A Conversation with Anthony Miller

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Inside Out, the podcast that takes a pragmatic look at the Mormon Church and faith. We consider the strengths and weaknesses of the church We acknowledge the good that the church does. It does an extraordinary amount of good when it's doing the right things, but also we look at the problems and issues within the church and the areas where we think the church can change and improve. As always, I'm here with my partner, the delightful Mr. Jim Bennett. Jim, how are you today, sir?

You know, I'm delightful. I'm doing great. How are you?

I'm doing really well. I'm doing 5 of us today, and very excited about our guest. I'm very excited about it, and it's a real honor and privilege to introduce our very special guest that we have with us today. Welcome, Anthony Miller.

Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

And how's your day going so far, Anthony?

Well, I'm excited to have a discussion, uh, with each of you. Um, I've appreciated the times and discussions that we've had in person and online over the years. And I just look forward to having a discussion with you both.

It is really wonderful to have you here with us. Since Jim Bennett and I launched the Inside Out podcast, it's been my hope that someday we would have you on the podcast. And I was thinking, Anthony, what is the best way to, you know, how best to introduce you? You're a well-known and respected figure across the postmodern communities. You've been on a number of podcasts, made extraordinary contributions to a number of different communities and platforms. But I think perhaps the best way to introduce you is to remind our listeners and to inform our listeners what an extraordinary, kind individual you are. Back in 2015, as you know, I was experiencing what, uh, what could be described as a dark night of the soul. It's a phrase that I think I heard from you first. I researched it and wondering what this dark night of the soul is because it described very much my feelings and my trauma that I was experiencing at that time. And you've made reference to the dark night of the soul. And for our listeners, the dark night of the soul is a phase of passive purification of the spirit in the mystical development as described in the 16th century Spanish mystic, a poem by Saint John and poet Saint John of the Cross in his treatise, Dark Night. So it's a historical poem. In modern times, the phrase dark night of the soul is used to describe a crisis of faith or a difficult or painful period in one's life. And some have interpreted the dark night of the soul as a rebirth. There can be no rebirth without the dark night of the soul. A total annihilation of all that we believe in and thought we were. And the dark night of the soul comes before, or can come before, revelation. And when everything is lost and all seems dark, and then cometh the light and all that is needed. And so my dark night of the soul that occurred and happened with me in 2015, I felt completely lost and alone. And struggling, um, with so many questions and concerns, having, um, discovered some, um, information about the church. It was the Race in the Priesthood essay that triggered, um, a lot of questions for me and led me down a, a very interesting path. And at that time, I didn't feel, uh, there was anyone in my life that I could turn to. And I remember reading, um, uh, I think I joined, uh, a platform, a podcast, I think a Facebook platform called Thoughtful Faith, if I've titled that correctly. And I remember you writing and sharing feelings and thoughts, some of your comments, and they really resonated with me. And for me, it was a very emotional time. There were times where I cried personally alone. I remember having to pull over. I think I've shared this, Jim, on an earlier podcast. I was traveling from Calgary to to Vancouver through the mountains, uh, through the Rocky Mountains. It was, uh, it was quite late. I was trying to make time, and, um, I was listening to, um, a podcast through the, uh, you know, through, through the, uh, uh, speakers there. And I pulled up and I, and I, I just wept. And, um, it was a very, uh, painful, uh, moment for me because I desperately wanted the church to be true. I, I was a convert to the church at 16. It changed my life. Saved my life, devoted, committed my entire life. And now through these questions and this, uh, crisis of faith, uh, it was a very, very dark point in time. And, and I— and the person, Jim, that helped me the most and doesn't know it, of course, is Anthony, actually. Um, and that's why this podcast for me is quite, um, quite emotional, because, uh, his comments, his insights, his sensitivity And, uh, his thoughtfulness, it just resonated with me, and I just hung on to those words, frankly. And so at that point, uh, over those months and I think a couple years, um, I think Anthony and I went back and forth on a couple of things, but certainly longed to read his comments and his wisdom. And, and then I reached out to him and, and asked if we could meet. I was heading down from Canada to Salt Lake And Anthony was kind enough to meet with me, and we met in 2017. I think Anthony was heading back north, I'd just arrived in Salt Lake, and we spent some time together. And it was just an honor and a privilege to meet someone who'd, um, whose words had actually helped me enormously when no one else was in my life. And I had so many questions, you know, how do I speak to my family and my friends, and will I be rejected, you know, what about my family. I, I had so many, uh, doubts about my life and where I was going, and Anthony was just amazing. So I just want to— it's a long introduction, a very personal and it's somewhat emotional introduction, but I thought that for me at least, that was probably the best way to describe Anthony, that he's one of the kindest, thoughtful, most sincere people that I've ever met and has helped so many people and perhaps doesn't know actually, Jim, to the extent that his, um, his words have helped people. So I want to thank you personally, Anthony, for just helping me. And it came at a time of real value and importance. So it's, it's, it's, that's, that's why I say it's just such an honor actually to have you here with us today. We, I appreciate this so much. When we were talking about the podcast and some things that we were going back and forth and about, you know, where you are and what you're doing. We shared some thoughts and ideas through Facebook about, you know, a little bit about your background, where you've come and what you're doing, and I just wondered if you could just give us a little bit of background into a brief history in the church, and for our listeners, many of them know already, but just remind them about your church involvement and your background, a little about your family and some of your callings, and then we can just go through some of your experiences and and your insights and talk about the things that you would like to share with us.

Thanks, Ian. Thank you so much for your kind words and the things that you shared. I had a sense that our conversations were meaningful, but it's very meaningful to me to hear that I was able to contribute to your journey in those ways. What I would express, I'll share kind of a brief background and my experience, but I'd also suggest that I did a TEDx talk where I shared my journey in a little bit less than 18 minutes. So if people search Anthony Miller TEDx, they'll be able to find my TEDx talk, Thriving and Building Community After a Faith Crisis. And that's an abbreviated version of the, I don't know, 6 or 7 hours, not as long as yours, Jim Bennett, on Mormon Stories. But I did like a 6 or 7 hour interview with John Dehlin in August of 2019, and shared more about my journey. But basically, my parents joined the church when I was 3. In Phoenix, Arizona. All my ancestors were Mennonite. And among my ancestors, there were the equivalent of it. My grandfather on my mother's side was the equivalent of a General Authority in the Mennonite Church. My father's side were entrepreneurs. I also had educators. My sense is that if my parents hadn't converted to the church in 1969, when I was 3 years old, in Phoenix, Arizona, that I probably either would have gone into the ministry in the Mennonite Church, or I would have been an educator and taught at a college or university, something like that. So, or be an entrepreneur, which is what I ended up doing. When I grew up in the church, my experiences growing up mostly in Mesa, Arizona, were very significant to my life. My, my, we were always poor. My father had a very difficult time providing for us. We constantly got evicted. I went to 8 different elementary schools. But the church provided a sense of grounding and meaning for me. And in my TED Talk, I explained that Sometimes a church community has a family in it that if it weren't for the actions of that church community, they wouldn't have a Christmas. That was our family. And my parents ended up divorcing when I was 14 or 15 years old. So as the oldest of 4 children, I would mow lawns and deliver pizza while my mother did sewing and alterations out of the house. And the church not only gave me community, but it gave me models of what a stable family could look like. It gave me young men's leaders who were critical to my development and my view of what it meant to be a father. And as a 19-year-old, I ended up serving my mission in Barcelona, Spain. And I had many deep and abiding experiences. And what I would explain is that prior to my mission, I would, in preparing for my mission, I would read the Book of Mormon, I would pray about it, I would ponder it. And I would have a sense of warmth, of charity, of what I ended up identifying as spiritual experiences, as God touching my soul as I read and pondered the Book of Mormon.. And as a missionary, I got— I developed skills or capacities to help other people experience spirit in their lives. And then the meaning that I attributed to spirit was that this was a reliable divine witness of the truthfulness of the things that I was teaching and doing. And I got good at helping other people experience that and interpret those experiences in that way. And it was significant to my life as I further had more and more experiences where I felt inspired after my mission and callings that I had in teaching Sunday school, where as I would pray to God that he would use me as an instrument in his hands to touch the lives of my class members or the people I was serving. I often felt like that was happening, and I would receive confirming experiences where people would come up after a meeting and say, "I really needed what you talked about today, and I was struggling with it. I was praying, and this was an answer for me." And so what I explained in my TED Talk is I use the imagery of my heart and metaphorical vines that grew around and intertwined around my heart, that they eventually grew into my heart, these vines being the meanings that I attributed to my spiritual experiences and to my serendipitous experiences. And then they eventually became one with my heart. And so my very sense of identity as a human being and my purpose in life, all my relationships, my roles, my family connections, were all completely enmeshed in these meanings that I attributed to these spiritual experiences. And, and I planned my life so that by the time I was 55, I could retire and go serve missions for the church for the rest of my life. That's how important the church was to me. And I had many, many treasured experiences for which I am deeply grateful even today, having attributed different meanings to them now than I did then. In April of 2016, our then 22-year-old son came out to us as gay. And I had, from a political standpoint, I had been a social, an 11th Article of Faith believer for a very long time. I had been a social libertarian. I felt like if the government could tell my neighbor that he couldn't be in a same-sex marriage, then that would be a level of power that the government could tell me that I wouldn't be allowed to believe what I believe. And so, while I believed and sustained the teachings of the Church with regard to homosexuality, LGBTQ members, At the same time, I strongly believed that individuals needed to figure out their own journeys as well. And our son came out to us as gay on April 29th, 2016. And I could not metaphorically shelf or set aside in faith, like I had other things that caused dissonance for me, the idea that God would want my son to live a life completely absent the kinds of comprehensive love and connection that my wife and I shared. And so that evening, I went online to search for resources as to how a believer could support a gay son, not believing that God would want him to live a life either of celibacy or in a mixed orientation marriage. And that night, I stumbled across the Gospel Topics Essays. I don't remember exactly how I found them, but I consumed those. And as I read the essays, it was the Race and the Priesthood essay that was the biggest one for me. But the conceptualization that I had for the meanings that I attributed to my spiritual experiences as reliable divine witnesses of truth also was affected by the belief construct that I had that the leaders had— they weren't— I didn't believe they were infallible. But I believed that they had divine appointment and that they had special mantles of discernment so that when they were acting within the limited bounds of their stewardships and responsibilities and they were engaging with the Spirit and exercising their priesthood or within the stewardship of their priesthood, I interpreted that scripture D&C, is it 139, that they were speaking God's words, right? At least that's the version of Mormonism that I believed in growing up with McConkie, Benson, Packer Mormonism. And when I was reading the Race and the Priesthood essay, I recognized a few things. One is, I felt a sense of betrayal, because it seemed to me like the essay was expressing something different than what what I had experienced, what had been taught to me, and what was in the cited sources and in the footnotes. So I sensed that they were trying to lead me to believe that Brigham Young foresaw and prophesied and would have supported what happened in 1978. And I perceived that they— it was misleading to suggest that what was taught in the past wasn't claimed or taught as doctrine, but rather theories. And, um, and so what, what triggered my dark night of the soul, what triggered my existential crisis, was I recognized that spiritual experiences had been something other than what I thought they were for me, right? Maybe they corresponded with truth, beauty, and meaning, but they weren't as reliable of a divine witness of truth as I believed they were. And not only for me, I perceived that the same thing had been the case for the brethren, particularly with regard to this topic of race and priesthood and temple and exaltation and things like that. And also, I lost trust, because I perceived that I could trust the brethren. That's what my spiritual witnesses led me to believe. And I perceived that that Race and the Priesthood essay was in some ways misleading in order to try to protect faith and navigate these complexities. As I was reading that, I wasn't feeling maybe as thoughtful as I'm expressing right now, because what happened is when I recognized that my spiritual experiences weren't what I thought they were, and when I recognized that it was— it seemed to be the case for the Brethren as well, recognizing that they had disciplined scholars and members of the church for talking about these same things that were in those different essays. I experienced a complete collapse of identity, a complete existential crisis. In my TED Talk, I explained that it was like all those vines and layers of meaning that had become one with my heart were abruptly and violently ripped from me. So I lost my sense of identity. Because the only way I knew God was through those spiritual experiences and the meaning that I attributed to them. It was so traumatic to have that meaning collapse on me that I lost God in those moments. Gina Colvin talks about an experience of God leaving the corner of the room where you once knew him. And that was my experience. So, and in my TED Talk, I said it was as if God had never existed. Despite my cries out to him in those moments. So when you talk about the dark night of the soul, that was my experience, is that it was a collapse of identity. It was a collapse of meaning. It was a collapse of everything and crying out into the void. And now I reconcile that it was very traumatic to my heart and my soul to have that abrupt and acute shift of meaning. And so maybe as a protective measure, I didn't experience spirit in those moments. And later on, as my heart healed from that traumatic experience, I had and continue to experience spirit in my life. I use— that might be a triggering word for some people, but you can call it whatever you want. I still experience those things. But there was a period of time where I felt God disappear on me. And fortunately for me, I had entrepreneurial tools that I used to try to navigate what I was experiencing. And in my business, my busy time is the third and fourth quarter of the calendar year. And here I was in May and June and July processing something where I didn't have, have as busy of a work schedule in my business. And so I consumed tremendous amounts of information and I was eventually able to find support communities like the A Thoughtful Faith Facebook group. Like, uh, by chance, Lindsay Hanson Park was visiting her best friend in Billings, Montana, and she sat with me and listened to my story and told me I was going to be okay. And I attended Sunstone that year, and a faith crisis support workshop that included Thomas McConkie and Gina Colvin and John DeLinn. And just that one week in July of 2016 healed my heart enough that I began to experience spirit again. And And then eventually, I just kind of went through the other steps of deconstruction, where not only did I unpack church history, is I unpacked biblical scholarship and world history and things like that. So when you met me through my participation in the A Thoughtful Faith Facebook group, which is now called Waters of Mormon, the other post-Mormon or progressive Mormon groups were too triggering for me. Like, Reddit wasn't helpful. The Mormon Stories podcast community was too sharp. But that, what is now called Waters of Mormon, was extremely helpful for me because I was still trying to hold things together and make sense of things. And that group helped me work through things. And I wrote a lot. And that's where we started interacting. So, to make what is, has To make a long story shorter, over time, my mixed faith marriage, because my wife is in the Relief Society presidency, she's a temple ordinance worker, she's at the temple this morning. And I eventually decided to remove my name from the records in December of 2017. It was effective in January of 2018. But I've built support communities, I participated inside and outside of the edge of Mormonism, and, and had this tremendous gift or opportunity to give my TED Talk in 2022, hopefully in a way that gives voice to other people's experiences, but in a way that it was safe enough that a believing member of the church could watch that TED Talk. And have a feel for what it actually feels like to go through a dark night of the soul. Along the way, what I've learned, and in my interactions with Jim Bennett, is that I grew up with a very different version of Mormonism than Jim Bennett did. And as well as my wife, I remember in one support group, in our local support group, there are some members of our group that are in their late 60s. And they explained that they grew up as David O. McKay Mormons. And, and the bishop was kind of the father of the ward. There wasn't like this overreaction to the sexual revolution of the 1970s, you know, culture in the church. And so they never bought into Joseph Fielding Smith version of— Junior version of Mormonism. They never bought into Spencer Kimball Benson Mormonism. They grew up with a different version of Mormonism where they experienced spirit. They had things that were of value. But it was very different than the McConkie, Hinckley, Packer version of Mormonism that I grew up with. And I went home and I'm like, Susan, this is my wife's name. And I shared her that experience. She's like, oh, I'm totally a David O. McKay Mormon. Like, how can you be a David O. McKay Mormon? She says, Well, my parents were David O. McKay Mormons, and they raised me as a David O. McKay Mormon. And, and we realized that we were in a mixed faith marriage all along because her version of Mormonism was so incredibly different than mine. And I mean, there's a number of other reasons that we're all built differently and we process information differently. But there's a lot of things that I've learned in my journey along the way so I can feel like I can support and celebrate Jim Bennett in what he does inside the edge of the church and at the same time support people on the outside of the edge where I am as well. So sorry, that was not brief, but that's a little bit about me and what brings me to where I am today.

Well, I just want to jump in here and say, you know, I haven't had as much experience with you as Ian has, But I remember meeting you at the 2019 Sunstone— is that— do they call them conventions? Is that a Sunstone convention?

Symposium.

Symposium. That's the word I was looking for. And I was presenting. It's the first and last time I presented at Sunstone, but it was a really good experience. And you were one of the first people that came up and introduced yourself to me. And we had a delightful conversation. And I've been following you online and we've had conversations online. And I have been so incredibly impressed with your, the amount of grace that you give to people, no matter where they are on the spectrum in terms of belief, the amount of respect that you have for McConkie Mormons, you know, your ability to just sort of— it's interesting to me that you would say that you found the Mormon Stories community to be too sharp. Because that, I think, perfectly fits with my understanding of just the kind of compassionate, kind person that you are. And so I've never thought of myself— it's interesting, you know, I grew up as a David O. McKay Mormon. Obviously, I'm a descendant of David O. McKay, but my mission president after Ian went home was Joseph Fielding McConkie. Who was Bruce R.'s son and very much cut from that mold. And I had a delightful experience with him. I found him— one of the things that I was so surprised by, uh, from President McConkie was his sense of humor, which he insisted that he got from his father. And you didn't get any sense from Bruce R. McConkie that he even knew what humor was. So that was an interesting perspective. But, but as time has gone on, that sort of McConkie/McKay designation has come up a number of different times. And my, my cousin once took a class from Joseph Fielding McConkie when he was teaching at BYU and started to push back on him on something. And, and President McConkie said to him, wait a minute, you're a McKay, aren't you? He says the McKays and McConkeys just don't agree on a lot of things. So he explicitly said that at one point. So that's a very real thing. But it's really interesting to see it framed that way. I mean, did prior, prior to that sort of labeling of that phenomenon, did you and your wife have this kind of sense that your experience in the church had been different? That your unlabeled McConkie Mormonism was different from her unlabeled McKay Mormonism?

Yeah, that's a really good question. I would point out that I'm very much a part of the Mormon Stories podcast community now. It was just initially that it was too sharp for me. But yeah, so I'd express— I don't want to tell my wife's story, but there's some things that I, that I can share. First of all, my wife, is an introvert. And what I've discovered is introverts are more likely to have an experience where they can sit in a Sunday school class and hear some crazy town stuff, or whatever you want to call it, and look at it and think, oh, that's really interesting that they would think that way, and not feel like they need to raise their hand to correct it. Or push back. I mean, certainly she will do that from time to time, but as an introvert, she was raised more likely to be the observer, and unless she was called to teach a lesson, and then she, you know, then she would teach her lesson. And, and what I've discovered, or I think anecdotally perceived, is that people who are naturally introverts are able to develop and exist with a lot more nuance inside of the church because of how they're built. And so I would say that that's one thing. My wife also comes from the arts. She has a Master of Fine Arts in modern dance. And she's— I'm a very linear, concrete thinker, and she is different. She handles way more ambiguity than me. And so in my faith crisis, I had to put in a huge amount of work to try to be less black and white thinking, to adopt more grace, and to adopt more non-dualistic thinking in my life. It took a lot of work, a lot of reading secular Buddhist kinds of things and Richard Rohr and Eckhart Tolle and Jack Kornfield and so forth. But as my wife and I have talked about this over time, she knew that I had a very different version of Mormonism than her. When I would be teaching a seminary school class, and she would be sitting in the class as a student type thing, or when I would do when we would have a family home evening discussion kind of thing, and what she's expressed is she— what would go through her mind is, "Oh, that's really interesting. I don't really see that that way, but he finds this helpful, and so if he finds this helpful, then that's great for him," and so she doesn't feel a need to push back on the version of Mormonism that I experienced. Because of that, so we were in a mixed faith marriage. I didn't realize it. I think she more likely realized it. But the way she thinks, she's— and is built, she's able, she was able, I think she still is able to handle a lot more ambiguity within the faith. Than, than I was, just because she was built differently.

That's, you know, it's really interesting to come back to the idea of a mixed faith marriage because I think everybody is in a mixed faith marriage. I think everybody's version of religion, even, even if you go to the same church and ascribe to the same sort of general beliefs, everybody lives their religion individually and uniquely. And I remember when I got married on our honeymoon, my wife said to me that, you know, we started talking about Noah's Ark for some reason. And she's like, isn't it bizarre that some people believe that actually happened? And I kind of looked at her and thought, oh no, my wife is going to hell. What have I done? You know?

Yeah.

And I never really had been I had never really been sort of a biblical literalist, but I just sort of believed both in the theory of evolution and in sort of creation at the same time.

Yeah.

And it wasn't even cognitive dissonance. It was just, oh, sooner or later we'll figure out all of that. But of course this all happened, you know, and as time has gone on, I realized that that was a very silly thing for me to do. But But it was at that moment that I realized that I was in a mixed faith marriage, even though I think my wife and I see the church in very similar terms. I think our faiths are different, obviously, because everybody's faith is different, but they're similar enough that I think we're pretty congruent on most of these things. But it's really interesting to just hear that and hear you frame it that way. And Also, when you talk about spirit, you're talking— so it sounds like through your deconstruction that you were able to maintain a connection to the divine, that you still have sort of a faith in God, whatever that is now, and how it may be different from when you were fully in the church. Is that, is that an accurate—

Yeah.

So that's a really That's a really good question. So in my deconstruction process, you know, I learned about the illusory truth effect where you say things over and over again and then you believe them because that's how our minds work. I learned about confirmation bias. I learned about what's referred to as elevation emotion, whereas human beings when we perceive remarkable acts of moral goodness, we have a release of dopamine in our system and it increases our charitable disposition and our tolerance for others and so forth. And in doing so, you know, I felt like I could identify that many of my spiritual experiences or what I referred to as spiritual experiences may have been elevation emotion. But at the same time, I had to put in work deconstructing that I did have transcendent experiences that seemed to be either a lot of elevation emotion or something in addition to that. And I, in my TED Talk, I share an experience about on my mission, where I was a perfectionist. I wanted, and I was measuring the shortfall, and I was concerned that God would accept my mission as a worthy offering to him. And so I fasted and I prayed for several days pleading for an answer, and my answer came as I found myself sitting on a couch in a small, humble apartment living room with a family that we had recently baptized, and the wife of the family asked me to read her journal entry of the day of her baptism. And as I read it, I sensed a softness in my heart. I sensed spirit. And almost audible words came to me that for me, the purpose of this life is to live with gratitude for the opportunity to participate in the lives of others. And that whether or not my mission was an acceptable offering was the wrong question because that was about me. And not about God and others. And that answer that I perceived that I received continues to inform my life to this day. Even though the version of Mormon God in which I used to believe, I don't believe anymore. So I don't perceive that Jesus or Elohim, you know, directed that answer. I still sense that transcendent answer. And so as my heart healed from the trauma and I began to experience transcendent connection in my life, it was too triggering for me to call it God. And so I approached it with more curiosity and gratitude rather than trying to rush to attribute meaning to it. And it wasn't until fall of 2018 that I read a book by Reza Aslan called God: A Human History. Where he, he outlines how humans have this propensity to experience dreams and mystical things and see things in the clouds and trees and things like that, and have religious type of, or spiritual type of experience and then attribute meaning to it. And in the book, he talked toward the end, it might have been actually the last chapter, he talked about pantheism. And essentially, pantheism, as I understand it, is this idea that there's a divinely animating force that exists and manifests in and through all things. And because it's omnipresent, we're a part of it, which sounds a lot like the Spirit of Christ in the Book of Mormon, right? As a creative force that exists in and through all things, and we experience the Spirit of Christ in our conscience. And I found that attribution of meaning to those transcendent connection and experiences, and that attribution of meaning for God helpful and not triggering for me. So when I talk about experiences of spirit, or even when I will use the word God, I'm talking about that I find it helpful to believe that there's something that's larger that we're a part of. And to the extent that there's interventionist God types of things happening, it's probably because we're doing it as intervening and that we experience at times elevation emotion that maybe the church or the culture of the church programmed us to believe was the Holy Ghost. But there are also times in our lives where we experience something that's more transcendent. And so that's the meaning that I attribute. So when I say I'm comfortable using the word God or we're experiencing spirit, I mean, we could be experiencing elevation emotion, or we could be experiencing a recognition or a transcendent connection that's part of something larger than ourselves. And so that's, that is what I have reconstructed. And so when I think about the things that I do to support people in the post-Mormon community and progressive Mormon community. It's something that I feel led to do. I don't know if that's an interventionist God or that I just experienced spirit in my activities and I want to experience more of it. Even if it's just elevation emotion, I still want to be part of that. And so anyway, that's a long answer to your question, but That's how I reconciled things. But I still attempt to approach things with curiosity and not trying to rush to attribute meaning to things, but to just sit with them. Because what was painful in the past and what resulted in my dark— what led to my dark night of the soul was a very rigid attribution of meaning to these experiences that I was led or conditioned or whatever that I ended up believing and enmeshed with my sense of identity and that rigidity collapsing as what resulted in my dark night of the soul. And so I think if we can approach things with more curiosity and hold that there's ambiguity that maybe that is less of a rigid structure in our life.

Anthony, as I listen intently to your thoughts, your insights, you've lost none of your qualities or abilities to articulate and communicate extraordinary insights and wisdom. You research, you've read books, you've helped you've had your own personal experiences, gone through the dark night of the soul. You've done the TED Talk and you have an extraordinary library of experiences which are very personal, very profound. And it's another example of your comments and feelings and thoughts, they will help a lot of people in very significant ways. And it's amazing to see that You know, your words of wisdom continue, uh, the same quality that I have become familiar with. Um, just to one of your— some of your points there where you, you've made reference a couple of times, 2, 3 times here, that you attribute different meaning to different experiences. Um, when I listen to that, I think of the times where I felt the spirit, and this is my, uh, process, if you like, for understanding the spirit, how it works, and how I interpret that. So when I've, in the past, and I still have at times, profound spiritual experiences, but I see them and I interpret them somewhat differently than I used to when I was a fully active devoted member of the church. In the past, when I would experience something just in general, on a general principle, if I'm serving someone or helping someone or I'm doing some basic good for someone or reading some universal principle about love or forgiveness or service, et cetera, either in the church or outside of the church, I would, me personally, I would attribute that to the church being true. So whenever I had a positive experience, whether it's church-related or not, in workplace, in the community, indirectly with the church at times, it would, for me, I'd condition myself mentally, psychologically, to interpret that, that another confirmation bias, I guess that's the right word, that I'm having these experiences because I'm part of the only true and living church upon the face of the earth. And if I wasn't belonging to the church, didn't belong to the church, these other indirect experiences related to essentially universal principles of love and kindness and forgiveness and help and service in community, etc. If I wasn't part of the church, then I wouldn't be having these experiences, uh, not in the same way that I would if I was belonging to the church. And it was just, in my mind, it was just repeated confirmation over and over that, um, I'm having these experiences because I'm part of the church. I'm, um, I am some form of, or some version of, a special witness. Not, not in the General Authority form, but I'm having these experiences because I have the priesthood, I'm a member of the church, I'm active and pay my tithing,, and it's just a confirmation again that the church is the only true church. Did you, if I understood some of your thoughts there, and Jim Bennett, I think your input here would be valuable as well. Do you both have the same experiences I did? Did you see it and interpret the spirit in the same way that I have, or am I the only person to interpret it in that way?

I'm interested in Jim Bennett's answer.

Oh, okay. Well, I've never had the question framed that way, so I'm trying to— I'm not quite sure what my answer is. I'm interested in Jim Bennett's answer too. I never really thought of of it in terms of a spiritual— maybe I'm not understanding your question correctly, but I've never— when I have a spiritual experience, that never really sort of says to me, "Aha, that's evidence that this is the only true church on the face of the earth." That, I mean, that's never ever really been part of of the, of the equation for me. And part of that comes from me growing up with this acute sense of inadequacy. And maybe this comes from being a David O. McKay Mormon in a different kind of sense, in the sense that growing up knowing that David O. McKay was my great-grandfather on my mother's side and Heber J. Grant was the great-grandfather on my father's side. I always grew up thinking these guys would be so disappointed in me because I'm such a slob. You know, I'm not somebody that merits the kind of, of adulation that those men received. And in my mind, they were infallible, perfect people. I saw General Authorities and particularly prophets as, as demigods, as people that couldn't make a mistake and do all of those things. So I never really interpreted a spiritual experience as any kind of validation for my specialness because I didn't feel special. I felt like I was letting everybody down. I felt like a failure and I've talked on this podcast many times about when I was in Thurso, Scotland, serving as a missionary from the area where the McKays came from. And I was given all of these materials to do a fireside about David O. McKay in Thurso, including David O. McKay's missionary journal. And I read David O. McKay's missionary journal and realized that he was every bit the schlub I was, and I was probably a better missionary than he was. He didn't baptize anybody on his mission. He talked about he was very discouraged and very frustrated. He would take days off and go tour whiskey factories and do all kinds of things. And then he had that moment that everybody talks about in conference of "Whate'er thou art, act well thy part." But shortly after that, he was called into mission leadership and his mission was almost entirely administrative. He didn't spend any time proselyting. He was working in the mission office, essentially. So, so that to me was just such a wonderful revelation that those feelings of inadequacy were coming from someplace that there wasn't— there wasn't a lot of validity to it. So, so in answer to that, I've never really felt the kind of exclusivity that you seem to be describing. I've never really felt like people outside the church don't know what they're talking about or don't have a connection to God. I certainly— so I don't know if that's the right answer to the question, but that's never really been the way I had framed it.

Yeah. So I have elements in my experience of both of yours. So certainly Ian, I did believe that since we had the gift of the Holy Ghost and we had the priesthood, that there was some additional exclusive access to God that was differentiated, where other people could experience connection with God. But like, there was that talk that President Nelson gave when— before he was president of the Church, where he expressed that only what he— I don't know, these aren't the exact words, but what he was expressing, as I understood it, was that only active, believing, faithful members of the Church can experience true joy. And I believed that framework, which he probably believes, that in order to experience true joy, we need these exclusive things. We need the gift of the Holy Ghost. We need to be able to go to the temple. We need the divine power of priesthood to have that extra exclusive connection. And I believed that when I experienced spirit, it was supporting that constructural framework of what those experiences meant. It meant that I was blessed. It didn't mean that I was— I didn't perceive it meant I was better than other people. But that I was grateful for this more, this higher level connection of true joy and in the true church. And I've had conversations, including with a couple of my closest, one of my closest friends when I was in high school, since my faith crisis, and I've had conversations with him, and he is of that belief. He does not believe that I can experience the same spirit now as a non-member as I did when I was a member, because that's the framework that he attributes to spiritual experiences. So, Ian, your experience wasn't a one-off. I had that. And my friend that who I continued to talk with has expressed that. At the same time, some of my experiences with spirit relate to what Jim Bennett shared. I remember there's a talk from— it's a recording. I think it's from Gene Cook about teaching or speaking with the power of the spirit. And in that audio cassette, he suggests that when we prepare talks, maybe we can do an outline, but we need to get up and speak with the Spirit and not limit the Spirit by scripting our talk. And I remember in that talk, he, at least this is my recollection, that he expressed that when we experience Spirit, we're being cleansed from our sins. And so we need to seek the Spirit in our life because that as how we become right with God. And so there was an additional reason why we would experience spirit, in addition to the witness that the church was true, but that that's, that's how the Atonement works. And when we experience spirit, we're cleansed, and we can be confident that we're worthy before God, and not a schlub, because we're having those experiences. So it's a little bit of both for me.

Yeah, that's fascinating. I mean, my, you know, my experience, I was really into the scriptures, you know, missionary in a sense. And there's a scripture in, I think it's Mosiah, where it talks about that, you know, having, if you've had the, felt the spirit and if you transgress or you deviate, you do withdraw yourself from the spirit. And again, that's still referenced on the church website that, you know, if we withdraw, we become subject to the devil. We don't have the spirit anymore, et cetera. We don't have the exclusivity that those channels. And so it's embedded into the fundamental doctrine of the church. But when I was experiencing the spirit at that time, again, I attributed that to be the only true church regardless of the source. A question I just want to ask Anthony, if you're comfortable providing any insights in this. You said earlier in the conversation here that You, um, your wife and yourself, uh, and your family have managed to, you know, your mixed faith marriage. I love the, the point that you both highlighted that we're all in mixed faith marriages. I, I, I, I, I do see that now. I think there's a lot of mixed faith marriages, um, and it's fascinating to, uh, I think there's a conversation around that. I said fascinating to develop an understanding around that.. And I've got members of my family that came out and actually said, after I had left the church, that they never actually believed. And this is extraordinary, actually, they never actually bought into the Joseph Smith story, which was quite extraordinary, actually, that they were— they shared that with me. But my question is, you've obviously got a successful family dynamics going on with you and your wife and your family. Your wife is active, she goes to the temple. You have a very different perspective in some ways for different reasons that you've got into. How does it work for you? You know, your wife goes to the temple. The church talks about, you know, President Nelson talks about being a covenant people. The church has been very clear throughout the beginning of history, including in modern times, that to be with God, you have to be married, sealed in the temple, be a covenant people, paying tithing, fully active in the church. Or you will not be with your family in the next life. I'll put it as plain as that because that's my interpretation of the church, and I don't think that's changed. How do you reconcile your mixed faith marriage in respect to those doctrines and teachings which remain in place, and I think very firm, very fixed, that, you know, to be, to be essentially to be with God, you have to be a fully active, tithe-paying Mormon.

Yeah, so I held that very linear, concrete, dualistic view. That was my understanding. And I remember early in my faith crisis— this will tell you the level of nuance and maturity of my wife— we were on a walk, it was in 2016. And I asked, how, how can you support me in my journey to seek to reconcile all these things when I'm coming to such different conclusions than you? And what she expressed, and she's okay that I share this, she says, well, it's like our son. I don't think our son chose to be gay, and I trust him, and I trust that experience, and I trust that God would not want him to live a life without companionship, So I trust my son and I trust God and I trust that will all work out. And I feel the same way about you. She says, I know you're not making this up. I trust you. I trust you're really experiencing these things. And I also trust God. And I trust that it'll all work out in the end. And I answered probably literally these words, How do you do that? I don't even understand how you do that, because that's what I felt at the time. So, um, to answer the rest of your question, there's two things. Uh, well, there's three things. So, um, about 7 years into our marriage, we found the book The Five Love Languages, which was super helpful for us because I The way I'm built is I receive and express emotional intimacy through physical touch and through words of affirmation. So I want to be appreciated and understood, and I express kind and encouraging words. And if my wife will hold me as I'm falling asleep or slap me on the behind when I'm walking down the hall, to me, that's what love is. And my wife's primary love language is quality time. So there's love in doing the dishes as a together activity. Or going on a walk together. And she's also acts of service. So to her, there's love in taking the garbage out, you know, like, that's just a task to me, but to her, that's what love is. And so early in our marriage, early at 7 years and or 8 years into our marriage, we put in a lot of work to recognize that we could have very differentiated experiences about what love is. Strive to become multilingual and express love and emotional intimacy in different love languages that are different than what's naturally ours. Um, and that's okay. And, and having to put in that level of work earlier in our marriage helped us put in the work with regard to our differentiated spiritual and religious attributions of meaning because we had already done that earlier work. So with that, I've shared this before in a video and a couple of talks that I've given is I'd say I want you to think about black licorice. So my wife loves black licorice and I can't stand it. I think it's awful, but I haven't enmeshed my sense of very identity and meaning and purpose in life with how much someone likes black licorice, right? It's not distressful to me that my wife likes black licorice and I don't. And some of the work that helped us develop and nourish our mixed faith marriage includes the secular application of Buddhist principles. And a Buddhist idea would be, it's all black licorice. My wife experiences spirit and growth and relationship in her participation in the church. And I experience it elsewhere outside of the church. And there's some things that we share. And there's some things that we don't share. And, and that's okay. So part of the mixed faith marriage is We can like different music, we can express love in different ways, we can have different preferences with regard to black licorice, and that can be okay. And then the last thing, and this is probably the most critical thing for our mixed faith marriage, is, is to accept that not okay things exist. So for a long time, it wasn't okay to me that my wife made a conscious choice to not study and unpack the same things that I did, because she knew it was difficult for me and really painful for me. Like what I expressed is it'd be one thing if you were like Jim Bennett and you studied this stuff, but you came to a different reconciliation of the ambiguities. But you've made a choice not to study those things, right? And that felt not okay for me. And here I am talking about the church publicly, including some things that are critical. And my wife loves the church. She experiences value of the church, and she's an introvert. She doesn't want any attention drawn to her. Like me doing a TED Talk. It's not okay. For her that I would do that. And so there were things that we could make okay, like the black licorice metaphor, but there were still not okay things that would exist. And we had to arrive to a point where we could choose for it to be okay that not okay things exist because we wanted to be together.

It will—

it won't— I can't foresee that it'll ever be okay that my wife has made a conscious choice to not unpack the same things I have with regard to biblical scholarship, church history, things like that. And it will probably never be okay to her that I publicly talk about church stuff. But we want to be together enough that we choose for it to be okay that those not okay things exist. That's probably the most important part of our mixed faith marriage.

Well, Anthony, it's— I could talk and listen rather for longer than you have time for today. And to both of you, I could listen and learn so much. I just want to, as we're coming to the end of the podcast here, I just want to thank you again for taking the time out of your life to share your insights. I get the impression that from this conversation and perhaps other conversations over the last few months or the last year or so, you've been able to, you've done extremely well here, been able to condense and articulate and organize and structure your thoughts. Across those different experiences over the last few years. And it comes through very strongly that you've got a, um, a pretty good or a better grasp, understanding of those experiences, and be able to articulate them in some, some fashion, some chronological order, but some kind of structure. And I find that, um, very, very helpful. You know, some of it's linear, others is like multi-dimensional, and you connect these different pieces. And the way you communicate and you waste some of your insights, I think it's, uh As I was listening, I'm thinking I've learned so much for myself again listening to you. For me personally, I've taken a lot today from your experiences. Jim Bennett, do you have any other comments or thoughts before we close our podcast today with Anthony?

Only to say thank you so much, Anthony, not only for coming onto our podcast, but for everything that you do. I just think you are a marvelous voice out there. And I keep bumping into you in really places where I don't expect you. I was in that lobster— what is that? The Jordan Peterson lobster group?

Latter-day Lobsters. Yeah.

Yeah. I had to leave that group. But every now and then I'd see you in there and I'm like, wow, what's Anthony doing in here? It's so nice to have you there. It's so nice to have you as part of the discussion because I think I think having thoughtful people that are living on the edge of the inside, just, it benefits everybody. I think it lifts up people who are in, it lifts up people who are out. It gives everybody the ability to appreciate a thoughtful approach to matters of faith. And I think you embody that as well as anybody I've ever known. So. Thank you very much for joining us.

Thank you.

I concur with that. And Anthony, I want to say that, um, the best way I think I can thank you for being with us today is to, uh, tell you or remind you that, um, you— we remember each other. We remember those in our lives who, uh, for how they make us feel. We might not remember everything they do or everything they say, we definitely remember people for how they make us feel. And you make me and I know, know Jim Bennett and many others feel good about themselves. You give people hope, you give people strength, you inspire people. I've met some extraordinary people in my life. I know you both have. We can say that. And without trying to embarrass you here, but you are one of the most extraordinary individuals I've ever met. And You came into my life unbeknown. Really didn't— you didn't really know the impact that your words would have on someone like me and many, many others. But I will be eternally grateful to you for your wisdom, your insights, your kindness, your love, your compassion. And I just can't thank you enough on a, um, on a personal level. So thank you once again for being with us. I've learned so much from you again today, and both of you. I, I feel I'm the apprentice with two, with two masters here, and I I'm okay with that. I'm really fine with that. Thank you so much. We extend our love to you and your family. And Jim Bennett, thank you again for your insights and your wisdom as well. Thank you to you both. And thank you to you, Anthony.

Thank you. It's been an honor to have this discussion with both of you.

Thank you. Thank you to you both. And thank you to all of you who are listening. And we look forward to seeing you next time on Inside Out.