A Live Discussion with Jeff Strong

I proclaim with all the power that is in me that the Inside Out Podcast is the only true and living podcast on the face of the whole earth with which I, Bruce Reginald McConkie, am well pleased, speaking unto the podcast collectively as well as individually. Hello and welcome to the Inside Out livestream. I'm Jim Bennett. I'm here with Ian Wilkes. Ian, how are you, sir?

Jim, I don't think I'm worthy to do this episode tonight.

I'm not sure if I am either. You were worthy to do the episode previously where, uh, our guest was here. Do you want to know why? Why?

Because I am drinking coffee.

Oh, geez.

And that makes me, that makes me unworthy for this conversation.

What have you done? Why would you do that?

I know, not just any coffee, the, the, from the coffee beans of Canada.

Oh, well, that, that's even worse.

There are no coffee beans in Canada.

We don't do coffee beans up here, in case you wanted to, but, uh, well, I brought My guess, my guess is that our guest will not be drinking coffee with you, but he is the author of Torn: Why People We Love Are Leaving the Church and What We Can Learn from Them. His book, I think, is just a huge part of the conversation right now, and I think is, is making a great difference. And I am just so excited to welcome Jeff Strong to the Inside Out livestream. Jeff Strong.

Hailie rise! Well, first of all, it's good to see Ian again. Ian, I thought our last conversation was top-notch. And Jim, it's so nice to meet you.

Thank you. Very nice to meet you. Just found out that you served in a bishopric with my cousin Bruce Bennett.

Yes, I did.

Which I just think is wonderful. So it's a very small world in the church.

It is.

Well, so Jeff, we have a lot of people that are going to want to ask you questions here. And we've got comments that are just starting to come in. Our good friend Bruce Butcher says, one review of Jeff's book said this book should be part of the standard works. I agree. This book is so needed. So I actually listened to your audiobook, and I just found it to be just a revelation. I just thought this is something that That this is part of a conversation that so many people just don't want to have. Yeah, but it's such a necessary conversation. And since you spoke with Ian, you've— a lot— a bit more time has passed and you've seen a bit more of the reaction to your book. What has the reaction been?

Yeah, you know, it's been, it's been really fascinating. Can I, can I give it to you kind of in a couple of different layers?

Please.

You know, let me, let me just sort of talk the nature of what I see in the community. And I took a few notes here, guys. So bear with me as I kind of go through those. But I think the response to the book's been overwhelmingly positive among people who actually read it. The dominant reaction is that it's a compassionate, faithful, necessary and unusually helpful to families trying to understand someone who left. I'm really happy with what I'm seeing in the, you know, at some point the results matter. And so the book has been number 1 on Amazon in all LDS categories from the first week it launched and has been for 14 consecutive weeks. 93% of the ratings on Amazon have been 4 or 5 star. With an overall rating of 4.7. And so it's clearly, clearly striking a chord. And I enjoy reading the Amazon comments because they're real people who read the book and they're talking about what it meant to them. There's also a serious but smaller critical conversation, and I wouldn't be honest if I didn't say the book has drawn out some criticism. So some faithful critics believe that, that the methodological limitations in my research are big enough that you can't take the findings seriously. Of course, I disagree with that assessment. There are research limitations, and maybe we can talk about those tonight, but I think the research is reliable and sound in spite of those limitations, as long as we're honest about the limitations. Some people suggest that maybe the book paints some church members too negatively. It maybe puts too much responsibility on culture instead of individual agency, or on the post-Mormon side, on the doctrine and church leaders and the responsibility of the institution. So, so you've got, you've got critics kind of on both poles. And, and so I would say that's probably a good overview of the the basic reaction so far?

Well, I sort of jumped into the fray, uh, in that, uh, the Interpreter Foundation— and I've written some articles for them in the past, and, uh, I know Dan Peterson fairly well and, uh, I'm a big fan of Dan Peterson's and of the Interpreter Foundation— the Interpreter Foundation published a really sort of scathing review of your book by, uh, Dan Ellsworth and Ian Neufeld. Something to Dan Ellsworth in your Thoughtful Faith group. Uh, but, uh, I think, I thought that that review actually epitomized what you're talking about.

Yeah.

That the reaction is very positive among people who actually read it. And you read this review and he completely sidesteps all of the data and pretty much all of your conclusions and says, Jeff Strong should realize that the problem is therapy culture.

Yeah.

And, and just all these things that had absolutely no data to back them up. And Dan Peterson was gracious enough to sort of post my rebuttal. So I, I reviewed the book and, and sort of rebutted, uh, that. But the Interpreter Foundation within the last couple of days has published another review by a guy named Tyler Rasmussen. And this seems to be somewhat in the middle. I mean, it doesn't seem to be nearly as, I mean, frankly ignorant as Dan Ellsworth's review was, but at the same time, it's, it's calling into question a lot of the, a lot of the, what you're talking about, the methodological approach that you took. Do you, can, can you just sort of address that at least in broad terms?

Yeah, yeah.

And let me, Let me start with kind of the, you know, you mentioned the first Interpreter article and then Kyle's article, and then there have been, I think, 2 other critical pieces. So in general, the themes across the critical pieces are similar. They're not always the same. And, you know, I'm a supporter of people wading into the public square and expressing their points of view. So You know, I read those criticisms and I internalize those. What I'd like to do is focus on Kyle Rasmussen's criticism that just barely ran in The Interpreter briefly, and then, then I can dive into the, the methodological issues. So Kyler, I thought Kyler's article was pretty good. I, you know, I, I don't, I don't agree with how he frames some of it, and I don't agree with some of his conclusions, but let me talk about what I really liked about what Kyler did. Number one, he reached out to me before he wrote the article. Okay? And so I not only had a very civil, positive conversation with him, I let him inside the tent and I gave him access to the, a more elaborate research report than is published in the book. Number 2, he read the book cover to cover very, very thoughtfully. And I know that because he picked up nuance in the book, and he cited it in his article that you would only pick up if you read it very slowly and very carefully. Number 3, he very accurately represented the premises of the book, and it was clear to me that he understood what I was saying. He made the effort to fully understand what I was saying, and he conveyed that in the article. And then he levied his criticisms. And so, Jim, I have a really hard time having a problem with Kyler Rasmussen and his write-up. You know, it's like, that's, that's what dialogue is supposed to look like.

You may disagree, but it's an important point of view. Yeah.

So it was, it was great. And I, I haven't had a chance to fire Kyler a note, but I'm going to, and I'm going to just thank him for what I thought was a really serious piece of work. It was like 35 pages long. I don't know if you counted the pages, but it was a, it was a really serious piece, piece of work. And he started it clear.

I haven't read the whole review. I have to confess that at the outset too, but I have not read the review.

So, you know, kudos to Kyle, Kyler, for a serious piece of work and a quality criticism. I applaud that. So look, I'm going to briefly talk about the methodological issues and I'll echo some of what Kyler said, and then I'll tell you why I think they're overstated. And so, you know, in a vacuum, if you say, okay, we wanted to go out, we had really simple objectives. We want a better answer Not a perfect answer, but a better answer to the questions, how many people are actually leaving? Why are they leaving? And what role is our church culture playing in either amplifying or relieving the concerns that cause them to leave? That was it. Really simple. And in a perfect world, you would go out and do what Kyler is asking for. You know, you'd do a probability sample that is statistically generalizable to the total population of Latter-day Saints in the United States. Such a piece of research has never been done, and I doubt it ever will be. And there's a reason. It's not only cost prohibitive. My best estimate is it would cost several million dollars to do that study, but it's also practically unfeasible because getting a full spectrum of Latter-day Saints, the recruiting process, and actually getting a representative sample of every person in the, you know, of the full Latter-day Saint community from hard out to very devout and everything in between, really, really hard to do. Now, I'm not, you know, I'm not dumb. And so I knew that the gold standard was a representative sample. I have 9 PhDs on my advisory board. I have 3 men that worked a combined 50-plus years doing research as church employees. And so we discussed that issue. And the consensus was it's just not practically feasible to do a statistical probability sample. And if we do a stratified convenience sample well enough, we'll get directionally correct information that's reliable. You can't generalize it to the population with precision, but in general, you'll get broad conclusions that are going to be pretty reliable. And then what you do is you look for all other external sources of data, like the Pew Religious Landscape Studies, the Harvard Cooperative Election Study, the General Social Survey done by the University of Chicago, and you, you try to find if there are any inconsistencies that would really challenge what you've gotten. And then the last thing you do is you run it by people who have been doing research on Latter-day Saints for 30 or 40 years. Including those that actually work for the church and say, is there anything in this dataset that you believe is not reliable, that is inconsistent with other research you've done? Because we don't want to put it out there if it is, right? So that was the approach we took. Now, what does that really mean? Our study was not a probability sample. You cannot generalize it to the total Latter-day Saint population in the US with precision reliably. So we state that clearly and say we shouldn't do that. Number 2, it was an opt-in survey, which is very common in social sciences. So there's the possibility of bias. It doesn't automatically mean there's bias, but you can't rule out bias. There probably is bias. People that opt in to take surveys are a little different than people who would prefer not to take surveys, right? So you just have to acknowledge that openly and say, it's, you know, again, you can't generalize precisely to the population. But it, but it doesn't mean the data is not incredibly useful to get better answers than we have before. And so sometimes the way this is framed is, well, we couldn't do a probability sample, which is the only reliable way to do research, therefore we should do nothing. That's completely false. I don't know any world-class researchers that would say that. What they would say is they would say, We'd love to do a probability sample, but since we can't, let's do the next best thing because that's massively better than relying on anecdote, rumor, and speculation. And so on one hand, we have probability samples. On the other hand, we have wild speculation, folklore, and myth. And in the middle, we've got our survey calibrated by other national representative surveys. That give us better answers, but not perfect answers. Now, it's funny because metaphorically, and then I'll wrap this up and you can, we can talk further. So let, I, I, look, I, this is probably a poorly chosen metaphor because I don't, I don't like to use the metaphor of the Titanic when talking about our church, right? I don't think the church is the Titanic, but this is a really good metaphor, so forgive me. So this is a little bit like a debate over how long was the gash in the side of the boat and how are we going to measure it and getting consumed by that instead of getting people in the lifeboats.

Okay.

And so nobody disputes there's a gash in the side of the boat. Nobody disputes the gash is big. We— there are strong differences of opinion about how big the gash is and how it should be measured so it's reliable. And the more time we spend debating that, the less time we're going to have to get people in the boats. So I've got energy for the methodological debate because I feel very confident in what we did. I feel confident about how we're articulating the limitations, but where 95% of my energy is, is for the people and the boats. So that's where I focus my time and energy.

No, that makes an awful lot of sense. And I think that's exactly the right kind of approach to this. Uh, what's stunning to me is how blithely, and I, I hate to keep going back to that Dan Ellsworth review, but that's what sort of drew me into the conversation. But just how blithely, uh, people dismiss all of your findings out of hand.

Yeah.

And, and how angry your findings seem to be making people.

Yes, that's right.

I mean, the fact that you're not saying, well, people leave the church Because they're lazy and they want to sin and every other kind of denigrating thing that you can say about people who leave the church. Uh, you, you read your book and you don't come away with that impression. And that impression apparently is very dear to a lot of people.

Yeah.

For whatever reason. Are you encountering that?

Yeah, you know, I am, but let me give, let me sort of give it to you proportionally, because I, it's, it's, it's the same as it is in a lot of aspects of life. Sometimes the people who are the most passionate and loudest in their arguments are a very tiny minority. So I go back to who's reading the book. Okay. And among those who are reading the book, 93% of them have given it either a 4 or a 5-star rating. 80% of them have given it a 5-star rating. And, you know, for an overall rating of 4.7, and it's number one, the number one LDS book for 14 straight weeks, I think that at the end of the day speaks volumes for how this is being received in the community. And I can talk a little bit about what I'm learning about what the sentiments are on the positive side, and I'll do that. But let me address your question, Jim. I think there are people who are very, very critical of the research and the book. You've named one person that is. There were a few others that wrote articles. Their level of criticism is passionate, to be sure. And I think it's because I'm— part of what I'm poking at, I mean, I think you said a minute ago that The first article in The Interpreter sort of, it sort of became a proof for the arguments I'm making in the book, right?

Yeah.

It became evidence of what I'm arguing is happening in the book. And so I'm poking at the protector, gatekeeper, boundary policer part of our culture. Now, I want to emphasize that I don't think that that's bad. There's a role. There's a role for that to play, but it always has to be tempered by some balance and some wisdom and consideration of other factors.

I'd go on record that I think it's bad. Yeah.

Yeah.

Just so you know.

Well, I should have said this. I thought your response, and I'm not, you know, of course I'm biased because I appreciated your support, Jim, but I thought your response was incredibly powerful and well-written. Because you've read the book and you've thought about the issues, and so you were able to write a very persuasive and powerful argument. So I think that's that where there has been vitriol, I think it's because I'm poking at that part of our culture that is pharisaical and imbalanced, and that the people that really want the church to be very small, homogeneous, orthodox. And just, you know, like them. And that is very threatening to their identity, right? So whenever you go at something from a perspective of, I'm talking about identity that you might resemble, you're going to evoke very strong personal responses. I knew that would happen. It's actually been less than I thought it would be.

Oh, good. Well, Ian, you're looking very thoughtful here as you're listening to this. What's your reaction to all of this?

First, I haven't stopped thinking about that conversation that you and I had, Jeff, a few weeks ago. It was like it was just me and you in the room. You're one of the most gracious, kindest, compassionate individuals and the perfect author and researcher for this. Jim would be another one. Greg Prince would be another one. And I thought over the last few weeks since we had that conversation, if anyone I could have a conversation with about going back to church, it would be you. I just connected with you in a very personal and spiritual way, and I'm very grateful for that. I think your objectives of the book are being achieved as we speak. Your methodology, research methodology is broken down into 2 essential components, positivistic and phenomenological. And I think you've done, in terms of your research methodology, you've done really well by measuring people's feelings and thoughts, which are difficult to measure, quantify numerically. It's very difficult to quantify them. We've also qualified and quantified some of the hard issues as well. As I've observed the reaction to your book, I've seen a range of different reactions from my—

Oh shoot. I think we've just lost—

Which is incredible gratitude and just so grateful that people like you exist and that you've written this book. I think it's a conversation I think the church would like to have like this, but can't or won't yet at least. Ranging from to me talking about this in a group called Thoughtful Saints is one of them, and seeing some very negative and somewhat hostile reactions to the book, challenging the methodology, challenging the research. I've even heard or read comments that people leave, people like me leave because And I find this very, not as painful now, but I did in the past. They say that people like me never really believed.

Yeah.

That somebody who gave their life at the age of 16 years old to join the church, was thrown out, lived homeless with that dog, a local bishop took me in and committed my life, served a mission, served a mission with Jim, came back and, you know, raised a family and still raising part of the family. And, uh, you know, had all the, you know, different callings and really devoted. I really was in, I was completely in.

Yeah.

I was the real thing. Um, I was the authentic, I believed. And, you know, when the issues came up, I tried everything to make it work. I wanted it to be right. I tried desperately to, To squeeze this round peg into this square shape, even hammering it in. Because I was, because without, without the church being correct on, on all these things, what else is there? What else do I have? It was the organization that saved my life at the age of 16, and I still attribute to the church that you and I talked about that. And I owe so much to the church. I needed and wanted it to be right desperately. So to read and hear that, uh, someone like me and other people left because we never really believed and we never were serious, we didn't have enough faith, you were not worthy, is, it's hard not to be hurt by that. I, I, I say that I'm not hurt and offended. I'm not being honest. I am. It still, it still hurts and it, it, it, it breaks my heart. And so I'm so grateful to you and, and to what you've written, your, your approach, your structure, your methodology, your honesty. Of course, any book is going to have gaps and issues in it. You talk about a gash. I think you said earlier that some people, I think people acknowledge that there's a gash in the boat. I think you said that, if I'm correct.

Yes.

I think there are people out there, Jeff, that say there is no gash. There is no fault with the church. There's nothing wrong with the church. And if you leave, it's you, it's not the church. So the church is not at fault, no matter what you say or think or feel, et cetera. It's not the church, it's you. And so this is such an important conversation to so many. We're all trying to figure out life and trying to find a path back to God and trying to, you know, do our best and need faith, need God, need friends, and need community and need to be able to have these conversations in a respectful, civil, safe way that you cannot have at church. Can you imagine if we could have a conversation like this right now in church on a Sunday and talk about these things? I don't think that is possible in most, you know, units, most congregations. If you ask the wrong question or even the right question in that comes across as doubting, self-doubting. And I think the book has been very successful, and this is really important, this, at bringing to the surface and highlighting and exposing that mentality, including the names that Jim mentioned who are in that group, by the way, who have not really understood it in its In the power that exists within the book. I think it brings to the surface these people in the church that are absolutely fixed. They're strict. They're in this lane. They can't think outside the box. And if you're thinking or you're behaving or you're living outside, even just a small step outside, then you're not conforming. You're not a true member of the church. You're kind of a Jack Mormon. And the book, amongst other successes that it's achieved, has done a really good job and is doing a really good job at bringing those people out into the public because then we can see it for what it is. The stark contrast between that very narrow-minded, often sometimes cruel, sometimes nasty and hostile and and not Christlike attitudes at all. It's important to highlight and expose that thinking because that is contrary and opposite to what Christ felt and thought. And I thought if Christ was involved in the survey or part of it or reading the book, that he would approach it in a kind and respectful way and be interested in people's questions and concerns and actually listen. There's a relationship between loving someone and caring for someone and listening to them. actually caring about people. I mean, you've been a leader in the church. You, Jim, you've been a leader. Members respond. People respond to us when they know you're genuine and you're real and you care and you give a damn and you care about their soul and you care about their life. And so the book really is opening these kinds of conversations. So this is such an important conversation. These are so important topics. One question I had for you is, or 2 questions actually, Can you just expound a bit on the relationship between the questions, you know, we talked about different research methodologies, the questions that you asked in your survey and the relationship with church-related questions, like the questionnaires that the church often puts out? That's one question. Is there a correlation there? Did you, I think you've kind of alluded that you kind of benchmarked some of the church questions, which would make sense to me if you did that. And the other question is, what's been the reaction, formal or otherwise, from the church? So 2 questions.

Yeah, no problem. Hey, Ian, let me just briefly, you know, say thank you for all your kind words there. Acknowledge that the blind spot that you are talking about is prevalent. I, and I knew that going in. I actually have data in the book where I reference that blind spot. And part of what you are raising in your comments is this question, who gets to define why people left the church, the people who leave or the people who stay and watch them leave. So who's a better judge ultimately of the reasons people choose to step away, those that do it or those that don't do it and watch them? And I think that question has come to the surface. And I also appreciate that you recognize, and as I do, that the book is doing its job so far, right? The conversation this is triggering has been tremendous. I get letters and emails through the website that I'm saving because they're so illustrative of the tearing that people have experienced and trying to battle through that. Some end up out, some end up in, but what they share is this deep relational powerful experience of trying to wrestle their way through this. You asked 2 good questions, sort of number one, the relationship between my research and what the church does is— did I get that right? So what's, what's the relationship there? Or how do we think about those 2 things together? And has there been a response from the church?

Did I get that? You did. Yes.

So I want to be really, really clear. I would never want anybody to misunderstand this. There was no coordination between me and the church on this research. Zero. Okay. And while I did spend 2 and a half years doing work for the church, I do respect the fact that church employees sign nondisclosure agreements, and I won't talk about the details of that work. But I can answer your question because it doesn't require me to. And so the first connection between the work the church does and my research is I did work for the church for 2 and a half years, right? So I was privy to all of the research they've ever done. on disaffiliation and the role that culture might be playing. And then I personally participated in probably the largest research project the church has ever done. I don't know that for a fact, but it was a massive project, and I personally participated in that. I helped shape the research design, and I went to the research sites, not all of them because they were all over the world, but I went to many of them. And so my perspective and my work was deeply informed by my experience doing work for the church. That would be the first connection. The second connection is that I developed relationships as a result of doing that work, people in the church that are my friends. And by the way, I want to be really straight about this. All of us respect the appropriate boundaries that the church asks us to respect. So I don't talk about the details of what I did or any of my findings now that I'm not working for the church. And I don't ask my friends questions I'm not supposed to ask, and they don't give me information they're not supposed to give me. Okay, we're all honest people. We respect those boundaries and we operate inside those. But here's what I do do is I, I expose them to the research design. to the questionnaire and I say, how can we make this better? Do you see any issues with this? Will this give us reliable data? And they gave me feedback and they said, well, I think you need to change this. This would be better to do it this way. And then when the data came in, of course I shared the data with them and I said, let's go through the data and I want you to help me make sense of it, interpret it, and most importantly, I want you to tell me if any of my data is inconsistent with what you've seen in the past from your work. Right now, of course, any smart person would do that. You don't want to do research, put it in the public domain, and have it be directly in conflict with the church's own data.

Right.

That would be, that would be damaging to the church, damaging to the community. It would certainly ruin your own reputation. So why in the world would I do that when I don't have to? I can show them the data and they can tell me, that is very consistent, Jeff. This is different than what we see. So you probably shouldn't use it right now. I can tell you in all those conversations, overwhelmingly, they just affirmed that the findings we were getting from our research were consistent with the findings they'd consistently seen from the church in all of their years of work. Now, obviously, we're not going to talk about those church findings. But what I can tell you is, Our confidence level was pretty high that we got data that is very useful for getting to better answers, not perfect answers, not answers without limitations, but much better answers than having no answers. Does that help on question 1, Ian?

It does very much so. Thank you so much. And then after the next question, Jim, I think we should probably get into some of these questions because we've got a whole bunch of questions. Coming in. Go ahead. You want to go for these? Try the second question.

Yeah, the second question is, what, if any, responses I gotten from the church? Almost none. So the only criticism that's come in are the articles that we've been talking about that were in the Interpreter Public Square in Meridian. I'm not aware of any others. There may have been. I think there was one in Wheat and Tares and one in Exponent 2 that were— that had some criticism in them, but were generally supportive. So there's been no, zero blowback from the church, and I'm grateful for that. I worked very hard to write a book that was not critical of the church as an institution, didn't challenge our doctrines, and didn't criticize church leaders. I tried to write with a tone that was respectful and that honored the things that devout and believing members like Jim and I love. While also respecting the experiences of people who have left in like you. And, and I think for those reasons, there hasn't really been any blowback from the church. The only thing I will say, in addition to that, is I've gotten some correspondence from a handful of church leaders expressing gratitude and support for what I was doing. I don't want to say more than that, but I appreciated those. Notes of encouragement. That doesn't mean they were necessarily, you know, endorsing the book, but they were recognizing my effort to help the church and the saints, and they wanted to express that to me in a positive way, and they did. And so that's all I've gotten so far.

I think that's wonderful, and I think it's, it's really remarkable to me how many people just fundamentally misunderstand How the church functions. And, and the idea that the church isn't savvy enough to understand this problem— I, I'm sure, and you probably aren't able to give us the extent of it, but, uh, from my experience, the amount of research that the church does institutionally is just staggering.

It is.

They have data, they have information on every subject that could possibly be relevant to the church's mission.

Yep.

And it's just amazing to me when a book like yours comes out and highlights something that needs to be said, that there are all these people that just sort of spring up and they think they're defending the church By attacking your findings, yeah. And and you've have you experienced that?

Yeah, yeah. You know, I mainly through the articles that you've referenced. You know, I I beyond that, I I've been I've been I've been blasted and banned from a couple of subreddits—one on the very orthodox side and one on the ex-Mormon side—and the terrible sin that I committed was I humbly wrote to the moderators and asked them if it would be okay if I. posted a link to my free chapters.

Oh.

And they quickly wagged the finger and banned me. And so, and with some vitriol. And so, yes, I've experienced some of that, but Jim, it's really been a small percentage of the total engagement I've had with the community. Look, I, again, I can't talk too much about this, but here's what I'll say. The church has outstanding researchers. They have outstanding statisticians. The conversations I have had with church employees that are not ecclesiastical leaders and with ecclesiastical leaders have left me convinced that there are many leaders, ecclesiastical and executive leaders, that have good insights and great data and understand the issues. Now, there's also a lot of complexity, so that doesn't mean they always talk about What they know, or that they're actively pursuing systemic change because of what they know. And then there are some leaders who, when they talk, you'd wonder if they'd seen the data, right?

Yeah.

And I don't criticize them. I don't know what's in their minds. I'm going to be pretty positive here and say the ones that I know that have made public statements that feel incomplete to me, I think have good intentions. They love the church. They want members to be excited and happy about the church. And there's a lot of good going on in the church, and they want to convey that. And so, like anybody that loves something, sometimes they might oversell a bit, right? Yeah, I'm not, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna criticize that. Um, you know, I, I think we can handle both a positive narrative and a narrative that conveys our issues and opportunities, but I don't know what's in their minds and hearts, so I'm not going to cast a stone there.

Jeff, do you think that the church will use your data with its own data that Jim spoke about and more importantly, act on it, use it for good, change things, change their approach, make some, you know, communicate messages, be kind and more respectful to people leaving, create safe spaces where people could ask questions. Do you think any— do you think the research will go to that level within the church or not?

You know, Ian, it's a really good question. I'll just shoot you straight. I honestly don't know. You know, I don't want anybody to assume that I have these intimate personal relationships with You know, all of the apostles. I know one well. I know another one pretty well. I've, you know, I've had some association with a couple of them. I know, you know, a dozen General Authority Seventies pretty well. But I don't want to leave anybody with the impression that I have special relationships or some kind of unusual influence. I don't. I have the ones I know well. I have a lot of confidence in their wisdom and their knowledge. I know that they appreciate good insight regardless of what the source is. And so that would leave me hopeful that maybe the book and some of the research might strike a chord and might cause somebody to step back and say, hey, maybe there's something here we could work with. But I don't know. And I made a strategic choice not to write the book or do the research for the church as an institution. I wrote it to rank-and-file members of the church.

Right.

And in part because my confidence level that I could influence the church top-down was not high, and I'm not sure that's my role, right? I don't know that that's my role. And so I didn't have that motive. I'm not trying to change the church systemically. By the way, that's one of the criticisms in the ex-Mormon community is, hey, We appreciate what you're doing. We feel more seen, but this is just the beginning, not the end. You really should have gone farther, right, in pushing for systemic change. And I hear that criticism. I'm not going to try to rebut that. I think it's accurate criticism. I just made a strategic choice not to do that. Now, what I pray for, Ian, I pray that it will have an impact. Now that's different than having an expectation or trying to have an influence strategy. I don't have those things, but I'd be dishonest if I didn't say that there are things I pray for.

Of course. No, that makes sense. Jim, should we get into some of the questions? Because we got a whole bunch of questions for Jim.

All right. Well, we've got, oh cool, alive, which I don't know what that means, but thank you, Diamond Davey.

Live, I think.

Evening, Diamond Davey. Okay. Why is it an extreme position to show empathy or listen to those that don't fit in within orthodoxy?

It's interesting.

Before you answer, the word empathy has become something of a political football. Uh, some, there's apparently somebody who's just written a book called Suicidal Empathy.

Yeah.

And there's a certain, um, there's a certain contingent within the church that cannot use The word empathy without putting the word suicidal in front of it. That empathy in and of itself is somehow a bad thing by default, which just drives me nuts because I think we have many problems in the church. One of them is not too much empathy.

Yeah, Jim, well said. You know, this is, this is one of those fascinating things that's percolated to the surface in the last 3 months. And so I'll give you a take on it that I think is helpful. And by the way, there's criticism of the empathy I'm advocating for from both the ex-Mormon community and the Orthodox community. So the Orthodox community criticism is, if you show empathy, you're giving license to the issues, right? And you're just going to make them worse, right? And so don't show empathy. Don't show understanding. Take a hard line because, you know, if you give people an inch, they're going to take a mile. Okay, so that's the Orthodox argument. The, the post-Mormon argument is empathy is not enough. Okay, so we appreciate the empathy, but if the empathy doesn't lead to some kind of structural change, then it's actually been a false positive. You've essentially appeased us without giving us anything. We expect more, right? So isn't that interesting? And look, on this question of should I be empathetic or should I not be, or should I be more or less empathetic, Jim, when I die, I hope that I can be accused and convicted of being too empathetic.

Yeah.

Yeah. Me too. In that balancing act, I hope that whatever wherever I land, they convict me of having a little too much empathy. I'll be really happy if that's what they carve on my tombstone.

Jeff, when you die and you see me, you know your book has failed. Yeah.

Okay. All right.

Ian, we don't know what the next thirty years is.

And you and you're in hell with me.

Okay. Ray. Rhythm and Blues said that was a good question, and I think it was. Oh, we saw this one from Bruce there at the beginning that should be next to the standard works. Um, uh, oh, this, no, this one. Sorry if this is offensive, Ian, but I'm pretty sure God made all those coffee beans, then prohibited them to us beginning in 1928 just to test us.

Yeah. Yeah.

Sorry, not sorry. Uh, glad you are having strong on this evening. So are we, Max Jenkins.

Thank you, Max.

Jim, Mr. Strong, and others are kind to those who left the church or struggle to stay. Gasp, the horror. I, this is, this is actually, I want to talk about this a little bit because it's, you know, so my son calls me a D-list Mormon celebrity because of my, uh, and that began with my CES letter reply, which went viral far beyond anything that I had ever expected and sort of gave me my D-list status. Uh, but I still to this day get kind messages from people who found, still find that CES letter reply helpful. But it's when I started to engage with critics and do so in a, in an empathetic way, in a way where I wasn't, you know, I talked to John Dehlin for 14 hours and I didn't try to condemn him. or drag him back to church. At the same time, I don't think I made any apologies for the fact that I continue to believe and continue to honor my covenants. And that is something that I've discovered is rare, and people aren't quite sure what to do with it. And I've since I started sort of inhabiting that space and started Doing this podcast with Ian, you know, I'd had a number of people ask me to do podcasts and I was always like, eh, nobody wants to hear me. But when Ian came to me with this idea of, okay, let's talk, somebody who's in, somebody who's out, and let's engage the entire spectrum. That was, that to me, nobody was doing that.

Yeah.

And, and I look at what you are doing and I, in some ways I am envious. Uh, because I think you're doing it better than just about anybody else, including me. But you're doing what, what I was hoping to accomplish in that I, I don't think we do the church any favors by ignoring reality on this. Yeah. I, I don't think it's helpful to bury our heads in the sand and just say, you know, let's not talk. And, and, and I also don't understand, um, we, we have created, I think, so much unnecessary pain.

Yes.

By refusing to engage with people like Ian, uh, people who have left the church but still have great affection for the church in one way, who still are connected to the church whether they want to be or not because they're married.

Yes.

To a believer, or they have children who continue to believe, or they have parents who continue to believe. I, uh, their whole social network was tied to the church and they leave and, and they, they still remain connected. And, and just culturally, again, I, and I think you putting your diagnosing this as a cultural problem largely, I think is, is right on the money because culturally Uh, we just don't know what to do with these people. No. And so we, we label them all Korihors, you know, and, and that's, I think, a massive mistake. Uh, do you get criticism? I, I, is that— are you— do you feel that dynamic?

Oh, I, I, I see that dynamic in a huge way, Jim. And so one of the, you know, obviously I, I saw it in my research, so I, I can tell you, I, I didn't just do surveys. I interviewed people. I did focus groups, and I got a chance to ask them hard questions like, how did people respond to you when you began to ask questions? Okay. And overwhelmingly, the answer I heard and hear is, I felt them withdrawing from the relationship. Immediately, there was distance that moved into the relationship. I felt their suspicion. I felt their defensiveness. I felt their fear, right? And now I can tell you, maybe you guys will relate to this. Um, there, there are times when, because I'm doing what I'm doing and I talk the way I do, you know, I'm a— I'm candid but incredibly respectful, and I'm a believer. But I've felt that from some of my own friends, you know, people— I mean, they know I've been a mission president. I, I was, I was the graduation speaker at the Marriott School in 2018, right? My pedigree of faithfulness is pretty darn good. And yet even with me, I can feel them pulling away because I'm talking about things that make them uncomfortable. And so you can imagine what that's like if you don't have a— if you just have a normal pedigree and you don't get the benefit of the doubt like I often do. And so yes, it happens. And I'll tell you, I'm getting lots of letters from people. I'm doing book events And I'm also doing a lot of in-home meetings. So I was in the Bay Area. I did 3 meetings in the Bay Area 2 weekends ago. So I'm in, you know, somebody's home, 100 people will show up and we do Q&A. And I can tell you repeatedly, people will say, look, I just want to share with you what happened to me when I began to ask questions. You know, my bishop got nervous. He released me from my calling as a Sunday school teacher. I all of a sudden felt that he was uncomfortable with me. I could feel the members of my ward pulling away a little bit. And I know some people that will say in that circumstance, you know, I pulled back and quit attending not because I didn't want to attend, because I didn't want to make people so uncomfortable. I didn't want to disrupt their experience on the Sabbath, and I felt like I was a liability to them. And who wants to be a liability? Nobody.

Right.

So yeah, that happens. Now, let me give you a quick contrast because just in, just in the Bay Area, um, well, the Bay Area meeting, uh, at the home of one of the stake presidents there, really good man that sees these issues very clearly, and he's trying to help his, the members of his stake navigate this in a faithful way. And I talked to a wonderful couple that have I can't remember the exact number, 5 or 6 children. And what they told me is all of their children, 100% of them have stepped away, and they not only left the church, they left the family. So this couple doesn't really have— they use the term, we're experiencing an estrangement, and they're not really part of our family anymore. I did an event at UVU in Heber City, the Heber City campus of UVU, and a wonderful man sitting in the front row said to me, Jeff, You've talked a lot about estrangement from the church, but I haven't heard you talk a lot about estrangement in families. He then said, your family seems to be okay. My family's not. All of my children left the church and we no longer have much contact with them. What did you do that allowed your family to avoid that? And Jim and Ian, it was really humbling because I didn't have an answer for him. I didn't have something top of mind that I could share. But that's the pain you're talking about. And by the way, whether it's, whether, you know, I, it's the same pain, whether you're the person who stays or the person that leaves, when the relationship is fundamentally altered, there's pain. And so that right there is ample evidence of a culture problem, right? We have to be able to navigate this in a way where relationships, families, and marriages don't end. Now, here's the irony. I got a call from a man. I was introduced to a man in Los Angeles who's an atheist, and the person that introduced us said, Jeff, I think you might be able to help him. And I said, okay, great. I'm happy to talk to him. So they patch him in. He's a successful businessman in Los Angeles, an atheist, has, I think, 5 children. They were all raised to be atheists. But there's a problem. His 23-year-old daughter has converted to Mormonism and is going to be married in a temple without him.

Oh no.

And he, and, and he was, he was explaining to me how hurt he feels, how betrayed he feels, um, how his daughter is pulling away from him because he's mad. So he's sort of radiating anger to her and he's radiating betrayal to her and she's feeling really hurt by that. So she doesn't want to talk to him. And this is a beautiful family from a different, you know, ideological orientation than believing members have. And, and I said to this good man, I said, man, you're going through exactly what I did when my son left the church. It— I, I listen to you and I hear myself talking 10 years ago. And so this is the problem. Now I'll, I'll, I'll end, end on a positive. I just got a text today from a former Latter-day Saint who wanted to reach out to me and tell me that she appreciated the work that I had done with the book. And then she shared an experience where she and her husband go on a vacation, you know, every few years with another couple who are devout believers. And they still do it, but there's definitely distance in the relationship that didn't used to be there. So they arrive at their vacation destination. They sit down together and the devout husband pulls out the book and hands it to her and says, have you read this? And she said, oh yeah. And he said, would you please tell me why you left?

Hmm.

And she said he sat there for like an hour to 90 minutes And just listened patiently without judgment, with compassion. And then when that conversation was over, the distance in the relationship was much, much smaller. Right. And so it can be done. We, you know, we can do this, but Jim, we got to check the fear. We got it. We got to put the fear away and say, look, I have a relationship with my son or daughter or my spouse or my friend.

Yeah.

that means more to me than the fear I'm feeling. And so I'm going to let my love win over fear, and I'm going to sit down and I'm going to connect with this human being, and I'm going to understand the experience that they are having without judgment, without correction.

Yes. That's just extraordinary experience. I think there's so many experiences like that, Jeff, in, you know, that you're sharing that are across the church. I think if somebody had asked me, was even interested asking me why I left, and I think one person's asked me in the 10 years I've been gone, it's extraordinary. Anyway, if somebody had been interested and asked me, you know, why I'd left and they were really interested in kind of helping me and understand, then it would've made a, it could've made a difference. I know we've got a whole bunch of questions, but if I may, I wanna ask this other question, if I may.

Sure.

So this work that you're doing is extraordinary. You are leading Leading, or one of the leaders in this space, right? Desperately needed. Goodness sake, this is needed, right? Why isn't a General Authority leading this? Why isn't an apostle leading this? Why is the church at that level not leading, doing what you're doing, getting the data? Jim talks about all this data they've got, opening up these conversations. What's— why are they so reticent to have these conversations? why they're not leading it? Why do others have to lead it like you?

Yeah, you know, Ian, it's a good— it's a very good question. I, you know, I've spoken with enough church leaders to know that there are many of them that have 20/20 vision on this. They see it as it is. They understand the issues. I don't want anybody to assume I'm an expert on analyzing why church leaders do or don't do things. You know, I have some insights, but what I would tell you is I think it's complicated. And there are trade-offs involved. Latter-day Saints are kind of an interesting bunch, right? We have hyper-orthodox people that leave the church if the church is appearing to compromise and becoming too progressive or liberal. And we have progressives and liberals that leave when they get offended because the church is too rigid. And so I think being a church leader and navigating all that complexity and trying to balance the issues is really challenging. And so they have hard jobs. I'm not meaning to give them a pass where they could make a difference. I think where they can make a difference, they should. I'm just acknowledging that they have a hard job. Some of the ones I know, they're incredibly compassionate. They have incredible insights on this stuff. And we may not see them doing things in the public eye. So we say, well, they're not doing anything. I know that they do a lot behind the scenes, right? They're doing a lot one-on-one. They're doing a lot in the training and counseling they do with stake presidents and other church leaders. I've witnessed and heard stories about senior church ecclesiastical leaders that behind the scenes do some pretty remarkable things. And, and that's not in the public eye, so we don't get the benefit of seeing that. So thus we are limited in our capacity to see the action that we pray for.

That makes sense. Uh, diving back in here. G'day, Jim, Ian, and Jeff. Jeff has said the quiet things out loud. Well done, that man.

And you know what? Peter must be from down under cuz he started off g'day.

Yes, he is actually. So he, he's commented here many times. Hello, Pino. Uh, hello all from Brittany the Apostate.

Hi, Brittany.

God banned the coffee just to make the Mormons freak out more as a conversation starter to spread the gospel. There you go. Ian is, is pushing Tim Hortons as hard as he can. Yeah. Yeah. I, I went up to Canada, uh, actually went up to visit Ian and I was just, the Tim Hortons, there's like 2 Tim Hortons on every corner. Up there, there's just way too many.

Tim Hortons, then there's more Tim Hortons than Mormon churches here. Oh, absolutely. It's the truest coffee. There you go.

That that's nice to know. So looking, so this is Guy McDude, and Guy McDude, we're trying to get a hold of you. We want to talk to you. Has he messaged you? Messaged me just now. Oh yeah. Okay, good. So looking back after parsing your collected data, is there anything skeptics and critics are right? to highlight that surprised you as a lifelong believer?

You know, that's, that's a little bit of a hard question to answer because there are 2 barrels in that question, right? So pop that, if you could pop that back up for a sec, Jim.

Oh, okay, sure.

If you can, I'm going to have to— if— can I divide this into 2 parts? So part one is, is there anything skeptics and critics are right to highlight?

Jake?

Yes, there are. So, for example, I don't talk at all about the role that political factors are playing in disaffiliation in my research or in my book. That some people have highlighted that, and it's a fair criticism, right? I made a strategic choice not to talk about politics. I felt like the book Probably would be a lightning rod enough without adding politics. And so I simply chose to not explore that, but I concede the argument that it's a factor and there's a vacancy in my book and research as a result.

Well, in your defense, I would suggest that politics figures into the cultural equations that you're doing. But, but, but, and I think you're probably wise not to get specific because as soon as Donald Trump's name is mentioned, uh, all of a sudden the whole book just, yeah, it goes way out of proportion. And so I, I think that was a legit, maybe a legitimate criticism, but I, I think your choice was probably the right one.

Yeah. Thank you, Jim. I, I feel good about the choice and accept the criticism. The second criticism that comes to mind that I think is valid, and by the way, this came up in some of the podcasts I did with people like Greg Matson, who Greg and I had an incredibly thoughtful 2-hour conversation. I did a podcast on Ether's Elephant that included Ryland and Jacob Hansen, and I thought it was a good conversation. And those Greg, Jacob, would say you're underestimating, underarticulating, missing on the role that secularization in our society is playing in driving people out of organized religion and out of our church. And what I would say to that is it's absolutely true that secularization is a factor. It's absolutely true that it's contributing to people leaving institutional churches. And I made a strategic choice there too. Now it's for a different reason, We can't do anything about that, right? We can howl at the moon all we want, but we're not going to change the trends of secularization in the broader societies that we live in. And so I think in the spirit of Stephen Covey, circle of concern versus circle of influence, let's focus on what we can control, right? Which is us and our culture. So to people like Greg, And Jacob, who are very thoughtful and I had good conversations with, I accept that criticism. Uh, they certainly talk about that factor a lot, so there's not an absence of focus on that. And I just chose not to because I want to focus on what we could actually make a difference on.

Well, but, and again, maybe I've had my own run-ins with Jacob Hansen on a number of issues, although we've had him on this podcast and One of the things that I love about Jacob is that he is, I think, one of the most persuasive and effective defenders of the church outwardly. I, my frustrations with Jacob are when he turns inward and decides to become a gatekeeper.

Yeah.

Because I think he does damage in that regard. But when gatekeepers, and so I, I don't want to just lay this all on Jacob, but there are a number of gatekeepers in the church, and you talked about that here at the outset, that are threatened by your work and that will point to secularization and point to all of these other sorts of things. To me, that feels like an abdication of responsibility. It's all their fault. It's all the world's fault. Yeah, I don't have to do anything. Yeah, I'm, I'm good and the church is good and we're all good. And so let the heathens burn and let the world burn. And is there any truth in that?

Yeah, no, I think there is. Uh, you know, I, I, and by the way, maybe I'll, maybe I'll, I'll slice out a piece of my conversation with Greg Matson because I thought it was so good. Yes, I think that there's an amygdala response of people who are boundary protectors whenever they feel those boundaries are being challenged, right? And so that's reality. But I think, you know, Jim, I just, I grew up in a corporate environment that purged me of that. ability. And so let me just tell you, I worked for 2 Fortune 50 companies and was at senior levels at both. And I was a C-level executive at Johnson Johnson. And I'm telling you, ignoring problems gets you fired. Okay? And so P&G used to say, we need high courtesy and high candor. So we want you to be polite, respectful, Honor the heritage of this great 160-year-old company. That's maybe the best consumer products company in the world. Respect how we win, respect how we conduct our business. But if you don't confront the issues that could hurt our people and our products, you will be fired, right? And so be candid. They used to also say, we don't want an inquiry. We don't want an advocacy Management style. We want an inquiry management style. Here's what they meant. When you're a young senior executive and you're presenting an idea to the CEO, they don't want you to sell it. They want you to lead the CEO on a process of inquiry because the goal is make the best decision for the company, not sell your boss on what you want to do. And so they actively discouraged advocacy thinking and communication and instead said, we want inquiry communication, right? And I'm trained as somebody that believes in candor and inquiry, not excessive politeness and advocacy. And so I, my 30 years of experience in those environments just taught me that not confronting issues is a death sentence. Okay, so I, you know, I'm a product of, you know, 30 years of professional evidence that taught me that that was true. Now the other piece is we can handle it. My goodness, we can handle it.

Right.

We can handle the truth. We can handle problems. I wrote in the book about 5 different huge issues that the saints had to work through in our history that actually ultimately led us to a better place. We can handle it. Right? It's only when we get fearful, withdraw, become defensive, spin, then of course you're not going to understand the problem. And if you don't understand the problem, you can't solve it. And so I'm saying, look, we're, we're, we got this. Let's, let's engage. Let's understand. Let's get at real reasons. Let's be humble but optimistic about the challenges we have and let's go to work on them. And we'll, we'll be fine if we do that. It's only when we stick our heads in the sand that we got a problem.

Absolutely. All right, so thank you so much for you guys. I love your podcasts. Well, thank you, Gary CJ2Z. Uh, this is our good friend Clayton Settle. Have you given a report to the brethren about the findings of the book? Are there any action items happening since the book has been published? I think you sort of answered that. Yeah.

I appreciate Clayton's question. I'm going to— can I have a little bit of fun with this?

Sure.

The answer is no, but if I had, I wouldn't tell you.

Nice.

Yeah. Now, now let me, let me comment on why. It's, you know, if Jeff Strong was king of the world, there, there might be a different culture for how we handle these kinds of issues, but I'm not king of the world. And so on this question, I'm operating in somebody else's world. And if I want to have access and conversations, I have to respect their sensibilities. That's bottom line. And the minute people have conversations with church leaders and then start publicly talking about them, they won't be having very many more conversations with church leaders.

That hits very, very close to home for me. Uh, when Jacob and I crossed swords, uh, it was over Aaron Sherinian, who, um, I don't want to relitigate all of that, but I made the mistake of saying, I know the brethren are not happy with what you're doing here.

Yeah.

And since then, I mean, there have been memes made of Jim Bennett holding the gun saying, do you think the brethren would appreciate that?

Yeah.

And I've been accused of speaking for the brethren. Right. Uh, and, uh, exactly what you're saying. I mean, because people say, well, uh, you know, you said you talked to the brethren. And I said, no, I never did say I talked. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You were— I do talk to the brethren. If I have had conversations with the brethren, I wouldn't tell you.

Yeah.

Unless they said, you know, that that was fine or that was okay. Yeah, but you're exactly right. When you have those kinds of conversations, uh, the instant you go out and start talking about it and start bragging about it is, is, is a surefire way to make sure you'll never have another one of those conversations ever again.

That's exactly right. Now, I, I don't want anybody thinking that I have a lot of these conversations. I have them from time to time. Yeah. And when I do, I probably will never talk about when I've had them, who I had them with, or what we talked about. Now, that's not because I'm being evasive, right? Or that I'm being nefarious or secretive. It's because I'm respecting the sensibilities of the world that they've invited me into. Because I would never want to do anything, whether it's the, whether it's the leaders of the church, or anyone else, I would never want to violate someone's trust so that they felt like they could no longer confide in me and lean into conversations in ways that might be vulnerable.

Makes absolute sense.

And on—

you wanna jump in?

Yeah. On the other side of that, I wanted to say bluntly, respectfully, that the reaction response from the church in dealing with these issues is not good enough. Because it's not enough. Why can't a, uh, formal official representative, leader of the church, come onto a podcast like this where we won't trip you up, we won't ask you gotcha questions, uh, talk about, uh, your book, uh, Jeff, and the issues respectfully in a civil way. and have a conversation with a senior leader of the church?

Yeah.

Why can't we do that? Why are they not accessible? And can we not bring those individuals into the conversation? You know, we talk about the commandment of going out into the world and teaching all nations, right? Every kindred tongue of people. The missionary program is incredibly assertive. You were a mission president. The church is phenomenal at going out and attracting people and investigating, bringing people in the church, retaining people or trying to retain people. It's very, very assertive. I use the word aggressive, but assertive at all these areas and a very effective communicator in these areas. So my message to the leaders of the church, and I don't have the same worries that you two have or concerns in this area, Is why won't you have this conversation with us? Yeah. Why are we having this conversation without you formally like this? Why don't you come on to Inside Out or come on to some other podcast? And so the church isn't doing enough.

Yeah.

And we're looking at doing— you're talking about they're doing some stuff in the background. I respect that. But Jeff, to push back with respect, it's not enough. Yeah, you should know. So talk about in General Conference, create safe space, and, you know, let's just have that honest, open conversation, right?

Yeah. Well, I'll tell you what, um, you can imagine how much better my life would be if we had an apostle enter the room here, you know. So right now I'm out there by myself, but with wonderful wingmen like Jim who wrote that beautiful response in The Interpreter. And then of course, many other friends who are incredibly supportive. But I would love to not be the spokesperson for this issue. I would love that. You'll laugh at this, Ian, but I had a conversation a couple of years ago with a very senior church leader about the book and the research. I asked for some guidance and counsel, right? I said, calibrate me here. I don't want to do something that will be stupid or disruptive. And so we had a lovely conversation about that, which I thought was really helpful. And one of the pieces of counsel he gave me is he said, Jeff, don't make this about you and don't let it become bigger for you than it should be, right? So he cares about me and he doesn't want me to throw myself in front of a proverbial bus, right? And I, what I said to him is, I don't even want to write this stupid book. You know, I want you to write it. I said, you write the book. I don't need to write it. You write it. And he got a good laugh out of that.

Well, it's too bad that he got a good laugh instead of writing the book.

Yeah. But, uh, well, I, I will say, I will say one thing, maybe to take a little bit of a liberty here. What he said is, Jeff, he said, um, voices inside this building and outside this building are both needed to help the church move forward. And then he said, go and write a beautiful book.

Well, that, that jibes with— I talked about this and I haven't identified this person. It was not a General Authority, but it was a— some— and it was not Aaron Sherinian, but it was somebody who works for the church in a fairly responsible position. And they said at one point, I just want you to know we love your podcast.

Yeah.

And I said, well, I'm kind of surprised because we have all of these people on that are, you know, that are critical of the church. It's not an apologetic podcast by any means. It's a respectful podcast, as Ian points out. But, but he— and his response was, you are having conversations. that we are not allowed to have.

Yes.

And I, I, that has stuck with me in the sense that they know these conversations need to take place. They know this discussion has to happen, but it, it's complicated. It's difficult. Yeah. I, I think there, frankly, there's some internal fear there because, and some of it may well be justified, But you've got, you, they're trying to balance the Jacob Hansens. Yeah. With, with, with the wild-eyed liberals. And apparently that's, that includes me, although I, it's always bizarre to me as a guy who spent most of his career as a Republican hack, right? Making money as a Republican. But it, it, it's, it's, there's a huge balancing act.

There, there is.

That they're trying to do. And, and And I, Ian, I can see that this is not a satisfying answer to you, and I, and I can, I can understand why it is not. And so I'm not, I'm not saying this by way of excuse.

No.

So much as by way of explanation. I think I understand it, even if I don't necessarily agree with it. Does that make sense, Ian?

Yes. Yes, I, it does make sense. I have a plan so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a fox. And here's the plan, okay? And I'm not the only one that knows this, okay? There's a massive opportunity here for the church right now, right?

Yes.

I mean, look what we're talking about, right? To take, to be bold, but not overbearing. It's in the Book of Mormon. To lead this conversation, to address the issues, address these questions, be kind and respectful, And to open up a dialogue in this area because the truth will set you free. Truth will prevail. Honesty, integrity, truth. Have confidence that the members are intelligent and can handle stuff, can talk about past issues, talk about complexity in our history. And we made mistakes and we got this policy wrong and We no longer believe in this doctrine. We've changed and we're progressing and we're improving because of further light and knowledge.

Yeah.

I can't be the only one who knows the answer. I'm not saying I have all the answers, but this I know. I know because my soul longs to have these conversations. I know the brethren know this. Why is it complicated? Why can't they have these conversations? I know you talk about the fine line, but surely those people who are, you know, seekers of truth and have faith and want honesty— I mean, the Holy Ghost testifies of truth and honesty, doesn't it? The Holy Ghost doesn't tell you something that is true when it's not. He doesn't call, you know, day night and night day, right? The church teaches about honesty in very clear, defined, and profound ways. Surely the opportunity is to have this kind of conversation and have the confidence and hope and belief and faith that the Holy Ghost and the fact that you're speaking the truth and you're being honest and you're tackling the issues will eventually lead to growth. And I mean, look at that word, growth. The church is declining in certain areas. Yes, you might lose some people that Oh, we don't, you know, we don't believe, you know, why have you changed that? I mean, we've got people in the church that still think that Black people shouldn't have the priesthood. We've met them. We've had somebody on our podcast that talked about that. And so, you know, yes, you'll lose some people, but surely by being honest and completely open and manage it and deal with it and have an intelligent conversation, you're not only going to slow down the decline of the church, but by people being able to having honest conversations. This is like 101 honesty, isn't it, in the Gospel Principles book, right? But surely you will attract people to an organization that is unafraid to have these conversations and deal with the issues. And you're welcome, come along with your questions, have faith. We have some answers, we don't have all the answers, but together we'll work it through. Why is it so complicated? Yeah, it's there. I mean, you know, I just don't get it. I just, and I don't believe it. I don't believe it. It doesn't have to be complicated.

And Ian, I, I, I agree with you and I like, I'm, I'm not kidding when I say I literally pray for that. Right. Um, I, I didn't write the book for church leaders. I wrote it for rank and file members in and out, make rank and file people in and out of the church. But that doesn't mean I don't pray that someone in a position of phenomenal authority and influence, like an apostle, would take this on and I could fade into the background forever. And so I literally pray for that. The only thing I can do is I can express empathy and understanding for your position. I agree with it. I know it's— there's no solace in the idea that it's complicated. So I'll say one additional thing. Part of the issue is that they, at the most senior levels in the church, they don't always agree on what the problem is and how to approach it. Right. And so I think, I think I'm not suggesting direct parallels. But if you go back and look at the, the removal of the temple and priesthood ban on Blacks in 1978, That took forever. I mean, it was 14 years after the Supreme Court passed Brown versus the Board of Education, 14 years after it was illegal to discriminate on the basis of race, we finally pulled the trigger, right? And if you read Matthew Harris's exceptional book, Second Class Saints, he gives you an insider's view about the, the inner workings of what was what it took for them to ultimately get to a point where they said, okay, we think we can do this, and where they said they felt inspired to because that consensus emerged. And so I pray for that. I pray for that. And it, you know, when I watch people I love leaving, I feel like you do. It's not coming fast enough, right? I spent 3,000 hours writing this book because I I wanted to try to help it come a little quicker.

I, well, so that we've got legions of comments, uh, and this one from Guy McDude, for instance, this is going to be a 3-hour episode. I'm here for it. I don't want this to be a 3-hour episode. I want to respect your time. Uh, so, so many, all the comments, I just want to summarize. Uh, I, there, there doesn't seem to be a single one that isn't positive. People are sharing sort of their own personal heartbreaking stories that I think are consistent with, Jeff, with your findings. But there are just a few questions. So I'm just going to highlight the questions in the time we have remaining. I want to wrap this up maybe in 10 minutes or so. We've got, is there any research as to why loyal members are so critical of family and friends who leave? But give grace to investigators? Yeah, very interesting, interesting question.

Yeah, I'm not aware of any research that's been done on that. So anything that we might discuss here would be anecdotal. But it— I'm going to be a little bit blunt on this. And, and I think it's rooted in the part of our brain that loves tribalism, right? And so when somebody is investigating coming into your tribe, of course, Of course, you're going to do backflips to welcome them in. But the minute somebody's talking about, you know, breaking ranks with your tribe or stepping away, they immediately become a threat. And I think it's as simple as that.

Yeah, I would agree with that. Uh, question number 2, if you could, if you could have written Torn again after everything you've experienced since publication, which chapter would you rewrite the most?

Ooh, you know, Guy McDude's bringing the heat. I like these questions.

Bringing the heat.

Um, look, I, I, um, we're 3 months in, uh, a little over 3 months. The, the public conversation has kind of formed around this, and I have a pretty good sightline. I think we all do about what people are talking about. And to Guy McDude, I wouldn't rewrite it. I mean, I know that probably sounds crazy. But let me tell you why. I rewrote it 22 times. I had exceptional editors that I hired multiple editors to come at it from different perspectives to keep me honest and to challenge me and to push on me. And then I had 113 people read it before I finished it and published it and give me feedback. Now, if you saw version, you know, 21, which was in January of this year before those beta readers gave me all that feedback and before my editors took the final pass, it was a very different book. You know, the same general substance, but the tone was different. I removed significant parts of the book. I added new parts. And so I just had the benefit of getting a lot of help from a lot of different perspectives. to help me see my own blind spots and work through them and put something out there that, that I feel pretty good about. So 3 months in, at least there's one chart that I would change one word on.

All right.

And that's it. I, instead of, you know, it's the chart that says 3x, 6x, 11x acceleration on disaffiliation. I acknowledge that there's probably a survey bias there, and I say the Acceleration rate is probably somewhat overstated. I would remove the word somewhat and I would say the acceleration is probably overstated.

Oh, well, there you go.

And that's, that's about it. Now, Guy McDude asked me in 12 months, maybe I'll have a different answer.

So this next one, this is a very pointed question, but I want to highlight this question because I think it reflects kind of what Ian's been talking about. Why the hesitation to critique the church leaders or doctrine? Many of the harmful ideas about ex-members were our doctrines of church leaders. Why the need to kid glove church leaders? Yeah, I, I think, I think you kind of answered that, but it's probably not a satisfying answer.

Yeah, I, I'll, I'll hit it again, maybe more concisely. Um, I had a target audience. The target audience is active members of the church because they're the ones that are in a position to influence the culture. And the minute I start attacking church leaders or doctrines, I'm going to lose that audience. That's the answer. So it's fair criticism, though. I want to say, look, I get it. I understand the criticism. And if I had written a book to a different audience with a different objective, I probably would have written a different book. And maybe that book will come in the future. I don't know. But I— my goal is to be a constructive force for Grassroots-level culture change. And in order to do that, I, I have to respect the sensibilities, the window of tolerance of the audience. Now, you might get a kick out of this, but many of you know Joseph Grenny, right? Remarkable Latter-day Saint in Salt Lake City that founded the Other Side Academy and the Other Side Village. He's also a bestselling author. He's become a dear friend. I had him read the manuscript last July. He took me to lunch and he told me I needed to light it on fire and rewrite it. And he just said, he said, Jeff, he said, I've learned from writing my own books. The first time you write the book, you write the book you want, and then you burn it, and then you write the book you need to write. And he said, you can't change people with torches and pitchforks. So there was more heat in the book. Hmm. And he said, it's not going to work given who you're trying to reach. And so you gotta find a way to process that and step back and write with a different tone. And, and that was brilliant advice. And had I not done that, this book would not be having the impact it's having.

No, I think that is very, very wise. And I think that there is— the other answer to that question is, frankly, there are boundaries. Yeah. Uh, that, that you cannot cross if you want to stay inside. Uh, the, the minute you go on the attack against the brethren, yeah, the minute you, you step outside. I mean, that, that— I don't know that that's a cultural, uh, boundary. I think that's—

Yeah, it's just a fact of life.

They've been very explicit that that's— I, very recently, for instance, uh, I made the mistake of criticizing Elder Cook For when he traveled with the Tabernacle Choir, I cringed when he was announced speaking to the audience in Argentina and pronounced Buenos Aires in a very American way. And I just, I said something about that and I thought it was just, and somebody glommed onto that and that got like 10,000 views. Jim is criticizing the brethren. Yeah. And I, and I was, I thought it was a very mild criticism. I didn't think it was substantive, but, uh, I, I really do think that that's a boundary that you really can't cross. Yeah. If you want to stay in the church and you want to stay effective in the church.

And, you know, Jim, I appreciate you saying that. So I didn't need to, I'll just add one thing that might be somewhat more satisfying. People that know me will tell you I'm pretty candid, right? I've got no problem being very direct. But I also, if I was going to criticize anyone, whether it's a church leader or someone else, I would always do it privately.

Yeah.

Right? I'm not going to flog somebody in the public. Because not only is that hurtful, it also reduces the chance that your feedback will be taken, right? Yeah. And so ultimately, I'm a pragmatist about this. It's like, look, if I have critical thoughts for anyone, including church leaders, I'm probably going to offer those with respect, clarity, and in private.

Yep. Makes sense. Does Jeff think that the brethren are divinely led with revelation, Or are they doing their best to manage the kingdom of God on earth to the best of their human ability? I saw this question and my first thought was, why not both?

Yeah. Do you guys, you guys remember how unbelievable it was when President Hinckley went on 60 Minutes and interviewed with Mike Wallace? Do you remember that?

Oh yeah, I loved it.

And by the way, you're, Ian, you've been talking about why doesn't a church leader step into the public forum and do something like that? But that was like the first time in the history of the church that our leader had done something like that. And I remember thinking that that moment was so refreshing, right? I was pretty young. I can't even remember what year it happened, but I love President Hinckley. I was so impressed by how he handled that, and I loved his leadership and communication approach. He said something in that interview because I think Mike Wallace asked him a similar question, and he just talked about— I'm going to butcher this, but you know the scripture in the Old Testament where the voice of God or the voice of the Spirit was in the wind, right? And Jim, I think that's maybe what you're saying. Have I seen church leaders do things that cause me to feel that they are inspired?

Yeah.

Yes. Have I seen church leaders do things that cause me to think they weren't inspired? Yes.

Okay.

And, and so do I, do I think that they, they get inspiration within the scope of their responsibilities like we all do? Yes. Um, is it perfect? No. You know, the Apostle Paul said we see through a glass darkly, we know in part. You know, President Hinckley said something to the effect that Inspiration is like, you know, a whisper in the wind. And, and so, yeah, there's a margin for error there for sure. Uh, most of the time I believe their intentions are good. Most of the time I believe they're trying really hard to do what they believe God wants for members and for the church. And they are, you know, human and subject to human foilables.

Absolutely. So I'm sifting through all of the comments and they're all positive comments. There are some that are critical of the church. Uh, but there's only one more question, and this could probably be the subject of an entire, um, podcast in and of itself. But, uh, we're an hour and a half, so we— I usually— we try to stop. We always say we want to stop at an hour. I don't know we ever have, Ian. Uh, but, uh, hour and a half I think is the longest we go. So I, I think this is going to be the last question, and Given how expansive it is, I'm not sure if we're going to be able to do it justice. I appreciate Strong's book very much and wonder if he feels the LDS Church treats its LGBTQ and female members fairly and equitably. Matt, let me just give you an easy one, a softball on the way out.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, look, I, it's, it's a really valid, important question. Here's how I'm going to answer it. It's pretty clear to me that a majority of LGBTQ+ members don't feel a sense of complete belonging in the church. And I think that's inarguably true. And I think that members, leaders, and the institution could do more than we are to address that issue. I think the same thing is largely true with women as well. I think the issues are somewhat different. In my research, it was less about women wanting or hungering for priesthood office. It was more about women wanting to have a voice in the church because they feel they have something important to contribute in terms of experiences and wisdom. And so I— my personal belief is we've got work to do to, to help LGBTQ+ members feel like they're not second-class saints. Um, doctrinally, that's very complicated for us, and so it's a longer putt. Um, I, being raised by a woman and having 5 sisters and being married to a remarkable woman and having remarkable daughters and and serving with many remarkable sister missionaries, I have a really good understanding of the power of the insights, wisdom, and voices of women. And I would like to see them— I think if we could harness that better, the church and the church community would be more powerful. Um, that's, that's what I think.

I think that's a great answer. All right, so we— let's, let's wrap this up here, although I would be happy to go on for 3 hours. I just Jeff, I just, I am so impressed with, with your work here. I am so impressed with how you've conducted yourself in presenting your work. I really think you have. This is a difficult line to walk for a lot of people. I don't know that everybody recognizes that. And, and I think you do and that you do it well. And so I'm just so grateful. I think you are an answer. to a number of prayers from a number of people, uh, because this, this is a conversation that is necessary, and it's a conversation that the institutional church is not yet ready to have. But I think they are grateful that you are instigating it, and, and it may feel like you, you're lonely as they leave you twisting in the wind.

Yeah, yeah.

But, but, but, uh, My guess is that they are very appreciative of what you are doing. You probably recognize that from your own, whatever it is. But I just want you to know that regardless, I am grateful for what you are doing. I think it is significant service. I think it is making a difference, and I think it will make a difference for generations to come. So, uh, I, I, So, Ian, I want to give you, uh, let you sum up, and then I want to give Jeff the final word.

Jeff, if I could describe you as a structure, a structure, it would be a bridge with a middle turret, tall, and a beacon on the top of that turret. And lifeline between church leadership and church membership and orthodox thinking and all the different cultures and groups within the church and those who are out, those who are in the middle. The book Tarn, your work that you've done, your research is a message for everyone. I can't think of one individual or one group within the church that they Book Thorn is not relevant to or for, not one. So you are a beacon, my friend. You are a bridge builder, and you are doing God's work. I honestly believe there's a spirit here. I honestly believe you are doing God's work. I know you are, because this is so important. This is so essential. You know, my life reflects the broken heart. Of those that leave. I'm one of many, many people. I'm not the only one. I'm one of thousands who struggle. I don't think the church wants me, and I don't think the church yet cares enough about me and people like me to address these issues. I hope that will change. And I miss so much about the church, the community that I lost. long for that, you know, the church to, you know, I don't want the church to end or to disappear or to be destroyed. I want it to exist and continue. I want it to grow, but I want it to, I want it to do so in a very kind, thoughtful, respectful, and inclusive way. And, and a church that is safe and, but maintains the gospel values.

Hmm.

That's what I hope for. I'm not alone in thinking that. And I know the book, Torn, is an important piece of work that allows us to have this conversation like this that is so desperately needed. And I hope and pray that at some point the leaders will be able to have this conversation. And I'm confident that good and great things will come from those conversations. When, you know, when they, when the timing is right for them to have these conversations. It's not yet, but hopefully soon. So God bless you and thank you for all the amazing, you know, you're helping so many people. You've helped so many people, myself included. And God bless you for that because you're a lifeline. You really are. Thank you.

Again, you know, Jim, Ian, From the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for your kind words, for your support, your encouragement. Thank you for providing a forum that's so unique like this one where we can have these kinds of conversations. There's no question in my mind you're making a difference. Jim, thanks, special thanks to you for that wonderful article in The Interpreter. Sometimes you need somebody to stand up and speak for you, and I slept well that night. Thank you.

Oh, I'm That, that thrills me. I'm so— Yeah.

And, and hey, Ian, I'm gonna be in Cranbrook in early September, and I think that we're gonna have dinner, right?

Yes. Let's get together to have some fun. And, uh, we could talk about Tarn 2 this year.

Yeah, we'll talk, we'll talk about the book and I'll buy your coffee. How about that?

There we go. The return of the Tarn.

Let's, let's have that conversation.

Your time is personal.

If I could say one final thing, it would be to highlight how I'm seeing individual, normal, everyday Latter-day Saints take this and run with it in a way that's making a difference. I can't tell you how many people I've gotten emails from that said, I gave this to my bishop, I gave this to my stake president, I gave it to, you know, my best friend that left the church. 10 years ago and asked if they would read it with me so we could talk. And so I would, you know, at the risk of seeming like a grifter, please buy the book, read the book, give the book to somebody you love. Most of it's going to charity anyway. I'm not keeping it.

Check it out from the library.

Yeah, check it out for however you get it. Just put it in the hands of somebody you love that you think would benefit from it. And, and that's how you can help push this conversation forward. And heaven knows I need help. And Ian, I'm going to try to live up to that metaphor of a bridge with a tower and a light. I'm going to try really hard. I'll remember that and I'll try to live up to that standard.

All right. Well, thank you very much. Thank you for sticking around for so long. It's— I think this is a record. This may be our longest livestream, but I think it was absolutely worth it. And I am just so grateful that you were here and that we had this conversation. To all of you in the comments, I'm sorry. We usually try to get through all of the comments and there was, we just weren't able to do that, but we are so grateful to all of you for participating and for being part of this discussion. Again, we don't ask you for money. We're just asking if you would like and subscribe. And so we can extend the reach of the podcast farther than where we are. Uh, but thank you, Jeff Strong. Thank you for Torn. Ian, thank you as always for your insights and for your passion on this. And thank you to all of our viewers and listeners, and we look forward to seeing you in the next episode of Inside Out.

Thank you.