What are the most common causes of a Mormon faith crisis?

Episode 3

0:20 John Dehlin Okay, so we're at the point now where we're going to dive in. Now that we've talked about the stereotypes, we're going to dive into the reasons that people do have a Mormon Faith crisis. But before we do, I'm going to just ask all our listeners to do us a favor. Go to the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis Facebook page and like this page, because if you do, that's going to help others learn about us. And if you're even willing, give us a positive review, it would really make a difference. And if you really value what we're doing so far, you want to see this continue, you're benefiting from it or want others to benefit from it, I'm going to give another plea for you to please consider making a monthly donation. Something as little as $10 a month. If we get enough people to do this, it'll pay for Natasha's time, Margie's time, my time, and it will make this podcast more sustainable. So far, we only have one donor and we've had hundreds of listeners. So if a few of you would be willing to. To go to mormonfaithcrisis.com you can do mobile device or a web browser. Click on the donate button at the top or the top right of the screen, select the amount that you want to contribute monthly. It would make a huge difference, not just for yourself and for us, but for generations to come. Because we plan on just leaving this podcast up for free to help people for generations. We just need your support to pay for the time. Okay, so.

1:46 Natasha Helfer And the cost of the infrastructure. Don't forget that. I mean, websites cost money and storage cost, all of that, the editing and

1:54 John Dehlin the production and the equipment and all that stuff.

1:58 Natasha Helfer Yeah.

1:58 John Dehlin Yep. We need your support for. All right, so thanks. Thanks so much to everyone so far. Let's dive in. Now, I've put together five main categories of some of the main root causes of a faith crisis. And then there's some other factors that we're going to talk about afterwards. But let's talk about these main five categories and we could talk about whether these apply to us individually because we've all been through a faith crisis here as co panelists, and we can also talk about clients or friends or people that we know as well. Is that all right?

2:37 Margi Dehlin Yes.

2:37 John Dehlin Okay. Natasha, will you do the first one?

2:41 Natasha Helfer So the first one is there's people for whom the church never really resonated or it ceased to resonate. And these people tend to often leave in their teen years or maybe aren't allowed to leave, you know, because of their parents and their structure, but are pretty much checked out. And as soon as they are adults, they kind of stop attending church.

3:04 John Dehlin Have you met people like this, Natasha?

3:06 Natasha Helfer Oh, for sure, absolutely. And I think that, I think it's one of the ways that it's unfortunate in our narrative in Mormonism where we don't, you know, when you, when you have the narrative that we're the one and only true way and that's the only way that you can really get to have a spiritual life. I think, unfortunately, we do a disservice by not honoring people like this. You know, I would prefer in our tradition to have something along the ways of. Well, we're sad that this doesn't resonate with you and we love our way, but we sure hope and will support you in finding a way that resonates for you. We really don't have that kind of traditional capacity in Mormonism because we're so focused on being the one and only true church. So it's an either or. Either you're in or you're not. And then there's really not much conversation happening in the in betweens.

4:02 John Dehlin And these people, for me, most of the clients and you guys tell me if you have different experiences. Most of the clients that I deal with are people that were orthodox Mormons into their 30s and 40s and 50s, and they were really, really invested and committed to the church.

4:19 Natasha Helfer Yes.

4:20 John Dehlin And then every once in a while, stumble on somebody, they're like, ah, I never really bought any of that. I knew when I was 15 that it wasn't true. And I just, I had to wait until my, you know, I got out of the home or, or I just told my parents I'm not going. And they just, they stopped. They figured it out for them as teenagers and they never allowed themselves to get too invested. And a lot of these people are the ones who report the least harm.

4:46 Natasha Helfer Yeah.

4:46 John Dehlin And the lead, they need the less support because it's just like they leave. Yeah. They just. I went to a local community college or I went to a state school and I, you know, found new friends and found new friends and had healthy sexual and developed. Had healthy sexual developmental experiences and not always, but sometimes or they, they learned to consume adult beverages responsibly and they got married at the age that felt right to them and had the number of kids that they wanted to and follow the career that they wanted to. Now, of course, not everybody who leaves Mormonism in their teens has a great experience. Some have catastrophic experiences and in the middle. But for the most part, these are for me, the people that don't end up needing a lot of coaching about their faith crises.

5:30 Margi Dehlin And what's interesting for me about this, and I actually think I have some experience with this category myself, but I would say is that many of them are internal because what they've gone through is this. They know what doesn't resonate. They're having an experience going through the church things of saying, wait, I don't, I'm not sure that you know, as opposed to. And I think that's why when they leave, on some level they have this connection with themselves that they take with them, you know, as they go. Now, I would say for me, because my testimony, and we got into this a little bit with my interview with Mormon transitions was a very practical one. It wasn't quite, I wouldn't say it was doctrinal or necessarily belief based at the core because it was practical. Some things, you know, structurally changed in our marriage where you came to me, I read some books, but what I experienced, and here's an example is I would go to church and when I was at church, the things that I was fed or the, you know.

6:36 John Dehlin Okay, wait, can I, can I clarify something?

6:37 Margi Dehlin Yes.

6:38 John Dehlin Are you now speaking about the second sort of subcategory in this bullet, which is when things cease to resonate? Okay, I just want to make sure. So. So the first sort of subcategory in this bullet was people that just as teens figured out. Now you're talking about people that over time something just doesn't. It starts to feel disharmonious for you, is that right?

7:01 Margi Dehlin Yes.

7:01 John Dehlin Okay, so go ahead, keep going. Okay.

7:03 Margi Dehlin Yeah. So it ceased to resonate. I think this is also quite common to people amidst their trans process. This can be part of it. So I'm going to church like I always did, but all of a sudden my experience at church is different. So I'm no longer feeling fed by the things that are being said. I'm not feeling uplifted or inspired. And to counter that, I am experiencing that as I'm reading on my own, or I'm doing yoga on my own, or I'm reading Buddhism on my own, that I'm having this relationship with other food that's outside the paradigm that's really enhancing my life. So now I have this disparity of when I go, I'm really not having a positive, productive, life enhancing experience. That's an example of something ceasing to resonate at church. Does that make sense in your experience?

7:58 John Dehlin Yeah. And then some would even say like, it got boring or I just, I felt like I was working all the time and giving my whole life to the church and my family was suffering and my own mental health. Or I just, some people, like, they start living the Mormon dream and they get married young and forgo a career and have a bunch of kids and then they realize they're miserable and they're like, well, this is the great plan of happiness. I'm not happy, it's not working. And so for those reasons, or just

8:26 Margi Dehlin gets boring, it can be agitating, it can be depleting, you get done and you actually feel exhausted for the rest of the day as well.

8:35 John Dehlin Totally. And you just find out it's just depleting you. In other words, it's not always historical stuff, it's not always social justice stuff, it's not always abuse. Sometimes it's just either when you're young or when you're middle aged or whatever, it just stops working for you. Anything you want to add to that, Natasha?

8:55 Natasha Helfer Yeah, I would say the people that I've seen more in my practice that present in either of these categories present the younger ones, right, that kind of leave on their own. Usually they're not seeking my services when they're 18 or 19. If that's happening, it's because their parents are wanting them to come. In some regards the parents are concerned, but people might show up later for one of two reasons that I see that they might present. Kind of like, yeah, I left when I was 18 and never really looked back. But now I'm in my 40s and I'm realizing that there was a lot of damage there done in my family relationships. And so either there were break offs or cutoffs that happened unfortunately because the family wasn't able to accept their leaving or maybe not that drastic, but they still feel like there's some wedges there that they'd like to work on. And so they look to find somebody to work with them who's culturally competent. Right. In Mormonism. The other reason why sometimes I see it still coming up is even though they didn't buy into it, there's still messages that didn't necessarily escape. So especially as being a sex therapist, they still feel like a lot of sexual shame or kind of the rhetoric that they grew up with around their sexuality, even though they maybe don't buy into it intellectually, still presents in their sexual life. And so they're like, you know, what impact did growing up in this Kind of more orthodox or Mormon tradition have on my sexuality. And I'm ready to kind of look at that more in depth and want to work on that. So those are kind of typically now the people who it stops resonating for. Kind of like you, Margie. If that had happened to you without John's, you know, impetus. Right. Of his own issues that he was presenting to you, then that can present as, of course, many mixed faith marriages where there's an issue for one but not the other. And so then, of course, there's distress in that regard as well.

10:52 Margi Dehlin Mm. So can I say one last thing with regard to resonance? Another way resonance, I feel like can come up is in identity. And if you have this experience of, you know, starting to find enrichment outside, for example, your church experience, and you're. So then you're having growth, but it's outside a traditional church model. Right. Then what happens is. So the first idea of resonance is during church, right. You're having this experience, and on Sundays, you're really exhausted. But the second way is identity. It's that I started not resonating with the identity and values of the church. So that took place over time as I was growing sort of outside, seeking my own sources, being fed in ways that actually did resonate. Then what happened was I started not resonating with the values of the church in my everyday life. I started feeling less connected. Does that make sense? So it hit me eventually in an identity way where I just felt like, actually my values are different now. Now I just feel like I'm not resonating with the people who go. Now I'm feeling isolated. I'm feeling very different in my experience. And that's another way and another sort of level of not feeling resonance as well.

12:10 Natasha Helfer Yeah.

12:11 John Dehlin Yeah, love it. And there are some comments that are really resonating. Jamie writes, the catalyst for my faith crisis was actually the 2016 election. Now, Mormon Faith Crisis podcast does not have a political affiliation. We want to be safe for Republicans, Democrats, Independents, non US Political people, Communists, whatever the fascists like. Please know I'm going to give that disclaimer because sometimes people feel strongly about politics, and I just want to say we're neutral about that, but we're also going to honor people's own experiences. So for Jamie, he writes, he had a faith Crisis after the 2016 election. From his perspective, he saw hypocrisy from people that claimed to be followers of Christ and Christ's teachings about taking care of the needy, especially refugees and immigrants. To him, it made Zero sense that people who he worshiped with would speak ill against immigrants or refugees or people that were in need. So he says he started to pull away, found groups on Facebook with more nuanced views. And that's where he was introduced into a culture of questioning and critical thinking. And then he jumped down the rabbit hole from there. And the point there is just that. And this is true, and this is actually supported by data. A lot of people leave religious traditions, conservative religious traditions, because the conservative religious traditions become overly identified with one area on the political spectrum. And Mormons typically are republic conservative Republicans, at least in the United States. And so Jamie's experience is a common reason. If you tend to be politically liberal or become politically liberal and you're always hearing conservative Republican sort of rhetoric at church, that can be something that is an impetus.

14:06 Natasha Helfer Yeah.

14:07 John Dehlin And that affects your lived experience. So I just want to thank Jamie for sharing that. There are a couple others that are interesting as well. Let's see. M. Writes, as an army officer, I met so many different kinds of people. No, I'm going to mention that later. So I'm going to pause on that. Jamie writes, I found my membership in the church stifled relationships more than expanded them. And that's important. It's just basically she was just starting to feel like the Mormon chains of the Mormon rules were not leading to edifying, expanding, growing relationships. And that's how it was for Jamie. That's not how it is for all Mormons, obviously. So that's important. Anyway, so these are some of your feedback and it's great. So please keep the feedback coming. All right, so that's. And the final thing I'll just say about this is it's really probably hard for an orthodox believing Mormon to entertain the idea that someone outgrew Mormonism, that it was actually spiritual growth or personal development that led them out. Because how can this be God's one true church, you know, the one true church with all the right commandments and all the right rules. And then somebody outgrows it. So I'm just gonna empathize with the orthodox believing Mormon that's gonna possibly find this idea ridiculous. Having said that, you're probably never gonna hear ever in the next. You probably have never heard in the past and will not hear for decades somebody across the pulpit speak about someone leaving the church and becoming a better person. And that's just how groups work. It's not that Mormonism is evil per se, it's just that people tend to feel like they're in the best group and that the best people come out of the group they're in. And so a lot of people are just gonna. Or some people are gonna say, I prayed and God told me to leave Mormonism. And Mormons are gonna just automatically go, well, that was Satan. You were deceived. But I have met people who said I felt spiritually led to lead Mormonism. And I think regardless of where you are in the church or out of the church, it would be healthy to leave space for that.

16:37 Natasha Helfer Well, it goes back to your initial when we started with you drinking coffee. It's like, you know, because even. Even that language of outgrowing Mormonism, I don't. For some people, that that is the case. Mormonism is limiting to their spiritual growth, but that does not apply to everybody. That doesn't mean that everybody is limited by Mormonism. Right. So there are people that have tremendous spiritual growth within a Mormon construct. So this really is a for me moment.

17:06 Margi Dehlin Right.

17:07 Natasha Helfer I like to use the for me strategy a lot. So when we use this language, we're just wanting to try to make room for everybody's experience.

17:17 Margi Dehlin That's right. I love that.

17:18 John Dehlin Love it.

17:19 Margi Dehlin Keep us on that, Natasha.

17:20 John Dehlin Yeah, absolutely. All right. We want to thank our listeners for tuning in. If other people want to share their comments about what caused them to leave, I want to hear it now. We're going to do. We're doing something really cool right now. We actually added a bullet to our list because of an awesome comment that a few people made. So it is now time for the second of five or no, the second of six. Instead of the second of five reasons, I'm going to add reason number two for people leaving the church is exposure to awesome non Mormons. And this comes from a comment. This is something that I've known in the past. I've written about this in the past, but in my haste to put together the notes, I didn't list it. But this comes from M. Who writes, as an army officer, I met so many different kinds of people from different backgrounds. They were good people without the one true church. That is a very common thing that causes a faith crisis. And then Jamie went on to write, yeah, something similar. Again, she found her membership stifled a relationship. So anyway, the point is, and I got this at Microsoft, I go to Microsoft and all of a sudden I meet Sikhs and I meet Orthodox Jews and I meet Hindus. And these people are moral. They're faithful to their spouse if they're married. They have their own health code that works for them. They're honest Sometimes they have more integrity than I do. And I'm like, wait a minute, that doesn't make sense. There could be really smart, moral, incredible, non Mormons. And that leads you to think, huh, why am I Mormon? Well, I'm probably Mormon because my parents were Mormon and they taught me to be Mormon. Huh. Maybe they're Hindu because their parents taught them to be Hindu. What if we're all part of this wonderful chorus of good people and bad people? But, you know, we can't overly correlate your religious upbringing with the caliber of the person.

19:30 Natasha Helfer Well, it's so funny to me how I always like to tease our own Mormonism as being somewhat narcissistic, right? Because we totally talk about this on the other end. So we are the ones that are going to influence people, right? You met that cool Mormon family and, you know, they walked into your home and they felt the spirit and they saw, you know, the family proclamation, I guess, on the wall or whatever it is. And so we take pride in that as Mormons, right? That we're going to shine a light and we're going to have an influence on other people because of how we live our lives. And if we have lives that are full of light, then people will be attracted to that and they'll ask questions. And these are the ways that we talked about missionary moments. Well, guess what? We also have those experiences with other people who shine light. So we're not the only one. We're not like the beholders of light. I think sometimes these same things we talk about and have language for, but only on one side of the lived experience.

20:32 John Dehlin Love it.

20:33 Margi Dehlin So true. I think too, it really speaks to the power of relationships in our lives and connection as well. I feel like proximity to, you know, having relationships with people with a lot of differing opinions or diverse beliefs or I feel like allows for us to have experiences that make us, you know, able to hold a lot of different things that might be opposing together. And I think it adds a level of depth, if you will. I definitely had that experience growing up with, on the east coast in places where, you know, Mormonism was not the prevalent religion of choice. And also, I think having relatives, most. None of my relatives were Mormon. And so you, you do have this appreciation that you can. They're good people everywhere and that you love people, you cherish people, you're inspired by people who are actually different than you. You're not even, you may not even want to believe what they believe, but you're still inspired by it. And it produces this very Rich landscape.

21:46 John Dehlin Yeah, we're getting some great comments from our viewers. Teresa says, great point, Natasha. A lot of people are resonating with your point about, you know, the tendency towards any group, including Mormons, to be a little bit prideful and arrogant. M writes, natasha is so right. I feel like I was so arrogant as a Mormon. Now I am more humble and I listen to others. Yes. And as Natasha likes to say, we do not want believing orthodox Mormons listening to this podcast to think that we're saying that Mormons are just arrogant. This is every organization, every religion, every group. Even atheists and agnostics can be arrogant and insufferable. Right? Or sometimes especially atheists and agnostics and post Mormons. Yeah, post Mormons. So any group thinks they're better than the other group. You know, that's just human nature until you get a more global perspective. That's why Mark Twain once said, travel, something like travel is fatal to prejudice. If you travel around the world enough, you're gonna realize that there are just a lot of great people out there and a lot of bad people out there. So everyone's loving your comment, Natasha.

22:56 Natasha Helfer Thank you.

22:57 John Dehlin Mark writes, I've been fortunate to have not grown up in Utah. I've known better, more ethical atheists than even myself as active lds. Great point, Mark. So often we think it's such a common reaction when somebody has a faith crisis. It's like, oh, if you don't believe in God and Jesus anymore, why don't you just stab and kill your wife and rape people and rob banks and, you know, and you know, because we're in a certain mindset, we just can't even imagine that they're actually ethical, moral, healthy atheists or agnostics or non religious people. But there are, there are a ton of them. Mark calls it tribalism. And that's a great point, Mark. It's tribalism. Jana says, John, you are a lucky podcaster to have two intelligent women with you today. Thanks, Jayna. And there are more because we have 42 listeners. About half are women or more. So, Jayna, you're one of those intelligent, thoughtful women with us. All right, There are, I think there are a couple other comments here. Lisa writes, I had a hard time sitting in Relief Society as a single adult being taught about being a mother or how to teach your children. It made me feel I didn't fit in. Okay, we're gonna get to that. Lisa, that is a great point.

24:14 Margi Dehlin That's actually our next point.

24:16 John Dehlin That is. Is that our next point? Okay. So is it Margie or Natasha's turn?

24:20 Natasha Helfer Not mine.

24:21 John Dehlin I think it's Margie. So, Margie, what is the third main category or reason that people have a Mormon faith crisis?

24:30 Margi Dehlin Yeah, so that would be people that don't fit within traditional Mormon culture. So minorities, feminists, lgbtq, intellectual people, people of color, millennials, people who are single or divorced. So basically anyone.

24:48 John Dehlin What do you mean they don't fit in? Does that mean a feminist can't ever feel like they fit in in Mormonism? What do you mean?

24:53 Margi Dehlin To me, it feels like anyone outside the temple, it. Right, the kind of. The ideal. Yeah. Or the ideal.

25:01 John Dehlin So the church advances an ideal. And there are some people within these categories that feel like they are less

25:08 Margi Dehlin than or don't fit in the mold or actually aren't included. Included in the audience that oftentimes is being talked to in meetings or, you know.

25:21 John Dehlin So let's do some examples. So, Natasha, Margie, why. How. Give me an example of how feminists might feel uncomfortable at church.

25:30 Natasha Helfer Well, I mean, it's the lived experience of, you know, just completely being excluded from any type of. Well, I don't want to be too black and white, but for really, at some level, you are always answering to a man.

25:50 Margi Dehlin Right.

25:50 Natasha Helfer So the administrative power and decision making is always going to be deferred to as a man. Now, that doesn't mean that we don't have any power or any decision making abilities as women within Mormonism. I mean, obviously there's a lot of callings that women spend a lot of time in and develop their own leadership skills and do all kinds of interesting things within Mormonism. And I do actually, back to the other last week's podcast. That's one of the things I'm grateful for about my Mormonism is that I feel like it did develop my leadership and speaking skills in many ways that I wouldn't have maybe otherwise been able to have. And at the same time, I've been in many frustrating situations where my authority, for example, as a mental health practitioner, my authority as a sexologist, my authority as a mother, my authority just in my lived experience, even as a visiting teacher or as the Relief Society president, was always, you know, it was always deferred under a male authority figure. So my word could never be the last word word. My authority was never as, you know, as good. And then of course, you have all the lived experiences where, you know, I had my young daughter, you know, asking me from a very early age, why, why aren't there any girls passing the priest, you know, the sacrament, for example. Why can't I have the priesthood? What. You know, so these. These things that were, you know.

27:12 Margi Dehlin Yeah.

27:12 Natasha Helfer Slapping me in the face.

27:14 Margi Dehlin They're not on the pulpit anywhere.

27:15 Natasha Helfer They're not on the pulpit.

27:16 Margi Dehlin The man that's always interviewing a woman to decide if she's worthy for various things.

27:21 Natasha Helfer Yeah. I mean, it just becomes. Once you start understanding feminist theory, which, of course, I started understanding that at BYU in my women's studies class, it was shocking all the things I had never noticed before, you know, because when you're in. When you're the fish in the water, it's hard to know what water feels like.

27:43 Margi Dehlin Right.

27:43 Natasha Helfer So it's hard sometimes. And I remember getting very angry as a strong, what I considered feminist Mormon woman, to be told that I was not feminist enough. Right. Or that I did not believe in equality or that. But at the same time, as I started studying it more, I had to, you know, see the biases and see kind of how other people perceive us and then see myself through that lens and.

28:09 John Dehlin Right.

28:09 Natasha Helfer Yeah, it's hard.

28:11 Margi Dehlin Another way this comes up oftentimes is just choices. So when you have a formula which definitely exists within the church for females in particular, then what happens is, you know, your dreams, like this idea that there are many choices. You don't feel that anywhere anymore. You know, you feel like there's this certain ideal formula that you have to live. And if you are outside that and you want a job or you feel super ambitious and you have. Then you feel like if you don't

28:40 John Dehlin want kids, you don't want to get married young, like there are a million things, you want to have a career.

28:44 Margi Dehlin Right. And this came up for me, ironically, not for myself. First. It came up in Young Women's when I was teaching, and what I found was I felt really uncomfortable teaching certain lessons.

28:56 John Dehlin Like, Mary Young, don't worry about your education.

28:59 Margi Dehlin Right. So for like a decade, I literally taught my own young women's lessons in Young Women as a young woman leader. And that's how it came up for me. And then it was for my daughters. And I saw those things first. First before I actually was able to see it for myself.

29:13 Natasha Helfer Well, and I didn't see it at the time, but I see it now. I didn't go to medical school because I wanted, you know, that felt too difficult to be a mom and go to medical school. I told my sister not to go to medical school. You know, she's now a child and adolescent psychiatrist and a mother. But my elderly sisterly advice was to not do that. I mean, that's just when I think about those implications for my life and the life of those I love, they're huge.

29:39 Margi Dehlin Right?

29:40 John Dehlin And. And I wanted to always do disclaimers so that everyone feels welcome on this podcast. Not every Mormon woman is a feminist, and not everyone agrees with feminist theology. And that's fine. It's just. It's one way to look at the world. And so not everyone agrees or feels the same things that Mormon feminists feel. And not all feminists feel uncomfortable at. At the church. There are feminists that go to church and are fine with. Not with, you know, men having more sort of decision making abilities than women. So we don't want to say that all people are Mormons, are feminists, or that all should be, or that even all feminists are uncomfortable. We're just trying to speak to a larger point, which is that there's some people that don't feel like they fit in.

30:29 Margi Dehlin That's right.

30:29 John Dehlin Now, for the purpose of just time, we're gonna. We're gonna play a quick game called Empathize with the Marginalized Group. And I'm just gonna ask you guys in a brief way to illustrate an example of how this marginalized group might not feel comfortable. But keep it really brief. Is that okay?

30:45 Natasha Helfer Yeah.

30:45 John Dehlin Either of you could jump in. So an LGBTQ person who wants to

30:49 Natasha Helfer go, well, this was right away in my practice as a burgeoning therapist. You know, having gay members, lesbian members have really no place. No place.

31:00 John Dehlin Give it a.

31:00 Natasha Helfer Just give a brief, you know, 1M marriage. You know, where I started realizing how many people got married heterosexually because there was really no other option. And the devastation that created for everybody

31:13 Margi Dehlin in that family system, who they are is wrong. Who they are. It's like the behavior isn't the problem, but who you are, like, basically is the way you're made. It's faulty. It's wrong. You can't have intimacy in the way that you desire intimacy and be worthy.

31:31 John Dehlin Yeah. That your attractions are evil, that you choose to love is evil. Even sometimes Mormons get carried away and say that gay, lesbian, same sex marriage is a sign of the times, that it's a sign of wickedness. All of these sorts of messages, worthiness, interviews, etcetera, can make an LGBTQ person feel like they don't belong or like church is damaging to them.

31:53 Margi Dehlin Yes.

31:53 John Dehlin Okay, how about intellectuals? Who wants to go on that? That's not to say that there aren't smart people who are Mormon that are orthodox and faithful. But what's an example of how a thinky person can feel uncomfortable at church.

32:08 Margi Dehlin They're prideful. I'd say that's a term that's used a lot. That their desire to know or to figure things out is somehow an issue of character. They're prideful, they're not humble enough.

32:19 Natasha Helfer And it's such a catch 22. Because we're encouraged to be truth seekers.

32:23 Margi Dehlin Right.

32:24 Natasha Helfer We're encouraged to get our educations, we're encouraged to find the truth. And then when we do that, and it kind of has a tension within the narrative at church, then again, you're back to one of those victim blaming situations and feel unwelcome.

32:41 John Dehlin Yeah. And for me, it would be warnings about anti Mormon literature, warnings about people who have left the church, warnings about learning too much or staying away from certain books. Certain questions are bad.

32:55 Margi Dehlin Actually. Being educated, Being too learned.

32:57 John Dehlin Yeah, yeah. Even criticizing science or educated people. You know, there are scenarios within Mormon culture where people who have questions or doubts or thoughts or people who love science, people who really value evolution, people who think the earth is billions of years old, not thousands of years old. You know, people who question the literalness of Adam and Eve and a global flood. These are examples of ways intellectual people can feel marginalized or like they don't.

33:25 Natasha Helfer Well, in the field of psychology is huge in this. We have a very conflicted relationship with psychology within Mormonism. And even currently, you know, some of the rhetoric is very concerning. To me, what I'm hearing about revelation is more important than learned truth, which really I think is an attack on a lot of the psychological best treatments and standards of care when it comes to populations such as LGBTQ and, you know, sexual concerns and things of that nature. It's like don't trust the science, don't. Don't trust the intellectuals. Don't trust the people who've gotten their degrees in this revelation is where you need to put your trust.

34:05 John Dehlin Love it. Okay, none of us are people of color, but let's, let's make sure to include them. How might a person of color feel uncomfortable within Mormonism?

34:13 Natasha Helfer Go, oh, it's so fraught. So you came from a bad background, you know, even in the pre existence, like you were a fence sitter. And your color and your race, the fact that you showed up here on this world as a person of color already means that you're starting off behind the rest of us.

34:35 Margi Dehlin You're cursed.

34:36 John Dehlin You're cursed. Did you read the Book of Mormon? You read about the Lamanites, that they were cursed with dark skin for wickedness.

34:43 Margi Dehlin So shame. Because your color then reinforces this idea that you were cursed and set apart.

34:49 Natasha Helfer So then you're treated in this weird way like you're really special because you're a part of us.

34:54 John Dehlin Let me touch your hair. Because your hair.

34:56 Natasha Helfer But you're not really. But you're probably not special enough for me to want my white kid to marry you. Right. Or to date you or, you know, or to have the calling maybe, that, you know, we don't see people of color in our leadership at all. Hardly. I mean, it's.

35:11 John Dehlin It's laughable, you know, and you never see people represent. Who represent you in the leadership. Right?

35:16 Natasha Helfer No. Right.

35:17 John Dehlin Okay. Okay. How about millennials? How do. Why are millennials leaving church at such a fast rate? Younger people.

35:25 Natasha Helfer Well, I think a big part of younger people is information. They're. They're a big part of the information age. And when you say to people who. Their core value is truth and information, don't pay attention to information. Instead pay attention to this revelation that as older people are going to tell you what to do, that totally doesn't resonate with their values, their authenticity, their sense of self, their goals. They probably see that as immoral, quite frankly.

35:53 Margi Dehlin Yeah. And I view their. Their connection with social conscious kind of, whether that's the environment, whether that's what with, you know, lgbtq, lgbt, lgbtq, feminism, whatever. It's viewed as, like, kind of silly or misguided by the church, as opposed to something that they would want to see as being noble and valiant, absolutely compassionate and conscientious and.

36:20 John Dehlin Yeah, they're more.

36:21 Natasha Helfer It's a generational model. Right. I mean, most of the time the younger generation thinks that the rest of us are outdated and old fashioned and they're moving ahead with or without us.

36:31 John Dehlin That's right.

36:32 Natasha Helfer So. And we've made it pretty clear we're not interested in moving with them.

36:36 John Dehlin Okay, Natasha, how about single or divorced people? Can you speak for them?

36:40 Natasha Helfer Well, back to what Margie said, You know, when the narrative doesn't include them, when the ideal is always this idealized family kind of 1950s white American picket. White picket fence type of reality, that actually is not the reality at all. I mean, when you look at the statistics of how many people fit into that reality, when you look at how many grandparents or guardians are raising children, single parents, people who never marry, people who raise foster kids, I mean, we are talking to a very small amount of population and yet raising that ideal. So when you go to church and constantly feel like you're being faced with the idea that the way you've set up your life is subpar. That's harmful.

37:24 John Dehlin Who wants to know where your life ended up?

37:26 Natasha Helfer Yeah. Who wants to be reminded of that week after week? And then. So people leave just because they don't feel comfortable. I mean, there's lots of people who believe, who have testimonies, but who don't attend church because they feel, you know, like, I don't fit. And then for some people, that turns into a faith transition when they actually say, wait a minute, why am I buying into this narrative to begin with? I'm fine the way I am. Our family is fine the way it is. We don't have to be this, you know, dad, mom, three or four kids in tow. Maybe we're a blended family. Maybe we're, we're a single parent. You know, all of us were fine.

38:05 John Dehlin Yeah. Rachel writes, I chose to marry a non member, so she certainly didn't fit in. And that. Thank you, Rachel, for sharing. That's another one. If you're married to non member, what. What's your celestial kingdom gonna look like? Who are your kids sealed to? You know, to what extent are you always showing up to church alone or people are awkwardly trying to baptize or convert your spouse? Like all those things, you know, all those combinations of marital status or single status can definitely be problematic for people. I've heard being single in the church can be. Hell, yeah, that's what I've heard.

38:43 Natasha Helfer Yeah. What I want to say, I guess, as we close out this point, which is very concerning to me as a mental health professional, is that when the tension between what the church espousing as a healthy, happy life is in so many areas in contrast with what we actually have researched, best quality of care, best lifestyles. We know a lot about healthy marriages. We know a lot about healthy self care. We know a lot about how boundaries and all these kinds of things can help people have good quality of life. So when what the church is saying, here's the equation for happy life and what best care standards of practice are saying, here's the equation for happy life. When there's a strong, such a strong tension between those things that's highly concerning to me, specifically with gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans queer members, specifically for women, specifically for gender roles and how both men and women are affected by that and limited by that greatly, how we espouse parenting kind of expectations, expectations about when to marry, who to marry, when to marry, sexual expectations. I mean, so many things are actually not aligned with good quality of life and mental health. And that's very distressing to me as a member myself.

40:12 John Dehlin Absolutely. I love it. One last category in this sub bullet is liberals. We already mentioned them, but oftentimes Democrats and liberals, if they're in a conservative war, don't feel welcome.

40:27 Natasha Helfer I've definitely felt that I had to listen to the, oh, I'm so glad Bush is in office because, you know, the Antichrist Clinton now is out. I mean, I'm just like, I did not come to church to listen to crap like that. I mean, give me a break.

40:43 John Dehlin I wouldn't want to hear Obama's the Savior either. I just. I tried attending a Unitarian church once, and I just. I kind of am turned off by discussion of politics in a religious setting. That's just me. I don't want to hear it on either side. That's just how I feel.

40:59 Natasha Helfer Yeah, I think that's a difference sometimes between politics and social justice. I know that there are many churches that are very happy to talk about social justice issues, and those, of course, can get conflated very quickly. I do think that there is a role for church to talk about social justice. And maybe part of why we're uncomfortable with that, John, is because we've never actually contributed to social justice discussions. Quite frankly, in Mormonism, we're not used to that.

41:24 John Dehlin Absolutely. That can be true for a lot of people. And by the way, I love talks about social justice, and I feel very committed to it. I just don't like it mixed in my religion. It feels. If it gets too political, it feels. I don't know, maybe it's just conditioning how I'm raised, but that's just how I feel.

41:43 Margi Dehlin It's good to know yourself.

41:44 John Dehlin Yeah, maybe I need to grow. Maybe I need to get more comfortable.

Episode 4

0:20 John Dehlin Okay, so the next category. Margie, why don't you take that one? Because I think it. This is applied to kind of your experience a little.

0:28 Natasha Helfer Can I. Before we do that, there is a comment I do want to talk about. I might add, a bullet. Such as victims of sexual abuse.

0:35 John Dehlin We're getting there.

0:36 Margi Dehlin Yes.

0:36 Natasha Helfer Oh, okay.

0:37 John Dehlin All right, it's coming up.

0:39 Natasha Helfer Thank you. I thought we had to skip that. Sorry.

0:42 John Dehlin Nope, we're on bullet number four.

0:44 Natasha Helfer I digress.

0:45 John Dehlin Okay, bullet number four. We'll get there. Next, Natasha.

0:48 Natasha Helfer Thanks.

0:49 Margi Dehlin So the next point would be those who develop sympathies for a discriminated minority group. So it's usually in the form of a close friend or a family member. Yeah, that's kind of back to proximity and connection with other people and their story. So for me, this came to me when we lived in Seattle, and I was really close to my cousin growing up, and he actually came out to me during that time. And the way he did it, it allowed me to feel for his journey and the torment he felt. And it's interesting because he actually. He wasn't raised religious at all. He didn't attend a church at all. But the extent to which he personally suffered with this piece of himself, and he is the kindest, just the most giving, loving, just puts all manner of goodness on the planet, was a real eye opener for me. And I think something literally just shifted in that conversation to make the space bigger, where I just thought, this is wrong. This is. I am now different. I see things in a different way. Right.

2:11 John Dehlin I once had somebody say to me, john, you cover, you know, LGBT stuff way too much of Mormon stories. You may as well rename it Gay Mormon Stories. And they would say, this is not my issue. And it's just. All I had to say is it's very common for it not to be your issue until it becomes your issue. And when it's your child or your brother or your parent who, you know, becomes divorced or is LGBT or becomes a feminist or stumbles on intellectual issues, and then they causes them distress, pain, causes them to suffer, and. Or causes them to leave. All we're saying here is not only being a discriminated or marginalized minority group can cause you to leave. Being friends or family members with a discriminated, marginalized member of a minority group can also cause you to question and. Or leave.

3:09 Natasha Helfer Anytime that we have that tendency to be disinterested because it's not our issue is a good reminder that that's a position of privilege.

3:18 John Dehlin That's right.

3:21 Natasha Helfer Yeah. We really need to make these things our issues, especially when we don't have a lot of lived experience, because then that means that you're probably not in a space where people can trust you or come out to you or talk to you about things. Because, yeah, with that sort of attitude, we're difficult to approach.

3:42 Margi Dehlin Yes, crucial.

3:43 John Dehlin All right, all right, Natasha, why don't you do the fifth bullet?

3:48 Natasha Helfer All right, so experience some sort of abuse in a church context.

3:52 John Dehlin So you deal with this a lot, right?

3:55 Natasha Helfer Yes, I do deal with this a lot. There's obviously what I would call direct types of issues where there's been an actual, you know, maybe ecclesiastical leader or somebody within church authority who has really misstepped, you know, so whether that's, Give some examples, sexual abuse, like actual sexual abuse, you have a priesthood leader or even an auxiliary leader who has sexually abused you in a church context, verbally, physically or sexually. And, and you know, and I think that there's also indirect. So in other words, you've experienced sexual, sexual abuse, let's say, for example, and you come in to a bishop's office and start talking about something like that. But now it's turning into talk about repentance or confessing, or the bishop isn't trained well enough to understand what you're even talking about. And so maybe like a date rape situation is now being treated as a consensual dating experience that both people are held equally responsible for or, or because there are a lot of dynamics within Mormonism, like in most tribes where you try to self protect. Maybe a person comes in and says, something's happening in my home with my father or my stepparent or my uncle, but that person is a person of weight and somebody who's trusted within the community. So then it's hard to believe this minor or this child or this wife that is saying, hey, there's domestic violence or there's something in my home, and so it can be indirectly abused. It's an indirect abuse where the ecclesiastical leader isn't holding that story with the authority and accountability that it should have been held with. It isn't reported to authorities, it isn't taken seriously. Maybe that person is told, well, can you be forgiving or can you. Are you sure they're not believed or they're expected to be forgiving in those situations. So lots of. I mean, this. We could do five hours of podcasting just in how people experience some sort of abuse in a church context, whether that's direct. Somebody at church actually abused you, mistreated you did something either criminal or emotionally traumatizing to you or indirect. So the numbers of people that fall into this category are tremendous, Tremendous. I mean, I would say there's probably more people that fall into this category than don't.

6:36 Margi Dehlin Yeah. And I can also see. Give me the correct stat on sexual assault. Natasha, is it 1 in 4 women?

6:44 Natasha Helfer So 1 in 3 women currently report some type of unwanted sexual advance prior to the age of 18. And one in, I think it's either seven or eight men do the male reporting still feels like it's probably under reported because there's so much stigma of being a male who wants anything unwanted that is sexual. We tend to talk about men like anything should be wanted. So very, very difficult for men to know when something has been unwanted or even if they know it was unwanted to know how to talk about it.

7:17 Margi Dehlin Yeah. But even if you. So if you take something like that and you move it to indirect, so now we're going to say it didn't happen in a church context directly, but then you put that, you know, the person who experienced that in young women's, for example, where you're having lessons and virtue is prized above all. And that's what you're hearing.

7:39 Natasha Helfer And that's even. That's even less than indirect. Like, I would say there's direct, there's indirect, like with the bishop who's actually saying something. But then there's like this, like just cultural, just like aura. Right. This aura of you're just kind of. You listen to a lesson on virtue, like you're saying, and all of a sudden you're seeing yourself as unworthy or less than. And nobody did any. It wasn't even in part of a worthiness interview, wasn't anything directly said to you, but just something that was said in general. And how we have these scripts and narratives and rhetoric within Mormonism that is very damaging. And so then you leave feeling like you kind of get the idea I'm unworthy, I'm not. I don't fit in. My story isn't the ideal.

8:24 Margi Dehlin Yep.

8:25 Natasha Helfer So just like, that can affect singles and all that, but it definitely can affect people who've had any type of sexual abuse, physical abuse in the home, you know, especially, like what, you know, what if your father is like, you know, the, I don't know, the elders quorum president. Right. But is beating everybody at home, or you have a mother who is raging alcoholic at home, but is, you know, teaching primary at church. You know, these are very complex things that, especially when you're growing up in the church, it's very hard to tie that ideal with what's happening in your own home environment. And the reality is that Mormons are just as dysfunctional as other people. You know, in relation to all of these statistics. We don't beat anybody. The only statistics I think we do better at than the general population are things like drinking, not drinking, not smoking. And we're more highly educated than the general population. But as far as family relational dynamics, I don't see statistics that make Mormons better than other families.

9:28 John Dehlin Yes, absolutely. And this is. And then there can be minor things. You know, Wendy writes, ostracized in senior year of high school, Seminary teacher went after school district for subscribing to Ms. Magazine. This was during the push for the era. It doesn't have to be. It can also be just mean or rude comments or bullying or, you know, things that the people experience. A leader can degrade a kid about what they're wearing, whether they're modest or not, whether they're, you know, dancing too close to somebody, but just do it in a way that's kind of offensive and hurtful and like you guys said, shaming. Or it can be an LGBT youth that is, or adult that's taught to be celibate or be in a mixed orientation marriage or even try reparative or conversion therapy. Those things can end up feeling abusive. If you end up missing a lot of those happy years or marrying someone you shouldn't have married or trying to change yourself, that can be psychologically harmful. All of these things can be harmful.

10:36 Natasha Helfer They are abusive. Yeah.

10:37 John Dehlin Yeah, they are abusive. And the final thing I'll say is this is where that, that trope or that stereotype around being offended can really have a dark side. Because, you know, if I'm. If I'm sexually abused by a leader, anytime I attend church again or hear certain hymns or hear prayers or just be in a Mormon context, that can be very triggering. You know, it can trigger a traumatic response. You become, you know, diagnosable of ptsd, Post Traumatic stress disorder. And so how awful or minimalizing is it for us to sort of say, oh, you were just offended, when in reality, attending church for whatever reason might actually literally cause stressful, triggering traumatic responses that can make you feel panic attacks or worse, like you're gonna die or just so that you're constantly miserable. And that's when these stereotypes become from just sort of a little bit devaluing or demeaning to deeply potentially harmful.

11:41 Margi Dehlin Yep.

11:42 Natasha Helfer And it doesn't even have to be bullying or kind of shamey, you know, like, oh, don't do that. These. What. What's so sad is that you can have the most loving bishop say. And this was actually this happened to me, loving bishop, like super wonderful man, like would do anything for me and you know, just saying, you know, something like, Natasha, I'm just so concerned, you know, with all this love in his eyes and just because, you know, you've done something that is only second to murder and I love you so much and I want you to, you know, be able to repent from this. Well, that was done in a very loving, you know, like, I did feel a lot of love from the man who told me something that really had an abusive impact on me. So even in the best of scenarios, with the most loving tone and love and true genuine concern, we're so uneducated and so in trauma informed care that we are re traumatizing, re victimizing without even knowing that we're doing that in ways that people are just really having lifelong implications from some of these scenarios.

12:58 John Dehlin Yeah, absolutely.

12:59 Natasha Helfer And I don't know how most of us don't really escape unscathed from that. I think there's just too much. There's. And that's what I mean by the tension between best standards of care practice and the narrative. It's just too at odds.

13:15 John Dehlin And this isn't to say that people can't heal from trauma, that people are going to be eternal victims and that once you've had a really bad experience at church, you can never stay. That's not what we're saying. We're not saying that everyone who experiences trauma in a Mormon context will leave the church or should leave the church. There can be healing and grace and repentance and forgiveness. You know, those, those.

13:38 Natasha Helfer And there's post traumatic growth. You know, we know the research on post traumatic growth where you people can take traumatic events and actually really bloom and thrive from the experiences that they had once they have certain tools and strategies in place.

13:53 John Dehlin We want to leave room for all of that and to say if the church becomes a traumatic place for somebody, sometimes they either need to leave it or take a sabbatical or heal before they can re engage partially or fully. And you know, we need to just have empathy for that instead of judgment and ridicule.

14:17 Natasha Helfer Yeah, for sure.

14:19 John Dehlin Okay. The last one I'm going to claim because it's sort of my. The last main domain. It's sort of something that I, you know, it's kind of what led me out or at least led me into a faith crisis. And it's one of the most common domains in the, you know, modern Internet age. And that's exposure to historical or doctrinal problems that cause you to question and challenge the Church's truth claims. So often it's not wanting, you know, to learn the seedy stuff or digging into, quote, anti Mormon literature, unquote. Oftentimes it just starts as you're a Sunday school teacher or a seminary teacher. You want to prepare a great lesson, or you're googling Joseph Smith or on YouTube and a weird video comes up, or somebody mentions offhand something like the CES letter or a podcast or whatever it is, all of a sudden you start learning things that you had never been taught before within a Mormon context. Maybe it's that Joseph Smith didn't translate the Book of Mormon using a Urim and Thummim and golden plates, but instead he used a hat and a white seer stone or a brown seer stone. Maybe it's that Joseph Smith engaged in treasure digging with his family as a young adult. Maybe it's that the Book of Abraham, you know, the translation of the Book of Abraham from Egyptian English didn't pan out the way that the Church thought it would once humans learned to read Egyptian. Or maybe it's thinking about the Book of Mormon and what we call anachronisms, realizing that the Book of Mormon mentions horses and steel during a time period where steel and horses weren't available to Native Americans. Maybe it's learning about Joseph Smith's polygamy, that he had 30 wives, 30 plus wives, or married other men's wives, which is called polyandry. Or maybe it's that he married 14 or 15 year olds or sisters, or mother, daughter pairs, or that he sent men on missions and then married their wives or approached their wives. You know, there are, there are historical issues with the Church. All of these things that I just mentioned are 100% certified and validated from the modern LDS Church as credible, legitimate concerns. And then there's sort of learning about the Church's racist past, you know, statements Brigham Young made about it being evil to be in a mixed racial marriage, or that dark people were cursed by God in the pre existence. Some of those things that we taught, you know, blood atonement teachings of Brigham Young, Adam God theory, where Brigham Young taught that, like, do you just bring

17:05 Natasha Helfer all this out of your head? Holy cow. Do you just. Does this just kind of come out? I'm like, huh? Yep, check, check, check. I'M like, wow,

17:21 John Dehlin there's a lot. There are, apparently there are a lot of things that can cause someone to

17:26 Margi Dehlin talk about it, which we can't go into all of them right now.

17:32 John Dehlin Come on. This is my moment. This is my bullet. You guys be quiet.

17:36 Margi Dehlin I am impressed.

17:37 Natasha Helfer We're interrupting his bullet. This is really bad, Margie.

17:43 John Dehlin Yeah, and just, I'll just round out the categories. It can also be social justice stuff. Learning that the church fought the Equal Rights Amendment for women or fought the civil rights movement in the 60s, or that the church encouraged electroshock therapy as a form of conversion therapy on LGBT people. You know, Mountain Meadows Massacre, that there was a cover up, you know, with Brigham Young. All these things and many more. You can go to mormonthink.com you can go to cesletter.org you can go to Mormon Stories podcast. You can read, you know, no Man Knows My History by Fawn Brody. You can read Rough Stone Rolling by Richard Bushman. There are a million books or websites or podcasts or PDFs that will make you aware or even the church put out a series of essays called the Gospel Topics Essays.

18:33 Natasha Helfer Yeah, that might be a place where believers might be more comfortable to start off with.

18:37 John Dehlin Oh, I'm not recommending that people look into these things.

18:40 Natasha Helfer Well, when they're curious about it.

18:42 John Dehlin These are all sources that become jumping off points for a faith crisis. And the Gospel topics essays which the church released to in an attempt to become more transparent and to educate people and to sort of atone for its maybe less than fully open and honest history. Even those Gospel topics essays have become the impetus for many people starting to doubt in question and begin a faith crisis. So all of these issues can become the reasons why people have a faith crisis. And again, none of this is anti Mormon literature. All of this is factual, historical, truthful stuff.

19:26 Natasha Helfer History is messy. People are messy. And we didn't want to deal with our messiness for a long time, which creates a lot of cognitive dissonance on some many of these issues. So it's part, I think, of being a fledgling organization. I mean, we're only a few hundred years old. You know, we're not like the Catholics and the Jews. And so it's the growing pains that we're currently going through and, and I would hope believers, you know, can understand that that's kind of a normal thing to have happen. So. And some people might look at those historical things and not be too bothered by them, like kind of just explain it away like I just did, you know, like well, you know, things happen. And for other people, it's legitimate, like, well, but that doesn't match the truth claims that I was told. And so that becomes a real reason for me to see this as invalid. And I think we need to make space for that spectrum of how people respond to these historical things.

20:22 John Dehlin Totally. I run into people who say to me, oh, my parents taught me about the peep stone and the hat and polygamy when I was four, and they've never had a faith crisis as a result. And so you're right, Natasha, we're not saying that everybody has to have a faith crisis when they learn about this stuff. It's just one of the common jumping off points for some people.

20:41 Natasha Helfer Yeah, exactly.

20:43 John Dehlin Shout out to Jennifer, who writes that suicide attempts. Learning that suicide attempts are high in Utah can be an impetus for. For a faith crisis. Or even that on Sundays or around general conference times, these can be troubling and triggering for many people. Thanks, Jennifer, for sharing that. Okay, a lot of. A lot of comments are laughing at me for getting carried away. So thanks, Gina and Rochelle and others. Rochelle says you guys. Okay. Rochelle's sticking up for my point of view. You guys are laughing, but that's me. When somebody asks why I left the church, it's where to start. So many places to start, right? Rachelle understands me. Thank you, Rochelle. You get me. You complete me. No, I'm just kidding. You complete me.

21:37 Margi Dehlin Whoa.

21:39 John Dehlin But thanks for the validation, Rachelle. Okay, so these are the six main categories that I've identified or that we've identified, main reasons or causes for why people have a faith crisis. And I should add, there are lots of people that stay in spite of all these things. So you can go to, you know, a thoughtful faith podcast or Mormon Matters podcast or Fair Mormon, and you can find all sorts of explanations for all this stuff, justifications, people who've made peace with this stuff. So, again, none of this is a foregone conclusion. Finally, I guess I wanted to close this session by talking about a few other factors that I personally associate with a faith crisis. Sometimes not causation, but correlation. And we can touch on each one individually just as a way to close. Is that okay?

22:41 Natasha Helfer Yeah.

22:41 John Dehlin Okay. The first one is Maslow's hierarchy of needs. And this is going to be a little bit complicated and sensitive, but sometimes I refer to a faith crisis as correlating with privilege. And here's what I mean by that. If you are, let's just say, a single mom in Detroit who's struggling to just work three Jobs make ends meet, and you need support raising your kids, you're probably going to be in a very different position in terms of having the luxury of thinking about or worrying about a lot of these issues relative to somebody who's retired, wealthy, highly educated, fully independent, and would have friends and family no matter what their relationship with the church was, and would have all the support they need in every area. So I kind of mentioned Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The higher up you go on the Maslow's hierarchy sometimes, not always, but occasionally can correlate with a privilege that allows you to have the luxury of even contemplating a faith crisis. Now, do either of you object to that idea?

23:55 Margi Dehlin Well, I would qualify it. That's what I would do. I would say. So, like, looking at the six categories, you could see that for some of the categories and probably not for others. Right. So like lgbt, for people that don't fit within the Mormon culture, that probably wouldn't be abuse. That probably wouldn't be true. So with qualifiers. That's all I'm saying.

24:15 John Dehlin Okay.

24:16 Natasha Helfer Yeah.

24:18 John Dehlin All right. But, but, but you're okay with that general principle, Natasha?

24:22 Natasha Helfer Yeah, I would agree with Margie. I mean, if you're a lesbian, you know, in Detroit that's caught, you know, has had, like, lots of sexual abuse history and her bishop, you know, is being rude, then, yeah, she might totally have a faith transition or crisis, you know, Whereas if you've got somebody who's really maybe only going to be affected maybe more by the historical stuff and working the three jobs, then for. Yeah.

24:49 Margi Dehlin A woman, a woman of color experiencing Mormonism would not be in a place of privilege. And that probably isn't part of her.

24:58 John Dehlin Right. So I just. So you guys know, I'm, I'm assuming the six past things we've already talked about as being true, and I'm just adding some other factors that can.

25:07 Natasha Helfer Yeah, no, I think, and I think for some people, what we do need to understand is that some people really, you know, and I know we'll go into this a little bit more, but when it comes to needs, I mean, a big part of our needs is social connection with people. And regardless of what's going on with all these other six areas, you know, a place to meet every week at church where, you know that somebody can bring your casserole if they, if needed, meets those needs. And I think that's what John's getting at, is that that's very powerful to have that in your life.

25:42 John Dehlin Yeah. And we're going to totally get to that perfect. Okay. The next one I have is family factors. So I would say the more that you're a multi generational Mormon, the more that you've got that pioneer stock, the more that you're parents and your grandparents and your spouse and your children are orthodox members, the more you're, the more difficult it's going to be to be able to contemplate and pursue a faith crisis. Would you guys disagree with that correlation?

26:18 Natasha Helfer I don't know. I think that this would be one of those things that I just have a lot of anecdotal data on. I don't know. Do we have data on this?

26:28 John Dehlin No, these are my theories. But I'm just going to say that if your wife is a non Mormon and you're, and you are looking at the precipice of a faith crisis, it might be a little bit easier, all else being equal, than if your wife is an orthodox Mormon who may leave you if she finds out you're doubting. Do you understand? I'm not trying to say that everyone, obviously I'm a multi generational Mormon. Obviously they're multi generational racial Mormons who leave. That's not my point.

26:56 Natasha Helfer Right. But I guess what you're conflating is orthodoxy with whether or not you're multi generational or whether you're converts. Right. And so I come from a convert family. Sometimes I ask myself this question, you know, like there's nothing intergenerationally holding me necessarily to Mormonism and yet I feel so profoundly connected to it. And I know very many orthodox families that would probably consider leaving their spouse even though they are converts themselves. Right. So I guess I'm just wondering about the conflation between. I do think that there's more, more intergener, intergenerational investment, obviously. And there's a story and there's an identity there with being part of the pioneer story. And so I would assume that as well. I'm just not sure I'm ready to completely.

27:44 John Dehlin I'm not saying it's causal. I'm just saying sometimes it can be a factor.

27:48 Natasha Helfer Yeah.

27:50 John Dehlin That's all I'm saying. We don't, we don't necessarily need to

27:54 Natasha Helfer sort of like totally understand it.

27:58 Margi Dehlin These are, we could reframe, these are potential factors. We could reframe this in a way that will make this easier, solve it. Margie, it's like observations. You've had that effect with people that you've seen. You've seen a lot of people, you've coached a lot of people. These are observations that you have noticed, you know, things that you've observed in people.

28:19 John Dehlin And that's why I started with the stipulation. This is correlation, not cause causation. Right. So these are just some factors. Yeah, yeah, these are some factors. Okay. Again, if you're. If you're. If your spouse has left the church and all your kids are out and your parents are all out and there's no family member that's in the church,

28:39 Natasha Helfer it's going to be easier for sure. Yes.

28:43 John Dehlin Thank you.

28:43 Natasha Helfer I would agree with that.

28:44 John Dehlin Thank you. Oh, my gosh, that was hard.

28:46 Margi Dehlin But you also want us to be. I mean.

28:48 John Dehlin Yeah, yeah, yeah. Keep us honest. Okay. This is hard. Okay. Another one is social factors. If all your friends are orthodox Mormons and if all your community is orthodox Mormon and that's where you get your source of friends and community, I'm gonna posit that it may for some be harder to leave the church than if you have no Mormon friends, no Mormon community, and all your friends and community members are outside the church. Are you guys okay with that?

29:20 Natasha Helfer Yes.

29:21 Margi Dehlin Yeah. And I would even add one if you have children where that's true too, you know, because that's something I see is parents will make different choices if their children are in an environment where it's very conservative Mormon. It's important socially. It's. You see different. Yeah.

29:40 John Dehlin With you, we're good, Natasha.

29:43 Natasha Helfer Yes. Agreed.

29:45 John Dehlin Okay. Another one I found is personality factors. I think there are some people. There's a book, I think that's called the Believing Brain. I think science more and more is going to find out and discover and is discovering that some people just genetically, biologically, hormonally, whatever it is, they're just more inclined to a believing disposition. And there are some people that are just more inclined to a skeptical, non believing disposition. And you know, there are no absolutes here, but I think sometimes personality traits can factor in. What do you guys think?

30:27 Natasha Helfer I totally believe that there are personality traits and even some of the intergenerational stuff that's coming out as far as what we pass down. Like there's so many things that we just don't even understand about ourselves, right. Or about each other that are subconscious, that are built into our wiring. Whether it's through the study of addiction, the study of faith transitions. I mean, we all same. Same stimulus, same information, we all go about it different ways.

30:56 Margi Dehlin Why is that?

30:57 Natasha Helfer You know, there's so many different factors. So I would definitely put personality traits as part of that.

31:02 John Dehlin And one other that I found is just introverted people. Sometimes introverted people will say to me I didn't go to the church because I liked it, I hated it. But I went because I thought it was true. But once I had reasons to question it, it was very easy for me to leave because I always hated going anyway. So introverts. I've noticed a correlation, loose correlation with introverts.

31:30 Margi Dehlin I do feel like my experience of being introverted it created a different dynamic with the community part say with you who's a little bit more extroverted and a little bit. I can see that.

31:44 John Dehlin Yeah. The flip side is true too. I did not want to leave because I loved the social interactions at church.

31:48 Margi Dehlin Yeah. Could I add a personality too? So I know for me as well, loving structure, stability that allowed for me to appreciate certain parts of the church as well because I loved the format, the ritual, the tradition, that sort of underlying stability and predictability that it gave to my life that allowed for a buy in that may not have been in been there if I was a more of a rebel or a questioner or you know, super artistic about how and more expressive, more abstract.

32:24 Natasha Helfer Yeah.

32:26 John Dehlin How about you, Natasha? Have you noticed any personality traits that you might correlate loosely with church with the likelihood or an unlikelihood to go through a faith crisis?

32:38 Natasha Helfer I can't think of any that you haven't both already mentioned. But I do think it would be an interesting study in of itself is just looking at certain personality traits because there's a variety of them.

32:50 John Dehlin As a next bullet, talk to us about the validity versus utility sort of trade off or personality type. Because you talk about this a lot and I first Learned this from Dr. Dave Christian. But you talk about this quite well. Talk about that.

33:04 Natasha Helfer Yeah. I think Dr. Dave Christian was the first one that I heard using the term validity and utility. I had kind of had these ideas or concepts before I heard him talk about it and I think I've heard other people talk about it as well. But it's hard sometimes to give credit to anything psychological because we all have ideas that get reused. But I think that. And we've kind of talked about it already even with Margie mentioning kind of this idea of stability and things like that. So there's this. The validity utility is kind of like two buckets and one is validity which is kind of like truth. Right. So is it true? Is it real? Is it. Is it factual? And the other bucket is, is it useful? Does it serve my purposes? Right. And so you can have people for example that see it As a truth, true story Mormonism, let's say. And even though they're gay, or even though they're a person of color or even though they're a feminist, right? Or whatever, but they still see it true. And so then their lived experience, even if it's not useful or even if it's harmful, they still go because that. They're more under that bucket of validity. Whether I like going, whether I'm bored, whether I, you know, it's useful at all to me, it doesn't matter because it's true. So I have to go. Or sometimes, you know, the term Jack Mormon, right? Is kind of. That. These people are kind of under that too.

34:27 Margi Dehlin Where.

34:27 Natasha Helfer Well, I stopped going because it wasn't useful to me, but I still find it true. It's still true. There's still that truth to it. They still hold onto. And then there's the bucket of usefulness, which is, well, you know, I don't know if it all needs to be true. And these are the people that maybe when they hear historical facts, it's not as impactful to them because it's like, well, okay, maybe Joseph Smith made a few mistakes, right? Or maybe Brigham Young or whoever, like, what do you expect? But it's useful to me. It's where I go for my community. It's where I can raise my kids. It's like where I feel respected. It's where I have a calling and feel part of a community. It's where I feel loved and supported. And like I said, we can call in for a casserole when needed. Right? And so it's a very useful part of my life. Therefore, the truth is not going to be as important. So what I found is working with faith transitioners is one of those buckets gets tipped over in a way that the person wasn't expecting, and that's oftentimes the impetus, right? So it's not necessarily. It's just a way to talk about what we've been talking about this whole podcast, just kind of, kind of in the kind of. It's almost like a model, if you want to. If you want to put forth that way. And, and then there's, you know, there's implications for both because obviously it's not like we're all either or just you tend to lean into one bucket more than the other.

35:50 John Dehlin And early, early in my faith crisis sort of coaching years, I associated the validity paradigm more to being male, that men tended to care more about the truth claims than women, and that women tended to say, I Don't care about the truth claims. I just. It's a place where I want to raise my kids. I feel comfortable there. It works for me. And since then, I think those correlations have been challenged quite a bit, and I'm not sure how strongly I feel like those tend to be male versus female.

36:22 Natasha Helfer That would be interesting data as well, because I would have made that assumption as well because of the whole idea that women are relational. Right. They're the mothers. There are, especially in our Mormon narrative, the comforters. But in my lived, in my anecdotal experience, that hasn't really shown up that way. I've had lots of women be the people starting a faith transition journey within their marriage due to a lot of validity concerns. So it hasn't resonated for me.

36:48 John Dehlin Yeah, yeah. And I once did a mixed faith marriage retreat, and we had 20 couples, and literally 10 of the couples the men left first were the non believers, and 10 of the couples, the women were non believers. And the reasons were all over the

37:04 Natasha Helfer board, all over the place.

37:05 John Dehlin Yeah.

37:06 Natasha Helfer Yeah.

37:07 John Dehlin Okay. Two more, and then we're gonna be done with this episode. I think, along with any other final thoughts. I think there we can say that there can be a loose correlation with age. We know that millennials are leaving the church at a higher rate than people who are older. That's not just true for Mormonism, but that's true for most, you know, religious traditions in the United States. And you can reference the rise of the nones N o N E s from the Pew foundation for that data, younger people are disaffiliating for religion at the highest rates. On the flip side, and this is something I want to give a shout out to Jennifer again, highlighting, there is sort of this sunk cost fallacy that many of us can fall privy to. If you're 60 or 70 or 80 and you've given your whole life to the church, I think there are strong psychological pressures to not want to consider that you've given your whole life to a fraud or to something that isn't true, and to be hesitant to allow yourself to experience a faith crisis, even consider it if you're older. What were you saying, Natasha?

38:22 Margi Dehlin Yeah.

38:23 Natasha Helfer To even consider it.

38:24 John Dehlin Yeah. You think? Do you agree, Margie? But again, you know, Sam Young's mom, birdie, she's like 80, and she's gone through a faith crisis. And, you know, they're obviously very devout teenagers and young adults who are very committed. So these are loose correlations.

38:39 Natasha Helfer Not well. And I think that some of the differences that we're seeing in the current data. In my understanding with the youth, I think that the younger generation has always likely to leave religion, but. But with the caveat that a lot of times people would return to their religions of, you know, their traditional religions once they started having kids. I think we're seeing less of that and we're also seeing higher numbers of art, of youth leaving religions. So that's where I think, you know, I think developmentally, when you think about it, you know, what are you supposed to be doing when you're 18, 19, 20? You're supposed to be rebelling, right? You're supposed to be saying, I want to go try my own thing. I want to do something different. So I think even going way back, the research would show that people maybe tend to drop off from religious traditions, typically when they're younger, but then would return. I'm not sure we're seeing that return. Yep, yep, yep.

39:32 John Dehlin I totally, I totally validate and agree with that.

39:34 Natasha Helfer Yeah.

39:35 John Dehlin The final dimension that I have as a correlate is, is your job or your financial situation dependent on the church or the church community? The classic example I have are like, you know, dear friends of ours who were doctors in a Mormon town, or employees of CES or working at the church office building, or an insurance salesman or a chiropractor or whatever, or a

40:02 Natasha Helfer scrapbook student at byu.

40:05 John Dehlin Student, byu, a teacher at byu, you know, multi level marketer, whatever it is. If your job depends on connecting with devout orthodox Mormons, it's going to be a lot harder to feel the freedom and the ability or even be open to a faith crisis if it would mean significant financial distress or catastrophe. And I know people who just fake it at church and they go through a faith crisis, they just don't tell anyone or they keep it very private because they can't sustain the financial distress or they don't want to experience the financial discomfort that would accompany a faith crisis.

40:50 Natasha Helfer Right.

40:52 John Dehlin All right, Natasha, is there any other major category? We've kind of done an exhaustive list here. Is there any other major category you want to add or any final thoughts on this topic?

41:07 Natasha Helfer No, I don't think so. The only thing that's coming up for me as far as my own experience and I'm not sure where to fit it in. So maybe you guys can help me, because I'm guessing we already covered it, but I just remember being very afraid of certain things. Like fear was a big, kind of awful motivator for a long time in my life. Right. So fear that if I didn't repent of something, certain things I wouldn't, you know, end up in the celestial kingdom. Or fear that if I didn't have a year's, you know, supply of food, that the second coming would come and I'd be unprepared, you know, fear that if I wasn't up to date on my tithing. Fear, fear, fear, fear, fear. Right. And so I guess maybe this is kind of what the resonating type of things that we're talking about. But I'd like to talk about fear in particular just kind of as a separate emotion, because I think for me, what I started recognizing was that it was just an unhealthy space for me to be in. And it was an empowering moment for me to finally say, I will no longer be motivated by fear of not being good enough, of not checking off all the boxes I'm supposed to be checking, of not having repented the right way, of not, you know, whatever all those things are. Maybe it's perfectionistic culture. Right. Or whatever we want to talk about. So fit that in where you want to for me. But I just wanted to mention that I think for me anyway, having to, for my own mental health, step away from fear, being a primary motivator was an important thing. So that's maybe a usefulness thing. It wasn't useful for me to be motivated by fear.

42:44 John Dehlin We see that a lot when parents have children and they've been conditioned to think that you can't raise a happy, healthy, moral kid outside of Mormonism. People just say, well, I can't leave the church. My kids are in it, and I'm worried that they'll become drug dealing prostitutes if I leave the church, you know, and it may sound like I'm making light of that, but people really wonder, can a healthy, happy kid be raised outside of the church? And it's just conditioning based on fear.

43:14 Margi Dehlin Yeah, Some paradigms that we've been handed down.

43:19 John Dehlin Yeah, that's good. Thank you, Natasha.

43:21 Natasha Helfer All right.

43:22 John Dehlin Anything you want to add?

43:24 Margi Dehlin I don't think so. I feel like we've done a wonderful intro. Common causes.

43:33 John Dehlin Well, good. Well, there. A lot of people have stuck with us, and so we just want to give a shout out to our audience for going the distance. We're 2 hours and 20 minutes in, and we'll be splitting this up into multiple episodes. But we're really grateful for everyone who shared comments and questions. Jayna lets us know that Sam Young's mom, Birdie, has been out of the church for A long time. That's true. Although I think she resigned recently. But I could be wrong about that. Let's see. Aaron writes, yes, fear. Big time. My biggest reason for staying as long as I did was fear. So Erin is validating your point. Natasha, Bethany says this discussion was so well done. Thank you Bethany. If you or others feel that way, what we would really appreciate is those of you who are willing to sort of consider becoming monthly subscribers. Just $10 a month. Anything. We would love to get 100 donors to be able to donate $10 a month. And if we do, we can pay Margie for her time. We can pay Natasha for her time. I'm even comfortable not being paid for my time. But I definitely want Natasha and Margie to be paid.

44:49 Natasha Helfer I would like all of us to be paid for our time. We're not going to do some weird, benefactory, patriarchal thing.

44:56 John Dehlin Okay? I'm just saying if you value this for yourself or for others, Please go to mormonfaithcrisis.com and consider contribution. Victoria writes, I would like to make a donation, but when I went onto the website the only option I found is a monthly donation. I'm self employed and I'm not sure I can donate monthly. Is there a way we can make donations as and when we can afford it? There might be other people in the same position as me that might be able to donate on a one time basis. Yes Victoria, great question. I'm going to add a single donation button right now to the website as soon as we're done and we'll invite those of you who don't want to make a monthly donation to do so. Maybe I'll also add a $1 a month or a $5 a month donation as well so that people can donate at a very low amount if they'd prefer. But thank you Victoria for that suggestion and thanks to everyone. Again, thanks to Courtney, our single donor and thanks to anyone else who's willing to contribute. We will do this for a while until we either can't sustain it or we get that support. So thanks to all our listeners. But there are other ways that people can support us and so I'm going to list them all right now. If you enjoy this stuff and value it but you're not able to donate financially, you could like our Facebook page. You could give the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis Facebook page a positive five star review. You can share share it with friends and family. You can comment, you can send us emails to recommend suggestions to share your life perspective, your tips, your Tricks, your mistakes. You can email us and you can just let people know about what's going on and spread the word. How does that sound?

46:48 Natasha Helfer Sounds great.

46:50 John Dehlin Let's end as we try to by some homework. Margie, do you want to give them some homework?

46:56 Margi Dehlin I actually really would love to hear Natasha's idea on her homework.

47:01 John Dehlin All right, Natasha, what do you want to share?

47:04 Natasha Helfer Are you talking about the idea that I wrote down or are you just talking about in general? All right, so I was thinking about. Because we're thinking about doing this every podcast is leaving you with some thoughts. And so my general idea for homework to be useful is an. Not that you have to do this every time and not that we'll offer something in each category every time, but I think it's important to do something with your brain. So it's kind of intellectual process. Right. So whether that's journaling or writing a comment or reading a material, those are all kind of brain activities. I think it's important to do something with your body so that it starts filtering down from your brain. Because just because you know something new doesn't mean you know something new, Right? So I think that, you know, so whether it's breathing exercises or a ritual or you know, something where you. Some of the self care stuff that we've been talking about, you know that that can be helpful. I think it's. It's important to do something possibly in community. So whether you share something with your spouse or a friend or maybe go to a certain community to have a certain experience that you consider yourself as homework or do something in repetition. Because again, our brains are wired to. They can shift and change, but they probably won't if you don't offer it repetition in order for it to do so. Whether that's a mantra you repeat every day or a little ritual that you do daily to help yourself in faith transition. So those are just my ideas as far as in general how I'd like to organize some of the homework that we give to people after these podcasts. But does everybody have. Do either one of you have an idea as far as what you could offer that would fit into one of those categories? From what we talked about today, what would be homework from understanding your own common causes of a faith crisis or how your faith crisis fits into the common causes we've talked about today?

49:03 John Dehlin I could see people journaling about just getting really clear on what their main causes were and kind of taking the time to write that down.

49:11 Margi Dehlin Mm.

49:13 John Dehlin You know, you're using. You'd be Using your body to write, you'd be using your brain to articulate it, you know, knowing really clearly what it was. And by the way, sometimes we think it's church history or social justice, but really there was something more emotional that was deeper, like I was just not enjoying it or I was working too hard. So the process of thinking about it, writing about it, journaling about it can help you get to the core reasons. And that's not just valuable so you can complain about all the problems. It's more helping you understand what's important to you, what gets you excited, what feeds you, what's nurturing for you. And it can help point you towards where you want to build your life towards. Maybe it's joining another church. Maybe it's looking at Mormonism as an active, orthodox Mormon in a new, progressive, enlightened way. Maybe going through that journaling thought process can point you towards enlightenment and help you understand yourself better.

50:18 Margi Dehlin That's great. Something that comes up for me maybe, as the. You said, do something with your brain. Do something in community. Could be that you go to the Gift of the Faith Crisis website and you make a comment there, or you ask a question, or maybe you email us with some ideas for future episodes. But maybe, you know, expressing yourself in a safe place. It could also be with a person or a spouse. But if that. If it's easier or if it's more accessible for you to go to the website, or if you don't have people like that, feel free to go to the website.

50:57 John Dehlin Love that.

50:57 Margi Dehlin And make comment there and share a bit of your journey with us there. So those are two Brain community.

51:06 Natasha Helfer Yeah, well, so I'll do a brain body combo where, you know, and we kind of mentioned this idea last week when I said, you know, you could take a journal and start in the middle and go backwards both ways, either where you write on one hand things that you feel like you learned or were grateful for, or that, you know, you want to carry on with you from, you know, your Mormonism. And then on the other part, you could start writing some of these. What are some of the legitimate things that either harmed me or that I started questioning or that I want to reframe or that I want to abandon kind of the pioneer cart idea. What do I want to keep in my cart? What do I want to keep out of my cart? But as you're doing that, especially with the negative P's, can you really tune into what's going on physiologically? Can you do that in a way that, you know notice. Oh, am I getting tense? Am I getting angry as I write? Am I noticing myself emotionally stimulated either in a sad way or angry way or frustrated way? Can you just notice your body? Where does that show up? Is that in my jaw? Is that in my shoulders? Do I feel heat in my chest? Do I feel like I start getting a headache? So that you can start understanding what cues, physiologically, your body in particular, gives you to just make sense of some of those emotions. I think sometimes we stay too intellectual instead of like letting our body inform us.

52:35 John Dehlin Love it.

52:35 Margi Dehlin Great idea.

52:38 John Dehlin One final comment. We have Casey who wrote, I just started journaling two weeks ago and it has been an amazing therapy and so helpful. So yes to journaling with a thumbs up. But also Casey writes, thank you. I am becoming a subscriber. I'm a newer listener to your podcast. It has been a great source of strength for me. Thank you. Casey, you're going to become donor number two after Courtney. So Casey, you're awesome.

53:05 Margi Dehlin We've got the two Cs and Victoria

53:08 John Dehlin and Casey and Victoria does her single one time donation. You and Victoria and Casey are going to race to see our second donor and our third daughter. No, we're just kidding. Thank you for the support. Thank you for tuning in. Thank you for everyone who supports what we're doing. Please share this Please write us, email us, comment, give us positive reviews on Facebook. Like us. Please spread the word. And please tune in again next week for another episode of the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis. I'm John Delyn.

53:44 Natasha Helfer Margie Delyn, Natasha Helfer Parker, thanks for being part of our community here.

53:49 Margi Dehlin We'll see you next time.

53:50 John Dehlin Take care everybody. See you soon.

53:52 Natasha Helfer Bye Bye.