A Conversation with Stephen Murphy of Mormonism with the Murph

Hello and welcome to another episode of Inside Out. My name is Jim Bennett and I am here as always with my partner in crime, Mr. Ian Wilkes. Ian, how are you, sir?

I am doing great today, Jim.

How are you? I'm doing very, very well. Yesterday was my 30th wedding anniversary. So, I've been married for a very long time. So, I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I think it's a good thing.

I think it's a good thing. Congratulations. Yeah, like you, I've been married just over 30 years. If you speak to my wife and ask her how it's gone, she says For me, it's gone quick. I think she's dragged.

Yeah, it's like 30 years. It feels like 60 years. So, okay, nice. Good.

Congratulations. I think that's a wonderful milestone. Well, I bet you a lovely wife, and she is amazing. You've got a wonderful family.

Well, thank you. I have met your lovely wife, and you have a wonderful family. And we're going to bring on somebody else with a wonderful family, although we've never met his lovely wife. How's that for a segue?

She is lovely. I can—

She is lovely. I'm assuming she is. She's got a— she's got a wonderful husband. That husband is Stephen Murphy. You may know him as Mormonism with the Murph. He runs a really, really wonderful YouTube channel where he discusses the church. And that's where I met Stephen. He We had, we had a long conversation. Like, how long ago was that? The first time we talked a couple of years ago?

Yeah, I think it was probably, it was my first year of doing the channel, I think November, December '22. So, okay, enough to talk.

2 years. Yeah. So, but, but we've talked a few times since you've had me on some, some interesting panels. But I think in terms of all of the channels that are out there, Yours is— you're coming, you're coming from a believer's perspective, although you've also sort of wrestled with your own kinds of faith crises. But I think people feel very comfortable coming on your channel because they know they're going to be treated with respect and they're— they know they're going to have an intelligent conversation. And you've had conversations with critics And you've had conversations with apologists, you've had conversations with everybody in between. Has it been a good experience running that channel? Have you enjoyed it?

For the most part, I have absolutely loved it. I find it so rewarding. And I think nearly every guest, every person I've interviewed, be it critical or faithful apologist, believer, unbeliever, has been a really positive experience to connect. And I've learned I've been growing and evolving on my faith journey. And I've also connected with a lot of listeners or people, you know, who are following the channel as well. So it's been really fun to enter this space and people that I would've listened to on different podcasts or in interviews or read their books, it's been kind of cool to like interview and, and meet some of these people that you always see as like mini celebrities. In the space. So I've, I've absolutely loved doing the channel. It's been brilliant.

Well, and people can tell, I think, now that you've spoken a little bit, that you're not from either Canada or from the United States. You're now— you're originally from Northern Ireland, but you're now living in Liverpool, land of the Beatles. Is that right?

That's right. I did spend 2 years of my life in Canada on my mission, so I did develop a Canadian twang. And I've actually sort of lived all over the place. So I was born in Belfast, lived there until I was 6. Then me and my family, we moved over to— it's close to Bristol in the southwest of England. Uh, you probably would know that area, Ian. And then at age 12, we moved back to Northern Ireland, lived there until my mission, went on my mission to Canada, came back, and I pretty much stayed in Northern Ireland since then, but then last year I moved over to England for a teaching job, so I'm living just outside Liverpool.

What do you teach?

PE in a primary school.

Oh wow.

Mm-hmm.

I, I, I had a government teacher in high school who said that the pay scale for teachers should start highest at first grade and diminish the older the kids get, because the younger they are, the more demanding they are in terms of your time and attention. And if you're a PE teacher, I mean, you've got to deal with all of this, all of these.

Yeah, I kind of thought going in that PE teaching would be easy because I'm a qualified primary school teacher. So whenever I saw the job teaching PE in a primary school, I was like, oh, this is going to be easy peasy because I've done a lot of sports coaching in the past. And in one way, there's less preparation, less marking. But it can be quite chaotic teaching 30 children. But actually, funny enough, I thought it was going to be harder with the younger ones, like 4, 5, 6-year-olds, but they're actually easier to teach in PE. They're very good, very good at listening, very enthusiastic. It's more the older ones in primary school, they're the wee punks that tend to mess around and not listen. But it's all fun, never a dull day.

The wee punks, I love that.

Oh yeah. I just used a different word.

Sorry, repeat that.

I said, I, I said wee punks. I could have used another word, but I held back.

Where did you serve in Canada?

Uh, it was the Calgary Mission, so it was a lot of southern Alberta. So I served mainly in Calgary, a little bit in Lethbridge, and, uh, what do you call it, is it McGrath? McGrath, close to Cardston, but I'm sorry. Yeah, and, uh, a tiny bit of BC. There is one zone in the mission that was in BC, so I served in Harwood. Um, so yeah, it was a great mission.

Absolutely love Canada because we, we lived in Calgary before we came to British Columbia. So we lived in, uh, the Calgary Northwest Stake. Um, okay, with Steve Miller, he was the state president. Uh, I'm not sure when you served there, but yeah, he might not have been the state president at the time. So we were in the, uh, in the Cochrane Um, what? Right, yeah, for 2 years in the Calgary Northwest Mission, and then we decided to move west when it snowed in June. Oh wow, it's a bit too cold for us in, uh, in Calgary.

Yeah, I served in the east of Calgary, so I was in Sunridge, if you're aware of Sunridge. Yeah, I served in the south of Calgary, so it was like, uh, McKenzie and Yeah, I'm trying to remember some of the names now. I've forgotten some of the names. I feel terrible. Yeah, uh, but I spent a lot of time in the southeast, right, Calgary, right?

And my daughter lives in Chestermere. Okay, so she's just outside Calgary.

Yeah, I love Calgary. Cool city. Uh, Canada is a great place.

Yeah, it is.

Well, so Stephen, were you born into the church or did you convert? When you got older, your parents converted?

Yeah, no, I was born in the church. So very briefly, my mom's parents, my grandparents, they, they converted and they were almost like the pioneer stock in the ward is Portadown. It's one of the wards in the Belfast Stake. It's a stake center. My mom was very active and faithful. She held different callings and served a mission. My dad converted in his early 20s, so he grew up Protestant or Presbyterian. So he grew up in a Bible-believing home. I don't think he had any faith, but in his early 20s, he had a friend who introduced him to the Book of Mormon and the missionary discussions. And from what he's told me, he told me that he felt the Spirit when they talked about the Restoration and Joseph Smith's First Vision, read the Book of Mormon, got baptized. I don't think he told his family until after he was baptized that he joined the Church. And then he went on a mission to Canada, Winnipeg, as well. And then shortly after that, met my mom. So yeah, I was born and raised in the church. Uh, I'm the youngest of 3 kids. I have 2 older sisters. And yeah, pretty normal, you could say, like Orthodox or traditional upbringing in the church. Good family. Uh, would have went to primary, was baptized at 8, got the ɛɹɑnəp priesthood at age 12, and advance, you know, through to deacon, teacher, priest. And we weren't like, like fanatical in living the gospel. Like we weren't very good at doing like daily scripture study or weekly family home evening. Me and my sisters tend to be quite silly during like scripture study times. And, but we would do like family prayer together and like blessing the food and those sorts of things.

But at some point you, you started kind of a faith deconstruction process, or maybe you went through a sort of faith crisis. Am I getting that right?

Yeah, that's right. So that came, that came after our mission. So I guess I'll say briefly before my mission is I did feel like I had a testimony that came whenever I was around 14, just from reading, studying the gospel. The missionaries were taking me for Young Men's. I was the only young man in the ward at the time, uh, because the church is quite small in Northern Ireland. And they invited me to read the Preach My Gospel lessons, which, for any listeners who don't know, it's basically a missionary manual for how to be a missionary. And they had one chapter, basically the missionary discussions, or what they teach. Uh, so I studied like the message of the Restoration, the plan of salvation, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I was reading through the Book of Mormon. For the first time and then reading like Gospel Principles manuals and other books. And after a few months, I believed what I was reading sort of made sense in my heart and in my mind. And it wasn't until that point did I have that desire, that interest in the gospel. I think as a kid I just find church boring, didn't really understand the scriptures, but I enjoyed the, the social aspect. Um, but at age 14, I do remember doing Moroni's Promise praying about if I'm a child of God, if, you know, if Heavenly Father is there, the plan of salvation is true, if Jesus was a prophet, if the Book of Mormon is true. And did feel like I experienced that spiritual manifestation, the, the burning in the bosom, the scriptures call it, and that assurance in my mind that these things were true. And had other spiritual experiences in my youth, going to temple trips, EFYs, felt like I had answers of prayer. And my mission, I'd say, really solidified my testimony, my conversion. I feel like I, I had more faith-promoting experiences, felt like I witnessed miracles as a missionary, and just absolutely loved the gospel and the church, and just all made sense to me. And in many ways, I felt like I was 100% certain and sure. It was all true. There was no doubts and everything in my lived experience up until that point confirmed and pointed to the gospel being true. And I hadn't really encountered any serious criticisms. Like I had watched the movie. Have you heard the movie God's Army?

Oh, sure.

Missionary movie.

Yeah.

And there is one missionary in it who leaves his mission and he brought up like a few concerns, like there's multiple First Vision accounts. Where there was no horses in the Americas until Columbus came. And then I think also mentions like blacks in the priesthood. So I was aware of like a few things. I was aware about like polygamy in our past. I don't know if I was aware that Joseph practiced polygamy. If I was aware of that, I probably just assumed that it was— he married, you know, old widows and it was all just spiritual sealings. But really, I, I didn't know any anti-Mormon stuff, really. I have probably had more interactions with Christians or Jehovah's Witnesses. So basically what happened after my mission, I had a family member, an older sister who had left the church. She had done a lot of research and she had issues with Joseph Smith, things in church history, things with the church as well. And she lost her faith. And coming home from a mission, I, I felt like I had a very strong testimony. I was really converted. I was you know, given callings as like Ward Mission Leader, Young Men's President, and YSA Presidency. And I just came home with the RM fire. I just wanted to convert people and keep being a member missionary. And I sincerely wanted to help my family member come back to the church, help her to overcome her concerns, and to unite our family. And in order to help resolve her concerns, I had to know what they were. So I began asking her what some of her issues were and No, she started sharing with me things about, you know, for example, like, did you know Joseph Smith drank wine in Carthage Jail? And I'm like, no, I'm like, where are you getting that from? That's, that's anti-Mormon. Like, I've never heard of that. And then she would show me a source in the history of the church. And then that led to show me things about seer stones, treasure digging, Joseph Smith's polygamy. I remember her showing me a podcast by Grant Palmer, who was a big influence for her leaving Leaving the Church, Losing Your Faith, and Sandra Tanner. So then I began to be exposed to a lot of issues in church history. Joseph Smith's polygamy, some of the criticisms against the Book of Mormon, naturalistic theories, DNA in the Book of Mormon that led to, you know, multiple First Vision accounts, Book of Abraham, learning about like Adam-God theory, blood atonement, some of the racial teachings by Brigham Young and I really went on, I think, for the next couple of months, the rabbit hole of listening to a lot of critical podcasts. And as I was listening to everything from Grant Palmer, Sandra Tanner, I came across their Mormon Stories interviews. So I started listening to Mormon Stories. I came across Dan Vogel. I read through, I think, the whole website of MormonThink. And initially, I wanted to try to like provide answers to it. But then her concern started to become my concerns. I was really rattled and I felt like, man, I don't know if I can reconcile this with the way that I view Joseph Smith, the way I view prophets and scripture growing up. So yeah, I had a couple of meetings with a stake president at the time, basically sharing with him some of my doubts and my concerns. And he was very— he was informed, he was understanding. He knew about certain issues. So I remember us talking a little about the Book of Abraham, or is the Hill Cumorah in New York, or is it in Mesoamerica, talking about polygamy and seer stones. And I felt like he was very, very empathetic. But I felt like I was just consuming so much critical information. And I couldn't reconcile a lot of the arguments myself. And within, I'd say, a few months, I just came to the conclusion that I no longer believed. I did feel that betrayal, I think, as a lot of people feel. I sort of felt like, why wasn't I taught any of this growing up in the church? I've never, you know, seen this side of the church's history. And sort of lost faith in the Book of Mormon as being inspired ancient text and began to see Joseph Smith as, you know, a con man, sexual predator, and just didn't believe the church is what it claims to be. So Yeah, I, I lost my faith very quickly and I didn't resign, but I wrote a letter to my bishop basically outlining all my issues were like in bullet point fashion. And I had really positive things to say about the church. Like I had a brilliant upbringing in the church. I had so many amazing experiences in youth, my mission, like even, even after I felt most critical and antagonistic towards the church, My mission was still just such a transformative experience, but I think, I think I concluded that some of my spiritual experiences must have been just emotions or coincidence based on being taught a very simplistic or whitewashed history. And had I been exposed maybe to the full history, perhaps I wouldn't have had those same experiences. So that was, that was sort of my faith crisis. It did happen quite quite rapidly. I didn't remove my name, but I did step away and went inactive from the church for a time, and I no longer believed.

So, but that's not where— that's not where you are now. No. So what brought you back? Or, I mean, do you feel like you've come back, or that your faith has sort of evolved from what it was prior to your mission?

Yeah.

How would you describe your faith now?

Yeah, those are great questions. This could, this could be a 5-hour conversation, but I'll try to be succinct. After I stepped away from the church, I did feel for myself 100% certain it all wasn't true. People might be wondering, like, did I explore apologetics? I explored some things on FAIRMORMON, and I read through some of the Gospel Topics essays. I think there were certain apologetics that I guess I felt that didn't really satisfy it for me. For example, like say anachronisms and reading about the limb shifting arguments, or I think because I grew up—

Tapers didn't convince you?

No, I didn't find it super compelling. Not super compelling. I think as well with the DNA argument, because I had grown up believing the Book of Mormon was hemispheric, they're the only peoples here, and that all Native Americans descend from the Lamanites. And that's, that's what I'd been taught, what I'd heard leaders and prophets say. The, the limited geography model at the time I saw is just, um, a, a response to DNA or trying to defuse the issue. And I think I had just— I was very persuaded by the critics. I, I didn't dive deeply into apologetics, but I think at that time I felt intellectually convinced. I no longer believed, but I, I did feel like I had real spiritual experiences growing up. Answers to prayer, experiences with Christ, um, witnessing miracles that I didn't know how to explain away. So I still held on to belief in God and in Jesus over that time. I didn't feel the need to fully deconstruct that, and I was heavily influenced by like Graham Palmer, Sandra Tanner, who were Christians. And then I was listening to people like the Wilders and Radlin Wilder's book, and I was listening to like Apology and, uh, channels like God Loves Mormons who are pretty much trying to disprove Mormonism, but then, you know, still believe in the Bible. And I, I was going to like Christian, different Christian churches. I was in a relationship with a girl who was Christian, and I, I bought an NIV of the Bible. I was reading the New Testament for myself, and I still felt like, um, this love and this belief in Jesus. Long story short, after a few months of, of studying, I think there are certain doctrines that I struggled with in Christianity, like the Trinity or, or heaven and hell. I was attending a Presbyterian church, so not all Christians believe in this, but the church I was attending have Calvinist leanings. And there was a sermon about how God's already pre-chosen or predestined who's saved and, and who's not saved. And I find that very, very problematic. I think with the Trinity, I saw it almost as like a, a man-made doctrine as a way to try to harmonize the Bible, because the Bible must be inerrant without any contradictions. So when it says that there's one God, but then the Father's God, the Son's God, the Holy Spirit's God, well, the Bible can't contradict itself. So it's one God but three persons. And I felt like I never would have came to that conclusion from reading the Bible myself. And yeah, I think I began as I was looking then into biblical scholarship. I remember listening to Mormon Stories episode with David Bock and Bart Ehrman, and they were pointing out challenges with the Bible as well, things with the New Testament, you know, differences in the resurrection or crucifixion accounts, or, you know, Judas dies two different ways, even in the Old Testament, that there's different textual traditions, likely 4 different authors. You got 2 different Genesis or creation accounts, 2 different flood accounts. And I was beginning to see that, you know, Christians were very, very critical of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. But then there is also some challenges when it came to the Bible. There's no evidence that we have that there is an Exodus or for historical Abraham or Moses. I think, I think I always felt like there was a little bit of a double standards. I felt like they were hypercritical when it came to the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, or like the different accounts of Joseph Smith's First Vision. But then there's differences in Paul's vision, his recollections. They're super critical of the witnesses of the gold plates, that they were just superstitious and gullible and have this magical worldview. They're not credible. But then I began to think like, why? Why are the Witnesses of Christ's Resurrection any more credible? And I think during this time it was almost like I was starting to deconstruct, like, what if the Bible's man-made, not inspired? I don't really know if Jesus is divine. I think I was questioning at this point all my spiritual experiences, if there was a God, who am I, what's the nature of reality, am I just a, a product of evolution, am I just a mammal, a series of chemical processes. I think that was really when I hit the, the dark night of the soul, because I think whenever I left Mormonism, I had a soft landing going to Christianity in a way. But, um, yeah, I was, I was really wrestling. Um, I think, I think your question was, what was it that brought me back? Yeah, so, um, It was around this time, there's different things going on. There are obviously people reaching out to me, sharing spiritual experiences. I'll, I'll share one very briefly. Right before my mission, I had a friend who, who almost died of an asthma attack. He went into cardiac arrest, he was rushed to hospital. He had severe brain damage. He was in the emergency room and the doctors didn't believe he was going to live. They basically told his parents to say goodbye. And when we got the message, it was just tragic and devastating. And he'd grown up in the ward with me. He was a couple of years younger than me, so he was kind of like a little brother to me. And I remember praying in my room, you know, just being like, there was no one else I could turn to in that moment but God. And I'm pouring out my heart, uh, begging that God wouldn't let him die, that God could, uh, save his life. And I believed that he was a God of miracles, um, and, and having this profound impression in this voice in my heart that he was going to live. And we came together in fasting and prayer for Adam, um, and you can hear more about his story. He, he was interviewed by me a few months ago on my channel. But he survived. And I, at the time, I believe that was a miracle. And that was really giving me a boost going into my mission. But Adam claimed to have afterlife experiences, which I was listening to lots of different afterlife near-death experiences while I was part of the church. Some of them I found very like, I resonated with and were quite touching. Some were kind of weird. And I was like, I don't know about this. But I knew he claimed to have an afterlife experience, so I asked him lots of questions about it. And I'm not saying like, one, I don't know if his experience really happened. I definitely believe he sincerely believes it happened. I don't believe he was making it up. And the things he shared about his experience, like Adam did not have much scriptural or doctrinal knowledge. He was always a bit of an imbecile in Egypt. Zara for Jim Bennett. Um, um, but he— I knew he was sincere as he shared things with me. And if his experience, if it was real, it maybe did not confirm the church, but it confirmed to me that Jesus approved of the church if what he was sharing actually happened. And it was very easy to dismiss other people's afterlife experiences, but because he was such a close friend, because I was fasting and praying for him when he was on his deathbed, essentially. I didn't— I think that was the first thing that sort of touched me a little bit, because I had gone into lots of discussion with family or friends about the church, and I felt like I'd always win when we get into those conversations about a lot of the CS Letter issues. And I feel like I'd always debunk them. But this was the first thing that maybe open my mind a little bit to maybe, maybe I don't know all there is to know. And around this time, like, my dad was sending me different apologetic stuff, and I'm like, Dad, knock it off, this apologetic mumbo jumbo, Tudor scholarship, I already know it's all not true. Um, but I looked into some things, I, I did explore some of the faithful evidence, and none of it, none of it convinced me, none of it restored my faith, but I did find when I dive a bit deeper into the, the witnesses and looked at all their primary or their first, secondhand statements, I began to realize that, you know, the vast majority of their statements do actually support their official testimony. And I did feel a bit in critical documents like MormonThink or the CS Letter, they're, they're focusing primarily on a few second or third hands and, and omitting the vast majority of their primary ones. And I sort of thought, like, you know, if we're all about transparency, we should present all the data. And they were just very adamant and emphatic in their statements. So I knew that they were, they were sincere, similar to my friends. Didn't mean it happened. I think I began to think that, you know, like if the three having a mass hallucination and Joseph Barbour getting a set of plates and prophesying it in the Book of Mormon and, you know, even with some of them leaving, they never deny I was like, that's, that's pretty impressive as well if Joseph pulled that off. So I guess the witnesses were a wee bit of a question mark. I did think some of the Old World geography convergences were interesting. I think I sort of thought, well, any gem and altar, it's just a coincidence and apologists are making a bigger deal. But when I did look at the whole travel, I did— I could see it converged quite well, you know, going from, from the Red Sea to the Valley of Lemuel southeastern direction, coming to a place called Nahom. They found an altar there. It's got the right consonants in the rough location, right location, did the right century, the eastward turned to bountiful. It didn't, it didn't compel belief, but I can understand why a true believer, why they would find it persuasive. So I looked at other things, connections to ancient temple rites. I looked at the Book of Enoch and correspondences to ancient books of Enoch, some of the fulfilled prophecies of Joseph. So then I was really listening to a lot of like fair Mormon conferences and, and kind of encountering things where I was like, I've actually not heard critics talk too much about this. So it was kind of around this time where I was encountering like, still like issues with church history, issues with the truth claims, now issues with the Bible and biblical scholarship, now some things in apologetics. I think I was really just conflicted during this time and really really torn. And I think what was the catalyst for me believing again was somebody sent me a talk by Elder Corbridge, Sam Forever. Um, I, I listened to the talk and I thought he was very heartfelt and sincere. Like, in a nutshell, he talked about, oh, there's lots of people who are either struggling with the church or in a faith crisis or leaving with issues with Joseph Smith, the Restoration, things in church history. And he talked about, like, you know, primary and secondary questions and sort of like this gloom he felt as he was reading and researching, wading through antagonistic material. And at the time, I kind of thought like, well, you're feeling gloomy, Elder Corbridge, because your religion's being debunked. And I kind of thought like, oh, you're saying, well, don't worry about the secondary issues, just focus on the primary ones. Like the sacraments matter as well. But the message I took from his talk and the thing that sort of hit me— there's a couple of things. One thing he said was that, one, that he felt that God's voice wasn't in those critical voices. I don't know why that sort of struck me a bit. I think whenever he said that at the time, I sort of reflected back to my mission and what I was like as a missionary teaching the gospel and was maybe a little bit more, um, meek or humble or more loving. And I think I had become very critical and combative, but also as I'd listened to certain people online who were very critical a lot, um, and that, that's where it touched me. And he kind of made this point that, like, I didn't feel like he was saying don't worry about secondary questions because they're important and you can't just bury your head in the sand. But I almost took away from what he was saying is I felt like he was saying that you could spend a lifetime trying to figure out all the secondary questions. And even if you feel like you find reasonable or plausible answers to an issue like say, for example, like Joseph Smith's First Vision. Say if you feel like you find plausible answers to all the criticisms, it still doesn't really answer for you if he had his First Vision. I sort of— I was taking that away from— and he said that certain, certain truths can only really be known by a spiritual or divine method. But the other methods of like studying it, like looking at the information, looking both sides, they're all important. But the thing that's I don't think anything intellectually would have convinced me to believe again. I sort of, I sort of felt as I left the church that I'd only believe if I saw the angel in the plates. But he held up the scriptures and he said, like, ask yourselves, ask God, are these deceit, delusion, or truth? And it almost felt a little bit like my, my James 1:5, because although I still believed in God whenever I left the church. I stopped believing in God or trusting in God. I, I lost faith in spiritual experiences. I didn't believe they were a reliable way to know truth. And I think while there were legitimate issues, historical issues, truth claim issues, a big part of my faith crisis was also losing trust in God in a lot of ways. And Christians would often say You know, don't pray about the Book of Mormon. That's how you get deceived. Men's hearts are deceitful. Angel Satan can disguise as an angel of light. And I sort of thought to myself, like, is God so weak that he can't answer prayers or speak to me? Like, I feel like the simple teaching in the New Testament is like, ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you. And if if I believe that there's a God, but I didn't believe he could answer me or speak to me, then he might as well not exist. And I think I was sort of at that point where I don't know if I was going to go agnostic, atheist, still believe there is a Jesus. Should I be Christian? Because I tried doing the born again prayer and I wanted to have a spiritual experience in Christianity. Um, but it just, it just didn't come. I think one of the last things that disillusioned me was listening to some pastors say that Mormons believe in a false Jesus, false gospel, and they're going to hell. And my mother just passed away a few months prior to me leaving the church. And she was just such a saintly soul, like a, a very Christlike, faithful, devout person. Like, she really lived the gospel. And if there's a heaven, if there's an afterlife, I felt like I had no doubts. Like, she's there, she's in heaven. And I think that was something that disillusioned me. So anyway, um, I felt like I spent so much of the past year researching and consuming podcasts and all those things, I just decided to shut it all off and just go back to God and give it one last chance. Uh, I fasted and prayed. For a couple of days and just poured out all my concerns, all my doubts, all my issues, pleading to know what was the right path, what I needed to do, what was true, praying about, you know, you could say the primary questions: what I need to do to be saved, what's the right path. And after saying a few prayers, uh, no answer came, but I had this impression or this thought I used to say to people on my mission, like, if you want to speak to God, pray, and if you want God to speak to you, open the scriptures. And I'd, you know, I'd thrown away all my garments. I locked away all my, like, Mormon stuff, missionary journals and scriptures away in like a cupboard somewhere. But I got them out and I turned to the scriptures. I remember I read Section 18 of the Doctrine and Covenants I opened up to and just read a passage that, um, that said that these are not the words of a man, but these are the words of Christ. These are God's words given by my spirit unto you, and sort of testifying that you've heard my spirit, my voice, and, and saying that you need to repent, worship the Father in my name, and keep my commandments. And as I read that passage, I remember being filled with this enlightenment, this illumination in my mind, this joy in my soul which surpassed anything that I had felt. It felt as if I was reading those words like it was the Lord speaking directly to me. And it felt like a very powerful experience. But then after the experience, as the hours passed and the the feelings went away. I thought to myself, hold on a wee sec. I was like, I just opened the scriptures. I got myself in this religious fervor. Of course, Jesus would say these are your words. And I just had a very elevated emotion, you know, euphoria experience in the brain. You know, I was doubting the experience. But at the same time, I was like, if that was a spiritual experience, I don't want to deny it. So I prayed again. About the experience, wanting to know if I had indeed experienced revelation, if it was the Holy Ghost, if it was God communicating with me. They didn't want to make the wrong decision. And the next morning, I opened to Section 6 of the Doctrine and Covenants. It was a revelation given to, to Oliver through Joseph. I think I can kind of recite this, but this really stood out to me as I read it. It said, Blessed art thou for what thou hast done. For thou hast inquired of me, and as often as thou hast inquired, thou hast received instruction of my spirit. If it had not been so, you would not be at the place where you are at this time, before thou knowest. Thou hast inquired of me, and I did enlighten thy mind. And I tell thee these things that thou mayest know that thou hast been enlightened by the spirit of truth. And then it went on to say, have I not spoken peace to your mind concerning the matter? What greater witness can you have than from God? And I, as I read those words, they just seemed so direct, so revelatory, like it was the Lord directly speaking to me and confirming that, you know, you've inquired of me, I didn't lighten your mind, you were filled with this joy and this peace. What greater witness can you have than from God? I felt mind blown in the moment. I felt the similar illumination and this joy in my soul. There were no tears this time.. But then the same process happened. I began to doubt and question, and I went back and I reread the CES letter. And then I was like, oh no, it's not true. I went back to God. I was like, God, you're misled here. There's something wrong in the communication here. Is this Satan? Maybe this was Satan. I'm like, God, like, I know you claim to know everything, right? But you don't know. What about Spooky Abraham? What about Pollyanna? What about King James Bible hours? Like, how can it be true? And this is very funny. I, um, but I was like, God, I don't want to, I don't want to like reject this. But I also felt a little bit annoyed about the, the experience because the implications were I'd have to, you know, maybe come back to the church and part of me didn't want to. I had made my leaving quite public. I put up a public post, so I felt kind of mad. I was a bit annoyed about this happening. And this is kind of funny. I turned to the Book of Mormon and I read Jacob 4, and there was a passage that says along the lines of, don't seek to counsel the Lord, but seek counsel from his hands. And he counsels in justice and wisdom over all his works. And basically saying, like, despise not the revelations of God. And I was just like, oh, for flip's sake, God, like, whatever, you just want me to believe. And then over the next week, I kind of just shut it off. I was like, no, just send the angel of the plates. I'm not, I'm not believing this revelation mumbo jumbo. Like, if you want me to believe again, you have to come and speak to me. The heavens kind of shut for a while, and I went back again after a while, sort of realizing that maybe I shouldn't be demanding a sure sign from heaven. You know, faith is not to have a perfect knowledge. And basically, after wrestling and praying and feeling like I had further spiritual confirmations, I was sort of at this point where I could reject and dismiss these experiences. They didn't, they didn't prove to me. I couldn't scientifically determine that was God speaking to me, that was a revelation. But at the same time, they felt profound spiritual experiences to me. Like, if spiritual experiences exist, I had to believe, like if there is a God, I had to believe that this was him speaking to me. And I think I just had to weigh up, did I, do I think these experiences were just coincidence or elevation emotion, or do I believe these are revelations and an answer from God? I remember that one of the last things I listened to was a talk from Elder Uchtdorf. I think it was Come Join With Us. And I don't remember much of the talk, but he was basically talking about those people who have left the church who feel that they don't belong, who have doubts or issues or whatever it might be. And I really just felt this loving invitation, this pull that the Lord wanted me to return back to the church, that there was a place for me, even though I still have all these doubts and these issues and I don't know how to fully reconstruct my views and paradigms again. I felt this pull to return back to the church. So the primary reason I returned was because I believe I had spiritual experiences. There were some secondary things with apologetics that maybe opened up my mind, but I don't think any of it did that. So I wrote a letter to my stake president sharing with him my experiences and my desire to return to the church. And it was really hard coming back that Sunday. I remember driving to church or driving on the way there and then turned around like, nope, I'm going home. And then it was like, no, you got to go. And it was always like this wrestle between like the, the spirit and the intellect. And as I was walking through the doors, I was like, what am I doing back here? Like, and in a way it was hard, but it, it was a joyful time that it did feel like come back to my spiritual home and people welcoming me back with loving arms. Um, so yeah, that, that was, that was sort of why I came back to the church. Um, I don't share to try to convince any people or to say that because of my experience that you need to believe it or you need to have the same one. I totally understand and validate those people who feel like they can't reconcile their doubts or their issues or who haven't had an experience like that to bring them back. But that's, that's truly what's restored my faith again in God and Jesus Christ and the foundational truth claims.

That's, that's quite an experience, Stephen, and thank you for sharing that. And the detail is quite extraordinary. So you're back in church, you've returned to church. Are you fully active now serving in the church?

Well, I'll not go into too many details, but out of the church, I was living, you know, you say a little bit of a worldly, wild lifestyle. So I didn't return back to activity. It took me a while to get my temple recommend and things back. And there were disciplinary councils and things I had to go through. But yeah, I went through the changes that I want to try to make.

I—

sorry, I returned back to reading the scriptures again and reading a lot of like BYU devotionals and I was spending more time in apologetic platforms, Fair Mormon, Students Unscripted. I found a YouTube channel series, LDS Truth Claims. So whenever I came back, I wouldn't say I went back to being like orthodox because I felt like I was a lot more nuanced and there's a lot more messiness in church history. But I was trying to find answers to reconcile some of my doubts or issues and trying to go back to being faithful again. That makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, you know, returning to the church and going, you know, you, you've, you were, you grew up, you know, grew up with the experience of the church, you served the church, you had these, a period of time of reflection and review and, and a, a wrestle, uh, you know, you talked about the dark night of the soul and you've gone through these different periods of, of, uh, evolution, if you like, in your faith. You've now returned to the church, you're in full fellowship with the church. When you get, you know, the church is, there's a lot of focus right now, uh, even more than probably ever with church members to walk the covenant path or to, to attend the temple as, uh, as regular as, uh, circumstances permit, quoting President Nelson. So when you are, if you've been asked the 15 yes or no temple questions, um, which you may have been asked already, I don't know. But if you know, how do you answer those questions in regards to, um, you know, where your beliefs are now? Have you been asked those questions? And, and if you were asked those questions with, with the goal of, of getting you back to, you know, under the, onto the covenant path, which is the prime goal with members, how have you responded, or how would you respond to those questions if you haven't been asked them?

No, good question. No, I did. I did get my temple recommend back. I think like, I believed again, after these experiences, I did believe again in the foundational truth claims of the church. You know, I believed in again, in the First Vision, despite some of the discrepancies or controversies. I believed again in, in the Restoration and the angel coming with gold plates. I believed in the divine origin of the Book of Mormon, despite some of the controversies with regards to translation or naturalistic theories or historicity. I believed again in the restoration of priesthood keys and that this, this was Christ's restored church. So I went back to believing in some of those foundational things. So I felt like I could answer those questions again. But I think what's still been a process is then navigating through views of like prophets or scripture or complicated things in church history, because I couldn't go back to the previous paradigms I had that everything the prophets say is the mind and will of God. They always teach the truth. In light of, you know, what I know about things in church history, and even scripture viewing it as inerrant and perfect and literally word for word in light of the text of the Book of Mormon or revisions made or changes to revelations. So there are some paradigms or views that I knew I have to try to reconstruct or evolve in some ways. I couldn't go back to the same faith or the same views that I had, certainly when it comes to Book of Mormon geography as well. But I would say for the most part, I feel like I returned to believing in the foundational truth claims. All right.

Interesting. Just something. One of the things that you said, some extraordinary things. And one of the things I picked up on was as I was listening to your experience that you were going through this faith evaluation reconstruction, you were asking questions of whether or not the revelation came from God, you know, you know, you went through this entire experience and process of, you know, was God speaking to you? And, and there were times you felt he was, and there were times that you weren't sure. Um, there's the intellectual component to, I still am a bit like that, which, which, which is, uh, you know, which is great. I mean, you, you, we have these spiritual experiences, uh, you know, with the heart and we feel through the heart and we feel the spirit through the heart. And then our brain, uh, as intellectuals, we ask questions, and, and sometimes we accept the spiritual revelation, um, you know, because it makes sense intellectually, and sometimes, sometimes we don't. And you've gone through this, um, this, uh, wrestle, if you like, with the mind and the heart. But my question to you, if I may, is, do you— how do you attribute the spiritual, uh, experience of the revelation? Is that, in your mind, a confirmation that the church is True, and perhaps the only true church on the face of the earth, or is it spiritual revelation or confirmation that the universal principles that the church practices and believes, like many other church faiths, like love and service and kindness, forgiveness, repentance, and long-suffering? So the question is, do you attribute these spiritual experiences and your returning back to the church as being based on universal principles that I just mentioned, or do you attribute the spiritual experiences to a confirmation or reaffirmation that the church is the only true church upon the face of the earth, and most of it is in fact factually correct? What, um, what do you attribute those, uh, spiritual experiences? What, what is that telling you, do you think?

That's a great question. If, if indeed, if those spiritual experiences were real and from God, I feel like the confirmation or the answer I got was specifically with regards to the words I was reading in the Book of Mormon and the revelations and Joseph Smith. I felt like I received confirmations about that. I think by implication I went back to believing in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But of course, there's, there's other branches of the Restoration that would believe in Restoration scripture. But that doesn't mean that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the Lord's restored church. I do believe in that. I would still believe in, you know, our views about Restoration and priesthood keys and such. But I think I'm, I'm a lot more open compared to what I was as a missionary to believing that there's a lot more truth and goodness outside the church, that we don't have a monopoly on truth or a monopoly on spiritual experiences. So I might have thought in the past that somebody prayed and they feel like they should be in their religion. I would think, well, that wouldn't be from God because God would want everyone to come join the Mormon Church. Like, that doesn't make any sense. So I think I see that there's lots of really— there's good, there's truth in other religions. And I don't know necessarily if God would want everyone to convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I guess for me, I interpret it as either this is the Lord's restored church, but mainly this is where he wants me to be. I felt called to come back to it. Um, but yeah, I, I do believe in, in the Restoration, and I think in the priesthood keys and in our church's truth claims. But I'm certainly a lot more open to the goodness and truth that other churches have as well.

You know, it's really fascinating to hear you talk about this because it, it's in many ways, I think, parallels my own experience when you're talking about the idea that the thing that's most compelling to you is that this is where God wants you. That's really where I landed when— I mean, I've gone through a number of different sort of evaluations, reevaluations, constructions, reconstructions. But the most recent kind of crisis I had was in the wake of the 2015 policy. And that was the very clear answer I received was, this is where I have put you. This is where I want you. This is where you can do the most good. But I want to jump back very quickly. It's fascinating to me that you would cite Elder Corbridge's talk as a seminal moment for you in your faith journey, because I, at the risk of getting into trouble, I found that talk deeply, deeply frustrating.

It's funny that—

well, because it's actually after I wrote my CES letter reply and I started the rounds on a bunch of podcasts, and when I first started talking to Bill Reel, which was the first time I had done a podcast with somebody else to talk about this stuff. He brought up that talk and, and I initially just said, I really have a problem with that talk because I sort of separate that talk into two different places. You talked about the idea that he felt this sort of gloom when he was reading critical material. And so the first half of that talk, I describe it as, I've read it all so you don't have to. Don't put yourself through that bloom. Don't put yourself through all the difficulty of confronting this material. I've already done it and I'm still in the church, so just trust me. And I found that to be sort of a disingenuous message. As you know, but the thing that really frustrated me was the second half where he talked about, as you've recounted here, this idea of primary and secondary questions. And he says, okay, here are the primary questions. Only ask these questions. Don't ask these secondary questions. Don't be worried about all this other stuff until you've answered the primary questions. And the reason I find that frustrating is that we no longer have a choice as to what questions are primary and what questions are secondary. And when I say we, I mean the church. The church no longer has a choice to define. So often, Brad Wilcox, for instance, when he got caught with his fireside where everybody was getting mad at him for talking about why didn't the whites get the priesthood until 1829? He kept saying, maybe we're asking the wrong questions. And I don't think there's such a thing as the wrong questions. I think we have to answer people's questions as they come. You know, if one of the primary questions that Elder Corbridge outlines is, is Joseph Smith a prophet? Okay, well, if I just read about Joseph Smith marrying Helen Mar Kimball, a 14-year-old girl, and I'm very concerned that Joseph Smith, who was married to a number of women, is now marrying teenagers— if that's a concern to me, I'm going to have a very hard time even considering the primary question of whether or not he's a prophet, because I am so concerned about the fact that I don't think a prophet should be marrying 14-year-old girls. Right now, I, I mean, I do think— and the thing is, I think very often this whole idea of only ask the right questions, don't ask the wrong questions, is proceeding from a place of fear, is proceeding from a place of don't ask those questions because we don't have good answers to those questions. Ask us the questions we have good answers to so we can be confident in answering them. And I'm of the opinion that there are actually good answers to some of those thorny, difficult secondary questions. You know, when you, when you start to consider the reality of Joseph Smith's sealing to Helen Mar Kimball, it's very clear it was not a sexual relationship, that Helen Mar Kimball's father presented this as a sort of dynastic link between the Kimball and the Smith families. And although it's still very problematic on a number of different levels, sure. But when, when you actually sort of confront the difficult, thorny questions, I think that's the only way that you can, I believe, maintain faith in the face of these sorts of things. The idea of putting something on a shelf, just trying to not think about something that is troubling to you, I don't think that's a good long-term solution. I think the way you have done it, Stephen, is the way to do it, because, I mean, you, you didn't shy away from any of these questions. You confronted them head on. And then you started to realize as you were diving into the difficult stuff Hey, you know, there's more here than I was giving them credit for. These witnesses, you know, the CES Letter focuses really heavily on the Book of Mormon and makes so many different scattered arguments against the Book of Mormon that weaken each other. You know, here's my explanation for the Book of Mormon, and here's another explanation for the Book of Mormon, and here's another contradictory explanation for the Book of Mormon. And it's like, well, the fact that you have 5 different explanations for the Book of Mormon's existence means you really don't have an explanation for the Book of Mormon's existence. I am— in other words, I just— it's a much thornier road. It's a much more difficult road to go and actually confront all that stuff because you have to look at some ugly things straight in the face. Yeah, you have to look at Brigham Young's abject racism. There's no other way to describe it. And realize how much damage it did to the church and realize that the priesthood ban that was in place for 125 years was rooted in something that probably was not divine. I mean, you have to be able to confront that and say, can I reconcile my faith with the reality of the messiness of all of this, with the fallibility of Brigham Young, with the fallibility of Joseph Smith? And, and I think when you can do that and when one of the answers you can give to some difficult questions is, well, on that occasion they got it wrong. If you're not able to ever give that answer, I don't think you have a sustainable faith. And I think, Stephen, you have really modeled a way to have a sustainable faith because your faith is rooted in your direct encounters with the divine, your direct experiences with God, who has let you know that his hand is in this church and that this church is where he wants you. Is that— I mean, is that an accurate description, or am I—

Yeah, I have a couple of thoughts going through my head, because I agree with you. I totally agree with you, Jim Bennett. And if people watch my channel, the ironic thing is, is that it's all about the supposed secondary question, shall we say. It's, it's digging into church history topics and truth claim topics. I'll maybe share an experience there that prompted me to start the channel. So I totally agree with you that we, we just can't say to people, well, if you have a testimony that Joseph Smith is a prophet, then that already answers the concerns about polygamy or treasure digging, or you already have a testimony about the Book of Mormon, so don't worry about King James Bible error. Like, no, the secondary questions, they're still important. They still matter., and they can call into question your, your testimony, or your spiritual conviction that you thought you had of it. And I agree with you that we can't hide away or put things on a shelf. And I'll sort of share what led me to start the YouTube channel. But on the flip side, I think, I guess, maybe I should re-listen to his talk again, because I think a lot of people take from his talk that he's saying, Oh, don't worry about the secondary questions, just focus on the primary ones. And at that time, I felt like the message that I took from it was more that I could spend the next 40 years of my life reading all the literature on the Book of Mormon, all the apologetics, all the evidence, all, all the things that have naturalistic theories, all the criticisms, all the problems. And if I may get to the end of my life I never really determined one way or another where I fall down. Or if I say I think the apologetics have good responses, the critical things, if I came to that conclusion, it still ultimately wouldn't answer for you if it's true. I think ultimately it ultimately comes down to a spiritual witness, a spiritual answer. That's what I took from his talk. But on the other side, continuing sort of with the story, Over the next couple of years, I kind of put some things on the shelf. I kind of dealt with some things, but I still had a lot of big question marks. Joseph Smith's polygamy, Book of Abraham, prophetic fallibility. And it was back in 2022, over that past year, I had a lot of friends and family members leaving the church again. I began listening to different podcasts. You know, you had gone on Mormon Stories. I think the Robert Ritner episodes had come out. Nemo had begun. Fair Mormon had done their response to the Sea of Slender, which are not fair Mormon. This is the show that kind of rattled me a bit. I didn't feel like they were great apologetic responses. I was sort of back in struggling with my faith again. I was listening to the LDS Discussion Series and I was intellectually back in a crisis. I'd had these spiritual experiences and there were still some interesting apologetic things that I had here to the side. But I was rebombarded with all of the issues. And I think, you know, encountering more criticisms of the Book of Mormon or Book of Abraham were things with biblical scholarship and implications on the Book of Mormon, which weren't so much part of my first faith crisis. So I was back again in sort of the spring to summer of 2022, back in an intellectual faith crisis and feeling conflicted between my spiritual experiences and all these doubts and issues I had. And there are people turning to me who are friends and family members being like, well, you came back to the church, what's your answers to this? And I wasn't satisfied with my explanations in those conversations. I still had a lot of books on my shelf. And, um, do you mind if I just share a quick experience with you about what sort of was the catalyst we started the channel? Um, and again, um, people like roll their eyes at this experience, but But, um, it, it was quite a big catalyst for me starting the channel. Over the previous 6 months, I was back again in a deep faith crisis. The analogy I would give to how I felt was like I was in a boxing ring, and I was just up against the ropes, just getting hit with so many punches and just on the defense. And I felt for myself that I just, I didn't know how to answer a lot of these issues. I was reminded that I feel like there are some good arguments or good issues. And I feel like I'm up against the ropes. I don't know if I can, if I can stay in the church, uh, and keep, keep believing. And I was also struggling with God during this time. I felt like a couple years prior I had all these spiritual experiences and like light and truth coming from heaven. And then over this period of like 6 to 9 months, it was like the heavens were closed. God wasn't answering my prayers. I felt alone. I felt like I was wrestling with deep issues, problem of evil and suffering in the world, deep truth claim issues. And it came to a point where it was, um, July of 2022 where I'd already considered the idea of starting a YouTube channel and wanting to do a channel that explored these church history issues, really trying to dive in and to— let's look at what the critics have to say, let's try to represent their arguments, let's try to look at the apologetics and the faithful arguments and evidence. And then it's a way for me to try and navigate through, can I align the intellectual and spiritual, but also to try to put forth a channel that try to be somewhat balanced, somewhat fair, um, to do my own episodes, also interview people. Um, it was July '22, and, um, me and my wife had planned to go to Wimbledon that summer. Uh, it was a dream of mine to go to Wimbledon, go to Centre Court. Uh, we came all the way traveled all the way down from the north of England down to London, camped overnight. Like, like, we were, we were gung-ho. Um, the plan was to see Nadal and Djokovic on Centre Court, which is like my dream. Usually at Wimbledon you can camp the night before and get a ticket to go on Centre Court, but when we got there, all the tickets were sold out on semifinals day. That's not a thing for men's semifinals. So then we had to stay in the tent the full day, and we had ticket came up. No ticket came up. So on the day of, of the match, we entered in the Wimbledon grounds and we had to go— it's called a resale ticket booth— to see if you could get a ticket. So if some wealthy person who couldn't be bothered to stay would give up their, their seat, you could go on. So we've been queuing for like the best part of a couple of days. And FYI, we'd carried like all of our luggage, we parked like 45 minutes away. It was raining really heavy. So we're having like an awful time where we're really stressed out. And we come all this way to just get on Centre Court. The, the Djokovic match had started. And they let a few people in. So we were like 25 in the queue. And they'd let about 3 or 4 people in. And that just stopped. And for about 30, 40 minutes, the queue wasn't moving. I remember thinking to myself, we're not getting on. Um, nobody's gonna leave now that we're in like a set and a half into the Djokovic match. And I remember, I remember listening to a podcast that morning. It was an LDS Discussions podcast, either on like the Tower of Babel or Noah and the Flood. I remember just feeling like, where are you, God? Like, I have all these issues. I, I don't know how to combat all these attacks against the truth claims. And I think I might have to jump ship. And I remember being in that line feeling really angry. I call the story the Piss Prayer. I was really pissed at God and I was in my mind, but I was kind of like yelling a little bit. I was just like, God, I was like, you've let me down. I was like, you know what I've been going through these past 6, 9 months? The faith struggles, the dark night of the soul. I have been praying to you endlessly for months and you're not answering my prayers. I've got all these issues. I was like, we've come all this way to go on to Centre Court at Wimbledon. I was like, I'm not asking for a miracle. I'm not asking you to part the Red Sea or move a mountain. Just bloody get us on to Centre Court, Wimbledon, or else I think I'm done with the church. I might— I'm out of here. And then we just crossed the man, and then I prayed again. I was like, sorry for the rant, please help us get on to Wimbledon Centre Court. And about a minute later, he led us all on to Wimbledon Centre Court. We had a great time. We watched Djokovic's match. It was awesome. And I had this impression as we were leaving, and if I were to put it into words, it was a very distinct impression. And I've always struggled with knowing, is it the Spirit? Is it me? But this impression just seemed very profound, and it was as if the Lord was saying that, don't jump ship, but you need to confront your doubts. You have too many books on the shelf. But dive in and look at the best on both sides and include me this time. And that has sort of been my approach. I felt that I need to confront these things. I agree with that quote at the beginning of the CES Letter. If we have the truth, it cannot be harmed by investigation. And rather than, you know, I would get counsel from members. I remember my bishop told me like, stop doing research. Stop looking into these things, it will cause you to leave, just believe. But the, the impression— and I believe it was inspiration— was actually, no, you need to dive in deeper, you need to fully confront these things. Your faith will not remain intact, you've got too many books on your shelf. And I thought, my shelf is about to crash. And it was like God just gave a little screw in that moment. And the channel has been a time for me to fully explore and confront different issues and topics. With some, I feel like I've come through with faith on the other side. With others, it's— I maybe understand more of the context, so maybe it's become less of a smoking gun issue where I see both interpretations. And with some topics, I maybe feel like I lean more with the faithful apologetic position. And that's, that's kind of been my, my journey, um, since doing the, the YouTube channel. But that's— that experience, it still has stayed with me. In some ways. And of course, you could think, well, you're going to get on the Santa Carta anyway, you know, how do you not pray? And that's one of the things you'll never know. But I attributed that experience to God in that moment, not wanting me to throw in the towel and leave the church.

We've tried getting tickets to Santa Carta in the past when we lived in England, and it's easier to see the Red Sea parted Yeah, it's really good because we went this summer.

It's much better if you go now to the resale ticket booth. It's like an online, like a virtual queue. So you can go around the rest of the court, still enjoy your day, and then you can eventually get on. So we were like 1200 in the queue, but we got on at like 7 o'clock that evening. But 2 years ago, yeah, there was no virtual queue. You had to stay in the queue all day. And I think it was It was like raining the day before, but I think it was like 30 degrees or something that day. And it was awful. I was getting sunburnt. So that's a good thing that Wimbledon's done to update it.

And you put that, Steve, you put that experience as a, as a, a direct revelation, influence from God, or do you put part of that down to just luck?

Look, I think all my spiritual experience, I've had to wrestle with this, all of them. I could attribute to luck and coincidence, all of them. Um, I can't, I can't factually determine if they were from God. And ultimately, I think that's what faith is to an extent. It's not only having faith to have a spiritual experience, because then when you have a spiritual experience, there's still a choice to be had how you attribute it. It's, it's reasonable, rational, understandable to just say it was just a coincidence and it was just in your mind. But at the same time, maybe this was an answer to prayer. I guess people have to weigh up for themselves. At what point do you think it's not a coincidence, but maybe it is God speaking to you?

Yeah. And you've interestingly used a very interesting word for me, a trigger word for me that was communicated to me when I was going through my own faith crisis by people who, you know, my leaders and other people close to me. And the word is choice. They said to me very clearly that, um, uh, Ian, at the end of the day, you have to make a choice whether this church is for you or whether you believe it or not. It comes down to a choice. And I think that's a really important, uh, you know, word. And so, um, and this is a lot of meaning behind that for us. And so you've, um, you've gone through this whole experience, you know, a lot of emotional and intellectual and spiritual, uh, reconstruction. And in the— at the end of the day, you've made a choice to return to the church and to, uh, to live in, uh, in full fellowship. And you sound— it sounds like from your story, which is quite extraordinary, Stephen, um, you have found some semblance of peace, uh, you know, you're in a, um, a place that you feel you belong, um, it's where God wants you to be. And it sounds like you've, uh, you, you have some level of peace, uh, in the church. Is that, is that fair to say?

Yeah, I think, I think what I would say, uh, I can understand to those people who feel that it's not a choice whether to stay or leave the church. Whenever I was first in my faith crisis, those first couple of months, I didn't feel like there was a choice. I felt, um, almost like intellectually compelled to leave. I felt like it didn't hold up at that time based upon the information I was exposed to. I think in light of maybe some apologetic things that I thought, um, maybe counterbalanced some things, and then having those spiritual experiences, I feel like they— I feel like I needed more profound spiritual experiences to believe again. I think just a good feeling wouldn't have done it, so it maybe helped to combat a lot of issues and doubts, but it didn't eliminate it. And I could, I could still view it all as coincidences and elevation of emotion. And, and since being, being back, there's been periods of crisis and struggle. So it's not always been clean sailing. And sometimes I feel that the more research I do, I encounter things that can be seen as faith-promoting, whether it resolves an issue And then you got another big issue, you're like, damn it, uh, how do I cover this? And sometimes it can be an up and down journey. I by no means feel, which is part of my channel, that I have the answers, that I've resolved everything satisfactorily intellectually. Um, I, I'm still trying to navigate my way through, and I still sometimes struggle with doubts and, and issues. Um, but I feel like I've, I've chosen be, and, you know, where I feel called. I think at the moment, I guess I would say I feel like I left the church out of integrity. I also feel like I returned and stayed, um, out of integrity as well.

Uh, well, I, I'm glad you did, and I'm glad you're here. I think you are a, a voice of reason. I think you are Stephen Pyneaker likes to describe himself as the Switzerland of Mormonism. But I think you have that kind of same general energy as well, and that you're sort of the Switzerland of Mormonism coming from the place of a believer, a believer in the Restoration. And I think that I mean, I've watched many of the videos on your channel. You've interviewed some amazing people and some of whom we're going to— well, I don't want to let the cat out of the bag, but we're going to have some of these people on our podcast going forward. But I think you've been a trailblazer in having conversations with believers, with critics. And I just think You are a voice that the church desperately needs. And it has strengthened my faith. And I think you have strengthened the faith of many out there. Because you know that when Mormonism with the Murph is talking, that you're getting the straight dope. That you're getting, I mean, that you're not shying away from difficult questions, but you are confronting them from the aspect of a believer, and I'm very grateful for that. Ian, do you have anything you want to add to that?

Other than I have learned a great deal from you, Stephen, and I'm so grateful that you have taken the time to come on the Inside Outside podcast and share your experience. It's a very unique experience, you know, you in the church, you then left the church, you went through all this extraordinary experience intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, And now you are, um, you managed to navigate that. You know, you and I ever— I can relate to it so much, um, notwithstanding that I've taken a different path, uh, than you. You've returned to the church in, uh, in full, uh, fellowship. You've gone through that entire process, and it's, um, and it's a choice, and you've made that choice. And I just, uh, um, grateful that you are in a place of peace and and that you can make sense of a lot of it. So I think, yeah, to Jim Bennett's point, I think you are an important asset to the Church. You've gone through the experience, you've returned, and if I was your bishop or stake president, I would be utilizing your experience in talks and materials and learning from you to help others in the Church and those who are less active to navigate their faith. I think you're a very powerful instrument in the hands of the Church, and I hope that they're fully utilizing your experience and your knowledge of having gone through all that, you know, quite remarkable experience. So, thank you for joining us here today. It's been a real honor to meet with you, and again, I have complete respect for your position and where you are, and hope that you'll continue with you and your family to feel that peace and that acceptance in the Church.

So, thank you. Thank you. I guess I just want to say that I'm grateful you guys have me on. I think you two are great examples of having interfaith dialogue. It can be a very polarizing space to be in, and there can be a lot of emotions, a lot of anger and frustration. And I've certainly experienced that being myself out of the church or dialoguing with people who have left. I think you guys, uh, model really well how to— even if you don't agree, you might have different views or come to different conclusions— that you can dialogue in a respectful way, trying to understand the other person's point of view as well, not trying to be super combative. Because I think ultimately you want to try to have empathy and understanding, and our relationships with others is what matters most. Um, and we don't want them to break down whether someone leaves the church, stays in the church. Uh, our relationships are what matter most as well. So thanks so much for having me on, guys.

Thrilled to have you here, and let's— hopefully you'll come back. We'd love to have you back.

Sorry I dominated too much, really, with my story, and I know there's other things you wanted to, to talk about, but, um, yeah, thanks for letting me come on.

And Paul, I, it's— I think it's a powerful story, and, uh, and love to have you back and love to have you as part of the discussion. So Grateful to have you here, and we're grateful to all of you who are listening. Uh, please be sure to like and subscribe to our podcast. And until next week, we will see you next time on Inside Out.