What ExMormons Love About Mormonism - A Valentine's Day Special | Ep. 2113
Mormon Stories Podcast
Dr. John Dehlin
4.5 ā¢ 5.7K Ratings
šļø 14 February 2026
ā±ļø 146 minutes
šļø Recording | iTunes | RSS
š§¾ļø Download transcript
Summary
In this special Valentineās episode, we are joined by Kolby Reddish (a rando on the internet), Nemo the Mormon, Carah Burrell (from Nuancehoe), Julia Sanders from Analyzing Mormonism and John Dehlin for a conversation that might surprise you.
Yes - We are critics of Mormonism.
Yes - Weāve experienced pain, disillusionment, and deep deconstruction.
And yetā¦ we can hold two different truths at once.
In this episode, we model something that feels almost taboo in exMormon spaces: expressing gratitude for the things Mormonism gave us āwhile still being honest about its harm.Ā
In this episode we discuss:
- Rituals that shaped our identities
- Community and why itās hard to leave
- Awe, wonder, and valuing the body
- Agency and free will as an act of faith
- Why compassion and justice often lead people OUT of the church
- Whether we wish to destroy the church or make it better
There are so many good people inside the Mormon church. The people are often beautiful while the system is complicated. As Richard Rohr once said: āNobody does first half of life better than Mormonsā āand we all share deep gratitude for that first half.Ā
This episode does not erase the negative things about the church. It doesnāt minimize harm. But it DOES ask whether we can be mature enough to acknowledge the good without surrendering our integrity.
Please purchase the book ā hereā .
To support this series please donate ā hereā . One half of all donations will go to Dr. Turner for as long as he is participating in the series.
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Happy Valentine's Day. |
| 0:01.8 | Hello and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. |
| 0:05.0 | I'm your host, John DeLinn. |
| 0:06.5 | We are doing a live episode today. |
| 0:08.4 | It's February 14th, 2026. |
| 0:11.3 | And today we are going to be answering the question of what do some, at least, |
| 0:17.7 | ex-Mormons, love about Mormonism or the LDS Church? Today's episode was the |
| 0:23.2 | brainchild of everyone's favorite rando on the internet. Colby Reddish. Hey Colby. Hey, John. Thanks for |
| 0:31.5 | having me. Happy Valentine's Day and thanks for making this panel come together. I really |
| 0:35.5 | appreciate it. Actually, I think it was you who made |
| 0:37.9 | this panel come together, Colby. Well, thank you for hosting this discussion. I think it's going to be |
| 0:43.1 | really interesting. You know, so many ex-Mormons find themselves in this position where there are things |
| 0:50.1 | they look back at at their time in Mormonism, and they really appreciate those things. |
| 0:55.2 | And so today we're going to try and model like holding two different truths at once, which is, |
| 1:00.2 | yes, other ex-Mormans out there absolutely hear you and understand that the church or its teachings may have damaged you or affected you in negative ways. |
| 1:14.6 | But today we're really going to focus on some of those positive aspects that we remember from our time inside of Mormonism growing up the way it helped shape us. |
| 1:20.3 | And Colby, wasn't part of this that you hear from apologists of the church that |
| 1:24.7 | ex-Mormons can never say anything nice about the church or Mormonism? |
| 1:28.8 | Is that part of it? |
| 1:30.0 | Yeah, there were a bunch of comments that we had gotten you and I together after an episode we had done together. |
| 1:35.4 | And I can't even remember which one because this happens quite a bit where we get comments that basically say all we want to do is find fault with everything the church does or snipe at everything the church does. And so I thought, you know, I actually know that it's a lot more nuanced than that for a lot of the people in this space. And that's why we brought this panel of people who are like that together. All right. Well, joining us on today's panel is ex-Mormon sweetheart, Cara Borel, nuancedo. Hey, Kara. Oh my gosh. What an intro. Thank you, John. |
| 2:03.1 | We're getting the band back together. Yeah, reunited. I feel so good. Happy Valentine's. |
... |
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