Seventh Day Adventism vs. Mormonism - Melissa Duge Spiers | Ep. 2149
Mormon Stories Podcast
Dr. John Dehlin
4.5 • 5.7K Ratings
🗓️ 13 April 2026
⏱️ 156 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For the first time on Mormon Stories Podcast, we’re diving into the world of Seventh-day Adventism. John sits down with Melissa Spiers, a former Seventh-day Adventist, to explore the history, beliefs, culture, and practices of the SDA Church—and to compare them with Mormonism along the way.
In Part 1 of this two-part series, Melissa gives an overview of Seventh-day Adventist origins, theology, lifestyle standards, and church culture, while John and Melissa discuss some of the surprising similarities and key differences between the SDA and LDS traditions.
Then later this week in Part 2, Melissa shares her personal story of growing up in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, her experiences within the faith, and the reasons she ultimately chose to leave.
If this topic interests you, be sure to check out Melissa’s book, "Holy Disobedience: Sex, Sin, and Secrets in the Biggest Church No One Knows."
You can purchase it here.
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon stories podcast. I'm your host, |
| 0:03.3 | John DeLinn. It's March 5th, 2026. And today we're answering the question, |
| 0:08.0 | why would a recent BYU graduate resign for the Mormon church immediately after graduating from |
| 0:15.4 | BYU? That's today's topic. And joining us in studio today is Ryan Huey, one of our most recent BYU |
| 0:24.2 | BYU graduates. Hey, Ryan. Hey, how's it going, John? Thanks for coming on Mormon Stories |
| 0:27.8 | podcast. Thanks for having me. I don't always get an email saying, John, I'm, I just graduated |
| 0:33.0 | diploma in hand. Can I come on Mormon Stories and tell you why I'm leaving the church? I don't get that |
| 0:39.0 | email every day. Anything you want to say as kind of a disclaimer before we dive into your story? |
| 0:47.2 | Oh man, I don't even know. It's crazy that I'm on this podcast. I'm excited to share my story |
| 0:54.0 | because it's so fresh. I think a lot of people leave the church and it takes them several years or maybe never to come out this openly about their exits away from the church. For me, it's, I've been at this, it was like a year ago that I decided to leave. So hopping on |
| 1:11.7 | this podcast is really fresh for me. But I'm happy to talk about my process, why everything |
| 1:18.5 | moves so quickly and why I decided to make that decision to actually formally remove my records |
| 1:25.8 | from the church. All right. |
| 1:27.9 | Well, thanks for coming on. |
| 1:28.8 | Let's dive in. |
| 1:29.7 | So were your parents born in the covenant, Temple Married, all that good stuff? |
| 1:34.8 | They were. |
| 1:35.5 | They actually met in the MTC. |
| 1:37.3 | Oh. |
| 1:37.9 | They were both teachers there. |
| 1:40.3 | They served in Japan, both of them. |
| 1:42.6 | Didn't meet on their missions, met as teachers in the MTC. |
... |
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