Mormon Seminary Teacher Resigned LAST WEEK & Tells Us Why - Riley Davis | Ep. 2054
Mormon Stories Podcast
Dr. John Dehlin
4.6 • 5.2K Ratings
🗓️ 25 August 2025
⏱️ 280 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today we are continuing our series of interviews with LDS Church Education System employees. Today’s guest is extra special, as he resigned from his seminary teaching position just days before the filming of this episode!
Riley Davis was born into the church and grew up in a very traditional Mormon family in Utah. As the son of an LDS bishop, Riley struggled with depression due to religious scrupulosity in his youth, but found healing and growth through church youth programs like the Boy Scouts of America—an experience that inspired him to continue working with youth for the rest of his life. After serving a mission in Buenos Aires, Riley eventually became a math and science teacher but was soon presented with an opportunity to work for CES as an LDS seminary teacher.
Riley also shares with John insights into the current state of the CES program and where it may be headed in the future.
Content Warning: This episode discusses self-harm. Please listen with care.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | What would make a high school seminary teacher for the LDS Church or the Mormon Church |
| 0:05.1 | resign his calling, finish his teaching on a Friday, and come on Mormon Stories podcast |
| 0:11.1 | on a Monday? |
| 0:12.2 | Hello, everyone, and welcome to Mormon Stories Podcast. |
| 0:14.7 | I'm your host, John DeLinn. |
| 0:16.1 | It is August 4th, I believe, 2025. |
| 0:19.8 | And today we're interviewing Riley Davis. Hey, Riley. Good to be here, |
| 0:25.5 | John. Thanks for having me. Yeah, you literally, uh, your last day working for the CES for the church |
| 0:31.3 | education system as a high school seminary teacher was a couple days ago. It was Friday. Absolutely. Yeah, I cleared out my office |
| 0:39.7 | and left my keys and I've got one day in between my last job and my new job tomorrow. And you |
| 0:46.3 | decided to use Mormon stories as the way to fill that one day off. So obviously we're going to be |
| 0:54.1 | talking about what it's like to be a CES teacher or a high school |
| 0:59.1 | seminary teacher or religious educator for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints |
| 1:04.1 | or Mormon Church in 2025. |
| 1:06.5 | But we're also, I think, going to be talking about the faith journey, you know, to what extent |
| 1:12.2 | are historical or doctrinal or cultural or bureaucratic issues affecting Latter-day Saints or Mormons |
| 1:22.3 | these days and also how those things might or might not spill over for church educators and for church |
| 1:30.3 | employees. So this is going to be, I'm guessing, shorter but still long form classical |
| 1:36.8 | Mormon stories interview carrying on the tradition of interviewing former CES teachers. So we've |
| 1:43.1 | interviewed Grant Palmer. Yep. We've've interviewed Grant Palmer. We've interviewed Mark |
| 1:46.4 | Osland. We've interviewed Laura Schnell. David Baccavoy. Dave Baccavoy. You probably know |
| 1:53.9 | the church educators better than me. Well, not as many on here, because it's not going to lie, |
... |
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