehlin [00:59:50] Okay.

Guest 4 [00:59:50] That was a little clip from his therapy site. So for people to get to know, the bishop was Lee Orem, and then Dan Oakes was the stake president, and he is also a therapist.

John Dehlin [01:00:00] Okay, so that's the bishop. And then. Yeah. Tell us the next set of slides, what they're about.

Guest 4 [01:00:05] Okay. Standard supplied the Republic with text emails and an official document showing her conversations with church leaders in 2018. So when she reached out to the bishop and things weren't going how she thought they were going to go, then she reached out to the stake president, who was a therapist, and that picture that was on that slide, he had her sign a waiver of privilege. She was required to sign it. It asked her to give up any claim to clergy privilege regarding her conversations with Oaks and the material she provided with him, which was interesting. I don't know, John. What?

John Dehlin [01:00:37] Wow.

Guest 4 [01:00:38] Yeah. Why you think they would do that?

John Dehlin [01:00:41] Well, I'm not a lawyer and I don't know for sure, but I think so. The clergy penitent privilege, as I understand it, is supposed to be to protect the confessor. If the confessor confesses something to the bishop, depending on the state you're in, and I don't know, Arizona's laws, the bishop isn't forced to be a mandatory reporter and has the option of keeping your confessions private with the idea of helping you repent and not disincentivizing sinners to repent, but with some sort of threat of them being turned into law enforcement. So, all right. My initial guess is that the bishop. If the bishop's going to share something with someone else, that a member confess to them in a bishop setting, then they're going to want that member to sign a waiver saying, I give you permission, bishop, to go share this with somebody else.

Guest 4 [01:01:45] So maybe she was. She thought that was a good thing. Because now I've. I've said all this, and now he can go tell people. Yeah, it just. I haven't seen it before, so it was interesting to me.

John Dehlin [01:01:54] I've never heard of that. So I want to get, like, Colby or somebody.

Guest 4 [01:01:58] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:01:59] To rule on that. So that's. It's interesting to know that that's an option. I wish every abuse victim in their families was given, you know, told, hey, I know the law makes it so I don't have to be a mandatory reporter. If you'll sign this Waiver that'll give me the ability to report your abuse and your abuser to the police. I wish every victim was, was given that right, you know, and I wish every perpetrator was encouraged to sign that waiver so that the. So that the bishops and stake presidents could report even confessing abusers to police, so that members and citizens could be protected.

Guest 4 [01:02:43] Yeah, it's interesting.

John Dehlin [01:02:45] Yeah. Okay, what's this next slide?

St. Oaks referred my husband to a therapist in his own practice

Guest 4 [01:02:49] Oh, so this is more about Oaks, the stake president. Stannard said Oakes is a therapist by trade and referred me and my husband to his own practice for therapy. While having me sign a waiver so he can discuss it all. He essentially kept everything in house, including the therapy. Dan Oaks referred my husband to a therapist in his own practice.

John Dehlin [01:03:09] So that's. I, I could just tell you, as somebody with the PhD in psychology, that's ethically problematic to be self referring. You're in a position of religious authority and it's a conflict of interest to be referring members to your own practice. So that's bad. That's bad for him. That's unethical.

Guest 4 [01:03:28] I, I figured you would have some thoughts about that.

John Dehlin [01:03:31] And that's my first guess. If somebody disagrees with me, I want to hear your feedback. But that's my first reaction.

Guest 4 [01:03:36] Yeah, it just adds another layer to the story where she's saying all these things happen. She's struggling with her husband because she's finding out he had an affair. She goes to the bishop, he doesn't do a lot. So she goes to the stake president and this is the reaction. The state president has refers her to a therapist in his own office.

John Dehlin [01:03:54] But he'll get a cut. Yes, he would get a cut, but I don't know that for sure. So that's. That's alleged. What's this next slide?

The Mormon Church's Response to Sexual Abuse Claims

Guest 4 [01:04:03] Oh, Oaks. In April, on April 2017, 2018, text appeared to offer standard amea culpa and promised action would be taken. So she's getting encouraged by them because they're saying they're going to do something. I do not feel the bishop consciously held anything back, but we very much want to make things right. This is stake president wrote to Stannard, there will be action taken. And I wish I would have done it sooner. Please leave it at my feet.

Guest 2 [01:04:26] Okay.

Guest 4 [01:04:26] So they keep telling her, encouraging her. We're doing something, we're doing something, we're doing something. And she is not feeling like they're doing it. So she keeps pushing.

Guest 3 [01:04:35] Okay.

Guest 4 [01:04:37] The local church officials, I can't see that next part, but they Made standard that.

John Dehlin [01:04:43] Made clear in texts that. To standard that they wanted to wait for the Lambs to come forward on their own. Okay. We mentioned this earlier. Stannard said they wanted the Lambs to repent and told her it would be more meaningful that way. Orem confirmed as much in a June 2018 message. Quote, I spoke with President Oaks. We decided that we would wait for them to come to me. He wrote, I just want you to know that Mark was never approached by me. And as far as I know, President Oaks, now what in the world have Mormon bishops and stake presidents when they. When they're made aware of serious sin? They're like, well, we're not going to do anything. We're just going to wait. I mean, imagine they hear about a gay Latter Day Saint, you know, having gay sexual relations, or a BYU student who's drinking alcohol, or again, a member who posts that Joseph Smith was a pedophile, that stake president or bishop is going to be on them immediately.

Guest 4 [01:05:44] Or a missionary getting sent home for.

John Dehlin [01:05:47] For breaking the rules as a missionary. Yeah. This idea of a bishop or stake president knowing about egregious moral infractions, just saying, we're not going to do anything until they come and confess. That's not my experience with the church.

Guest 4 [01:06:03] Same. Yeah. Like if a. If a missionary looked at pornography one time, told his mission president he could be on a plane within 48 hours. Going home.

John Dehlin [01:06:12] Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And so the next slide says she waited for months.

Guest 4 [01:06:21] Yeah. So this is when she escalates. So the bishop and the stake president, she doesn't feel like they're doing enough. So Jillian, she waited for months. In July 2018, she took her concerns to Salt Lake City, the worldwide headquarters. Stannard sent detailed emails that included screenshots and photos. In August, she corresponded and spoke directly with Elder Carl Tilleman, one of the church's high ranking area 70 regional leaders who oversaw the Southwest. So this is Carl. Do you say Tillman or Tillamon?

John Dehlin [01:06:51] Maybe? Tillamon. Yeah. I wonder. So what did Tillman say?

Guest 4 [01:06:54] Tillman didn't waste time bringing in the Lambs. He confirmed in August in an Aug. 24 text that he already had a very long meeting with the sheriff and his wife. He arranged multiple meetings with Stannard and her husband and promised to keep her updated on the progress of his inquiry. So I think she probably felt like she was getting somewhere at this point.

John Dehlin [01:07:13] Yeah. And when, when you. It's one thing to have a bishop or stake president know about something, but as soon as an area authority is brought in. That means the general authorities and even the quorum of the 12 are notified. I guarantee it. There's no way that a sheriff, a Mormon sheriff who's potentially going to be running for the House of Representatives, U.S. house of Representatives, if he's involved in a sex scandal, that information is going to go all the way to the top of the church. Once an area authority knows.

Guest 4 [01:07:42] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:07:43] So what, what, what's this next slide?

Guest 4 [01:07:46] Tillamon met with Stannard and Peacock together. So those are the two women who are accusing Mark Lamb. Stannard said she first offered to introduce Peacock to the elder after Lamb had denied being involved in the screenshots and chats on her husband husband's computer. If Tillamon needed corroboration, Peacock was willing to provide it, which is smart standards bringing in, you know, another witness in the mouth of two or three witnesses. It was at one of those meetings, the Standard said Tillman enjoined her to silence, told her Lamb preyed on women and needed to be stopped. The words were validating, she said. Tilleman's lack of action was not. Tilleman served as an Area 70 from 2015 to 2020. He was a Phoenix lawyer with impressive credentials, a law clerk for former U.S. supreme Court chief Justice Warren Berger. And Berger.

John Dehlin [01:08:31] It's Berger, Berger and Clarence Thomas.

Guest 4 [01:08:33] Yep. In the 90s, he was also a two time Olympian who represented Canada on the 1984 and 88 basketball teams.

John Dehlin [01:08:40] And I'm going to just say there's a reason why in 2026, the Mormon Church calls so many attorneys to top leadership. It's, you know, and it's no accident that two of three members of the First Presidency in the modern Mormon Church, the top three leaders, 67% of them are lawyers. It's because one of the main jobs of a Mormon area authority or general authority is to clean up scandal, is to do damage control when there are legal or PR matters. And frankly, it's no wonder that the church calls lawyers as their top historians. The top church historians for the Mormon Church for the past few decades have been attorneys, not historians. It's because I think lawyers learn to use words flexibly and to look at all sides of an issue and to be able to figure out, just like a lawyer needs to represent a client in the best interest of the client. I think lawyers learn how to manage church issues and damage control within the church in ways to benefit the church.

Guest 4 [01:09:50] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:09:52] Handled it that way.

Guest 4 [01:09:54] Yeah. When I read that, I was like, oh, I'm not surprised that he's a Lawyer. And he has his position.

John Dehlin [01:10:00] Yeah. So you've got a little timeline here in 2018.

Sheriff Lamb Gets Priesthood Blessings and Baptisms

Guest 4 [01:10:04] Yeah. So there's a picture of Mark Lamb on the left with his son and granddaughter, who actually died in a car accident later. It's very tragic. But here he is blessing the daughter, the. At the blessing of the granddaughter. So in 2018, in July, concerns were taken to Salt Lake. In August, Stannard spoke with elder Tillman. By August 24, Tillman met with the Lambs. In September, Tillman meets with Stannard and Peacock, the two women who are making the accusations. In September, Tilleman then tells Stannard it's all very confidential. And in October, he stops responding to Stannard. Stannard said. Oh, right there at the bottom, there was a quote from her. Yeah. Standard said she cried hysterically over the hypocrisy of the church allowing Lamb to give blessings and baptisms, which is why I included that picture.

John Dehlin [01:10:51] Okay, so you're including this picture because. Because he's allowed to officiate in sacred Mormon priesthood ordinances that you should only be worthy to officiate in. And not only was Tillamon silent and maybe it looks like stopped responding, but no disciplinary action. I mean, it's sort of weird that a. A Mormon deacon or. Or teacher or priest, if it's. If he confesses to masturbation or pornography, can be shamed for three months and not allowed to even pass the sacrament. Pass the bread and the water trade of members if they confess to masturbating once. And yet, Tillamon. Sheriff. Sorry. Sheriff Lamb is accused of swinging and, you know, sexual infidelity at. At the most severe level because Mormons are taught that actual sexual intercourse is next to murder in terms of severity. Credible allegations come forward, and Sheriff Lamb is allowed to continue officiating sacred priesthood rituals and ordinances. That's. I can see why she was crying. I can see why Standard cried hysterically because that seems very hypocritical.

Guest 4 [01:12:10] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:12:11] And problematic.

Guest 4 [01:12:11] Yeah, yeah. Probably very hurtful, too. Like she was feeling unseen, unheard. Maybe like gaslighting herself a little bit. Like, if he can do that, maybe. Maybe God is on his side. I don't. These are thoughts I might be having. Having if I was in that situation as an active, believing member.

John Dehlin [01:12:29] Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, the story keeps going.

Mormon Swinger Claims He Had an Affair With His Wife

Guest 4 [01:12:34] It does. It just keeps going. Standard's husband went public. This is another part that I think is a good evidence in standards on Standard side of the issue. Right. Her husband went public offering an online apology that added a painful postscript to his Wife's scathing entries. I have made choices to be unfaithful, dishonest, and blamed others for the reasons I made those choices. Hill Sebek is his last name. The choices I made affected my marriage, my daughters, my parents, siblings, friends, and other families. They stayed married for two more years. Standard decided she could not save her marriage or her faith. She divorced, divorced her husband, and the church now was.

John Dehlin [01:13:12] So was. Was Hilsa back having an affair with Lamb's wife? Okay.

Guest 4 [01:13:18] Yes. And that's. They. They met and got married, and she found out shortly after they were married that all of this had been going on behind the scene scenes, maybe part

John Dehlin [01:13:27] of the swinger community. Potentially.

Guest 4 [01:13:29] Yeah. I mean, because it sounds like it. It sounds like he was with Mark's wife and Mark was encouraging it. Yeah, but Stanner didn't know any of that was going on. She was the one being kept out of the loop.

John Dehlin [01:13:43] Wow. Well, this is intense. And is he still. Do we know if, If. If Lamb remains. Lamb and his wife, if the Lambs remain. Remain members in good standing, are we aware of any church discipline? Is he holding public office? Is he still running for, you know, high office?

Guest 4 [01:14:02] He's still running for office. Yes. He. So Stannard told me just in the past couple of days that as far as she knows, they have not had any church discipline. They still attend every week in their ward, just, you know, business as usual. He is not the sheriff anymore because his term ended up and he lost a race in Arizona, but is now running for a national position, so.

John Dehlin [01:14:27] And did you say he has Donald Trump's endorsement? Officially?

Guest 4 [01:14:30] Yes, officially. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:14:32] We just saw in Texas with the Attorney General unseating a sitting US Senator. Was it Paxton? These days, Trump's endorsement means you win the nomination for your party.

Guest 4 [01:14:49] So, yeah, carries a lot of weight.

John Dehlin [01:14:51] If Trump doesn't withdraw his endorsement of Lamb, it's very possible that Lamb could become a U.S. member of the House of Representatives in Arizona, which would be wild. Not just wild for our country, but wild for our church. Like I can only imagine. My prediction is that the church uses its power and money and influence to torpedo this guy like they did Tim Ballard. Because I can promise you the last thing the Mormon Church wants is a scandal monger, faithful Mormon swinger representing Arizona in the US House of Representatives.

Guest 4 [01:15:27] Interesting. Yeah, I'm interested to see how it plays out, because these allegations do. There's a lot of seemingly credible evidence to back it up.

John Dehlin [01:15:37] Well, Megan, that's some amazing reporting. And we've only done one of Five or six stories for today. So what's our next story?

Patrick Allen Bucknham: Criminal Found as Stake President

Guest 4 [01:15:45] All right, Federal case alleges $30 million theft by health payments, CEO.

John Dehlin [01:15:51] Okay. And he's not just a CEO. Again, we don't just go after people on Mormon stories. There's usually got to be some sort of institutional tie. And in this case, there is a clear institutional tie. Tell us more, Megan.

Guest 4 [01:16:06] So this little clip in the bottom, Wenatchee, Washington steak. This is straight from LDS.org it says, Patrick Allen Bucknam, CEO, Community Clinic Contracting Network. And this is them announcing that in April 28th of 2019, he was made the stake president. That's from the church website.

John Dehlin [01:16:25] And for Mormons, a stake president think of a bishop as, like, a priest or a pastor. A stake president is the leader of, like, 10 congregations. So kind of like in a diocese, is it a. A bishop or cardinal in the Catholic Church, but someone who's over, like, 10 congregations? It's a very prestigious position of authority that's viewed as a stepping stone potentially, to mission president or even area or general authority or mission president.

Guest 4 [01:16:58] Yes. And with his. With his background and his job and his success in that area, it would make him, I think, even more likely to climb that ladder.

John Dehlin [01:17:10] Yeah. Okay. All right, well, anything else from the slide? He's a podiat. No. So he's.

Guest 4 [01:17:16] He works in the corporate side of the community clinic.

John Dehlin [01:17:22] Okay. Okay, great. And so there's them in front of a picture of Jesus. And Jesus is apostle.

Guest 4 [01:17:27] Yeah, that's him. And then that's him and his wife. And they're one of their children when they were going on a mission, I believe that's in front of a temple in Washington.

John Dehlin [01:17:35] And it's worth noting that Mormons are taught that their bishops and stake presidents are called of God. All Mormon callings are called of God. And especially when you hit the level of bishop or stake president. As I understand it, the First Presidency approves those callings. So technically, prophets, seers, and revelators who are supposed to be special witnesses of Christ called this man, Patrick Alan Bucknham, into the state, you know, as stake president over. Over those 10 congregations in Wenatchee, Washington. Okay, let's go to the next slide. Keep going, Megan.

Guest 4 [01:18:13] Yeah, so this was from a local newspaper at the time. It says Patrick A. Bucknum was recently installed as the new Wenatchee stake president by Elder Scott D. Whiting, a general authority of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The Wenatchee Stake, comparable to a diocese. There you go. Extends from Leavenworth to Chelan and twisp and includes 13 congregations.

John Dehlin [01:18:32] 13. Okay.

Guest 4 [01:18:33] Bucknham has served in the church for many years, most recently as the bishop of the Castle Rock Ward. And then it says he's the CEO of Wenatchee based Community Clinic Contracting Network. So that just sets up his, you know, his calling even more. He was called by a 70 and he was previously a bishop.

John Dehlin [01:18:51] Yeah. And again, I, I'll give a similar disclaimer. Like any religion, atheists, agnostics, ex Mormons, there will be fraudsters, there will be criminals. And so it's important for us to establish why this is a story worthy of Mormon stories or a Mormon story at all. And at a minimum, we've already established part of it is he was put in a position of power and leadership and these leaders are supposed to be called of God. If the church keeps calling abusers as top level leaders, they really need to stop teaching the members that these leaders are called of God. Because there's no way God or Jesus are going to call a felon as the bishop or stake president, you know. Right. Because that would be not worthy. Right.

Guest 4 [01:19:42] It doesn't. So President Eyring said in these calls he makes no mistakes. He said that over the pulpit in General Conference. However, this past week when I was researching this, I saw a guy saying that he, he in his mind is telling himself that Jesus must be okay with abusers or people who are committing fraud being in positions of power because then when they get outed, people know about it. I mean, that's the kind of logic he was using. And I, I didn't understand it. I would think if God and Jesus, yeah, if God and Jesus were calling these people, out of all the millions of people in the church who they could choose from, there would have to be someone else that they would know wasn't going to abuse someone or commit fraud that they could call. So to me it didn't make sense.

John Dehlin [01:20:33] I remember learning and employing this type of logic again as a high school seminary student, like Peter the Apostle. Peter denied Christ, Judas betrayed Christ, Noah got drunk, you know, Moses killed someone. Like there is scriptural basis for prophets and apostles crew, you know, committing egregious sin. So I mean there is scriptural basis for that argument.

Guest 4 [01:21:07] That's true. I, I, it doesn't make sense to me. And it wasn't the idea that I had when I was a member. Yeah, I had the idea that God knew the men that he called and he called good men that we could trust. Yeah, you know, they were, yeah, I mean, I, I went in and confessed to them because I thought I could trust them. That, I mean, I. That level, I told bishops things I would never have told anyone else, you know, as a teenager. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:21:30] And again, if a Mormon boy or girl is caught masturbating one time, they can be shaped, their temple recommends taken away. They can't pass the sacrament, they can't pray in church. Like severe punishments that are socially humiliating are doled out to children and teenagers and powerless people within the church. You would think that the highest ethical standards would be employed for the church's top leaders. Let's go ahead and go to the next slide. Tell us what else we should know about this story.

Mormon Man Accused of Embezzling Money from Healthcare

Guest 4 [01:22:06] So, a former CEO of Columbia, Columbia Valley Community Health is accused of embezzling millions of dollars from the Healthcare Payment Partnership that he went on to lead. And it's Patrick Allen Bucknham. Bucknham was the top executive at the nonprofit Columbia Valley Community Health in Wenatchee from 2010 to 2016. After leaving CVCH, he became CEO for Community Clinic Network, a limited liability firm that's owned by four medical Medicaid funded clinics, including CVCH, to manage payments and contracts for a total of 11 clinics. So that's the position that he was in when he made some bad choices.

John Dehlin [01:22:48] Part of what strikes me as particularly gross about that is if this is nonprofit work, if this is dealing with healthcare, with Medicare, with people who are in significant need, it's one thing to embezzle money, which is always bad. Embezzling money from the poor or the needy, or from people's health care or a non profit seems particularly egregious.

Guest 4 [01:23:15] Yeah. Yeah. So Bucknham used the funding that ran through the Community Clinic Network to carry out risky stock trades for his own enrichment, stealing about 30.3 million between 2017-2023. Aside from stock trading, court records allege that he also used CCN money to buy a $33,000 speedboat, a $77,000 Tesla sedan, a $100,000 Chevy SUV, and a 1.2 and $1.2 million worth of gold coins.

John Dehlin [01:23:45] Yeah. So he's living large. And I think the thing that also makes this very Mormon is it just seems like the, the Mormon Church is overrepresented in fraud, whether it's MLM scandals or white collar crime or, you know, child sexual abuse and cover ups, it seems like. And, and it could be just anecdotal. I have had law enforcement agents tell me per capita that Utah seems to be overrepresented in white collar crime. And in child abuse, like crime and affinity fraud, most specifically, that kind of Mormons and, and Mormon heavy states tend to lead the nation in affinity and. Or white collar crime. Maybe not the top, but. But far closer to the top than they should be if this is God's one true church. So I mean, why is there continually so much fraud? And I think the LDS discussion series did an episode just, just two days ago on Mormon church leaders being fooled by fraudsters like Mark Hoffman, you know, like Tim Ballard, like others. So check that, check out that LDS discussions episode as well. What are your thoughts, Megan?

Guest 4 [01:25:15] Well, so I was thinking two things. Maybe he felt a lot of pressure to be financially well off. I know in the church there is sometimes a view and it's something that I thought of, you know, thought when I was an active member, is that if someone is wealthy, it's because they're righteous. I tied those two together. Maybe not in that black and white of language, but in my mind those two were tied. If somebody was prospering financially, they were righteous. And so there could be this pressure to be well off. And then the other thing is

Guest [01:25:48] I'm

Guest 4 [01:25:49] trying to think what. Okay, I have forgotten what my second train of thought was, but that one is one that I was thinking of right off the bat was maybe he felt that pressure.

John Dehlin [01:26:00] I'm. I just got an email from an anonymous listener. This is totally going back to a previous story.

Guest 4 [01:26:07] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:26:07] They're saying Dan Oaks is a sex therapist. So they write I won't use their name watching your live stream and anonymously wanted to let you know that Dan Oaks specializes in sex addiction therapy.

Guest 4 [01:26:20] Oh, no.

John Dehlin [01:26:21] They're basically saying he's one of those like, oh, look at pornography, you're an addict and if you masturbate, you're an addict. And so I need to treat you as, as an alcoholic or a drug user. So anyway.

Guest 4 [01:26:39] Wow, interesting. Yep. Another layer to that. Thanks for sharing that. That's.

John Dehlin [01:26:43] Yeah, yeah. Listeners. Well, yeah, I do think that, I do think that there is, there is this idea. It's not very supported by, I guess it is supported by the Book of Mormon a little bit. That righteousness leads to posterity, to prosperity. There's sort of a prosperity gospel vibe in modern Mormonism and there's also just kind of a keep up with the Joneses vibe. It's. I always noticed growing up that all the bishops in my warden state growing up in Houston and Katy drove either Mercedes Benzes or BMWs or Jaguars or Rolls Royces or Lincoln Continentals and Even as a high schooler. Again, such a formative time. I'm like, why are all the bishops rich? Why don't we have more farmers and more school teachers and plumbers that are bishops or stake presidents? So I think your point was maybe he felt pressure to be affluent and to create the appearance of prosperity, which would then signal righteousness. Maybe.

Guest 4 [01:27:49] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:27:49] Yeah. I don't know. And again, let's just say it's all alleged until he's proven found guilty. These are all allegations. But, you know, this is federal. Federal allegations of. Of crime. So these aren't small allegations, right?

Guest 4 [01:28:05] No. No.

John Dehlin [01:28:07] Well, that story was faster, Megan. Maybe we'll actually get through this episode in a decent time. Let's go to the next story.

The LDS Church's Stock Portfolio Loses $7 Billion

Guest 4 [01:28:13] Okay. The LDS Church's stock portfolio loses billions. Again. Here are the latest numbers. That's the headline. And I don't know about you, John, but every time I see something about the Church's stock portfolio, I mean, even putting those words together just drives me mad. And I can't help but think they. If they're losing billions of dollars and it's really just not even a problem for them, why did I not, you know, buy some shoes for my kindergartner when I needed to, instead I paid tithing like it? This is one of the areas where I still can get those feelings of rage when it comes to the Church.

John Dehlin [01:28:50] No, there's. I mean, there's always that sort of, what would Jesus do? And then there's sort of the derivative of that. Who would Jesus sue? You know, like referring to the lawsuit against me, who would Jesus sue? And we need to have it. You need to have a T shirt, Megan, that says, you know, what stocks would Jesus buy? You know, what stocks would Jesus sell? I mean, the Book of Mormon condemns consumerism and, you know, costly apparel and wealth and. And Christ said, it's easier for a rich person to. For a camel to enter the, what, the eye of the needle or whatever than enter the kingdom of heaven.

Guest 4 [01:29:30] Like, when I was a teenager, my dad would quote Isaiah to us when we wore rings on our fingers or a pair of earrings that were too big. He would say the mincing and the tinkling of their. You know, if they're gold and they're silver. He would quote Isaiah to us. We. We were shamed for just wearing two rings on a. On a finger. You know, it was. It was too much. It was worldly.

John Dehlin [01:29:53] Yeah. Yeah. So when the Church is acting more like a corporation than it is a Christian religion, whether it's worrying about its trademark and branding, whether it's doing PR analysis and customer service samples, whether it's being litigious and suing people or building a commercial shopping mall and investing billions and trillions of dollars in hedge funds or being the second largest commercial public real estate holder in the United States or top five or whatever it is. The Church really does act more like a corporation these days sometimes than it is a church. And I will also remind are never Mormons or are newly joined, faithful Mormons that haven't been following the Church closely that it was. The church created Ensign Peak, as I understand it, with the intent to hide its wealth. And the securities and Exchange Commission, as I understand it, found the Mormon Church guilty of fraud. And they find the church somewhere between 4 and 5 million dollars for creating all these shell companies that were, as I understand it, intentionally created to hide the Church's wealth not from the world, but from the membership, because they were worried that members would stop paying their tithing if they knew that the Church was worth hundreds of billions of dollars, which it is. So that's the background for these Ensign Peak investments. So now that we've given a little bit more of the background, what have we learned about the Church's massive stock portfolio hedge fund?

Mormon Stock Portfolio Hedge Fund

Guest 4 [01:31:35] New disclosures by Salt Lake City based Ensign Peak Advisors show the account it manages for the global faith dipped by about $3 billion in value in the first three months of 2026. Like I just. Disclosures to the U.S. securities and Exchange Commission also show the portfolio's largest single holding remains a flat 4 billion plus stake in Nvidia as the artificial intelligence hardware maker continues to mushroom in value.

John Dehlin [01:32:00] So, Megan, I'll play advocate. I know faithful Mormons that say, hey, the richer the Church is, the better. That's actually a sign to me that the Church is of God because they're so wealthy. Number one, it shows that they're inspired. Number two, it shows that they're responsible with their finances, which they teach their members to be. Three, the Church does good in the world. So the more money it has, the more it can do good in the world. What do you expect the Church to do? Sit on its cash and not invest it and just have inflation eat away the value of the Church's assets? And then finally, I think they would say that Jesus could come any minute now. And if, you know, once Jesus comes and Satan is loosed and the world is. Maggots are eating the flesh and flying scorpions are burning people and their earthquakes and lava, like in visions of glory. You need a wealthy church to help protect the membership and anyone else who's righteous. So what's wrong with God and Jesus is one true church? Being massively wealthy, wealthier than most Fortune 500 companies. That's a, that's a, that's a feature, not a bug. Megan, take that.

Guest 4 [01:33:19] So in 2024, I believe it was, they spent less than 1% of their wealth on humanitarian aid. Less than 1%. So they're asking their members to give 10%. They're not even doing that. And number two, have you ever. So two summers ago in Houston, there was a hurricane and we went without power for seven days. You know what we wanted during that time? It wasn't some cash. It was non perishable food. It was a battery powered fan. If the world falls apart, I don't know that cash is going to be as big of a commodity as people, you know, a wanted commodity as people think. I think that we're gonna want food and water.

John Dehlin [01:34:10] When there was that flood, did the church open up its wards and stake buildings to refugees or homeless people?

Guest 4 [01:34:18] No. No. However, this week I stumbled upon a video from Arizona where they this summer are going to have a church building, a meeting, a Mormon meeting house in Gilbert that will be a cooling center for unhoused people.

John Dehlin [01:34:31] That's good.

Guest 4 [01:34:32] I was so excited.

John Dehlin [01:34:34] Good, good job.

Guest 4 [01:34:35] I know.

John Dehlin [01:34:36] Let's applaud the good things. When we hear. Alerted them.

Guest 4 [01:34:38] Yes. I was like, bravo. Because we hear about calamities all over the place. And a lot of times, I mean, here when we went without power for seven days, there were church buildings that had power with, you know, within a 15 minute drive of us. So they were closed, their doors were closed. It would have been nice to go sit in the air conditioning and have some, you know, place for the kids to run around a little bit.

Mormon church's investment in stock to grow its wealth

John Dehlin [01:35:00] Well, let me ask you, Megan. So first of all, is it bad, in your opinion, for the Mormon church to invest its cash in stock and real estate to grow its wealth? Do you think that's bad that they're investing in stock?

Guest 4 [01:35:13] I don't think it's bad for them to invest in stock. I think that it's bad for them to grow their wealth beyond what we can even comprehend. Because if the money is just growing, what good is it really doing if they're not using it to help people?

John Dehlin [01:35:28] Okay, what if their annual expenses are $8 billion? And so that feels like a lot to us, but they're trying to operate a global church with infinite real estate and Temples and ward buildings and maintenance and, and yeah, billion dollar, you know, let's say 8 to 10 billion dollars of annual costs. You're going to need a cash reserve of hundreds of billions so that you can for rainy day fund, you know, make sure that the church can be operated effectively and efficiently.

Guest 4 [01:36:02] Well, if you look at what the widow's might has done, they will say something along the lines of if the church never collected one more cent of tithing, they could operate the church forever just on the money that they make from the current fund without it getting any bigger. So paying for the day to day operations of the church is not something that the church is worried about. With their current level of wealth, I think they're slowly, slowly being pressured into using a little bit more on humanitarian aid. But I don't understand the mass, the mass amounts of wealth mostly like I can't comprehend it because I don't know what that amount of money even looks like. I don't think most of us understand how much money that is. But losing $3 billion in three months, if that's not raising their eyebrows, then they've got more money they can spend on humanitarian aid.

John Dehlin [01:37:01] So that was my next question is if you're going to be investing hundreds of billions of dollars. Yeah there'll be downturns in the stock market. The s and P500 might lose billions or trillions. Like if the church is going to be in the investing game, is it a big deal that they lose a few billion in a quarter because there's going to be ups and downs in the market.

Guest 4 [01:37:22] It's probably not a big deal to them. But if I make the, the connection between that and when I went without to give them that money in the first place, then it's hard for me to watch it happen.

John Dehlin [01:37:32] Yeah. And, and I. There is a tithing video I put together on my Understanding Mormonism YouTube channel where General authorities are telling members in like Latin America or Africa, buy shoes. You pay your tithing before you buy shoes. Pay your tithing before you eat food. Buy food. Like that is pretty egregious. They need to stop saying things like that.

Guest 4 [01:37:57] In the very last conference a gentleman got up and told a story about how he sold. The way he presented the story was that he had one vehicle. He used it to run his business, but he was behind on his tithing. So he sold the vehicle to pay his tithing. That's the level that they want members to go to. Yeah, they're still presenting it as that.

John Dehlin [01:38:16] I really do think they need to stop that.

Guest 4 [01:38:18] Yeah, same.

Mormon Church's Investment List

John Dehlin [01:38:20] Okay, last. Last question for me before we move on to the next story. As I was looking through the Salt Lake Tribune article that, that reports on this and shout out to Tony Semirad for, for. He continually covers the churches of assets and business dealings. It talks about all the main investments that the church has. And I thought that was interesting. It's like Apple. It's all the people you would expect. It's like Apple, it's Google or Alphabet, it's Facebook or Meta, it's Nvidia, it's intel, it's Microsoft. And on the one, Amazon. And on the one hand, oh, it's also Tesla and, and big, Big Pharma, Eli Lilly, it's banks, you know, it's Oracle. And on the one hand, yeah, invest on the businesses that are going to make you the most money. There were two things that, that struck me with that big old list. And, and it's mostly around social media. I know that there have been reports that the church invests in like big military and big defense. In other words, you're paying for tanks and missiles. Should a Christian religion be investing in defense companies that build missiles and bombs and tanks and drones that kill people? That'll. That'll. Let's just say that's a topic for another day. They do, but let's just say that's a topic for another day. And you know, there's always like the, the anti maskers or the anti vaxxers who don't like that the Church invests in big Pharma. And again, let's say that as a topic for another day. What I'm interested in is if we look at, number one, what's causing so much mental illness these days amongst youth and young adults. And ironically, if we look at what's harming the Church the most over the past five to 10 to 20 years. What is it, Megan? What is it?

Guest 4 [01:40:27] It's the prevelation of the Internet. Social media.

John Dehlin [01:40:30] It's social media. So isn't it weird? It's dark and sad on the one hand that the Church is one of the largest supporters of iPhones and Google and Meta and Instagram and I don't know, TikTok is even publicly available for investment. But you could argue that it's weird that the Church is backing these companies whose products seem to be contributing to historic rates of depression and anxiety and suicidality amongst Americans. And again, you could say I'm a hypocrite because Mormon Stories has channels on YouTube and Facebook and Instagram and TikTok. So I mean, I don't know if that makes me a hypocrite or not, but I'll just disclose that obviously that's true. I, I almost sometimes engage in these channels in spite of the harm they're doing because I don't know how else to get the message out. But I do detest the harm caused by social media these days amongst youth and adults. But it. So it's tragic and sad on the one hand that they're investing in these social media companies and it's ironic because we now know the church has, you know, as we reported last week, they've lost like 40% or like a million members who used to be active, who are no longer over the past 25 years in my opinion, largely due to the Internet. And it's like they're investing in their own demise. Does that seem ironic to you? Did that occur to you, Megan?

Guest 4 [01:42:08] Yes. Well, it's strange too.

Mormon Church's stance on AI and social media

John Dehlin [01:42:10] So the other one that they have is AI. Keep. Keep going.

Guest 4 [01:42:13] Yes. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. So Nvidia is AI and over the past six months and all the reporting that I've done, they have come out with warnings when it comes to AI about so many things. So when I was a member of the church I saw things in very black and white terms, right, this is right or it's wrong. And the church now as a corporation seems to be able to hold these opposed things that seem opposing all the time when in it, when it's leeway. I wasn't given and I wasn't giving myself when I was a member. So for them to invest in social media and AI and then go to the pulpit and say AI is biased, it's dangerous. Don't have an AI companion and you know, do a 10 day social media fast. I appreciate that they are maybe showing that they can hold both of those things, I guess but there it's another thing that their members are not really allowed to do is to have that nuance. I don't know if that's coming across in the way I want it to, but it just strikes me as interesting that it was so black and white for me and they seem to operate in these more gray areas when they're operating as a corporation.

John Dehlin [01:43:36] Yeah, well, it's fascinating and you know the church by according to the Widow's might, which is a link that I recommend everybody check out, it's a great resource. Even the Sonic Tribune relies on it these days. The Widows might predict that the Mormon Church will be a trillion doll organization, I think by 2040 or 2050. So within our lifetimes, you know, it'll be a trillion dollar church. And it's, and it's all growing tax free. Like the church does all this business investment buys, develops commercial real estate, subdivisions, skyscrapers, commercial shopping malls and it's able to do all this tax free. Even though a corporation, you know, they

Guest 4 [01:44:26] use public money sometimes when they're doing some of their real estate and then they get all the members to clean their meeting houses and their temples and even landscape them for free and their shake properties, their campgrounds and, and bishops

John Dehlin [01:44:43] are compensated and sick presidents and you know, aren't compensated. So anyway, I'm gonna, I'm gonna throw in a comment just because I want us to always be self reflective. Megan.

Mormon Stories: Criticizing Good Stories

Guest 4 [01:44:55] Yes, absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:44:56] Iverson, 23, says, it seems that Mormon stories, which I love, unfortunately cherry picks bad quarters. I don't know what this person means by quarters to mention, but rarely mentions good quarters. I'm assuming that they mean stories. And Megan, I want to take that as constructive feedback. Let's mention positive stories on this program to the extent that we keep doing it. Yeah, let's not shy away from positive stories when we think there's one that rises to a significant level of importance.

Guest 4 [01:45:33] And I think, I think about that too with my show because, and what I, the conclusion I've come to is that the church is going to pat themselves on the back 100% of the time. Right. So those stories are out there and they're. I do like to talk about them.

John Dehlin [01:45:47] Yeah.

Guest 4 [01:45:48] But I don't need to be another person who is just patting the church on the back because they are doing that very, very well themselves.

John Dehlin [01:45:55] It's true. I saw a Mormon apologist criticize Mormon stories recently saying they did weird, some weird analysis and like 70% of the dialogue of Mormon stories was critical of the church or negative and 30% was positive. And I'm like, well, basically people are just telling their Mormon story. And yeah, we're telling the stories on Mormon stories that people aren't comfortable sharing with their family and friends and at church because you really can't tell negative or critical stories at church and certainly not ones about people's loss of faith. So I'm not. That's by design. It's not that I want to be only negative or only see bad things, but Mormon stories is the same as what you just said, Megan. It's like, where else can we talk about the negative? It's certainly not at Church, certainly the church news, is it going to be reporting this stuff? And certainly the Deseret News isn't going to be reporting this stuff. And even the Salt Lake Tribune, you know, especially their podcast, seems to be very limited in criticisms that it's willing to explore. So, you know, for as long as we're one of the only games in town, along with the Mormon newscast, you know, we'll. We'll probably lean more critical than. Than positive.

Guest 4 [01:47:13] Right. Well, and I. I don't always like putting things in two boxes, positive and negative, because when we're talking about reality, sometimes it's uncomfortable. And I think that's okay. I think we need to deal with that discomfort. I don't think it needs to immediately be like, well, this is negative. We can brush it off, or this is positive and we should embrace it. I think we should just stay curious about why are these news stories appearing? Why is it that we're talking about this? What. How does it affect the people who we're talking about? You know, this stake president in Washington has a family. What. What's happened to them? And, you know, sometimes I'll talk about something on my channel, and then I'll say, you know, there has been a fund set up for these people. If you feel so inclined to go, go put some money in there. This family is suffering. So if we don't talk about the stuff, that's harder to talk about. There are people who are affected by it who don't get the validation that they need as well.

John Dehlin [01:48:07] Well, it's true. And news by default is generally critical. It just is.

Guest 4 [01:48:12] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:48:12] Anyway, we're grateful for that feedback. We want your feedback, positive and negative. Please, please take a moment to subscribe to this channel to hit the like button and share it, comment on it. And while you're doing that, do the same with generally unquotable Megan's News Channel. Thanks for the feedback. All right, this next story is a sad and disturbing one, but it's. It's real. So let's hear it.

Man Arrested for Distributing Child Pornography in Rexburg

Guest 4 [01:48:41] Megan byui, student, shared sexual videos of young girls with multiple people. William Scott Messer is charged with two counts of felony distribution of child exploitative material. According to police reports, a Rexburg police officer received a Cyber tip on February 11th regarding a Snapchat video allegedly uploaded by someone using an IP address associated with an apartment building in Rexburg. And actually, when I first saw this story, it didn't have the BYUI component in it, but because it was in Rexburg, I thought, you know, this person is Most likely a student at BYU because is Rexburg something like 90 some odd percent members? I mean, it's a very high concentration of Mormons.

John Dehlin [01:49:23] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so a BYU Idaho student. And this is the East Idaho News, this reporting.

Guest 4 [01:49:32] Yeah. The first thing I saw was a, was from the police department in Rexburg and they didn't specify byui. And then when the East Idaho News came out with it, I was like, okay, it is related as I thought it might be.

John Dehlin [01:49:43] Yeah, okay.

Guest 4 [01:49:45] Yeah. Police traced the Snapchat account back to Messer and learned that he had allegedly sent the video to multiple people. According to the report, police contacted BYU Idaho Security, which confirmed that Messer was a student and provided his address.

John Dehlin [01:49:58] I mean, immediately what came to my mind was the question, who is he sending this to? Would it be other students? And then it make me wonder, is there a ring of BYU Idaho students looking at child pornography? I would, I would hope not.

Guest 4 [01:50:11] I, you know, when I went to BYU Idaho, I went to Rick's and BYU Idaho and there were always these rumors flying about of, you know, so and so in a park department, whatever has done this thing. And again, it was shocking to me because I didn't understand how people could get there and be doing those things. But I understand differently now. But my, the interesting thing to me is that to get into those schools, you have to go to an ecclesiastical leader and get an ecclesiastical endorsement. So it's that same line of thinking that we were talking about where this student had to go see a bishop who was called of God, and the bishop said, you're cool, you can go there. And at what point does that mean that the bishop did not have discernment and couldn't understand either what was already happening or what was going to happen?

John Dehlin [01:51:00] Yeah, the church just needs to get rid of that teaching of discernment because it's just, it's just silly.

Guest 4 [01:51:05] Well, it's just problematic. It's problematic because then once someone's been vetted, people have, A lot of times people have a blind trust in them and we can see that's not, it's not healthy to do that.

John Dehlin [01:51:16] Let's go ahead and finish the slide and then I'll ask a couple questions.

Guest 4 [01:51:19] Okay. On May 20, police initiated a traffic stop on Messer as. As he was driving near the intersection, intersection of 5th west and McKen Drive. He was detained and transported to the Rexburg Police Department for an interview while detectives began searching his home. During the interview, police say Messer admitted to saving, sharing, probably masturbating and deleting child pornography. Messer was arrested and booked into the Madison county jail on a $50,000 bond. It was later reduced to 25,000 and Messer paid bail and was released on May 21.

John Dehlin [01:51:53] So my question in stories like this is always going to be the same, as I've already said in, in other segments, like there's going to be, look, people look at pornography in every religion and, and secularism, and there's going to be people that look at and are purveyors of, of child and youth pornography in and out of religion and in and out of secularism. So to what extent is this a Mormon story that's worth covering versus just someone who's ill and a criminal doing bad things, in your view?

Guest 4 [01:52:23] Megan, I was taught as a member that I belonged to the one true church that held the keys of the priesthood and the power of the priesthood which set the church above. And I'm guessing that this young man was a priesthood holder as well. So if the church is claiming that divine power, exclusive divine power, then the church and its members, I would hold them to a higher standard. I know I held myself to a higher standard. So if that's not being met, then it's important to realize that because then if you're a member, maybe you can give yourself a little bit of leeway for doing something that's totally normal. Not for doing what this kid was allegedly doing or this man was allegedly doing, but for having, you know, a healthy, healthy sexuality or any of those things. So the church sets all of these standards. They set themselves above. The members should be held to a higher standard. So then the members are held to a higher standard and they get really down on themselves for doing normal things when they don't need to be, when the church should be more worried about, well, our discernment didn't catch this guy.

John Dehlin [01:53:43] Yeah. My biggest concern is that anytime any culture, including an orthodox or highly conservative religion, hyper sexualizes bodies, hyper emphasizes sexuality and hyper polices people's sexual behavior and uses guilt and shame as a way to. To control and manipulate people. It seems like what it does is it drives that behavior underground and actually makes it more. More shameful but also more distorted and often more prevalent. And so I've seen over the years Utah having higher than average per capita use of a pornhub or higher than average use of what's the pay for porn app that people use these days?

Guest 4 [01:54:50] Oh, like only fans.

John Dehlin [01:54:52] Only fans. And again, that even Utah is higher than average per capita child abuse. And it's just the more something is overemphasized, demonized, shamed, and driven underground. I think you actually. I think that actually leads to more of the behavior, undesired behavior, than less. And that's the only. That's the main way that I see this as a Mormon story, personally.

Guest 4 [01:55:19] Yep. Yeah, I agree with that, actually. And I've talked to my husband, because he felt a lot of that shame in the church for having normal, healthy, consensual sexual desires. And once we stepped away from the church and he really started to deconstruct that stuff, he didn't. Without all of that shame, he didn't feel the need to pursue some of the areas that he had pursued in the past, because he. He could just be himself. He could be open. He wasn't hiding. He wasn't lying.

John Dehlin [01:55:55] Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I do see this type of behavior as mental illness because I literally can't imagine being attracted to a child in any way. So in my mind, this guy has to be severely mentally ill. And so I hope he gets the treatment that he needs. And I also will say, I hope all his ward members and family members and community members, I hope he's. If he's guilty, it's alleged, but if he's guilty, if he's found guilty, he's put on whatever registries. I hope his membership is annotated, and I hope it's not erased. And I hope people in his orbit are protected by the church as much as possible, because these people generally don't get cured by therapists or by therapy.

Guest 4 [01:56:43] Yeah. Statistically speaking, if allowed or given the opportunity, they reoffend.

John Dehlin [01:56:47] Yeah. Mm. So. All right. Well, that's a sad story.

Guest 4 [01:56:53] I know. He's. He's so young and just at byu, Idaho. I mean, I was. I was a kid there once, too.

John Dehlin [01:56:59] Yeah. All right, so what's this next story? I think this is the dating story.

Dating Story

Guest 4 [01:57:04] Oh, this one's so fun. See, this one's fun.

John Dehlin [01:57:07] Okay,

Guest 4 [01:57:10] so this is Peter Muirs. He's a general authority, 70, and he went to Auckland, New Zealand, and he went to a stake conference first, as far as I understand. And then he went to the institute building there to talk to the young single adults, and he had a challenge for them. And we have a video of that. The audio is not great. It's what they had on their Instagram page. So we'll listen to it, but then we'll talk about it if you don't catch what they say.

Marriage Under 18 in the Mormon Church

John Dehlin [01:57:37] Okay. All right, let's roll the clip. 26 states in 20, 26 and 20.

Guest 4 [01:57:50] That's light work. I got this great council for leader. Yeah, great council. Awesome council.

John Dehlin [01:57:57] I will follow the direction of a divinely appointed general authority. I trust him, and I know that it comes from the Lord, so I will do that.

Guest 4 [01:58:07] I've got 26 more to go. Me too.

Guest 3 [01:58:10] Me too.

Guest 4 [01:58:11] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:58:12] 100%, you know, go for it, go for it, go for it for gold.

Guest [01:58:15] That's a great way to meet people

John Dehlin [01:58:16] and that's the end goal for the church. And so just want to extend that message to you. All doable.

Guest 4 [01:58:23] I have so much to do, but I know the Lord thinks it's important, so I will go and do.

John Dehlin [01:58:28] Oh, I try my best.

Guest 4 [01:58:29] It's also a good way to get our YSA out there to, like, at least increase or improve their dating skills.

John Dehlin [01:58:37] Honestly, to change the culture, you got to have the courage to shoot your shot. Like saying goes, you miss 100% of

Guest 3 [01:58:44] the shots you don't take.

John Dehlin [01:58:45] That's my thoughts. Amen. Oh, my gosh, I love that. That's kind of fun, right?

Guest 4 [01:58:53] It is fun. Well, so we can look at it from all sides, right? Like, a general authority goes to young single, single adults and says, I challenge you in 2026 to have 26 dates with 26 different people. And that can be fun. As long as they're not feeling a lot of pressure because it's coming from someone called of God. It can be fun. And if we're having all of these side effects of loneliness and isolation feeling from social media, let's get these young single adults out there, get them socializing with other people. And they seemed excited about it. I. I worry a little about the. The pressure that they might feel to, you know, oh, I'm only on date 24, and it's December 20th. Now what am I going to do? Because that's the mindset I would have had probably. But overall, they seemed pretty excited about it.

John Dehlin [01:59:46] Yeah. And I'll just say contextually, you know, the. The church is, as we've covered, its growth is slowing and. Or it's in decline in many parts of the developed world. So that would include North America, that would include Western Europe, and I'm pretty sure that would include Australia, New Zealand. It used to be that membership plus high birth rates kept Mormonship missionary work plus high birth rates kept the Mormon church growing. But missionary work, especially in the developed world, has taken a real hit because people are less and less in the developed world, less and less interested in being baptized Mormon. But what we've also seen is a decline in birth rate, even in the United States, even in Utah. And so if we're baptizing less people or retention is slowing and disaffection is increasing and birth rate is in decline, the church is just nervous about it shrinking. Plus, I'll add that historically the Mormon church leaders have known that the quicker you can get youth on missions and then immediately married and then immediately having children, that's the best way the church knows to keep people paying tithing and active in the church for the longest amount possible. That's why they've lowered the missionary age to 18 now for men and women. They're encouraging everyone to go on missions and they're encouraging everyone to go to church schools and to get married as soon as possible. And now even to start going on your mission looking for your potential spouse while you're a missionary. So, you know, I don't think the church can really be criticized for wanting to encourage marriage and early marriage. I just think that the biggest challenge I see is just that we now know that 40 to 50%, if more probably 60% of these young people are going to leave the church by the time they're 30. So what are the implications of these young people potentially dating and then getting married super young based on promises and covenants and commitments that are church related, knowing that over half are going to be leaving the church before they're even in their 30s? And do we want them rushing in to dating and then rushing into Mormon marriages knowing that that Mormon foundation may not be very solid?

Guest 4 [02:02:27] Yeah, well, and it sometimes sets people up for a really hard marriage situation. I felt like I was in a mixed faith marriage for a very short period of time. And it was so difficult to feel like I could be myself and be honest and which I wanted to be with my spouse and still maintain the relationship. So knowing that it could put them into mixed faith marriages, which I think are doable, but very difficult and even possibly like as an adult, when I left the church, my kids came with me, but if they hadn't, then I would have been looking at possibly a future of not attending my children's ceilings, their weddings. And it puts a lot of strain on a family dynamic when you're pushing someone into that, when maybe that is the basis of their relationship. That's the one thing they know they have in common. And they, you know, a lot of times Mormons date and get engaged and get married so quickly that they haven't explored beyond that so if the religion falls out of the relationship, maybe there's not going to be enough left to keep it. To even keep it together.

John Dehlin [02:03:35] Yeah, well. But overall, in the spirit of, like, looking at positive and fun, not just heavy, negative things all the time, that warmed my heart to see Mormon youth talking about dating. There's nothing wrong with the church encouraging its youth to live the values. And I. I love when. When good, clean Mormon fun is happening. I'm here for it. I celebrate it. It makes me smile. It makes me happy.

Guest 4 [02:04:03] Yep, same. Yeah. I was trying to teach Houstonians what ice blocking was something they.

John Dehlin [02:04:10] Oh, I know what that is. Tell us what that is.

Guest 4 [02:04:13] So when. In the summer when you can't go sledding, you find a hill and you buy big bricks of ice, you put a towel on top, and you get at the top of the hill and you sit on it, and it slides down just like a sled. And that is something. That was a big deal growing up in Utah in. Well, amongst Mormons. We did that on dates all the time. It's just good, clean Mormon fun.

John Dehlin [02:04:35] Well, I love it. All right, well, I think we have one more story, and then we can wrap it up for today. We've had over 900 people joining the live stream, so again, a very successful second program. We hope you all are enjoying this. We love your feedback. We love your criticism. Please like and subscribe here and on. Generally unquotable. I'll just say I did. I. I occasionally get a message saying that I interrupt you or talk over you. Megan, if I do that, I don't want to. So I'm gonna just acknowledge that feedback and say, megan, I. I don't want to do that. So if I do, I'm gonna try and work on that.

Thanks for Watching The Live Stream!

Guest 4 [02:05:13] Okay. I haven't felt that way. So, I mean, I'll. I'll try to be like, John, give me a second.

John Dehlin [02:05:20] Yeah, I don't want to be that way because I love. I. People. People comment that they love your insight more than they comment that about me, and that makes me happy. I love bringing on people who are more smarter, more talented than me. So, anyway, this is great. So, Megan, what's our last story? This is kind of a big one.

The Secret Way the Mormon Church Keeps Track of Sexual Abuse

Guest 4 [02:05:39] Yes. The Salt Lake Tribune published an article talking about the annotation system that the church uses to track people who have had church discipline for one reason or another. And this is something that I didn't even know existed until I started listening to Mormon stories.

John Dehlin [02:05:55] Yeah, I didn't mean to interrupt, but I was going to say it's Tamara Kemsley who's the reporter on this and she's a reporter I really look up to. So I just, I wanted to throw her credit. Keep going, keep going.

Guest 4 [02:06:06] Well, so it says a months long Tribune investigation reveals details about a process reliant on diligent lay leaders and out of view from churchgoers which I think sums it up really well. This says I can't think of any other religious institution that keeps records on its members like the LDS Church does, said Pensacola, Florida attorney J. Christopher Klotz who has brought cases of sexual abuse against a range of faith organizations including the Utah based church. The closest thing I can think of is the military, which I think is. It's astounding. I've never really thought about it in that sense that they keep saying. I mean I know they keep detailed records but I guess I didn't realize because the Mormon Church has been the entirety of my religious experience that other religions don't do that. I didn't really think about it. The level that they go to to keep tabs on their members.

John Dehlin [02:06:57] Absolutely. And you know we've covered over the past several decades that there's actually a strengthening the church members committee that keeps files on members beyond just like whether or not there's been church discipline but literally keeps newspaper clippings and screenshots of Internet posts and comments mostly for the purposes of apostasy and prosecuting members for apostasy. But we are a record keeping church, Megan.

Guest 4 [02:07:32] Right.

John Dehlin [02:07:33] Yeah.

Guest 4 [02:07:33] It was just part of the soup that I was swimming in when I grew up. I didn't realize that it was, was sort of unique to Mormonism until much later in life. I had no idea.

John Dehlin [02:07:43] No, it is, it is and there's probably good and bad things about it.

Guest 4 [02:07:47] We will see that. So it says within this system male bishops and stake presidents are able to flag after obtaining church headquarters approval those who confess to or are convicted of abuse marking their membership record with a digital scarlet letter known as an annotation. In some cases depending on leaders judgment, credible accusations may also trigger this note.

John Dehlin [02:08:11] Oh, go ahead.

Guest 4 [02:08:12] I think that's what it's supposed to do in practice. That's what I was going to say. I think that's kind of what the handbook may outline.

John Dehlin [02:08:19] The first time I heard about this. Do you remember so youo Think youk Can Dance, the TV show? So we interviewed Benji Schwimmer who I think was the winner of season two. So you think it condensed way back in the day I think it was during that interview where he told us that his record had been annotated for him being gay, not for he was faithful and obeying the law of chastity at the time. But he said he found out, if I'm remembering right, he said that he found out that his member was annotated just because he had confessed feelings of same sex attraction, and that the way that that was used against him was the annotation meant at the time that he wasn't allowed as a member who experiences feelings of attraction towards men. He wasn't allowed to work with youth or children.

Guest 4 [02:09:14] Wow. Okay. I do remember that.

John Dehlin [02:09:16] Yeah, that's when I first learned about, I think, the annotation system. Anyway.

Guest 4 [02:09:21] Yeah. So in the handbook it details what it should be used for. And who knows though, when he was getting that annotation, what the handbook said, then you'd have to have a physical copy because now it's what they call a living record. So it's online and they can change it at any time.

John Dehlin [02:09:37] Yeah. All right, let's go to the next. I think you have a video clip, is that right? All right, let's play it. So when I was called as bishop, the stake president said, oh, we'll get you some training. It's going to be fine. And it took me two months to finally realize there's no training, there's nobody's gonna come help me. You just gotta figure it out. And the guy who just got released as a bishop in our ward told me a story where this, like, someone in this. He had the wrong number for someone in the stake and someone had his number wrong. So he went like five months without even talking to the state after he was called. Like, not even the PPIs, they kept texting him, like, we need to set this up, like, he really wants to meet with you. And they just couldn't get a hold of each other. And finally they saw him in person or whatever and we're like, we gotta figure this out. Yeah, you just are gonna be uncomfortable. And it's, that's part of serving in the church. And, and it's a, it's a feature, not a bug. It's a feature, huh? Was he just saying no training for bishops is a feature?

No training for bishops on Mormon stories

Guest 4 [02:10:41] Yes, it was. I, that's why I included that clip. Because when we're talking about this annotations, and the annotations are meant for, for serious, pretty serious allegations and crimes. That, that, that gentleman, his name's Todd, he runs that podcast, the Words of the Prophets podcast He was a bishop, and he's admitting that he was not given any training and that it was kind of a joke that they laughed about. Like, you're going to be uncomfortable. Figure it out. So they're tasked with this annotation system, and they are not trained on what to actually do with it, at least from his perspective.

John Dehlin [02:11:14] Yeah, I have talked. I have interviewed several current and former bishops on Mormon stories, and they all say the same thing. There's pretty much no training, and the manual is gazillion pages long and it changes all the time. So, yeah, how to really operate the sanitation system effectively. I can see it slipping through the cracks very, very easily.

Guest [02:11:37] Yep.

Guest 4 [02:11:38] Yeah. And that's kind of the point I wanted to make with that video because, like, don't take my word for it. It that that gentleman is. Is faithful. And that was his experience.

Examples of Reasons to Not annotate Mormons

John Dehlin [02:11:46] All right, let's keep going to the article.

Guest 4 [02:11:48] Okay. Interviews with four former bishops living throughout the country, including Utah, plus a fifth in Canada, offered a look behind the bureaucrac bureaucratic curtain. Nearly all had experience serving in a stake presidency or. Or as stake presidents and asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak public publicly on the matter. Together, they described a system that, while effective at times, remained vulnerable to user error, a result of its emphasis on limiting the flow of information to male leaders who lack formal training. Several explained that they were left to navigate complex, sensitive, and individualized scenarios with only a handbook as their guide.

John Dehlin [02:12:27] Okay.

Guest 4 [02:12:28] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:12:29] So former bishops are acknowledging that it can be a flawed system, even though there's benefits to it.

Guest 4 [02:12:36] Well, and they said it's about keeping the information confidential. And so I can see that. But that. That wouldn't stop the church from just training them how to use it in the first place instead of giving them a handbook and wishing them well.

John Dehlin [02:12:51] Yeah. Well, let's go ahead and review the reasons to annotate. And I wonder if Swinging Singing is on there.

Guest 4 [02:13:01] Let's. Let's take a. Let's take a look. Reasons to annotate. Incest. Sexual. Yeah. Sexual abuse of a child or youth.

John Dehlin [02:13:08] That's good.

Guest 4 [02:13:09] Sexual exploitation of a child or youth.

John Dehlin [02:13:11] Good.

Guest 4 [02:13:11] Or serious physical or emotional abuse of a child or youth.

John Dehlin [02:13:15] Good.

Guest 4 [02:13:15] I think that's great. I just think when they put serious in there, that leaves a lot of.

John Dehlin [02:13:20] Oh, yeah, what's unserious physical or emotional abuse?

Guest 4 [02:13:23] I don't know. I don't know. That. That. That. I don't like that. That's leaving that up to some interpretation of someone who. Yeah. Who Maybe just doesn't understand abuse in general because they're not trained. This person could. Yeah, just be a school teacher. They're probably not, because they're likely more wealthy than that, but.

John Dehlin [02:13:42] Okay. What else is on the list?

Guest 4 [02:13:45] Involvement with child pornography.

John Dehlin [02:13:47] That's good.

Guest 4 [02:13:47] Agreed. Plural marriage.

John Dehlin [02:13:49] That's good.

Guest 4 [02:13:51] Interesting choice. Adult sexual predatory behavior.

John Dehlin [02:13:55] Also good. And I think Lamb might qualify.

Guest 4 [02:13:59] Yes, I would think so. Especially if you asked the. The women who. Her marriage was torn apart by his actions. Allegedly.

John Dehlin [02:14:09] Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Guest 4 [02:14:11] Embezzling church funds, stealing church property or church welfare abuse.

John Dehlin [02:14:16] Okay, sorry.

Guest 4 [02:14:18] That one's not at the top. Threatening behavior such as sexual, violent, or financial or conduct that harms the church.

John Dehlin [02:14:26] Okay. That would also be Lamb potentially. Allegedly.

Guest 4 [02:14:29] Yep. Transitioning away from one's assigned sex at birth.

John Dehlin [02:14:32] Okay, I know why they're doing that. Because the church views transgender stuff as bad and wrong.

Guest 4 [02:14:39] Yes. Okay.

John Dehlin [02:14:40] So overall, I'm liking that list, honestly.

Guest 4 [02:14:44] Yes. So I think the flaw that I'm already seeing, though, is that if there is an annotation for someone who has abused, used a child, and the only person who can see that annotation is the bishop, the stake president, and the leaders above, what good does that do the congregation in keeping them safe? I mean, the bishop's just one person. He can't be everywhere in the building all the time.

John Dehlin [02:15:08] Yeah. Yeah.

Guest 4 [02:15:12] So, I mean, it's. It's good that the bishop knows, but at what point, especially if someone's been convicted of abuse of a child, does he share that information with his congregation?

John Dehlin [02:15:22] Yeah, Julia makes a good point. This is from analyzing Mormonism. She writes, child or youth. Does it say spouse or adults? So why is sexual abuse of a spouse or adult rape? Isn't there? Maybe it's generally described because that could be predatory behavior or threatening behavior. But, yeah, Julia makes a good point. Spouse should probably be on there.

Guest 4 [02:15:49] Absolutely. Yeah. I. When I was a Relief Society president, I certainly sat with women who had been physically abused by their husbands while their husbands were out on the porch talking to the bishop about what they'd done. I mean, it happens. Happens everywhere.

Domestic Violence in the Church

John Dehlin [02:16:06] Yeah, that's a good point. Thanks. Thanks, Julia, for that. Okay. What else does the article say?

The Need to Review Accusations of Sexual Abuse

Guest 4 [02:16:15] So this is where we get into the part where maybe things are falling through the cracks. So. However, there are risks, too, said Christopher Jenkins, who served as a bishop in Walla walla, Washington, from 2019 to 2023,

John Dehlin [02:16:25] during his Christopher's Mormon Stories interview. He. He. I interviewed him on Mormon Stories.

Guest 4 [02:16:31] Awesome. I'm guessing there will be A link in the show notes to that. During his tenure, he met with a woman in her late twenties who he said confessed to having sex with a f14 year old boy who was not part of the faith. As soon as she informed him, however, she disappeared. Without a way to contact her, he wasn't able to hold a disciplinary council. The thought to annotate her record without one never occurred to him. Nobody, he said, gave me any instructions on what to do. Jenkins said he has since reached out to the bishop of the ward where he believes her record resides in an effort to alert him. But what about times the offender doesn't confess? What if the accusation is brought forward by the alleged victim or an individual is charged but not convicted? So it's showing flaws in the system where the idea of it is good. But there was a part in the article too where it said internal systems protect internal systems.

John Dehlin [02:17:23] Yeah.

Guest 4 [02:17:24] So it does. It can be used to keep everything in house and a very insular in house because the women leaders do not have access to annotations. So if there is someone who is a danger to the Relief Society sisters, the Relief Society president is not going to be able to see that annotation. She would have to rely on the men, the male leaders, to tell her.

John Dehlin [02:17:53] Yeah. And the general membership don't as well.

Guest 4 [02:17:56] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:17:57] Yeah. And. And when we think about the hotline, we. We know that historically the Church set up a hotline for bishops to call when they were dealing with things like abuse. And we know that the intent for why that was structured historically had nothing to do with the welfare of the victims or the care or the healing of the victims. The questionnaire was fielded by Church attorneys or those operating under the Church's, you know, designated law firm. And all the questions were around managing liability for the Church, not the care of. For victims or the prevention of future harm.

Guest 4 [02:18:43] So what I was told is that it was housed in the Risk Management Division. Yeah, yeah. Not in a section focused on pastoral care or. Yeah. Mental health.

John Dehlin [02:18:55] Yeah, yeah. And so people who might be suspicious of the Church's motives would have some reason to be suspicious of the Church's motives here.

Guest 4 [02:19:07] Yeah, yeah. It's all connected.

John Dehlin [02:19:09] Yeah.

Guest 4 [02:19:11] So this says at the end, the bishop or the stake president notes the Council's decision, meaning the first president's or the. The stake president or the Bishop Council, maybe. Yeah. And uploads any relevant files in the Church's software. All of this information is then reviewed by the Office of the First Presidency. These three men made up of the Church President currently Dallin H. Oaks and his two counselors are responsible for finalizing the decision. So a bishop or a stake president can have a, you know, feeling or think that a. Someone's record should be annotated, but ultimately the first presidency gets to decide.

John Dehlin [02:19:49] It's kind of a weird claim because like oaks is like 93. I think there's good reports that he has Parkinson's. I know that Henry Iring's health is not well. Christopherson's brand new, and I'm. They're managing a global 300 plus billion dollar church. How much time do these dudes have to be reviewing annotated membership records, especially when there's probably thousands and thousands created every year. I just don't believe that they're reviewing these annotations.

Guest 4 [02:20:24] No, I thought the same thing.

John Dehlin [02:20:25] So why are they setting up people's expectations that they are?

Guest 4 [02:20:28] I don't know, to make it seem more official. It was strange to me as well because like you said, they, they have so many other things they're doing and they're not in the best of health. I think they probably have to take a lot more downtime than they used to, at least, you know, the two older ones. So I don't, I don't understand why they would need that to be the distinction and to have it in print that they look at every single one. I think they also are in charge of what, ceiling cancellations. I know they. That's got to be another one that would keep them busy.

John Dehlin [02:20:58] Calling bishops.

Guest 4 [02:20:59] Calling bishops. I mean, how involved can they be in this minutia? Yes. When they're claiming 17 million, 18 million members.

John Dehlin [02:21:10] All right, a couple more slides and then we're done.

Copyright 2019 EWTN News Nightly

Guest 4 [02:21:12] Yes. Tracking known abusers is good. And Graces Robert Peters preventing them from causing. Oh, said Grace's Robert Peters. Preventing them from causing further harm, however, is the real goal. And that requires local leaders to have detailed information on past offenses, including, including the age range and number of victims, the severity of the offense, where it took place, and over what time frame. This information is a vital defense, said Peters. These details were also frequently missing, the former bishop said when they sought them about members with annotations. The former Utah bishop said he had a member with an annotation move into his ward when he requested additional information. He said he received a report from headquarters stating the individual had engaged in, quote, predatory behavior toward adult women, but offered little else. So it's a flaw in the system, I think, partially because there is turnover in leadership all the time. And if they're not trained. They're not getting the information they need to keep it consistent from one bishop to the next, or when somebody moves from one ward to another ward or even moves to a different state or a different country. So there could be an annotation there with absolutely no information on why the annotation is there. You know, back in the day, it was simply because someone professed to being gay or lgbtq. And what if that annotation just never got taken off and now it's sitting there and a bishop has a different idea about maybe what happened and why that person might have an annotation? So there are definitely some cracks in this system, some big ones that bishops have seen and felt and. And not know one to do with. You know, if you go look at the sex sex offender registry in your area, if someone's on there, it's pretty specific about why. And so you can make some judgment calls based on what the level of offense was. And if a bishop doesn't have that information, you know, how. How do they. How does the annotation even help them?

John Dehlin [02:23:18] Yeah. Let's go to the last slide. And then I've got a comment that I. That I for sure wanted to make. Here's the last slide.

Guest 4 [02:23:28] Okay. According to the church's handbook, leaders can share the decision to remove or withdraw a person's membership with those who need to know. For instance, it reads, if a person's predatory tendencies put others at risk.

John Dehlin [02:23:39] Risk.

Guest 4 [02:23:39] The bishop or stake president may give warnings to help protect others. That is, with one caveat. He does not reveal confidential information. It states and does not speculate. Meanwhile, the women. I said this earlier, who helm the organizations for women, teenage girls, and young children do not have independent access to view annotations and are generally not a part of disciplinary councils. Instead, they rely on their male counterparts to assess and inform them of possible risks to congregants for whom they have responsibility. So there. Yeah, there are limitations on who gets the information. And if it can't even be used to protect ward members.

John Dehlin [02:24:19] Well, the. The thing that I. That for me was most important is the example of Wade Kristofferson. And, you know, so basically, first presidency member and apostle D. Todd Christofferson has a brother named Wade. It's. It's well established now that Wade was excommunicated for abusing children in the late 90s. We know that. According to Ed Natural, I believe is his name. I. I interviewed him on Mormon stories. He was on the disciplinary council. Somehow the rumor was allowed to be spread that he was excommunicated for adultery, not for child abuse, which misled the members. But he was excommunicated. And as I understand it, his record was annotated. But then, as I understand it, within a year or two, he was rebaptized. I believe that rebaptism requires First Presidency approval. So not only would top church leaders have had to have given that approval, but his brother, D. Todd Christofferson, who is a general authority by that point, my guess, he would have certainly been notified that his brother was a child abuser and had been rebaptized. And then somehow the record was apparently de annotated, allowing Wade Kristofferson to move to a new area, move up the ranks of leadership to become a member of a bishopric in the same ward, ironically, that Leah and Cody Young were in when they were excommunicated. And. And later, because his record annotation wasn't maintained, apparently that left Wade Christofferson, brother of D. Todd Christofferson, to leave a trail of abused victims in his wake, culminating in several abuses happening in the past 12 months, as I understand it, and, you know, led to Wade's incarceration. So how well is this annotation system working? Why are things being Deannotated? Why is a child abuser ever Deannotated for any reason, knowing that they almost never can be cured? And again, how much is this system really protecting members when we know that, for example, in the Colby and Cam Reddish case, members weren't told about child abusers among them? Same with Jared Jones. And when members spoke up saying, hey, there's an abuser in our midst and nobody, none of the members have been told. My understanding is those whistleblowing members have been threatened with discipline for alerting ward and stake members that they have an abuser in their midst because the annotation system wasn't doing its job? And that's. I think I want to credit Tamara Kemsley and the Salt Lake Tribune for covering this story, but that's the story that I think needs to be told most is, is the church protecting members enough from abusers in their midst?

Guest 4 [02:27:41] Right. Because we know they are very good at keeping records. So why is this system that could be protecting people not working? Why isn't it doing that?

John Dehlin [02:27:53] Yeah. All right. Well, fantastic coverage this week, Megan. I do have a couple final comments, I think, from the users or listeners that I want to share. I just received another email from a viewer who writes, I was surprised you didn't bring up Carrie Lake. That's who beat out Lamb when he last ran for office. So, yeah, Carrie Lake, I believe ran for Senate in Arizona for the. She was, I believe was the Republican Trump endorsed candidate for Senate who lost. And so that's an interesting fact that Lake I guess would have run against Lamb in the primaries and Lamb would have lost to Lake. Thanks for. Oh, go ahead. Were you going to say something?

Steve Lamb and His Son: Should We Protect Them?

Guest 4 [02:28:50] No, I was just going to say yes. I can't, I can't keep all the information in my head all the time. I thank you for adding that.

John Dehlin [02:28:57] And then we had a comment from a Stephanie Slaughters. Stephanie writes, I worked in the Pinal county when Lamb was in office at a local fire station. I'm going to say these are allegations. We don't know if they're true. They're just a commenter making comments. Stephanie writes, on my first day, the captain told me we protect Lamb and his son specifically. And this was the son that died a few years later, according to our commenter, Stephanie Slaughters. Stephanie went on to write Lamb's corruption and his son broke the law constant, consistently and was a menace in the county. You can Google the son killed a man a block from the fire station.

Guest 4 [02:29:50] Yeah, it was an interesting turn of events. So I think his son's name was Connor and it's all in the news. He got in an accident. Accident in a car accident and then two years later died in a car accident. And they did talk about him having some drug problems. So I wouldn't be surprised if there were a lot of times if his dad wanted to would have protected him from maybe the consequences that involved with drugs.

John Dehlin [02:30:18] Yeah. Well, I'll just end by saying thanks to viewers and listeners for your comments and for the emails. And also I just want to say, yeah, if you've got tips or personal experiences or stories, we want to hear them. So please email us@mormonstoriesmail.com Please leave comments in our YouTube channel on Spotify. We read them, we value them. So please do share. We love tips and we love guests who want to share their stories or experience as well. So please keep those coming. Please like and subscribe. And I'll just say we pay Megan for her for her time. We pay Julie and Brooklyn for what they do behind the scenes. I'm obviously paid for what I do. So if you value this Mormon news show that's weekly, this is just a pilot and if you're already donating this, is your donations going to work. But if you want to see this content continue, we just want to request that you consider becoming a monthly donor to the show and that will help us know that you value this content. So just go to MormonStories.org donate, become a monthly donor. Give us your emails and comments and feedback and sharing this episode and liking it will also let us know. You can always give super chats or donations, but, you know, money. Money and donations and email and feedback and comments and likes and shares are often the way that we know that you value something and that's what helps us keep it going. Any final words, Megan?

Guest 4 [02:32:04] Yeah, I agree. I'll continue to show up and do all this research and work behind the scenes if it is helping people. If people want to keep listening and learning. Right alongside beside me.

John Dehlin [02:32:16] Yeah.

Guest 4 [02:32:17] Yeah.

Generally Unquotable: The Mormon News Podcast

John Dehlin [02:32:17] All right, so. So, Megan, tell people where they can

Guest 4 [02:32:20] find you again at generally unquotable on YouTube, Spotify, Facebook, Instagram, and Tick Tock. And I also have a Patreon. Sometimes I forget about that part, but I do. I have a Patreon. I have some really wonderful people there and some conversations we have there. And I release the videos that I do there typically Monday through Friday. A video every day Monday through Friday. And I release a couple hours earlier on Patreon. If you want to subscribe there and not have to watch ads and maybe get the news with your morning coffee is the way a lot of people like to enjoy it.

John Dehlin [02:32:51] I love it. I guess I should remind people also that, that you can become a channel member on YouTube and material writes, I'm planning on paying for the monthly membership to this channel as long as the church keeps attacking you. You do good work here. So that's another way you can do it is you can join as a YouTube channel member. And that's. That's a little bit like Patreon. It's just a way to show an extra level of support. And I will say, if you want to donate to the legal defense fund to help us respond to what I believe is the church's attempt to silence, smear and ruin the Open Stories foundation of Mormon Stories, you can donate to our legal fund@mormonstories.org legal all right, Megan, as far as I'm concerned, a second very successful episode. So thanks for all your work and for your wisdom and your commentary. You do great work and it's great to be teamed up with you on this experiment.

Guest 4 [02:33:51] Thank you. Yeah, we'll keep experimenting as long as it's working. So thanks, John. It was really fun.

John Dehlin [02:33:56] All right, thanks for joining us today on Mormon Stories. Be good to each other. Be kind to each other. We'll see you all again soon on another episode of the Mormon News here on Mormon Stories podcast. Take care, everybody.