The 'crisis' of members leaving the LDS Church | Episode 441

[music] It's time again for Mormon Land, where we explore news in and about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I'm managing editor Dave Neuse. I oversee the Solid Tribune's Faith Coverage. I'm joined again by Senior Religion Reporter Peggy Fletcher Stack. Hi Peggy. Hi Dave. We remind you about another way to support Mormon Land. Just go to patreon.com, where with a small donation you can access all the Tribune's Faith Coverage, Add Free Podcast episodes, and the full Mormon Land newsletter. Again, that's patreon, p-a-t-r-e-o-n, dot com, forward slash Mormon Land. And if you haven't already, follow us on Instagram at Mormon.land. Now, for today's show. Jeff Strong, a former Bishop, Mission President, and BYU faculty member, finds himself in a similar position to an increasing number of parents in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While he remains a believing, practicing and devout member, he has loved ones, including three of his five children who have left the faith. Thus, his new book, titled "Torn," "Why People We Love Are Leaving the Church," and what we can learn from them, is more than instructive and insightful. It's personal. The volume includes a sweeping study on Latter-day Saints' disaffiliation revealing that about 40% of active members in the United States have stopped participating over the past quarter century. Why is that? Is it Church Dockman, Policy, or Culture? Is it, for instance, the faith's opposition to same-sex marriage, or the occasionally cruel comments made about the LGBTQ community in Sunday school? Does the tension come from the racist remarks bringing young made about black people, or from diminished trust in the Church for not sharing that part of the faith's history? Jeff Strong joins us today to discuss these questions and how members of every stripe can find belonging in a Christ-centered community. Jeff, welcome. Thank you, David. Peggy, great to see you. Thank you for the opportunity to come and discuss the book. So glad to have us. So let's start with that. Why did you write this book? Yeah. It's a great question. And you said it was personal for me, and it was, and it is. And I think it really started with my son, Kale. I talk about him in the book. So I think we were kind of, you're just prototypical traditional Latter-day Saints family. And we were running the playbook the way that we do, and it was working great until it didn't. And that morning arrived with kind of some explosive tension when I got an email from Kale. He was at the MTC. He'd just been there a few days, and I opened the email, and I read that he was coming home. And it was pretty clear to me from kind of the tone and the word choices that he used, that it was much bigger than just serving or not serving a mission that he probably was going to leave the church. And so that was a tectonic plate shifting moment for me personally. And that sort of ushered me into the space in a big way, but I was serving as a bishop at the same time. And there were several families in our ward in Midway that none of this sort of fit the profile, right? In my head, I had this narrative that was very common in 2013, and it still persists today of, oh, yeah, people, people leave, those people leave, right? The people that lack the faith and character to be Latter-day Saints have always left. And Kale doesn't fit that profile, nor did these other families in the ward where I was a bishop. And so my stubborn brain wouldn't let go of that when the words and pitchers don't match. Just like, wait a minute, there's something else going on here. I look back on it now, and I feel like while I was so naive at the time, but I started to dig in, and that was the beginning of the journey. I'm going to ask this a little baby prematurely, but I want to know, have you had any pushback from members about the book or leaders? Yeah, it's a good question. Nothing from the church, no church leaders of, you know, expressed any concern about what I'm doing. I've actually got a lot of support. The pushback has come from two places. So there are people in the post-mormon community that are really angry at the church over the issues we're going to talk about, and they feel like my framing is too protective of the church. So their mindset is, wow, you've gone out of your way to shield the church from any criticism here, because I framed this as a culture problem. And I think that's fair criticism, right? And that was an editorial choice, choice on my part, and anybody that thinks about it for a minute will understand why I've chosen to do that. The other group of critics would be, it's been very, very light to be honest with you, but this has been more subtle, and some of these folks are my friends, and they're people that are really, really deeply orthodox members that this makes uncomfortable. So I've had a few people use the terms, you know, are you studying the arc? And they're my friends, but, you know, and so I've had some long and interesting conversations with friends. And then interestingly, there's been a little bit of pushback from the research community from one researcher who's an ex-later day saint, and then from another pair of researchers who are very devout, later day saints. And so they've taken issue with some of the research methodology, but it's been pretty light to be honest with you. And we're going to talk a little bit about that research. Calm, I don't know, but so far it's been like overwhelmingly positive with a little bit of criticism from the edges. Yeah. And we're going to talk a little bit about the research, because that's a good part of the book. So it's, it's sort of the buttress, the rest of the book, but now you write, I kept having this question, I was reading it. You write about three of your five children leaving the church. Did you consult them before and clean them in your book? Yes, of course. Did they help shape it? I mean, other than just their experiences with their question. So you guys appreciate the tension that sits in families around these kinds of issues. And so I'll just have some fun with this. If I had included the names of any of my family members without their express permission, my wife would have literally killed me. And I mean literally. And so kale is a bit of a central character. And I consulted him from day one, right? And so he's talked about mostly in the introduction and then in the conclusion. And so he read all of that. He provided feedback and he actually feels really good about it. Samantha, my oldest mother of three in Dallas also is fairly significantly mentioned in the book because I include a poem that she wrote in the conclusion. And so she also was aware of this and comfortable with it. And then felt really honored that I had used her poem to end the book. And then Zach has been his departure was probably the quietest. And I don't talk about him much, but he also likes the book. He's mentioned. He's mentioned by name. So yes, the short answer is yes. You said this or somebody. How have they generally received the book? I think what they would say, well, first of all, it's complicated because I'm their father, right? And they've seen how much time and energy I've put into this. And they're no longer in the church. And so one perspective they might have is that I think they do have is I'm spending an awful lot of time on something that they no longer feel is that important, right? So there's that part of it. But I think they think the book itself is well done. It's an accurate, thoughtful, compassionate description of why people leave. And then what the LDS community can maybe step back and reflect on and do better. So in that regard, I think they're fans of the book, but they're ready to have me move on. All right. So let's dive into the research. How do you do it? What aspects did you study in to compile the data? Yeah, sure. And by the way, I'm a brief explanation. In fact, if you're okay, I'll address it, assuming that there aren't a lot of loveable research nerds in your audience. So I'm going to just give you a sort of everyday person explanation. So so you know, if ultimately your goal, my goal was really simple. So they're conflicting narratives even right now in the LDS community on how many you're leaving and why they're leaving. And this book has started a really passionate debate about some of those questions. So I just wanted a good database answer to how many have left and why did they leave. And then what role is our culture playing in either relieving or amplifying those tensions? And so what any smart researcher does first is you do qualitative research, right? Which is you just talk to people, right? You do focus groups. You do one-on-one interviews. And that's to inform your construction of a survey so the survey is well done. And then the second thing you do is you say, was anybody else out there already done this type of work that we could learn from? And the answer was yes. And then the third thing you do is you say, well, in a perfect world, I would design a representative national probability sample that I can generalize to the total LDS population perfectly. But that study would cost many millions of dollars, right? And so somewhere between having a perfect probability sample study and where we were before, which is just rumor speculation, anecdote, and folklore is this middle ground called a non-probability sample, right? And so what you do is you try to approximate representation as best you can, knowing that you don't have several million dollars to spend on a truly representative study. And so that's what we did. And then you also get really smart people that are deeply experienced researchers and even better people who have done decades of research. research for the church. So they've seen the church's data, they've done research for the church, so they can calibrate not only the design of the research, but the insights as they come in. And you know, if you imagine the conversations we would have, we would look at the data and say, okay, it's telling us XYZ, based on everything else you've seen over the last 30 years, are these findings consistent with what you've seen elsewhere? That's a key question. And the answer was always yes, right? So that gave us a degree of confidence. The key finding in the research is that 40%, it's an estimate, but 40% of formerly active Latter-day Saints have stepped away over the last 25 years. There are two other national studies, both of which are representative studies. The best is the Pew Religious Landscape Studies. They peg the number to about 46%, so higher. The Harvard CES study pegs it through 2024 at about 43%, since 2007, higher. So when you have three national studies that all land in the same vicinity, it's tremendously likely that that's a pretty good estimate. We wouldn't say, hey, it's 40% for sure, but we would say 40% is highly likely to be in the probable range. And so researchers that are objective and informed and don't have an agenda would say, yeah, that's a very reasonable estimate. That makes sense. So what did you discover about the main reasons members leave the church? Yeah, you know, and Peggy, it's complicated. And so to allow us to talk about it, you have to find ways to simplify it. So every person's reasons are personal, unique, dynamic. People even reinterpret sometimes in hindsight, they look back on it, say, you know, what I what I thought were the reasons maybe have changed, it's difficult. And so they're constantly reinterpreting. But to allow us to talk about it, we asked people to cite the primary reason that they had stepped away. And they gave us four reasons. The first one was just church was lifestyle, about 6%. The second was church history, 42%, the third was social issues, 33%. The fourth was church experience, 18%. So I can go into a little bit adept if you want on each of those. And then what we also did is we asked them, so that was just multiple choice, right? Those are your four options. By the way, we picked those four options based on extensive qualitative, right? So it looks like these are probably the primary reasons. We offered them a fifth choice, which is none of the above. And in the early rounds of getting surveys back, we were monitoring that. Okay, because if you saw tons of people picking none of the above, you'd say, well, our four answers, we have the wrong one. We have very few people picking none of the above. And then we asked them an open and a question. We just said, why did you leave? And they got to type whatever they wanted. And so for the survey and total, we got about 15,000 respondents that first survey, and we got over 10,000 pages of verbatim comments. So many that we had to develop a special AI app to even read them all, right? So combination of multiple choice plus the verbatim gave us a pretty good feel for what the issue is for the top again, where church history and then social issues. The number one was church history 42%. Second was social issues, 33%. And then church experience, meaning a negative church experience, 18% and then lifestyle. So how do those, I guess I'm interested in how lifestyle and church experience, how those differ or how social issues differs from? Yeah, let's talk about that. How about we start with the big one? So church history cited by 42%. The truthfully for anybody that's informed on the church history issues, there's nothing new here. There's just a confirmation of what people kind of already know. But the number one area was 39% of people cited church truth claims and doctrines, right? So these would be things, you know, we, for example, we believe the father and son appeared to Joseph Smith that Marron, I bought the plates, that the Book of Mormon and Book of Abraham were translated by the gift and power of God. People don't believe some of that and they don't believe some of the doctrines. Polygamy races, you know, the priest didn't temple ban. So that was number one, 39%. Problematic history, this would be things where you get into like Joseph Smith and polygamy and his personal behavior in regard to how that was handled. Ditto for Brigham Young. Some of the things he may have said or that. So not new news, troubling temple practices, you know, the temple, the endowment has changed and so people would kind of put that in a church, a historical bucket. Polygamy and its legacy and I put and its legacy because it's still with us, right? We haven't actually walked past that completely in the theology of theology. In theology, right? Yeah. And then the most interesting one to me. So take your standard list of church history issues. That's the list. These numbers dimensionize it a little bit. But one of the things that was interesting to me is not trusting church leaders was frequently mentioned as a church history issue. And so in the Brigham's, there were comments like, look, I understand people are not perfect. History is complex complex. You have to be careful about interpreting what happened 200 years ago through modern lands. But the bigger issue for me is not the historical problems, but how the church has handled them, right? How much openness, transparency and accountability that been. And it wasn't, you know, it was only 9% in this particular question, but it's clearly an issue for people. And so again, how are lifestyle, social church experience? How are those different? What do you want to talk about? Social issues next? Because that's 33% yeah. It's all the things that you would expect. So the number one issue, 33% of respondents cited sexual identity concerns, 27%. This was a little higher than I thought, but this was right after Ensign Peak. And so 27% cited financial stewardship, 20% cited racism, which is also a historical issue, 13% cited gender equality. And that number fills a little low to me. I mean, it's accurate in our show day. I was surprised too. It seems lower than the energy level I feel in the church on this issue. Importantly, it wasn't priesthood ordination for most respondents, right? It wasn't, hey, the issue for me is women need to hold the priesthood office. It was voice. It was recognition of the power and value that women have. Three women speaking a general conference versus versus Hollywood. For instance, cited exam, right? And then a distant, a distant fifth was abuse and unrighteous dominion. And it's not that it happens because we're human. It's when it's not dealt with in a way that builds trust. And then Peggy jump into maybe now a contrast church experience and lifestyle. Lifestyle was the smallest. It's probably understated in our survey a little bit because it's not self-validating to pick that as your answer, but it's depletion, not doubt. And so what that means is people just get worn out by the experience, right? And so too many meetings, too many expectations. They cite mental health issues, emotional strain, maybe some guilt and shame. And so it's, I'm feeling depleted from my participation in the church. Church experience is very different. That's the church isn't spiritually nourishing to me, right? And so it doesn't feel like a church led by Jesus Christ. How I would think a church led by Jesus Christ would feel. So it's not nourishing. I'm not spiritually edified. So it's not depletion. It's lack of spiritual nourishment. Good, good anecdotes from the research. One woman said, "I'm looking for the living water and bread of life, the Savior promised that I'm having a hard time finding it." Another man said, "I fell in love with the carpenter of Bethlehem on my mission, and I don't see him here." Right? And so they're speaking about a church that feels to them, institutional, performative rule and compliance based instead of the beautiful teachings of the gospel that are in the New Testament and in the Book of Mormon. And they're saying, "Yeah, it just doesn't feel like it should feel to me." Did that help, Peggy? Yes. So how would you say today's levers are different from those in the past? Yeah, I don't have data on that, but I've been alive for a while so I could give you an opinion if that's okay. Yeah. So let's go back to the waves. Wave one lifestyle. I think it's always been there, right? So going back to my time as a child and a young person, people left the church because the lifestyle didn't work for them. And sometimes, to address people who would have this orientation, kind of the trope that's out there, sometimes it is because they want a sin, right? They want a drink, they want a party, they want to have sex. And so sometimes that's true. It's just not predominantly true. And it's more about depletion and that's been there. So I would say that's sort of a baseline of perpetual disaffiliation. Church history really came in full force with the advent of the internet, right? So it started around 2000. I think it probably peaked around 2010 or early in the '20 teens. It's still a big issue and it's a major concern for many people, but it's been around long enough. There are too many new issues, the polygamy stuff that's popped up right now. recently, you know, the battle between the polygamy deniers and the polygamy affirmers is kind of a new thing. But for the most part, there's not a lot of new information. The social issues has largely been since 2010, right? And so I was talking to Alison Dayton on a podcast last week. And she, you know, she calibrated my view and said, yeah, I think you're right. She said, you know, it was probably more underground LGBTQ issues. For example, more underground pre 2010, now it's very much in the public domain. Women's issues have been around forever, right? Going back to the ERA days. And so, but I think I think as a collective group, you've got LGBTQ issues are more prevalent now. Financial transparency is really mushroomed in the last couple of years. So that feels like to me, it's more of a 2010, 2020 thing. And then I, I, for me personally, I don't know what you guys think, but this church experience thing feels more recent to me. And I don't know. That's just my judgment. But even in the last five years, I felt this one become bigger. And I hear more people talk about it. I think part of that might be because the world's, you know, dynamic and in a chaotic world, it sort of mirrors the political environment. When there's more chaos, there's a retrenchment and conservative ideals, right? As sort of a reaction to the chaos. And I think there's been a bit of a retrenchment in the church that's similar. And then as that has happened, the church experience for those that are looking for the carpenter of Bethlehem has gotten worse. Mormon land will be right back. You've hinted at this a little bit, but Paul Archbishop book, what, what do faithful members you think get most wrong about those who lead? Yeah. To me, it's relatively simple. First, they underestimate how many are leaving. And that's in part because the public narrative really does say not very many are leaving. It's just not true. Second, they misunderstand the reasons people leave. And so the, the narrative that people are leaving because they lack the faith and character to be Latter-day Saints is the most popular narrative among, among active members of the church. And the idea that not very many are leaving is also the most popular statement. So you know in the book, I actually wanted to press your test that. And so I asked people to tell me, I gave them a list of four quartiles, you know, below 25% 25 to 50 and so on. How many people in the church under age 39 have left? And the vast majority of active Latter-day Saints picked 25% or below, which is not correct. Right. So 75% of Latter-day Saints couldn't pick the right answer from a list. And then when I gave them a list of reasons, active Latter-day Saints are more commonly selected reasons that are the least common reasons people leave over. And then the really interesting thing is people who elsewhere in the survey self identified as being buried about were twice as likely to get wrong answers to those two questions. So to me, it raises a really interesting question, why is there, why does it appear there's some kind of correlation between your devoutness and your inability to see the issue? So why do you, why do you call this trend of disaffiliation or crisis? Oh, that's a good question. I do, don't I? I call it a crisis of trust and belonging. You notice I didn't call it a faith crisis. I think calling it a faith crisis is a misrepresentation of what's happening, but I do think it's a crisis of trust and belonging. I think when 40% of your community, and a round number estimate for that in the United States would be about a million people, step away from a faith community over 25 years. To me, that's a crisis. It doesn't mean that it's a crisis for them individually. When I think of my children, they're happy, they've moved on, they're living abundant good lives, but I feel like the community is to me. When you lose the kind of people we're losing intelligent, high character, good people, their presence is there's a vacuum that's created as they move out. So to me, to me, that's a crisis. I think I have a pretty objective view of the church and church leaders and the church community, but I just see the great power of the church and the church community to do good. And I benefited from it so much in my life that when people choose to lose it, when they choose to leave it, I think we as a church community lose something in their absence. And Peggy, maybe the biggest reason is we're not talking about it. Okay, so I have church culture sometimes hindered church activity. Yeah, and I'm going to throw out a thought that some critics have mentioned. They've said, Jeff, you know, you've wrapped this all nice and tidy under the umbrella of culture and you're ignoring the driving issues of things like church history. And I would just humbly offer that I'm actually not doing that. I've cited the four primary reasons people leave very clearly, but culture can either amplify or relieve those tensions. And so a really good example is our church history is what it is. And we can't change that. That's that's the historical fact. And it's why most people said they leave or 42 percent, but culture determines how you talk about it, how open you are, how accountable you are, how willing to deal with the issues you are. And we still have the ability to influence that. That's and I think the same is true for the other issues. And so I chose to focus on culture because it's still something we have a chance to. And in church history, it's what how does the church present its history, which also plays a role in the general lack of, especially among younger people, lack of quote faith in institutions. Yeah. And so Peggy, right, right at your question, how does how does culture affect that? So I, I'll just give you two examples. So it doesn't matter if it's a seminary teacher, a parent, a bishop, or a general church leader, if they're if they're if they're communication and they're dealing with a historical issue, isn't pretty open, pretty transparent, non-defensive. Young people in particular see that, right? And so they they if you think about the last 20 years, the church has actually been more open about its history, right? The Joseph Smith papers, the gospel topic essays, the saints, volumes, but the culture's lagging. And so if there's a disconnect between the available information and how we're having the conversation in the church community, of course that builds distrust, right? So I I'm connected to 700 plus missionaries from our mission. I talked to many of them regularly. And they're just if if the explanations they're getting are incomplete and defensive, they aren't buying it, right? They're not buying it. And if people think the internet was disruptive, wait until they see what AI does to this, right? And so in in three minutes, you can get world class analysis on historical issues. And so in as much as we're not dealing with that in a healthy, honest, open, transparent, accountable way, it creates a problem in the culture distrust. Doesn't it also have to do with prominence to yes, the church has the essays, but how many people know about them? Are they presented in any way that where people would see that are there lessons on that in church? That kind of thing. Yeah, I think David, I think it's fair point. And so so I'll give you I'll give you another example of someone I just got an email from last week. So this is an individual really bright individual. It's it's actually a couple. They're it's a husband and father or excuse me, husband and wife. And they live in Utah County. And they've encountered historical information that's really troubling to them. And to have some sense of moral integrity in their experience in the church, they've tried in their home ward, the very diplomatically raised the issues. Not in a combative way, but just to offer a perspective that there's more nuance and complexity that maybe we're entertaining and they were immediately marginalized in their ward. Hey, so Peggy, that's culture. So do you see a difference in the church culture in Utah or in areas where the church is dominant versus where it's a small minority on these coast or other places? You know, I do. And and you know, I'll offer a construct that seems accurate to me. It's it's sometimes people will say you talk culture. And that's largely true, but it's actually pioneer chord or culture. It's mesa to Alberta. Yeah. Yeah. And the Jell-O belt. Yeah. And I used to eat Jell-O. So it's it's Jell-O belt culture. But here's what's really interesting to me. I've traveled all over the world and that culture travels. Okay. So it travels with missionaries. It travels with general authorities. And so I've I've interviewed people in Soweto, South Africa. And they talk about pioneer chord or culture and the effect it has on them in South Africa. Pioneer chord or culture is very prevalent in other places like Washington DC, Ben Villarcanza, Dallas, Texas. These are all places that I've been and spent time and and you wouldn't be surprised, but maybe some of your listeners might be surprised how prevalent pioneer, court or culture travels. And so it still does seem though that when people are in the minority, they tend to be more tolerant, more recognizing other faiths and truth claims and other churches. And I think that's right. Yeah, absolutely. But you're right. I mean, the pioneer culture, but so. Yeah. So if your point is, is it more acute in the, in the pioneer quarter, I think, I think so. And then probably the acuteness goes up in Utah County and, and other places, yeah, is it true? Yeah. Does church culture tolerate members with doubts and questions? Not very well. Not very well. Not about that. Yeah. You know, it's interesting because we actually, you know, when you've done as much qualitative as I have, I mean, so I did, I did, during that time, just after Kale stepped away, I did work for the church, which I can't talk about much. But what I will say is I did hundreds of interviews and focus groups in these areas. And, and then, and then I taught at BYU and I had students coming to me all the time and I'm a bishop and so I'm dealing with it in the ward. And then, and then I was a mission president for three years and I did 4,300 interviews and read 50,000 pages of letters. And so that's qualitative research, right? And so, so I had a very good feel for what the issues, you know, what the issues were. But David, tell me your question again. I, does the church culture tolerate questions and doubts? So thank you for helping me. So I, I had a hypothesis from all those interviews that it doesn't, right? And that it's actually quite critical of doubt. And so, so I put a question in the survey where I asked people can, can a later date saint, how, how accepted would a later date saint that has, uh, issues with the church's historical narrative? How accepted would they be in their local order branch? And overwhelmingly respondents said, Oh, they'd be totally accepted. And then I asked the follow up question, what if they talked about those concerns? They would not be accepted. They don't want to hear that in Sunday school necessarily. So belonging requires silence. And so that really gives you better indication of how the community feels about it. And if anybody would ever doubt me on this, I don't think they would, but just try it in your home ward sometimes. Just in the reaction, gospel doctrine or release society or priesthood meeting, just raise a controversial issue and tell people that you have, you know, you have a concern about that and just watch the, watch the reaction that you get. So I was interested in something you wrote. You said, in the, in the book, you said, true faith is born when certitude dies. Yeah. Talk about that. What does it mean practical? Yeah, you know, certitude, certitude is a, is a word that's relatively new for me. And it's the perfect word to describe the culture problem. And so conviction is a really, really good thing. So we should have conviction and the things that we believe, right? I think to not have conviction is, is probably not a good idea. Conviction minus humility is certitude. And, and our culture actually perpetuates that a little bit. And so if you think about, you know, some of the ways that you can study cultures, you can just pay attention to cultural artifacts, like things we say. So when we talk about our faith, we say things like, I know, I testify beyond a shadow of a doubt, every fiber of my being. What's the month you hear that? Yes, you hear that. And, and so that's in a manner of speaking, that's certitude talking, right? Now the gospel that, that I read about in the scriptures and that frankly, my church has taught me values things like humility and faith, which are not part of certitude. Certitude is an absence of faith, right? It says, when I'm, when I encounter unknowable things, I'm going to make up my mind and I'm going to be dogmatic about that. And I'm not going to entertain the possibility that maybe I don't have all the answers. And certitude is a tough master, man. I mean, you know, it's very rigid, but when it goes, it falls hard. And so what I've learned in my personal life is that so many of the things that I believe, it's fascinated me this pattern that many people go through that I think you can probably relate to, is we, we go through a progression in life where we think we know things only to find out later, we didn't really know, you know? And I just think that's awesome. It's called growth, right? It's learning, it's growth, it's humility. And, and so in my life, I don't think I truly understood what faith is until I let my certitude go. And I had, I had to let it go and I had to say to myself, like, and it was really caused by Kels departure because that departure caused me to rethink everything I thought I knew about families, for example, about raising children, about families, about your ability to impart the gospel to your children. And when that was blown up, I just went, well, what, what actually do I really know? How, I mean, is my, is my Latter-day Saint Matt wrong? Is it flawed? How do I think about that? How do I go forward now that I still have to deal with all these issues? But, and the answer for me was, for me was faith, right? It's just, look, there, there are things that are just not noble and there are complexities we can't resolve. And, you just accept those and try not to worry about them so much. Okay, so you, quote, "Dalinox" saying, warning against excessive orthodoxy, some would say that's exactly what's happening in the church, including ad-see-why-you. So what do you think is, is this happening? Well, a while ago, I talked about what feels like a retrenchment to me, right? There's certainly one happening in politics, and it's creating a very divided political environment. And I think it's also happening in the church. I think there is a retrenchment. I think anybody paying attention to that would, would paying attention would acknowledge that that's happening. And, and so, you know, I'm not an expert on this, but I, but I, I think many people would look at that and say, I understand why it's happening, right? Because in, in an environment with a lot of change and maybe some chaos and, and the sensitivities and fear that can create, asserting more control feels in the short term, like it might be a remedy, right? So I understand where it comes from. But I think history has proven it never works, right? So my grandmother was the Dean of Women in the late 60s and early 70s at BYU under Ernest L. Wilkinson. And there was a period of great retrenchment going on there, and I don't think it went well, right? And I think there, there was a lot of learning about how that ultimately did far more damage than good. And I also think the concept of retrenchment to me is incompatible with the gospel, right? And so it, it comes from fear, not faith, right? It's a fear response. Okay, so man, the world's crazy and things are getting a little anxious here. And so let's assert more control. Christ never taught that, right? In the scriptures, more than a hundred times, the simple idea of fear, not or being out afraid was preached. And I think because fear drives you into your amygdala, and when you're in your amygdala, you're not capable of, I don't think you're capable of really being led by the spirit, but you're certainly not capable of rational thought. And you got to get into the frontal cortex, right? And you can't do that if you're ruled by your fears. And so I see that, it concerns me, and I hope we'll learn and grow from it. And at some point, balance it out again. So you argue that discipleship is more important than membership. Talk about that. Well, and you know, David, I believe that personally, I don't know that I argue in the book. I try to raise the issue of, is it? Jeff Strong believes that it is. I think I wouldn't be the first, in fact, many general church leaders have said, and I quote some in the book, that the purpose of the gospel is to be converted to Christ, right? And the church is a vehicle for that. But the ultimate goal isn't to be converted to the church. And I know many members would say, well, what's the difference? You know, to me, they're one and the same. But I think there is a difference, right? And my experience and my research would suggest there is a difference. And so you can be a really faithful devout member of the church and be a lousy disciple of Christ. Yeah, you've pinpointed something that came to my mind when I read that part of the book, which was I was thinking of the fourth article of faith. Yeah. The first principle of the gospel is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. Yeah. It doesn't say the church. No, it doesn't. Yeah. Is that kind of what you're referring to? For sure. And I, you know, Elder Christopherson, President Oaks, well, President Christopherson now, Elder Bednar has given multiple talks on this where general church leaders in general are trying to help members understand your, in fact, Elder Bednar's last book, The Rock of Revelation was about centering your faith in Christ. And I recognize that sometimes the There's inconsistency in the messaging, right? But I think that's what we're talking about here. I'll give you a simple example. So, Sarah and I, when we got to the mission, and you're just trying to soak it all in, right? You're connecting with all these great young people. You're trying to understand their perspective and how you can be helpful to them. And one of the patterns we noticed is that they, they really understood the Latter-day St. Check List. But they didn't really understand the gospel. So we would say things to them, like, "Hey, what does the gospel mean to you?" And they would immediately roll out the Latter-day St. Check List, go to church, keep the commandments. That's a gospel thing too. Go to seminary, get your young woman in excellence award, live the standards, right? And that's, I think all of that is great, but when everything hits the fan, that isn't gonna save you, right? And so we tried to help them over time, understand the difference between the Latter-day St. Check List, that all Latter-day St. St. try to use to be good people and differentiate that from the teachings of Christ, which are really gonna be what transforms you as a person, and helps you through the difficult times in your life. And they're different. - The which should members do or say when loved ones leave? - Oh, wow, such a good question, Peggy. So, you know, I have, my next oldest sister, Peggy, has had a really challenging family, and she gave me a lot of good advice when Kale stepped away, and one of the things she said to me was, Jeff, this is now an opportunity for you to believe in what you believe in, right? And she said, do you believe in agency? Do you believe that we have loving heavenly parents and that they're mindful of your son? And do you believe in the plan of salvation, which all by the way means you have to leave the Garden of Eden and fall and go through mortality and learn good and evil through your experiences? Do you believe all that or not? And so I think the first thing I would tell 'em is, don't be so afraid of it, right? If you get, if your response is fear, you're gonna move into your lizard brain, and then you're gonna say and do bad things. And so trust God, trust your child, recognize they have their agency, they don't own our children, right? That was a powerful lesson for me as the day I realized, yeah, I don't own them, they don't belong to me, and they get to live their lives however they want. And so have a little more faith, stay out of your lizard brain. Trust if you're a person of belief and you believe the doctrines and theology of the church, believe them, right? I mean, there's so many stories, and I'm not suggesting people who leave should come back, but Saul who became Paul, Almy the Younger, even Mary Magdalene who was the first witness of the resurrected savior, these were all come back stories, right? The arc of our theology is you leave Eden and you fall and you work it out, right? And I mean, we could probably exchange stories of radical, son type stories. I don't see my children as prodigals though. I just don't, and I see them on their own journey. I see God's hand in their lives, and I'm just paying attention. I watch and I wander, I watch and I wonder at what's happening because I see great things happening. So more faith, more love, less fear, less control, and make sure you preserve the relationship. But when I read stories of parents disowning children or children disowning parents or marriage is ending, that's the crisis I'm talking about Peggy. I mean, I talked to, there's a new thing going on right now in our church community, which is young, Latter-day, Saint, mixed faith couples. And the most common profile is the wife leaves and the husband stays, and then this massive tension comes into the marriage. And for young people, young or old people in that situation, I would say, man, you've got to preserve the relationship, the marriage, and your family. And so you're going to have to work on that. And it's, you know, mixed faith marriages has been a big deal in other places, you know, Episcopalian with a Catholic or a Catholic with an evangelical. This is kind of a new thing for Latter-day Saints, right? And we're not equipped, we're not well equipped to deal with it. And people are really struggling. - I'm going to ask you to take a more expansive view now. What are your chief concerns for the church's future? - Boy, David, that's a really good question. I, I, you know, I'm not a church insider. I don't, I don't have unique perspective. I mean, I'm close, I've been close enough to have some perspective. But what I can tell you is that general church leaders have unbelievably difficult complex jobs in trying to chart a course for the, for the church that makes sense and works, you know, and of course, if you're a faithful member, you believe they're inspired and led by God and doing that. It's a heart, it's a super hard job. And so I, I don't envy that and I don't criticize them. I try to support them. But I think ultimately if we're doing it right, the church is going to be big, growing, expansive and more Latter-day Saints will, and more different kinds of Latter-day Saints will feel like this is home for them. And they will be able to be part of a faith community and experience a kind of divine connection and, you know, grow and learn in the gospel. And, and, and for that to happen, we're going to have to culturally be different. We can't be performative, we can't be too institutional. I mean, you know, you know, I use the metaphor of culture as soil in the book. We've got to balance the protection and stability part, the retrenchment part with the nourishment part or people will continue to lead. It's, it's not just a US thing, it's a developed world thing. And so we're struggling in most of the developed countries around the world with this issue. While experiencing, you know, success in certain third-world areas like Africa and Philippines. So I don't know if that answers your question, but. - Okay, so along that line, let's say, just a magic wand got waved and you were in charge of the church. - Oh, like in the church of the church. - What? - Well, the first thing I do is reinstate church basketball, but. (laughing) - I mean, you've analyzed the problem thoroughly. But the next thing is, what are the solutions? And what, if you were the leader for a month, a year, what practical changes would you implement to see these kinds, this expansive church you're talking about? - Yeah, so I am gonna order that question with the caveat that it's not my job to. - Of course not. - To answer that question, but two thoughts. - Yes. - The first one is, I see general church leaders. And, you know, if I'm honest, I have to say, sometimes the messaging is a little inconsistent, but I see general church leaders already doing a lot to try to move the church in the direction that my book and my research would suggest we go. More nourishment, less protection, instability, more centered in Christ. And if you're paying attention for general conference, you hear those messages, right? What seems to me to not be happening is we're not pushing that culture down into the community, the church community overall. And some critics would say, Jeff, well, you're not, you're not criticizing church leaders, you're calling this a culture problem when culture starts at the top. You know, I agree with that, but the culture in your life and your family starts with you, right? And so I think we underestimate what we can do ourselves. But if I was in charge of the church, I would try to do everything humanly possible to nurture a Christ-centered culture that starts at the top and goes all the way to the bottom. And I would make sure that I had the capacity to monitor how that's growing and progressing across the church in general. And I would, where it's not happening, I would try to fix it, right? So that would be number one, is that help? Okay, number two is even more important. And I think this, so here's what I, Peggy, here's what I see in the Latter-day Saint community. There are certainly people that encounter these issues and they leave. And by the way, it's after a long period of time an extraordinary effort and deep, deep sincere wrestling. There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Latter-day Saints, that are having that same wrestle and they're staying, but they're feeling torn. Okay, that title was intentional. And so the concept I would throw out, there is the parable of the wine bottles. So the Pharisees were criticizing Christ and His disciples because they weren't fasting when they were supposed to. And Christ says, well, that's fine and that's important, but I'm doing something more transformative. You can't take new wine and put it in an old bottle. Or the bottle will burst and you'll lose the wine and the bottle. You have to put new wine in a new bottle so that both are preserved. And then for fun, He sings them and He says and everybody always prefers the old wine, right? And so here's what I see. You have hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Saturday Saints that life has given new wine, right? It might be an LGBTQ child. It might be church history issues. They can't reconcile or put to bed. It might be they just aren't feeling a sense of belonging and Christlike nourishment in the church community. And that's the new wine that won't fit in the old bottle. And they are trying so hard to make it fit, okay? And it's not working. And so some leave and some stay, but the tension is the same for both groups. And I would love to see the church help people create their new bottles, okay? And by the way, the starting point is just tell them it's okay to do that. Just give them permission. You don't have to give them the answer. You just have to give them permission. And many Latter-day Saints think it's disloyal, naughty, heretical, to construct a new bottle to deal with this new wine that life is giving you. I don't think it is. I think it's called growth. I think it's called learning. And so Peggy, that's what I would do. I could give you two really good examples. I know a really, really wonderful man. I won't say too much about him 'cause I don't wanna out him here, but he's in a position of great influence in the church. And he said to me once, when I deeply study the history of the church and the history of the Prophet Joseph Smith, it's impossible for me to believe he was a prophet. When I read the Book of Mormon and I feel the divine truth in the Book of Mormon, it's impossible for me to believe that he wasn't. That's a new wine bottle, okay? He's basically saying these things don't match, but I can handle the complexity without ignoring the problems and I can be a piece over that. And so he's created a new wine bottle that works for him. And I think that every struggling member needs to do the same thing. But it starts by giving them permission that it's okay to do. - The name of the book again is torn. Why people we love are leaving the church and what we can learn from them, author, Jeff Strong. Thanks for joining us. - Thanks so much. It's pleasure to be with you. - And thanks to Peggy Fletcher Stack. - Always a pleasure. - And to our producer, Chris Samuels, we remind our listeners that they can keep up on all the happenings in and about the church by subscribing to the Solid Tribune's free Mormon Land newsletter. Just go to SLTrip.com to sign up and we'll talk again next time on Mormon. (upbeat music)