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This is Mormon Stories. I'm John DeLin.

Today I have with me someone who I've been hoping to interview for a long time now

and someone who I think has done an incredible amount of good to help people

in their struggles within this Mormon dilemma that many of us face.

And his name is Brian Johnston. Brian, welcome to Mormon Stories podcast.

Oh, hey John, thanks.

Now Brian has been interviewed on the Mormon Expression podcast a few times.

He's appeared with me even once or twice.

And you're going to hear some overlap if you are a Mormon Expression listener

with this podcast. But don't let that dismay you.

We're going to go into a lot more depth.

And I hardly recommend you go listen to those episodes on Mormon Expression podcast if you haven't yet.

But there are a few reasons why I've been wanting to interview Brian for a long, long time.

The first is that just like we've interviewed people on Mormon Stories

who have struggled with their faith and even some have chosen to leave the church,

I have a commitment and a goal to make sure that we cover all sides of the spectrum

in terms of the Mormon experience. And probably the situation that I'm personally most interested in

is people who have been through a crisis of faith, people who know all the challenging

intellectual and historical problems with the church.

And maybe you could even argue have every possible excuse or reason to want to leave the church

...