1412: What Happens When a Mormon Bishop Loses His Faith - Matthew & Elizabeth Shakespear Pt. 1

Mormon Stories Podcast

Dr. John Dehlin

Religion & Spirituality

4.6 • 5.2K Ratings

🗓️ 29 March 2021

⏱️ 121 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What happens when a Mormon bishop falls in love with a member of his congregation? How could this happen?
What situation would make a divorced single mother returning to Mormon church activity fall in love with her married bishop?
In what ways does the calling of Mormon bishop, including both excessive time demands on the Bishop and the practice of one-on-one "worthiness" interviews with single women, put excessive strain on bishops, their marriages, and their families - making infidelity more likely?
Should divorced single women (or anyone for that matter) seek life counseling from a Mormon bishop? Are bishops trained and qualified to do life counseling?
How could a bishop and a divorced single mother come to believe that they were both engaged in a God-approved polygamous relationship? Does a story like this help us better understand the Chad Daybell / Lori Vallow story, or the Joseph Smith story?
What happens when a Mormon bishop loses his faith, while he is serving as bishop? What type of pressure does that put on the bishop, his wife, and their family?
What is it like to be viewed as "the mistress" in a public relationship that is viewed as scandalous (i.e., a Mormon bishops falls in love with a ward member, loses his faith, asks to be released, and the entire ward/stake knows)?
What happens when a Mormon stake president is forced to release a Mormon bishop early? What types of pressure does this situation put on the stake president, the ward, the bishop, and the bishop's family? How does the Mormon church handle such situations?
If you happen to fall in love with someone who isn't your spouse mid-life, how do you decide whether to stay in the struggling or failed marriage to improve it vs. leave the marriage to seek greater joy/fulfillment? Is there ever a time to "cut your losses" in a marriage and move on, or should most/all marriages be preserved at virtually all cost?
Can 2nd marriages work, with all the complexities of divorce, ex-spouses, step-children, etc.? Or are they generally doomed to fail?
How in the world do you ever heal from a lifetime of trauma as a Mormon? Is healing and growth possible? If so, what are some resources that can be helpful?

Today's epic two-part Mormon stories interview with Matthew and Elizabeth explores all of these questions, and much, much more. Buckle in for a 7+ hour in-depth interview.

I promise you that you will not be disappointed with these two strong, vulnerable, inspiring humans.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host John DeLin. It is February 19th
0:06.7	2021 and I am super excited for today's interview. It's one that I've wanted to do for at least a year if not more.
0:14.7	Today we're going to be interviewing Matthew and Elizabeth Shakespeare. This is one in a series of episodes that I've done a Mormon Stories where we interview former Mormon bishops.
0:24.7	And this is interesting and different in several ways. So we're going to be talking about Matthew Shakespeare's life growing up in the church, getting married in the temple,
0:35.0	having children, doing all the things that lead up to him being called as a Mormon bishop around 2015 timeframe. Correct. Yeah.
0:43.9	And that's kind of one angle.
0:46.2	And then what we're going to be talking about is what happens when bishop Shakespeare starts to learn about Kikelli and John DeLin and Bill Reale and Mormon Stories podcast and all the issues around Mormon faith crises while he's serving as a bishop.
1:02.8	And that's kind of one part of the story. And then while he's serving as bishop, he begins counseling Elizabeth, who is a member of his congregation or his ward.
1:12.6	And as he finds his faith sort of unraveling, he also, I don't know if I want to say falls in love or becomes emotionally attached to Elizabeth, who is not his wife at the time, but who's a ward member.
1:26.6	And you know what that's like. And eventually Matthew ends up asking to be released as bishop.
1:34.6	And he and his wife at the time end up divorcing and Matthew ends up marrying Elizabeth. And then they have their journey from there. So this is going to be a really interesting and epic Mormon Stories podcast interview about Mormonism about serving in the church, about faith crises, about what do you do in your bishop having a faith crises.
1:55.6	It's going to be about divorce. It's going to be a reconstruction. It's going to be about finding love. And of course, there's Elizabeth story, which is her own journey, which is separate from Matthew's, which we're going to weave in as well. So with all that as an intro, I'm super excited for today's interview.
2:11.6	And without any further ado, welcome Matthew and Elizabeth to Mormon Stories podcast.
2:16.6	Thank you.
2:17.6	It's good to be here. It's kind of well surreal in many respects. So looking forward to it, nervous as well at the same time.
2:29.6	Certainly wanting to share a story that I think will be interesting. I hope it will be helpful for some people.
2:39.6	I hope it's most importantly intellectually honest. I don't want to tell stories to try and pick myself to look.
2:49.6	Flalless, you don't want to look flawless.
2:54.6	Yeah, exactly. But certainly want to acknowledge, I guess, just the humanity that exists in all of us.
3:04.6	And that, yeah, I mean, I think what we'll probably see here as we share our story is that, you know, a case could probably be made for staying closer and staying in the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
3:26.6	And the case will also be able to be made for moving away from it based on our experience.
3:34.6	So, and that's, I guess, the paradox of the human condition, right? And so I'm opening, I guess opening my heart, realizing that there will be critics who, at least I think they'll probably be critics who would like to speak harshly about my life.
	...

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