1323: The Excommunication of Sam Pinson and his Family in Ammon, Idaho Pt. 3

Mormon Stories Podcast

Dr. John Dehlin

Religion & Spirituality

4.5 • 5.7K Ratings

🗓️ 9 June 2020

⏱️ 103 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Every once in a while we have an epic, multi-part Mormon Stories Podcast episode about a family who experiences a faith crisis together -- wherein multiple family members (including some of the children) participate in the re-telling of the story.

This is one of those episodes.

Sam and Sara Pinson were living the Mormon dream: raised in the LDS Church, married in the LDS temple, etc. Sam obtained his “dream job” working 5 years for Microsoft, and later left Microsoft to start his own business. The Pinson dream culminated in Sam and Sara moving to Ammon (Idaho Falls), Idaho, wherein Sam was called as a Mormon bishop. Everything seemed perfect - except it wasn’t.

Their teenage daughter, Olivia, was questioning both the church, and her sexuality.
Their son, Sam Jr., was suffering with Scrupulosity (religious OCD)
And both Sam and Sara were beginning to question their Mormon faith while Sam was serving as bishop.

Today’s episode tells the story of how a devout Mormon family in Ammon, Idaho, led by a Mormon Bishop, can end up losing their faith in Mormonism in 2020. It also includes a full recounting of how Sam began to speak openly about his struggles with the church after losing his faith - leading to threats and ultimately a disciplinary council/excommunication. And yes, Sam recorded and is now sharing here the full audio of his excommunication (Part 6).

Sam’s wife Sara, along with two of their brilliant children - Olivia and Sam Jr. - also participate in this super-thoughtful story/discussion.

You will not be disappointed in this episode. HUGE thanks to Sam Sr., Sara, Olivia, and Sam Jr. for their willingness to join us on Mormon Stories Podcast and tell their epic story.

Transcript

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0:00.0	One, two, three.
0:03.0	Come, come, you saints, no toil nor labor thing.
0:28.0	But with joy, when you're way.
0:34.0	Okay, so to kind of loop this back now, we were talking about you going down the
0:38.8	rabbit hole, but how your wife, you Sarah, maybe you starting to study mental
0:47.5	health stuff was a help prepare you. So let's get let's now jump back to that.
0:54.0	So, yeah, first semester, take a multicultural class, learn about things like ethnocentrism,
1:00.0	that my culture, my values, my belief system are not everybody else's and that that's not one is not better than the other.
1:09.0	And then if you believe that, it's ethnocentric, right?
1:13.0	And that we don't we don't want to do that with our clients, we don't impose our values.
1:19.0	So, earlier when I was talking about missionary work, not ever,
1:23.0	driving with me, I think for the first time I felt like, oh, this is who I am, not to, I don't impose my values on people.
1:34.0	This is just who I've always been. And that's why missionary worked in fit with me, because that's really what you're doing.
1:39.0	And you're saying, I have something you don't have, let me share it with you, rather than let me learn from you, right?
1:48.0	So, it was really validating and it helped me see that that was a good thing about me.
1:54.0	It didn't mean that I wasn't righteous. It was actually a positive thing and very helpful in the counseling field.
2:00.0	So, that was something, I think my paradigm started shifting, just where, how could this be the one true church?
2:09.0	I just started considering other cultures and how they think they are doing the right thing.
2:15.0	They think that they're living their values and they're happy.
2:21.0	And how could that be in the program I also learned about substance use and how there's a difference between substance use and substance abuse.
2:31.0	And it just stopped being a moral issue for me, where I think it can be seen as a moral issue for members, especially when you can't go to the temple if you don't follow the word of wisdom.
2:43.0	So, I started not really questioning, but just if the church is here, I was here with the church, I just started just shifting everything.
	...

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