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Leading Saints Podcast

Relationships Before Progress | A Conversation with Tom Christofferson, President David Checketts, and Bishop Bruce Larson

Leading Saints Podcast

Leading Saints

Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.81.2K Ratings

🗓️ 2 June 2021

⏱️ 57 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This is a rebroadcast. The episode originally ran in March 2018. Tom Christofferson is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who experiences same sex attraction. He is also the brother of Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Tom grew up in the Church as a member, served a mission and married in the temple. His short marriage ended and he came out as gay and lived that lifestyle for many years. He started coming back to church with Bruce Larson as a bishop and David Checketts as his stake president. His story is told in his book, That We May Be One: A Gay Mormon’s Perspective on Faith and Family, and he has more recently published A Better Heart: The Impact of Christ’s Pure Love. Tom has spent his career in investment management and asset servicing, living in the United States and Europe. He was a founding board member of Encircle, a group providing resources to support LGBTQ individuals and their families in Provo, Utah. Tom is an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and serves as a Gospel Doctrine teacher in his Salt Lake City Ward. As leaders we can learn a lot from his experience of coming back to church and being rebaptized. President David Checketts (far left) and the Christofferson brothers Episode Highlights 6:30 Tom's story from the beginning 9:30 His story of excommunication 10:50 How his family wanted their love to be perfect as they accepted him 13:20 Bishop Bruce Larson's side of the story 16:00 Stake President David Checkett's side of the story 18:00 Bishop Larson and President Checketts did not know at first that he was related to Elder Christofferson 20:30 Sharing with the ward council how to make feel Tom welcome 22:30 Response of the ward council 24:00 Tom was welcomed and loved unconditionally 29:00 Tom attended the ward for 5 years before wanting to come back to live the commandments 31:45 During the 5 years how Tom felt welcome in the ward 33:20 Everyone focused on the the relationship with Tom and not his progress 34:30 Study sessions with Tom and President Checketts 38:00 Meeting with Tom's partner 42:00 President Checketts meets with Elder Christofferson about Tom 45:00 Tom Christofferson's rebaptism 48:00 How this experience has helped Bishop Larson to be a better disciple of Jesus Christ 50:00 How this experience has helped President Checketts to be a better disciple of Jesus Christ Links That We May Be One: A Gay Mormon’s Perspective on Faith and Family A Better Heart: The Impact of Christ’s Pure Love Read the TRANSCRIPT for this episode

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

As Latter-day Saint leaders, we face very difficult conversations that put us at risk of saying the wrong

0:14.9

thing that can do more harm than good. Many of these conversations relate to

0:19.5

LGBTQ Latter-day Saints. Have you had a fellow horde member come out to you about their LGBT identity?

0:26.4

Have you had LGBT neighbors? And you just don't know what to say to them, so you ignore them instead. Have you wrestled with balancing love for your fellow men while still

0:35.8

respecting the doctrines of the restored gospel? In order to help, leading Saints has put together

0:40.7

the LGBT Saints Library with more than 20 presentations featuring individuals

0:46.2

who have a unique perspective or expertise around this topic.

0:49.8

Three of the most popular sessions are available now to watch.

0:53.4

Simply text the word lead to 4747 to start watching now,

0:58.4

or visit leading Saints.org slash LGBT.

1:01.8

The following episode is a throwback episode, one that was published previously and was extremely popular.

1:07.0

To see the details of when this was originally published, see the show notes.

1:11.0

Enjoy this throwback episode.

1:14.0

Welcome back.

1:20.0

My name is Kurt Frankham and I will be your host. Now Tom Christopherson knew he was gay from a young age but continued to strive to live as an Orthodox member of the church.

1:30.0

After a mission and a short-filled marriage, he made the decision to lead the church and live a gay lifestyle.

1:36.0

That journey led him to a relationship with a partner that lasted almost 20 years.

1:40.0

During this time, Tom continued to have a deep belief in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and one day decided to see if he could find a comfortable place in the pews of his local ward in Connecticut.

1:51.0

The story that unfolded after that is an inspiring tale of true leadership.

1:56.0

In this interview we talked with Tom Christoferson and two of his leaders who helped him find a journey back to the church,

2:02.0

Bishop Bruce Larson and President Dave Checkets.

2:05.4

This was a fun interview to do, but it was a nightmare to edit, and let me tell you why.

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