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Mormon Stories Podcast

1424: The Life of a Mormon Seminary Teacher - Marc Oslund Pt. 2

Mormon Stories Podcast

Dr. John Dehlin

Religion & Spirituality

4.65.2K Ratings

🗓️ 27 April 2021

⏱️ 259 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Join us today as we continue with part two of our three-part interview with former baseball player and LDS seminary teacher, Marc Oslund. Fascinating for so many reasons, I believe this is one of the most important Mormon Stories Podcast episodes I've ever released.

  • Marc was a heavily recruited high school baseball and football player in the L.A., California area.
  • He converted to the Mormon church as a teen.
  • He was drafted to the baseball Major Leagues three different times, and turned down those offers to go on an LDS mission and to BYU.
  • He was an all-American baseball player at BYU.
  • He served an LDS mission where he was often racked with guilt and shame - almost sent home for it.
  • When his baseball career ended (due to post-mission injuries), he became a Mormon CES seminary teacher, and served from around 2013 to 2019 - while the Mormon church was trying to become more open/honest about its history, and deal with public activists like Kate Kelly, myself, Sam Young, Jeremy Runnells, etc.
  • Even though he constantly had doubts/questions/concerns, his position as a seminary teacher caused major rifts in his marriage when his wife expressed occasional doubts, specifically about the Mormon temple ceremony.
  • Marc became a liberal/progressive/Givens Mormon while a seminary teacher - but was punished by CES for his progressive stances.
  • Marc ultimately lost his orthodox Mormon faith as a seminary teacher, and was pressured to quit his job.

In part 2 of his story, we will hear about Marc's experience working for the Church Educational System as a seminary teacher, his attempts to be open with students about church doctrines, and why he eventually began to question the leadership of the LDS church - all while working within the CES program.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hello everyone and welcome back to my epic interview with Mark Ozzlint.

0:04.8

For those of you who didn't catch the first, I don't know, three and a half, four hours

0:08.3

I've ever long it was.

0:09.6

In the first part of this interview with Mark, we talk about how Mark grew up in LA.

0:13.7

Grump is kind of an all-American baseball player and football player, or at least that level

0:18.8

of performance in, you know, top-notch California athletic programs.

0:23.6

How he always wanted to play professional baseball and or football.

0:27.2

But also how he was raised kind of in a non-religious environment.

0:31.5

But when he fell in love with a Mormon girl named Faith from his high school, he ended

0:38.1

up converting to Mormonism.

0:40.2

And his football career was cut short, but he was offered three different, he was drafted

0:47.2

three different times in the majors as a star baseball player, ended up going on a mission,

0:54.4

ended up choosing BYU over other better schools, ended up declining those major league baseball

1:00.9

drafts, played against in high school, several really famous successful major league baseball

1:06.6

players, ended up going on a mission and was all American at BYU as a baseball player.

1:13.2

But everything was kind of cut short because of injuries.

1:16.2

You could even argue that some of those injuries were at least partially tied to his taking

1:20.1

two years off and then coming right back and pitching, but long story short, he had the

1:24.8

chance to play in the majors, turned it down for Mormonism, then got injured and then

1:30.0

was never able to play.

1:31.5

But also what I think is, you know, really fascinating about his story is how he went from

1:37.0

kind of this fun-loving casual, you know, teenager engaged in normative, healthy, teenage

...

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