1292: Surviving Spiritual Abuse and Suicidality at BYU-Idaho Faculty - Ryan & Holly Nielsen Pt. 6

Mormon Stories Podcast

Dr. John Dehlin

Religion & Spirituality

4.5 • 5.7K Ratings

🗓️ 6 April 2020

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For today’s Mormon Stories Podcast episode we interview Ryan Nielsen and Holly Parson Nielsen, who were both raised as devout Mormons in Rexburg, Idaho. After marriage, Ryan worked as full-time BYU-Idaho faculty for twelve years in the Department of Music, while Holly taught middle school art.

Important themes for this episode include:

Ryan's perfectionism and guilt/shame as a Mormon youth.
Holly's closeted feminism as a Mormon youth and adult.
Holly and Ryan learning to listen to their own inner voices, which also involved navigating a religious faith crisis.
Navigating BYU-Idaho while one is full time faculty, and in a mixed-faith marriage. This story includes harassment from bishopric over maintaining continuing faculty endorsement (mostly related to Holly’s resignation from the Mormon church.
An insider’s view of BYU-Idaho administration, including difficulties dealing with BYU-Idaho executives related to Title IX issues (e.g., sexual misconduct of Mormon ecclesiastical leaders towards BYU-Idaho students and faculty).
Navigating and healing from religion-based depression, including suicidality.
Deconstructing Mormon literalism and reconstructing a nuanced worldview.
Learning to choose love over ideas.

Additional Resources mentioned in the episodes:

Ryan's AMAZING faith crisis/transition Reading/Podcast list can be found here, and has also been included below, after the video and audio links. This is probably the most impressive and thoughtful resources list I've ever seen for Mormon/religious faith transitions.
Holly's Art: https://www.artbyholly.com/abstract.html -- This link goes straight to the art Holly has done related to her faith transition, and her reclamation of motherhood.
Ryan's Music: http://www.ryannielsenmusic.com/music -- This link goes straight to the music portion of Ryan's website. Several pieces there are related to my faith transition, including "Prayer for Peace" and "Requiem."
Support Ryan! Ryan has written a 9 movement suite that explores his experience of a faith crisis, through the lens of the life of Elijah Abel. It's time to get this recorded. Ryan has created a GoFundMe campaign to raise funds for the project. Please support this worthy project!

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories podcast. If you value this podcast and want to see it continue please become a monthly supporter at MormonStories.org.
0:15.0	So I want to keep going. I wanted to make sure and talk about the title nine stuff. Okay. And but before we do.
0:24.0	I'll just play, I don't know if it's devil's advocate quiet, but I'll just say that, you know, there's the argument who made that this is a religious school.
0:32.0	That it's a, you know, it's a church own school that got the honor code. Yeah, their game, their rules.
0:40.0	And you could even argue that you weren't fully on plan like it's probably fair to say that you weren't a literal believer in the one true church and exclusive priesthood authority by some point. Right.
0:56.0	Yep. That you were, you were not just an orthodox, but, but maybe even maybe your beliefs were even threatening to, to the church in terms of if, if the beliefs got around and spread, it could even do harm to the church.
1:15.0	Maybe.
1:17.0	And so if that's all true, then they have a right to get rid of who they want and someone could also say, were you a wolf in sheep's clothing, were you sort of benefiting from a church run, church finance institution, not as a fully, fully committed member, if not in.
1:39.0	D, then at least in thought or belief, right. I'm just trying to explore the other side. And I talk as much your little as you want about those, it's not really a question, but it kind of is.
1:51.0	Yeah.
1:53.0	Do you get what I'm asking totally.
1:58.0	So.
2:04.0	The problem that I see with that argument is that what's really happening is your.
2:12.0	That argument places blame on a human for going through what is an entirely natural human development, which is to come into your own.
2:24.0	Understanding of your relationship to the world around you and your spiritual life.
2:32.0	And so.
2:35.0	My response, there's so many ways I could respond to it.
2:42.0	And I don't want to respond to it in a way that validates that actually.
2:53.0	I went through years of reclaiming in authentic ways, the symbols of Mormonism for myself.
3:01.0	And.
3:08.0	And so in that sense, my connection to it was really authentic.
3:13.0	I think it's a fair assessment that if I hadn't had B.Y. Whiteho, it's very possible I would have left at the time that Holly did.
	...

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