1108: Sean and Crystal Escobar’s Journey out of Mormonism Pt. 3
Mormon Stories Podcast
Dr. John Dehlin
4.5 • 5.7K Ratings
🗓️ 9 May 2019
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Join us today on Mormon Stories as we interview both Sean and Crystal Escobar to learn about their faith journey out of Mormonism. Sean recently made national newswhen he revealed a recording he made as he confronted his abuser as a child, Sterling Van Wagenen—co-founder of the Sundance Film Festival and director of many LDS Church-produced films, including the films shown in LDS temples.
This portion of the interview focuses on Sean and Crystal's faith journey and will include themes such as:
- Their Mormon background including their experiences in the church as youth and as missionaries
- How guilt and shame from transgressions as a youth impacted Sean's mission and outlook on life
- Sean and Crystal's difficult experiences with the repentance process affected their early marriage
- How discovering a calling Sean had received was uninspired by his priesthood leader greatly shook his faith
- How Crystal's experience with Mormon Stories helped her be more empathetic towards Sean's struggles with his faith and church leadership
- How leaving the LDS Church has caused a new awakening in their marriage and family as they reevaluate their relationship, their parenting, and their new moral code for living
...and so much more.
Transcript
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| 0:35.9 | There had to have been some cracks in how you perceive the church and leadership and everything. |
| 0:56.5 | You know, at some point, at some point, I read the CES letter in 2013. I read it right when it |
| 1:02.6 | came out, John. Okay, so, so, and this is the point I'm making. Like, for a long time when you're on |
| 1:08.8 | this guilt and shame cycle, it's always me, it's always me, it's always me. It sounds like that, |
| 1:14.8 | that erroneous, egregious, temple calling and then withdrawal and exclusion. If I write and |
| 1:24.0 | understanding that that maybe started some cracks in your faith, where you're like, wait a minute, |
| 1:30.4 | this whole time I've been saying I'm the problem. Nature. And so what, talk about that mindset. |
| 1:36.8 | So what year was that temple calling about approximately? It would have been around 2007. |
| 1:42.5 | So between 2007 and 2000, let's just say, 14ish. Yeah. |
| 1:49.4 | Some things start changing. So just really quickly describe those seven years. |
| 1:54.0 | What happens to how you view the church and how you view yourself and how you view your family in |
| 2:00.8 | the church? I began, Chris, I want to hear your perspective of those seven years. |
| 2:04.8 | Okay. Those seven years, I began to be very suspicious of church leaders. |
| 2:10.5 | Very much so. Yeah. I began to think that a lot of them were just putting on a faith. |
| 2:15.2 | I began to think that there was this hierarchy and I didn't like how people glorified |
| 2:24.4 | the brethren as they call it. I didn't like it. I started to see church leadership for what it was |
... |
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