1133: Jared, Gwen, & Madison Lusk: A Former Mormon Bishop and His Family from New Mexico Face Excommunication for Apostasy Pt. 3
Mormon Stories Podcast
Dr. John Dehlin
4.5 • 5.7K Ratings
🗓️ 25 June 2019
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Join us now on Mormon Stories Podcast as we interview Jared, Gwen, and Madison Lusk. This episode is a continuation in our series highlight former Mormon bishops and their families who have experienced a faith crisis. Jared is set to be excommunicated on June 30th, 2019 for apostasy (details below).
The Lusks live in Farmington, New Mexico. Jared and Gwen were raised as devout Mormons, married in the Jordan River temple, had 6 children, and established a successful dental practice in Farmington, NM. Jared and Gwen devoted their lives to the Mormon church for 45+ years, including Jared serving as bishop from 2008-2013, and Gwen serving in multiple callings.
Jared’s faith crisis was triggered in 2015 when he began reading the LDS Gospel Topics Essays. Jared and Gwen experienced a mixed faith marriage for a few years. In April of 2018, while being released from a stake calling, Jared shared with his stake president and one of the counselors details regarding his faith crisis. The stake president immediately took Jared’s temple recommend away, and then released Gwen from her calling and took her temple recommend away a few weeks later. Madison (18) resigned from the church in April, 2019.
After Jared began expressing public support for Sam Young and the Protect LDS Children movement, along with expressing public feelings about the church’s truth claims, Jared was summoned to a disciplinary council. Jared faces excommunication on June 30th, 2019 at 6pm at the Farmington, NM stake center.
This is their story.
Transcript
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| 0:46.7 | Are everyone welcome back to our interview with Jared Gwenn and Madison Lusk. We're talking about |
| 0:52.2 | what it's like to be the model Mormon family in Farmington, New Mexico to do all the things |
| 0:58.5 | right, temple marriage, six kids, eventually being called as Bishop and we just spent two good |
| 1:04.2 | hours talking about their lives as Orthodox Mormons. Their service as Bishop, we talked a lot about |
| 1:10.0 | what it's like to be Mormon Bishop and the good and the bad of Mormon culture around |
| 1:14.8 | Bishop's and Bishop Rick and leadership and external authority versus internal |
| 1:19.6 | internal authority. Up until 2013, the Lusk family was really living the Mormon dream, not perfect, |
| 1:27.8 | but happy and serving and you guys served for over two decades in the same award, which is amazing. |
| 1:36.5 | So what was it like to be released for both of you? |
| 1:39.2 | Well, for me, when it was sad, I'll be honest with you, sad, it was happy at the same time because I |
| 1:47.9 | had that weight lifted off of me and I knew I was going to have all kinds of free time, but it was sad. |
| 1:53.4 | Now that's weird, you didn't want the calling, so why were you sad to give it up? |
| 1:56.8 | Well, I think you get used to it and the love and appreciation that you have for all the members |
| 2:02.3 | at deepens and they have a respect for you and you have a love for them and it's just... |
| 2:07.3 | Is it part of that status or part of it is you love serving or just... |
| 2:11.4 | Okay, I don't mean connection. I think for me, it's just a human connection. I don't... |
... |
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