Introducing the Episode and Today's Guests

John Dehlin [00:00:02] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host for today, John Dehlin. It's October 21, 2025, and today we're answering the question, are there four or five types of Mormonisms or of Mormons or more? So this is just for those who have. Have been following us recently. We have a crew that we've been assembling regularly. This crew consists of the Dr. Julie Hanks. Hey, Julie.

Julie Hanks [00:00:35] Hello.

John Dehlin [00:00:36] Welcome.

Julie Hanks [00:00:37] Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:00:37] And the Bishop Bo Euler. Hey, Bo.

Beau Oyler [00:00:40] Hey. Good to be back.

John Dehlin [00:00:41] And the Janice Spangler, Jan Spang. Not to be confused with Jana Reese. Janarise.

Jana Spangler [00:00:48] My good friend Jana Reese.

John Dehlin [00:00:50] Jay Span. What is it? J. Spang.

Jana Spangler [00:00:53] We call each other recent Spang, Reese and Spang.

John Dehlin [00:00:55] All right, so we've got Spang here with us as well. And we are. We are not the Avengers. We're not the X Men. We're the Mormon bridge builders. Is that cheesy?

Beau Oyler [00:01:07] I love it. I think it's great.

Julie Hanks [00:01:09] Yeah, I think it's great.

John Dehlin [00:01:10] It's like superhero. It gives superhero vibes for sure. That's okay, though.

Beau Oyler [00:01:14] Yeah, I think it's a great thing.

John Dehlin [00:01:15] Okay. Yeah.

Julie Hanks [00:01:17] T shirts.

John Dehlin [00:01:18] What's that?

Julie Hanks [00:01:18] Matching T shirts.

John Dehlin [00:01:19] Like, yeah, we should. We're tired of. I was thinking this today. On the one hand, we're all tired of polarization. And then I thought, who's the author of polarization in Mormonism? It's me. So, like, on the one hand, I've been like, I'm just telling. Bonus.

Julie Hanks [00:01:38] No, I guess John Delaney.

Beau Oyler [00:01:40] There's a lot of audio. There's a lot of members or people, like, making that connection right now.

John Dehlin [00:01:44] So it's never been my intent to polarize. But I think if you asked, who's the most. Jan is nodding. What the.

Jana Spangler [00:01:51] I've heard it. I've heard it.

John Dehlin [00:01:54] Yeah. Like, on the one hand, we're all trying to fight polarization. On the other hand, like, I feel like I've been doing that. So anyway, this is. We are. We are committed to trying to build bridges and make peace and reduce polarization. And that's who we are. And today we are here to talk about a new study that has been released or kind of an analysis that's been released. You want to talk about it, Bo?

Overview of the New Mormon Typology Study

Beau Oyler [00:02:19] Yeah, absolutely. So it's a data scientist named Alex Bass that we're actually going to have him on, on the show here in a few minutes. Really good guy. And he's. He's processed. Analyzed a lot of data around different kind of sectors of. Of Mormons. So who are the different types of groups within Mormonism today and how are those growing or shrinking and then comparing that to. To history or not. Benjamin park just did an episode on this as well. And I think he did a really good job just discussing those different groups. So that's what we're going to talk about. And we're going to invite Alex on to lead that side of the conversation. And then we're also going to have our good friend Patrick Mason. He's going to join a little bit later to give his 22 cents as well.

John Dehlin [00:03:02] So much to cover. And we're going to be incorporating some of the. The thought of Benjamin Park. Benjamin park is a top notch historian who did some analysis of Alex's work.

Jana Spangler [00:03:13] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:03:14] And we're going to be borrowing from that as well. We're doing way too much today. And I have a mocha here. Is that polarizing?

Beau Oyler [00:03:20] Wait, we're getting caffeinated, John.

John Dehlin [00:03:22] Today we're either caffeinated or high. No, I'm just kidding. None of us are high. Okay. All right. So before we jump into Alex analysis and before we bring Alex on, I want to say that I want to give a peacemaking update. So I have personally been in touch with a few, let's just say, Mormon apologist Internet personalities that people are shocked to know. I've been in correspondence with them and I'm not ready to talk about that publicly yet other than to say one of the things that I know we need to start doing is talking more. Not talking about each other, but talking to each other. And that's hard because there's a lot of fear and a lot of suspicion and a lot of distrust and a lot of animosity. So that's. I just want to give a status update. That's something I've been trying to do. We'll talk about the progress of that later.

Guest [00:04:25] Really.

John Dehlin [00:04:25] Interestingly, this weekend there's a conference called Repair that Patrick Mason and Adam Ford, who is a professor of peacemaking at Utah State University. Is it. It's not Adam Ford. What's his name?

Beau Oyler [00:04:40] What's his name? I'll look it up.

John Dehlin [00:04:44] I feel terrible that I'm forgetting his name. But anyway, Professor Ford and Patrick Mason, along with Thomas McConkey, Jennifer Finlayson, Fife. You know, a lot of the RESTORE people are holding a conference at BYU this weekend called Repair that's dedicated to peacemaking and bridge building. And I'm going to be attending. Margi's going to come for some. Bill might come for some And. And I love it. That peacemaking and bridge building is gaining traction broadly within Mormonism. It's not just us. We're just trying to learn. Is it Thomas?

Beau Oyler [00:05:25] Jim Perel?

John Dehlin [00:05:26] No, no, he's the. He's the keynote.

Beau Oyler [00:05:29] Chad Ford.

John Dehlin [00:05:30] Chad Ford.

Beau Oyler [00:05:30] Yes, Chad Ford.

John Dehlin [00:05:31] It's not Thomas Ford. It's not Adam Ford.

Beau Oyler [00:05:35] Chad Ford.

John Dehlin [00:05:35] Chad Ford. Chad Ford, Patrick Mason, and so many others. Anyway, so that's happening. I'm really excited about it. It's almost repair, too.

Beau Oyler [00:05:43] Like, people can Google it. Just repair. Conference. BYU 2025. And it's this weekend. I think it's Thursday night, Friday, Saturday. Almost every session is sold out. So, you know, try to. Try to grab tickets.

John Dehlin [00:05:56] And they're covering political polarization and peacemaking, family peacemaking, religious peacemaking. They're even, like, having a thing with, like, bishops and stake presidents about how to do peacemaking in wards and stakes. Like, it's really cool. Anyway, so that's happening. And then along with the idea of us trying to talk to people that see us as enemies or people that we tend to demonize, I wanted to play. Briefly, just to begin, before we jump in to Alex's study, I wanted to play a brief clip of a new creator that has kind of just recently emerged on the scene. So really quickly, here is the Mormon Bridge builder slide. We need a brand. Don't you think? We need.

Peacemaking and Bridge Building in Mormonism

Beau Oyler [00:06:52] If only we knew something guy.

John Dehlin [00:06:56] Yeah, if only we had a marketing guy. No, but seriously. Okay, why. Why is my video not showing up? Oh, let me just see. Okay, there it is. So there's the Mormon Bridge building. Is that not a slide? Inviting some branding, Beau?

Jana Spangler [00:07:14] Yeah, definitely.

John Dehlin [00:07:15] And Bo is your. Remind me. Is your expertise branding?

Guest 2 [00:07:18] It is.

Beau Oyler [00:07:19] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:07:19] So what in the heck is going on?

Beau Oyler [00:07:20] Yeah, it's a good point, John.

John Dehlin [00:07:22] Okay, I don't mean to call you

Julie Hanks [00:07:24] out next time we meet.

Beau Oyler [00:07:26] Now, we got a deadline. Designers need deadlines. That's a good thing.

John Dehlin [00:07:30] Yeah. So I don't mean to call you out, but that's our. That's currently our brand. And then. And then I wanted to play this clip. And this clip is from a. It's from an influencer. Her name is Maddie Packer. She is brand new on the scene. She comes from an Instagram channel called the sure Foundation. And I just want to play her clip and talk a little bit more about peacemaking.

Julie Hanks [00:07:59] And this clip, mine is.

John Dehlin [00:08:01] Okay, wait, so, Julie, go ahead.

Julie Hanks [00:08:03] I was just going to say this clip is from one of our previous bridge building episodes.

John Dehlin [00:08:08] That's right. So it's so she's responding. And Julia, thanks for switching the window. I'm going to need that. So thanks for calling that out because we want to go into dialogue here. And I was sad to see that one of our bridge building episodes is used as an example of polarization. So let's play it and talk about it really quickly and then we'll jump into Alex's study.

Reacting to Claims That the Church Is Harmful

▶ Video Clip 1

Video Clip 1 [00:08:32] Women are not equal in the church. Like, there's. It's just a fact, you know, and it's like, well, I've always felt equal. Okay, that's great. And you're not like, we can quantify it, you know, and just kind of saying that women are not equal. Even if you, if you feel like it, you're always trumped by a man. Your. Your revelation, your decisions. There's always a male.

Video Clip 1 [00:08:59] This narrative that, that religion, specifically the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is inherently oppressive and abusive because it's run by the patriarchy who groom children and women from a young age to be blindly obedient to their authority is so disingenuous. So before you listen to your ex Mormon therapist tell you religion is bad for you, we need to talk about a few things. The ironic thing is that they profit off of your confusion and victimhood. They need you to need them. So selling the sound bites of religious trauma and the patriarchy is marketing. These therapists operate mostly in Utah, where they take advantage of the religious demographic of members of the church, like Julie Hanks just demonstrated, by saying, even if you don't feel oppressed, you are.

Video Clip 1 [00:09:43] These therapists delegitimize the perspectives of faithful women by implying they are complacent and complicit in their own subjugation. I'm sorry, who is dismissing who now? When women of faith speak out in defense of the church and they are told that they have been conditioned to obey the patriarchy and that thinking for themselves isn't possible. When they're subjected to an institution led by men, they waive their credentials as professionals in your face to try and assert their authority over you. In place of the patriarchy, they abide by feminist ideologies that perpetuate men as oppressors in every system where they claim unbiased intellectual honesty. Many therapists subscribe to modern feminist ideologies that function as moral and ethical belief systems and integrated into professional practice.

Video Clip 1 [00:10:30] Telling women they are victims of men in every facet of society is not academic, it's ideological. They claim religion harms people and it harms mental health. When studies prove the exact opposite, research shows that higher levels of spirituality and religiosity are correlated with lower rates of depression, anxiety, suicide, and substance abuse. The stories of millions of people, including women, who claim religion and God literally saved their lives doesn't fit the feminist therapist agenda. Ex Mormon therapists will tell you to reject religion. It's bad for you. But what they don't tell you is what the alternative means. Instead of relying on God, rely on yourself. Instead of seeking meaning, seek pleasure.

Video Clip 1 [00:11:10] Instead of finding hope in Christ, accept despair. Instead of truth, only flattery. And instead of eternal life, you get this one chance. Don't be fooled by these bitter women. It's simple. If your therapist offers these things to you in place of what God offers, you get a new therapist.

John Dehlin [00:11:29] All right, so I just want to say at the outset, there's probably a hundred things we all would want to say in response to that video. Julie? Yeah, let's say top three that maybe are hurtful or. But it's responding.

Julie Hanks [00:11:44] I want to acknowledge that I spoke in absolutes, and I get that there are places in the church where men and women are equal. For example, they have equal access to ordinances. So I spoke in absolutes, which is part of the problem that is divisive. So I want to own that. In that sound bite, I was very certain, which is a problem and very. Just kind of not nuanced. Right.

John Dehlin [00:12:13] Like if you had said, it is my experience or it is my feeling,

Julie Hanks [00:12:17] then to do kind of. What I was saying is there are objective things that you can measure that show that men and women are not equal. If you look at who speaks at general conference, whose decision making, who. Like there are objective things where men and women aren't equal. So what I was trying to say was equality isn't a feeling we can objectively measure. Who are the decision makers, who are the leaders, who can do what? And women are not equal in those ways. So the way I presented that, that could be seen in that sound bite as divisive.

Julie Hanks [00:12:49] In no way am I minimizing people's experience. And I want to acknowledge that women in the church feel valued. And I'm not saying they don't feel valued. I'm not saying that that's not valid. But my main concern with her response is that she went on to say about 2015-20 things that I didn't say and making assumptions about that. I said the church is abusive, the church is oppressive. I didn't say those things. I didn't say men are the Problem.

Julie Hanks [00:13:21] I believe that the system that privileges men is a problem, but not the men. Like, so there were so many things that, to me, it felt like she was looking for a sound bite where then she could use it to say what she really wanted to say. And I wish she would have just said the things that she wanted to say without using my sound bite.

John Dehlin [00:13:43] And there, there. And also there are these attacks that the therapists and the coaches are monetizing people's pain and suffering and that. And I've, you know, I've gotten this for a long time that, like, I'm intentionally taking people out of the church, causing intentional faith crises and family strife so that then I can monetize. And I really don't coach anymore. But they would say that about YouTube anyway.

Julie Hanks [00:14:07] And I. I see maybe three clients. Like, I don't want more clients.

Guest 2 [00:14:11] Yeah.

Julie Hanks [00:14:11] Like, that's not my goal.

Beau Oyler [00:14:12] Right.

Julie Hanks [00:14:13] So I want to make a difference for people and alleviate pain. And so to say that I'm like, that is not my heart trying to stir up confusion or doubt to get clients, like, that is not accurate.

John Dehlin [00:14:26] Right. But here's. But here's why I brought this up, because normally we would do a whole two hours dissecting her video. Right. But that's. That's not peacemaking. That's not bridge building. Peacemaking would say, is there hurt there? What is she really feeling? What. What is she really trying to say? And what have we done for. To make her feel like maybe she wants to lash out now? Jana, you're nodding. Do you want to share a couple perspectives if you had to. If you had to answer that question? Do you have thoughts on that?

Jana Spangler [00:15:02] I have thoughts, but the question of,

John Dehlin [00:15:04] like, what do you think she's really feeling? Or. Yeah, what did you hear?

Julie Hanks [00:15:08] What?

Guest [00:15:08] Hurt?

John Dehlin [00:15:08] Or.

Jana Spangler [00:15:09] I mean, I. I spent a lot of time in that place. You know, I think I've mentioned it here, that I was raised very, very conservative. Feminism was a dirty word in my home growing up. And I never felt the pain of any kind of inequality as I, you know, until recently.

Jana Spangler [00:15:31] So I can validate that feeling. And I think there's a lot to understand about the way that we can talk about it. It's hard. I mean, I just want to acknowledge that I'm fully behind this project of being a bridge builder. I have a heart for that. It doesn't mean I'm always good at it. I can get triggered into the conversation of what's wrong with what she's saying as easily as anybody else. Also, I Do think it's important that we talk to each other to understand the perspectives so that we can all speak in a better way. That doesn't mean we need to take away speaking to things that, as you said, Julie, that are factual and being able to name them.

Jana Spangler [00:16:17] And we need to be able to do that. And you could always take a sound bite from that kind of a thing and turn it into something. But I hope we can stop doing that kind of thing and speak more fully to even not just this video of this person. I would love to see more about her body of work and what she really is for.

John Dehlin [00:16:39] Yeah, yeah.

Julie Hanks [00:16:42] The social media is part of the problem. Right. Sound bites are what get shared.

Jana Spangler [00:16:48] Yes.

Julie Hanks [00:16:49] She probably didn't watch that whole video or she probably hasn't watched a lot of my content. Right. So we take a little sound bite or we take a reel and then we respond to that as if it's a whole person or if it's their intent or.

John Dehlin [00:17:06] Yeah.

Julie Hanks [00:17:07] And so I think the format is part of the problem.

John Dehlin [00:17:11] Yeah.

Julie Hanks [00:17:11] Which is why I love doing this longer format that you're known for, John, is that you can actually get into the nuance, but you can't in a little, you know, 30, 10 second clip. There's no nuance in that.

Beau Oyler [00:17:23] My dream would be like you reach out to her and go get a dirty soda together. You know, it's like, let's just sit down and talk for a minute because maybe we're actually not that far off. Instead of demonizing each other on social for everyone to see and make these big bold statements so that you can get more views and more likes, like,

John Dehlin [00:17:40] yeah, just sit down and, and that's what, that's. Julie, what you and Jen have done is that right?

Jana Spangler [00:17:44] Is.

Julie Hanks [00:17:45] Yeah, I've reached out to her and she just responded and said she'd be happy to talk offline.

Beau Oyler [00:17:49] That's great.

Julie Hanks [00:17:50] And, and, and my guess is I, I could totally empathize with where she's coming from and why she felt the way that she felt. And that's not my intent. And so, yeah, like, to minimize a woman's experience is not. That's couldn't be farther from what I want to do. So, yeah, I'm excited to talk with her.

John Dehlin [00:18:14] And I don't think peacemaking means everyone has to agree. In fact, I think it doesn't mean that.

Julie Hanks [00:18:20] What I think it means is moving from needing to be right to needing to understand someone else's perspective and being open. And so much of what happens online is people Defending their position instead of being curious about where someone else is coming from. And I think that's the big shift that. That we need to make.

Jana Spangler [00:18:39] Absolutely. Well said. And. And I would say we also in. We have to be very careful in the sound by culture that. I mean, because one thing I saw her do is take the. The one clip and then generalized that one statement to all of who you are and then broadly to all therapists, all. All feminists.

Julie Hanks [00:18:58] Well, and she called me ex Mormon, which is actually not accurate.

Jana Spangler [00:19:00] Yeah.

Julie Hanks [00:19:01] I'm still a member of the church. I'm currently not attending. But, yeah, that's just. That's not accurate.

Jana Spangler [00:19:07] Right. And that's what we do. We're not actually responding to a human being.

Julie Hanks [00:19:11] Right.

Jana Spangler [00:19:11] We're responding to our view. Yeah. Because her caricature actually says more about just her thoughts about that, about people who have disagreed with her in that way than it does about the people she's disagreed with.

Julie Hanks [00:19:23] Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

John Dehlin [00:19:25] Yeah. Well, I'm glad y' all are going to reach out to her. I. I want to reach out to Jasmine Rap. I never remember how great.

Julie Hanks [00:19:34] Like, I really think she's sharp, so she does good work.

John Dehlin [00:19:38] And yeah, Greg, I know people hate. You know, some people have strong feelings about Greg Matson of Quick or Jacob Hansen or a thoughtful faith or the word radio people. Like, I have a hope that we can have more communication, more bridge building, more peacemaking, more empathy and understanding between these groups instead of just like, mocking and mischaracterizing each other in our. In our echo chamber content silos.

Jana Spangler [00:20:12] Absolutely. I mean, none of these people would have a platform if they didn't. If people did not resonate deeply with the way that they see the world. And I think that's important. We need to give one another the dignity that, you know, they, they. These people are talented, and they. They say things in a way that. That makes people want to listen.

Julie Hanks [00:20:33] Yeah.

Jana Spangler [00:20:33] And.

Julie Hanks [00:20:34] Yeah.

Jana Spangler [00:20:35] And I really have to be a contest.

Julie Hanks [00:20:36] I'm open to the fact that people have different strengths and callings and different audiences. Right. Like, she is not who I'm talking to. If she is absolutely happy and fulfilled in the church, she's not my audience. And that's fine. I'm talking to the people like the women I've seen in my practice for 30 years who are in pain and validating that. And so I think it's okay to recognize, like, oh, I'm not Ward radio's audience. And that's. That's okay. I don't have to make Them bad.

John Dehlin [00:21:07] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so we just want to say we. And it may mean some of us aren't always on this show, but we would love to have different types of Mormons join these panels. So whether it's orthodox Mormons, I think Janet, you kind of covered the progressive Mormon wing. Julie, you kind of do. I think actually if we talk about the different types of Mormons today, I'm certainly kind of ex Mormon right now.

John Dehlin [00:21:38] We talk about progressive Mormons. That's kind of. Jana. We talk about people that have kind of. I think Julie's also progressive. Yeah, Julie's kind of an in betweener. We don't really have an orthodox ever represented. So what I'm saying is, is if there are orthodox Mormons who value this project, feel like they're good communicators, I would love it. Right. You feel like you're a good communicator, live in the Salt Lake area, and want to be a part of the show. We. We're begging for a thoughtful, good, communicating, orthodox, believing Mormon. I will give you my seat to join this panel.

John Dehlin [00:22:13] I'll give you my seat. I'll sit out, and y' all can do the work. Anyway, anyway, I hope Maddie does not feel disrespected by today. I hope this is an invitation to Maddie, to Jasmine, to lots of people to consider communicating with us both offline and where it makes sense online so we can model bridge building and peacemaking.

Julie Hanks [00:22:37] Another. Another thing that I think we all could work on, including myself, is seeing people as. As humans, not caricatures.

Jana Spangler [00:22:46] Yes, right.

Julie Hanks [00:22:47] Like in that she character, she made me a caricature, which is not accurate. Right. Bitter and like, that's not accurate. And my tendency would be to, oh, well, she's this Molly Mormon. Right. And we got to stop making people characters and really be curious about who they actually are and what they're really about.

Jana Spangler [00:23:10] Absolutely. In this conversation, more than trying to hold ourselves up as some, like, we've got this figured out and we know how to build bridges. I want to learn those conversations. Help me learn. See, seeing. Seeing that video helps me see what I don't want to be doing myself. And it. And I recognize where I have done the same thing in the past.

Guest [00:23:29] So.

John Dehlin [00:23:30] Yeah. So whatever we do do with the Mormon bridge builders sort of brand or show, we're not going to be mocking and responding to people with different perspectives and doing response videos that kind of just add to the ill feelings. I hope Maddie Hacker feels our interest in dialogue along with all the others. All Right. So what we want to turn to now is a new study that or an analysis that has recently been released. And we're going to bring on to the show Alex, who is patiently waiting behind the scenes. And we are going to let Alex talk to us about his study. So, Alex, welcome to Mormon Stories.

Alex Bass Introduces His Research Methods

Guest 2 [00:24:27] Hi everyone, I'm Alex. Nice to be here. Thanks for having me.

John Dehlin [00:24:30] And Alex, what's your last name?

Guest 2 [00:24:33] My last name is Bass.

John Dehlin [00:24:34] Okay. And tell us about your background and expertise.

Guest 2 [00:24:40] Yeah, so I got my professional start in political polling and have worked for a few different political or two different political polling firms. My current day job right now is I am a contracted data scientist with Meta and I. My story essentially is I was perhaps you guys are familiar with the political science, the political scientist Ryan Burge, who does a lot of public analysis of religion. And I was honestly just really inspired by his work. And I'm like, man, I wish there was more objective public analysis of Mormons. And so that's kind of how I started my blog. So I, I have a subset blog that I've been doing for about a year now. And yeah, it is just I take a public data set and I filter it to Mormons and I try and answer some questions.

Beau Oyler [00:25:43] And Alex, what's your substack and your Instagram handle so that we can follow you?

Guest 2 [00:25:47] So it is called Mormon Metrics. So on Instagram and on subsect.

John Dehlin [00:25:54] Okay, so we're gonna have to bounce between us and you and some slides we have.

Guest 2 [00:25:59] Sure.

Beau Oyler [00:26:00] And.

John Dehlin [00:26:00] And so let's go ahead and just have you talk about the study. Let's go ahead and cut to the slide that shows. Julia, if you'll cut to the slide. It's called the Mormon Typology Mapping and Changing Faith. That's the name of the blog post. And this is Mormon typology report version 2.0 by Alex Bass. There's some disclaimers. The first is that this is exploratory rather than definitive. Alex, why don't you explain that to us?

Guest 2 [00:26:35] Yeah, so I mean, so this is using the Pew3 waves of the Pew Religious Landscape Study data. And it. Pew is, is probably one of the best data sets on religious religion, especially in the US that we really have access to. And so in I combined those three surveys for a total sample of 1810 self identified latter Day Saints or Mormons. And so this still like, while this is a meaningful sample and we can see real trends and analysis from this, like obviously if we wanted to create a very definitive typology, we Would need a lot bigger sample to really get at maybe some of the smaller groups that may not appear in this. But our 1800 sample size will be great at mapping a general landscape of the. Of Mormonism without defining really hard boundaries. Does that make sense or would you like to elaborate any part?

John Dehlin [00:27:45] It does. And this pew, this pew Religious landscape study is the. The same. It's the same data set that's brought to us the rise of the nuns that we've all been tracking, that's been showing kind of the secularization of America over the past 20 or plus years. Is that right, Alex?

Guest 2 [00:28:07] So there are actually quite a few public data sets that show this. You know, there's the General Social Survey, there's the Cooperative Election Study, and yes, the Pure Religious Landscape study is another study that validates that trend.

The Devout Traditionalists: Defining the First Group

John Dehlin [00:28:24] Okay, all right, well, why don't you tell us how you kind of what your methods and, you know, how you constructed the study.

Guest 2 [00:28:34] Yeah, absolutely. So actually, I think this, the, the beginning part of the episode that I was listening to is a good segue because the, the motivation behind it was really trying to see Mormonism beyond just the actives and the inactives, the actives and the less actives, and really try and paint it with a little bit more color and under. Try, try and dig into what the.

Guest 2 [00:29:04] Yeah. What modernism really looks like. And so as a data scientist, to tackle that question, I turn to turn to statistics. And specifically, there's a whole branch in data science that is called clustering, and that's essentially taking all of your data and grouping it most naturally based off of.

Guest 2 [00:29:31] Based off of survey responses. And so there are natural clusters that will emerge in the data. And so one common practice is to define these clusters and see how people are grouped together within a religion or a group. So that's what I did here.

John Dehlin [00:29:50] Okay, and you came up with four types of Mormons. Do you want to go ahead and explain each type?

Guest 2 [00:29:58] Yeah, yeah. And. Yeah, so I'll just. Yeah, let's just, let's start. Yeah, let's just start. So the four types of Mormons that I defined were the devout traditionalists, the adaptive believers, the cultural Mormons, and the in betweeners. And to give a brief description of each one, the devout traditionalists are the people that are most. That have the highest amount of practice. So in the survey, it asks questions about how often do you read your scriptures, how often do you attend church, how often do you pray, how often do you participate in church religious programs like Bible studies or something like that? And so these, the devout traditional scored the highest across all these measures and they also scored the highest across

Beau Oyler [00:30:51] of

Guest 2 [00:30:51] like belief, feeling certainty for belief in God and you know, believing in heaven and hell. And the pure religious landscape study doesn't ask Mormon specific questions. And so we're using general religious questions. So that is one area that that could be improved if we had a Mormon specific survey. We could ask some of those temple recommend questions or things like that. But so then they, all the devout traditionals also report very high life satisfaction in their personal life and in their family or their, in their self and in their family. So that kind of encapsules, encapsulates the devout traditionalists.

John Dehlin [00:31:35] Alex, really quick. Well, I think we on the podcast refer to this group as orthodox. Is that right to you, did you consider that term? I guess devout might incorporate orthodox and orthoprax both. Tell me, tell me.

Guest 2 [00:31:52] Yeah, I think it incorporates, I think it incorporates both of those. Okay. Yeah, they are, yeah, they are the most orthodox or I don't know how to say the most orthoprax group. Yeah.

Beau Oyler [00:32:07] So it's kind of like who we think of as active members of the church. Tbms. They believe it all. They've got testimonies, they're sharing those testimonies. They've got their temple recommends, they're in leadership callings, they are there every Sunday. Like they believe in the historic Book of Mormon. And these are orthodox members of the church.

Guest 2 [00:32:26] Exactly. And just to add to that, there was a question asking about whether you believe that your religion is the one true religion leading to eternal life. And the devout traditionalists, the majority of them agree with this statement. So I think it was like 75 to 80% agree that there's the one. Theirs is the one true religion leading to eternal life.

John Dehlin [00:32:49] And really quickly, just to give the answer up front, currently in the, in 2024, 25, what percentage of of people who identify as Latter Day Saints fit into this category of devout or orthodox?

Guest 2 [00:33:06] So you know, the boundaries, the boundaries are gray. But according to the, the Pew Religious Landscape Study and my clustering, it was one in four people who currently identify as Mormon. I also are, would be considered a devout traditionalist.

John Dehlin [00:33:23] And I just want to repeat that. So of, of of people in the United States who identify as orthodox Mormon or or devout Mormon, it's or just

Guest 2 [00:33:31] who identify as Mormon Mormon in a survey or one.

John Dehlin [00:33:35] It's one in four. Now that's not one in four of people in the pews because one of these categories are people that really don't attend.

Guest 2 [00:33:44] Exactly.

Guest [00:33:44] So.

John Dehlin [00:33:45] So we'll get to that in a second, but. Okay, that's Good to know. 1 in 4, 25. All right, let's go to the next group.

Adaptive Believers and the Rise of Flexible Faith

Guest 2 [00:33:52] So our next group is what I call the adaptive believers. And in. From what I found in my analysis in this Pew religious landscape study, this group has grown a lot and now represents the. The largest group. And you can think of these people. These are also people who have very high practice. They are similar to devout traditionalists in a lot of ways where they differ or they differ in several ways. They are. They score a little bit lower on life satisfaction. They are. They are. They score lower on practice across the board. So each of the. The different measures of practice. And one of those measures of practice also is sharing your religion with others. And they also lean more left or they. They have more. They are less committed to the religious Republican Party on. In their social views and ideas. And Alex, Alex, do we.

Beau Oyler [00:35:00] Real quick. So do we have a comparison with the. The devout right with the orthodox side of their politics there? Like you said, that this new group skews less Republican.

Guest 2 [00:35:12] Yeah, it is still. It is still Republican. I have a chart on it in my report. Like, I think for the devout traditionalist, 70% of them identify as Republican. And I forget what the number is for the adaptives, but maybe it's like, I don't know, 50% or.

Beau Oyler [00:35:31] Got it.

Guest 2 [00:35:31] Okay, 45 or.

Beau Oyler [00:35:33] All right.

Guest 2 [00:35:33] Something like that.

Beau Oyler [00:35:34] Good to have a contrast with the. With the more orthodox group.

Guest 2 [00:35:38] Yeah, exactly. And you can definitely see that when you ask about specific issues. So, for example, in my report, we talk specifically about the. Whether you think that same. Or that homosexuality should be accepted by society. And the adaptive believers are a lot more likely to say that it should be accepted by society, whereas for the Devout traditionalist, like, 80, 90% of them say that homosexuality should be discouraged by society. So that's. That's one way to kind of see a difference in these two groups. Yep.

Beau Oyler [00:36:13] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:36:15] Okay. What else about the adaptive believers? Sounds like they're more Republican. They're. They're more liberal politically. They're less literalistic in their beliefs.

Guest 2 [00:36:27] Yeah, exactly. When you. Yeah. And when you ask them about whether they. Whether they think that their faith is the one true faith leading to eternal life, they're more divided on.

Jana Spangler [00:36:42] On that.

Guest 2 [00:36:43] Yeah, Less one, two and half. Yeah.

Jana Spangler [00:36:46] Can I ask a question?

Guest 2 [00:36:48] Yes.

Jana Spangler [00:36:49] What are the defining metrics that put people into an adaptive believer?

Guest 2 [00:36:53] Yeah, and so. Yeah, that's a great question. And that's, that's one of the challenges with the, this statistical approach is there aren't. I didn't, I didn't define these groups by just saying anyone who goes to church and does this isn't a devout traditionalist. Like, these are just actual clusterings of the data. And so there aren't really hard boundaries.

Jana Spangler [00:37:16] Okay.

Guest 2 [00:37:16] The. They're more. These are just more ideas. Does that make sense?

Jana Spangler [00:37:23] Yeah, it just, it makes it a little fuzzy, I'm sure, for the lay people like me who are trying to figure out who these people are.

Julie Hanks [00:37:29] Right.

Jana Spangler [00:37:29] Because when I see the results and I say, okay, there are a lot of these adaptive believers who are Republican who go to church every week, who, you know, like, what is it that threw them into that category versus a traditionalist?

Guest 2 [00:37:44] Yeah, it's a mixture of. And I will say that the, the devout traditionalists and the adaptive believers are more similar. And the two groups that we will discuss afterwards are more similar. And there are more differences between. If you did, for example, if you just divided into two groups, it would be that actives and less actives. And we see the most differences there. But there still are meaningful differences in the people who are more active and the people who are less active.

Julie Hanks [00:38:13] So.

John Dehlin [00:38:13] So, Alex, just like I did in the previous group, Bo and I were trying to think about in our. The way we categorize. And I think Jana and Julie would probably agree with this. We're trying to like, map your categories to how we think about Mormons and Latter Day Saints. We immediately. What came to my mind with the adaptive believers are like liberal Mormons, progressive Mormons, the Restore crowd, the Faith Matters group, which are definitely less conservative or Republican, definitely less on the one true church thing, definitely more flexible in their observance, but still believing on some level and still devout, generally speaking. But we were wondering whether there's a split in this adapt adaptive believers group.

John Dehlin [00:39:03] Kind of like Jana was saying, could this also be more MAGA Mormons or more prepper Mormons or more, more conservative who are. Or maybe even ultra orthodox fundamentalist Mormons who are, who are maybe less sure about the current church's legitimate status?

John Dehlin [00:39:29] But maybe you're feeling like, you know, Kirtland, Joseph Smith kind of snufferites or. Or more fundamentalist Mormons. In other words, is it all restore liberals or is there a segmentation?

Guest 2 [00:39:44] I mean, I mean, that's, that's the thing with this is like, you know, we have 1800 respondents.

John Dehlin [00:39:50] Yeah.

Guest 2 [00:39:50] And if we had 20,000 or 50,000, we could really Dive into, like, we could really dive into these groups and, and nail some of these things down to give kind of just what I think about your question, kind of my personal take, I would say that these types of Mormons could. Could. Could potentially be in the adaptive believer group. If they, you know, they score a little bit lower on their personal and family life satisfaction. If they score lower on, yeah. Whether they believe it's the one true church. If, you know. Yeah, that's okay.

Guest [00:40:34] I think.

Beau Oyler [00:40:34] I think within this, the. The spectrum is less like, oh, these are more progressive, liberal Mormons Restore. I think that that's part of it. But then the other side is like the faction that we saw when President Nelson said, get vaccinated. Wear your masks. This is real. This is a real pain. They're like, whoa, clearly not a. Not a true prophet. Like, he told us to wear masks. Like, he's way off. And so there's that crew. They're not like ultra right wing necessarily. Both parties are starting to critically think. Both parties are starting to open their minds to, oh, well, maybe the. Maybe the brethren don't have this thing. Right. And whether that's LGBTQ or that's vaccines, either way, they're starting to open their mind.

Guest 2 [00:41:18] Yeah. And there still is a lot of Republicans in the adaptive believer group.

Beau Oyler [00:41:23] Exactly.

Guest 2 [00:41:23] Yeah. Potentially these people could be there. Yeah.

Beau Oyler [00:41:26] Hey, it's like I made a comment on. I was watching one of Jacob Hansen's videos, and it was just like. Like he's, you know, he's having a major. Some major dissonance around the way that the. The churches is discussing LGBTQ issues. And he's just like, this can't be right. And it's like, yeah, dude, like, you're starting to. The critically thinking about these things, even when it's a stance that you thought that you held together, like, this is a good thing. And I feel like this whole group is just beginning to critically think.

Jana Spangler [00:41:55] Well, and I will also say that it has a lot to do with a person's experience. Right. So if your family doesn't match what you're hearing the ideal is, or if something is, you know, you have a political opinion that goes against what the. You hear the leadership saying. I think it has a lot to do with that. It's the. Not just critical thinkers. I'm guessing there are a lot of critical thinkers in the orthodox group. They just haven't had the experience that invites them to examine that thing that then makes them disagree and puts them

Beau Oyler [00:42:26] maybe in an adaptive blue that's A. So thank you for making that, because certainly when I was in the Orthodox bucket, I was a critical thinker.

Jana Spangler [00:42:34] Absolutely.

Beau Oyler [00:42:34] There was one section in my brain that I couldn't think critically about. I could think critically about everything else in my life, but that was, like, safeguarded. That I could never. I couldn't go there until I started doing it. And that's what I feel like moved me over into the next group.

Jana Spangler [00:42:51] Yes. And we all have those blind spots based on our experience, of course.

Julie Hanks [00:42:55] I'm really curious about the lower life satisfaction as a therapist of this group. And I've just been sitting here thinking there is. Is it about certainty? When things are clear and certain and you're not aware, there's no dissonance. And so it's like, well, it's true. And we do this, and it's very clear. It would make sense that that life satisfaction score would be higher. Um, and then when you introduce more ambiguity and complexity and difficult experiences, and it's like, it. Life is harder.

John Dehlin [00:43:25] Yeah, yeah. And that's such an important point. So if we can go to the slides for a second, something that, you know, we'll. We'll introduce here is kind of trend. So the green line. Sorry, the blue line is the. The devout traditionalist that we were first talking about, or the Orthodox. And what you'll see is that between 2006 and 2024, that number is in decline. And not surprisingly, the steep Decline happens around 2014.

John Dehlin [00:43:57] And, of course, if you all were to want to know, for those who weren't paying attention, what happened around 2024? Sorry, 2014, 2015. Beau and I were talking about this. What happened around 2014, 2015? Well, ordained women happened in 2014. Kate Kelly was excommunicated in 2014.

John Dehlin [00:44:20] I was excommunicated in 2015. Not to put myself at the center of this, but that was tweeted in the New York Times. Both Kate and my stories were global news. The CES letter starts to really emerge.

Julie Hanks [00:44:33] Essays.

John Dehlin [00:44:34] Both the gospel topics essays start to emerge in the 2014 time period. And then the CES letter also emerges in the 2014, 2015 period. And then what I think is the most significant thing of all is the.

Guest 2 [00:44:48] The.

John Dehlin [00:44:49] The LGBT exclusion policy that comes out at the end of 2015. And I think that that was probably the worst thing of all. So if we go back to the slides, you can see this massive tanking of.

Jana Spangler [00:45:05] Of.

John Dehlin [00:45:06] Of orthodoxy starting in the 2014 time period, and it reduces. I'm having a hard time seeing it, but it Reduces from. What are those numbers? Can somebody tell me what.

Guest 2 [00:45:22] Alex, maybe you can say, yeah, 57 to 25. What is the estimate?

John Dehlin [00:45:27] So, yeah, that's a massive, massive decline. And then simultaneously what you're seeing is growth and the growth are in two areas. The adaptive believers, which is the group that we just talked about, just in the past couple years, these liberal, progressive, free thinking, but still attending Mormons have overtaken the orthodox, which means that in any given ward, any given congregation in the United States, there's more non orthodox, LGBT affirming, politically less conservative, more flexible thinking, less committed to this being the one true church kind of approach than there are orthodox, strict Mormons. And, and you know, they may not be the most vocal.

Julie Hanks [00:46:28] It may be not in leadership.

John Dehlin [00:46:30] Go ahead.

Julie Hanks [00:46:30] They're not in leadership positions is my guess is that they're, they're going to be less represented in, you know, bishoprics and Relief Society presidencies because. Or the more orthodox tend to rise to, to leadership.

Jana Spangler [00:46:45] Absolutely. And I'm guessing they get more, more time at the pulpit for talks and sacrament meeting. They're the teachers in gospel doctrine. Not all across the board, but I think a higher percentage. And so I, when I talk to people in my own experiences that we tend to overrepresent in our brains who these people are among us. And we, and because we don't know how to really have discussion about difference, we just all think that that's what the entire room is filled with.

Guest 2 [00:47:14] Yeah, yeah, I do, I do think that there are definitely some changing waves. And I, yeah, I think that this kind of paints some light on some of those trends. But also this is consistent with a lot of the other stuff that's, that's happening in the United States right now and overall decline in religiosity. And so we kind of see that same, that same type of thing with Mormons in the study. And yeah, I would like, I said I don't want to get too stuck on like the exact proportions of each group because I. The important takeaway is that the, that devout traditionalists and the most orthodox people are declining. That's the important takeaway. Exactly what the exact percentages are. We just need more data to really figure that out.

John Dehlin [00:48:05] Right.

Guest 2 [00:48:05] But the trend is clear.

John Dehlin [00:48:07] Orthodoxy is in steep decline and freer thinking, more flexible Mormonism is, has doubled in the past. You know, in the past, perhaps the

Guest 2 [00:48:22] boundaries aren't as strict as they used to be.

John Dehlin [00:48:25] And that's. Yeah. And that's really clear when we look at garments changing, we look at we look at the temple ceremony changing. We hear about Mormons taking psychedelics, using cannabis, drinking coffee, getting tattoos, getting multiple ear piercings. Like all the signs are there. I, I heard that there was a psychedelic breakout at Rest at Restore.

Julie Hanks [00:49:00] I didn't hear that, but I didn't know.

John Dehlin [00:49:02] I think I heard that and I think I heard that Patrick Mason's wife led it.

Beau Oyler [00:49:07] Wow. Let's ask him this weekend.

Julie Hanks [00:49:10] These categories kind of tie back to what we were talking about in the beginning about peacemaking. Because you can see the content creators where they fall and then why it's hard to see each other's perspectives. Right. Like if, if you're an active orthodox believer, you know, and you're, you're hearing an in betweener, it's like does. It doesn't compute because you don't see the church that way and it's easy to be scared of the other groups.

John Dehlin [00:49:36] Yeah.

Jana Spangler [00:49:36] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:49:37] The only other thing I was going to say is that when I've been talking to these sort of Mormon apologist influencers, most of them have never heard of Restore or Faith Matters. They don't even know about Patrick Mason or Thomas McConkey or, or Terrell and Fiona Givens. They're not even on their radar. Which is kind of mind blowing to think that Restore represents the biggest contingency in the church right now of these four groups. And yet the orthodox apologists, they're not even on their radar. It's the ex Mormons that are on their radar. I guess maybe that's not surprising. But at the same time you would think they would be aware of and sort of at least communicating because in one way you could think that they're closer in terms of belief.

Julie Hanks [00:50:30] But that could be too scary. That's too threatening. The orthodox could be it's like there is no need for progressive Mormonism. There is no need for adaptive believers because it's true. And this ha. It's literal. Right. So it's like there's no need to seek out anything that explains expends that because you're, you believe what you believe.

Jana Spangler [00:50:52] Well. And what I hear from them is it feels to them like a slippery slope. Like once you, when you're start on that and open your mind to that, you're just on your way out. Yeah. And, and they're actually, there's a lot of fear around it, that wolf and sheep's clothing kind of accusation gets thrown out. So I, I mean I actually think that all of these groups are kind of afraid of each other. Right. Progressives get it from both sides. They get it from the ex Mormons, they get it from the orthodox Mormons. So.

Beau Oyler [00:51:20] Yeah, and I think the easy way for me to look at it is the orthodox influencers are defending the faith or defending their faith. Right. Whereas the progressives, the faith matters. Are expanding their faith. Those are two very different things.

John Dehlin [00:51:34] And it's also worth noting that we don't see invitations to Cardinal Ellis or Jacob Hansen or even Jasmine Rapley in the Faith Matters, but not Jacob and not Harden. Right. I don't know that the restore people are big fans of the more acerbic apologies.

Beau Oyler [00:51:55] And I don't think the church is either.

John Dehlin [00:51:58] Well, but I mean they do. The Cardons and the Quakers and the Jacobs do attend Fairmont Mormon or Fair

Julie Hanks [00:52:06] LDS conference and General Conference.

John Dehlin [00:52:09] Right?

Beau Oyler [00:52:10] Yeah, but I'm just, I'm just thinking from the church's perspective to the more extreme orthodox influencers, I think that there's some fear around that. I do, I think that some of these talks around peacemakers aren't necessarily only targeted to us to ex Mormons.

John Dehlin [00:52:24] Yeah, they're to, to the.

Beau Oyler [00:52:25] Oh yeah, I think so.

John Dehlin [00:52:26] Fundamental orthodox Mormon orthodox.

Beau Oyler [00:52:29] I think so.

John Dehlin [00:52:29] Okay, Alex, I'm sorry we're not incorporating you more, but this is super helpful. Helpful. So really quickly, let's go ahead and go to the in betweeners because they're still in and then we'll talk about the cultural Mormons last. Is that okay?

In-Betweeners and Cultural Mormons Described

Guest 2 [00:52:46] Yeah, sure. Yeah. So the in betweeners are pretty much their defining trait is just they were the only group. Well, they're, they have a unique or demographically they're unique, they're, they're younger, they're more non white, but they, and they're a lot more likely to identify as a Democrat. But one of the, the main differentiating factors between this in between a group and the other three groups is a lot of them doubt God's existence specifically, whereas the other groups, you don't see that as much. Whereas with the in betweeners, when you ask them do you think God exists or that there's a universal spirit, half of them say no.

John Dehlin [00:53:45] And is it, Alex, is it, is it wrong to say these are just people in faith crisis? Is that oversimplifying?

Guest 2 [00:53:53] That's, that's one way you could interpret it. Like, you know, as with, you know, a lot of this stuff, we don't, we don't have survey questions asking if, you know, they're questioning their faith. So I don't really know. But I, I think that's One possible interpretation is I kind of took it as these are people who are actively questioning things or experimenting or you know, that that's kind of how I took it.

John Dehlin [00:54:20] Okay. And you're saying they make up about 6%, is that right?

Guest 2 [00:54:24] Yeah, exactly.

John Dehlin [00:54:25] And they are growing because, you know, 20 years ago they were at 2%. So we're talking about a 300% increase.

Guest 2 [00:54:35] I mean.

Beau Oyler [00:54:35] Right.

Guest 2 [00:54:36] I mean it is a small, it is a very small group. Like I said, we would need more data to really nail down the groups and the proportion in each year. But yeah, it is suggestive that this group is increasing.

John Dehlin [00:54:53] Okay. And so, and so then if we go back to the trend chart, we've got orthodox members in steep decline. They're down to 25% at present, approximately. We've got free thinking adaptive believers spiking up to 42%. And then we've also got in betweeners kind of growing, but they're relatively small. If you add those three up 42 plus 25, that's 67. Right. Plus six, that's 73%. And yeah, and so that's kind of those three, those three groups. Is there anything I want to say about the in betweeners? Anything? No, just.

Julie Hanks [00:55:42] I'm just thinking of Fowler stages of faith and they're probably stage, stage, stage four. Right. The question deconstructing everything and.

John Dehlin [00:55:50] Yeah. Okay, let's go and talk about that fourth group, Alex, which is the cultural Mormons.

Guest 2 [00:55:57] Yeah. So one trend that is visible on the all and all the other public data sets as well is the that fewer people who identify as Mormon are attending church every week. And so there is this growing group of people who don't practice as much. And like I said, we were seeing that across American religions in general.

Guest 2 [00:56:23] But I think that this group kind of, this group is growing and these, these people are particularly people who have very low practice. They scored the lowest on all practice measures, all the six practice measures. Yet they still at least claim to believe in some of the Christian theology. So a lot of them or all of them in the survey said that they believed in God or universal spirit.

Guest 2 [00:56:55] But the certainty they're about 50% of those of the culture. Mormons are uncertain about that belief. Compared like the Adaptives and the devouts are very, are much more certain of their belief in God. Like 97 of the bouts and 92% of adaptives are like certain in their belief of God. For cultural Mormons it's like 50%.

Guest 2 [00:57:21] But they still, a lot of them still believe in heaven. And hell. But yeah, there's just more uncertainty and very low practice this in this group.

John Dehlin [00:57:29] What about political affiliation and what about LGBT support?

Guest 2 [00:57:35] So just when you look at the, the Mormons overall, you know, it's a very. Compared to other religions, it's a very strong Republican group. And I mean, you can see that same type.

John Dehlin [00:57:47] Oh, I meant for the cultural Mormons.

Guest 2 [00:57:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:57:49] Okay.

Guest 2 [00:57:49] And I'm saying for the cultural Mormons, they. I think I have a chart about it. When you ask them. Yeah, maybe we can. I don't know if it's in the slides.

John Dehlin [00:58:02] Go ahead and finish your thought. We may get to it in a bit.

Guest 2 [00:58:04] Okay. Yeah, yeah, they are. I think if more of them, Most of them identify as independent, so they don't identify with a party. But when you ask them which way they lean, I think most of them lean Republican. But like when you ask them about issues like homosexuality and things like that, they lean much more left or they lean. They lean more left than. Much more left than the devout traditionalists and still more left than the adaptive believers.

John Dehlin [00:58:36] Yeah. And then oftentimes we, we have this term Jack Mormon, which represents someone that kind of doesn't attend but still believes, but then just their behavior. They may drink or they may smoke or they may, you know, live with their partner, unmarried, but they're still believers. Do we have any sense for the belief of these cultural Mormons? Yeah, yeah.

Guest 2 [00:59:00] I mean, so we, like I said, we don't have Mormon specific questions, so we can't ask. I don't have data for if they believe in Joseph Smith or if they believe in the Book of Mormon or. Yeah, those, those things. But when asked if they believe their faith is the one true faith which leading to eternal life, I, I forget the exact percentage, but it's like a third of them do believe that compared to most abouts and maybe half of the adaptives.

Julie Hanks [00:59:25] I'm curious, is the rise of the cultural Mormons a sign that we're maturing as a church to become more like Catholics or the Jewish faith, where it's, it's like I'm, you know, we, we haven't really had room for that. It seems like, well, maybe this is a sign of maturity that that's on the rise, like that we're making room for people to associate with us that aren't just the orthodox. Does that make sense?

Guest 2 [00:59:53] Yeah. I will say one other kind of interesting tidbit that is counterintuitive to. Well, I, I was surprised by the finding, but I validated it in another large data set as well is that these people who don't attend and, or the devout Mormons are more likely to be found in Utah and the cultural Mormons are more likely. These non, the lower practicing Mormons are more likely to be found outside, which is kind of an interesting nuance to this group.

Beau Oyler [01:00:28] Can we, can you read that? Super chat. Because I want to comment on that.

Discussing Membership Trends and Disaffiliation Data

John Dehlin [01:00:31] So John McClay, our big friend, our good friend John McClay, he's a legend. Former CES instructor slash director. John. Hey, John. If any of you want to make sure your comment or question gets read, please just send it as a super chat. The system flags those for us. But John writes, do you see Mormonism evolving into an ethno religious identity similar to Judaism, where affiliation persists without belief or practice? If so, how might that affect institutional authority? What a great question, Julie. I think that's kind of what you were, that's what I was pointing to.

Julie Hanks [01:01:06] Like, oh, is this a sign that we are moving more toward a cultural identity and which I think is positive, like room for, there's room for more people to be connected without being orthodox.

John Dehlin [01:01:19] Yeah, I think, John, great question. Thanks, John. And I think, yeah, this chart shows both. It shows that there's an increasing number of people who are identifying as Mormon but really aren't attending. Like so many Catholics and Jews that we know that have become more secularized. And, and then also there's a lot more people who are attending that don't really take it all too seriously. But, you know, they, they, they're cafeteria Mormons. They, they, they eat the stuff that they want to eat and they, they leave behind the stuff they don't want to mess with.

Guest 2 [01:01:52] Yeah, I think the main takeaway of the study is essentially that, you know, 20 years ago Mormonism looked more monolithic, and in recent years, it's just fracturing into different, more types of identities.

John Dehlin [01:02:11] And Alex, is it fair to say that secularization is a main, maybe broader cultural driver for these trends, or do you have something else?

Guest 2 [01:02:24] In my work there, there's a field of it or a portion of it that's specifically focused on causal relationships. So, like, we're not testing. I, I don't test whether, you know, the secularization is a cause of this or that. I, I can't really say anything like that, but I'm sure there are a lot of, I mean, that seems a, read like a reasonable theory and there are probably other reasonable theories too.

Guest [01:02:53] So.

Jana Spangler [01:02:53] So, Alex, I'm curious how what percentage of people fell outside these clusters like how, how much of the data actually fit into the clusters?

Guest 2 [01:03:03] So it is designed to have under it, it encapsulates everybody.

Jana Spangler [01:03:07] Okay.

Guest 2 [01:03:08] So every respondent who identified as Mormon is assigned to one of four clusters.

Jana Spangler [01:03:12] Okay.

Beau Oyler [01:03:13] And they're broad clusters. Like the lines are gray. 20 different categories that we could label different members of the church.

Guest 2 [01:03:22] Absolutely.

Jana Spangler [01:03:22] And I can think of a lot of people that don't fit well into it and people who honestly would have a hard time probably even asking, answering the questions the way they were asked. I find that a lot of times when I'm. I'm faced with these kinds of questionnaires is I look at all the options and I'm like, I'm not represented here at all.

John Dehlin [01:03:42] Yeah, for sure.

Beau Oyler [01:03:43] I think the dream survey too, like this is based off Pew and a little bit more, but it's like, that's just us. Right. So I think most. My dream survey would be like, let's, let's look at the US right at the core and let's do a 50,000 member panel and then let's go outside of the US and do 100,000 member panel and look at. And be able to compare and contrast inside us, outside of us, and areas where the church is growing. Like Africa. I would love to see a panel in Africa and what that looks like because it's so new.

Jana Spangler [01:04:13] Well, and I think the only institution that would have the ability to do a statistically valid, you know, survey, any of those things is the church themselves. And they're never going to be transparent with the results of those kinds.

John Dehlin [01:04:28] Yeah. I think Ben park in his video says that if he could have access to one set of documents, it would be the church's sociological research over the past.

Beau Oyler [01:04:38] That's fine. Keep the Urim and Thummim in there. I don't need to see. I don't need to see any of that. Just show me the data.

John Dehlin [01:04:45] William Clayton. The William Clayton diaries.

Guest 2 [01:04:48] That's right.

John Dehlin [01:04:48] All 50 minutes. We don't care.

Guest 2 [01:04:51] I mean, it, it honestly, I mean, that is. That's kind of my dream as well. I would love to have a massive survey where I can really dive into and really break down these groups. And it might be possible. It's just expensive.

John Dehlin [01:05:05] I don't think it's too expensive for the church. I just think they don't want that information out there.

Guest 2 [01:05:09] I was saying, for a researcher like me.

John Dehlin [01:05:11] Oh, right, right.

Julie Hanks [01:05:15] Let's do a gofundme for your research. Because I would donate.

John Dehlin [01:05:18] No, no, no. I, I think we probably could raise some money to do our own studies. We've done a little bit of that before. In fact, I, I, you know, we did our best to help Jana Reese get. Collect data for her books and anyway, if anyone wants to fund research out to me and we can work with Alex and Ryan Cragan and others to get some, some of our own studies done.

Beau Oyler [01:05:43] You know, it'd be amazing too. Based on the earlier discussion is like let's partner with Jacob and Word Radio and Restore and Faith Matters and, and the full spectrum of influencers to do a study across the entire spectrum of Mormonism.

John Dehlin [01:05:59] The problem with that is it's snowball. We don't want snowball, we want random.

Guest [01:06:02] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:06:03] So we've got to go through different. Yeah, we got to get Qualtrics or Amazon.

Guest 2 [01:06:08] You got to get a good panel and weight them to the proportions we know.

Beau Oyler [01:06:12] I mean, them inviting people into the panel is what I meant. Recruit recruiting. Right. So that it's not just the Mormon stories. People being recruited if you post it. But it's.

John Dehlin [01:06:20] No but all I'm saying is that's a snowball sample. When you get a bunch of people to recruit into the. Then it's not random.

Jana Spangler [01:06:25] But you could pull from all of those to get the money to then do the Qualtrics.

John Dehlin [01:06:29] Well, I'm guessing that the right donor could fund all of this, so.

Jana Spangler [01:06:33] Yeah.

Julie Hanks [01:06:33] So. Right.

John Dehlin [01:06:33] Alex, are you up for it?

Guest 2 [01:06:35] Yeah, I'm up for it.

Julie Hanks [01:06:37] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:06:38] I'm sure Ryan Cragan would be too. He'd be someone to help. What were you saying?

Julie Hanks [01:06:42] No, I was just going to say I, I will donate. I think that would just be so interesting and fascinating and helpful and.

John Dehlin [01:06:51] Okay, really quickly, I asked my friend Ryan Cragan, who I've had a Mormon stories before, he's a sociologist at University of Tampa, I think. But I'm like, where the freak are the ex Mormons here? And so he put together his best analysis of ex Mormons adding ex Mormons to this presentation. And I just think it's really important to make the point for those who are listening but can't hear that if we add ex Mormons to this group, ex Mormons make up a whopping 43% of, let's just say all the people in the US who have ever been baptized into the church. And, and they've grown from 31%, you know, let's just say, you know, 20ish years ago to 43%.

John Dehlin [01:07:42] So what, what is clearly growing, number one, is ex Mormons and Then if you add the ex Mormon group at 43% to the cultural Mormons who are at 14% in this chart, you've got 57% of all the U. S. People who have ever been baptized Mormon. You've got 50% of them who are no longer attending church. So let me just.

Guest 2 [01:08:12] So it is, it is, it is a little bit more complicated. So in the pre religious landscape survey, we don't. So the way that we're able to look at ex Mormons is there's a question asking if you were raised Mormon. And so that is what this 43% is from it. So it's among those who are raised Mormon, 43% no longer identify as Mormon.

John Dehlin [01:08:41] So the number's bigger. The number's bigger because what it doesn't include is people who converted and then probably soon thereafter disaffiliated.

Guest 2 [01:08:49] Right, exactly. So the, the total. Well, yeah, I mean, it just changes the population that you're looking at. So.

Beau Oyler [01:08:57] But it could be a big population if you're averaging 300,000 convert baptisms a year. And how many of those go in after that period of time in adulthood?

Guest 2 [01:09:06] That's the number we don't know. That's the number we don't know.

John Dehlin [01:09:10] Yeah. We generally know that attrition rates in the church are somewhere around 25 convert. Attrition rates somewhere between like 25% and less than 10%. If we're talking about developing countries or

Beau Oyler [01:09:24] Even in the U.S. i mean, I, I, maybe I just, I wasn't the best missionary, but I baptized a lot of people. Very, very few of those are still active. Very, very few of those people.

John Dehlin [01:09:37] So this will be under. So let me, let me tell. So tell me, Alex, if you think I'm wrong, back to this chart. It's under counting people who have left the, the church to say that.

Guest 2 [01:09:52] Well, it's just, well, I'm trying to say. It's just, it's just difficult to answer because right now. So in my clusters, I'm looking at everyone who identifies as Mormon. And so if you add up those four numbers up, it adds up to 100%. And the new data with the black line, which shows the people who have left is only among those who, who are, who grew up Mormon.

John Dehlin [01:10:18] No, I get it, but, but that means that that number should be bigger is the point I'm making, not smaller.

Guest 2 [01:10:24] In, in. If we're comparing all the groups together, we'd have to expand the audience and I think the black number would be smaller. But all the other numbers Would be smaller as well.

John Dehlin [01:10:37] Right? Well, I, I wonder.

Guest 2 [01:10:39] I would just have to recalculate. I just don't know what it would be.

John Dehlin [01:10:42] So, yeah, my guess is that the black number would be bigger because it doesn't capture the people who converted, but who immediately dropped off.

Jana Spangler [01:10:49] Well, I doubt it would. It would capture. I have loved ones who, if you ask them today, they would never identify as Mormon. This is not, it's not a reflection of who's been baptized. It's a reflection of who identifies as Mormon. And I think there are a lot of people who don't identify.

John Dehlin [01:11:04] Raised. Yeah, yeah.

Jana Spangler [01:11:06] That were raised Mormon. Don't identify it.

Beau Oyler [01:11:09] And on the flip side, someone like me who identifies as Mormon yet I only go to church a couple times a year to support a family member going on a mission or something along those lines.

Guest 2 [01:11:18] I do think that the main point is that the number of disaffiliated members is rising among those who were born in the church. That's the main takeaway, I'd say.

John Dehlin [01:11:27] And, but my point is, and is the overwhelming majority of, quote, Mormons, if we define Mormon broadly, meaning anyone who's ever been baptized Mormon, by far the largest percentage are those who no longer attend. So it's like researchers care most about the orthodox and the liberals and those who are still in, but when they focus on that, they're completely neglecting by far the largest group, which are the people that have become disaffected. We are the overwhelming majority, but we're also the least studied. Yeah. You disagree?

Guest 2 [01:12:08] Well, I just don't know. I think there just needs to be more research about it. I don't think we have good data to answer that question. I. I just don't know the answer.

John Dehlin [01:12:19] Okay, sure. Yeah.

Guest 2 [01:12:21] I just know that it's increasing.

John Dehlin [01:12:24] That's my hunch. So just a final slide for what I had Ryan Craigen put together. What you can see there is, is these ex Mormons growing from 31% to 43% between 2007 and 2024. You have orthodox Mormons shrinking from 43% down to 14%. You have adaptive believers or flexible cafeteria Mormons growing from 14% to 24%. You've got cultural Mormons kind of growing, but not at a higher, higher rate. That's people, again, who are culturally Mormon but don't attend. And then you've got the in betweeners. That still remains a very small group. Do you, do you like this slide or not, Alex?

Guest 2 [01:13:13] Yeah, no, I think, I mean, I don't know. I I am not Ryan Craigen. I didn't make that graph. So I don't, I don't like. I, it looks, it looks good to me. I think that disaffiliate is rising. And I think that the people who identify as Mormon, the, the identity is fracturing into different.

Guest 2 [01:13:33] It's less monolithic. The reason I didn't include ex Mormons in my study is because I just thought they, I don't know, maybe they, I just thought they might be too different in. On one hand. And plus, we weren't. We wouldn't be able to capture the converts who joined later in life but then chose to leave. And so the picture felt incomplete. So, which is why I just did people who identified as Mormon. And I honestly think there's a huge opportunity for more research to be done on people who disaffiliate, because a lot of all of my research that I do on my blog, it's based off of public surveys.

Guest 2 [01:14:10] And in so many different public surveys, they ask a religion question, what religion are you? But they never ask what was your former religion? So we have so much more information about Mormons than we do ex Mormons for that reason.

Jana Spangler [01:14:24] So what I'm hearing, Alex, is that this subset of data, because it's, it's, it's small, it's small. And is that this is more reliable to show trends than actual percentages.

Guest 2 [01:14:39] Exactly.

Jana Spangler [01:14:40] And we may not know exactly what, how these compare to each other fully, but we can kind of speak to trends because they also map against other data sets that are out there.

Guest 2 [01:14:51] Exactly. Yeah. The exact percentages are more suggestive than definitive. But are the trends that we see are reliable?

Benjamin Park's Reading of the Pew Data

John Dehlin [01:14:58] Okay, let's. I want to, I want to now turn to Ben Park's summary of his read of the Pew data and of Alex's study because I think it's really interesting. And Alex, you may need to run or, you know, stay with us for as long as you can. But here's Ben Park's summary. I recommend y' all watch his video. We'll include a link to it in the show notes and in the description. Go ahead.

Beau Oyler [01:15:24] So just in case Alex does need to run, because I think he, he joined us during his lunch break just in case. Can we just. First of all, thank you, Alex. Really helpful. Appreciate you coming on to Mormon stories and the Mormon bridge builders. And then what? Tell us once again, what are your feeds so that we can follow you?

Guest 2 [01:15:39] Yeah, I, I really appreciate you guys having me. I do have my full time job. I have to

Beau Oyler [01:15:45] not want meta mad at us.

Guest [01:15:46] Okay.

Beau Oyler [01:15:47] Let's just say.

Guest 2 [01:15:49] But yeah, I, I write on my sub stack more in metrics and on Instagram. So yeah. But yeah, thank you. I loved talking to everybody. So great to have you.

John Dehlin [01:15:59] Alex, thanks for joining us. Come back again. Will you come back again? Maybe?

Guest 2 [01:16:02] Yeah, absolutely. If you have more questions, let me know.

Beau Oyler [01:16:08] Mormon metrics.

John Dehlin [01:16:08] Mormon metrics.

Guest 2 [01:16:11] And I'll talk to you later. Thanks, Alex.

John Dehlin [01:16:15] Okay. All right, so here's Benjamin Park's summary. And then I just want us to kind of dissect this. So this is what Ben is saying is happening in the LDS Church, that number one, LDS are declining as a percentage of of people in the US So this is interesting. Like when I was growing up, I was taught that the stone will be cut out of the mountain without hands, that the church will grow to consume all nations. This is what Ben park is telling us. The data are saying is that Mormons, they're still in slight incline or increase just because of birth rates, but overall we're declining not just in the world, but we're declining in the United States as a percentage of the overall US Population. That's kind of shocking, isn't it?

Beau Oyler [01:17:07] Signs of the times.

John Dehlin [01:17:09] Yeah, it just means that Satan is working.

Beau Oyler [01:17:13] Yeah, that's what I would have believed.

Julie Hanks [01:17:14] We talked about it like, oh, it's just going to keep on this trend and you know, everybody's gonna. The whole world is going to become Mormon.

Jana Spangler [01:17:23] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:17:23] Yeah. But the United States is becoming less and less Mormon. We know that Western Europe is becoming less and less Mormon. We know that Asia, other than the Philippines, Asia is becoming less and less Mormon. And Latin America, I'm is probably still

Julie Hanks [01:17:41] growing, but Africa is where it's growing,

John Dehlin [01:17:44] but Africa is where the real growth rates are. Okay.

Beau Oyler [01:17:48] Which by the way, I'll plug that interview that you just did with the African brother last week.

John Dehlin [01:17:52] Joe.

Beau Oyler [01:17:52] Joe, phenomenal interview and great insight into what's happening in Africa and the church.

John Dehlin [01:17:58] Thank you. Yeah. Okay, so the next point is that LDs are becoming less educated. This was sad for me to read, but it also is is following larger trends in the United States that there is sort of this idea that going to university means the woke establishment polluting your minds with wokeism. And so or not, as the Paul brothers said when they came on Mormon stories, not enough juice for the squeeze to go to college. And so both in the United States broadly, but also in Mormonism specifically, Mormons are becoming less educated in the US Is that just so interesting?

Education, Gender, and Who Is Leaving the Church

Julie Hanks [01:18:48] And is it Wokeism or is it they're learning critical thinking skills and challenging some of the assumptions? Right.

John Dehlin [01:18:54] No, I'm just saying, like, when you think about Holland coming to BYU and giving his musket talk, that was in response to parents of orthodox Mormon kids saying, BYU is polluting the minds of our students. One of the things Ben park mentions is that enrollment in BYU universities is down.

Julie Hanks [01:19:14] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:19:15] Do you remember when, like, applications.

Julie Hanks [01:19:16] I think he said applications. Applications are down.

John Dehlin [01:19:19] Okay, sorry. Thank you for correcting me. Applications to the BYU's are dead. Do you guys remember when, like, it was so hard to get into byu?

Jana Spangler [01:19:25] Yes.

Guest 2 [01:19:26] So hard.

John Dehlin [01:19:27] It was consistently rated at a top 12, top 25 university in the country, or top 50, or whatever less Mormons are applying to BYU. What is that? Is that. Is that kind of conservative, orthodox Mormon parents saying, I don't want my kids to be corrupted at byu, or is it just more orthodox Mormon youth saying they don't need education?

Julie Hanks [01:19:54] Or the rise of the decline of orthodoxy and the rise of the other groups? Right. It's like, well, you could go in. Why go to byu? You know, it's not.

Beau Oyler [01:20:05] There used to be fear around it. In the mid-90s, when I was prepping for college, there was fear if you don't go to a church school or if you don't go to Utah, you're going to fall away, you're going to make mistakes, you'll be in the wrong crowd, you're not going to have.

Julie Hanks [01:20:15] You won't find a Mormon spouse. Yeah, that was the big feeling in the 80s.

Beau Oyler [01:20:20] Yep. Absolutely. And so now I just don't think there's as much of that fear. Like, we have friends whose kids are going all over. My son is at University of Hawaii right now, and that's okay now, whereas before there was a fear factor.

Jana Spangler [01:20:34] And yet it's still way more affordable if you're lds, to go to BYU to get that level of education than other places.

John Dehlin [01:20:41] But it makes sense that if, if active Mormon is. Well, if people are leaving the Mormon Church in droves, which we know is true, and if active, devout orthodox Mormonism is in decline, then for those two reasons alone, a lot less people are going to apply. Like, my kids certainly aren't applying to BYU or attending byu.

Beau Oyler [01:21:01] Yeah, my kids aren't. There's no way. It wouldn't. It wouldn't be a healthy environment for my kids any.

John Dehlin [01:21:06] And Jan, I don't think your kids are applying to byu.

Julie Hanks [01:21:11] And Julie, none of my kids have gone to BYU either.

John Dehlin [01:21:13] Isn't that mind blowing?

Beau Oyler [01:21:14] And half your kids are still active.

Julie Hanks [01:21:15] Right, right, right. But they didn't all go to college. So let's just be honest. It's not just that.

Guest 2 [01:21:21] So.

Jana Spangler [01:21:22] Well, and I also want to say that, you know, Ben park also said that Mormons are still more educated than the average. So it is in decline. And yet we're still a more educated group.

John Dehlin [01:21:36] Yeah. Yeah. All right. The next thing that was kind of shocking, but we learned this in this controversy in the past year that for the first time, LDs identifying people are more likely to identify as male than as female. So religion, broadly in the US but also in the United States, women outnumbered men. And for the first time in this study, men outnumbered women. Huge in LDS church membership.

Julie Hanks [01:22:12] Just at the pulpit, but in the pews. Like, that's a huge shift.

Jana Spangler [01:22:16] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:22:17] What does that mean, women?

Julie Hanks [01:22:19] It means churches are the only place that women are told they can't do something because they're a woman. And women are like, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:22:25] Now say it's my opinion that. Or I feel that. Well, just for. No, I think for Maddie. For Maddie.

Julie Hanks [01:22:35] Okay, sorry, Maddie.

John Dehlin [01:22:36] And people like Maddie.

Julie Hanks [01:22:38] My opinion is, in my experience. Well, but can you name another place in the US where women are another organization other than religious organization? Like, I mean, challenge me.

John Dehlin [01:22:53] It's gotta be a part of it.

Julie Hanks [01:22:54] Are there other places where women are told they can't do something? You can't be a CEO because you're a woman. Like, that wouldn't fly in many organizations.

Jana Spangler [01:23:05] I agree with that. I think it skews that way. And I think this is a bigger deal for younger. The younger generation. I think the younger generation is a big part of this trend.

Julie Hanks [01:23:15] Oh, yeah, I agree.

John Dehlin [01:23:17] So, yeah. Can we think about any other possible explanations about why women are leaving the church at faster rates than men? Young women are leaving the church at best rates than men, other than patriarchy. Like, is it cultural influences as well? Just like, I don't know, help me

Beau Oyler [01:23:36] education, work, desire to gender roles, push, you know, to have kids later.

John Dehlin [01:23:41] You know what women are more likely. Are women more likely, young women more likely to be politically liberal?

Jana Spangler [01:23:47] Yes.

Guest 2 [01:23:48] Okay.

Jana Spangler [01:23:48] The trend.

John Dehlin [01:23:49] So that's one thing.

Julie Hanks [01:23:50] Rigid gender roles that are. Are put forward in the church do not work for younger generations. It's like, well, of course I'm going to have a career, and of course I'm going to go to college. Like, having limitations. I think young women are like, don't limit me. Yeah.

Jana Spangler [01:24:07] And I just think, again, people who don't fit the mold, divorced women, single women, child Free. Yeah. They have a harder time finding themselves

Beau Oyler [01:24:15] in this and then the environment that they go into. I remember learning from the YSA panel that we did last year and listening to their, to their stories and what their lived experience in their singles wards were or are, and the dynamic between the men that are in the church that are active and the women that are in the church. And, and by far, they're saying women are far more progressive or liberal leaning Right. And more feminist. And then there's this whole like alpha male thing that's happening outside of the church, obviously. But it's this, it's this retrenchment to conservative. Conservative family, conservative lifestyle, conservative politics. You've got the alphas. And they talked about even like their dating posts or their dating pictures. They're all hunting or they're fish.

Julie Hanks [01:24:59] I'll tell you. They all have fish, right?

Guest [01:25:01] Yeah.

Beau Oyler [01:25:02] Tell us about this.

Julie Hanks [01:25:02] What is this? Like, I have a collection of pictures of potential people that I thought I've seen on dating apps that are holding big fish.

John Dehlin [01:25:10] They're appealing to your, your primitive self.

Julie Hanks [01:25:13] I want a man with. I can bring a big fish home. That's what I'm looking for.

John Dehlin [01:25:18] Hunter gatherers.

Beau Oyler [01:25:19] That's right.

John Dehlin [01:25:21] Your prehistoric self. Julie wants a hunter gatherer.

Julie Hanks [01:25:23] Bikers. They're all cyclists. Yeah, cyclists and fishermen.

Beau Oyler [01:25:28] So there is something about that though, is that the people that it fit fits really well for our more conservative leaving leaning, this kind of alpha male, this like hunter, you know, they're the people that are really like, I'm invested in the church. And that's just a huge disconnect from what I learned from the YSA panel.

Julie Hanks [01:25:47] Makes sense.

John Dehlin [01:25:49] I mean, is it the, the, the influencer that was, that was shot at uvu. What's his name?

Julie Hanks [01:25:56] Charlie Kirk.

John Dehlin [01:25:57] Charlie Kirk. Is it like the Charlie Kirk,

Julie Hanks [01:26:02] you

John Dehlin [01:26:02] know, who are the male influencers? YouTubers, podcasters? Joe Rogan.

Beau Oyler [01:26:06] It's the Rogan Shapiro. Yeah.

Julie Hanks [01:26:10] Conservative values are. Work better in general for men than for women. They're more limiting to women.

Beau Oyler [01:26:16] Yeah, of course.

Julie Hanks [01:26:17] And so I think that's a huge factor.

Beau Oyler [01:26:19] Yeah. So do you want to have a good example of that? Great. Jacob Hansen. Great example of that. The brothers that you had on the show.

John Dehlin [01:26:25] The Paul brothers.

Beau Oyler [01:26:25] The Paul brothers. Perfect example. Do you want it like the description of, of the, of the young single adult women who were on the panel at Mormon Stories last year described the Paul brothers. This is who's in the church if you want to date them and be with these types of men. Wonderful. It's limitless in the church. And that's why the church is thrive or men of that mindset are thriving within the church.

Mormon Political Trends: Republicans, Trump, and Rogan

John Dehlin [01:26:50] I mean, that's interesting If. If the leaders of tomorrow in the church are. Are sort of influenced heavily by the Rogans, the Joe Rogan sphere. I mean, that's interesting, right?

Julie Hanks [01:27:06] What.

John Dehlin [01:27:07] What that says for the church in the long run.

Beau Oyler [01:27:11] Well, I think that they are. And boots on the ground, the men are being influenced by the. The alpha thing that's going on. I don't actually think that the church likes that. I think that the church headquarters. I don't know that President Oaks is aware of it, but I don't know that the 12 and the 15 are liking this very extreme male thing that's going on in the church. Like. Like the Paul brothers. I don't know that they're thrilled about it. I really don't. It's very extreme, very polarizing.

John Dehlin [01:27:42] It's not like Mormon tends to like Mormonism historically, I feel like, has tend to made their men. I don't want to say soft in a bad way. I want to say soft in a. In a good way.

Julie Hanks [01:27:53] Focused on serving other people and taking care of your family and. And yes, service is a big focus in the church, which I think is really a positive. Right. Like I. The men in my family have benefited from being taught to be mindful of other people and to have callings and to.

John Dehlin [01:28:12] And.

Julie Hanks [01:28:13] And those kind of things.

Beau Oyler [01:28:14] And within the Rogan sphere, that is called beta males and alpha versus beta, Alpha versus beta. And so.

Julie Hanks [01:28:22] So you're saying the church is creating beta males?

John Dehlin [01:28:24] It used to.

Beau Oyler [01:28:25] Used to. So I think a lot of the people our age and older are this. It's like this very, like almost artificial sometimes, but this very like passive nice guy.

Julie Hanks [01:28:35] They're the nice guy.

Beau Oyler [01:28:37] Yeah, right, exactly. So you have a lot of nice guys. And then the younger generation is like f. That we're men and women, conservative women who are like, we need you to be men. Stand up and be men. And that's what the church is full of.

Jana Spangler [01:28:53] Not.

Beau Oyler [01:28:53] Not totally, but a lot of.

John Dehlin [01:28:55] And isn't that kind of what trad wives is about?

Julie Hanks [01:28:58] Take care, take care of me.

John Dehlin [01:29:00] I want a strong man who will provide and be a confident masculine leader of our home and protect us.

Beau Oyler [01:29:06] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:29:07] And then I want to stay home, nurture the kids, cook, look beautiful, that sort of thing?

Beau Oyler [01:29:14] Yes.

Julie Hanks [01:29:14] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:29:15] Interesting.

Guest 2 [01:29:15] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:29:16] And this is much broader than Mormonism, but it's certainly.

Jana Spangler [01:29:18] Oh yeah, absolutely.

Beau Oyler [01:29:20] Yeah.

Julie Hanks [01:29:20] Certainly broader trends, for sure.

Guest [01:29:23] Yeah.

Jana Spangler [01:29:23] And I think it's more pronounced outside of Mormonism. Mormonism is following this, but I think it's even more pronounced in wider Christian circles.

Beau Oyler [01:29:32] Yes.

Jana Spangler [01:29:33] Because Ben park mentioned that this was in the. Within the margin of error. So we can't even state say definitively that there are more men than women. But it, it's definitely trending that way.

Beau Oyler [01:29:43] Yeah, for sure. And, and I'm not saying that it's all men in the church at all like that. You could never say it's all or nothing within the membership. The church is huge diversity. It's just a trend that we're seeing both in the data but as well as the influencers and the vocals and then, you know, and then expanding that outside of the church into, you know, the Christian and Christian nationalism and conservative and Rogan sphere and that whole world. Yeah, it dovetails really well into Mormonism. Let me just say that it just does.

John Dehlin [01:30:19] It looks like Patrick may be trying to join us. Check your text Bo, while I emailed and texted him the link.

Guest 2 [01:30:26] Great.

Beau Oyler [01:30:26] He's going to join us in about 30 minutes.

John Dehlin [01:30:28] Okay. So y' all don't go away. Patrick Mason will be hopefully joining us as well. Let's go on to the next bullet point in Ben Park's summary. LDs are the highest Republican group. Now that's kind of, I don't know, like not shocking shocking like highest. So like Catholics, Protestants, like evangelicals. And I know that Ben park said that if you tease out white evangelicals then that will exceed meat or exceed Mormons. But like if you just take religious groups, Mormons are the most Republican of all groups. And again, don't worry, Republicans are conservatives. I'm not saying that's good or bad. I'm just saying that's a. Wow. Interesting that in the United States, apparently the most Trump Republican supporting religious group is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Am I reading that wrong?

Julie Hanks [01:31:27] That makes sense to me with the teachings from the Book of Mormon about the US being the chosen land and liberty and. Right. Like it, it reinforces what conservatives, I mean in a lot of ways conservatives

John Dehlin [01:31:41] and Moroni and his general and military strength.

Guest 2 [01:31:45] Yeah.

Julie Hanks [01:31:45] So it makes a lot of sense to me given the teachings of the church.

Jana Spangler [01:31:49] Yeah, absolutely. And, and just the teachings of our generation growing up, you know, the Ezra Taft, Benson's and other people cast a really long shadow and really, really dovetailed those things together. Being Mormon and being Republican. I know when I again, in my conservative household I was raised in, I was very bewildered at a certain point of my life as to how someone could be a Democrat and be a good Mormon. I mean, that was, that was alive in what I was raised in and how I myself thought. So I think that takes a long time to shift and it is shifting. It's going down.

Beau Oyler [01:32:28] Yeah.

Jana Spangler [01:32:28] Over time.

Beau Oyler [01:32:29] It is in the direct quote, Janice, you cannot be a good Mormon and be a Democrat. They're incompatible from a prophet, seer and revelation. Who's that, Benson? So when the prophet, seer and revelator teaches us that, it's like, whoa, I know my former self would have said, whoa, I need to recalibrate how I think and who I vote for. If a prophet is saying that, I need to recalibrate my own thoughts here.

Julie Hanks [01:32:56] Yeah.

Beau Oyler [01:32:57] My own stance. So we're seeing the long shadow of that generation.

Jana Spangler [01:33:01] 100.

John Dehlin [01:33:02] Yeah. So hot tamale is asking me why would it be surprising that in 2025 or 2024, Mormons attending Mormons would be the highest Republican slash Trump supporting group of all religious groups? Here's why. If I were to go back to my early 1990s BYU student, Political Science major, or recent BYU grad and you were to say, and please don't misunderstand what I'm about to say as being partisan or being a Trump hater, I'm just going to try and describe this descriptively as possible for the sake of explaining why this is surprising to me. Like if you think about when Bill Clinton had his affair with Monica Lewinsky, there was just this Mormon outrage that was like he had oral sex in the Oval Office.

John Dehlin [01:33:55] I could never vote for such a reprobate, such an immoral man. Right. Like my 1993 BYU graduate Political Science sort of moral sensibilities would just say, if you came to me then and said there's going to be a guy running for president who has, you know, multiple allegations of sexual abuse of women, of groping women, of raping or assaulting women. And again, I'm not saying they're true. I'm just saying they're allegations.

John Dehlin [01:34:26] Where he swears he drops F bombs in press conferences, he uses really harsh language, borders on, you know, is anti, seems to be anti immigrant or comes across as very anti immigrant, anti immigration. You guys help me here.

Beau Oyler [01:34:46] Like very close friends with Epstein. Well, yeah, it was very of his circles.

John Dehlin [01:34:50] Super close friends with a known convicted sex trafficker, felon of sex trafficking slash pedophilia, child abuse. What, what would be the chances of that person being the, you know, being the. Of Mormons being the group that backs that candidate the most.

Beau Oyler [01:35:11] Zero.

John Dehlin [01:35:12] My night, my 1993 self who was a Republican.

Guest 2 [01:35:15] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:35:16] Would have said, oh, well, the Utah would turn blue.

Beau Oyler [01:35:19] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:35:19] Utah would turn Democrat because the Mormon people would never accept a candidate like that.

Julie Hanks [01:35:24] Yeah.

Jana Spangler [01:35:24] Well, I think a lot of Mormon Republicans are in a pickle with Trump. I, I wouldn't say that them being Republican automatically means that they do support this candidate because I know a lot of Republicans who are not happy.

Julie Hanks [01:35:38] Yeah.

Jana Spangler [01:35:39] And, and, and the divide is still big enough in their mind that they can't jump to Democrat for that, you know, and, and I think there's been a shift. In 2016, Utah voted for Evan McMullen, not Trump.

John Dehlin [01:35:52] Right, right. Because they had, they had another option.

Jana Spangler [01:35:55] They had another option, but over 1. And a lot of those people have, have, have shifted over the intervening years. So it's been an interesting shift. But I also think there, there are a lot of people who are not happy with their choices but just can't quite make themselves go to the blue side.

Julie Hanks [01:36:12] And I've heard, well, you don't vote for the person, you vote for the policy. And I'm like, yes, or you vote for the person and. Or vote against the person.

Jana Spangler [01:36:19] Absolutely. I think a lot of people are holding their nose.

Julie Hanks [01:36:21] Right.

John Dehlin [01:36:22] Yeah. No, A lot of my, my Republican voting family members say, I detest Trump, I hate him, but Biden's worse, Kamala's

Julie Hanks [01:36:31] worse, and I like his policies.

Jana Spangler [01:36:33] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:36:33] And Democrats will ruin the country. So it's not that I'm voting for Trump. I'm voting for Republican policies or to shake things up. And they believe Trump will shake things up. So I'm not trying to say that Mormons love voting for Trump, but it

Julie Hanks [01:36:50] is interesting that how much they're willing to overlook in a person's personal life.

Jana Spangler [01:36:55] Yes. Yes.

John Dehlin [01:36:57] That's why it's surprising.

Julie Hanks [01:36:58] Yeah, that makes sense.

John Dehlin [01:36:59] Yeah. Okay. The next observation from Ben park is that LDs are becoming more secular and less religiously observant. That's just the rise of the nones N o N E s. We've been following that for a couple decades. Are y' all surprised at that at all? I mean, yeah, that's. That's pretty obvious. Okay, the next one is LDS are changing their views that homosexuality should be accepted. Now, this is interesting. This is sort of a counter trend, I think, that Ben park notices is even as, you know, LDS church members remain very Republican, you know, and, you know, in many other ways are trending along with the broader United States populations. 50% of LDs identifying people are now supporting of homosexuality. Like, I guess that's dangerous.

Shifting LDS Attitudes on LGBTQ Issues and Immigration

Julie Hanks [01:38:01] Well, and I'm thinking about the media portrayal in the 90s. There were. There. I don't recall any LGBTQ characters in main films or tv. And now it's. It's. It's. So I just think it's more widely accepted in the broader culture and that

Jana Spangler [01:38:18] we're just following suit and more people are coming out. So more people know people personally. That changes everything when you actually know somebody.

Beau Oyler [01:38:26] That's what I mean by empathy. We all have, like, actual, you know, experience now versus just trusting or having no context for it whatsoever. And then the brethren have also changed their. Their teachings. So in the 70s, 80s, 90s, when we grew, it was very on the nose, very specific, very clear choice.

Julie Hanks [01:38:44] You can choose to not be it. You know, it's. No one's born that way.

Beau Oyler [01:38:49] Yep.

Julie Hanks [01:38:49] Yeah.

Beau Oyler [01:38:50] And now it's. You don't really hear that anymore at all other than, like, maybe Bednar 10 years ago saying that, you know, there's no such thing as a homosexual member of the church. But, like, really, in the last decade, it's all just. Family proclamation is our dog whistle for that. It's like family proclamation.

Julie Hanks [01:39:06] Right.

Beau Oyler [01:39:06] Wink, wink.

Julie Hanks [01:39:07] We don't talk.

Beau Oyler [01:39:07] You know what that means?

Julie Hanks [01:39:08] Homosexuality. But we talk about what's not homosexual.

Beau Oyler [01:39:12] Correct. Right. And then the millions and millions and millions going toward amicus briefs and campaigning in D.C. and all of the silent work with Kurt McConkey that's going on. That's not talked about.

Julie Hanks [01:39:21] Prop 8.

Jana Spangler [01:39:23] Yeah. And it's more of a narrative of the identity. Your identity as a child of God. We don't even want to define this or talk about it. It's kind of an effort to just say, let's just not even talk about it.

Julie Hanks [01:39:34] But I think Prop 8 was. Some orthodox members saw it as such a fiasco, and it created so many problems that I think that was a turning point where people are like, you know what? Maybe we got this wrong.

Beau Oyler [01:39:49] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:39:50] But the. But the. The exclusion policy, like.

Julie Hanks [01:39:53] Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure.

Beau Oyler [01:39:55] I think so. Okay, let me apply on this real quick. So I was one of these people in California on the street corner in the rain, holding signs with cars honking and screaming at us and literally going door to door, doing the phone thing. Like, I did all of that. And when it ended, I was empty inside.

Beau Oyler [01:40:18] I knew that I had done the wrong thing by following the prophet. And the prophet will say, oh. The church will say, well, the prophet didn't ask that oh, no. What would happen in California, at least in my stake, is that we would. We would have a special announcement after church. After the third hour, everybody stay for a special message from the brethren. And then they would roll a video after church, after church hours. It wasn't actually official and it would be general authorities teaching us exactly like full on fear mongering and exactly what to say and do. And then the assignments came out of what we needed to do.

Beau Oyler [01:40:52] And it was because of Prop 8 and me doing that and me following the prophet, then feeling that emptiness inside, knowing that it was wrong, that by the time 2015 came around a few years later, it was like, oh, no, I've seen this movie before. This one's even worse and I do not support it. I think a lot of members had that experience.

Jana Spangler [01:41:11] Yep.

Julie Hanks [01:41:12] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:41:13] I also know wealthy members who were approached by their stake president to say, we need you to donate five to six to seven digit sums to support Prop 8.

Beau Oyler [01:41:25] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:41:26] And that was a turning point where for the first time they said, I can't give to that, or they gave to it and then really felt dirty and gross. And from that point on, and I think again, that's why we see these trend lines, if we go back to the slide of devout traditionalists just tank after 2014, 2015, it's got to be the LGBT stuff. That at least is a big part of that. But that goes back to my main point, back to Ben park slides.

John Dehlin [01:41:59] If 50% of LDs are now pro homosexuality, and we should clarify, pro homosexuality does not mean pro transgender, I think has still behind lower levels of support than same sex sexuality. I think they're even gay and lesbian people who aren't necessarily super big fans of trans stuff. There's probably more overlap there, but maybe a less support anyway. What does it mean for the church to now know that 50 of its membership are for homosexuality? That was over.

Beau Oyler [01:42:33] 50 was over.

John Dehlin [01:42:35] I think it's right. Right at 50.

Beau Oyler [01:42:37] Right at 50. Okay.

John Dehlin [01:42:38] So, yeah. What is like? Is that a ticking time bomb? Does that continue to be a ticking time bomb for the church?

Julie Hanks [01:42:44] Yeah, I. Yeah, that the church will have to. I mean, has and will continue to shift. It has to.

Beau Oyler [01:42:51] Yeah.

Julie Hanks [01:42:52] Because the members, the leaders will be the ones that grow up in that, you know, a lot of them will, will be more accepting and that'll change.

Jana Spangler [01:43:01] Absolutely. And it's. There's a fundamental contradiction when so much of the messaging is about the family, is about the benefits of, you know, being in a family. And, and it just gets really Hard to hold those values so dear and then to deny people the ability to create that for themselves. It's, it, it hits something very deep within our own theology and, and culture.

Julie Hanks [01:43:31] And we have roots in alternative forms of marriage in the early church. And so it's kind of hypocritical to kind of say this is, this is okay or was okay, but this isn't. And it just, it has to change.

John Dehlin [01:43:46] But, but what's rough is if we go back to, you know, trying to do bridge building and understanding all sides. If you do talk to the Jacob Hansen's of the world, where the Greg Matson of the world, they are, they, you know, accommodations that the LDS church might make to gay and lesbian members makes them angry and makes them question whether the church is either going into apostasy or isn't true.

Julie Hanks [01:44:13] And we could be wrong, the church may, may not move on that. You know, like, we can think different things about it and.

Beau Oyler [01:44:19] Yeah, well, they're excommunicating less. And Charlie Bird and his husband are totally active with callings.

John Dehlin [01:44:25] As far as we know. As far as we know.

Beau Oyler [01:44:27] As far as they telegraph.

Guest 2 [01:44:29] Yeah.

Beau Oyler [01:44:29] I mean, they're the ones telling the story. They're the ones filming themselves going to church and happy and being loved.

John Dehlin [01:44:35] But if I'm the church, I'm like, let's allow there to be a few of those people to broadcast the image that we're not bigots and we don't hate gay people. But then if local leaders need to do what they need to do, excommunicate people so that local wards aren't uncomfortable, they. They have the freedom to do that.

Beau Oyler [01:44:56] That's true. I mean, there was a call from, and training from Elder Oaks to stake presidents and bishops last year that called for more excommunications.

Jana Spangler [01:45:02] Yes.

Beau Oyler [01:45:04] So that may, that may be the case. I know. I. So I was having a conversation with a very close friend who's completely devout, totally active, and, and we were having just a very vulnerable conversation. I asked him, is there anything for you that you would leave the church over? And he said, yeah, absolutely. One thing. I was like, shocked, first of all. And I said, what was it? Or what is it? And he said, if the church changes its stance on gay people and gay marriage and they fully accept it, I would know then and there that they were never prophets.

Guest [01:45:37] Wow.

Julie Hanks [01:45:39] Huge.

Beau Oyler [01:45:39] And he's like. And he's like, just to clarify, Bo, I'm okay with gay marriage. Like, I really am okay with it. It's not being okay with it or not being okay with, it's that I would know that they pounded that for my entire life and that they were wrong. And I said, well, what about blacks in the priesthood? And he said, I wasn't in my life.

John Dehlin [01:46:01] Yeah, yeah. Oh, it's all personal. Julie's asking us to show this slide about support for, quote, homosexuality. And you can see that devout traditionalists or Orthodox members, 87% of them do not think, you know, think homosexuality should be discouraged. That's a big number.

Beau Oyler [01:46:25] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:46:26] And then these adaptive believers, kind of these, you know, progressive Mormons or questioning Mormons or open minded Mormons, again, over 50% of them are affirming of homosexuality or same sex relationships. The in betweeners are overwhelmingly supportive of homosexuality. And then of course, the culture, Mormons who are no longer attending are over 60% supportive of homosexuality.

Jana Spangler [01:46:53] And I suspect a lot of this is a reflection of, I'm going to guess that orthodox group is much more black and white in their thinking. And I think to be able to hold a, a belief in the church and being part of the church and also affirming homosexuality requires a different type of thinking. It requires an ability to do a both. And you're not going to be an adaptive believer unless you have some of those skills. So some of it is just how people think.

John Dehlin [01:47:21] Yeah, yeah, we do have a super chat. Anytime someone makes a comment with a super chat, I want to make sure and share it. So Alex Scott, who joined as a YouTube member, thanks, Alex, for the support. He writes, I assume it's a he. It could be she. How can we have conversation with orthodox members who hear these points and claim up and down, quote, God's church will never change? I mean, I know that, I know what I would say, but I'll let y' all go first. Jenna, God's church will never change.

Jana Spangler [01:48:00] Yeah, well, I don't know. I mean there's, there's the argument that, that it has changed. You know, things change. This is why we have continuing revelation. But I, again, if I'm putting on my bridge builder hat, I don't know that getting into are we right about who's right about it is the way to go. So it's, you know, tell me about that. Tell me what would it mean to you? Yeah, what would, what would that mean? How would you deal with that? You know, having those kinds of conversations are going to be more fruitful.

Guest 2 [01:48:31] Yeah.

Jana Spangler [01:48:32] You may not come to an agreed upon answer, but it's, it's maybe a better way to understand one another and

Julie Hanks [01:48:39] Consensus isn't the goal in bridge building.

Jana Spangler [01:48:42] Right, Exactly.

Julie Hanks [01:48:44] But it's. We so often want. It's like, no, agree with me. Agree with me. Like, we have to think the same things. And, and that's differentiation is like, oh, you can think something entirely different and we can still, still stay connected.

Jana Spangler [01:48:56] And, and, and how do we build Zion in a way that you can be well and I can be well, and the people we care about can be well? That. I think that's a question that more of us can get behind. So let's have that discussion rather than who's right about whether it'll ever change because we don't know anyway.

Julie Hanks [01:49:15] I would just say, well, yeah, let's wait and see. This will be a great adventure.

Jana Spangler [01:49:19] Absolutely. And what do we do either way? How do we support one another to be well, regardless of what happens with the policy?

John Dehlin [01:49:28] Nice bridge building, y'. All.

Julie Hanks [01:49:30] We're learning.

John Dehlin [01:49:33] Alex responded. I love that. Thank you, Jana. So, Jana, Alex, liked your. Liked your response. Okay, a couple more points from Ben Park. One is that LDs are becoming more racially diverse even though they still lag behind the American average. You know, the only thing I would say there is. Yeah. As less and less educated people are willing to convert to Mormonism, missionaries are going to target people of color, people of lower socioeconomic status, immigrants, etc. And so you're gonna. And more and more white people raised in the church are going to be leaving it in the US So the church is going to become more racially diverse in the US and the farther

Julie Hanks [01:50:20] we get away from the, the blacks in the priesthood shift. Right. A lot of people that. That wasn't even in their lifetime.

Jana Spangler [01:50:28] Yeah.

Julie Hanks [01:50:28] And so it's like. Oh, let's. I think it, it's just. That's a little bit farther behind us, and I think that makes a difference.

Jana Spangler [01:50:36] Yeah, absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:50:38] Okay. And then the next point is that LDs are more positive toward immigration. That's politically interesting because even though LDS Church members are the most likely to vote Republican, they're also, they're, they're also more positive towards immigration than the average, I don't know, U. S. Person.

Julie Hanks [01:51:04] I think that.

Jana Spangler [01:51:04] Absolutely.

Julie Hanks [01:51:05] I think part of that is doctrinal because in the church, we're taught that everybody's our brother and sister and, and there's this sense of our family extends throughout the world. And so I think that that doctrine plays into it well.

Jana Spangler [01:51:21] And there was the Utah Compact. Is that what it was called in the late aughts, I guess that the church came out in support of. And it was a focus on, on keeping families together because again that, that family being important is a big deal. And I think we do have a kinder view of people coming to the US and you know, we want people to have opportunity and we want people to be well in that way. And I think it's, it's. That's causing a rift among conservatives as well because this anti immigrant stance is growing and wasn't as alive then. But even then I was a Republican delegate in 2008 and 2010 that recently.

Jana Spangler [01:52:09] Yes. And the Utah Compact was discussed at one of those conventions and the overwhelming number of delegates there sided with anti immigration. They were very upset with the Utah Compact even then. So there's a faction of the delegates are an extreme example of whatever. I learned that being a delegate that they're, they have extreme views. But I was kind of shocked because there were so many people who were so devoutly LDS in that room and absolutely upset with the Utah Compact and upset with the leaders and that that was my first indication which has only grown that for a lot of people, their politics leads their religion and not the other way around. Interesting.

John Dehlin [01:52:53] Yeah. It's almost like politics in some ways. And I'll say left and right.

Jana Spangler [01:52:57] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:52:58] Has become the new religion.

Jana Spangler [01:53:00] Correct.

John Dehlin [01:53:01] People feel more religious about their politics than they do about their religion.

Julie Hanks [01:53:06] Interesting.

John Dehlin [01:53:06] Is that fair?

Beau Oyler [01:53:07] Yeah, I think it's super fair.

John Dehlin [01:53:08] I've heard that about the left and the right really quickly. The last bullet point that Ben park highlighted was that young LDs are becoming more adaptive to. They drink coffee more, they wear garments more. They aren't serving missions. They're not attending church as regularly. I would add they're more likely to be into cannabis or psychedelics. They're more likely to be probably having tattoos and piercings like the young people are just not totally having it.

Beau Oyler [01:53:44] I would say one more thing to add that.

Julie Hanks [01:53:45] Were you, were you concerned at all

Guest 2 [01:53:47] about the negative background community?

Beau Oyler [01:53:51] Just that they, they younger folks. It's also not just that they're doing things like coffee and, and tattoos or whatever.

Guest 2 [01:53:58] Right.

Beau Oyler [01:53:58] It's not just that. It's also that they're expanding their spirituality. So the idea that they've grown up with is maybe that this isn't the one and only true church and the one and only way to exercise your spirituality. And so I think there's an expansion of spirituality that's happening there as well.

Jana Spangler [01:54:12] And pluralism. Pluralism is much more important to the younger group. They. They do not like being. I don't know, not having wide acceptance for different ways of being.

Julie Hanks [01:54:24] Yeah. And I think the drinking, tattoos, coffee used to be seen as a sign of rebellion. And the younger generation doesn't see. They're just. It's about taking like, I'm making my own decisions. And let me not. I'm rebelling against the church.

Guest [01:54:38] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:54:38] And let me play this clip from one of the secret lies of Mormon Wives characters, Macy Neely, because I think it illustrates this point. And then Patrick's joined us, so we

Julie Hanks [01:54:48] gotta add Patrick, were you concerned at

Guest 2 [01:54:50] all about the negative backlash from the

Jana Spangler [01:54:52] Mormon community with the show or your now your book? It was actually kind of hard for me in the beginning because I'm like all those people who are saying, you're not Mormon enough, you're not Mormon. Like, that's not what Mormons do. And it was, like, kind of frustrating because I'm like, well, I am active in the church and I actually teach children in the church. So it was a little frustrating. And it like, I didn't like the judgmental culture coming back out. At one point in the book, you say, over the years, I've become more of a feminist. And in the corporate world, someone is always determining my worth, and I resent it.

Guest 2 [01:55:21] Yeah.

Jana Spangler [01:55:21] Are you allowed to be a Mormon feminist, do you think? I mean, I'm. I am. So. I think, yeah, I guess so.

Julie Hanks [01:55:28] Yeah.

Jana Spangler [01:55:28] If anyone says otherwise like, that, that's their problem. Like, I have to live my life and do me. And that's just what it is. And that's my perspective on everything now is like, I'm living my life, I'm doing my best. I am a good person. And

John Dehlin [01:55:41] all right, well, that's, you know, what'd y' all think? Any quick takes before we go to Patrick?

Julie Hanks [01:55:48] It's representative of younger generations. It's just like, well, I'm just doing me. You do you, I'll do me. And this is what I'm choosing. And. And there's not guilt and shame associated with it. It's like, it's not like, oh, I drink or I had coffee. It's like, yeah, I drink. I. And I teach the primary.

John Dehlin [01:56:06] Isn't it wild that we have two secret lives of Mormon lives on Dancing with the Stars? That's not to mention the Huff siblings. What are their names? Julianne Julia and Derek Hough.

Jana Spangler [01:56:18] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:56:19] Like, Mormons are so represented.

Julie Hanks [01:56:21] And the new bachelorette is Taylor Frankie Paul. Secret lives.

John Dehlin [01:56:24] Yes. And a lot of them are still identify as LDs. They still attend at some level, still believe at some level, and they're all very unorthodox. I think we would all probably say very different than how we grew up. Yeah, for sure.

Beau Oyler [01:56:39] Yeah.

Patrick Mason Joins to Discuss Disaffiliation and Belonging

John Dehlin [01:56:40] All right. Well, we are so thrilled to have a Professor Patrick Mason from Goaggies Utah State University joining us on our little Peace Mormon Peacemakers Slash Build Bridge Building podcast. Patrick, how does it sound to have people have to have ex Mormon or liberal Mormon podcasters proclaiming peace? How does that feel?

Guest [01:57:08] Hey, the more the merrier. All the peace we can get.

John Dehlin [01:57:14] Well, I know you probably weren't able to watch or listen to much of what we've already been talking about. Is that right?

Guest [01:57:22] Yeah, I only. I just caught the last few minutes about the secret lives. I mean, what more do we need to say?

Beau Oyler [01:57:28] I promise it's not much deeper than that.

Guest [01:57:31] All right, I assume you've gone other places.

John Dehlin [01:57:36] Maybe the best summary slide is, is the one that shows Ben Park's summary of this recent Pew data that's come out. And I think maybe this will just give you a chance to share some of your perspectives. What the data seem to be suggesting is that LDs are in decline as a percentage of the US they're becoming less educated, on average, more male than female. They're the highest Republican group, not counting white evangelicals, but is a single group. They're becoming more secular, less observant, but they still are half supporting homosexuality. They're becoming more racially diverse. They're more positive towards immigration than maybe other their American counterparts. And the young, as we just mentioned, are becoming more adaptive. Maybe I'll just say, what are your thoughts on these points and anything you. Anything you reflecting upon for Alex Bass's analysis as well?

Guest [01:58:44] Yeah, man, sorry I'm late. I wish I could have heard all the brilliant stuff that the rest of you were talking about with this. So I don't want to be redundant on any of this. You know, on one level, you know, I look at this data as, as a historian and somebody who thinks not just about the moment that we're in, but about, you know, 200 years of Mormonism and the one constant is change.

Guest [01:59:12] And we could have found previous points in Latter Day Saint history where lots of people drank coffee. We could have found previous points in Latter Day Saint history where not very many people went to church and, and so on and so on. Previous points in Latter Day history where most Latter Day Saints were immigrants. Right.

Guest [01:59:32] And, and so, so these things come and they go and, but, but, but I. So I think that's helpful to look at it within like a broader historical perspective, but also, but then if we zero in it, we are living through a period of just enormous and very rapid transformation, not just for, for Mormons and Mormonism, but, but in the broader country and in the globe. And, and we could talk about all the different reasons for that. But, but I think in, in, in our lifetimes and especially in this century, in the 21st century, it has just been a period of unbelievably rapid social and cultural change.

Guest [02:00:11] And so why would we think the Latter Day Saints would be immune to those forces? I mean, for me, I, I think of, you know, biggest transformations in American life that have happened over the last 20, 25 years is one the, the huge increase in acceptance of especially gays and lesbians, obviously debates, you know, around transgender folks though, that's, those, those debates are, are still very much in play. But the rapid transformation where at the beginning of this century acceptance of same sex marriage and, and, and you know, gay and lesbians just in general as being sort of a public part of American life were very, very low and now it's very, very high.

Guest [02:00:57] I mean, the nation has really flipped on that. And then just the huge rise in disaffiliation. You know, it was in the early 2000s that still a majority of Americans said they went to church regularly and now a majority say they don't.

Guest [02:01:12] And so these are huge transformations in American life. And Mormons, you know, in some ways are always just along for the ride. Now. There's always a distinctive element of it, but, but to think that Mormons would be immune from these broader trends, it's just not realistic.

John Dehlin [02:01:28] Let me ask you, Patrick. There's a slide that I asked Ryan Cragan to put together that is sort of an adaptation of Alex's slide. And it's not going to capture everything perfectly, but it attempts to kind of add ex Mormons to the mix, which people who don't currently identify as Latter Day Saints, which was left out of the Pew analysis, but somehow Ryan was able to kind of try to back into this number. And of course, we already mentioned it under reports, people who converted to the church but then disaffiliated. So they weren't raised in Mormonism, you know, but they, but they're no longer attending.

John Dehlin [02:02:15] So we think that black line probably deserves to be bigger than 43%. But even as it is, what it shows is rising ex Mormonism. Ex Mormons are the biggest group by far of all the people who in some way fit under the Mormon umbrella. We've got these adaptive believers, which we think at least are somewhat the Restore Faith Matters crowd. But it could also be some of the more, let's just say Michelle Stone polygamy denying crowd. Maybe there's some prepper type people in that adaptive believers group that's on the rise and what's really in decline are, you know, the devout orthodox traditionalists. And I guess the question I had for you is, is there anything uniquely peculiar about this particular mix along these lines, or do you think in past historical eras or generations, the church has seen this particular type of mix? Does that make sense or is there anything about this mix that sticks out for you as being unique from a historical standpoint?

Guest [02:03:32] Yeah, I think, yeah, when I look at those lines, there are some things that I think hearken back to previous eras. So, you know, if we would have captured, you know, or had similar kinds of questions to ask Latter Day Saints in, say, the early 20th century, maybe the 1910s through the 1930s, maybe even 40s, probably, actually, if we would have looked at the curriculum of the church, it would have looked like adaptive. What is it adaptive believers or whatever the category is called. I mean, it was a ton of engagement with like the literature of the day and home economics, which was seen as very progressive at the time.

Guest [02:04:16] A lot of talk of like women's rights and women's roles, you know, especially coming out of the women's exports, phone and all those kinds of things. The Relief Society was very different type of organization back then. Even the priesthood manuals, a lot of times they, they were reading just like literature or studying, you know, social sciences or science.

John Dehlin [02:04:34] Right. Astronomy and geology.

Guest [02:04:36] Right, Totally. So in a lot of ways, like for that era of the church, we could have said like the mainstream was a kind of adaptive kind of sensibility, you know, trying to reconcile orthodoxy that's found in the scriptures and in the teachings of the prophets with the best knowledge that we have from, from, from the rest of the secular world. So, so that was kind of a mainstream mode at that, at that time. So. So again, these things seem now, now obviously one of the big things is that black line that you showed.

Guest [02:05:10] Now, church membership has always been a leaky bucket. There's always been people in, there's always been people out. And that's, that's happened at different rates at different times in the church and for different reasons. There's no doubt that over the past that in this century, you know, the corresponding with the rise of the nuns more broadly, just the idea of people feeling empowered to and feeling either pushed or pulled or various other kinds of forces, forces that allow them to or. Or compel them to, to leave the church and church membership or church activity. I mean, that's just been a very distinctive in the past 25 years versus, say, the previous 50 years.

Guest [02:05:58] And so, yeah, so I, I'm not sure that we could ever find a previous era in Mormon history where those lines would all look exactly the same and say, oh, it's just like 1875 or 1925.

Guest 2 [02:06:08] Sure.

Guest [02:06:08] Or something like that. But just as you know, we don't have the data because we didn't have good social scientific, you know, polling data for previous eras.

Julie Hanks [02:06:17] It.

Guest [02:06:17] I, I wish we did. I wish there were some way that we could. And just to see the way that that mix would be different at different times and even the way that actually orthodoxy might be defined differently in 1925 than it is in 2025.

John Dehlin [02:06:31] I guess I'm wondering for the brethren who are, who are wise and experienced in leading the church, whether a graph like this is like, oh, yeah, we're just on Armand Moss's oscillating wave of retrenchment and assimilation, or are they like, I wonder, you know, part of me wonders, are they super alarmed?

John Dehlin [02:06:52] And again, we would all be speculating to even try and answer that. But something Patrick, I want to get your thoughts on is this slide. We haven't really shown this slide yet, but we alluded to it. This one's really stark for me, because if we talk about, like, reported life satisfaction or happiness or whatever measure we're seeing, the orthodox or the, you know, devout traditionalists reporting excellent or very good, like family life or life satisfaction, and then we're seeing all the other groups with dramatically lower family life satisfaction. And you know what this makes me ask is like, why is it that people are choosing if the trends show that cultural Mormons, adaptive believers in betweeners and ex Mormons, if the trends are all in that direction, but that direction is towards lower happiness and lower life satisfaction or lower family life satisfaction, why in the world are people, Mormons in particular, choosing lower levels of happiness and family life satisfaction on average? Do you have a thought about that?

Life Satisfaction, Mental Health, and Leaving the Church

Guest [02:08:11] Oh, man. I would love to hear the rest of you, those of you who are actually mental health professionals, talk about it. Here's. I'll just take a shot in the dark. And then I really do want to hear what all of you say about that slide. I wonder and, and, and shoot me down because, because I'm, I'm just spitballing here. I, I wonder if part of it has to do with something of a kind of personality type or a temperament in the sense that a person who ends up being in, in, you know, the. Some of the other categories, like the adaptive believers or the in betweeners and, and the cultural Mormons, if, if there's a high value for them in nuance and in sort of seeing both sides of both sides and in leaning into paradox and all of those kinds of things.

Guest [02:08:59] I mean, I can even just. Just speak anecdotally. Like, I can argue my way in and out of pretty much anything, right? I'm like, there's always this sort of hand wringing that's always happening. Well, you know, I say this, but I need all these caveats and nuances and all this, right? And that's just kind of the way that I'm wired and the way that I've been socialized and other kinds of things. And so I wonder, like, if people were to ask and I've taken some of these polls, like, and they'd say, like, rate your life happiness or where you're at or where you think you are now versus where you think you could be in six months.

Guest [02:09:35] And for me, like, it just triggers this like, process of like, all this hangering. Well, how do I know what my life is to.

Guest 2 [02:09:41] Going.

Guest [02:09:41] Going to be like, in 6am I really happy? Like, I mean, things are pretty good, but, like, are they really that good? And so, like, I'm just always like, torturing myself, right? And, and I. So again, I don't know. It's a we. I need real social scientists and real mental health professionals to tell me if there's anything to this hunch to. Whereas if you are wired in such a way that you see the world in a little bit more black and white the way that I think a lot of the data shows that, you know, the, the devout traditionalists would. That they'd say, yeah, I'm happy.

Guest [02:10:14] Boom, I'm a 10 on that. Like, what. What is there to talk about, right? Like, life is good. And somebody else who actually whose life pretty much looks the same might say I'm kind of a 7 or 8. Because I can always see like, the other side. I mean, is. Is there anything to that? Or am I just. Am I. Am I just making that up?

John Dehlin [02:10:31] I. I think there's something to that. I'll spitball and then I'll ask you all to spitball. Like Julia writes happiness like the Truman Show. Let me just show another slide. This one shows who reports to be very happy. And the orthodox devout traditionalists are saying 77% are very happy. And then if you go to in betweeners, adaptive believers, or cultural Mormons, it tanks to like 36% for the in betweeners, 23% for the adaptive believers and, and 23% for the cultural Mormons. And that's just like way less reported happiness. Now I'll say a couple things. One is there's this idea in psychology called depressed realism where if you accept the idea, and I think this is insulting, and we're trying to be bridge building and peacemaking here, if you accept the idea that somehow secular, former lds, quote, see the world more clearly, they're willing to look at the truth claims, they're willing to see social injustice, they're seeing the world, they're accepting data and science and having broad empathy across the world.

John Dehlin [02:11:41] They're less in a bubble, more sensitive to secular information across all the spectrums. They're more aware, they have more of a realistic, grounded outlook. But what comes with that is less happiness and a little bit more depression on average. That's one theory, depressed realism. A second theory is community. We all know that religious affiliation, the active ingredient in satisfaction or reported happiness is community. And as someone who's tried really hard for 20 years to help create and support secular community, it's really hard to do that in a secular, secular space. So those are some of the things I would add. Patrick, to you, I want to throw. Julie, why don't we have you?

Julie Hanks [02:12:26] Yeah, I'm thinking that in the, the traditional believing group is likely a lot of people who fit the ideal that the church portrays. So they're traditional families, they're more stay at home moms, more providers, more successful. And then in the other groups you have people who don't fit what the church has held up as an ideal. So we have lgbtq, divorced families, you know, people of color, lower socioeconomic, like just, they don't fit that ideal. And so when you don't fit the ideal that has been sold as the goal, you're not going to feel as good about yourself because you're not living up to the ideal. And so I think it's that group will be self selecting to people that fit the ideal more than the other groups.

John Dehlin [02:13:14] But then when they leave, I mean on the one hand I've heard that saying that the, the LDS Church works for you until it does it, right. But also they leave. Why doesn't their happiness go higher? Like why is their happiness going lower

Julie Hanks [02:13:28] when they follow because now they are not living by what they've been told their whole life is. The ideal is to be a member of the church, is to be in an intact family. It's to not smoke. Not.

John Dehlin [02:13:38] So you're saying the conditioning makes them feel like they're broken, even though they.

Julie Hanks [02:13:43] A personal example is like, I always wanted a career and I was born in the. Or an adult, young adult in the era of Ezra Taft Benson. So I was told by the prophet that I shouldn't want to work, and yet I wanted to work. And so I did what I wanted, but I felt shame about it my entire, I mean, you know, most of my adult life. So I did what I wanted to do, but I wasn't doing the ideal. And so I suffered. A part of me suffered because of that. Does that make sense?

John Dehlin [02:14:11] Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Ex Mormons would say they have really thick, deep channels or wiring of conditioning. And part of why they hear, why they come to Mormon stories, to listen to long faith crisis and church exiting narratives, is to help them normalize what they've been through, to feel like they're not bad, to feel like they're not alone, to learn tips and tricks from others because they just report support leaving as being very hard.

Julie Hanks [02:14:39] Yeah.

Guest [02:14:40] Julie, can I ask a follow up on what you were saying? So is there a short term versus a long term effect here for people who leave? Because I could imagine that, that especially like in, in the weeks and months after you've, or maybe even, you know, a couple of years after you've made the decision to leave the church. It still is, especially if you grew up with it. That paradigm is so strong. Right, but, but I'd imagine based on conversations I've had, there's a certain moment at which you sort of switch and sort of now define your own sense of morality and values. Right.

Guest [02:15:11] And you're saying I'm, you know, I'm not living based on what the church defined as morality values. And so wouldn't, wouldn't we expect to see and sort of piggybacking off of John's question here, wouldn't we expect to then see that those sort of self reported happiness go up at that point where it's like, oh, now I'm living into my own morality and values and I'm not living up to somebody else values that I couldn't quite square my life with? Does that question make sense?

Julie Hanks [02:15:39] Yeah, I think that that makes a lot of sense. And there's still the internalized values. Like I'm thinking about LGBTQ People who. Who leave the church, but they still deal with the shame of. I've been taught for 20 years that who I am is wrong. And that just takes a lot of time to unwind, that. That conditioning and that internalized. The internalized values. And so I think even if you are happy, live, you know, identifying your own values and kind of resolve that I think there's still residual or I wonder if there's still residual tension around. I didn't quite do it right. I'm not quite who I was, who God wanted me to be, or who the church told me or my parents wanted me to be. So I. Yeah, I think this is a really fun discussion. I don't have the answer, but those are some thoughts.

Jana Spangler [02:16:31] Yeah, yeah, I'll weigh in. Yes, to all of that. I also wonder if there are a couple of other things going on. One is that humans have some very basic existential fears. When you are orthodox and you have a very clear narrative that you fully buy into, it really cuts down on those existential fears that people start to have when they start to imagine other possibilities.

Jana Spangler [02:17:02] There's. There's a thing with just developmental psychology, right, where as we develop, one of the hallmarks of it is that we become more aware of other people. We become more aware of people outside our group. And there's a lot of suffering in the world, and there's a lot of suffering in the world that we are kind of walled off from. You know, when I hear. When I go and hear prayers in an LDS chapel, they're very insular to our community.

Jana Spangler [02:17:33] When I go to some other more liberal congregations, it's. It's more like, let's pray for our wider community, for the world, for what's going on in the news in our wider group, you know, local area or whatever, and being aware of so much in the world and a lot of suffering and identifying with that is very, very psychologically difficult. And then there's the.

Guest 2 [02:18:03] The.

Jana Spangler [02:18:03] There's that conditioning aspect. You were speaking to Julie, and then that also takes you out of the community, you know, and it's harder. I think it's harder for adaptive Mormons who are largely still going to church to feel different but not have as much of a voice. Voice.

Jana Spangler [02:18:19] I. I find that with my clients over and over and over, that it is really difficult for people to not feel like they have a voice or to feel like they're going to be bringing contention if they speak some of what they're going through. And I think that is hard.

Jana Spangler [02:18:33] And then lastly, I just want to bring this up, which is, I think that we have bought into this. I think this is, again, a wider Christianity, American Christianity thing. But we have this idea that, I mean, it's the plan of happiness, right? We're supposed to be happy shiny all the time right? Now, I, I don't actually know if that is the Christian path.

Jana Spangler [02:18:58] The Christian path, as I read it in the New Testament, is a path of descent. It's a path of, of being more aware of reality. And I do think that there's a different kind of happiness on the other side of this.

Jana Spangler [02:19:12] So I think a question like this that's just like, hey, are you happy? Is your family happy? Is. Does not get to what is really fulfilling in life, what is really deeply aligning with our values and our, and our desire to be more Christian.

Jana Spangler [02:19:28] That's. It's the actual Christian path, in my opinion, is not, it's not a personal salvation project, and it is not a happy shiny path. It is a really difficult path of dealing with what is real and what, and what suffering there is and how we can be part of solutions and support to one another in a communal way that we rarely talk about. We're very individualistic. So those are my thoughts.

Guest [02:19:53] I think that's so smart. And because there's always this paradox within Christianity, just think about the New Testament and Jesus's teaching, right? On the one hand, like, carry your cross. That's not fun, right? Follow him to the cross, right? It is a way of suffering. It is a way of descent, like you said. On the other hand, he says, you know, I come to bring life and so that they'll enjoy it more abundantly, right? And then, you know, the, the Book of Mormon idea that, you know, that we might have joy. So there's always this kind of paradox with it. And I think, at least within the community, there's, there's a way of thinking and framing and I think very really experiencing it in the way that President Nelson talked about that, you know, and I'll get his quote wrong, but, but it was often quoted that the true joy doesn't have anything to do with the circumstances of your life.

Guest [02:20:42] But in other words, but, but, but how you engage it and, you know, and how you follow Jesus and, and, and, and there's something to that, right? There's something about an orientation to recognizing. Of course, we all experience suffering and in every way, Ward, even if people aren't thinking all the time about Gaza and Ukraine and, and world, you know, poverty and hunger, there's cancer and divorce and failed marriages. You know, all the stuff happens inside wards too. Right? So.

Guest [02:21:11] So there is deep sadness and there is deep suffering. But. But there is this, this kind of wiring and messaging and communal orientation to be able to make sense of that, that I think somebody could still then honestly answer a poll and say, yes, I'm very happy, even though, you know, there's all this suffering around me.

Jana Spangler [02:21:30] Yep.

Julie Hanks [02:21:31] Yeah.

Jana Spangler [02:21:31] Yeah, agreed.

Julie Hanks [02:21:32] I. I don't know that Jesus would have answered that. How happy, you know, I'm thinking like, how was Jesus happy all the time?

John Dehlin [02:21:40] I don't know. Although the Book of Mormon or whatever, somewhere in Mormonism it says man is that he might have joy.

Julie Hanks [02:21:46] Right?

Jana Spangler [02:21:47] But joy is different than just, am I happy and do I have family happiness?

Guest [02:21:51] I.

Jana Spangler [02:21:51] That's a different question.

Julie Hanks [02:21:52] I wish they asked, do you feel peace?

Jana Spangler [02:21:55] Do.

Julie Hanks [02:21:55] Do you feel authentic or contentment? And, and the, the example part of, like, I'm supposed to be happy. So I'm going to answer this question as, yes, I'm happy because I'm doing the right things and I'm. I need to be an example. That may play into it too.

Jana Spangler [02:22:09] And let's just say both have the capacity for deep happiness. Because what is one of the key factors being in alignment with your values? And I think all the groups are trying to do that in different ways. That's something deeply that I learned within the church growing up in. It is that it's good to be in alignment with your values. It's just that some of that, the way that that manifests sometimes changes for adaptive believers or for cultural Mormons or others.

Beau Oyler [02:22:33] Hey, I'm just here for the three free therapy now. John, I've shared this with you on our hikes that people always ask like, well, are you happier now? And I just think happiness is the wrong metric. It just is. I was happy as an active member and I'm happy now as a post member. Like, I just am. The difference is that I don't have as much scrupulosity anymore. The difference is that when that scrupulosity kicks up again and that old residue comes back, I can remember that I don't have to abide by Mosiah 3:19 anymore. I'm not an enemy to God, you know, and those, those like, savage doctrines that hurt me and hurt Bo's soul don't apply anymore. And so the scrupulosity, I can just. I can just let it go and, and move on from that. And that's not a happy, unhappy. I'm still just as happy as I was on the inside.

Julie Hanks [02:23:34] Yeah, yeah.

Jana Spangler [02:23:35] Well and I think maybe.

Beau Oyler [02:23:36] But now. But one thing. So my wife and I, two years ago we, we. So we focus on a word every year to, to kind of think about and practice. And that word for the last two years has been contentment. And so it's like am I happier? I can't really say if I'm happy as the wrong metric. I'm way more content now.

Guest [02:23:53] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:23:55] Maybe trying to be bridge builders and peacemakers we should say maybe that for some of us happiness isn't the right metric because there may be others for whom happiness or just like more of a focus on themselves and their own well being and, and their immediate family and maybe just their immediate community versus immigrants and refugees and the Middle East. Maybe there are people who just are able or desirous to focus on a different subset of concern restricting their zone of concern. Not to say they're not caring compassionate people, but maybe they're caring more about their ward members then they are a lot of people that they really maybe can't influence.

Jana Spangler [02:24:40] Yeah, well, humans or help. Right, Humans. Human evolution would tell us that we are not designed in our nervous system to deal with every. Everything we're exposed to in our society. And I think it's absolutely true that when you are having that focus just on your local community it is beneficial to our mental health.

Beau Oyler [02:25:00] And by all means other people may be just as content as I am now in my position being active members of the church. And I support that and love that and want them and that's where my family is.

Guest 2 [02:25:12] Right.

Beau Oyler [02:25:12] I want my brothers to continue to participate in church because it brings so much to them in their Life right now. Wonderful 100.

Resources for Adaptive and Cultural Mormons

Jana Spangler [02:25:20] Another issue just spitballing as I'm thinking about this is that for adaptive believers and for cultural Mormons there aren't as many resources to help with, I don't know, practices and ways of teaching children and ways of being well within the church that it's not as operationalized as for orthodox Mormons because a lot of the, the ways that we support orthodox Mormons, they do work beautifully for orthodox Mormons. And when I see this a lot in my office when people come in and they're more of an adaptive believer or they're cultural Mormons, it's really hard for them. The first question is how do I raise my children? How do I do this? I don't want it to be quite the way that I used to do it, but there's really very few resources out there for people in that space.

Julie Hanks [02:26:16] I think that's what we're trying. What our work tries to do is like to not the orthodox believers have a ton of support, but it's the people that are the adaptive or the in betweeners or the cultural Mormons that don't have that support 100%.

Jana Spangler [02:26:30] That is what drives me, is I want to provide something for those people because they are less happy, at least for a time, until they find their footing. Yeah, it's really hard to be in that spot.

Beau Oyler [02:26:41] And that's a big mission for Mormon bridge builders, is to discuss that. Right. Not that we have all the answers, but we have some wisdom and some experience, especially with therapists and with your patients and with our own personal lives experiences. And we have a list of 30 different topics that we want to cover as Mormon bridge builders. Similar to, you know, five or six years ago, you did a series called the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis. And it was how, you know, how do you navigate this faith crisis and what do you do? I think ours will be broader than that because it's not so much just the crisis. It's also for fully active members. And I'm hoping that we can speak to that full spectrum of how. What are ways that we can navigate faith expansion or this journey, you know, from orthodoxy to wherever that goes with

John Dehlin [02:27:27] the shared Mormon cultural background.

Beau Oyler [02:27:30] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:27:30] In or out of the church.

Beau Oyler [02:27:31] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:27:32] Throwing away faith politics. How do we all become. How do we all heal and grow and find meaning and joy in or out of the church with a shared Mormon cultural background?

Jana Spangler [02:27:41] And how do we help each other along the way?

Beau Oyler [02:27:42] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:27:43] Patrick, I'm going to show you one more slide. I want to tell me how many minutes you have to go, Patrick, or

Guest [02:27:48] are we about a half hour or so?

John Dehlin [02:27:50] Oh, good. Okay. Okay. All right. So really quickly, Patrick, that. Do you want to respond to anything you just heard? Because we want to make sure and get you in.

Guest [02:27:58] No. That was really lovely. I love the expansiveness and the compassion for everybody in their different life journeys. I think that's beautiful.

John Dehlin [02:28:07] Yeah, thank you. I was going to just say, like, sometimes people say to me, well, Mormon stories doesn't show an equal balance of, you know, people with good experiences in the church and people with bad experiences in the church. And I have to kind of remind people, it's not that we're trying to say the church is only bad. And it's not like we want people to leave the church or not believe in it. It's just that who else is really trying to support ex Mormons because, you know, everyone hopefully can agree that it's super brutal to leave a higher demand faith.

John Dehlin [02:28:42] And don't those people deserve resources and support? And so just because of the way things have happened, Mormon Stories has had to kind of shift. We've gone from trying to keep people in the church, but since the excommunication, we're now just trying to provide support for people who have needed to leave. But that's not that we're trying to say the church is evil or bad. I think we all here on this panel love the church, love the Mormon people don't want people to believe or not believe. Stay in or not stay in purely based on what their well being is. Julie, yes or no?

Julie Hanks [02:29:19] Amen.

John Dehlin [02:29:21] Yes or no?

Beau Oyler [02:29:21] Yes. And there are very few resources for those of us who were sitting in Sunday school and elders quorum, or at least whoever who wanted to say a certain thing and didn't know how or were thinking differently than the group and didn't know how to respond to that. I remember the first time I ever met Patrick. We, we were in a house in Provo and he shared, or somebody asked him like, well, what about when someone's teaching something in Sunday school and you know, that's factually incorrect? And he taught us all something. He said, when I'm in that position, I have to make sure that I maintain my social equity.

Beau Oyler [02:29:52] And I might say something like another way to look at that is. And then he would share the actual like, you know, historical facts or whatever it is. And that was so helpful. Who's training in that way for active members of the church who are in that position? Nobody. So let's do that. Why can't we all do that together?

Guest [02:30:16] Yep.

John Dehlin [02:30:18] Okay. Did you ever sponsor that? Patrick, before I show you a slide?

Guest [02:30:22] I still believe that.

John Dehlin [02:30:23] Okay. I love it. All right, Patrick, let me show you a slide because I want to discuss kind of how these trends, I don't know, like, you know, I guess, you know, one of the funnest things I learned about early on when I started paying attention to this was Armin Moss's angel in the Beehive. The whole, the whole sort of assimilation, retrenchment, oscillation that happens. And clearly we're, if we were going to look at that, these data from the standpoint of that paradigm, we're certainly in an era of assimilation and less retrenchment. Is that fair to say, Patrick?

Guest [02:31:07] Yes and no. I, I think we're in. I, I think we're in a both and mode right now. I think there are some very strong assimilative forces and, and that's what's leading to some of the, the numbers that we're seeing. And I think there are at least certain, certain aspects of the, the church and church leadership that are responding with a new effort toward retrenchment. I think some of the things we see at BYU would point in that direction. So I mean, this is why it's so complicated, right? It's because these forces are always, it's a kind of yin and yang. And there's always kind of a self correcting. Well, not self correcting because people are driving this, but people. If people see the pendulum going too far one way, they want to correct it the other way way. So that's why I actually see. See both things going on right now.

Guest 2 [02:31:56] Okay.

Guest [02:31:57] Maybe in different places.

John Dehlin [02:31:58] No, that's good. That's very tevy of you. On the one hand. On the other hand.

Beau Oyler [02:32:03] Right.

Guest [02:32:04] I told you I'm one of those handering in guys. I mean, I'm like at max, I'm an eight. I mean, that's the most happy I can get because like, you know, there's always the other side, right?

John Dehlin [02:32:14] Absolutely. Let me show you this slide again. This is Ryan Cragan, just like spitballing. I asked them to put together the three types of Mormons that are still attending church. So we're excluding the cultural Mormons and the ex Mormons here. And that right bar represents our best estimate of what the pews are looking like in the United States in 2025. And what it shows is. And I don't this blows my mind. Is it possible that right now in the average LDS ward or chapel in the US that only a third are orthodox devout traditionalists and that a full 66% are either in betweeners trying to figure stuff out or are kind of adaptive believers, you know, which would mean kind of the Restore Faith Matters crowd or the Michelle Stone prepper crowd that are still in.

John Dehlin [02:33:11] And if that even rings possible to you. And of course there's the pimos who are physically in but mentally out. The ones that don't believe any of it, but that feel stuck there for family reasons or job reasons, like. But what this is showing is that according to these data, orthodox traditional members are in the significant minority. And if so, what does that say about the church experience today?

John Dehlin [02:33:39] And most importantly, what does that say about how the brethren might feel like they need to deal with this in the coming months and years, especially if I could load this question enough, especially with the Dallin H. Oaks administration, like any, like, do you, can you read any tea leaves for us? Patrick Mason?

Guest [02:34:02] I'll try to answer like some of the 28 questions.

Jana Spangler [02:34:04] Questions.

Beau Oyler [02:34:07] That, that's a John De question right there.

Julie Hanks [02:34:09] Yeah, I love it.

John Dehlin [02:34:12] So, so can you repeat that?

Beau Oyler [02:34:17] And then a Patrick Mason answer would be yes and no

Guest [02:34:22] to all of those questions. Yes, no and maybe. Right. I, I think, you know, you know, numbers tell us a lot of the story, but, but they can only tell us so much. And of course, I'm sure you've already talked about, you know, how much we can actually know from these, these numbers. How do they reflect, you know, the broader realities and so forth. So they're, they're really useful because they point to something. Do they tell the whole story? Obviously not. No one set of numbers does, but still I do think they point to some broader shifts and I wonder if part of it is just the way that again, life experience and experience in the 21st century has simply softened some of what used to be some of the sharper edges of Mormonism, especially let's say in the last quarter of the, of the 20th century.

Guest [02:35:17] So if, if you think about, or if I think about most of the people that I know who go to church every week, I think if you had asked them in the 1980s and 90s about their, their practices, so their religious practices, say prayer, family, home, evening, scripture study. Right. There was such an emphasis on obedience, on exactness, on doing those kinds of things. And I think a lot of families really did try to do their best or at least over report because of social desirability, their, their practices along those lines. But I think a lot of that really was happening and people would have said that they completely rejected same sex marriage.

Guest [02:36:02] People would have said that they completely reject any idea of sort of blurring the lines or cafeteria Mormonism or things like that. It was just, it was an era of certainty and that was the, that was the cultural norm. That was the coin of the realm. And for lots of different reasons over the past 20 years, I think the coin of the realm has, has shifted somewhat. And I think people now, because of cultural forces, but also personal experiences, they're far more open to, to the fact that because every, every single person in the pews has a friend or a family member who's gay. Maybe not everyone, but, but a lot of them.

Beau Oyler [02:36:42] Oh, they do, they just don't know it.

Guest [02:36:44] Yeah, exactly. They definitely. I'll know somebody who's left the church. And of course, their response to that is going to be wide ranging. But I think we've seen in the last five to ten years a real shift in that too, a greater generosity and openness to it. Does everybody figure it out perfectly? No. That that's why we're having these kinds of conversations. But, but I compare like the past five years compared to say, 15 or 20 years ago. Right. And I think we're just in a very different place. So what that means to me then is the upshot is that, is that when people are answering those questions that are the same poll questions that are asked since 2004, it doesn't surprise me that maybe even the exact same person, their answers have changed in the last 20 years and they're still just as active in the church.

Guest [02:37:31] And they're still. Because as you said, those numbers represent people who are still going to church. These aren't the people who have left. So they're still in the church. They're still active, they're still participating. They probably, you know, they have, they still have teaching or leadership roles in some way, shape or form, but just the world has gotten complicated. And I think what it shows is a membership of the church that, and, and in some ways taking cues from the leadership. Right. I mean, we just don't have as many sharp edges and barbs and general conferences that it would have been 20 or 30 years ago to round out questioning in the LGBTQ community and so forth.

Guest [02:38:06] Right. We, we can all identify some, but the count would be significantly lower around women's issues, all these kinds of things. And so, so I, I just think that what that chart shows me is that, yes, I suspect that on an individual level, some people have changed, but actually to, to me, it suggests that actually the religion itself and, and what is the mainstream or what is the norm or kind of the, if I could use my kids language, the kind of vibe of Mormonism in 2025 is just different than the vibe was in 1995.

John Dehlin [02:38:39] And does that mean, I mean, does that mean you and, or actively attending Mormons? You know, because it has been 10 years since I've really attended a sacred meeting. Not by choice, just because I don't want to frustrate people or alarm people by showing up. But does that mean that the people who are attending are feeling that things are looser, feeling that there's broader acceptance of different types of Mormons, a greater comfort with people expressing different types of behaviors in and out of orthodoxy in the wards in the US These days? And more LGBT affirming comments, less politically polarizing comments. Do you think that's starting to actually impact the lived discourse of currently attending church members in the US My personal

Guest [02:39:35] answer is that I think so. Now, it would be different word to word. We all know that wards have personalities, and especially in a place like Utah, where words are so geographically concentrated, those personalities track with broader dynamics. Are you in a more conservative, a more liberal area? Right. I mean, you know, all those kinds of things. And so. So even here in Cache Valley, which is not that big of a place, the experiences in my ward, which is pretty close to the university, has a lot of, you know, I mean, I live in a deeply orthodox ward as. As of a couple of years ago, there were 30 count of three, zero current or former bishops in the ward.

John Dehlin [02:40:16] Whoa.

Guest [02:40:17] So it's a. It's a very. A lot of former mission presidents, temple president, stake presidents, all that kind of stuff. So very, very orthodox, but also highly educated people. A lot of them had careers at the university and things like that. So you compare that to some of the wards and more, you know, kind of rural areas within Cache Valley that would have a deeper, you know, kind of a deep red streak to them that. Where the social and cultural and political. Political dynamics would. Would line up more with kind of MAGA than with kind of establishment Republicanism. Right. I mean, I think of, you know, kind of like Mike Lee versus Mitt Romney type stuff.

Guest [02:40:52] I definitely live in a Mitt Romney ward, and. And what I've seen in. In my ward are open expressions of solidarity and love for the LGBTQ community. And open. I mean, this happened this last week in fast and testimony meeting from a wife of a bishopric member saying, I wish that our ward was more open, affirming to her own transgender children. Right. And nobody shot her down. Nobody shushed her. This is, you know, it's unthinkable that I could have heard that 15 or 20 years ago. And here he was a wife of a bishopric member, and he's sitting up there with his rainbow pin sitting on the stand.

Guest [02:41:32] So. So things are now, again, that's anecdotal. That's not going to be everywhere. People's experiences are going to be different. And people could say, well, how much does that rhetoric actually translate into reality or an actual welcoming community and so forth. Again, she was wishing for more inclusion than what she saw or what she experienced. But I just, you know, for me, being in the pews week in, week out over the past 10 years, it sounds different.

Guest [02:41:59] The sacrament meeting Just sounds different now than it did when I was growing up. And there's a broader sense of inclusion, of welcoming and trying to sort of fit doctrinal orthodoxy, the kind that we hear preached in general conference, along with very complicated lives that we all experience. That's what I see in here.

John Dehlin [02:42:23] Loved hearing that, Patrick. Now, Jana, I'm seeing a few little. I'm seeing some facial reactions there. Do you want to share, Jenna, your perspective?

Jana Spangler [02:42:35] Yeah, I mean, I. I do hear a lot of people saying what Patrick is saying and experiencing what Patrick. Patrick is experiencing in his congregation. And I will just also affirm that it is geographical. Largely, in my word, that has not been the case is still unthinkable that someone would. Would be able to say what that woman said. In your word, Patrick.

John Dehlin [02:43:00] You live like a block from me, by the way.

Jana Spangler [02:43:02] Yeah. Yes. And it. That it is. It is not that way.

John Dehlin [02:43:07] And we're in Sully county, which you think would be one of the most liberal places. But Holiday is its own animal, right?

Jana Spangler [02:43:14] It is. It's pockets. There are pockets of this everywhere, you know, and I hear it's a very different thing. The Friends of mine that live in, you know, more of the Harvard, Yale area or Federal Heights or Immigration Canyon and other places, they have much more. They're experiencing more of this. What I do think is in those wards that have that personality to be able to talk a little bit more openly about some of these things. I believe that there is this big shift in it, that there are a lot of places along the Mormon corridor where. Where people are not experiencing that at all, that they still feel silence. They still feel like, I can't say any of that publicly.

John Dehlin [02:43:56] And what we're not even mentioning is like, what about Mississippi? What about Texas? What about Berkeley? Cambridge? What about, you know, Brooklyn and Manhattan?

Guest [02:44:07] My experience was. Was always that, you know, because I lived all my adult life outside of Utah until the last six years. Years, so I lived in Indiana and in California and in Egypt. That's a whole different thing. Right. But.

Guest [02:44:19] But.

Guest [02:44:19] But my. My experience is that. Is that in places where the. The wards are geographically larger, they just cast a wider net. And so at least my experience in most of those wards with. Was just like, we're just happy that you're here. And. And you couldn't get that. There was always that. That very strong orthodox influence oftentimes from, you know, Utah expatriates who were trying to, like, tell everybody else how to do church. But the general ethos was just like, just, thanks for Coming. We're glad you're here. And so it was just very different than. Than the way that. That these very small geographic units in Utah can have very particular and very strong personalities. I don't know if that tracks with other people's experiences outside of Utah.

Jana Spangler [02:45:07] Absolutely. And I think we have to remember that what, what Alex said about the data, that the adaptive Mormons and the orthodox Mormons, there's. It's very blurred and they're closer together than the other groups. And so I think a lot of people that you would hear on any given Sunday and say, oh, they're totally that orthodox person, if you talk to them on the street, you would recognize, oh, they're actually more adaptive than I thought. Right. So there's a lot of that. And that also depends on the personality of the ward leadership. Is it? Yes.

Julie Hanks [02:45:39] Who's the like? If the leadership is modeling adaptive, inclusive language, then it opens it up for the whole ward.

Jana Spangler [02:45:48] Absolutely.

Beau Oyler [02:45:48] And I would say it's even more leadership than geography because I. I know very conservative places like San Clemente, California. So it's a MAGA magnet. And my cousin's the bishop of one of the San Clemente wards, and he's very progressive, and he has a very open, progressive, accepting, inviting ward. And it's because he's that type of leader, and that's what he's going to do.

Jana Spangler [02:46:11] A lot of sense.

Forecasting the Church's Future and Possible Reforms

John Dehlin [02:46:12] Patrick, let me ask you this. I don't know if historians are the best forecasters or prophets or the worst or somewhere in the middle, obviously, because I was at BYU during the 1993 time period in the September 6th stuff that's kind of burned into my brain. And then, of course, I've been excommunicated myself. But when we think about retrenchment, what comes to my mind is waves of church discipline, excommunication as the way that the brethren get the members back in line or separate the wheat from the tares, or prune. You know, pick your metaphor. Cutting things off. Right. Eliminating things.

John Dehlin [02:46:56] Do you have any way to project or predict or even. Do you have a gut feeling for whether in the future, if we have to experience some retrenchment, if past is prologue, the likelihood of waves of excommunication and church discipline being a part of that retrenchment, or does somehow the Internet change the game so that if the brethren do retrench, they don't fall back into excommunications and church discipline? Do you even have an instinct on that?

Guest [02:47:34] Yeah, well, historians are the worst. My sense is that there's not much appetite to revisit the September Six in 1993. That said, we've seen, you know, periodic and consistent high profile cases of church discipline, as you all know. And we could name the individuals, right? We could go down the roster that every year or two there's a high profile Latter Day Saint in the United States that's been excommunicated.

Guest [02:48:16] So it's different, a little different than 1993 where there was kind of this block and it seemed like, you know, real, you know, kind of drawing a line in the sand and you know, the, the. I, I just don't get a sense that there's, there's a lot of appetite for that kind of thing.

Guest [02:48:33] But it's also where, this is why I mentioned BYU earlier, that there's a sense of like, where, where can the church exert, especially if we might call it more sort of retrenchment forces within the church? Where could they exert that kind of, that kind of influence? Well, BYU is, is, is low hanging fruit there because they pay the bills, right?

Guest [02:48:57] And it's easier to control an organization or an institution, especially through the power of the purse if you pay people's paychecks, than it is to kind of control an entire 17 million church. 17 million member church. You can try to do the latter, but it's just becoming increasingly difficult and I'm not sure that they want to do that with the stick all the time. And so, yeah, I don't see waves of church discipline in the near future. It's always, you know, it's an arrow in the quiver that, that I hope is used sparingly, if at all.

John Dehlin [02:49:37] And I guess another way the church can retrench is just to call more conservative or orthodox leadership than more progressive or liberal leadership.

Guest [02:49:47] And I'll just say this quickly is that, you know, there's a way that you could, that institutions can do it that don't require a really coercive, subversive tactic. And, and the best example here would be the Southern Baptist convention in the 1980s. The Southern Baptist Convention before that had always been conservative, but kind of what we might call kind of center right, you know, not. But, but there were fundamentalist elements within the Southern Baptist Convention. And what they did in the 1980s is they took over all the key institutions, they took over the publishing houses, they took over the university or the seminaries and, and many areas of the denominational leadership.

Guest [02:50:24] And they didn't go through and do a big purge of people and excommunicate that because there were lots of liberals in the Southern Baptist Convention. Jimmy Carter was a lifelong. Jimmy was a lifelong Southern Baptist. There were lots of liberals who were Southern Baptists. And when the fundamentalists took over in the 1980s, they didn't purge the denomination of those people. What they did, though, is they created an environment where over the next few years, all the liberals just left. So Jimmy Carter left the denomination. He wasn't excommunicated. He wasn't pushed out. It just became a place where he no longer identified or felt comfortable anymore.

Guest [02:50:57] So. So there's a way that organizations and institutions can. Can shift in a way and shift the membership and do a kind of retrenchment that doesn't require excommunication.

John Dehlin [02:51:08] Okay.

Beau Oyler [02:51:09] Yeah. For a fact, that's happening right now. Like, I know I have a friend who was serving as bishop and the Bay Area, and he.

John Dehlin [02:51:17] Women were on the stand, and now

Beau Oyler [02:51:18] women were on the stand. They're not on the stand anymore. He. Obviously that was unacceptable to him. And it's not that they. They didn't excommunicate him. He's still an active member, but it was made very clear, abundantly clear, that it was time for him to end his time as bishop and.

John Dehlin [02:51:37] Yeah, and I wonder how long he'll be an active member.

Beau Oyler [02:51:40] So do I. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:51:42] Not just because I may or may not have had a conversation with this person. Really quickly, Patrick, we want to just. Thank you for coming. I did plug repair your conference along with Brother Ford. Chad Ford, is that right? I had breakfast with Chad Ford Monday. Do you just want to talk really quickly about peacemaking and bridge building in Mormonism and repair? And not just repair, but like, for those of us who want to be disciples or supporters or colleagues in the movement towards peacemaking and bridge building within Mormonism. I want to just give you a chance to preach a little mini sermon as we thank you for joining us today.

Guest [02:52:29] I appreciate that. It's been great to be with you all. And thanks for the opportunity that, that, you know, a lot of this comes in response to, I think, the really powerful teaching that President Nelson gave repeatedly around peacemaking. And, you know, we've had those resources in the tradition for a long time. They just weren't elevated. Again, it goes back to the power of leadership that we were just talking about. Well, President Nelson made it one of the signal messages of his presidency that the Latter Day Saints and disciples of Christ should be and are, are called to be peacemakers. And so I've seen a real shift over the past five years where I think President Nelson kind of created the space for this and, and Chad Ford, just to introduce him to people who don't know him.

Guest [02:53:14] He, he taught for. He's an amazing, amazing guy. I, I think he's one of the most skilled conflict mediators who are, who are Latter Day Saints. His international experience, spent a lot of time in the Middle east and, but then doing all, everything from kind of marriage conflicts to corporate mediation, all the way to international stuff and everything in between. So he taught at BYU Hawaii for 20 years, built an amazing peace building program there, and then moved to Utah about a year ago and joined the faculty at Utah State University with, with me. And so we've been involved with the Peace Institute here at Utah State, but we really, especially with our friends at Faith Matters, wanted to respond to the call that President Nelson made for, for us to be peacemakers.

Guest [02:53:55] And so we created this initiative kind of under the umbrella, under the auspices of Faith Matters, but, but now we're kind of stretching our wings. And, and it's, you know, it's one thing to, to want to be a peacemaker. And I think we all want that. We have, we have that in our hearts. It's, it's another thing to know how to do it. And I think President Nelson created the doctrinal and theological ground for us to do it. And, and so my sense is that Latter Day Saints, much more now than at any other previous point in my lifetime, have a heart for peacemaking, but they don't always have the skills for it because they just haven't been taught yet.

Guest [02:54:32] And so that's what we're trying to do with this initiative that we call Waymakers. And so we've got this conference called Repair. And the whole idea is these are half day workshops where people are going to come in and actually get peacemaking skills. They're going to walk out four hours later being a mortal, more skilled peace builder than they were when they walked in. And, and so we're gonna, we're gonna keep running these, we're gonna run workshops, we're gonna go around the country. We're doing some interfaith stuff early in 2026.

Guest [02:54:58] We'll, we'll be doing other trainings with Latter Day Saints and other community groups. We definitely, one of the sessions that, you know, I know that John is coming to is all around these kinds of issues. How do we, how do we do peacemaking and bridge be and bridge building between current and former members of the LDS Church. So we just want to think really expansively and broadly about what does it mean for each of us, not just as members of the church, but as human beings, as brothers, as sisters, as community members, as family members, to just become more skilled peacemakers, to just try to kind of build our own personal capacity to find inner peace, to build peace inside of ourselves so that then we can take greater peace into our relationships and into the world. So that's what we're trying to do.

Closing Reflections and Final Words from All Guests

John Dehlin [02:55:44] Well, I'll just say amen. Hallelujah. I've been doing this 20 years, and I look at it sometimes and just go, really, am I going to keep doing this? But if I can pivot, do my part to pivot Mormon stories more towards bridge building and peacemaking now that we've done our best to make the points that we've made, now I just want to help do our part to bring people together to have more light, less heat, more find out what's more in common and how we can all live healthier, better lives in a bigger, broader Mormon LDS umbrella than more contention and violence. I'm in, and I know that this group, Julie, Bo and Jenna, we're, we're for now, calling ourselves the Mormon bridge builders. Patrick, but we just really appreciate your leadership. You've been, you've been studying peace for quite a long time, like back since grad school, is that right?

Guest [02:56:45] Yeah, for more than 20 years now. And, and it did feel, I mean, when I was in grad school getting a degree in peace studies, everybody would just be like, what? Like in and out of the church. It was just, like, so strange to do. And so I was just kind of laboring out there. And I know lots of other people were doing it, but we, I think we all felt like we were just doing on our own. Certainly Chad was, and lots of people, and lots of people were doing that work just without the label of peace. I mean, I think everybody, you know, so many of you who are doing mental health work and trying to build resiliency and all kinds of things, and people, I mean, there's a lot of things that I think go into piece work, but it did feel kind of lonely for a, a long time, and, and, and I'm really grateful.

Guest [02:57:28] Just something has shifted, at least with, within the church, and I think more broadly, too. It's like we're all just sick and tired of the, the arguing, the, the contempt, the enmity, the, you know, some people feed off of it. There are conflict entrepreneurs there, there are provocateurs out there who actually Profit from it or feed off of it. But that's not most of us. Most of us are just sick and tired of it. And, and we want something better. We want more healthy, constructive relationships. And so, so to, to whatever degree, the, the culture seems to be shifting and, and, and that we can help in some little way.

Guest [02:58:03] That's why I'm so grateful for these conversations for, for each of you, and trying to do the same thing. Like, we all just need, you know, put our shoulder to the wheel.

John Dehlin [02:58:11] What are you going to do when peacemaking is hip and cool, Patrick? Then what are you gonna do?

Guest [02:58:15] Anything I'm associated with will never be hip and cool.

John Dehlin [02:58:21] Well, Patrick Mason, thank you so much for joining us. And people can check out Waymakers on Substack, right?

Guest [02:58:28] Yep.

John Dehlin [02:58:29] Okay.

Guest [02:58:30] Thanks, everybody.

John Dehlin [02:58:31] Thanks for joining us.

Jana Spangler [02:58:32] Thanks, Patrick.

John Dehlin [02:58:33] All right, really quickly, we gotta run, but let's give everyone a final word. Is that all right, Julie? Final word?

Julie Hanks [02:58:41] Oh, I don't know that I have a final word other than thank you all. This has been so. Just such a fun discussion. I think it's so important. I'm really proud of the work that we're trying to do.

John Dehlin [02:58:51] Jana.

Jana Spangler [02:58:53] I will just say that I, I love what Patrick said about this conference this weekend, that it's about building skills for peacemaking, because that is something that I see. I, I agree. So many people have a heart for this, and I, I feel like I, I've been in the trenches with this with mixed faith marriages.

Jana Spangler [02:59:14] There is such a desire, especially in. With mixed faith families, to want to bridge those gaps, and we just don't know how to do it. And we don't know how to have the inner work, the inner peace that he's talking about.

Jana Spangler [02:59:31] We do really need to build those skills because there's no way we get to a more Zion community where all of the parts of the body of Christ are present, doing their different thing unless we know how to deal with conflict. And it is not easy. Our whole entire nervous system is wired against it.

Jana Spangler [02:59:50] So I think that does need to be a huge part of the focus. Moving forward is just giving people what they need to actually do what's in their heart.

John Dehlin [02:59:59] And I mentioned Patrick's history of pursuing peacemaking. Is it fair to say your work with Richard Rohrer is also along those same lines?

Jana Spangler [03:00:08] Absolutely. And it's, it's, it's holding all of the contradictions in that work because it, it doesn't mean consensus building. And that is exactly what we want it to be in our, in our

Julie Hanks [03:00:20] Bodies think like me, believe like I do.

Jana Spangler [03:00:22] Yes. And so it takes a whole different stance. And it, it's, it's the skills, but it's also the inner work. And that's what I've learned through Contemplative Christianity through Richard Rohr and his, his wonderful organization that, that does this. But it's also, it's also deeply ingrained in this idea of Christianity, a deeper movement within Christianity that is less individualistic and more community based and looking out for one another. And so it's, it's all of that.

John Dehlin [03:00:54] Beautiful. All right, Bo, final words.

Beau Oyler [03:00:57] I love this conversation. There was so, so much of my Mormon experience in the last few years where I just sat feeling so alone in Sunday school and bishopric meeting, in stake trainings and whatever it was, just feeling so alone. They're like, why, why do I feel alone? Why don't I see things that, the way that others are seeing them? And you know, and maybe I would make a comment and the room would go silent and I always felt like it's like I farted in the room or something, you know, and everybody's like, ah, like you can't say that or you can't ask that. You can't ask that question.

Beau Oyler [03:01:31] And then I get 50 texts that night of like, thank you so much for saying that. So I knew that there was this like, undercurrent of people thinking differently than the lessons were being taught or the comments that were being made are always defaulting to the most orthodox view. And so the reason I love today's conversation is because it's not just these four, you know, types of Mormons or five or whatever we discuss. There's 105.

Beau Oyler [03:01:57] And I think that the more that we can celebrate each of our type of Mormonism, like my mom always says, I love it. She says, nobody's going to tell me how to Mormon. And I love that. Right. Because it's like, yes, like, let me embrace my own Mormonism and my own spirituality, my own religiosity.

Beau Oyler [03:02:20] And then this whole conversation of in or out or orthodox or progressive kind of just disappears. And I think that that's a really healthy way for us to think. It's a healthy way for me to think. And so I'm grateful for this conversation.

John Dehlin [03:02:33] Yeah, me too. And Bill, you, you are kind of project managing this project. So thanks for helping make it happen.

Beau Oyler [03:02:41] Thanks for joining. Like I said earlier, I'm just here for the free therapy.

John Dehlin [03:02:46] I love it. Yeah. I'll just say, like, in my brief conversations with a Few sort of orthodox Mormon apologist, social media influencers. They're, they, they are afraid that we're contributing to the weakening of, of the church, to the deterioration of faith, and to ultimately the, the, you know, disaffection from the church that they love. And that's, that's. I want to create space for that when they're angry, when they're mean. I was talking to Julie about this a little bit. Like there's part of us that's like, I'm afraid those guys are mean, those women are mean. We can't talk to them, we can't co platform them.

John Dehlin [03:03:40] On the other hand, we've been mean or, or harsh or mocking or, you know, humiliating. I think in some ways I've helped create these people and you know, other people can decide if they have too, but I know I have. But then also, what's behind Packer, what's her name, Maddie Packer. What's I think behind Cardinalis or Jacob Hansen is real. Her hurt. Real sadness that people that they love have left real fear that something that means a lot to them is going to be weakened. And I think part of the biggest job we have here is how do we communicate with them in a way where not just they don't see us as the enemy, but where somehow we can figure out a formula where this rising tide lifts all ships.

John Dehlin [03:04:34] Because wouldn't it be great if, if ex Mormons can feel supported, progressive Mormons can get the support they need in the community they need. But also the LDS Church isn't weaker and doesn't deteriorate. Like I actually said to some of these people, I'd be willing to talk about how to make Mormon stories feel less anti Mormon.

John Dehlin [03:05:00] And I'd be fine if that meant less people left the LDS Church. Like if we can still get the needs met of all the different types of Mormons, I don't need the LDS Church to go down in flames or even to be weaker. And is that even possible? Yeah, but that's my vision.

Julie Hanks [03:05:20] I think it has to be possible. Right? That's. Or we wouldn't be trying to do. This has to be possible.

John Dehlin [03:05:26] I mean, I don't think Patrick would be appearing on the show if he didn't think it was. It's not possible, at least worth doing.

Julie Hanks [03:05:32] That was amazing that he was on this. I mean, that was really interesting.

Beau Oyler [03:05:36] I mean, huge shout out to Patrick and Alex. Right? Who very much like speaking of social equity, like, you know, they, they came on Mormon stories.

Julie Hanks [03:05:44] We have something to lose. Yeah.

Beau Oyler [03:05:46] We have something to lose. And you know what? Like, they're both seen beyond that, right? It's like I was at breakfast with Thomas McConkey once and I asked him about, you know, this in and out type question and he just said, bo, that whole in and out conversation makes me want to jump off this balcony right here. Like, it's just in our minds, it doesn't exist.

Julie Hanks [03:06:05] Well, and the categories of Mormons are in our minds, right? We're, we're just people. And, and sometimes like drawing those distinctions creates more separation than, than connection. Right? Like it's the them and them and this group and us. And so I mean, my hope is someday that it's just, it's just us. It's like we share, have this shared background and we, we love each other and support each other and can communicate and that we don't have to even talk about the different. I mean, it's helpful, helpful to have a construct, but to not have to do that would be my goal.

John Dehlin [03:06:40] Well, we could talk about this later, but like, what, what I have to process to keep me from metaphorically wanting to jump off a tall building is the fact that I and Mormon stories have been the single biggest driver of who's in, who's out, what's true, what's not true, truth claims. And I've had tens or hundreds of thousands of people say Mormon stories has been life saving and helpful. So both. And well, yeah, okay, so what, you've

Julie Hanks [03:07:14] helped a lot of people and there's, it's also created some, some other issues. It's like, just like everything else, right? It's, it's both, it's been a blessing to a lot of people and it's also been scary and hurtful and you know, to other people. And I think it's just, that's just life.

Jana Spangler [03:07:33] Yeah, I, I agree and I, I think that every different stream is valley valid and it's doing a helpful thing to certain people at certain times. I don't think we move any movement forward without having the Malcolm X's and the Martin Luther King juniors. Like there are different ways to get different things done. And I think all of us just have to go where we feel, where we feel pulled, where we feel that our experience, our knowledge, our skills can help help someone wherever they are. And there's been a deep need for people to work through the truth claims. You know, you spend your entire life, you know, not being able to even think, oh, to your point, critically about some of these things.

Jana Spangler [03:08:24] It's a really important place to. To do that. And, you know, that's something that we could even look at doing here. As bridge builders, we don't have to shy away from truth claims or discussions because there are ways to even have those that are bridge building. So it's. It's more how to approach and not what, you know.

Julie Hanks [03:08:44] Great.

John Dehlin [03:08:46] All right, well, I just, I'll end by saying I'm so excited to be teaming with y' all to do more of these episodes, to do more peacemaking and bridge building. So thank you, Julie.

Julie Hanks [03:08:55] Thank you, John.

John Dehlin [03:08:56] Thank you, Bo.

Beau Oyler [03:08:57] Yeah, thank you.

John Dehlin [03:08:58] Thanks, Jenna.

Jana Spangler [03:08:59] Thank you.

John Dehlin [03:09:00] Yeah. And thanks, Julia and Brooklyn for their help behind the scenes. Thanks to our donors that make this possible. Please like and click the Bell on YouTube and subscribe and follow. Please comment. Please email us and let us know if you love or hate this stuff or what you'd like to see us do. Again, if you're an orthodox believing Mormon, traditional, whatever.

John Dehlin [03:09:22] What's the category? If you're a devout traditionalist and you're a good communicator and you want to join us so that you have representation on these panels, we'd love to have you. Please reach out. But thanks for all of you who support us. Thanks for us. Those of you who tuned in today, thanks to Trevan on for his moderating of the comments as well.

John Dehlin [03:09:46] Yeah, please. Thanks to the donors. Please donate if you're able. Go to MormonStories.org donate or go to MormonStories.org click on the Donate button. Become a donor if you value this type of content. But also we love your feedback. Please subscribe. Please like, please share. Please give us your feedback. Mostly be peacemakers, be bridge builders. And we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast and on the Mormon Bridge Builders. Bridge building. Bridge builders. We need help branding, marketing help.

Beau Oyler [03:10:18] All right, all right,

John Dehlin [03:10:22] all right. Take care, everybody. We'll see you all again soon.

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