From Mormon to Christian Pastor - Jean Daniel O’Donncada | Ep. 2105
Mormon Stories Podcast
Dr. John Dehlin
4.5 • 5.7K Ratings
🗓️ 20 January 2026
⏱️ 168 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode of Mormon Stories Podcast, we talk with Jean Daniel about his journey from a devoted Mormon convert to a Christian pastor. Growing up in Boston, Jean discovered Mormonism as a teenager and found in it a strong sense of structure, identity, and belonging. He served a mission in San Diego, CA and was later married in the Newport beach temple.
While studying at Harvard and Yale Divinity Schools, Jean began to see the value in many Christian traditions and ultimately let go of the idea of “one true church.” He shares how this shift led him toward a more open, hopeful approach to Christianity grounded in community. Today, Jean serves as the National Pastor of Canada for the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).
This is a thoughtful conversation about faith after Mormonism and building a meaningful spiritual community with progressive beliefs.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon stories podcast. I'm your host |
| 0:03.5 | John DeLinn. It is January 14th, 26. Happy New Year. And today we are interviewing a fascinating |
| 0:11.6 | guest. He is the head of a religious denomination. That denomination is the Christian Church |
| 0:18.0 | Disciples of Christ in Canada. But also he is a former Mormon. And he was |
| 0:24.4 | a undergraduate at Harvard studying religion. While he was at Harvard, he worked for David Baccavoy. |
| 0:31.9 | Many of you will know that name. David Baccavoy has been on Mormon Story several times. He was a |
| 0:37.3 | former CES instructor and got his |
| 0:40.6 | graduate degree from Brandeis, understanding ancient languages and ancient scripture. He even taught |
| 0:46.2 | what, institute at the Harvard-KBridge kind of area while you were there? He taught at a few |
| 0:53.1 | different universities in the greater Boston area. |
| 0:55.2 | Yeah. |
| 0:55.9 | And then he went on to get his MDIV from Yale. |
| 1:00.3 | Is that right? |
| 1:01.0 | M. |
| 1:01.2 | Yes, I got my MDIV at Yale. |
| 1:03.5 | And after leaving Mormonism and getting his MDIV, he ended up again the head of an entire religion or church, global church. |
| 1:15.5 | And interestingly, it's a restorationist church. |
| 1:19.6 | But even more interestingly, it's not a Mormon-themed restorationist church. |
| 1:25.8 | In fact, it could be argued that all of the Mormon restorationist |
| 1:31.3 | traditions actually descend from his church. Tell us the history about that. I would absolutely argue |
| 1:38.3 | that. So this will be massively summarized. There's a wonderful book that's actually by an LDS scholar who has some perspectives with which I disagree, |
| 1:48.9 | but the scholarship is excellent. |
... |
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