1109: Sean and Crystal Escobar’s Journey out of Mormonism Pt. 4
Mormon Stories Podcast
Dr. John Dehlin
4.5 • 5.7K Ratings
🗓️ 9 May 2019
⏱️ 62 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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| 0:49.8 | So Sean, after you had been stuffing and stuffing and stuffing for years |
| 0:54.5 | and then she comes to you and says, well, I'm starting to have, you know, literally |
| 0:58.6 | to me in the bathroom. Yeah, she said, she said, come to me in the bathroom, told me about your |
| 1:04.1 | your Mormon Stories and then she said, what if it's not true? And then I remember I just paused like |
| 1:11.7 | yeah. What did you think that she was even questioning what came through your mind? |
| 1:16.6 | Your what did you feel? Well, he was silent and I was nervous by his silence because I was like, |
| 1:21.7 | but it's okay. Like, don't worry. Like, I'm just saying like, it might not be true. And it's okay. |
| 1:27.3 | Like, we can still like be Mormon. So I was afraid from his silence. I was I was afraid he was worried |
| 1:32.4 | about me. So what's going through your mind when she breaks this news here? I was thinking, first of all, |
| 1:37.5 | I think how would a good Mormon husband respond? That's what I thought. How do I dress this as a |
| 1:43.7 | good Mormon husband, you know, should. But then I had this thought come in secondary, sneak in and |
| 1:49.9 | thought, maybe this is a good thing because I'm sick of it. I'm fried. I've been mentally checked |
| 1:56.3 | out for 10 years. It's totally fried. And so what did you start listening to or what? |
| 2:02.8 | First one I listened to was Tom Phillips. Okay. Yeah. And I got to tell you what it did to me. |
| 2:08.6 | You know, he talks about the scientific angle and the historical angle and he talks about all |
| 2:13.1 | that. And that all kind of, yeah, I had those suspicions already, John. I had all those, they're |
... |
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