Mormon Wealth vs. Members: The $1 Trillion Dilemma | John Dehlin DSH #735

Summary

Digital Social Hour – Episode #735: "Mormon Wealth vs. Members: The $1 Trillion Dilemma" Featuring John Dehlin

Release Date: September 18, 2024

In this compelling episode of Digital Social Hour, host Sean Kelly engages in a deep and revealing conversation with John Dehlin, a prominent figure from Utah known for his critical stance on the Mormon Church. The discussion navigates the complex interplay between the church's amassed wealth and its impact on its members, shedding light on financial misconduct, doctrinal issues, and the profound personal and societal consequences of such a powerful religious institution.

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1. The Mormon Church's Vast Wealth and Land Holdings

John Dehlin (A) initiates the discussion by highlighting the extensive land ownership of the Mormon Church across the United States. He reveals that the church is either the first or second largest landowner in nearly every state, amassing between 2% to 4% of public land in states like Florida.

"The Mormon Church is estimated to be worth $250 billion right now, and within 30 years, a trillion dollars. It'll be a trillion-dollar church." [02:14]

Sean Kelly (B) expresses astonishment at the scale of the church's assets, prompting a deeper exploration into how such wealth was accrued.

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2. Financial Practices and Legal Scrutiny

A delves into the church's financial operations, explaining the practice of tithing where members are expected to donate 10% of their income. He criticizes the ambiguity between gross and net income, leading to substantial revenue generation for the church.

"The church set up this investment arm called Ensign Peak... just Ensign Peak alone... $150 billion just in cash and stock in real estates." [03:06]

He further exposes legal issues, mentioning an SEC fine of $6 million for financial fraud and an ongoing IRS investigation into the church's practices, including the use of shell companies to obscure financial transparency.

"And that's fraud." [04:42]

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3. Personal Journey: From Devotion to Dissent

John Dehlin shares his personal narrative of growing up as a devout Mormon, serving a mission, and eventually questioning the church's doctrines around 2001. This internal conflict led him to leave his career at Microsoft and launch his podcast in 2005 to provide "informed consent" to fellow Mormons.

"It all just started to unravel because I'd been... ready to answer a bunch of questions I had had growing up." [08:14]

His commitment to transparency and advocating for issues like same-sex marriage and racial equality eventually led to his excommunication in 2015 when the church demanded he cease his activism.

"The church called me in and said...stop advocating...or we're going to excommunicate you. And I politely declined." [13:00]

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4. Doctrinal Issues: Racism, Sexism, and Homophobia

A systematically critiques the church's longstanding doctrines that perpetuate racism, sexism, and homophobia. He discusses the historical ban on black men holding the priesthood, a policy only lifted in 1978, and the persistent racial narratives embedded in the Book of Mormon.

"From the very earliest years of the church, Brigham Young started teaching that black people were cursed with the curse of Cain." [15:28]

He also addresses the church's rigid stance on LGBTQ+ issues, highlighting the harmful practices of conversion therapy and the severe mental health repercussions for LGBTQ+ members.

"The church has taught since the 40s and 50s that homosexuality... was an abomination." [18:46]

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5. Sexual Abuse Scandals and Institutional Cover-Up

One of the most harrowing segments of the conversation revolves around the pervasive sexual abuse within the church and its systematic cover-up. A reveals alarming statistics, estimating up to 30,000 instances of child abuse, comparable to the Catholic Church's scandals.

"The Mormon Church had 20% of the total U.S. registrations of Boy Scouts... that's 18, 20,000 abuse cases within the Mormon Church right there." [25:52]

He criticizes the church's response mechanisms, where victims are often directed to handle abuse internally rather than reporting it to authorities, perpetuating a culture of silence and protection of abusers over victims.

"The church has been harboring and protecting abusers for decades." [27:48]

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6. Growth Strategy and Demographics

Despite declining membership in Western countries and internal issues, the Mormon Church has strategically expanded in Africa, where growth rates offset losses elsewhere. A posits that this expansion is driven more by financial strategy than genuine outreach.

"The church renounced its priesthood ban and it's trying to change its image... now going gangbusters in Africa." [44:09]

He also challenges the authenticity of the church's membership numbers, suggesting that a significant portion of the reported 17 million members are inactive or do not self-identify as Mormon.

"The church claims 17 million members, but estimates are only about 4 to 5 million actually self-identify as Mormon." [44:39]

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7. Recent Branding and Public Relations Efforts

A discusses the church's recent attempts to rebrand itself, notably abandoning the "Mormon" label to distance from negative connotations associated with its doctrines and past scandals.

"The prophet, Russell M. Nelson, got up and said... we're going to kill [the Mormon brand]." [41:04]

This move aims to mitigate the dominance of ex-Mormon narratives online, which have tarnished the church's public image.

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8. Mental Health Impacts on Members

A significant portion of the discussion centers on the severe mental health crisis within the church community, exacerbated by doctrines that instill guilt and shame. A emphasizes the high rates of depression, prescription drug abuse, and suicide among members, particularly among LGBTQ+ youth.

"There’s a real mental health crisis in the United States right now... it's a real problem." [47:14]

He advocates for open conversations about these issues as a pathway to addressing the underlying pain inflicted by the church's teachings.

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9. The Challenge of Secular Community Building

Concluding the episode, A reflects on the broader societal shift towards secularization and the challenges in fostering community without the unifying (and controlling) structures of religion. He underscores the essential human need for belonging and the difficulties in replicating the supportive aspects of religious communities in a secular context.

"We need to figure out a community aspect without religion involved. Because once you bring that in, it gets weaponized." [36:41]

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10. Conclusion: A Dual-Edged Legacy

The episode paints a nuanced picture of the Mormon Church—a powerful institution that offers community, purpose, and moral guidance to many, yet simultaneously harbors significant systemic issues related to wealth accumulation, doctrinal discrimination, and protective behaviors towards abusers. John Dehlin's insights serve as a crucial examination of how immense institutional power can both support and suppress its members, highlighting the need for transparency, accountability, and compassionate reformation.

"Because there’s so much good and then there’s so much toxicity. And that’s why it’s so successful." [34:37]

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This episode of Digital Social Hour provides an in-depth exploration of the Mormon Church's financial empire and its profound social and personal ramifications on its members. John Dehlin's candid revelations and critical analysis offer listeners a sobering look into the complexities of one of America's wealthiest religious institutions.

Transcript

[A]

Think ever, like mainstream religion ever find by the sec.

[B]

Got it.

[A]

And the IRS is currently investigating the church. There's an active investigation.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

But it was. Was intentionally creating shell companies to hide the money from the members.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because the church. And this is all documented in legal documents that the top leaders said if the members know how much money we have, they'll stop paying the money.

[B]

Interesting. All right, guys, got John Dellen here. All the way from Utah, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Not too far.

[A]

Salt Lake City.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So you're still there even though after everything happened, it's.

[A]

It's where the action happens. Yeah, it's like Mormon Vatican. Basically. If you're gonna interview people who are Mormon, you go to Salt Lake City.

[B]

Right. They probably do not like you being there.

[A]

I mean, I'm. People are really nice there. So, like people. The people that don't like me, they don't let me know because constantly people are saying thank you for what I do.

[B]

Wow. Because I think a lot of people are probably thinking it, but they're scared to speak out. Right.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That's the problem.

[A]

A lot of the Mormons don't even know that I exist because the bubble, the Mormon bubble is really strong. Wow. Until you start questioning, you kind of are oblivious to everything around you that isn't approved by the church.

[B]

It was a big eye opener for me because I came back from Salt Lake a few months ago and I did not know it was like that over there.

[A]

Yeah. Going into it, it's a great and a weird place.

[B]

Yeah. Seems like they've really got a hold on their. Their citizens there.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah, they do.

[B]

I've never seen a city where the religion has so much like, influence over its. Its residents.

[A]

Yeah, it doesn't. It doesn't because every once in a while, like, medical cannabis was approved kind of against the Church's wishes. So every once in a while something kind of slips through. But. But overall, the church, it's a theocracy. The church absolutely controls the state for the most part.

[B]

I heard they own a bunch of real estate out there. Right.

[A]

The Mormon Church. Fun fact. The Mormon Church is the first or second biggest landowner in pretty much every state in the United States. Every state, pretty much. That's my. I mean, the church isn't public with its finances, but there's a really good report called the Widow's Might.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That's done its best to like, search land records all throughout the United States. And that's what my understanding is. They're. They're coming up with like, the Mormon Church owns somewhere between 2 and 4% of the public land in Florida.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

2 to 4%. Think about that a lot. Yeah. I mean, you. This is one of your questions. But like, the Mormon Church is estimated to be worth $250 billion right now, and within 30 years. A trillion dollars. It'll be a trillion dollar church.

[B]

So it's one of the biggest industries.

[A]

It's the richest church in America.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

And, you know, it's, it's, it's, you know, pushing against the Catholic Church for one of the wealthiest churches in the world.

[B]

I thought the landing was just a Utah thing. So you're saying every single state they own?

[A]

Every state, a percentage, 50 states. First or second position? That's my understanding. If I'm wrong, let me know.

[B]

But they must be buying it anonymously then.

[A]

No, no.

[B]

Oh, they're putting in their name.

[A]

Yeah. Well, I mean, there's subsidiaries. Yeah, they, they. But people know that they own the subsidiaries.

[B]

Yeah. So what does the flow of money look like from, like, bottom all the way to the top? How does that work?

[A]

I mean, the church requires its members to pay 10% of their income to the church. Or you can't, like, witness your own child's wedding. So there's sort of this extortion that goes on. It's, it's sort of soft extortion where they just teach you, you know, heavenly Father wants you to give 10% to build up the kingdom, but if you don't do it, then there are punishments kind of on the back end.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So. And then culturally, there's a lot of Mormons that believe you pay 10% of your gross income, not your net. So pre tax versus post tax.

[B]

That's a big difference, though.

[A]

So that's how the church made billions. And then the church set up this investment arm called Ensign Peak. I don't know, somewhere in the 80s or 90s. And they started with a few billion, as I understand it, and just hired a bunch of really good Mormon Wall street brokers. And fast forward, just Ensign Peak alone. This was leaked through a whistleblower. Yeah, just in the past few years, but it's like $150 billion just in cash and stock in real estates. And it was hiding all that from the members. And so the church has already had an SEC fine of like $6 million. That's nothing for fraud. No, but it's like the first religion, I think, ever, like mainstream religion ever find by the sec.

[B]

Got it.

[A]

And the IRS is currently investigating the church. There's an active investigation.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

But it was, it was intentionally creating shell companies to hide the money from the members. Yeah, because the church, and this is all documented in legal documents. The. The top leaders said if the members know how much money we have, they'll stop paying the money.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

And that's fraud.

[B]

I mean, Yeah, I mean, that's a ton of money. IRS investigation, though. Churches don't pay taxes, right?

[A]

Yeah, but the church has a lot of commercial interest and investments, like all these properties. The church owns cattle ranches and, you know, so property tax, a luxury.

[B]

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[A]

Mall of $2 billion in Salt Lake City and like entire housing developments that it owns through subsidiaries. So, I mean, L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, said, you know, if you want to get rich, start a business. If you want to get really rich, start a religion.

[B]

That's crazy.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

What was the money supposed to be used for? The 10%.

[A]

I mean, what Jesus say, like clothing the naked, feeding the poor, helping the widow, like feeding the hungry. I mean, that's how it starts. But then you got to build buildings. You got to build chapels, then you got to build temples, and then you got to build universities and. And then you got to build commercial shopping malls with, you know, Gucci and, you know, just all churches become corrupt over time when they become too wealthy.

[B]

Just because of money.

[A]

Yeah, money. Money corrupts.

[B]

Wow. When did you start realizing this? For people watching this that don't know your story, could you give a quick summary of that?

[A]

Yeah. So I'm a sixth generation Mormon. My ancestors crossed the plains as pioneers. My grandmother was the daughter of a third wife in a polygamous marriage.

[B]

So.

[A]

So I knew my grandma before she passed and she was in a polygamous household growing up in Southern Idaho. My parents grew up in Salt Lake in Idaho, but they raised me in Katy, Texas. Fun fact. I dated Renee Zellweger and I were peers in high school. She's a Academy Award winning. For you young people. Yeah. No, but it's a fun little thing because I brought her to a church dance once.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And they made. They turned her away. She was wearing a dress that showed her shoulders.

[B]

Ah.

[A]

This is like we were 16. So it's my little fun brush with fame. It's all been downhill since then. So. Yeah. Grew up in. In Katy, Texas, near Houston. And always had questions about the church. But I was super devout.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And served a mission and went to byu, which is like the Notre Dame of Mormon. Mormonism. Got married, had kids. But I was working for Microsoft. I was in the tech industry. And in about 2001, I started studying the church history in depth and it all just started to unravel because I'd been. Mormons are warned. Don't read certain books. This is kind of pre Internet.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like stay away from anyone who's ever left the church. Don't doubt, don't question. But I was just ready to answer a bunch of questions I had had growing up.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And just all unraveled in 2001. And I got super depressed, lost. You know, I was like new Steve Ballmer, the CEO of the company. I was traveling the world and I didn't want to do it anymore. I just.

[B]

Because they were sending you off to places to convert people. Right. That's how it works.

[A]

No, no, no. I mean, for Microsoft, I was working with high level executives, but I was depressed because my whole world had been turned upside down.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I thought the Mormon Church was God's one true church and that I had a place in it and that we were going to Usher in Jesus, second Coming, that sort of thing. So when all of a sudden you realize none of it's true and you've given your whole life to it. Married in the temple, served a two year mission, raised you, got married in a Mormon temple, raised your kids in it. It's not like a normal Protestant religion.

[B]

Right.

[A]

It's a total mindset. The best way I could like it is like Truman show or, or the Matrix or Tangled, Pleasantville, any of those movies. They all have the same plot. You're in this artificially constructed false reality that makes you feel safe and makes you feel special. And you live several decades thinking you understand the environment you're in. Right. And then all of a sudden in adulthood, you look around and realize, you know, the. The light falls from the sky and you realize you've been in an artificial reality based on lies.

[B]

Not only that, but six generations.

[A]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. For six generations. So I realized it wasn't true in 2001 and got super depressed, left Microsoft in 2004, thinking, other people are going to go through this. The Internet's on the rise. I'm right at the cusp of the Internet taking off as more people learn the problems at the church. And so I started the podcast in 2005. It's actually one of the longest. Wow, that's a long surviving podcast.

[B]

Before Rogan.

[A]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. 2005. This is like the second year podcasts existed. And it's well done. Yeah. So, yeah, that's kind of 20 years. Short. Short version. We can get into like some of the problems with the church, but. Yeah, 20 years. Yeah, 20 years.

[B]

And back then, without the access to information, it's probably a lot harder to leave.

[A]

Yeah, You. I mean, shunning your spouse would leave you. Your parents could disown you. Right. Your siblings wouldn't want you around.

[B]

So did that happen to you?

[A]

All that with different family members? Absolutely, yeah.

[B]

And your spouse left you?

[A]

No, no, no, no. My. Fortunately, I was one of the lucky ones. My parents were super supportive, even though they're still in the church today.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And my wife read the same books I read and believe. Bizarrely, she's like, I get it.

[B]

Oh, okay.

[A]

Yeah. But we still. Here's the thing. We stayed in the church for another 13 years after we stopped believing. That's how. That's. Well, I mean, we were conditioned to believe that you can't raise happy, healthy, moral children outside of Mormonism. So, like, I. To this day, I've never tried alcohol. Never. Never tried weed. Like.

[B]

Well, Those I agree with.

[A]

Well, I guess you're in this bubble where you're made to feel safe if you follow the rules. Yeah, like, don't you didn't masturbate before I was married, that kind of thing.

[B]

Oh, you can't masturbate? Wow.

[A]

No, I mean, people do, but I didn't. And. And it's just you, if you follow the rules, you're told you'll be safe and that God will be happy with you. So even if you don't believe it anymore, if you're 30, 40 years in, you're conditioned to think safety resides within the bubble, even if it's not true. So we just said, hey, we're in Utah. We'll raise our kids here. Will be like a secular Jew. You know, they're secular Jews or, you know, even progressive Christians that don't believe in the literality of it all, but they're like, yeah, I'll bought myth, bought myths for my kid, or I'll, I'll observe Sabbath or, you know, pick and choose kind of cafeteria Catholic kind of idea. And I just figured, we'll do that within Mormonism. And, you know, I had a good 10 year run.

[B]

Yeah. And then they caught you and then. What was that? Did you make a video that pissed them off or something? What was that moment?

[A]

No, no, no. I mean, the start of the podcast in 2005, the idea was to just provide Mormons with informed consent.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because when I was at Microsoft, I learned all these dark, horrible things about the church that I'd never been taught, and I felt lied to and betrayed. So I figured, I'll stay in it, but it'd be unethical for me to stay in it and just keep quiet. Plus, I learned about the way the church was harming the LGBT community, all the racism and the bigotry in the church, the way it treated women. There were just ways the church was just harming people in addition to deceiving people. So I said, all right, I'll stay in the club, raise my kids in it, but the tax I'll pay is I'm going to speak openly about it. So I started the podcast in 2005, and it started becoming really popular. And over the years, the church got more and more comfortable, and more and more members were learning all the things the church tried to hide from them. And I started, you know, advocating for same sex marriage, you know, advocating against the church's racist teachings. And the more followers I got, the more people became informed, the more the church got uncomfortable. So it came to a Head in 2014. The church called me in and said, you know, stop advocating for same sex marriage and LGBT people and for women and take the podcast down and never speak publicly again about any of these issues or we're going to excommunicate you. And I politely declined. I couldn't do that ethically, even though I didn't really want to leave the church. Weirdly, yeah, because it just felt like my tribe. But they pulled the trigger in like February of 2015.

[B]

Well, you and your wife or just you?

[A]

Just me. Women. I joke. It's a dark joke, but like, she wasn't even important enough to the church to excommunicate. In other words, women are like total second class citizens in the Mormon Church. They can't have any leadership positions of holy crap significance. It's a total patriarchy from top to bottom. There's a, there's a prophet, male prophet, he has two counselors, and then there's a quorum of the 12 apostles, all men. And they're like several quorums of 70, and they're almost all white men. I mean, there's a few minorities, just kind of token minorities, but it's just male leadership from top to bottom. Um, yeah, so women are just totally kind of. I mean, they're. There's kind of this benevolent patriarchy where it's like, hey, you go help the sick and the needy and you have your little meetings with other women and do little service, knitting women, sorts of things. But in terms of power, control, decision making, money, it's all, it's all white men, basically. So she wasn't important enough. Margie wasn't important enough to excommunicate, which was really disturbing for her because she believed everything I believed or didn't believe and supported everything I was doing. But they're like, yeah, she's fine.

[B]

Wow, please don't care about women. And you said they're racist too, so.

[A]

Yeah. So from the very earliest years of the church, Brigham Young started teaching that black people were cursed with the curse of Cain. So in other words, Cain kills his brother Abel. The Bible says God put a mark on Cain. And then Mormons sort of take that to 11 and say that that mark that was put on Cain is how black people started like 6,000 years ago. And so all the Africans basically somehow descended from, you know, Cain.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

And so that's the curse of Cain. Mormons as late as the 40s and 50s and 60s taught that that curse of Cain was from God. And so they excluded black Men from the priesthood for about 150 years. It wasn't until 1978, when I was nine years old, that the church let black men be members of full stuff. So that's in my lifetime. Yeah, but they've never renounced the curse of Cain so that that doctrine's still on the books. And they actually teach that the reason why they have to have some reason. I mean God's not just a jerk. So like why did God give those black men and women black skin? Mormon Church teaches that it's because in a pre life when they were spirit children of God and heavenly mothers, they were less righteous in a previous life. And so they were assigned to black skin in this life as a consequence of their bad behavior in a previous life.

[B]

Karma. And that's what's that karmic debt they call it, Right?

[A]

Yeah. And that's Mormon doctrine. So the church tries to downplay or dismiss that now, but it's never renounced it. And that's just black people. The Book of Mormon, which is the most sacred of all Mormon texts. Mormons prioritize the Book of Mormon over the Bible teaches that that a bunch of, you know, Jews from is from Jerusalem sailed over to America about 600 years before Christ was born and start started building up their populations here in America. And there was a good group and a bad group. According to the Book of Mormon, God gave the bad Native Americans a skin of blackness as a curse for their wickedness so that they would appear loathsome to the white Nephites or the white Native Americans. And so the Book of Mormon has institutionalized racism in it. And then eventually in the Book of Mormon the, the Lamanites, the dark skinned cursed Native Americans killed off all the white light skinned Native Americans. And that's why when Columbus came over, according to the Book of Mormon, he found dark Native Americans because God's curse and that's you can't take that out of the Book of Mormon. So that's so yeah. Mormonism is steeped in racism. Even though you ask the average Mormon, they would say oh I'm not racist, I love all people. And the church is totally baptizing like crazy in sub Saharan Africa. So the church would say they love black people, but it's doctrine, its history, its theology is unrenounced. Yeah, horrible racism.

[B]

So you got racism, sexism, and they do not like gay people.

[A]

Homophobia. I mean it, it runs the gamut. Yeah.

[B]

What's their take on that? Was that in a text or something?

[A]

LGBT stuff?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. So the church has taught since the 40s and 50s that homosexuality, as they called it, was an abomination, was like bestiality, was like child abuse, was like a perversion. They would teach that masturbation makes you gay. Interestingly, yeah. But they're only. They're only options for gay people. Up until basically the 2000s when we started podcasting, yeah, you had a few options. You could marry a woman if you're a gay man and enter into a mixed orientation marriage, which would make you want to die. Or you could be celibate, which my research says also makes you want to die. It's actually worse than marrying someone not attracted to in terms of mental health outcomes. My. My PhD dissertation was on the LGBTQ Mormon experience, and celibacy was the worst possible option for mental and physical health and well being of LGBTQ Mormons. So you had three options. Four, really. You could marry a woman or a man if you're a lesbian and be in a mixed or mixed orientation marriage. You could be celibate, or you could kill yourself. Or you could leave the church and then face sort of being totally rejected and cast off by your parents, your grandparents, your siblings, all your friends and family and just be kind of like, wow, sent away. And that's, That's. Or you could do conversion therapy. So the church sponsored camps where men would go chop wood and throw the football and hug each other as a weird intervention. What, for trying to treat your homosexuality. The idea was, is that it. It was like some malformed attraction because you had a weird relationship with your dad and mom. And so if you hugged men long enough, you would sort of like exposure therapy, kind of hug the gay away. And of course, those dudes would go do the types of things they would do behind the scenes.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Totally bankrupt, mentally unhealthy, abusive treatment for homosexuality. But the church did that for decades and decades and decades.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

And it wasn't until the Internet podcasts researchers like mine and others that the church realized it had a huge lawsuit. It wasn't like the well being of the LGBTQ community that the church really cared about. In fact, when the church started fighting same sex marriage In California in 2008, Prop 8, there was a spike in LGBTQ Mormon suicides. So from 2008 to like 2015, you can just track LGBTU suicides, like tripled.

[B]

Geez.

[A]

Like Dan Reynolds from Imagine Dragons here. Yeah, Las Vegas, boy. He did a whole HBO documentary on the LGBT suicide crisis.

[B]

Holy crap.

[A]

Tyler Glenn from Neon Trees was. Was one of the Participants in that. I was in that. But yeah, we. We put the heat on the church really hard between 2005 and 2015, and slowly they've backed off on conversion therapy. They backed off on overtly promoting mixed orientation marriages. They backed off on overtly promoting celibacy and even claiming that they know what causes homosexuality. But it's still a perversion. It's still a sin. You can't get married. They fight same sex marriage wherever they can. And they teach gay people that they're broken and bad still, and that it's. You can. You can be gay, but you just can't act on it.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

And that's where the church is today.

[B]

So crazy. And there's a lot of mental health issues, right?

[A]

Yeah, it's. Like I said, it's the. The suicide rates are like, have been historically two to three times in Utah, the national average outside of Utah.

[B]

I met a teenager there that his own father kicked him out at like 17.

[A]

Yeah. Estimates that I read were like a third of the youth homeless in Utah, our LGBT youth that were kicked out of their home. Wow. Third by Mormon parents.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

Of the. Of the youth homeless. Right. Yeah.

[B]

Which is really high.

[A]

Yeah. Because, I mean, no parent, no Mormon parent wants their kid to come out as gay. It's an embarrassment to everybody.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

So it's. I mean, it's weird because, like, you think David Archuleta, Steve Young, Osmonds, Mormons, they're good and there's a lot of good in the church, but there's this dark side that we just nobody knows or people don't talk about.

[B]

Yeah. I think that's every religion too.

[A]

Well, I think there's a category like Scientology, Jehovah's Witness, Mormons, that's for me, an order of magnitude worse than like Presbyterians and Lutherans, Episcopalians, and you know, could like progressive Jews, for example. So, like. And I would put like, maybe ultra orthodox Jews, potentially. I don't want to start naming names necessarily, but like, yeah, there's an intensity of a high demand religion or cult for me that.

[B]

Yeah. So those four you would consider a cult.

[A]

And then kind of. I mean, yeah, if you just go back to the beginning of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, he was a charlatan. Like, he, He. This is the founder of our church. He would take people on these treasure digs, say, hey, I can see buried treasure underground. I. I'll put a stone, a magic stone in a hat, and I can tell you where to dig. And then they would all pay him money that he dig here, kill the chicken, draw a pentagram, dig for the treasure. I, I'm, you know, I'm just saying there were rituals.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That he'd have them perform. They would dig and then he'd say, you're almost there. You're almost there. And then it was like, oh, you messed up. And then the spirit. The spirit took the, the treasure away and. But somehow they all still believed that he had the power, even though no one ever found any treasure. That was before he started the religion. He starts the religion and then just a few years in, he starts taking extra wives. By the time he, you know, is killed, he has over 30 wives. Several of them are, you know, 14, 15, 16 years old. Up to 11 of them are other men's, you know, women married to other men at the time. He takes them on. Mother, daughter pairs, sister pairs. I mean, Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, absolutely qualifies as a sexual predator. And that's a really hard thing for a Mormon to admit.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because we're taught next to Jesus, he's the most righteous man who's ever lived. But if you look at David Koresh, Warren Jeffs, Keith Ranieri, Elron Hubbard, like, pick your cult founder Joseph Smith can, you know, can line up with any of them, match them toe to toe in terms of fraud, sexual, you know, sexual predation.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So I, I don't know how else to say it. That doesn't mean there aren't good things about the church. There aren't nice Mormons, but it absolutely meets the criteria of a cult.

[B]

Yeah. And there's sexual abuse within it too.

[A]

Yeah. So. So just Boy Scouts alone, like, you know, there have been something like 90,000. You know, the Boy Scouts are, you know, they kind of like filed for bankruptcy. Oh, did that because they were like just in the modern era, like 90,000 young boys claimed to have been sexually abused.

[B]

Holy crap.

[A]

So the Mormon Church had 20% of the total U.S. registrations of Boy Scouts. So 20% of, of 90,000. That's 18, 20,000 abuse cases within the Mormon Church right there.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then you add to it the non Boy Scout related instances of abuse. Michael Resendez, who was a reporter on Spotlight, which was the Catholic version of a sort of pedophilia and child abuse, he started reporting on the Mormon Church and there's a good indication that the Mormon Church can match the Catholic Church toe to toe on prevalence. I, I know you like chat GPT. I chat GPT estimate how many modern instances of child abuse in the Mormon Church, and it came up with like 30,000.

[B]

Wow. So you're pretty close to that number.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, you know, it's an estimate because the church, the church has a law firm called Curtin McConkey, it's right in downtown Salt Lake City. And it's been uncovered by Michael Resendez and others that the Mormon bishops used to be given a 1, 800 number for whenever abuse was reported. So imagine a little 14 year old kid goes to the bishop, says, I'm being abused. And the church says, here's the number to call. Guess, guess where the number the church went to the law firm of the church. And they have, they have like, they produced the little worksheet of what the lawyer on the other end says when the bishop calls. And it's like, was it on church property? Was a church person involved? You know, don't tell anyone, don't report it to the police.

[B]

Holy crap.

[A]

Like, you know, incur, you know what, what we found is this decades long pattern of Mormon church leaders being counseled by attorneys to pressure the victims to stay quiet, to pressure the victim's families to stay quiet, to pressure the victims and their families to forgive. You know, Jesus would say forgive. So forgive your abusers and don't talk about it ever again.

[B]

Nuts.

[A]

And, and in many instances, if the abusers, Sorry. If the victims or their families speak openly about the abuse they experienced, the church would punish the victims for speaking out and shame them for not trusting and having faith in Jesus's atonement to forgive the abuser. So the church has been harboring and protecting abusers for decades.

[B]

That's terrible. What does punishment look like in that, in that setting?

[A]

That's the weird thing. Like I can name, you know, 10 activists in the past five or 10 years that were excommunicated. I was excommunicated for supporting LGBT people. My friend Natasha was excommunicated as a sex therapist for teaching positive sexual mental health. My friend Sam Young, a former bishop, was excommunicated for advocating for children like child abuse. Like my other friend Jeremy was excommunicated for just trying to get the church to be open and honest about its history. Thousands of predators, pedophiles, have never been excommunicated by the church because the church doesn't want the scandal.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

And so the church is more likely to just keep a predator quiet, not tell anyone, let them continue serving in the church, little slap on the wrist. Whereas if you speak out against the church, that's when you're most likely to get Excommunicated. So. So activists get treated worse than, than predators.

[B]

Messed up, man. Mean, they just want to save face.

[A]

I mean, if you look at it like a church, it's disgusting. If you look at it like a corporation. It's what corporations do. They protect their assets. They protect their image, they protect their brand. They use high powered lawyers to scare people to protect their assets.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So it just depends on if you look at it as a church or a corporation.

[B]

Makes sense. Have any of these lawsuits against them stuck or has anyone ever beaten them?

[A]

Oh, yeah. I mean, and more and more, there, There are several class action lawsuits not just for sexual abuse, but for financial fraud. There are several class action lawsuits that are now. And every day, Every day there's a. You know, Curtin McConkey, the church's law firm, settles with the sex abuse victim.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

Pays them off every day. My understanding is there's, there's at least a settlement a day.

[B]

Holy crap.

[A]

Now, you know, again, the church keeps all these numbers, but, but I have insider sources that tell me definitely hundreds of settlements per year where they pay off a victim, make them sign an NDA, and then nobody knows that it happened. And then, and then not tell anyone about the, the, the abuser either. Yeah, yeah. So the church is just in the modern era because of the Internet, because of podcasts, because of YouTube channels.

[B]

Yeah. There's documentaries coming out now.

[A]

Documentaries all the time, calling the church out. The church is now starting to have its feet held to the fire. But prior to 20 years ago, the. The church could do whatever it wanted.

[B]

Right. So with this momentum, it could really put them out of business. You think?

[A]

Well, you know, if you think about it, this is the weird thing. And, and if you watch the documentary going clear about Scientology. Scientology is shrinking in membership, but it's growing in wealth. Now they're only two or three billion dollars. We're $250 billion. Yeah, but like right now, let's just say the current operational budget for the Mormon Church is 8 or 9 billion a year. Well, what's 7% of 250 billion in assets? Right. The church doesn't need tithing anymore. It can just on the interest of its current assets.

[B]

Got it.

[A]

Support its annual budget. So in a weird way, the church doesn't need its members anymore.

[B]

Right. So they already have the money.

[A]

They've got more money than God. Mean, a quarter trillion dollars. Think about that. Nuts like that. You, you, you stack up. Like, my understanding is like Harvard's endowment, Stanford's endowment, like Walmart's and like stack up like a. Several high fortune 500 endowments. They don't touch.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What the Mormon Church has just at inside peak. Wow. Yeah.

[B]

So this is bigger than all the companies in America.

[A]

I mean, not all in aggregate, but if you look at how much wealth this church has, it's. And in stocks and real estate and bonds.

[B]

And they've done it in a pretty short time. Right. Like 100 years.

[A]

The church was founded in 1830.

[B]

Okay. So 200.

[A]

But as late as, as late as the 1950s, the church was like almost bankrupt. So pretty much starting in the early 1960s, the church started its growth.

[B]

That's like 70 years actually not even. Holy crap. To amass that amount in 70 years is nuts.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

Wow. Cuz. Yeah. 10% from everyone. That adds up. You got some rich people in there.

[A]

Marriotts and you know, Stephen Covey and there are a lot of. John Huntsman Jr. Was a billionaire. There are a lot of Mormon. Wealthy Mormons, a lot of wealthy Mormons, a lot of wealthy businessmen and women.

[B]

Yeah. What age did you stop personally tithing? How old were you?

[A]

I mean, yeah, it was around in my early 30s. I stayed. I would, I would give to the poor kind of thing. But in my 30s, I just realized the church doesn't need my money. I mean, they don't need anyone's money anymore. And that's the weird thing they'll teach in Latin America today. Pay your tithing before you buy food, buy your groceries before you buy shoes. I've got video clips on my YouTube channel of, of the church telling super poor Latin American people, you know, pay your tithing before you buy shoes. Scary. Yeah.

[B]

And is that how they're acquiring a majority of members, going to poor countries?

[A]

It's always been that way. So I went to Guatemala, you know, and, and there were missionaries baptizing 40 people a month in the mission.

[B]

And you thought you were doing a good thing at the time.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. And the truth is, that's what's hard, is that it can be a good thing because if you join a US based wealthy church and you can get an education, you can get a community, you can get support. Like, let me pivot for just a second and say I could talk all day long about the good things about the Mormon Church. The Mormon Church gives you a sense of identity.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It gives you a sense of morality, it gives you meaning, it gives you purpose, it gives you community, it, it gives you resolution about the afterlife. Like if you're, you know, if your mom gets cancer, they'll deliver casseroles, they'll watch your kids, they'll help you roof your house. If you're a youth, you're taught to keep, you know, stay clean, don't drink, don't do drugs, don't have premarital sex, don't. And you'll go to really good school and, you know, family values. There's, there's so much good.

[B]

Right.

[A]

In the Mormon church. So that's what's disorienting, is it, you know, if it's working for you, if you're, if you're not an ambitious woman, if you're not lgbt, if you're not black, if you're a straight white male or a woman who just really wants to have a lot of babies and stay home, you're set, you're loving life. It's a great organization. And that's, that's what's conflicting about it is the, there's so much good and then there's so much toxicity.

[B]

Got it.

[A]

And that's why it's so successful. I mean, it, honestly, it wouldn't be so successful if it, if it weren't adding value true to its members.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So that's the rub is it's not all bad.

[B]

Yeah. That community aspect is hard to find.

[A]

And just, just take Mormonism out of it. You know, I, I have a psychology background and you know, it's, it's a well known fact that people who are active in a religious tradition on average are a little bit happier than people who aren't really. And they've teased out the ingredient in its community.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Cuz, you know, for all the people I know who have left organized religion, they struggle sometimes to find the same type of community and support that they had when they were in a tight knit religious tradition.

[B]

I could see that.

[A]

That's the rub.

[B]

Isolation kills people, man. That loneliness.

[A]

Yeah. The past 5, 10, 20 years with social media and just the way the world is turned. Like, I think religion evolved with our species because it was healthy and overall adaptive for our species. And we all know now that in 2024 religions on the decline. They say the largest and the fastest growing religious group in America is people who no longer identify with any religion.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

It's called the rise of the nuns. N O N E S. Oh yeah. People who check none on the box for what religion are you? But the Pew foundation says that's now both the largest single group and the fastest growing. So we're moving towards Western Europe in terms of secularization. And the problem is, is as a species, we haven't figured out how to evolve community without religion. So it's a real, it's actually a real problem.

[B]

It is.

[A]

Because, you know, what's, you know, it's worse than a high demand religion.

[B]

None.

[A]

Loneliness.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Like isolation and despair from having nobody in your life. Yeah, that's, that's, that's more deadly than, than cigarettes or alcohol is just chronic loneliness.

[B]

So we need to figure out a community aspect without religion involved. Because once you bring that in, it gets weaponized.

[A]

Yeah, we do. But, but how? Like, I've tried, like for the past, I don't know, 10 years, I've been trying to create secular communities in Utah, and I've actually created several. And people will come at first, you know, but then it's like, would I rather have brunch or go on a hike in the mountains or go watch some dude give a talk or some woman give a talk in a setting where they sing? And it feels kind of churchy and maybe triggers my trauma a little bit when I was in a religion. So they all end up kind of dying out.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

So I'm not saying there aren't answers, but it's a complex.

[B]

Yeah. Because you need a common purpose. And with religion, it's easy to have that.

[A]

You need a common purpose, a common identity, common myths, shared myths. But also you need guilt and shame. It turns out that the guilt and shame that is like the secret sauce to the wealth of the Mormon Church is also the secret sauce to the unity. Because Christianity starts by saying, you're broken and you need Jesus to fix your brokenness. And I'm not anti Christian, by the way. This is just what I've observed. Right. So you're broken, you need Jesus to fix it. But Jesus isn't here. So how do you know what Jesus wants of you? Well, us, the church, we're going to tell you.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so then you get the people on this hamster wheel of like, oh, I swore, please forgive me, Father. Oh, I masturbated. Oh, please forgive me, Father. And then they've got you relying on them to feel whole.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And that's how they get you. So that guilt and shame is what makes you show up on a Sunday morning and set up the chairs. It's what, it's what makes you deliver that casserole. It's like I'm, I'm building up points in the afterlife. Heavenly Father is going to be happy with me.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And so that's, that's the Most sort of dark and morbid thing about. About religion is it needs the guilt and shame and that's what makes it successful for sure.

[B]

Well, that. That's in life too. When you live in guilt and shame and fear, you're easier to control. Look at the media.

[A]

A thousand percent.

[B]

I remember going to school, like, honestly, depressed after watching the news every morning.

[A]

What was your. What guilt and shame. Did you.

[B]

I was Christian, then I went atheist, and then now I. I don't even know what to call myself. I'm in a similar position as you.

[A]

Interesting. So you, you were raised Christian?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[B]

But it was. I wouldn't say cultish, but it was just too much. Yeah, yeah, sorry.

[A]

And even progressive ideologies like veganism or environmentalism. I've had friends that are totally atheist, but they feel super guilty, like if they fly in a jet plane because it's bad for the environment or. Or if they slip in their vegan diet.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know what I mean? Like, guilt and shame is hard to shake.

[B]

Yeah. I wouldn't say I'm atheist now. I believe in something, you know, I just don't.

[A]

How do you describe it?

[B]

I believe in afterlife. I believe in past lives too, actually.

[A]

So reincarnation.

[B]

Yeah. So that's kind of Buddhist, right? Yeah, in a way. But I do believe in a higher power. You could call it God or whatever, but yeah.

[A]

Do you pray? Meditate?

[B]

Manifest meditate? Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. I like, I like the idea of. I would love there to be an afterlife. Wouldn't it be amazing?

[B]

Be great.

[A]

Yeah. And I, I like. I mean, it's clear there's some power propelling creation, organizing things.

[B]

Yeah. We didn't just appear.

[A]

I mean, nothing. It's possible that this is all random, but I've almost felt like it's as absurd that everything is random by chance as it is that there's some sort of power or force. So I, I kind of. I've never identifies it as an atheist or as an agnostic. Yeah, I'm just kind of open.

[B]

Goddess, you don't have a label.

[A]

I don't like those labels. They kind of separate people.

[B]

Right, agreed.

[A]

Yeah. I don't know. Once they group you up, it's a way believers can sort of dismiss you if you're like, oh, he's an atheist.

[B]

True.

[A]

It's a conversation ender.

[B]

Yeah, it is.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Have you seen the Mormon Church take any action based off what you've been bringing to light?

[A]

All right, check this out. So 2011, 2012, the church spent millions and millions of dollars on I'm a Mormon campaign. Right. The Book of Mormon musical comes out. It's like one of the most. One of the top five, six most successful Broadway musicals ever. The. The church is like, hey, we're going to take advantage of this marketing opportunity. Times Square. I'm a Mormon, you know, so, like, recently the Mormon Church abandoned the label or the brand of Mormon.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

The prophet, the new prophet, Russell M. Nelson, got up and said, yes, we've spent hundreds of millions of dollars building the brand of Mormon, and now we're going to kill it. And he told all the members that using the word or the identity of Mormon is a victory for Satan.

[B]

Whoa.

[A]

Now, do you know why he did that?

[B]

No.

[A]

Because all of US podcasters and YouTube channels took over the SEO for the word Mormon.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so it was already kind of damaged goods because a lot of people outside of the church just thought the church was homophobic, sexist, racist, bigoted, but also were dominating the, you know, the ex Mormon podcast, Ex Mormon YouTube channels, Ex Mormon Tik Tok channels.

[B]

Amazing.

[A]

We're dominating the church. And so they just abandoned their brand. So that's. That's a starting place.

[B]

That's a huge win.

[A]

Mormon stories, you know what I mean?

[B]

Well done.

[A]

So I. And it's not just me, it's a lot of people. But, yeah, the church has softened its rhetoric on LGBT people. Like I said, they're no longer overtly encouraging conversion therapy or mixed orientation marriages. It's become more open on its history. It used to be really deceitful about its history. Now it's becoming more open.

[B]

Nice.

[A]

It really hasn't moved the needle on women at all. Oddly. It hasn't really denounced the racism. It's tried to just pivot and start saying racism is bad, but not denouncing the past racist doctrine. It's shortened church from three hours to two.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

For a long, long time it was three, now it's two. So it's, you know, it's making some baby steps.

[B]

Is the member count still increasing or is it decreasing?

[A]

So the growth is decreasing in, in places like Western Europe, the church is in decline in many places in the United States, like in California, the church is in decline, not flat decline. Wow. In. In. Yeah. Again, like in Scotland, England, France, you know, Germany, all those Western Europe countries, it's dying. In the United States, Mormons tend to have more kids than. Than average, like three kids per family. And so the birth rate, the higher birth rate on average for the active Mormon keeps, the. Keeps the growth rate just slightly under 1% in the United States. And then the way that they're offsetting the massive inactivity rates globally is by baptizing like crazy in Africa. So the church is just. It's like, get this. For, like 150 years, the church would not send missionaries to black people.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So missionaries were taught, don't teach black people. So they go to South Africa in, like the 30s, 40s, 50s. And the missionaries are taught, only teach white people. They go to North Carolina, only teach white people. They go to Cuba, only teach white people. So, you know, it's like the untapped market.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Now that the church renounced its priesthood ban and it's trying to change its image of being a racist church, it's now going gangbusters in Africa. And the main benefit it gets is the growth in Africa statistically offsets the shrinkage everywhere else.

[B]

Got it.

[A]

So it's almost a statistics game. But also, there's a lot of projected wealth coming out of Africa in the next 50, 50 years. So it's a growth strategy for the church. But I think it's. I don't know that it's rooted in a love for black people.

[B]

I think it's rooted.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I think they're inflating their numbers.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. And by the way, the church claims 17 million members, but estimates are only about 4 to 5 million actually self identify as Mormon and. Or attend.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

So two thirds of all the people who have ever been baptized Mormon either don't identify or just don't attend. Wow. So again, yeah. And the church won't be honest about that. It continues to. To, you know, push the 17 million number as a way to look bigger. Way bigger than it is. But, yeah, within the next 20 years, the church is going to start being in full decline, like Scientology.

[B]

Have you ever debated an active member on the podcast?

[A]

I've. Well, see, I've always tried to not debate. I don't like debate, really? On a podcast.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I know that's all a rage with, like, you know, David and stuff. Yeah. Like, yeah, I. I think it makes. It makes my guests feel mistreated. I think it makes them feel disrespected. And what I like to do is just bring people on to tell their story.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And stories are disarming. They're interesting. You can't argue with someone's story. And I think I, you know, I don't want an echo chamber where I'm just like, ex Mormons are all listening to my Podcast. I want Mormons and people looking into Mormonism to feel safe that, that the podcast is like fair and balanced. So I've always brought on believers, I brought on progressive liberals, I brought on ex Mormons and tried to host in a way that feels safe to a questioning, believing Mormon so that I'm not just creating an echo chamber.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

Yeah. So I've, I've challenged a few guests if they like go full conspiracy theory race. Like I had a guy, I brought a guy on who literally taught that the black slaves in the US liked, like their jobs back in the pre Civil War times. Like there's certain racist stuff for homophobic stuff I just won't stand for. Yeah, but generally I don't like to make my guests feel bad. I want them to leave the podcast feeling good.

[B]

That's fair. But you're having on active members though. That's cool.

[A]

I've tried to do that. Yeah. Since the beginning. I mean, I started as an active member.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So, yeah, it's harder once the church excommunicates you for apostasy, by the way, it's harder to get active, faithful Mormons to come on the podcast.

[B]

They're not allowed to talk to you, right?

[A]

They're not supposed to, but people do anyway. I mean, I have, I have active Mormon bishops who listen to the podcast like they're leading congregations and they're listening to my podcast missionaries, Mormon missionaries that are out as full time mission missionaries. They, they reach, reach out to me and say they love the podcast. And so that's cool. It's a, it's the, it's, it's the most popular Mormon themed podcast. And, and because I try and do it in a balanced way, I have listeners all over the spectrum.

[B]

John, thanks for enlightening everyone on this culture, man. It's really important. Is there anything else you want to close off with?

[A]

I know that mental health is really important to you, and I think it's worth mentioning that there's a real mental health crisis in the United States right now, but it's certainly true within the church. And whether it's women being taught this toxic perfectionism, whether it's kind of religious based obsessive compulsive disorder or scrupulosity, that's what I studied for my master's thesis. Whether it's young Mormon men and women being shamed about their masturbation or LGBT youth wanting to die because they're taught that their core natures are sinful, I think that's an untold story. Within the Mormon Church that really needs to be told. You know, it's tough enough to be a youth or young adult in the world today. You add on this layer of shame, of guilt of anti lgbt, anti women sort of doctrines and theologies. It's, it's a real problem, UT believe it or not for how beautiful it looks and how happy everyone looks on so many metrics it leads the nation in like prescription drug use, prescription drug abuse, levels of depression of youth suicidality. So I'm really grateful that you sort of take some leadership in talking about that and I appreciate you letting me also talk about that because one of the best ways to kind of help address mental health talk about it.

[B]

Absolutely. No, I really think you're going to save some lives with this episode. So I appreciate you coming on.

[A]

Thanks for having me.

[B]

Yep. Thanks for watching guys as always. And I will see you tomorrow.