Welcome and Introduction to the Episode

John Dehlin [00:00:02] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of the Mormon News Podcast. I am one of your hosts for today, John Dehlin. It's October 2, 2026, and I'm here with Meggan from General the Unquotable. Hey, Meggan.

Meggan Hayes [00:00:14] Hey. Welcome from Philadelphia.

John Dehlin [00:00:16] Yeah, you're like a correspondent, a remote correspondent.

Meggan Hayes [00:00:22] Yep. Yeah, I actually walked by a Masonic Temple that's not far from my hotel and thought that was interesting.

John Dehlin [00:00:28] That's Mormon adjacent. Fun. Well, good. Well, I appreciate you being willing to do this remotely, even though you're on the road.

Meggan Hayes [00:00:39] Yeah, the news doesn't stop when I travel, it turns out.

John Dehlin [00:00:43] Well, I love the thumbnail. We're going to be talking about Nemo, the Mormon's big lad Bible documentary. And yeah, why don't you give us an intro of what other stories we're covering today?

Meggan Hayes [00:00:58] Okay. Yeah, of course we're talking about Nemo. Then we're going to do just a few quick updates on the lawsuit against John De Lin and the Open Stories Foundation. Then we're going to go to a Stake conference leadership session, I believe it was, where an area 70 says where Jesus has walked. Very interesting. Then we're going to go to some brief headlines about babies not being born as much to LDS parents and what's happening with trad wives. And then we will talk about the Come Follow Me manual that just dropped this past week, the new one for 2027, and then a quick clip of Ted Lasso and how he mentioned the LDS Church. And we do have a breaking news story about halfway through that just came out half an hour ago.

John Dehlin [00:01:46] Okay, well, let's see if we could do it and maybe even do it under two hours. We'll see.

Meggan Hayes [00:01:52] We shall see.

Nemo Cardinalis and the LADbible Documentary

John Dehlin [00:01:53] So. So yeah, I've known about this Nemo thing for a bit. Why don't you tell us about it?

Meggan Hayes [00:01:59] So I wanted to give a brief timeline of what Nemo's story has looked like. So in December of 2020 was when he started his YouTube channel. And then in 2021 through 2023, he started voting opposition in, I think, sacrament meetings and state conferences because he was feeling opposition towards some of the things that the church leaders were doing. So he wanted to use the system that the church has and vote opposed. He started doing that. And then between 2022 and 2023 in the UK he started pushing for more safeguards for children. So when children go in to get interviewed by bishops, he wanted safeguards so that those children could be protected, which I think included background checks was their big push. It Was him and quite a few other F in the LDS Church in the UK pushing for that.

John Dehlin [00:02:54] We used to call them the Brit Benjers, like the. The British Avengers, because there used to be a group of about 10 British YouTubers and they've kind of been less active lately.

Meggan Hayes [00:03:05] But yeah, yeah. So then In August of 2024, he went on Lad Bible for the first time and did the honesty box where they asked him questions about the church and he answered his honest as honestly as he possibly could. Shortly thereafter, he did a BBC interview and then he was notified that he was going to be put through a disciplinary council. And that happened September 26th of 2024. And a couple weeks later his membership was withdrawn. He was excommunicated October 1st of 2024. So that's a brief history background of what happened before this international debut on Lad Bible. So the next slide.

John Dehlin [00:03:51] I have a question. Have you heard, like, Lad Bible? I don't know how popular they are in the United States, but I've never really. Only through Nemo did I learn about Lad Bible. And I think Nemo's video is the first Lad Bible video I've seen. How. How is it for you, Meggan?

Meggan Hayes [00:04:08] I've seen shorts here and there that just come up if I'm looking at Facebook reels or something. But yeah, I haven't watch consistently until it became big. Because of Nemo. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:04:19] But apparently they're huge. Millions and millions of subscribers. I think of them as kind of like a Jubilee level YouTube channel, but for the UK.

Meggan Hayes [00:04:28] Yeah. Yeah. Well. And so if you go to the next slide, this documentary that they did is the first time they've done a documentary. So Nemo is branching out to an international audience and LADbible was branching into documentary territory, which I just thought was super interesting because when I went back and looked at their other content, I just thought I would see a lot of documentary style videos. But no, this is their first one and they thought Nemo was the perfect candidate. And I, having watched it, I agree, he was great.

John Dehlin [00:05:03] Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I didn't realize that was their first. That's. That's news to me.

Meggan Hayes [00:05:08] Right? Yeah. I was just reading through the backstory and everything and I was like, wow, not only is this big for Nemo, but it's big for Lad Bible as well because they're branching into new content.

John Dehlin [00:05:19] Yeah, I love it. Love it.

Meggan Hayes [00:05:20] Okay, so, yeah, now we're going to discuss what happened about an hour before the documentary premiered.

John Dehlin [00:05:29] Okay.

Meggan Hayes [00:05:31] So Ben from For all the Saints podcast, Roughly one Hour before the premiere came out, made an Instagram post and this is just a slide kind of showing who he is. This is his Instagram page, some of the posts that he makes. He is also in the uk, but he is still an active believing member and does pro LDS content. So that's what we're talking about.

John Dehlin [00:05:55] And it looks like he's got about 11,000 followers on Instagram. That's kind of a surprise if he had Brendan Flowers from the Killers on his show. It doesn't track totally. Oh, is he British? He's British. And I know that the, I don't know if you know this, but the Killer's song, what's their, what's their big song? Mr. Brightside. Have you heard that song?

Meggan Hayes [00:06:20] Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes.

John Dehlin [00:06:21] Apparently it's been on the top 100 charts in the UK for like years and years and years. And so that's the only reason why I could think of somebody with relatively few followers would land such a big interview. Is Brandon Flowers from the Killers. I don't know. That's interesting.

Meggan Hayes [00:06:42] Of course you would bring out the musical side. So in this Instagram post, I'm not going to read the whole thing because it was very long, but he said a few things I just wanted to talk about. So in the original text of the Instagram post, he said, I am involved in the documentary as the only participating pro Latter Day Saint voice. My contributions total around three minutes and I think that time slot is relatively, relatively accurate. He did put this out before the documentary came out, so I don't think he could have actually timed it. But I just wanted to point out, you know, a little nuance in that, that Ben may be the only believing Latter Day Saint specifically interviewed by Lad Bible for the documentary.

Meggan Hayes [00:07:26] But the documentary also includes other pro LDS voices and believing era footage, one of which is Nemo, because the documentary goes back to when Nemo was still a member. And it kind of drives me crazy when people discount someone as soon as they leave the church like that. All those years that they were in don't count anymore because now they've been excommunicated.

Meggan Hayes [00:07:51] So it's just bothersome to me that he's saying there's not enough believing content when Nemo did all the same things that I'm guessing that Ben did. You know, he grew up in the church and he served in young men's and he went through institute or seminary. You know, he, he's got street cred as a Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:08:11] Yeah, I, I, there's a, there's an active believing Elders Quorum president that DMS me on, on Instagram. And he was giving me a hard time yesterday about the lawsuit, saying that I really should rename Mormon stories to like post Mormon stories or ex Mormon stories. And I'm like, it's not even accurate. I think like a fifth of the long form interviews we do are with people who are still members, you know, still believe, still attend. And that's always been true.

John Dehlin [00:08:38] And he's like, yeah, but like the majority are people who have left. And I'm like, number one, that's still a Mormon story. I'm like, would you tell it? Let's just say there was a Jewish person who grew up Jewish and then they left Judaism and didn't believe anymore. But then they told their story of growing up Jewish and they called it a Jewish story. Would you tell them they can't call it a Jewish story because they had left Judaism. Sorry, Jewish person. You have to call it ex Judas story. Like it's his story from when he was growing up Jewish.

John Dehlin [00:09:10] So that drives me crazy too. I'm kind of tired of hearing about it because even, even the, even the stories on Mormon stories of people who left the church, two thirds of their stories are about when they were faithful, believing, active Mormons. Right?

Meggan Hayes [00:09:28] Yes. And it's like our experience in Mormonism is valid right up until the time we stop toeing the company line and then it's totally invalid.

John Dehlin [00:09:37] Also, the church is willing to claim people who are dead as current members. I think the 17 million number is based on an assumption that all the older people that they've lost track of live to 120 plus. We know that only a third of the people ever fourth of the people baptized into the church still remain active. So like, isn't there a double standard if the church can count 17 million members and yet we can't call our stories Mormon stories even if we no longer attend or believe?

Meggan Hayes [00:10:09] Yeah, they definitely want it if it benefits them, that's for sure. Yes.

John Dehlin [00:10:13] Yeah. Okay, let's. So, yeah, so there are just.

Meggan Hayes [00:10:16] There are some other pro LDS voices believing Nemo Cardinalis is on there. Jonah Barnes gives a quick rant on there and then Luke. Luke Hansen. So my question for Ben is, does balance require equal time for Nemo's critics in a documentary about Nemo's experience?

John Dehlin [00:10:34] Yeah, no, and I, I was just as I was reading the comments from Ben, I'm thinking, I think it's cool they included a believer in there. Like, shouldn't you just Be saying, hey, lad, Bible, great job. Including a believing perspective.

Meggan Hayes [00:10:53] Yes, because it's not a documentary about the church. It's a documentary about Nemo.

John Dehlin [00:10:57] Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Meggan Hayes [00:11:01] So, yeah, this next one. Ben said nemo has spent years building a significant online audience around criticism of the church. I have nothing against him personally, and I cannot know his motivations, but I do think it is important to acknowledge the incentives inherent in being a content creator, which Ben is also a content creator. Side note, he says, and when you get attention and your channel grows, if you have controversy, it generates engagement and views create income. And when an audience has been built around criticism of an institution, there is inevitably a social and financial incentive to continue producing content that satisfies that audience.

Meggan Hayes [00:11:41] As if we as former Mormon content creators have to make things up to get people to watch our content. Like, it just. I don't have to say derogatory things about the church that aren't true to get people to watch my channel. I just have to say what's actually happening. And the church comes off looking bad quite a lot. I don't have to make them look bad. They do that themselves.

John Dehlin [00:12:07] I'm just tired of this idea. It's basically a way to malign us and to say that we're just in it for the money, that we're motivated by the money. I know in my case, I went five years, got paid nothing for it, did it on the side, and when I had to stop to go to grad school, my audience just said, we want your stuff. We need it. It's saving lives.

John Dehlin [00:12:35] And then I said, okay, well, I'll start a nonprofit, and if y' all donate, I'll keep doing it. And people wanted it, and so they voluntarily donated. And yeah, fortunately, I've been able to do this full time now and be compensated for it. But that doesn't mean I do it for the money. I need money to do this, and I need to be able to support my family and make up for the 10 years I didn't have an income trying to build this business.

John Dehlin [00:13:05] But I need money to do this. But I literally don't do it for the money. If I was all about the money, I would have never left Microsoft. But even more weird is the church is a $300 billion organization, and we have no idea how much the general authorities and the apostles are actually being compensated. Especially if you count salary, plus benefits, plus perks, plus slush funds, plus business deals, plus board seats, plus contracts awarded to friends and family.

John Dehlin [00:13:40] Like, we have no idea. Because the Church isn't even transparent financially. Those of us who run a non profit have to publish a 990 every year. To me that's really gross that that's where the apologists continue to fall as a way to sort of do kind of a dog whistle Y ad hominem that we're all in this for the money.

Meggan Hayes [00:14:02] Well, and how does what we do differ from what it is that they're doing? Because I don't know if Ben is bringing in money from his channel, but I know that a lot of pro LDs influencers are tangentially supported by the church itself and we don't have that backing. We don't have a 300 billion dollar church and its richest donors supporting. I mean, I don't supporting my channel. I just, I don't. I came at a similar way that you did. It kind of fell into my lap and I love doing it. And if I was really about the money, I would have kept the six figure job that I had before I started doing this.

John Dehlin [00:14:49] Yeah. So you're saying you don't do it for the money?

Meggan Hayes [00:14:51] No, no, certainly not.

John Dehlin [00:14:54] I do think you could make more money with your talents.

Meggan Hayes [00:14:58] Thank you. Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:15:00] Way more money.

Meggan Hayes [00:15:01] I, I just. Yeah, I love doing it and I could quit today and do something much more lucrative. But this is where my heart is, so this is where I am.

John Dehlin [00:15:14] Yeah, it's such a dumb argument. Okay, so we've got a video clip next, is that right?

Meggan Hayes [00:15:18] Yeah. So in the previous slide, Ben mentioned that he couldn't know Nemo's motivations. And while he's correct, he can't go into Nemo's head and, and hear exactly what's going on there. I think Nemo over the years has been very open about his motivations. So I found a little clip from a past Mormon Stories episode of Nemo talking about his intentions and motivations.

John Dehlin [00:15:39] And I want all the credit for discovering Nemo. No, I'm just kidding. But I did, I did interview Nemo before he was known as Nemo.

Meggan Hayes [00:15:48] Awesome.

John Dehlin [00:15:48] I'm proud of that. All right, let's play the clip. With what intent at least did you start? Were you trying to get people out of the church? Were you just mad? Were you just trying to get the church to be honest, to make it a healthier place for those who remain in. Were you wanting to remain in the church as a critic? You know, what were your intentions?

Guest 1 [00:16:05] Yeah, so I'd realized there was a role I could fulfill where I could stay and be a critic, be a Bit like the gadfly in the stories about Socrates. Right. And realize that I held the organization needs someone who's willing to openly criticize it intentions. I've never really taken a strong position on people's intentions to stay or leave. They can do what they want with the information. The most important thing is that they know what's going on.

Guest 1 [00:16:29] I think I summarized it in my initial interview with you, John, when I said, I just want them to stop lying to people. That's what I want. I want them to stop lying to people. I thought if I can help keep them honest in some way, that would be really helpful for my family and friends who are still in the church, fully in and believing my niece and nephews who are going to serve missions and all this sort of stuff.

John Dehlin [00:16:51] All right, so, yeah, what'd you take from. From that explanation?

Meggan Hayes [00:16:55] He just. Ben can know Nemo's intentions because Nemo just wants the church to tell the truth, which is a pretty simple ask, I think.

John Dehlin [00:17:04] Yeah.

Meggan Hayes [00:17:04] Right. For a church that claims to be led by God himself and to speak with God and Jesus, like, being honest seems like that should be the. The bare minimum thing.

John Dehlin [00:17:17] Yeah. I. It's so glaringly obvious that these critics, these apologists who are critics of ex Mormons have never really taken the time to actually listen to our shows because it's so obvious. And it would take 10 minutes to figure out why Nemo actually, what he said about why he does. Why he does this whole lawsuit against me. They're saying that I named it Mormon Stories to confuse and deceive people. Like, you could just go back to the beginning and actually see why I started Mormon Stories because I state why. And I did it as a believer, and I did it 20 years ago, and my, My. My intentions were on my sleeve. So instead they want to. They want to recreate, rewrite history and ascribe really terrible motives or selfish motives again, as if the. The church isn't financially motivated anyway, you know? Yeah.

Meggan Hayes [00:18:21] Yes. Yeah. And it does. It gets. It gets old. Like, if you want to know about us, just listen to our content.

John Dehlin [00:18:28] Bring us on your show. Bring us on your shows. Right.

Meggan Hayes [00:18:32] Yes. Yeah. Because we would bring them on ours.

John Dehlin [00:18:35] Oh, yeah. But they're. Yeah, they won't come on.

Guest 1 [00:18:38] So.

John Dehlin [00:18:39] Yeah, it's weird, but it's the way they've always worked.

Meggan Hayes [00:18:42] Yeah. So. Oh, this is one of the other things Ben said. I offered to introduce the production team to church leaders. This is the production team from Lad Bible and people involved in church public affairs I wanted them to have access to people, people who could explain the Church's perspective properly, answer difficult questions, and provide the context that I, as one contributor, obviously cannot provide. A loan.

John Dehlin [00:19:04] Huh. So he basically wants to, like, derail their documentary.

Guest 2 [00:19:09] Right.

Meggan Hayes [00:19:09] What is. What is he looking for? Like, they're doing a documentary about Nemo and he wants Church public affairs to be involved.

John Dehlin [00:19:19] There is a. There is an element of hubris, like the Church feeling like it can denounce the name Mormon, but then control its usage. And here it can, you know, denounce ex Mormons and demean and belittle or excommunicate them, but then it wants to control the narrative of the stories they tell.

Meggan Hayes [00:19:40] Yes. Like, if Nemo goes on there and he's honest, the Church deserves their time to put a rebuttal to him. Like, that's.

John Dehlin [00:19:49] Yeah, it's. It's a little bit presumptuous.

Meggan Hayes [00:19:53] Yes, yes, it's quite a bit presumptuous. And he said properly. And like I said again, it's like Nemo's perspective isn't proper. Nemo, he's very smart. He's incredibly educated. He's very articulate. Like, Nemo's perspective on Mormonism is proper.

John Dehlin [00:20:16] Yeah, yeah. And also the Church has such a terrible history of telling the truth about its history and about what it's doing today. Nine times out of 10, I think an independent assessor would judge an ex Mormon as being far more accurate and honest about describing the Church and its history and its doings than the Church would. You're just going to make it less accurate by getting the Church involved.

Meggan Hayes [00:20:49] Yes. Yeah. Because I'm not afraid. I don't know about you, John. I mean, I think you're the same. I'm not afraid to tell both sides of the story.

John Dehlin [00:20:55] No.

Meggan Hayes [00:20:55] I can say the Church did this good thing and it was accompanied by this. This other thing that the Church won't talk about because it doesn't make them look good. Like, let's just tell the whole story.

John Dehlin [00:21:06] Yeah.

Meggan Hayes [00:21:06] It's okay if the Church is complicated in that way. That doesn't scare me.

John Dehlin [00:21:11] Yeah. Yeah. And I still. I. People hate it when I say this. I still have a lot of love for the Church. I just want it to be healthier. I don't want to see it go away. I don't want to destroy it. So I literally have positive feelings for the Church overall and just want it to be better. So.

Meggan Hayes [00:21:30] Yes. Because all that. All the positive things it's doing would hopefully cease to be Overshadowed by all of this type of stuff.

John Dehlin [00:21:37] Yeah.

Timing of the Documentary and Nemo's Motivations

Meggan Hayes [00:21:38] Okay, so this is one of the last things Ben says. There's another element of the timing that I think deserves mentioning. This documentary is being released just two days after the first anniversary of the horrific attack on a Latter Day Saint congregation in Grand Blank, Michigan. The FBI subsequently concluded that the attacker was motivated by anti religious beliefs against the Latter Day Saint community. In the aftermath of an act of violence motivated by hostility towards Latter Day Saints. I believe a major media organization producing an overwhelmingly critical portrayal of their faith has a responsibility to exercise exceptional care, nuance and fairness. I don't believe enough of that care has been shown here.

Meggan Hayes [00:22:17] Are we supposed to take the timing as a message in itself? And I think my response to that would be that this documentary is coming out two years after Nemo received his letter of excommunication and was excommunicated, which in his life was a traumatic event also.

Meggan Hayes [00:22:37] So I don't think the timing has anything to do with Grand Blank. And even insinuating that feels. I don't know, it feels off to me.

John Dehlin [00:22:46] It feels like a fake assuming of a victim posture. Like the church is this discriminated against, weak, feeble, vulnerable group of people, but the church is wealthier than Heavenly Father at this point. They're incredibly powerful. And it's also like to assume that Lad Bible is like, knows these timelines and is basing their release schedule on things that happened in the past. That. That feels almost like a victimy pseudo defense. It almost feels gross.

Meggan Hayes [00:23:34] Yes, yes. Because real people's lives were affected in Grand Blank when the church was burned down and people died. And to pull that out as some sort of defense that Nemo shouldn't be able to tell his own traumatic story. Yeah, I don't like it.

John Dehlin [00:23:50] But the Lad Bible can't release a documentary right. When it feels. When it's part of their production schedule. Certainly this wasn't timed to coincide with that.

Meggan Hayes [00:24:02] No, no.

John Dehlin [00:24:03] Like they can see why people wouldn't. It wouldn't occur to them, right?

Meggan Hayes [00:24:07] Yeah. No, like forever. Now September is off limits to say anything negative about the church. Like.

John Dehlin [00:24:14] Or how about just objective? How about not negative?

Meggan Hayes [00:24:17] Right.

John Dehlin [00:24:17] How about just to tell a story? Like, are we all supposed to shut our podcast down during the month of September?

Meggan Hayes [00:24:25] I mean, if the church stopped doing things for us to talk about, I guess we could.

John Dehlin [00:24:30] So what's this next clip?

Meggan Hayes [00:24:32] Okay, so this is just the thumbnail from the documentary. It's called the Cost of Speaking Out. It's got Nemo There, looking very regal in his white suit. And then this is a clip about why they chose Nemo.

John Dehlin [00:24:45] Okay. This is from the documentary. Yeah, fun.

▶ Video Clip 1

Video Clip 1 [00:24:49] We'd always wanted to feature someone from the Mormon faith on the show. And when searching for that right person, I came across Nemo's YouTube channel. It was immediately clear that he wasn't afraid to tackle some of the more challenging questions about Mormonism.

Video Clip 1 [00:25:01] One in four believing Mormons has thought about leaving the LDS church. That means the church spent approximately nine and a half times more on commercial land and real estate than it did on charitable giving. These are the men who say they will not lead us astray. So it makes a huge difference.

Video Clip 1 [00:25:15] He was really confident, well informed, articulate. He felt like the perfect fit for a show like Honesty Books.

Video Clip 1 [00:25:20] Is there anything in Mormonism you don't agree with? Yeah, lots. And I mean, shameless self plug. If you look at the work I do online, you'll see most of it focuses around what I disagree with the church over, you know, the way they've handled their finances, the way that they treat women, the way they treat gay members of the church. So that was, I think in July, I think we filmed that, went out in August. And then a few weeks later, I did a BBC institute off the back of that.

Video Clip 1 [00:25:44] Nemo the Mormon. He's a popular Mormon broadcaster. Well, he's popular in some quarters. He is quite controversial.

Video Clip 1 [00:25:52] At the time I thought, okay, right, there's a little bit of hype around it and then I'll just go back to doing my thing. But clearly the church weren't very happy with it. Four days after the BBC interview went out, I got a letter from the church.

John Dehlin [00:26:12] All right, what are your thoughts on that, Meggan?

Meggan Hayes [00:26:14] I, I thought it was just necessary at this point, especially after Ben's post, to point out that Nemo didn't go looking for this. Nemo was on his channel working in ways that he thought were effective to help the church become better, to point out things that they were doing. And Lad Bible found him and approached him to come on Honesty Box because they wanted someone who is a member of the church to go on there and speak honestly. And they thought, he's very open. He'll, he'll be great. He, he wasn't hunting them down. He didn't send in an audition tape. They sought him out and he agreed to go on when he was still a member and speak honestly about the church.

John Dehlin [00:26:53] Yeah, My quick response is just, it's called the Honesty Box. I don't think believing Mormons or Mormons in general are generally viewed as being honest. A faithful member is gonna kind of just say publicly, they're either not going to want to talk publicly or they're just going to parrot back the talking points they were indoctrinated to parrot. There aren't a lot of honest, faithful spokespeople in the world, and I don't, especially in the uk. I mean, I can only think of a couple people where I think, oh, yeah, they're really telling the truth and are willing to tell it like it is. Can you think of any faithful Mormons that are intelligent, honest, willing to tell it like it is, and to be candid, and are willing and open to speak publicly when asked?

Meggan Hayes [00:27:45] And. Well, in the UK or. Or worldwide? I mean, I think. Yeah, not really. I mean, if. If they still want to stay in the church, I mean, obviously, because we know what happened to Nemo, then they. They wouldn't agree to do it in the way that Nemo did. They would go on and they would say the things that they knew the church would think were okay. You know, they. They would probably, I would imagine, get some talking points from the church before they even went on.

John Dehlin [00:28:13] Yeah, I mean, I think, like, Patrick Mason, he's as. He's the best that I can think of, but. But he's still not able to really be fully honest with what he thinks and feels. He has to speak in code and, you know, be really cautious. And that's the proof of that, is that we were going to do a new show together and he had to back out, you know.

Meggan Hayes [00:28:34] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:28:35] And I love Patrick and really respect him, but I think he realizes he can't be fully honest. He just can't be.

Meggan Hayes [00:28:43] No. Because his livelihood is attached to the church. And, yeah, he. He needs that. Like we were saying earlier, we've all got to pay the bills.

John Dehlin [00:28:52] Yeah. All right, let's go to the next clip.

▶ Video Clip 2

Video Clip 2 [00:29:00] In the case of safeguarding, they've responded positively. They've taken on board what we said and that, you know, something I think I'll always be proud of.

Video Clip 2 [00:29:06] We are getting you the latest on some policy changes. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has introduced in the uk

Video Clip 2 [00:29:12] Those changes applying to those specifically working with children. What a week it has been. Let's just cut straight to the chase. The Mormon Church in the UK at least, is finally adopting some semblance of safeguarding. Church is implementing background checks, DBS checks, as they're called in the UK for anyone that's working with the youth

John Dehlin [00:29:36] all right, what are your thoughts on that, Meggan?

Meggan Hayes [00:29:38] I wanted to put that out there because, like I said, we're. We're not afraid to acknowledge when the church does something good. And it looks, you know, Nemo's the same way. He went through that whole process with the Brit vengers pushing for these safeguards, and the church responded in a positive way. And I wish they would do it worldwide. But now in the UK they have some more safeguards in place for children, and Nemo acknowledged that. I'm not afraid to acknowledge that lad. Bible put that in their documentary. I think it's a good step forward.

John Dehlin [00:30:11] Yeah. And I'll just say, like, what happens when a faithful, active Mormon speaks up about child abuse? We just have Sam Young as an example, former bishop. All he, all he did was just say we need to do better to prevent child abuse and they excommunicate him. It's almost like irresponsible for an apologist to call on media outlets to have faithful Mormons speak honestly and openly. Because if you do and you care about children and you'd say the church needs to do better, like our like, like the, the woman that we featured last week and the week before, more often than not, if you, if you appear on the honest box and you happen to care about children and then you have to say, yeah, the church needs to do better about child abuse, you're more likely than not to receive a letter from your stake president and. Or get excommunicated.

Meggan Hayes [00:31:10] So, yeah, yeah, that's Susie Greco and she's in the middle of it right now. Like, we're. It's to be determined what will happen, but she is pushing for reform.

John Dehlin [00:31:21] Yeah. And apologists, if they were honest, they would acknowledge that members just can't safely speak honestly in the public. We have a. We have a super chat from Outer snarkness. Outer snarkness question. Would you rather do Mormon stories intoxicated but speak truth or bear your testimony in one ward that you support everything Brad Wilcox has ever said? Meggan, I'll let you go first.

Reactions to the Documentary's Framing

Meggan Hayes [00:31:47] Oh, I could not attest to Brad Wilcox. I would have to do Mormon stories intoxicated.

John Dehlin [00:31:55] I don't drink and so I don't know.

Meggan Hayes [00:31:59] You have to have heavily caffeinated. John, we'll give you that. That option.

John Dehlin [00:32:04] I love the question, but I think I would have to decline both because I don't lie.

Meggan Hayes [00:32:10] Right.

John Dehlin [00:32:10] I'm not. I'm not a drinker right now.

Meggan Hayes [00:32:13] No, that's a shout out to San Antonio Thrive after The event was over and we went to the after get together. We did a few would you Rathers.

John Dehlin [00:32:23] Oh, fun, fun, fun. Well, they do great work, so that's fun. All right, let's roll the next clip.

Guest 1 [00:32:30] What I was more surprised at was, was lad Bible and the way they did it. It seemed really some of the framing of the questions and the way it was edited was just disappointing. I think it was just clear that there was a desire there to portray the church as this peculiar thing and to feed into the media stereotypes, media hype around the peculiarity of the church and, and kind of portraying us as this non Christian. Are they occult? Are they not all of this? And it's just when you go on a Sunday, you just find people going to church, reading their scriptures, trying to be better.

John Dehlin [00:33:11] Oh, my goodness, my blood is boiling a little bit. How about you? You go first, Meggan.

Meggan Hayes [00:33:16] Well, before we comment, let's listen to the next clip. It's very short. And then we'll comment on both.

John Dehlin [00:33:21] Perfect. Okay, let's do it. Peter's final description, a peculiar people. Of course you're peculiar. If the world continues its present trend, and if you walk in obedience to the doctrines and principles of the church, you may become even more peculiar in the eyes of others. Okay, this is a blast from the past.

Meggan Hayes [00:33:48] I know. Well, because when I was growing up, peculiar was something that we owned as members, as Mormons. Hinckley was all about, I'm a Mormon, we're peculiar. And now there's this strong push toward mainstream Christianity and we want to be viewed like everybody else. And we're gonna downplay some of the things we do that make us more peculiar. And Ben's talking about all of that. Plus he's talking to an entity lad Bible that is non religious. You know, they don't have skin in the game either way. They're just trying to present honesty, right? An unbiased truth that. I mean, everyone's biased, but like a truth that comes from someone and they're not.

Meggan Hayes [00:34:37] They don't behold to either side. And so for Ben to say, you know, it was presented in a way that's making us appear weird. Well, Ben, maybe you do weird stuff and that's why it came across that way, which is something that's so hard. I mean, as a member, I couldn't either consider that peculiar. I thought peculiar made me more righteous. And sometimes it just makes you more weird.

John Dehlin [00:35:01] Yeah, I. I think I wish these people would take media training from us apologists sometimes. You know, he's saying it's disappointing that they're trying to portray the church as a cult. I don't think that's what's going on. I think they're literally trying to just tell an interesting story.

John Dehlin [00:35:24] And there is zero, zero doubt in my mind that for example the, the LDS church has a child abuse, a systemic child abuse cover up problem. You know, we've already talked about just every, almost every episode we do on the Mormon news podcast how another bishop, another stake president, another seminary teacher is discovered to be abusing children.

John Dehlin [00:35:51] That's just a fact. And if they were to interview apologists or apologists going to want to talk about that. Mormons aren't just Christians going to church on Sunday. And really boring. Like I wish they had some self awareness that we actually have peculiar or even problematic behavior.

John Dehlin [00:36:17] And the reason why people are so fascinated with us is because of the juxtaposition between our social media presence oftentimes and how dark and weird and scary and violent our actual lived experiences can be. And that's part of the draw.

John Dehlin [00:36:40] But even more so I just wish they could be sophisticated enough to know that, that at least we're being talked about. Like there's a degree to which all press is good press and it's way more effective PR wise to lean into it and to own it and to embrace it but then to speak intelligently about it but than to be kind of whiny and victimy, you know, and that's kind of what they do is they come off as not self aware and is, is clueless and whiny and victimy and it's just not a compelling, it's just going to perpetuate people not wanting to talk to apologists and believers because they don't, they just, they don't get it. That's like they're zombies, you know?

Meggan Hayes [00:37:32] Yeah, it's so their talking points are overdone. They're very sterile when what lad Bible wants is a complicated, compelling, interesting story. And that's not what you're going to get from an apologist.

John Dehlin [00:37:47] Yeah, yeah, but we can't really blame the apologists. I mean weirdly it's, it's often these, these, these apologists, by the way, these YouTube apologists, they are getting paid. We just don't know how much they're getting paid because the church has always had ways to pay people behind the scenes. So if anyone's, you know, motivations are compromised, it very well could be these people. But you know, they, they would be well served to figure out how to Communicate in a more sincere, honest, open, compelling way. That's why Nemo's on the show and that's how they could get on the show. Yeah, I think.

Meggan Hayes [00:38:31] Yes, I agree.

John Dehlin [00:38:32] Yeah. So you got a final. Is this the final slide on Nemo?

Overall Takeaways From the Nemo Documentary

Meggan Hayes [00:38:36] Yeah. So I. I would highly recommend watching the documentary. I was feeling quite emotional towards the end and I actually watched it at the same time as Nemo and we spoke to each other during and after. And yeah, I. I had a lot of really big positive and mixed feelings about what happened, but. Lad Bible follows Nemo from public criticism to a membership council, excommunication and appeal. The documentary explores why Nemo stayed and spoke out, the church's response, the people who supported and criticized him, and what happened after his membership was withdrawn. There's much more to the story than the clip shown here. Go watch for yourself.

John Dehlin [00:39:18] It's a really well done. It's a really well done documentary and it's heartfelt, it's. It's thoughtful, it's engaging, it's emotional. I think some people have. Have cried tears at the end. I think it's extremely well done. And if all my audience, our audiences, tens, hundreds of thousands of people all watch it, that will only help more people. The algorithms push it further. So everyone, please go watch it. Check out Loud Bible. Check out Nemo's documentary. Watch it, Share it. Like, subscribe. Share the believing family and bishops and stake presidents and elders, Quorum presidents and Relief Society presidents, and then have conversations with them about it. And I think we'll all be better off. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Shout out to Nemo for his great work. Shout out to Loud Bible for putting together what I think is a very compelling and fair documentary.

Meggan Hayes [00:40:16] Yes, yes, absolutely. Like Nemo, it takes bravery to step on that big of a stage and be very vulnerable and incredibly authentic. So, yes. Applause for Nemo for sure.

John Dehlin [00:40:31] Yeah. And we'll ask Julia to paste a link to the documentary here in the chat so that people and. And put it in the show notes. All right, so, pray tell, what's the next story about?

Mormon Stories Lawsuit Update

Meggan Hayes [00:40:43] The lawsuit continues.

John Dehlin [00:40:46] So, I mean, I. What? I don't have context. What lawsuit are you.

Meggan Hayes [00:40:49] Oh, so the Mormon Church.

John Dehlin [00:40:54] Look at that guy.

Meggan Hayes [00:40:55] I know, That's. I love that picture. It actually reminds me kind of of the ending of Nemo's documentary where he's kind of staring into the. The light coming through the trees. It's fantastic.

John Dehlin [00:41:05] To the Salt Lake Tribune's credit, they set a photographer out to. To take a Photo of me, like, six years ago for the Thrive St. George conference. It was a terrible photo, and they used it every article they ever wrote about me. And I was so sick of that dumb photo. So I kind of just said, man, come on, people, could you please stop using that terrible photo from. I'm not a vain guy. I'm not. But that photo was horrific. And to their credit, they sent a photographer to my studio, and for an hour, he took photos of me, you know, doing actual interviews. I was literally doing a live stream for part of it, and he was photographing me during the live stream. And to their credit, now they've, they've, they've. My photos have a glow up at the Tribune.

Meggan Hayes [00:41:57] Yes, you look quite angelic, John. I love it. I did photography for many years. I can appreciate good photography.

John Dehlin [00:42:03] So, yes, even Doug Fabrizio told me I looked handsome. So I felt honored by that. All right, keep going.

Meggan Hayes [00:42:10] Yeah. So the Salt Lake Tribune, in response to and we'll talk about it, some of the stuff that happened that we talked about. Last week, the Salt Lake Tribune put out an article how a pro LDS church podcast they're talking about the Keystone podcast, might have just complicated the faith's case against Mormon stories. So the background Heather Gay and Bad Mormon. In August of 2021, Heather Gay's company filed a federal trademark application for Bad Mormon. She'd put out a book and she wanted to sell merch. In October 2022, the LDS Church and intellectual Reserve formally opposed the application, arguing, amongst other things, that Bad Mormon could cause confusion with the church's Mormon marks. And In January of 2024, Heather Gay withdrew the application. The Bad Mormon trademark application was abandoned because she didn't want to put up with the church.

John Dehlin [00:43:00] So, yeah, and that's so weird that she has a global platform, she's wealthy, and even she felt intimidated and overwhelmed to be able to fight back. Because, you know, it's. It's very easy when you're staring down the barrel of a $300 billion organization to just say, even if I believe in my case, I'm not going to pursue it because I don't want to waste the money and I don't want to fight a $300 billion organization. But isn't it kind of stunning? It's not like she's on our level. She's got a global footprint. And she felt intimidated and ultimately overwhelmed by the church's litigiousness.

Meggan Hayes [00:43:45] I felt that way when she went on Mormon stories and was talking about it before the outcome was even known. I was like, heather gay, she's gonna. She's gonna be able to do this. She's gonna. And I do not blame her for backing down. I mean, it's terrifying, it's overwhelming.

John Dehlin [00:44:04] And then bewilderingly, I guess we've got a clip to play. Is this David Jordan?

Meggan Hayes [00:44:08] Yeah. This is just a reminder for those

John Dehlin [00:44:10] who weren't watching last week what David said on Keystone. If people just use their common sense and they say, okay, I see this blue circle, it's got these light rays in, has the word Mormon stories in it. And the words Mormon stories don't suggest anything about non affiliation. If anything, they suggest affiliation to just a common person seeing those words. And if you see the words bad Mormon, you're not thinking, oh, I bet that's affiliated with the church. Probably being too specific here. Can I just ask, can you name a Mormon, a Latter Day Saint, who believes that any podcast named Mormon suggests affiliation with the church?

Meggan Hayes [00:45:03] No. No, because the prophet came out and said, don't use the word Mormon. And then every single time one of us ex Mormons said Mormon online, we would get called out, it's the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Over and over and over and over again.

John Dehlin [00:45:20] It's just so disingenuous. So anyway, I want to create a logo like a Coca Cola logo where it says not Pepsi, like Coca, like Pepsi or Pepsi logo that says not Coca Cola. What? What person in their logo suggests non affiliation?

Meggan Hayes [00:45:41] Nothing.

John Dehlin [00:45:44] Who has a logo that suggests non affiliation anywhere?

Meggan Hayes [00:45:47] No, nobody. Because that's ridiculous. Nothing you look at nobody's logo suggests what they're not affiliated with. That's not the point of a loco dumb.

John Dehlin [00:46:00] But. But they're not dumb. So it's a weird game they're playing with PR because it's a dumb argument, but they must think Mormons believing Latter Day Saints are dumb.

Meggan Hayes [00:46:13] Well, and I.

John Dehlin [00:46:14] Because it's such a dumb argument.

Meggan Hayes [00:46:16] Yeah, it's terrible. And when I go and I read comments sections talking about the lawsuit and there are people in there who are trying to defend the church, I'm like, you have listened to the talking points of the church, but you have not looked at the lawsuit at all. Because it becomes very obvious, even just reading through the very first email they sent, that the things they are saying are just what they want you to hear. It's not what actually is going on. And yes, that argument's terrible. I've never looked at someone's logo and thought, what are they not affiliated with, though?

John Dehlin [00:46:48] Why Aren't they telling us who they're not affiliated with? We got a super chat in. So Trex Gen 2 writes the statement from the church's attorney seems to suggest that church leadership believes members are incapable of viewing information, evaluating it for themselves and understanding the context in which it is presented. If that were true, where would members have learned to be incapable of viewing information, evaluating it for themselves and understanding that information? Where would they have learned that?

Meggan Hayes [00:47:24] Well, I mean, they're crossing their fingers that that's, that's the case, like that's what they want. And we will later in today's show talk about something that's furthers that.

John Dehlin [00:47:34] All right.

Meggan Hayes [00:47:34] Helps the church with their case.

John Dehlin [00:47:36] Let's continue the story, I guess.

Guest 2 [00:47:38] Okay.

Meggan Hayes [00:47:38] Yeah. So this is from the Salt Lake Tribune. Heather Gay responded to this Keystone podcast. She said it's incredibly frustrating after hearing David Jordan say bad Mormon would not make people think something was affiliated with the church. Given their clarification. Now maybe it's time for me to file a new trademark application. Yes. Heather Gay, please. She joked about bad Mormon dirty soda shops, bookstores and restaurants, and said to John, don't be intimidated into backing down the way I was. After feeling pushed around for long enough, I ultimately abandoned it.

John Dehlin [00:48:11] Yeah. Don't you think? Can you imagine bad Mormon coffee shops around the Wasatch front? By the way, I take full credit. She actually, I told her that behind the scenes I'm like, heather, freaking refile your trademark. And we need dirty soda shops and coffee stores and restaurants and I think they'd go gangbusters. So I'm taking credit, I'm taking credit for that idea. But honestly, I'm sure she envisioned that when she came out with the book and filed for the trademark to begin with. So I'm teasing, but I hope she does refile. Right?

Meggan Hayes [00:48:49] Absolutely. Yes. Because I, I want the T shirt and the next time I Utah, I want to go to a coffee shop. Yes.

John Dehlin [00:49:00] You know, like, what are they called? What are these cups called?

Meggan Hayes [00:49:04] The Stanley Cup.

John Dehlin [00:49:06] Stanley Cup, Yeah. All of it. All the, all the merch. Anyway, that's an awesome. And it's a self inflicted wound because we did file with, you know, an addendum to our motion to dismiss. These are my words, not a formal legal words because it is an example, it is a blatant example of, of the church misusing trademark law to bully silence and in my opinion, to bully silence and intimidate smaller players when they admit that there's really no confusion. And I, I maintain there's zero. There was zero intent to confuse people with Mormon Stories and its logo change and its branding and past, present and future. And, and I believe there's zero meaningful confusion that, that Mormon stories is run by the church. I don't think anybody, any reasonable person, Mormon or not, believes that.

Meggan Hayes [00:50:08] No. Yeah, I think you're right. I don't. I have not read any comments anywhere that say I thought it was run by the church. I've read a few and you've discussed this at length that it's different if someone thought it might be faithful content. That's not the same as thinking it was run by the church. I've read a few different.

John Dehlin [00:50:25] If those comments come after the church filed a lawsuit against me because we don't know how many people are just influenced by the church or saying that or remembering it because they're faithful and they want to support the church. You don't know. It's only statements from before. And David Jordan admitted that they have statements like that from before, but they didn't provide it as evidence in their filings. And I can't wait to subpoena or, or in discovery to, to, to see the evidence that he had and, and to find out why they didn't act on it years ago. Because if they've had that, if they've had those types of comments years ago, why did they wait so long to file their lawsuit?

Meggan Hayes [00:51:14] Right. Why is it suddenly a big problem if it's been going on for years?

John Dehlin [00:51:18] Yeah. All right. So if, if I weren't tired enough of seeing my, my face. What is this about?

Meggan Hayes [00:51:25] So this is just a heads up. The Salt Lake Tribune came out with that article. You were also on Mormonism Live this week talking about the lawsuit. And actually I listened to the whole episode. It was amazing.

John Dehlin [00:51:37] Oh, good.

Meggan Hayes [00:51:37] It was amazing. Did I put a couple clips there? We can look at a few clips. I just very briefly.

John Dehlin [00:51:44] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, it's, it is almost four hours long and it's me and Bill Real and Radio Free Mormon and I felt bad, like we were taking too long. But people, people seem to have liked it. So we'll play, I guess we'll play a clip or two. What I do think has been, has been missing a little bit is just how, how sincere we were in number one wanting to avoid this lawsuit. I did not want this lawsuit. I was not playing games. I don't think this is fun.

John Dehlin [00:52:18] There's a lot of people that try and say this is some sort of grift. This is some type of way to seek attention, some way to generate money. None of that's true. And I think the best indication of that is the fact that when the church reached out and said, we have concerns and we'd like to share with you our concerns, I was immediately accommodating. And by the way, when the church reached out to me, I didn't have counsel. Right.

John Dehlin [00:52:46] And I made those changes not as some part of some legal strategy. I just didn't want to go up against 100 plus billion dollar multinational corporation. And so those changes I made were immediate and sincere and in good faith. And I really, really believed that if I gave the church a spreadsheet and said, list every single change you want me to make and I'll give it fair consideration, I really thought they would do that. And I was sad when they didn't. And I changed the logo color immediately to orange. They showed me one thumbnail that I recall that they wanted me to change. I changed it immediately.

John Dehlin [00:53:30] And I thought, and then I'm like, what else? And I thought they were going to come back and say, oh, wow, he made these changes, let's give them more. What I was surprised is that they immediately said, nope, you know, in my memory, we want to do mediation. And I was like, okay, I guess I'll try and find representation.

Meggan Hayes [00:53:50] Yeah, I. That just harken for me. That harkened back to Ben's comments earlier about Nemo's documentary where he was saying, you know, it's a grift, they're in it for the money. There's inevitably, if there's controversy, there's money involved. And like, that's just not what the law. That's obviously not what the lawsuit is about. And in the comments I've read on other posts about the lawsuit where it's people trying to defend the church. You are right. That's the part that's missing because they're looking at it from mediation forward and they're totally ignoring a lot of times all the stuff that happened before mediation when you were sincerely just trying to do what you'd been asked to do and you were expecting the same sincerity from the church that you sadly did not get.

Meggan Hayes [00:54:35] So I don't think, I mean, I, there are going to be people who like, I've heard this so many times now, but there are still people who have not heard it.

John Dehlin [00:54:43] Yeah, most people are just too busy to have to even pay attention to that stuff. And I, I shouldn't be surprised. Part of the reason I started Mormon stories was seeing how the church defamed, demeaned and excommunicated its critics. So that's what we're all going to face. And to be honest, like, it's not worth the money. Oftentimes the, the amount of, you know, demeaning language that gets directed towards you in this role. If, if it were about the money, it wouldn't be worth it. No amount of money is worth that.

Meggan Hayes [00:55:22] Right. Because it's not just people saying, you know, you're ugly or you're stupid. It's like threatening your livelihood, threatening your family, the people that you love calling

John Dehlin [00:55:33] you deceitful, calling, you know, calling you worse. Like it's. Yeah, yeah. And, and the truth is the church. Part of the proof that the church wasn't sincere is that they, they didn't continue allowing me to make accommodations. They went straight to mediation. And then in my opinion in mediation, they just wanted. They just made outrageous request after outrageous request, which to me showed they really didn't want to mediate. They. It felt to me like they were doing mediation just to be able to say they tried. And if they could make outrageous enough requests and they wanted those to all be secret so that no one would know what they asked for in mediation, then they could say, not mediation broke down because he wouldn't cooperate, which I feel is what they did.

John Dehlin [00:56:25] So I think people seeing how the church behaved before mediation, during mediation, after mediation, helps people see the church's real intentions and their cards. What's this next? Should we show the next clip?

Meggan Hayes [00:56:40] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:56:41] All right. You know, they did literally list item number one. Is your name the use of the word Mormon in your name. That was number one of the pre mediation conditions. And as I remember, number three was the use of the word Mormon in your social media handles. So they were in my. In what they sent us and in the way the mediations played out. They were gunning for the use of the word Mormon in our name and in our title and in our social media handles from the beginning, which was, which became for me so outrageous when later, you know, the, the, the spin seemed to be it was never about the use of the word Mormon. That. That was not our experience at all.

Meggan Hayes [00:57:34] Yeah, just another clip of clarification because I'm still seeing that being thrown around and how the church and is saying one thing over here and a separate thing over here and this is what they want people to hear and this is what people are parroting.

John Dehlin [00:57:50] Yeah, it's so weird. It feels like George Orwell in 1984. Just. Just the way truth doesn't seem to matter and people just say whatever. Unmoored by the truth.

Meggan Hayes [00:58:03] So, yes, in an organization that I grew up singing, do what is right, let the consequence follow.

John Dehlin [00:58:10] Oh, say what is truth is the fairest gem. Yeah. Glory of God is intelligence. Yeah. So this is. Is this a slide from the presentation?

Meggan Hayes [00:58:21] Yes. And we're not going to go through all of this. People can. People can go listen to the. I just wanted to kind of highlight how thorough the whole Mormonism Live episode was. It was awesomely fantastic, to put it mildly.

John Dehlin [00:58:35] But. But, yeah, the idea was just let people decide for themselves. Here's what the church claims, here's more evidence. And that was all 30 points were literally just, you decide, here's the evidence. Is the church telling the truth?

Meggan Hayes [00:58:53] Yeah. Then if people come at me from now on and trying to say something about the lawsuit, I'll say, I will come back and talk to you after you've watched that episode of Mormonism Live, which they won't.

John Dehlin [00:59:02] Well, thanks for covering it. I hope our viewers and listeners aren't sick of hearing about it. But to just to be fully honest, like, it is super. The hardest part of all this, it's not the, it's not the money.

John Dehlin [00:59:14] It's not the, the smearing and the slandering. I mean, it's. It's feeling like you can't just represent the truth to all sides. Because I'm not at all afraid of the truth, you know, that. You could argue that it made no sense after David Jordan committed such a faux pas and gave us ammo with his public presentation. Why in the world would.

John Dehlin [00:59:44] Would I speak out publicly? But I, I just, It's. It's because I'm not afraid of the truth. And I just want people to have the evidence. I don't need. I don't need to create spin, but I want to get the evidence out there because I think the church's lies, you know, undermine the church's position once the evidence is out there. But the problem is, are people willing to give the evidence? Are they aware of the evidence and are they able to give it a fair consideration? And I do. I. I would love to talk to a believer, an apologist who's reviewed the evidence and doesn't change their opinion about it.

John Dehlin [01:00:29] But you'll never hear Jasmine or Jacob or Latter Daily Digest or, Or the Church spokespeople. You'll never hear them apologize or David Jordan least of all. Even when they're caught lying, you'll never Hear them actually apologize and correct the record, which says a lot, you know, so.

Meggan Hayes [01:00:50] Yeah. Yeah, I think you meant Latter Daily Saints.

John Dehlin [01:00:54] What did I say?

Meggan Hayes [01:00:55] Latter Daily Digest.

John Dehlin [01:00:58] I. I'm grateful to Bill and RFM for giving me a platform, for offering me a platform to get the evidence out there. And thanks to you, Meggan and Julia, and others who have helped and Nemo that have helped spread the word. So.

Meggan Hayes [01:01:12] Yeah. Nope. I think it's important. You're right. Like, if they would look at the truth, I would love to see how they handle it. Any of those folks you mentioned, I would love for them to look at the entire lawsuit and then give us their feelings. It'd be amazing.

John Dehlin [01:01:27] Yeah. Really quickly, another super chat from Michelle. Your bell 17. She writes so great to see Nemo's story on a bigger stage. He's a great part of the team. Nemo's brilliant. You're brilliant. Meggan. Nemo's brilliant. Alyssa Grenfell's brilliant. Rebecca's brilliant. Bill and rfm. We have an amazing group of, you know, Haley Rawl, like, just so many smart, brilliant creators in our space.

Meggan Hayes [01:01:59] Yes. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:02:01] I should say honest, too.

Meggan Hayes [01:02:04] Yeah. Yeah. I wake up in the mornings and I think, I can't believe I get to associate with these people every day on this level. It's. Yeah, it's incredible.

John Dehlin [01:02:12] I'm proud of. I'm proud of the association. All right, what's the next story? Breaking news. That sounds dramatic.

Australian Defamation Case and Legal Updates

Meggan Hayes [01:02:19] Well, as I was, you know, half an hour before we were about to start, I pulled up my email, and of course, there was something else. So, out of Australia, an excommunicated member sues the lds, sues LDS leaders for defamation. Adam Chapman says five prominent church leaders made defamatory statements about him after a dispute that preceded his excommunication.

John Dehlin [01:02:42] Oh, okay. I haven't seen this at all yet.

Meggan Hayes [01:02:46] Yeah, I literally saw it just before we were getting ready to start. So who is named in the suit? Peter mears, General Authority 70, who became emeritus in August of 2026. So just recently, Justin Richard Perth, North Coast Stake president and a mining executive. And Jeff Grant, Stake presidency counselor, senior WA Public servant, and then also named business owner Brent Kimpton and Bishop David Frost.

John Dehlin [01:03:12] Ooh. Okay, keep going. I want to hear this.

Meggan Hayes [01:03:15] No, it's. It's crazy because it's so new. There isn't a ton of information. Information, but the big missing piece. So the complaint that started all of this is under a suppression order. So Chapman, the member of this ward, lodged a complaint to the leaders of the Ward the stake. I mean, that's. We don't know. And there was a dispute over how the complaint was handled. Chapman was then excommunicated and alleged that remarks that were made during that time. I don't know if it's before, during, or after his excommunication led to this defamation lawsuit. What was the original complaint about? We don't know because it's under a suppression order.

John Dehlin [01:03:58] Okay.

Meggan Hayes [01:03:59] So the West Australian. It's a newspaper. Reports the church sent American observers to monitor the proceedings and that it was one sentence. I don't know exactly what that means. Why is the local Australian defamation case important enough for church headquarters to reportedly monitor it? What is verified? Five defendants have applied to strike out Chapman's claim. The church says. Says it expects the claims to be found meritless. The observers are not identified in the reporting.

John Dehlin [01:04:29] Okay.

Meggan Hayes [01:04:30] And I thought you would find this one particularly interesting. This is how the church responded. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is aware of claims made in a defamation suit in Western Australia.

John Dehlin [01:04:44] I'm so sorry. That is hilarious. Keep going, Keep going.

Meggan Hayes [01:04:49] As this matter is currently before the court, the church will not comment on the specific. On the specifics of the suit, but the church is confident the outcome of the case will support and confirm. I knew you would enjoy this. That the claims are meritless. The church spokesperson to the West Australian. The church said it would be inappropriate to discuss the case in detail.

John Dehlin [01:05:14] Yeah. Yeah. I can see how the church might have the position that it's not a good idea to discuss active litigation.

Meggan Hayes [01:05:24] Oh, man.

John Dehlin [01:05:25] Well, yeah, that was rights itself. Wow. Can I give you some old person's history perspective on this? Not to.

Meggan Hayes [01:05:35] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:05:37] When I was going through my faith crisis from 2001 to 2005. 4. 5. A book came out called Losing a Lost Tribe. And I imagine you know about that book, Meggan, but it was written by Simon Southerton, who's a former bishop in Australia, who.

John Dehlin [01:05:58] Who was a geneticist who discovered that with the. With the emergence of the sequencing of the human genome and the genetic science, that you could trace the lineage of Native Americans genetically, historically backwards. And so he and others did. Thomas Murphy and others. And sure enough, Native Americans came across the Bering Strait from Asia, not from the Middle east as the Book of Mormon purports. And of course, what Simon Southerton received in response was. Was. Was an excommunication.

John Dehlin [01:06:39] And I thought it was interesting because this has all happened in Australia. And my memory is that rumors got spread that Simon Southerton was excommunicated. For adultery. And I, I just that, you know, and I remember when Michael Quinn was excommunicated, the rumors were that that it was because he was gay. You know what I mean? And this is why when I had meetings with my stake president leading up to my excommunication, I recorded every single one. Because the church has a history of smearing people when they get excommunicated. And that's why I started encouraging people to record their disciplinary councils so there could be a record of it.

John Dehlin [01:07:24] But, you know, so it doesn't surprise me at all. It's a little bit weird, ironic or true to form that this is coming out of Australia this same type of garbage. I'm really, I wish someone could leak the complaint.

John Dehlin [01:07:40] I would just bet that this guy, this member is complaining about child abuse and, or financial malfeasance. And I, you know, I wonder whether he requested, whether he requested that it be kept private because the nature of the smears on the part of the church were so defamatory that he doesn't want the information getting out as to what their smears were because there, from his standpoint, there might be a Barbra Streisand effect where if his complaint got out and the church had smeared him, that would just promote the church's smears of him.

John Dehlin [01:08:22] So that's possible. It could also be possible the church wanted this to be kept silent because they didn't want his original accusations or complaints or the lies about how they may have defamed or smeared him getting out. So I'm just all questions at this point.

Meggan Hayes [01:08:39] Yes, same. And I dug as much as I could in 20 minutes and this was the only article I could find about it. But when Julie and I were, Julia and I were speaking briefly before, before the show. That's what we speculated as well, was either financial wrongdoings or child abuse complaint. Those were our guesses as well.

John Dehlin [01:08:57] Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's fascinating. Thanks for letting us know about it. If any viewers or listeners have information they want to share that isn't illegal or that will, that won't harm innocent people, we would, we would love to get info on that. And while we're at it, I am developing an episode on David McConkey. And because of our show last week, Meggan, I've already had three or four people who have direct experience with him reach out to me and provide information.

John Dehlin [01:09:31] And Floodlit's done a good job of also sharing a lot of information about the David McConkey alleged or convicted or admitted child abuser who is also bishop and stake president. I'm planning an episode about that. If there's anybody else who has direct information about that case and wants to share it, please reach out to me@mormonstoriesgmail.com. these news stories can create important other leads and or stories. I'm sure you know that very well by now. Yes, sometimes news leads to more nudes. All right, what's the next story?

Stake Conference Clips and Temple Claims

Meggan Hayes [01:10:09] Okay, this was actually sent to me by one of my listeners. So we're going to watch some clips from the Highland Utah East Stake leadership session that was September 27, 2026. But first, if you go to the next slide, we're going to learn just a little bit about Thomas B. Morgan. He is an executive vice president, retail business and professional and omnichannel banking for Zion's Bank. I think maybe that name will be familiar.

John Dehlin [01:10:35] Zion's bank, the church's. I don't know. Is it still the church's bank or it was once the church's bank? I don't even know.

Meggan Hayes [01:10:43] Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, it's just, you know, it's a. If it's not. It was definitely church owned in the beginning.

John Dehlin [01:10:50] Okay, and tell me this, who is this guy? He's the stake president.

Meggan Hayes [01:10:53] He. No, he's actually. So if you go to the next one.

John Dehlin [01:10:57] Okay.

Meggan Hayes [01:10:58] He's from Sandy, Utah, former bishop, Bishopric councilor, high councilor, Stake president. And he is now. He was an Area 70 executive secretary, married to Deborah, five children. And he is now an Area 70 in the Utah area.

John Dehlin [01:11:11] Okay, so he's the Area 70.

Meggan Hayes [01:11:13] Yeah. So this is before this state conference that we're gonna listen to a few clips from. I'm guessing he was at a different state conference about a month prior where he said, this is from Celestial Suites on X. Who claims in state conference today the visiting GA had all the primary kids stand up and spoke to them for a minute before telling us that some of those kids would live to see the second come. The second coming. No big deal. How was your church today? And then she admits in the comments that it was Thomas B. Morgan, this same area 70. So that's just. That's a little pre.

John Dehlin [01:11:49] Oh my gosh. Okay.

Meggan Hayes [01:11:52] So yeah, let's listen to what he says in in state conference.

John Dehlin [01:11:56] My dear brothers and sisters, I am a special witness of this Jesus who prophets and apostles have written of and testified of. It is my special witness to each of you that he lives, that he knows us, that he loves us, and we are his and he is ours. And we will feel of that special connection that we have with him today as we worship him. It is my special witness to you that Jesus Christ is the living son of the living God. And I offer my witness of this in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Guest 1 [01:12:43] Amen.

Meggan Hayes [01:12:45] Okay, so this is how he started the conference. Yeah, he was the. The ending speaker, but he. He wanted to get up in the beginning and say this. So that's still kind of a precursor to how he ends the conference, which is the next clip. But if you have thoughts, I'd love

John Dehlin [01:13:01] to hear just a couple quick ones. One is, I was not under. Under the understanding that area authorities were special witnesses of Christ. Like I've heard it claimed that apostles and first presidency members are special witnesses of Christ. Is the first time I'm learning that area authorities are. Now, I'm surprised he's pulling that card just because it's. It basically increases the scrutiny and accountability for anything he says. I also just want to say it feels a little bit like you're. It almost feels like a grift. Like you're basically claiming a direct line to God and Jesus. It feels manipulative. And then when you add to that his GA voice, I don't mean to be negative or acerbic. He could be a super nice guy. But isn't it just funny, that GA voice that it seems like they seek after? He's got it. The GA voice is strong with this man.

Meggan Hayes [01:14:03] Well, and then to have a bunch of primary kids stand up and say, you're gonna see Jesus in your life, which some kids could be like, oh, yay, how exciting. And other kids could be like, oh, I thought baptism was scary when then I had to be accountable for all my sins. Now Jesus is going to come.

John Dehlin [01:14:21] Yeah. The reason why I bring this up isn't to be petty. It can amount, and I think it does amount to undue influence, because what he's saying is the words I'm going to speak to you today are pretty much Jesus's words, which means you have to do whatever he says and believe everything he says because it's Jesus's words. And that's just. I'm on the. I've felt for a long time. That's too much power.

Meggan Hayes [01:14:49] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:14:50] It's just too much power. It's undue influence because people don't feel like they have a choice.

Meggan Hayes [01:14:57] Well, and he's. He's not saying he's seen Jesus, but he's kind of alluding to the fact

John Dehlin [01:15:03] that maybe he has that's what special witness means. What else is it, right? If he's just like us, like, what does it mean? His heart burned. His bosom burned harder than ours. Like, how would he know that? I know it must mean that he's claiming some divine visit, you know, which

Meggan Hayes [01:15:23] is what I thought when I was a member and still fully believing, is that I. I thought every single one of them had seen Jesus.

John Dehlin [01:15:29] So it's. It's manipulative. It's. It's undue influence. And I don't mean to be petty, but it's. I think that's. I think that's real. Okay. Should we play the next clip?

Meggan Hayes [01:15:38] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:15:38] All right. Every temple has been personally accepted by the Lord, meaning he has been there. He's walked through all of the rooms

Guest 2 [01:15:55] and the hallways, everywhere.

John Dehlin [01:15:58] He's inspected it, and he has accepted it in person. The next time you're in the temple,

Guest 2 [01:16:07] the next time you're in the baptistry,

John Dehlin [01:16:11] think about this. You literally will be in a place where the Lord Jesus Christ has been. He's been there because every temple is personally accepted by the Lord. And why wouldn't it be? It's his house, the house of the Lord. Holiness to the Lord. He has been there.

Meggan Hayes [01:16:38] So you.

John Dehlin [01:16:40] You will be in a place where the Savior himself has been. Oh, my gosh. I was not expecting that, Meggan. I'm imagining Jesus with, like, his white gloves, and he's running his finger along the banister, looking at the dust, and it's like, hey, is that Sheetrock? Hey, brethren, is that Sheetrock gonna be? And can we get the shine on Moroni? There's a little bit of a smudge. And this tiling, the grout on the tiling, it's a little bit flaky. And, ooh, nice job on the. On the golden oxen, you know? Nice job, Bellas. Where does he get this knowledge that Jesus has personally inspected every inch of every temple? How does he know? How would he know?

Meggan Hayes [01:17:34] And why? Number one, this is reminding me of the third Indiana Jones, where he has to go choose the Grail of Christ, and the guy before him picks the golden one with all of the ornate stuff, and then he drinks out of it and he dies. And Indy's like, oh, he was a carpenter. It'd be something simple. It's like if. If Jesus was on the Earth, I think that's the last place he would be. Would be in an ornate Mormon temple. Looking at the carpet and the white couch that should be in my grandma's foyer.

John Dehlin [01:18:03] Nice chandelier that $2 million good. Nice. Nice purchase, fellas.

Meggan Hayes [01:18:09] Right?

John Dehlin [01:18:11] Was that from Tiffany's? Hey, hey. Anybody know? Hey, Jesus wants to know, was the chandelier from Tiffany's? Nice job, fellas.

Meggan Hayes [01:18:21] It's just like. And he's using the voice, and he's got these people with this rapt attention. And I saw that clip and I was like, wow, it's.

John Dehlin [01:18:30] It's gross. Because it's manipulative. It's super manipulative. And he doesn't know that?

Meggan Hayes [01:18:37] No.

John Dehlin [01:18:38] How would he know that? What's his source being a special witness? Like, I guess Jesus told him.

Meggan Hayes [01:18:44] Yep. And that's how he set it up at the beginning of that conference. And so if the Celestial Sweets gal on X is reporting what happened in hers a month before, and then this is a month later, like, I think this is possibly something he's been doing and he's going to continue doing.

John Dehlin [01:18:59] And.

Guest 1 [01:19:00] Can I just.

John Dehlin [01:19:01] I just remember I was sitting in seminary in high school in the 80s, and my seminary teacher, Lawrence Layton, he's in his 70s, if I remember right, and he's like, the Lord will come before I die. We will all live to see the Lord. And I'm like, you're kind of old and wrinkly. Like that means it's going to be in the next 10 to 20 years. Brother Layton, he's like, yes. You know, but then I just studied it and like, how many people have had that promise in their patriarchal blessings? And they've died, by the way. Lawrence Layton's died, and by the way people in Joseph Smith's time believed, and Joseph Smith himself even said, in effect, that Jesus would come in Joseph Smith's lifetime, and he didn't.

John Dehlin [01:19:51] You know, and so this. And as far as I understand it from Christian scholars, people have been claiming that Jesus was going to come since Jesus was still living. And the apostles, Jesus's own 12 apostles, believed that Jesus would return during their lifetime.

John Dehlin [01:20:13] He's not coming, people. He's not coming. It's a grift. It's a way to make you feel a sense of urgency, a sense of panic, a sense of desperation. And again, that is a grift or undue influence to make people feel like they need to obey and they need to watch out. And by the way, what happens when Jesus. Jesus comes. Meggan, if you're not righteous, what happens when Jesus comes?

Meggan Hayes [01:20:38] You burn, you.

John Dehlin [01:20:39] Locusts and maggots and fire. It's all fear and desperation and it's gross.

Meggan Hayes [01:20:48] Yes, Fear will motivate people, but not in a healthy way. Fear is a. An effective motivator, but it's not a healthy motivator.

John Dehlin [01:20:58] Yeah. Amen. Okay. All right. Well, thank you. That's. You're man. You're really bringing it today. Meggan, I'm loving your stories. Thank you.

Meggan Hayes [01:21:07] You're welcome.

John Dehlin [01:21:08] Thank you. All right, let's go to the next one. We're going to get done at it before two hours.

LDS Birth Rate Decline and Family Size Trends

Meggan Hayes [01:21:14] Yep. Let's hope so. So, will. Will. Lts couples reverse the baby bust. We have two stories that kind of go together here. The first is from the Salt Lake Tribune, and it's just the same question. Will Latter Day Saint couples reverse the baby bust? So you know what's going on. The LDS fertility gap is shrinking. Average number of children compared with the rest of the United States in the early 1980s, 1.5 more children, more LDS children than the US average. And by 2020, it's down to 0.7 more children for LDS families versus the US average. So it has shrunk quite a bit.

John Dehlin [01:21:49] And I think the average is shrinking. The US Average is shrinking as well.

Meggan Hayes [01:21:54] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:21:55] So the gap is shrinking as the baseline. Shrinking. Okay.

Meggan Hayes [01:22:01] Yes. And Utah, this one was news to me. I don't know how because I've read so many statistics, but they are 37% decline in Utah's fertility rate. They were the number one like baby having people in the United States for years, and now they're number six. So first is South Dakota, second is Nebraska, third is Alaska, fourth is North Dakota, fifth is Kentucky, and Utah is number six.

John Dehlin [01:22:32] I'm sure apologists are going to say that's because Gentiles are moving to Utah. Yeah, Utah's growing with all the. All the Gentiles moving in to. To go work for silicon slopes. I can hear apologists giving that excuse.

Meggan Hayes [01:22:46] Yeah, yeah. So here the article then goes on to say what changed? And instead of reading what they said, they. This clip sums up how they started talking about how the church was and how it's changing. This is what the church was doing in the 1980s. That has changed today.

▶ Video Clip 3

Video Clip 3 [01:23:04] Paul speaks of continents, a word almost forgotten by this world. Still in the dictionary, it means self restraint in sexual activities. Many good people being influenced by the bold spirit of the times, are now seeking surgery for the wife, for the husband, so that they may avoid pregnancies and comply with the strident voice demanding a reduction of children. It was never easy to bear and rear children, but easy things do not

Video Clip 3 [01:23:42] make for growth and development.

Video Clip 3 [01:23:47] But loud, blatant Voices today shout fewer children and offer the pill, drugs, surgery, and even unholy abortion to accomplish that.

Video Clip 3 [01:24:02] Strange.

Video Clip 3 [01:24:03] The proponents of depopulating the earth seem never to have known the word continents. Libraries are loaded with books with shocking pictures showing people how to totally satisfy their animal natures. But few books are found on the self control and continents. Man, the apostles used to have something to say, didn't they?

Meggan Hayes [01:24:30] Right. I mean, I don't.

John Dehlin [01:24:33] Go ahead.

Meggan Hayes [01:24:33] I don't want to be under that type of rule anymore, obviously. But yes, he was not mincing words.

John Dehlin [01:24:40] Good old Spencer W. Kimball, man. Dynamite sometimes comes in small packages.

Meggan Hayes [01:24:47] Yeah, he didn't mess around.

John Dehlin [01:24:48] He doesn't mess around.

Meggan Hayes [01:24:50] Okay, so there has obviously been a shift, and this is what the Salt Lake Tribune was highlighting, the general handbook. I'm trying to see if this was okay. So the general handbook, the decision as to how many children to have and when to have them, is extremely intimate and private and should be left between the couple and the Lord. So Kimball's voice in that previous clip was what was happening before. Now the general handbook says the decision as to how many children to have and when to have them is extremely intimate and private and should be left between the couple and the Lord. Church members should not judge one another in this matter. And I. I don't think Kimball came out and said, you should judge each other if you don't have a lot of kids. But that is what was happening, right?

John Dehlin [01:25:39] I mean, for sure.

Meggan Hayes [01:25:40] Yeah. In the 80s and 90s, get married, mother stays home, has children. That was the norm. That was what was pushed and expected.

John Dehlin [01:25:51] And I remember families with 12 kids and just this idea of people having four and saying, I could only have four, four, I only had three. And, and feeling like they had to justify it, you know?

Meggan Hayes [01:26:04] Yeah, yeah. So this shift where, you know, Kimbell's coming out and saying the. The evils of the pill, you know, then it has become a choice. So that's part of how the Salt Lake Tribune is explaining the shift and the declining birth rates.

John Dehlin [01:26:22] Not just the shift, but it's ubiquitous. The, you know, contraception's ubiquitous, you know, everywhere.

Meggan Hayes [01:26:29] Yeah. So then what is Dallin Oaks doing? LDS families should not follow the national trend. 2023. Young single adults marry earlier. Don't delay children. Oaks acknowledged there is a shortage of affordable homes and there is growing student debt. Still, he urged couples to go forward with faith. And I tell you what, faith did not pay my bills. I had six kids in 10 years, and I did exactly what he said, and I Would not recommend it. I love my children. I love where we are. It was very difficult. Faith did not put food on the

John Dehlin [01:27:00] table, by the way. You come from a family of how many?

Meggan Hayes [01:27:04] I have 13 siblings. Yes. 14 kids, eight girls, six boys.

Guest 1 [01:27:08] Yeah.

Meggan Hayes [01:27:09] Faith did not buy me clothes.

John Dehlin [01:27:12] Your parents did it.

Guest 1 [01:27:13] Right.

Meggan Hayes [01:27:14] I know, I know.

John Dehlin [01:27:15] And they were faithful.

Meggan Hayes [01:27:17] Sadly, they have been rewarded that now eight out of those six children are no longer practicing members.

John Dehlin [01:27:24] The more kids you have, the more empty chairs.

Meggan Hayes [01:27:26] Yeah, I know. Sad. Mormon.

John Dehlin [01:27:28] Evan Mormon. Your parents. Mormon Heaven is super sad.

Meggan Hayes [01:27:32] Oh, I know, I know. I feel bad for them because I, like, when I went to the San Antonio Thrive, there were older couples there who were old enough to be my parents. And I thought if I could be sitting in a bar with my parents having this conversation, that would be amazing. I would absolutely love that. But I don't see that happening in my lifetime.

John Dehlin [01:27:51] Yeah, well, yeah, I don't. I. I don't know. Like, I love. I love my kids, and I'm not anti kids. I understand concerns that, like, Europe, the. The decline in population growth in Europe is making it so younger generations can't fund the Social Security safety nets that, you know, Europe depends on.

John Dehlin [01:28:16] I understand that's difficult, and I don't know, I can see that's going to hit us too, in the United States. And at the same time, it's so incredibly expensive right now to just survive. The interest rates. The average home mortgage is up.

John Dehlin [01:28:32] The mortgage interest rate right now is over 7%, and it's going to keep climbing with inflation. With how hard it is to get jobs and with AI coming along and taking away more jobs, I, you know, I know my kids aren't racing to have children. My adult children aren't. And I can. I can understand why. And honestly, do I want grandkids? There's a part of me that does.

John Dehlin [01:28:56] Do I want to rush my kids into having kids when they don't feel ready and when they don't may not be able to have insurance or income to support them? I'm not in a hurry for them to rush into that, honestly.

Meggan Hayes [01:29:08] Right. Same. No, my. My oldest child got a cat recently, and I was plenty excited about that.

John Dehlin [01:29:15] Yeah. Again, I love kids and I. I love humans and I love civilization. So, anyway, we'll see how this plays out, but. All right. Extra trad wives.

Meggan Hayes [01:29:28] Yeah. So I thought that previous article kind of could be tied to this in a way. So you can go to the next slide and we'll just watch a little video about how some Trad wives have decided it's not what what it cracked up to be.

▶ Video Clip 4

Video Clip 4 [01:29:42] There is a new category of social media influencer. Trad wife D influencer. I was an 18 year old trad wife who had a baby at the same age and I'm 36 now and I'm here to tell you, don't do it. Trad wife trend really came to prominence as the maga movement was rising, as Trump was coming into office the first time. But the trad wife social media trend is waning. I started following a bunch of trad wife accounts a few years ago. I was particularly interested in this one by this woman, Bernadine. Bluntly, she would make these videos that were about how traditional roles prescribe that women should be submissive to their husbands, shout out to the men who do these hard jobs, who take these risks so society can function.

Video Clip 4 [01:30:30] Soon she would have 140,000 YouTube subscribers. Eventually it is her income from Instagram, YouTube, an online course that she sells to young women that sustains her, her husband and their six children. A couple of months ago, I noticed a new video on her feed. I can no longer align with the trad movement as it exists today. She is not the only one who is distancing herself from the trad movement. Recently, Nara Smith went on the Call Her Daddy podcast. People started to compare you to trad wife. Yeah, they kind of used me as the poster child for the trad wife movement, which was very bizarre to me.

Video Clip 4 [01:31:09] A lot of women who were recruited into the trad movement, they're recruited when they are very young, when they're 17, 18, a few years out, five, 10 years. They are women who have multiple children and are starting to understand that the fantasy of that life that was sold to them is not what the reality is. Like many women are finding that it's dangerous if they put all of their trust, all of their power, all of their money in the hands of a man who abuses it. What I initially thought was a return to strong family values has in many cases devolved into just control, legalism and an online ideal that doesn't hold up in real life.

John Dehlin [01:31:56] Yeah. Have you watched Nora Smith? Because I've never. I don't think I've ever seen a single video from her. But I hear she's a huge deal.

Meggan Hayes [01:32:04] I've seen clips of her here and there. When I first saw her, I was like CIS lady Mormon. That was my first thought. But I just thought the way that, that, that it was described in that video was so reminiscent of how I felt as a Mormon girl, a Mormon teen, and being pushed into marriage and children in a way that I didn't feel like I had a choice about it, what that was going to look like, you know, like I was to get married young and I was to have kids right away. Whether that I didn't even think about whether that was what I wanted.

Meggan Hayes [01:32:40] I never asked myself that question. Do I want to get married? Do I want to have children? I was not given that space. And the tradwife movement, whether inside Mormonism or out, although there are a lot of. If you go to the next slide, it kind of shows a few of the Mormon or Mormon adjacent tradwaves that I found. I'm sure there are many more, but these are some that people might be familiar with.

Meggan Hayes [01:33:08] Yeah, yeah. The three on the left. So Sharon Johnson, Jenny Gage and Kim Schlag. Schlage. I don't know how to say her last name. Those three have all distanced themselves from the church, consider themselves ex Mormon. And then Hannah Nealman and Nara Smith both have LDS connections, but do not identify themselves with the tradwife movement, even though a lot of other people do.

John Dehlin [01:33:31] I didn't know that Hannah Nealman, Ballerina Farm, didn't identify as tradwife. That's interesting.

Meggan Hayes [01:33:38] Yeah. There were some articles that said one way and some that said the other, but it's not. I don't think she came out and said, I'm going to be a trad wife. I think she's just like, this is. This is the right way to do it. This is the way we do it.

John Dehlin [01:33:49] It's not a great label, right?

Meggan Hayes [01:33:52] No. I don't know.

John Dehlin [01:33:55] Maybe some people embrace it, but yeah,

Meggan Hayes [01:33:58] I mean, I think it hearkens to, like, this women who are there for their looks from the 50s. Like the guy comes home from work and the woman. Yeah. Dressed to the nines and dinners on the table, like she's a prop in her own life.

John Dehlin [01:34:13] Yeah, interesting. Okay.

Meggan Hayes [01:34:17] Yeah. So this is. This is what it comes down to for me. The traditional family hasn't disappeared, obviously, but it has become one option among many. And I think that's where the change is happening. Where traditional family used to be an expectation and now it's a choice for a lot of people. And so what happens. Bumping things. What happens to a religious culture built around a particular model of a family when that model becomes a choice. Choice rather than an expectation. And that, in my mind, that's giving me a lot to think about and stay curious about because I think A lot of young Mormon women are feeling like they have a choice, and I. I love it.

John Dehlin [01:35:03] Yeah. And also. Yeah, that's all true. And I also think that. I think lgbt, you know, kids and young adults and adults are feeling more and more comfortable identifying as LGBT. And in that sense, of course, people like Eli McCann or others can have kids if they want, but. But I would guess LGBT couples tend to have less kids on average than, you know, other couples.

John Dehlin [01:35:36] And then again, I do think that there's just economics. It's harder to have. It's harder to take care of kids and to give them the upbringing that you feel like they might want or deserve, you know, if you're struggling to just, like, have health insurance and. And keep a job down. So, I don't know. And I guess people were having kids when economic conditions were a lot less, a lot worse, like 10,000 years ago or 100,000 years ago. So you can have kids.

John Dehlin [01:36:12] But. Yeah, so I don't know. I. I think it. I think kids are important, and I think humans. I. I'm pro. Human. I'm. I'm a humanist, but this is a real pickle. And the Slowdown has a lot of sort. I have several nieces and nephews that just don't want them.

Meggan Hayes [01:36:29] Yeah, well. And I think, like, if I think about how I was raised and how hard it was being in the family that I was in and the. The rules that we had, the way that I was raised, I made a big push after I was married and once I had children to say, I don't want to do the same thing. And I think there are quite a few folks who are saying that now, and their answer is to just not have children.

John Dehlin [01:36:54] Yeah. Yeah. Clearly that's true for a lot of people. So it's interesting to see any movement's gonna have kind of this backlash. Secret Lives of Mormon Wives are getting backlash. At some point, people are gonna get sick of Secret Lives of Mormon Wives and all its iterations. You could argue that we're already starting to get there. So it's normal that people are going to get sick of the tradwifes movement and move on. So it's natural that there are people already coming out as extra wives, you know? So, anyway, we'll see. All right, let's go to the next slide.

Live Chat and Nuanced Latter-day Saint Discussion

Meggan Hayes [01:37:36] Okay, One. One second. We are. We are in a hotel. We just had someone come by. Right. Real quick.

John Dehlin [01:37:43] Oh, no. While. While they're talking. While they're talking, I'll just share a comment. Ride the guy 6914. Thanks for your super chat. He writes, the latter days have been happening since the 1800s. So they've been saying all this for a very long time. New faces, same message. And also huge thanks to Douglas Carlson321 for the super chat. Thank you, Douglas. We'll take it anytime. Okay.

Meggan Hayes [01:38:12] Okay, now I'm ready.

John Dehlin [01:38:13] All right, let's continue. Thanks for beating off the housekeeping.

Meggan Hayes [01:38:20] Yeah, they wanted to come clean the room. We're not ready yet.

John Dehlin [01:38:22] Okay, almost, almost. We're on the home stretch.

Meggan Hayes [01:38:26] So did come follow me. The online manual disappeared. That's a question that we're going to look at now. But first to talk about that, we have to talk about Rebecca Bibliotheca, her podcast, Mormon Ish, where she had on John, I don't know how to pronounce his last name. She called him John a lot and so I didn't hear her pronounce it.

John Dehlin [01:38:46] And we'll say subject.

Meggan Hayes [01:38:48] Okay. He is a faithful, nuanced, believing. He said he was nuanced Latter Day Saint who loves to dive into the Come follow me manuals and how they've changed over the years. And she had him on her podcast. So let's go to the next video and it'll kind of give us a little intro.

Guest 2 [01:39:06] I come from a fundamentalist evangelical background. Originally grew up in a lot of non denominational churches. I started studying with missionaries when I was 18, and then I eventually joined the church in my mid-20s. I met my wife in the church. We married in the temple. She's the best thing that's ever happened to me and I just love her so much. She left the church about a year ago, but she's living her best life. Seems very happy. I'm very happy for her, for her. And I would consider myself a deeply nuanced member. But for right now, I'm very happy in the church. My passion is scripture study from a critical and historical kind of academic perspective, I guess.

Guest 2 [01:39:44] I love biblical cultures and religions, early Mormon history. And so I teach this stuff in my free time, which I don't have a lot of, but I do love teaching it. And so today we're going to be looking at some of what the church will be teaching in 2027 and some of what it won't be teaching. So very exciting.

John Dehlin [01:40:01] All right. Wow. It sounds like his days in the church are numbered.

Meggan Hayes [01:40:07] I know. Well, and I just wanted to highlight that, like, we're not saying he can only come on this podcast if he has already left the church. If we can't highlight him, if he's a nuanced member. No, we are going to celebrate him. The research that he's done, we have no problems with where he's out of the church. I mean, I, once I got to that point, I couldn't stay. I know I couldn't. But I think his research is fascinating. So I don't think he needs to have. He doesn't need to come on Ex Mormon Stories podcast as an ex. As an ex member.

John Dehlin [01:40:41] Yeah, no, but, but, yeah. Critical, critical scholarship of the Bible doesn't often lead to orthodox faith. Just asked David Bacavoy, David wright and Dan McClellan. But anyway. Should we go to the next clip?

Come Follow Me Manual Changes and Cultural Shifts

Meggan Hayes [01:40:57] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:40:58] Okay.

Guest 2 [01:41:00] If you're no longer in the church, you're not sitting in the pews, you're not attending Sunday school. Maybe the gut reaction is like, why is this important to me? I think there are a couple of reasons why it could be. The first is if you have any interest in tracking the cultural and doctrinal changes within the church. Come, follow me. Is essentially the. The church's litmus test for, for teaching the correlated curriculum. There is now one manual that is used church wide. Adults, primary teachers, students, they all use the same book. And it gives us a pretty clear picture of what the church wants members to focus on.

John Dehlin [01:41:40] Okay.

Meggan Hayes [01:41:41] My takeaway from that is that there's one manual for everybody. Like, what does that say about the. What they want adults to know if they're using the Same manual as 4 year olds. Like the. Yeah, the more they correlate their information, the less interesting it becomes to those who've been in the church for years and years and years. Like if it's supposed to go milk and then meat, but they're using the Same manual for 3 year olds and 50 year olds. Where's the meat?

John Dehlin [01:42:11] For sure. No, for sure. I mean, where's the beef? I. I think we've been waiting for a couple. I mean, Joseph Smith dished out a lot and it's been pretty slim pickings since Joseph Smith. Honestly, I, in my, in my series with John Turner and Brigham Young.

John Dehlin [01:42:30] Brigham Young, as I understand it, never added a single revelation to the Doctrine and Covenants, produced no scripture, and didn't think of himself as a prophet, he thought of himself as president of the church. But he's. Joseph's the prophet, you know what I mean? And it seems like the revelations that have been added were either like Joseph Smith's DNC132 that just got added Late or like rescinding Joseph's revelations. So the, you know, the declaration or rescinding Brigham Young's priesthood ban. That's how. That's what. What Scripture gets added these days. But yeah, Slim pickens, where's the. Where's the beef? Where's the meat? Lots of milk. Yeah. All right, next slide.

Meggan Hayes [01:43:18] Yep. Go to the next clip.

John Dehlin [01:43:20] All right, Just waiting.

Meggan Hayes [01:43:28] There you go.

John Dehlin [01:43:30] It's taking us.

Meggan Hayes [01:43:30] Oh, the one. Yeah. Oh, there you go.

John Dehlin [01:43:33] Okay.

Guest 2 [01:43:34] Like you to guess, Rebecca, between these two sections, just these two in the back of the book. For primary children and for parents teaching primary age children, how many times do you think the name Jesus appears? And I'm not counting references to the Savior or the Redeemer. I'm not even necessarily counting the word Christ unless it's used in conjunction with specifically the word Jesus. So this would be for like 19 lessons, essentially. So everybody can lock in their answers in the live chat. Rebecca, what's your guess?

Meggan Hayes [01:44:05] Well, I always make this comment. My guess is going to be a whole lot. When I was growing up, Jesus was not a word we use. That was an evangelical word. You did not say Jesus. You said our Savior. You said Christ. Sometimes you said the living Christ. You said our brother, Jesus Christ. If you said Jesus, you said Jesus Christ. You did not say Jesus. That was an evangelical word. That was low church. You didn't do it. Jesus is all over the place now. Jesus is just all right with me. So I'll say that it's. I'll say they only use the word Jesus. That's my guess.

Guest 2 [01:44:38] You. You are correct. It's a lot. 128. 128 references to Jesus in just the primary. Just. Just the primary sections. That's like 20% of the number that was used in the entire 2023 manual.

John Dehlin [01:44:58] All right. Yeah. Okay. What are your thoughts there?

Meggan Hayes [01:45:02] Yeah. This is a shout out to what the church is trying to do to appear more mainstream Christian, because Rebecca's right. Honestly, after I stopped going to church, it probably took me six months, if not longer, to say Jesus without saying Savior or all of those, like, more reverent words that we used in Mormonism. And it took me a really long time to say God instead of saying Heavenly Father, like she's not wrong. I remember feeling like saying Jesus or God was inappropriate. And now it's all over their new Come Follow me manual for 2027, along

John Dehlin [01:45:43] with the crosses that young Mormons are wearing and the cross on Temple Square. And. And if you go to a RESTORE conference Which I love. They have evangelical Christians singing gospel hymns praising the Lord. And I'm not against it. I'm pro change. I'm pro livening things up. So I'm here for it. I'm here for the positive change. But it is different for sure.

Meggan Hayes [01:46:10] Yeah. Yeah. I think, yes, I'm here for pro positive. I'm very pro positive change. I think it's fun that they get to be a little more lively in sacrament meeting. I, I think the part I don't like and I actually saw a tick tock that really highlighted this for me this morning where it was the scal. And she was just saying what they. They made the. They made a change about that rule. But I, I stressed over that rule. That rule hurt me that but they made a change. Okay. Yay. Yeah, they like this.

Meggan Hayes [01:46:45] This where she was trying to hold both feelings for this specific rule of the church was hard for me, was traumatic for me. So I want them to change it. But now that they've changed it, they did it without talking about it, without addressing the trauma. And so now I'm getting gaslit by people who are members saying, you know, it was never like that or it wasn't that bad. And so I think part of me wants an acknowledgment when they change things so that we can feel like our, our experience was valid. But I know that's not going to happen. So I just do try to root on the positive changes. I wanted to wear a cross as a kid. It would have helped me fit it in my elementary school for sure.

John Dehlin [01:47:28] Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay, let's, let's keep going.

Meggan Hayes [01:47:33] So then after this episode came out, Rebecca said my episode on Tuesday was noting changes between the 2027 come follow me curriculum and the last time they covered the New Testament. We pointed out a number of big changes in this curriculum. And this was all taken from the 2027 come follow me manual online today, Wednesday. When she said this. The online manual has been taken down. It was last confirmed up a few days ago. So just an interesting wrinkle. Maybe it means nothing. Maybe it was in response to what they said. Maybe they changed stuff, maybe they didn't. I went on as much of a deep dive as I could and I could confirm that it was taken down for a time and put back up, but had not been able to confirm what they may have changed or whether they changed anything.

Meggan Hayes [01:48:16] So I just thought it was interesting to point out it's another one of those things, like if we bring attention to it are things Going to come out that confirm that it was taken down and changed. Time will tell.

John Dehlin [01:48:26] Kind of like that polygamy cartoon that they put out is like a storytelling cartoon about how to teach your kid about Joseph Smith's polygamy. It didn't last long once we covered it on the Internet.

Meggan Hayes [01:48:38] Nope, that got changed really quickly.

John Dehlin [01:48:41] It's fun to feel like we're making a difference, that they're paying attention and we're making a difference. Yeah.

Meggan Hayes [01:48:47] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:48:49] Well, fun. Well, we'll stay tuned on that. And I think there's one more story. Is that right?

Meggan Hayes [01:48:55] Yeah, this is just a quick one. So Donnie and I, my partner, we watched Ted Lasso. We love Ted Lasso. We saw this clip when it came out and Brit Hartley put it on her channel. So let's watch it. It's really quick. So it goes through it twice so you don't miss it.

John Dehlin [01:49:08] I hope we don't get banned for this for violating copyright, but let's try it.

▶ Video Clip 5

Video Clip 5 [01:49:13] Okay, so look, I appreciate everything I see you doing today, but I just want to remind you it's okay to say no. If human beings never said no, we'd all have the time share Maui and

Video Clip 5 [01:49:21] be members of the church.

Video Clip 5 [01:49:24] So, look, I appreciate everything I see doing today, but I just want to remind you it's okay to say no. If human beings never said no, we'd all have a time sharing ma.

John Dehlin [01:49:34] Okay, so it's just repeating.

Meggan Hayes [01:49:36] Yeah, I just put it on there twice because it's, you know, the sound quality is not great, but he basically says it's okay to say no because if we didn't, we'd all have a timeshare in Maui and be members of the Church of the Latter Day Saints.

John Dehlin [01:49:48] Well, at least he didn't cause Mormons.

Meggan Hayes [01:49:50] I know, but he did leave out the savior's name, so I think it probably counts as a victory for Satan.

John Dehlin [01:49:59] No, no, that's just if he used the word Mormon. Okay, you know the rules.

Meggan Hayes [01:50:07] I'll give him half a point.

Guest 1 [01:50:10] Well, fun. We made it.

John Dehlin [01:50:11] Look at we made it. There's 10 minutes to go and we made it all the way through.

Meggan Hayes [01:50:14] Right? That's good, because otherwise housekeeping is going to come back and just remove me forcefully.

John Dehlin [01:50:20] Well, fun. Well, Meggan, thank you so much for putting together an amazing show. As always, tell people really quickly how they can follow what you do.

Meggan Hayes [01:50:28] Yeah, you can find me. My main platforms are YouTube and Patreon. I'm also on Facebook, Instagram, and Spotify. My name is generally unquotable. There. And I do news five days a week, Monday through Friday, sometimes a little bit more. I've been doing a series on Fridays called Fair Friday where I'm breaking down one by one the talks from the fair conference. And people are loving that. The one today was talking about how Brigham Young was a kind and gentle person. That was the talk. So that one was easy to break down.

John Dehlin [01:51:02] Well, maybe he was complicated.

Meggan Hayes [01:51:05] He was. And that was the conclusion I came to.

John Dehlin [01:51:08] Well, that reminds me, I'll also plug. We've got the Brigham Young podcast. We've got the Joseph Smith podcast. You can find that@joseph smithpodcast.com that's 41 episodes with world class historian John Turner about his book Joseph Smith the Rise and Fall of an American Prophet. Now we're doing the life of Brigham young. We've recorded seven episodes.

John Dehlin [01:51:29] Brigham youngpodcast.com is the website there always check out LDS discussions podcast. You can find that at LDS discussions.mormonstories.org it's just examining Mormon church truth claims from a neutral and unbiased perspective, or at least our best attempt at that.

John Dehlin [01:51:50] And, and yeah, we really appreciate everyone who supports us. We're grateful for Julia who helps out. Check out Analyzing Mormonism while you're at it. She's doing great work covering my lawsuit, but she also covers church history. Julia does a great job.

John Dehlin [01:52:08] We love Radio Free Mormon and, and Mormon newscast and, and Mormonish and all the Nema, the Mormon and all the different channels. Check them out, support them, please like and subscribe here to the channel. We appreciate donors that make it possible. And let's not forget we have a website for this podcast. It's called mormonnews.com you can find our podcast there with full transcripts and also you can donate. Click on the donate button there to support this podcast. In particular, we do pay Meggan and Julia and me and we, we appreciate the support. So please support us. Thanks to everyone who donates to Mormon Stories and the Open Stories Foundation.

John Dehlin [01:52:54] You can always donate there. Mormonstories.org donate and yeah, we promise to, to do more news in the weeks, months and years ahead. Are you around next next Friday or are you, are you out, Meggan?

Meggan Hayes [01:53:07] No, I am hopefully not traveling again until January. I need a little break.

John Dehlin [01:53:11] Thank goodness. The Mormon news world needs you on Mormon Stories every Friday.

Meggan Hayes [01:53:19] I know, I know. I was almost not going to make it and it was going to be catastrophic. John was not having. It

John Dehlin [01:53:28] makes me sound like a mean boss.

Meggan Hayes [01:53:30] No, no, it's just because you respect what I do and that's what I feel is like there's a respect there of all the hard work I put in. And I appreciate it because I have a hard time, you know, building myself up. So it's good when other people help.

John Dehlin [01:53:43] We'll take you however we can get you, Meggan. And thanks to Donnie for supporting us. I'm sure y' all could have been having fun in Philly eating a Philly cheesesteak or whatever else.

Meggan Hayes [01:53:53] So I've had four already.

John Dehlin [01:53:57] Well, thanks for joining us. Tell Donnie thanks as well. Thanks to Trevor as well for helping moderate the comments and Bishop Bo and all the people in the comments. We appreciate you as well. So thanks again, Meggan. Take care, everyone. Take care. Be good to each other, be kind to each other and we'll see you again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast and generally unquotable and the Mormon News podcast. Take care everybody.

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