IS anyone familiar with this couple and what they are doing now? They were recently divorced and I was just curious if it had anything to do with them resigning from the church and if they are both still out of the church. Someone at another sight thought it had something to do with John Dehlin returning to the fold? That was all they said. That doesn't explain anything though. Just curious.



http://mormonstories.org/?p=2322

I was hoping they would stay together. It makes me sad that they divorced. It may not be, but it seems like it's one more casualty of the mormon church.

I feel so sad for them.

It's sad because Mormons will say that they left the Church because they wanted to sin/split up, rather than why they actually left the Church.

They are divorced now. John moved to Utah with his family (Springville - I believe)and Brooke is doing her food blog thing. Since I am from Colorado Springs, occasionally I will hear about Brooke and her life with her b/f but know nothing of John. I would love to contact him somehow.

Especially where they both left together. I hope the rumor isn't true that he decided to go back to attending the cult.

John McKlay has also been in contact with other CES exmos and there just might be a colloboration in the future.

I do not know if there's any connection to John returning to full activity.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/11/2013 01:59PM by Jesus Smith.

Jesus Smith, I was wondering if you know John. Is he going back to church? How do you know he collaborates with other CES exmos?

colorado Wrote:
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> Jesus Smith, I was wondering if you know John. Is
> he going back to church? How do you know he
> collaborates with other CES exmos?


The McLays were in the CO (11th) ward I last attended regularly, before I moved to FL. He was in the H.C./bishopric there. I've had a couple of emails with him and a couple with Brooke since their leaving. And I know that another CES exmo wanted to reach out to John (to whom I gave John M.'s addy) as well as other former CES teachers to build on a collaboration.

An interesting side-note: when I stopped attending in CO, the counselor in the bpric that worked with John had a conversation with me at an achievement days daddy-daughter event. He was about to attend Berkeley and started by discussing what it was like there (I had attended the UC/worked at LBL) and then he wanted to know why I stopped attending church. That got into a discussion about the historical and doctrinal and science problems I had with the church. This bpric member left a few months later to school and after a couple of years, he had studied his way out of the church along with his family. When he returned to CO, they got back together with the McLays, with whom they were good friends. That led to discussions with John and Brooke about church issues. They in turned did their own study. In around April 2011, my friend spoke with me by phone to update me on their exodus from the church and all the crap they took from the members in CO (and he mentioned how now understand how I must have felt being ostracized by those same members). At that time, he confided in me that the McLays were on their way out too, but it wasn't official. That shocked me. John and I were at odds about my own disaffection and at one time I felt mistreated by him. But I have since come to see John M. as another victim of the church and doing its bidding without really understanding.

It's interesting to see the circles of connection formed as the brightest and most genuine members leave.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/11/2013 02:15PM by Jesus Smith.

Jesus Smith, I would like to speak with you on the phone or email. Are you willing to do that?

email.
jesussmith.exmo at gmail

I think the connection is that John Dehlin interviewed them and was aware that they divorced after leaving Mormonism. Dehlin used exmos getting divorced as one of his reasons for returning to church.

Eventually, Dehlin will also notice that less active members also have a very high divorce rate. The key is commitment to each other without condition. I think Dehlin, in making observations including reading this forum, recognized that he had no other particular direction to follow and that his wife would not accept a split family in religion.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/11/2013 01:57PM by rhgc.

Dehlin might also notice that there are more-active members who get divorced, too.

I do not know the Dehlins, but as someone noted here the other day, the photo of his wife that was (maybe still is) on JD's Facebook page showed her in a very non-garment-friendly tank top. How many TBM wives here who are making demands that their non-believer husbands toe-the-Mormon-line are wearing tank tops at all, let alone in photos posted on FB? To be clear, I do not judge her for wearing tank tops. She's a grown woman and has earned the privilege of making her own clothing choices. Tank tops are my personal favorite.

It seems Dehlin is making excuses. He's afraid he'll get divorced, or want to swing or smoke pot, as he accused some of his acolytes of doing, even though he didn't really know if it happened. Isn't he afraid now that he's returned to activity that he will suddenly start a pyramid scheme to defraud members of their money as multiple active, priesthood-holding Mormons have done? Does this educated man actually believe in such causal inevitabilities? Does he really need the Mormon Church to enforce a code of honor he can live by?

Surrender Dorothy Wrote:
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>
> It seems Dehlin is making excuses. He's afraid
> he'll get divorced, or want to swing or smoke pot,
> as he accused some of his acolytes of doing, even
> though he didn't really know if it happened. Isn't
> he afraid now that he's returned to activity that
> he will suddenly start a pyramid scheme to defraud
> members of their money as multiple active,
> priesthood-holding Mormons have done? Does this
> educated man actually believe in such causal
> inevitabilities? Does he really need the Mormon
> Church to enforce a code of honor he can live by?


Exactly. The only thing that makes sense to me is that he has had it drilled into his head that people who leave the church are in Satan's power, to the extent that he can't get over that fear, even though he knows intellectually that it's ridiculous.
I feel sorry for him, but I also think he needs to resolve his own issues before he can really help patients.

I agree I don't think he is going back for his wife. He said in his interview that when he went inactive for the first time that the whole family went inactive to and his wife was totally onboard with him. I think it is really sad myself that he had those meetings with Holland who convinced him that the church wants people like him so he decided to go back and his kids got all entangled in Mormonism. Now if he left again I think it might be a little more difficult for him because of his kids but I bet his wife would still be okay with it. And the kids could just keep going to church or stop depending on their personal preference.

I'm a personal friend and a colleague of John Dehlin's (and an adamant exmo who's had my name removed). I stumbled upon this thread because it was linked on a fb post I read. Just wanted to mention that all the things people are saying here about John, Margi (his wife), their marriage, his return to church activity, are pure speculation. And they actually remind me a bit of how active members like to speculate about us apostates. They're all based on their own biases, and they often miss the mark.

John is not suckered in by the fear tactics of the church. He seems to me to see the church as an imperfect institution that can sometimes be a source of good things in his life (like, community for example), and he's decided he wants those good things. At the same time, I don't see him ever giving up on his mission of agitating for change in the church. He's not an extremist- all in or all out. And his comments sometimes are misunderstood because they lack context and they lack the personal connection to John that would help people understand his line of thinking better.

Also, he's a d@#^ good therapist. No therapist, and no human being, has ever "fully resolved" their own issues. We all have our stuff. But John is committed to helping people and he knows what he's doing clinically.

Bottom line, it's his life, his faith or lack thereof, his call. And if you don't know him (and sometimes even if you do), any conclusions you reach about him are based on very incomplete info and your own "issues" coming out in reaction to his journey. Just my two cents.

So what would you say Brother Dehlin's speculative conclusions about former-Mormons "sinning" say about him...since you're his "friend" and all.

His journey IS his journey, but when he paints former Mormons with the "sin" brush, do you think that's HIS issues coming to the surface in reaction to his speculation about former-Mormons' journeys?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/12/2013 03:11AM by Surrender Dorothy.

+1 - whatever anyone thinks about Dehlin's decision to return to activity, I also noted that much of the wild cyberspace speculation from all ends of the spectrum reminded me of siting in ward councils.

I have to be honest and say that I also get the feeling that some people wanted his complete departure from the church as a kind of vindication of their own stance.

Some might think he 'sold out' and has no integrity. I listened to his last podcasts and felt a degree of empathy for the very difficult position he is in. We all have to make our own paths and I refuse to be swayed by Dehlin's personal decision, whether I agree with it or not just as much as the testimony of an Apostle.

I'm thankful for his contribution to date and wish him well whatever he decides is best for him and his family.

I don't mind at all that Dehlin returned to church - that's his own choice. What bothers me is his stated reasons for doing so. I don't know him, but I did listen to his podcast explaining why he returned to activity.

He talked about ex-mormons who he heard were having sex and using drugs at parties after his conferences. He also mentioned ex-mormons getting divorced, and how he was considering divorce when he was not attending. He explained that when he left the church, he was in a dark place and felt angry. Without the moral standards of the church, he felt that he had no morals at all.

Most of us, when we left, had to reevaluate our morals. We had to figure out for ourselves what is right and wrong, what standards we personally are comfortable living by. Dehlin was frightened by that.

Listen to his podcast and tell me where I'm wrong. I would fully support Dehlin returning to church activity, if his explanation for returning wasn't based on the church stereotypes of inactives being angry and sinning.

Sadly John will find his problems haven't gone away, they've just been suppressed.

I don't know John. At all. But as a distant observer he seems to be a very tortured soul who tries to make sense and rationalise his own inner turmoil by projecting through interviews with others.

I may be way off the mark, but that is how his situation seems to play out to me.

Naomi Wrote:
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> He talked about ex-mormons who he heard were having sex and using drugs at parties after his conferences.

And we've heard about wife-swapping, or "swinger" parties among certain groups of active Mormons. If we're not lumping John in with that group, why is he lumping all exmos together?

> He also mentioned ex-mormons getting divorced, and how he was considering divorce when he was not attending.

Mormons get divorced as well. Granted, John may be trying to hold his own marriage together, and that's fine. Perhaps he should ask himself why religious differences between a Mo and and exmo might lead to divorce. What church would drive a wedge between married partners?

> He explained that when he left the church, he was in a dark place and felt angry. Without the moral standards of the church,
he felt that he had no morals at all.

This is a moral system based on obedience, not on having internalized a value system so that one can deal with novel moral issues with confidence. This is the fault of the Mormon church's training in morality, which does not foster independent thinking, just blind obedience. Children are expected to obey! -- but adults are expected to be fully actualized individuals.

And far too many TBM believer marriages are also based on "obedience" with clearly miserable and trapped partners playing the role of the happy (in the next life) celestial spouses. So enmeshed in the mormon notion of the perfect family image, no matter the cost, they can neither see the forest nor the trees.

One of the cult-think concepts one must eventually throw off is the "endure-to-the-end" holiness paradigm, that continues to pressure people to suffer tremendous boundary violations, fantasy delusions of change *someday*, and carpe diem paralysis.

Dehlin's run-back-to-the-church-where-there-is-light-and happiness excuse sounds more and more like Cypher's Filet Mignon. Eat well John. Hope you're happy.

We'll see Dehlin again in 10 years when his cog dis once again becomes overwhelming, when he has breached his professional ethical responsibilities another hundred times by telling clients that staying in a predatory cult is OK, and when his marriage is not the slightest bit easier or happy with the Remoras of mormonism clinging parasitically to it.

Nice "defense." (Is your name John?)

Many people become exmos because of what they see in "official" sources of the corporation.

In the case of Mr. Dehlin, his own words are the source materials for the conclusions I have drawn about him. No speculation necessary when he is the source of the information.

Dehlin's cognitive dissonance is patently obvious in his own writings.

A ____ good therapist? On a video from a Utah college campus, he broke the confidentiality of two of his clients. Not professional.

So if John D gets a temple recommend.

That means he really believes Thomas S Monson is a prophet of God and so was Joseph Smith.

If that is the case then he is either lying to them or he has been lying to us.

E-NoExMo Wrote:
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> I'm a personal friend and a colleague of John
> Dehlin's.

Ok, that is fair, thanks for clearing that up. But what about John and Brooke Mclay? That is who I'm asking about.

Sad to see them divorce.
But who can say for sure this is a religion issue...........

I don't know why Brooke and John divorced but I know that he didn't move "with his family" to Springville - he just moved. He has the kids a few days each month. He's now unemployed and refuses to get a job - so even though he only has the kids a couple of days each month he gets child support because of the income disparity. She is working back in CA, has the kids 90% of the time and has to pay him. It's galling.

And yes, Brooke is no longer mormon.

And he moved to Utah to be near his girlfriend.

Many of us dads paid child support to our non-working exwives and no one said it was galling. I didn't like it but everyone else seemed to be fine with it.

Is it that a dad is the one that usually pays child support? If she is working and making the money then why not have her pay?

If she is working and has the kids 90% of the time why is she paying child support?

COurt: Thanks for the update.

My sister had listend to their whole pod cast (which was 4+ hours)and was very curious where they were at this stage of their exit from the church. And then Brookes face book page said something like "unexpectedly divorced"and that was it. Unfortunately when you're in the spot light, for what ever reason, people want to know what you're up to. And in their case, where they have gone from here, since leaving the church. It's too bad their marriage didn't hold up.

So, I'm assuming he hasn't gone back to the church either?

Are they both still out of the tscc?