The Crazy Truth Pt. 1

Join us for this week's episode of the Clairity Podcast where we sit down with Phontaine and Hannah Judd, creators of The Crazy Train documentary.  The Judd's story is one that illustrates corruption in every system.  Business systems, legal systems, court systems, and yes, the church system.
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After a series of unfortunate events in the Judd's lives including being scammed by a business partner, their daughter being groomed by a neighbor, and Phontaine going to prison, a soup of false accusations and lies started brewing in their local ward.  The end result?  Banning the Judd's from attending church.
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In this week's episode we are answering all of the Judd's most frequently asked questions as well as doing a scriptural deep dive on what the church is doing vs. what Jesus would do in this situation.
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Tune in for the full episode!
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 @TheCrazyTrain_Begins  
https://www.stopthecrazytrain.org/
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Want to share your story on the Clairity Podcast?  Email me at clairity.podcast@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Every morning I just I woke up thinking I had had a bad dream. There's no way that just, you know, I just lost my daughter.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Any organization, church or secular or otherwise, institutes a policy that directly contradicts scripture, it will end badly. The reality is we brought up some misconduct on the part of local leaders and they didn't like it. And so they banned us. If these people can publicly lie about me, I think it's only fair that I should be able to publicly tell the truth about that.

SPEAKER_03 0:30

If you have a relationship with Jesus Christ, um, no one can ban you from that.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

Do you think that a secret combination is what you are seeing amongst these men in leadership? Hey everybody, and welcome to this week's episode of the Clarity Podcast. I'm your host, Claire, and this week's guests are the creators of the documentary Crazy Train, Fontaine and Hannah Judd.

SPEAKER_03 1:00

There's something to be said about living in constant fear.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

All I ever wanted in life was to be a good dad, to give my kids a loving father.

SPEAKER_03 1:12

I was constantly uh worried that my kids were gonna be taken away from me. This is textbook grooming behavior. Why are you arresting my husband?

SPEAKER_00 1:27

All of a sudden, I'm like, I was going to get stabbed.

SPEAKER_03 1:32

The vindictiveness is not gonna go away. So, yes, you will be targeted again. If you're ever talking to a person in power and they later lie to you, there's nothing you can do about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

This is perjury, only it's perjury from the police, which is way worse.

SPEAKER_02 1:54

How much blood are you testifying was there in the car?

SPEAKER_00 1:57

I saw handprints on the windows, on the doors, like they were trying. Someone was trying to claw out. But I think he finally realized that I was innocent. I just think it was too late at that point.

SPEAKER_03 2:10

The social conviction was the real punishment.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

People treat you way differently. It's like you have some sort of incurable disease. Don't come back. Come back, I'm calling the cops.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

I have to pet it with you. If my daughter took her own life, that would absolutely ruin us.

SPEAKER_00 2:33

I had the distinct impression that there were wolves in the flock at church, and I could not shake it. That there were people at church who were going to hurt my children to punish me.

SPEAKER_03 2:46

This is not justice. I had been blackmailed and told, if you don't do what we want, we're going to accuse you of child abuse.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

What was I supposed to do? I knew what the law was, but I didn't know if it was going to get followed. It was like a no-win situation. There was no right answer.

SPEAKER_04 3:07

Take my daughter from me!

SPEAKER_03 3:11

I cannot believe the arrogance of the judges.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

We would be the first people ever to be excommunicated for attending church.

SPEAKER_03 3:22

She said she had bought a gun.

SPEAKER_02 3:24

You also testified that you hit him, right?

SPEAKER_03 3:28

She said, you know, Hannah, that could be perceived as sexual assault. I tried to pull his hair, and I hit him in the back.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Gossip and rumors had now morphed into fact. I'll write this up and basically get it to uh the chief. We had already done everything in our power to try to resolve the issue quietly.

SPEAKER_03 3:48

There were now officially no more options.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

I was so freaking discouraged, just sitting wondering what just happened and how. Thanks for having us.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

I'm so excited to be able to do this with you guys. And just for the sake of our audience, guys, we're gonna be doing this a little bit different than we usually do interviews because Fontaine and Hannah have essentially released a documentary about their story, and it's called The Crazy Train. You can find it on YouTube. I think you guys have a website too, don't you?

SPEAKER_00 4:47

Yeah, it's uh stopthecrazytrain.org.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Okay, so they have a website. We'll link it in the description. So essentially what we're gonna do here is a little bit different, but before we get into our different structure here, I do want Fontaine and Hannah to give a little bit of a recap of their story. Then if you guys are interested, you can go ahead and watch Crazy Train after this interview. But Fontaine, why don't you go ahead and dive into give us a 10-minute recap? What is your story?

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Okay. So it's a little misleading in that I could give a 10-minute recap because the story covers what, 20 years? Uh, but the basically what happened was a lot. My my wife and I, we uh we got married, we had kids, and we ended up we I would was living in Hollywood. I am a I was a Hollywood editor, living the dream, living the life, and we had some sort of weird sickness and we couldn't figure it out, and so we ended up leaving, and we were there for what, 15 years in Burbank and other places down in Hollywood, and we relocated to uh the Sacramento area and tried to kind of reinvent ourselves, like, okay, what are we gonna do? And we had this business partner who was a member of the church, and uh it turns out he was a really good scam artist, and we lost all of our money and we were in pretty bad shape. We ended up going to the bishop saying, Hey, we we screwed up, we need some help. And the bishop had uh a counselor who knew me as a youth and didn't, for lack of a better term, didn't like me and kind of fed the bishop some nonsense. And the bishop turned on us and became very antagonistic towards our family to the point where he refused to to help us out and started spreading rumors and broke confidence, and it was kind of a mess. And during this time period, my oldest daughter got sexually assaulted by a boy at church and was being groomed by an elderly I don't know what you call it, perverted neighbor woman. And it just it was like all the the poop hit the fan at once. It was just that this this perfect storm of problems. And because we were poor and we couldn't we we were like in the perfect situation. We were the ideal candidates for this horrible neighbor. So our daughter ends up becoming suicidal. Uh, we're trying to get her help, we're trying to change uh schools and congreg church congregations and whatever we can do. But we again we have no money. I'm scrambling for work. And our daughter disappears. And it turns out she's she's gone for two weeks. We're pulling our hair out. We finally discover she's at the neighbor lady that had was grooming her. And so we call the police. The police come over and say, ah, well, it's too bad for you. Kids can live wherever they want. And we're like, what? My son, my uh oldest son, he finds out about it. And I should probably back up a little bit. We, my wife and I, uh, we have an unusually large family. I think at the time we had seven daughters, six daughters, and I can't remember at the time. We had 12 children. Yeah. Anyway, so we had we had an unusually large family, and my oldest son, he was absolutely uh best friends with my oldest daughter. He finds out about what's going on, he goes to the park to try to basically grab my daughter and bring her home. The neighbor lady and her friend, they fight back, the police are called, and some bizarre twist of fate, I'm the one that gets blamed for the whole thing. I get thrown in jail. Again, we're broke, we have no money. I finally land a job right before we were supposed to go to court. I hire a lawyer, he does nothing. We end up even though and the weirdest thing was someone had taken video of the event at the park. And I was sure that that's all anybody needed to see that would totally exonerate me because the the the police report was so bizarre saying I had shown up like uh throwing haymakers and beating everybody left and right. And none of that was true. The video shows it. My lawyer decides not to use that video in court. I end up losing my court case. I get wrongfully convicted of simple assault, and it just it it's like it goes from bad to worse. Well, we finally get our daughter back. We're able to get her out of the state to go live with relatives, so she's safe for the most part. And we move congregations, we move schools, we're trying to to restart. I have a job now. And in the new congregation, it's like the all the gossip and the nonsense from our previous congregation just followed us to the new congregation. And there was a lady in the new congregation whose name was Sandra Brown, and she took a liking to my oldest son and wanted him to to marry her daughter, and my son was preparing to go on a mission for the church, and he's like, eh, you know what? I don't need to go have a girlfriend right now. I'm gonna break this off. And this lady Sandra got really mad about it and decided that she was going to punish my son and spread a rumor that he had tried to sexually assault uh her daughter. It wasn't true. Nothing about it was true, didn't matter. The rumor spread all over. We didn't even find out about it until like a year later when it had become something much worse. It became basically it was attempted rape at that point. And we're like, oh my gosh. We reach out, we're like, hey, what are you doing? Let this is not okay. This is not how Christians treat each other. Let's let's get this resolved. And she and her husband were like, no, no, no, we're not gonna resolve this, we're not gonna uh forget you guys. We tried multiple times and they just they're they refused to to even talk to us about it. Like, okay, fine, we'll go to the bishop then. If that's if that's how you want to do this, we have to get this resolved. This is not okay. We talked to the bishop, and to our complete surprise, he takes the side of Sandra Brown and threatens us with blackmail, going, ah, if you don't drop this, I know bad things about your family. And we're like, what is and we knew he was referring to my arrest and this altercation that happened at the park and the fact that I had gone to jail, and we're like, Are you are you kidding? Like that's that's not the response we were expecting at all from a bishop. And so we go, Well, okay, fine. We'll we'll talk to the stake president. I mean, I don't want to have to escalate this, but we'll we're gonna have to talk to the stake president. The stake president does the exact same thing, only worse. He he threatens us with with taking away our our temple recommends and and um he ends up because we had an issue with the bishop, it was like, oh, well, you're the sinner. Yeah, it was so bizarre. And we can get more into that here in a minute, but the he ends up fabricating letters, claiming they were from the prophet and the quorum of the twelve. And he ends up he he lies all the time, trying to cover up the tracks of of the bishop, and then we catch the bishop in a bunch of lies. And by this time we've wisened up and we start recording the conversation. So we have ironclad proof that these people are lying, and it's just they're just doing bad things. For us, the turning point was when our son was denied uh a m the opportunity to serve a mission because of these rumors. There was never a court case, there was never a legal action, there was never a church anything that they just went, you know what, we're not gonna let your son serve a mission. My son was devastated, really upset. And so we're like, okay. And then for me, the clincher was when the stake president made a false report to CPS that my wife and I waterboard our children. That we that we were so abusive, we're waterboarding our children. I kid you not, that was the claim that that he supposedly made to CPS. And we're like, wow, okay, so we gotta go, we gotta go beyond the stake president. And so we try to reach up the the chain, and it turns out that everybody would just bounce the concerns back to the stake president. Trevor Burrus, Jr. We have to say it appeared the stake president may was the one that made the we have every reason to believe it was the stake president who made this false CPS claim. So uh we we discover kind of a problem when it comes to accountability with stake presidents because that they're kind of where the the buck stops here. That's where the that's where the the sidewalk ends, so to speak, where we couldn't get past that. And the the closest we got was a guy named Mark Bragg, but he really wasn't helpful at all. And so Well, he just sent the problem back to So after the better part, I would say three years of trying to get this nonsense resolved. I was in one of our uh back rooms and I I was just praying my heart out, going, I I don't I don't know what to do here. And I got the very uh clear answer, Fontaine. Just tell your story. You have the time, talents, and ability to just tell your story, share what what happened. And so my wife went and I was like, wait, what? That's not that's not what I was expecting, but it was it was a for lack of a better term, it was a divine mandate to go public. And so we got to work and last October 2024, we uh uh the Crazy Train documentary series, 24 episodes, was released documenting all of this, and to our surprise and I'm gonna back up real quick. The reason why it's 24 episodes, I can tell the story as I just did very quickly, but it is not believable. You you'll listen going, yeah, right. Unless you've lived something like it, it just it's so outlandish and so, well, unbelievable that you're like, yeah, whatever, this is this is fabricated, you're you're leaving stuff out, whatever. But once you see it, once you see the videos, once you hear the recordings, once you see the documents, what once you've watched it or seen it for yourself, you're like, oh my gosh, they're telling the truth. And so that's why it's that's why it's so long, because it's not believable otherwise. Anyway, so we uh the the documentary series gets released, and we uh are going back to church. And a couple weeks later, two men show up at our door, these armed guys show up at our door and hand us a letter from a law firm, Curtin McConkey, banning us from church worldwide, can't talk to anybody, nobody can talk to us. We thought for sure it was another fabrication of our state president Alan Smith. So we'll go to church anyway, and these same men are at church, and they try to enforce it using force and grabbing my daughter, grabbing my wife. This commotion occurs at church.

SPEAKER_03 15:51

And yeah, that's kind of where the story leaves on.

SPEAKER_00 15:57

Where we are up to this point, yeah. So we're we're just and I should say, Claire, my wife and I, if we come across as deer in the headlights, it's kind of because we are, we're just like, what is what is going on? If I hadn't experienced it myself, I wouldn't believe it. It's it's it's just unbelievable. How how can these things be? Anyway, so that's kind of a a very brief recap of kind of where we are and what what happened.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

Okay, so the last according to the dates of your last video, that at the church, that incident at the church happened in about 2024. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_00 16:37

Yeah, end of 2024, October 2024.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

As far as where you're at now, you are still banned from the church, correct? Okay, so that has not changed. Okay. Have you been to church since that happened?

SPEAKER_00 16:50

Uh a chapel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? No. Have we gone to church? Yes. But not none of our no congregations to which we belong.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

Okay. So, and just to for our audience sake, to put out an outsider perspective, I'll be honest, a year ago when you released your documentary, I was like, who in their right mind makes like a 25-episode documentary about themselves? And I was like, that's just a really weird thing. And then I watched it and I was mind blown. I was like, I cannot believe that this is happening to people in the LDS church. But the reason why I believe it is because there are so many parallels to things that happen to my family within the church. I was completely mind blown. And I actually think that your documentary is something that everybody should watch because we should be aware that these things are happening to people. And I think a lot of members of the church, one of the ways they do brush it under the rug is by saying, Oh, well, those kind of things don't happen in my ward. And I don't think that's an excuse. I think we need to be defending the innocent, defending people like you guys who have been through these things at no fault of your own. And so that's why I wanted you to bring you on my podcast. So to give you a chance, bring you down to a human level and say, here, here's an opportunity to defend yourselves and talk about the responses that you've gotten and um the questions that you've gotten through this whole ordeal of going public, because going public is not an easy decision when you choose to do this. No, it's not. Right. Okay, so what we're gonna do is we kind of had an opportunity to break down all of the different comments that you guys have received, and we've kind of categorized these different comments. And so we're gonna go through all the different categories, and I'm gonna give you guys a chance to respond to some of these comments and answer some of these most popular questions so people can get some clarity on what is going on with your situation. So our first category here, I called it the you are the problem narrative. Okay. So this is the idea that obviously you guys are the problem in this situation. You must be doing something wrong. So let me start off by reading a couple of these comments. Um, so this one says, This many people wouldn't be upset with you and hurt you unless you are the problem. Nobody has this many problems with others unless they're doing something to instigate it themselves. Another person said, Do you ever realize it might just be something you are doing? What is your guys' response to that?

SPEAKER_03 19:18

Well, the response is yes, absolutely. Did I did that occur to me like, oh my gosh, I must be doing something wrong? So probably the worst point in the story was after my husband got arrested. My oldest daughter was put into custody of CPS, and I ended up working it so I could get my daughter put under the care of my parents. I managed to get her out of the state of California and safely with my parents, but I was forced to sign away my rights to my daughter. When all this happened, I was actually uh about two weeks overdue to have a baby. As soon as I got back from taking my daughter to my parents, I went into labor. I had a baby, 10-pound baby, difficult labor. Um, and after that baby was born, like all this, it just like just started, it just hit me every morning. I just, I woke up thinking I had had a bad dream. There's no way that just, you know, I just lost my daughter. And and I, I would my heart would just like sink every morning and I'd go, gosh, that didn't just happen. And the thing that kind of kept me holding on during that time was I had this little precious baby and I would just like kind of hold on to the baby and it was kind of comforting. But I my mind kept going, what am I doing wrong? I'm doing something wrong. Nothing I'm trying, everything's just nothing's working out. I have to be doing something wrong. I have to be doing something wrong. Uh, so during this time, you know, where I was recovering, uh, somebody had given him a bunch of church books. They had left on their mission, and one of the books had caught my attention. It was the biography of Joseph Smith told uh from the perspective of his mother. And that book just kept coming to my mind. So I went and got that book, and while I was recovering, I began reading it. And I had never read a biography of Joseph Smith. And as I was reading it, I was just like, they've been through the same things we've been through. Oh my goodness. And it really, it really surprised me. I was like, this is this is crazy. They just went from one thing to the next to the next, and whether it was legal or like the it was just, and I I I was like people taking advantage of them. Yeah, never getting financial problems and like dealing from. was just like oh gosh and I was like oh and halfway through the book it just it just dawned on me I was like whoa um maybe I'm not doing something wrong maybe I'm doing something right it maybe it's the opposite and that was just kind of the overwhelm that that was the message I got from that is just because things like this you're getting battered by a a series of unfortunate events it doesn't mean you're a bad person. It can mean you're a good person. And so making that assumption of you're doing something wrong that that's not necessarily the right conclusion. It could be that you're doing something right or that you have an important mission to accomplish or something like that. And so did I consider that maybe I was doing something wrong? You bet you I considered that.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

So well I think it's part of it too is the the prosperity doctrine or prosperity gospel idea where bad things happen to bad people, good things happen to good people and therefore if something bad's happening to you, it must be something you've done wrong which I we don't subscribe to that. We don't we don't believe that's true. If that were true that poor Jesus he was horrible because nothing nothing good ever happened to him.

SPEAKER_03 23:16

So well and I know where that comes from though because in the Book of Mormon there's this general promise to the Nephite people if you keep the commandments, you're gonna prosper. And so there are individual blessings and there are collective blessings. And so I think sometimes we get mixed up between the two of those. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

Mm-hmm I think there's a cultural thing in the church where we talk a lot about suffering in the sense of you brought this upon yourself because you're sinning and that's talked about a lot, but it's very little talked about suffering at no fault of your own. And so that's why when you're then suffering at no fault of your own, everybody's like, well, it must be a you problem. And that's not a true principle because exactly what you said, Fontaine, well Jesus must have really messed up then because he was hung on a cross. So you know I there's there is an element of suffering at no fault of our own. And I think as Christians we sign up for that. When we sign up to be disciples of Jesus Christ, we sign up for that because he died on a cross. So are we any better than he is?

SPEAKER_00 24:24

I find it fascinating that the very people who are the ones saying that are the very ones doing the bad things to us.

SPEAKER_01 24:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:32

And so I think it's fascinating that that we're the reality is that these people are angry for being called out and being caught doing bad stuff. And so it it's classic Darvo where when you get caught doing something bad, you you turn around and try to make your victim the perpetrator. And so the all the all this anger directed at us is actually a fabrication of the very people who've been doing some of these these things. So I just wanted to point that out.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

Trevor Burrus Well and you're right in that there is a tendency amongst people that when you are the one doing something and you don't want to own up to it, you're going to point at your victim and say they're the ones doing this. I've seen that so many times in my own life and this is why the scriptures ask us to be humble and the scriptures ask us to repent and that owning up to our mistakes isn't this horrible shameful thing. It's actually a beautiful thing that we were able to do because Jesus died for us. So that's where if we can own up to our mistakes, how much better would we be as a church, as an institution, as people, as community right? But instead these messes are created because we don't want to say, oh man, I messed up and those those words would heal a lot for people so what are your thoughts on the idea that some people should be banned?

SPEAKER_00 25:51

You wouldn't be banned unless you'd done something terrible some people deserve to be banned. That's that's such a clever way to put it the the I guess for me, the overarching for me would be what did Jesus teach? And he was very clear we don't ban people from church. Like the thou shalt not cast them out. It's repeated so many times in the Book of Mormon, in the Doctrine and covenants, but it's even uh implied in the New Testament. And so the this idea, but it's a very explicit in the Book of Mormon uh third I think it's 3 Nephi chapter 18 Jesus spells it out.

SPEAKER_03 26:26

He spells it out you you don't do that.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

I mean it's like five or six times in in what, 10 verses like don't don't do this. And so anytime any organization, church or secular or otherwise institutes a policy that directly contradicts scripture, it will end badly it is and it it's not right. It it doesn't matter what how well intentioned it may be it doesn't matter how thought, how much thought you put into it, it will end badly and innocent people will get hurt, case in point, our family that this whole idea of banning and shunning people has been absolutely devastating to our family. I'm looking at my children going, what what have they learned from this experience? And I guess we can get into that a little bit later.

SPEAKER_03 27:09

But also all the people who watched this happen and are aware that this happened I I I can only guess how it has affected them where it's made them feel like oh that could happen to me or others go, oh it's okay to do that to other people. It's okay to chase other people out. And um so I I just wonder what the ripple effect is um outside of our family even the other problem though with this whole idea of banning people is that the assumption that the leaders are perfect and would never make a mistake.

SPEAKER_00 27:46

I think that's I that's the the underlying mentality behind this that when there's no accountability, because with with our in our case and the other band letters that I've seen from other people as well, there is no appeal process. There's no due process there's no and a lot of times it doesn't even say what they did and it and there's no accountability for the people it doesn't say who wrote it, who authorized it and there's no way to uh counteract again to to appeal it.

SPEAKER_03 28:12

Yeah you're threatened with arrest if you even talk to any church leaders or anybody who who could intervene. And so and so i there's absolutely no way to uh write write it if if it was um you know an un somebody issued it under pretenses it seems like the perfect uh opportunity for corruption the ideal way to take care of people you don't like perhaps or problems you don't want to deal with or to cover up misconduct so so there there's that I think that's a problem.

SPEAKER_00 28:50

But the other problem too the the comment was I I think um you wouldn't have been banned if you hadn't done something terrible. We've actually heard that a lot. And so it's this implication that my wife and I are are these horrible people like you the the church because it's perfect and would never do anything wrong and the leaders would never make a mistake therefore something to this severity would mean you had done something truly horrible and people fill in the the gaps of oh well they must be doing child sacrifice in their backyard like well what else could it be? You know I what the reality is we brought up some misconduct on the part of local leaders and they didn't like it. And so they banned us. But they never come out and say it. And so we don't even we don't even know what we're being accused of. And unlike the Constitution of the United States where you have the right to know what your accusations are as well as face your accuser, we don't have any of that. Nor do we have the right to appeal. So it's just the whole thing is a little goofy to me. The other thing though and Hannah brought this up she's like if someone is actively threatening like because she's like you can't have psychotic people showing up at church waving guns, threatening people with death, yeah you know some uh or a pedophile breaking the the rules of their of their uh probation or whatever you pee people lighting buildings on fire. You can't have that. So having these ban letters make sense to to prevent those sorts of things that that you can't have people out in the parking lot vandalizing cars, that sort of thing. So yeah, it having a ban letter, giving them a chance to cool off or to you know distance themselves from the church, that that's a good thing. The problem is that's not the job of the church. If someone's breaking the law, call the police. If someone's engaging in defamation, if someone's engaging in violence, if someone's engaging in uh uh breaking their parole, then call the police. That's their job. Joseph Smith clearly states that the job of the church is not to get involved with secular stuff. It's not that's not their responsibility. Their job is to deal with the spiritual stuff, the the godly stuff.

SPEAKER_03 30:54

And so it repeats the same thing in Doctrine Covenants 42 where it's like hey if somebody murders or somebody call the police steals you know call the police call the police that's that's um that's a legal matter that's not a church um so but in the church's responsibility.

SPEAKER_00 31:12

But in our case these individuals they created this ban letter and took legal action against us before we even went to church.

SPEAKER_03 31:23

No crime had occurred and they preemptively took legal action which then made it a crime for us to do the normal behavior of attending church. So they basically created a crime no crime had occurred but they issued this this ban letter making it a crime for us to worship and attend church. Only they did it they did it before we even went to church it was like a preemptive criminalization is what it what it what they were doing is and they were weaponizing legal means to punish us for church matters. We're not excommunicated and so they actually don't have grounds to excommunicate us and so they use these legal means instead to get rid of us.

SPEAKER_01 32:19

I think it's it's very interesting that people bring up oh we can't have pedophiles in church and psychopaths in church which okay I can see where they're coming from but at the same time let's go back to your story. You're not a psychopath you're not a pedophile you're not you guys were innocently accused your son was innocently accused of things that he never did. And so I just want to step back into the Book of Mormon a little bit and go to Alma 32 where you see a whole bunch of people being banned from the church. And essentially these are the people that they were cast out of their synagogues because they were poor and it says here they were esteemed as filthiness. Okay. So in a sense you guys are modern day being cast out of your synagogues because you're esteemed as filthiness because these people have just decided this even though none of these things are true and this is a false accusation. And I find Alma's response really hopeful um because and I want to share this simply because you guys are not like alone in this experience. There are lots of people being excommunicated right now that are not, they should not be excommunicated that's not fair that they're being excommunicated people that are being banned that they shouldn't be banned for simply telling the truth. And Alma was almost happy and excited that he saw these people getting cast out of their synagogues because he said I behold that you are lowly in heart and if so, blessed are ye. Behold, thy brother hath said, what shall we do? For we're cast out of our synagogues and he goes on to say Behold I say unto you, do you suppose that you cannot worship God save it be in your synagogues only? And moreover I would ask, do ye suppose that you must not worship God only once a week and I say unto you it is well that you're cast out of your synagogues, that ye may be humble and that you may learn wisdom, for it is necessary that you should learn wisdom, for it is because that you're cast out that you're despised of your brethren because of your exceeding poverty or because of false accusations or because of whatever you've been through I think that God sees this as a learning opportunity for you guys and for the people that hear your story. And this is your opportunity to gain wisdom. And since I've been talking to you guys over the past week, you have gained so much wisdom from this experience. And so just to encourage all the people going through similar things, we can rejoice when these horrible things happen simply because this is our chance to gain wisdom because we can worship God anywhere and anytime. And so no matter what people are doing to justify the action itself doesn't matter because in God's eyes you guys are innocent and pure and doing what you need to do. So that's kind of my take on it.

SPEAKER_03 34:55

About like six months after uh we got banned from church uh we were visiting different churches and I was sitting in a Catholic church and uh looking at the the crucifix and that they had up and it just the thought came to me so like very strongly look if you have a relationship with Jesus Christ um no one can ban you from that. It doesn't matter what happens to you, where you are you could be locked up in prison somewhere and it doesn't matter what happens to you, where you are if you have a relationship with Jesus Christ, he will never abandon you.

SPEAKER_01 35:38

He will be with you and and at your side no matter where you are yes no man has the authority to take your relationship with Jesus away nobody. So um let's transition just a little bit here to the contention claim this idea that you guys are just stirring the pot, causing drama and contention by sharing your story. What's your response to that?

SPEAKER_00 36:02

I I've heard this this is primarily from members of the church, I think, uh because we we have in our scriptures this whole concept of contention and I think it's helpful to define what terms mean because a lot of times people get their terms confused. They they love throwing words around like forgive or contention or atonement, but they don't actually know what those things mean. And so contention is a lot of people think it's conflict. Well it's it they both begin with C-O-N, they must be similar, they must be related. No, contention is not the same as as conflict. If conflict and indeed Jesus clearly teaches that contention is of the devil. He seeketh to stir up the hearts of men with anger to contend one with another that's in third Nephi again. Well if that were the case, if if if contention is of the devil and if contention is nothing but conflict wouldn't Jesus be of the devil? Because all he did was stir the pot and create conflict constantly. He was constantly he he clear he cleared the temple on more than one occasion, rather forcefully I might add, he had some choice words for the the leaders at the time he had He was a fireball he was a fireball he wasn't this hippie flower child that people like to paint out in a figure. Yeah he wasn't flowers. And so but but along those lines then that every prophet who was before him as well would be of the devil because they were all creating conflict like throughout the scriptures you go way back to uh the the very beginning where they were constantly at conflict with bad people. And so I suggest that contention is not the same as conflict. I suggest according to the definition Jesus gave contention is anything that leads people away from Jesus.

SPEAKER_03 37:51

And so or leads them to rebel against God.

SPEAKER_00 37:54

Or to or yeah or to rebel against God. And as such, there's nothing wrong with conflict. Matter of fact we're supposed to be Christian soldiers. We're supposed to be fighting for what's right. I fought the fight I've kept the faith if conflict is bad then that means that we can't be fighting. And so again contention is not the same as conflict contention is drawing people away from Jesus. And we are that is definitely not our point, not our desire nor what we've been trying to do at all.

SPEAKER_03 38:21

And I I some people um maybe mistake some of the teachings of Jesus so for example Jesus taught agree with thine adversary quickly while thou art in the way with him and so people think sometimes mistakenly think oh I'm just supposed to agree with everyone yeah yeah yeah you're right you're right and and never never stand up for anything and you're just supposed to get along with everyone and agree with everyone that's what Jesus taught. Well that's not actually what he was teaching. If you look at that section he was addressing people who um had hurt others and he was telling them hey um you need to repent. He's talking about bad guys yeah you need to repent and make things right quickly don't delay your repentance if it's taken out of context or not understood it sometimes leads people to think oh Jesus was all about hey let's get along with everyone let's let's just go along with go with the flow if you look at the example Jesus set that wasn't he wasn't just going along with the flow he was very like his whole ministry he was standing up for what was right he was speaking up speaking out he wasn't shy about fighting and standing up for what's right. So fighting and contention are not the same things. Fighting can be contention if if you're fighting for the wrong thing but standing up for what's right and fighting for what's right it's actually a Christian obligation to do that.

SPEAKER_01 39:53

I think to be a chronic fence sitter is not a good thing in the world that we're in because there is so much evil and so much wickedness in our world that if you don't engage in the conflict, you're gonna be a chronic fence sitter. And that's not standing for God. Like in the end you're gonna get pushed over on that fence on the Satan side and you're gonna wonder how you got there. We've got to be able to respectfully engage in conflict and talk about these things. And I think that's what you guys are trying to say. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:20

So yeah it's a good summary.

SPEAKER_01 40:22

Okay, so let's kind of go into you talked to me yesterday Hannah about how nothing is unique in this situation of yours in the sense that many people have been through similar things. And we were also talking about how a lot of people are claiming that you're claiming to be the victim. And so if you're claiming to be the victim, then you're taking on the victim mentality of oh woe is me, oh this happened to me. But there's a reason why you're doing this. And so your mention of how this isn't a unique situation, explain to us why you're doing this, why this matters that you're doing it. And it's not just about you taking on the place of I'm the victim here.

SPEAKER_03 41:02

So yeah, nothing nothing that happens to us in in the entire Crazy Train story is unique. The only thing that's unique is that it's a one thing after another after another and that it's all kind of connected. But a lot of people have reached out to us who have gone through much more horrible experiences like with CPS or with the police or with white collar crime or with church leaders or with being neglected when they were poor, like neglected by the church. Some of the situations people have gone through are absolutely heartbreaking. So the reason that we're telling our story is a lot of these people who have been through situations that are quite frankly worse. They're pretty much broken by the situation. They've been destroyed or broken and they also have no capacity to speak up for themselves. There are actually underlying issues um chronic systemic underlying issues going on here that are leading to these situations. And so it's it's not a woe is me. It's a hey so this happened this is how it affected us what it looks like this is I'm gonna take you on this journey I'm gonna put you in my shoes and and we're gonna go on this little journey. The hope is that if you go on this journey with me, all of a sudden these other people who have gone through these other experiences that are much worse, you'll be able to understand them and you'll you'll maybe go, oh, I see I see why this needs to change and people are like oh well you know your story's insignificant it's just one of many. You know this is a giant church and it's like yeah yeah I I I'm well aware there's 17 million million people in this church and to expect that the first presidency would be concerned about my little problem that is that's stupid like like you're delusional. And the thing is the fact that there is actually no system in place to handle misconduct of certain church leaders that is unrealistic. Basically it's this false idea that your stake presidents, your mission presidents or these people in these leadership positions, you have this unrealistic view that they are never going to do anything wrong. And so you don't have a system in place to deal with it and you instead you just bounce the issue back to them to handle even if it's it's about them. What ends up happening is when these problems arise, which they will problems like this will will definitely arise, but when they do, the problem's going to continue on for much longer and hurt way more people Than it should have.

SPEAKER_00 44:01

Trevor Burrus The short version would be we actually got to the point where we believed well, we thought we had to go public because we had exhausted every other possible option. You know, all the letters that we wrote, that we we tried so for so long, for we were so patient, we were so cordial, so direct at what we wanted, and that these people refused to address any of these problems. So we were like, okay, we we have to we we have to go public because it's not reaching our message is not reaching the people who can and should know about it. And now after the release, it appears, and here's the current theory, because we still don't know, by the way. Our current theory is the reason that we got banned is because the local leaders don't want the upper echelons to know what's actually going on. They want to keep them in darkness so that we can't get help, so they don't and so hey, if we can if we can silence the juds and prevent anybody from finding out what they did, we're good. Um and we're gonna protect ourselves from the very misconduct that the juds are are presenting.

SPEAKER_01 45:12

That that that's kind of where we are at this point, is here's a question that we didn't talk about, so I'm gonna throw it at you though.

SPEAKER_00 45:20

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 45:20

So in the Book of Mormon, there is a lot that is talked about about secret combinations. And a secret combination is essentially a bunch of men that are doing wicked things that they essentially cover each other's tracks in it. Um and they have secret words, secret handshakes, secret whatever to let each other know we're in this secret group, so we can do these wicked things, and I got your back in doing these wicked things. Do you think that a secret combination is what you are seeing amongst these men in leadership?

SPEAKER_03 45:50

You know, we keep calling it circling the wagon. In our show, we keep calling it, or I do we call it the water. Yeah, we don't know. But they're circling the wagons. Um I'm not sure. I I I don't know with some of the people, I don't know if they if they did what they did because someone else has dirt on them and felt obligated, like if there was some Well, there's a reason why they're called secret Hannah.

SPEAKER_00 46:21

Why how would we know?

SPEAKER_03 46:22

How would we know, Claire?

SPEAKER_00 46:23

It's a secret. Um that very secret handshakes. I will I will say this. Some of the things that we have some of the things that we have uncovered in the course of uh going through and and the living the crazy train and going public, some of the things that we have discovered uh make us think that there are definitely some secret combinations going on. There are definitely some people who are banding together to to cover up misconduct. I'm not at the point where I can make official accusations yet, but from what we've gathered, yeah, that there may be something to that, Claire. And I that if so, we're in trouble.

SPEAKER_03 47:06

Aaron Powell Well, um the in the next episodes coming up, it uh uh uh we we start realizing that the problems we're dealing with are maybe a little deeper um than just a little conflict over here. Like that maybe there's some deeper issues. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:24

Well, and the fact that it all kind of carried along for you guys, like you had the beginning issue with the altercation in the park, and all of that happened, and then now you have random gossip about your son Caleb, and like it's all kind of just carrying over and overlapping. That is what would make me think this is a secret combination because these men are using these things against you over and over and over and over again. And that's that's a red flag that really red flags me.

SPEAKER_03 47:53

It's a mystery. We're going along, going, okay, what's going on here? And and we we're getting little bits of information here and here that's starting to create a picture. Um, but uh, we're gonna be discussing where it almost seems like our little situation stumbled accidentally some nerves or stumbled upon something that maybe is a little bigger. Um, but we'll be talking about that um here shortly.

SPEAKER_01 48:24

Okay, so let's transition a little bit. So here's the next argument of everybody is like, okay, you guys were just disrupting the church. Okay. You were you were creating this disruption, which Hannah, you already talked about a little bit of they kind of had to create something to say now there's a crime because you showed up when you shouldn't have. Okay. But let's let's address a couple of these comments. Um, let's see. Here's one. Don't put your issues on the entire ward. This isn't right. Everyone has a right to peaceably assemble except your family.

SPEAKER_00 48:57

Will you guys respond to that one for me? That's a direct quote. Don't put your issues on the entire ward. That isn't right. Everyone has a right to peaceably assemble except your family. Like, what? Why why are we singled out? That was that was the one of the strangest comments I've seen. Well, that's up there. It was bizarre. Again, well, it goes right back to what you were saying about uh about the people in Alma, chapter 32, where they were kicked out for no reason other than the fact that they were poor. Uh Hannah was pointing out also in the Book of Mormon where there were the Zoramites, and this is the one I really like, where you've got these people who've separated themselves from the Church of God, um, where but what they've done is they've they've created themselves that this tower. And every Sunday they go up at the top of this tower and one by one they they say how great they are and how gl thank you, God, for making me better than everybody else. And then they come down and they proceed to persecute, hurt, and take advantage of other people the rest of the week, only to repeat the process the following week that they climb to the top of the tower and say, Thank you, I'm so much better than everybody else, and I'm gonna be saved and no one else is. And I'm like, wow, that that looks strangely familiar.

SPEAKER_03 50:08

Um, except I'm on the receiving end of that, where um it it's like, you know, they they've cast us out, and it's like, hey, we we want the right to go and worship, um worship God each pounding.

SPEAKER_00 50:23

Oh pulpit pounding.

SPEAKER_03 50:25

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 50:27

I'm seeing the whole screen shake. Thus saith the Lord.

SPEAKER_03 50:32

Basically, they want to peacefully go worship the God that they have no intention of actually serving.

unknown 50:41

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 50:41

And and and that's that's what that comment is.

SPEAKER_01 50:44

And then they want to claim that they're serving him better than you are, because oh my goodness, holy, holy God, we're so much better than everyone else. Thank you that we're so much better than everyone else. And that's that is that is the the Remy of Dim in the Book of War. And I think we see examples of that. I mean, look at even just COVID. All the people that went along, got the shots, did the mask, oh look, we're so much better than everyone else.

SPEAKER_00 51:08

It was it was it was it was virtuous. Virtue signaling to the nth degree, 100%. I'm better than you because I'm following along with what I was told.

SPEAKER_01 51:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:17

Whether or not it was right doesn't matter. I I'm better than you because I'm following the herd.

SPEAKER_01 51:24

Yeah. Exactly. Um okay. So here's another one. Challenging your legal presence because you think you have the right to attend is reckless because now you are disrupting the entire ward. Um, here's another one. You're disrupting the entire ward. Um yeah, wow, there's a lot of people that just say this. The way you showed up to church and caused that disruption that totally justifies the ban letter. You should have been banned. You were banned before you showed up to church, though.

SPEAKER_00 51:50

You know what though, I am positive. That was written by somebody who actually planned the whole thing out. I there where it's the other thing we've discovered, though, is a lot of these people are the people the most antagonistic people are the very ones who are involved. It it's and so they're trying their best to justify what they've what they've done in in their in their little minds. They're trying to go like, well, how do I I don't even know if it's cock uh a conscious decision, but I I know that these people are trying to justify doing bad things. But the the problem is, is you got upset that you got banned, therefore it's okay that we banned you. That that's it's a preemptive ban, but it's a logical fallacy. Um uh it's called um post post hoc rationalization, where after the fact, right? The whole idea of, you know, uh someone someone um uh treats a reaction as justification uh uh for their behavior. So example, you you kick a dog and the draw the dog growls and tries to bite you and you're and you argue, well, yeah, that's why I kicked the dog. No, that that that doesn't make any sense. And that's the problem is that there was no behavior on our part prior to us going to church. Prior to the ban. Prior to the ban that justified the ban. You can't use our reaction to the ban as justification for the ban. It's like saying, I threw you in jail, you're mad that you're in jail. See, that's why you should be in jail. Anyway, so I I I take issue with that. I I think, again, I think it's people who are actually engaging in this behavior are the ones that are writing those sorts of comments. And I also think it's fascinating that none of them, just like with the band letter, take responsibility. They're all they're all anonymous. They all sneak around in in darkness and and and basically they're hiding behind a keyboard lobbying bombs at my family. I I don't I I think it's cowardly. I really do.

SPEAKER_01 53:40

Yeah, definitely. I also want to point out to our audience. So I watched your last episode first because you had just posted it. I was like, oh, I want to see what's going on. My first response was like, wow, like this is a pretty like intense reaction. Like, like we've got you guys going into a church, accusing people of assault and battery, calling people brother Dimwit. Like I was like, whoa, like how did how did we get here? And then I watched your series from episode one all the way to the end. And I was like, now I know. Now I know this was why this was their response. So I would highly encourage people not to watch episodes out of context because this isn't just that you like created a disruption one day because you were banned one day. This is like a lot of stuff happened to cause this to happen. And you know what? I'm proud of you guys for standing up for yourselves because when gossip and stuff was happening to my family in our ward, we were told that we were not allowed to talk about it. My dad was the bishop at the time, and the state president told us, don't tell your side of the story unless somebody asks you. And we listened and we never told our side of the story. And the gossip flew. Our family was slandered. I was treated horribly by young women's leaders, by the young women, by people in my school. And it's because we we listened to our state president, kept our mouth shut. And so I don't think anybody should do that, actually. I think we should be able to tell the truth about what has happened to us because then we're helping other people. Um it did not.

SPEAKER_00 55:16

I'm sorry I'm sorry, Claire. That just that's that's not right. And we've we've we've learned that though, the hard way.

SPEAKER_03 55:22

We learned that the hard way. We did the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 55:24

We made the same mistake and we didn't we didn't address it for what, a year and a half?

SPEAKER_03 55:28

Yeah. And and we just let it go. We learned that lies, they just fester. You actually have to address them. You you or they get worse. They actually they don't magically go away. They that does not happen.

SPEAKER_00 55:41

Aaron Ross Powell Also, I may may I add, if these people can publicly lie about me, I think it's only fair that I should be able to publicly tell the truth about them.

SPEAKER_01 55:50

Yes. Amen. Absolutely. That's the truth.

SPEAKER_00 55:54

And God, I think God agrees.

unknown 55:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:57

And that's what our mandate is. Where's that part at the end of the Doctrine and Covenants where it's we should waste and wear out our lives uh bringing these dark deeds to light.

SPEAKER_01 56:08

Uh-huh. That's Doctrine and Covenants 123, verse 13. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 56:11

Therefore that we should waste and wear out our lives and bringing to light all the hidden things of darkness wherein we know them and they are truly manifest from heaven. Which is funny because that's the verse that precedes the famous one that everybody knows is that uh there are many yet on the earth who are blinded by the subtle craftiness of men whereby they lie in wait to deceive and are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it. Everybody knows that one, but they don't understand the context.

SPEAKER_02 56:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:39

Anyway. So and not that not that we're out there, you know. I don't think of myself as like a some sort of great individual. We're just I'm just a dad. And we're just trying to we're just trying to raise our kids, and man, the people have come out of the woodwork to try to stop us. And it's just been so it's been bizarre. It it's the the the sheer volume of people who have come out of the woodwork to try to hurt my kids, it's a little mind-blowing. And you're like, well, it's because you have 43 children. Well, okay. This was happening when we only had two and three and four children. Like this is this hasn't let up. It's just maybe it's exacerbated because I have more children. But as Hannah said, I think it's because we're doing something right. Well, it or I think or more importantly, maybe our children.

SPEAKER_03 57:29

Like maybe they have important missions, or I I I don't know. Um, but but back to the scripture that we just read is like if you don't speak up and tell the truth, um, the lies win. And because there's no you if nobody speaks the truth, people who actually want to know the truth, they can't even find it. Um, if they're looking for it, it it depends upon you speaking up.

SPEAKER_01 57:58

I want to bring up this verse in Isaiah. It's Isaiah 54, 17. No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper, and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment, thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord. So when it's talking about servants there, it's not talking about prophets and apostles that are in high places in the church. It's talking about us, the lowly servants of God that choose to be discipled by him. We are the servants of God and we have every right to rise and condemn the tongues that rise against us. And that's that is the heritage of the servants of the Lord. That's your heritage as his servants. And going back to your comments about maybe you're doing something right, we read in Ephesians about the armor of God and how we need to put our armor on and how Satan is like a lion waiting to deceive. He's he's waiting to destroy us. Okay. And so when we are doing what is right, the demons are gonna come after us. And I think that is what we've seen in your family. I think your family is very targeted because you want to do the right things. And the weird thing is that when people see people wanting to do the right things and all these bad things happening to them, the automatic human response is again what we talked about before. Oh, they must be doing something wrong. When in reality, the devil wants to destroy you and your children because you're teaching your children to have good morals and to go on and follow Jesus Christ. And the devil doesn't want to see that happen. And he's gonna do everything it takes to not have that happen. So the best thing you could be doing is putting on your armor. When I was a kid, my mom always used to send me off to school and she'd say, put your helmet on, put your helmet on. And that was her sense of saying, like, you're going into this den of vipers and these people hate you and they're gossiping about you and they're slandering you, but put your helmet on. And I did. And because my mom taught me that as a kid, as an adult, I was able to stand up against people that wanted to destroy me. Because there is people in this world that want to destroy us for their own, their own wicked agendas. And yeah, I hate that, but it's the truth. It's the truth about the wicked world we live in.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:09

So the year um before uh the last time my my oldest daughter um got a priesthood blessing, like the yearly father's blessing. Um, I I remember her her blessing was, hey, um, Satan's trying to destroy you. And um he thinks if he can take you down, he can take down your entire family. And looking at what happened after that and sent then, um, uh he's darn near succeeded.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:39

That was like that was like eight years ago.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:42

Anyway, uh, but but yeah, here we are.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:44

A little prophetic warning there.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:46

Yeah. And I and I want to point out too that we have we have weapons that are not weapons of mass destruction. They are weapons against the evil, and that is scripture, truth, prayer, praise. These are the things God has given us to destroy the enemy. And so that's the tool you're using. You're taking the truth and you're saying, I'm going to tell the truth. And I'm going to tell it scripturally, I'm going to tell it in prayer. I'm sure you guys have been going to God throughout this whole experience.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:12

Yes. So a while ago in conference, Elder Bednar told all the members, hey, go back and read the book of Hilaman. I want you to go back and read that and think about why that was included in the Book of Mormon and how that applies to us today. Anyway, uh, it was right about the time we had gotten banned from church. And but I went back and I reread Helaman, and I think it's like chapter three of Hilaman, where basically prideful members of the church start persecuting uh the poor, more humble members of the church, and the persecution became very bad.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:51

And I want to point out that we are very humble. We are probably the most humble.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:57

But but but pride had entered into the church. So sins like I think adultery and like there were just different pride that rebelling against God that had entered into the church. And so people began persecuting other members of the church, and the persecution became very severe. But in in this instance, um, the people, instead of, you know, going, oh, forget God, and you know, I'm being treated so badly here in my own church, instead they turned to God with fasting and prayer and um and holding on to the word of God. And they actually became stronger in their faith despite what was going on. And um, later when it's describing the situation, he uh the author clarifies he's like, uh, people who belong to the church of God. And he's like, wait, no, no, no. People professing to belong to the church of God, we're doing this persecuting. And he kind of clarified it. That's where you're saying if you don't do that in a situation like this, you're not gonna make it through. If you don't turn to God, it will destroy it'll destroy you or destroy your faith. And that's actually the only option for making it through a situation similar to this. And I've heard some of the other people on your podcasts kind of echo that same sentiment.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:17

Definitely. I think at the end of the day, you guys will have justice and it doesn't come from you, it will come through God. God will give you that justice and and the answers that you're looking for in this situation, and it's just a matter of waiting on him to see what happens next.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:32

So I'm so curious.

unknown 1:03:34

I know.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:35

How's it gonna end?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:37

How's this gonna end? Okay, so transitioning from that into okay, here's the claim where people are saying what you're doing here isn't Christian, okay, which that's what we're talking about. Okay, you're telling the truth. You're taking up your spiritual weapons and saying, I'm gonna use these so that um I can defend myself and my family. So here's here's a comment. I don't think Jesus would handle it that way. This is not what Jesus would do. Um, and you wrote translation, you're not being Christian by pursuing this. So, what's your guys' response to that?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:12

This is not what Jesus would do. Well, we have these accounts.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:15

Actually, my initial response is have you read the New Testament?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:21

You have no clue who Jesus is.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:23

Have you actually read it?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:25

You've only seen just watching No, no, no. You've seen the pictures of him out in a field picking flowers with little children. By the way. Yeah, that's I'm sorry, that's not Jesus. That's the anyway. Um, but yeah, I I I would I would disagree with the the characterization of Jesus. Again, he's not a he's not a hippie out in the field picking flowers and making uh you know dresses for for people and and flower rings. That that's not who he was. He was well, he forcefully cleared the temple on more than one occasion. He had some choice words for the leaders of of the time, including using some personal invectives to put them in their place, calling them vipers and adulterers and hypocrites. Yeah, he he had and he had no problem speaking up about gross misconduct and the treatment of his little ones. I he said, think not think not that I am come to send peace on the earth, I am not come to send peace, but a sword. Like that that flies in the face of this preconceived notion that Jesus was a was a hippie and a pacifist, which he most certainly wasn't. So I don't think Jesus would handle it that way. I disagree. I think Jesus absolutely would have handled it that way. I think he would have But again, I need to back up though, because I don't want this to be taken out of context. My wife and I, we followed the the counsel in that Jesus gave in Matthew 18 how to deal with problems. We we discovered some misconduct on the part of Sandra Brown. She was spreading horrible, nasty rumors about my son. And we're we we went to her directly. We went to her husband directly, we tried to resolve it. They Refused. We we had witnesses against them. They still refused. So then we went to the church and said, hey, judges in Israel, please help us resolve this because this is not okay. This is damaging my son's faith. This is this is hurting his relationship with Jesus. This is this is destructive behavior. Let's get this resolved. And instead they turned on us. And I think it was because they are covering up misconduct of their own. That's the only solution I've come to. So by the time we get to the commotion at church, a lot, a lot has happened and hit it has definitely escalated. So it it's not fair to take that out of context and go, well, you guys showed up at church and you created a record, which, by the way, we weren't the ones slamming doors. We weren't the ones grabbing people. We weren't the ones uh assaulting and battering individuals and shutting doors on their faces. And we weren't the ones who had uh uh gathered together a uh a small army of people inside the church to forcibly make us go out. So I I really question who's the one who actually disrupted church. That's why I take issue with that. And the whole idea of Christianity being pacifist, I vehemently disagree with that. Any study, even a even a cursory study of the life of Jesus makes it abundantly clear that he was not a pacifist. They killed him because they didn't like what he said. Like, that's how bad it got, that's how much it escalated, because he wouldn't back down, he wouldn't give in to their demands of, hey, quiet, quit saying these things, quit saying that we're bad people and doing bad things, quit saying that, or we're gonna kill you. And they did. So it's a false understanding of Christianity, these comments.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:42

I I I believe that if Jesus had been at attendance in church that day and he saw our family being locked out of the building, I think he would have well, I was gonna say opened up a can of whooping, but I think I think I think he would have spoken up and said this is garbage. No. How how dare you? Like how no. What have you absolutely not? I think if he had been there at church that day, he would have he would have spoken up and and stopped what was going on.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:21

I think he would have said, like, he who is without sin cast the first stone.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:25

Well, they would have all been standing there with the thumbs in their pockets.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:29

Oh, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:30

Um this is really good. Um I was saying Matthew 23. Can I read this, Claire? Yep. Uh-huh, go for it. Um This is what Jesus had to say to the so-called leaders at his time.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:43

He said 27 and 28.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:44

There it is. Yep. Matthew 23, 27, and 28. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones and all of all uncleanness. Even so, ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.

unknown 1:09:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:13

So it wasn't very nice now, was it?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:15

He was a pacifist. He never said anything that was controversial.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:18

Never stirred the pot.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:20

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:21

Yeah, I I disagree with the idea that this is not what Jesus would do. I think this is exactly what Jesus would do. And I I we are wildly inaccurate representations of Jesus, but we're working hard to be more like him and striving every day to be more like him and to But you have to know who he was. You have to study his words and study his life. Otherwise, you base your opinion off of what he is by the pictures you see hanging up in the church or the videos you watch on Sunday school, and uh no offense, those are ridiculously inaccurate. I I have serious issues with the typical depictions of Jesus. I I there it's very rare that I'm like, oh, that seems about right, because most of the time it shows him, again, in a field picking flowers. It's just not who he was. He was he had some choice words for people and never backed down from He was a fighter. Yeah.

unknown 1:10:15

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:16

That was Isaiah, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:18

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And and the tr this is the thing. True prophets, true servants of God, they're not popular. That people don't like them. That's just how it is in scripture. So of course that's how it's gonna be for us too. So um Okay, let's let's transition here. What about this comment? Jesus taught us to forgive and let it go. What's your response to that?

SPEAKER_03 1:10:43

I don't think anywhere in the scriptures does Jesus ever say let it go. Does he? Does he? I I think it's a good thing. We're like coding Disney movies now and this. Yeah, I I I I it it yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:55

I think so I I have a again, I I I prefer to define words and forgiveness uh what they're doing is they're equating forgiveness with letting it go. That is not what forgiveness is at all. There is no scriptural basis for that. Uh for forgiveness. Yeah. Okay, it's not being a doormat. It doesn't say nowhere in scripture does it say to tolerate abuse or to tolerate evil. Uh no, nowhere does Jesus say just let it go. Using that logic, it would be like I come home and I find somebody, you know, maybe uh molesting my child or stabbing my child or something like that. And I look at them and go, oh, sorry for interrupting. I and I leave. I'll come back when you're done. Like that, that is ridiculously stupid. And yet that's what you're saying is, oh, when somebody's abusing you, hurting you, especially your children, just let it go. I refuse to do that. I don't think that's scriptural, I don't think that's doctrinal, I don't think that's what Jesus would do. Forgiveness is something completely different. Forgiveness is letting go of the anger I feel. It's giving that to Jesus to take care of. It's it's it's getting rid of the desire for revenge. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, I will repay. So that's what forgiveness is, is it's not harboring ill will towards another person who has wronged you or who has done something horrible. And so, yes, I my wife and I, we have no problem forgiving that we actually pray for all of these individuals. And I want to point out, I don't think there's been a day goes by that my wife and I were not praying for Logan Shepherd because he was struggling so much when he was bishop. And we both recognized it. And we were and he was doing horrible, nasty things to our family, and we were there praying for him, going, please help him out. And it's funny to me because he's still today one of the biggest detractors of our family. He's still out there spreading false rumors and gossip, but he's he's still at it. And I I don't know what to do with the man. I feel I almost feel sorry for him. We have worked very hard to forgive and to let go, uh let go of the anger. I'll give you that. Forgiveness and let go of the anger. Put that burden on Jesus. But the funny thing is, is for forgiveness may be letting go of the anger, but it's not l letting go of the accountability. And so and and there's that famous scripture that we all know, and it it's in the Doctrine and Covenants uh 64. Did you find it? Oh, you're hilarious.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:26

Gotcha. So it says we memorized this in seminary.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:31

And so You ought to forget one another, for he that forgiveth not his brother his trespasses standeth condemned before the Lord. I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:42

Aaron Powell And that's the part we memorized, but the part we didn't memorize was the very next verses.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:50

Him that repenteth not of his sins and confesseth them not, he shall bring before the church. Huh. And do with him as the scripture saith unto you, either by revelation or commandment. Well, that's funny because if you go back to section 42, it says what's supposed to happen to those who commit crimes in the church. And when we say crimes in the church, I'm not talking robbery or theft or murder. I'm talking and the main crime in the church is damaging the faith and testimony of others, especially God's little ones, which can include children, but also anybody whose faith is weak. And so if you're engaging in behavior that hurts the testimony or the belief system of others, essentially what we were talking about before, contention. If you're engaging in contention, meaning you're pulling somebody away from Jesus, then that needs to be addressed. And that and that's what section 42, I think it's like verses 72 to 82. I'm it's on the right-hand side of the page. Anyway, but it says, but this ye do, verse 13 of DNC 64, it says, and this ye do that God may be glorified, not because ye forgive not, having not compassion, but that ye may that ye may be justified in the eyes of the law, that ye may not offend him who is your lawgiver. In other words, keep people accountable. And if someone's doing something wrong and you just turn a blind eye and go, well, God will take care of it in the future, you're doing two, you're doing a disservice to to at least two people. You're doing a disservice to the person who's committing the crime, because you're letting them continue to hurt themselves, but you're also doing a huge disservice to his his or her victims, because they're going to continue to hurt and abuse other people. And if you don't stand up and step in and say, hey, what you're doing isn't right, they're going to continue that path.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:42

So basically, if you don't do something, um, you're actually somewhat responsible for the continued abuse is the problem. And that's why God's like, actually, you have still have a responsibility to make sure the problem's handled, but you also need to forg you need to forgive, but you still need to get the problem addressed.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:04

Calling out misconduct and stopping it is it's not unmerciful. It's the essence of Christianity, really. You know, because you you you love another's enough to stop them from hurting themselves and others. And that's what Jesus did. If you read what Jesus did, that's all he did was stop people from hurting themselves and from hurting others. And he did it out of love. So this whole idea that forgiveness means to just let it go is a bunch of Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:34

Well, and also this idea that love is always just this nice feeling. Love is just this really nice, wonderful feeling that we feel towards people. That's not love. Like if you truly love someone, you're gonna be willing to have the hard conversations with them and to call them out on the things they're doing that harm themselves and other people.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:53

So and that's the funny thing, too, is is I was just thinking about this this morning, is we've been involved with some people who are are dirty. They're they they are making uh dirty decisions. They they have they're living dirty lives, and we somehow got have to have to get in there. But sometimes in order to correct to to get things cleaned up, you you have to be in there with them to to to pull them out. And you are you're gonna get it it it it gets messy. It's not this, as you said, this clean, happy rainbows and unicorns situation. It it it can get messy, but as long as you have the end goal of glorifying God and doing the doing what Jesus would do and doing it the way He would do it, it'll it'll work out. So that's at least that's my belief system.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:39

Yeah, I totally agree. Okay, well, let's go over this comment. You're hurting the church and you're hurting missionary work. For the sake of God and for the sake of the church, you need to stop and bear it. Take up your cross and bear it.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:52

So I uh we've heard this a lot. Hey guys, um, I'm sorry this happened to you. Um it it stinks, but for the sake of the church, you need to just shush up, grin and bear it, take your stuff down and hope that your leaders let you back.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:09

And let you back, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:11

Um and just um, but but basically take one for the team. And this is a very honest concern, a very genuine concern. It's like if you speak up about this, it's gonna make the church look bad. And if the church looks bad, it is going to um damage missionary work. And so think about all the people that maybe will see what you're saying and won't be willing to join the church and won't have all the blessings of the gospel because of you speaking up about this little problem that you're having over here. And so, for the sake of the church, you you need to shush up. I've heard that now multiple, multiple times. And so that's a a real concern.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:56

And so there's no evidence, though, that we're actually hurting the church. First of all, I want to put it on the other.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:01

First off, uh, yeah, uh, so the original 24 episodes of the crazy train, we had many people reach out to us saying that after they watched the series, they started going back to church. And um, or people even from different denominations who weren't who weren't Mormon, uh, who went to other Christian churches and saying, hey, I was having similar problems in my own church. And when I watched your documentary series, I realized I need to keep on going. I can't be losing my faith just because other people make bad decisions. And it actually encouraged. Anyway, we've heard this multiple times now. I also like to point out that people from yeah, the ex-Mormonic community hated it. But so as far as saying this is hurting the church, if you watch the whole thing in context, the first 24 episodes, it was actually supportive of the church. And we were also very careful to use names of individuals and show, hey, this was an individual who was making bad decisions. We didn't just go a bishop, a stake president, um, the church.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:11

Or the police.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:12

Or like we didn't say oh, the police. Yeah, when we're it was similar to the situation with the police. We didn't just say, oh, the police did this. The police were like, no, these officers did this.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:23

Patterson David.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:24

But there wasn't, you know, there wasn't any way to for accountability there. We weren't saying all police officers are bad. Uh, we were just saying these, these people made this decision. So, overall, if you watch the whole thing, it actually overall was supportive of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But, you know, we're continuing the story now and we're showing what happened after we released it. And so they're like, okay, yeah, you're you're hurting the church. You're hurting the church by showing this, showing uh what's going on. And what I have to say about that is when Christ refers to his church, he's not referring to a corporation. He's not referring to a leadership hierarchy. When he refers to his church that he loves, he's referring to the people. He's referring to his flock. And Jesus Christ was willing to protect his church and go to bat for his fold, even when it meant calling out the leaders of his church at the time. He did not have a problem doing that because his concern wasn't protecting a corporation. His concern was protecting the flock. That is the church. And I am not hurting the church. I'm standing up for the church. I'm protecting the church. The church, it's people, it's not a building. It's not, sorry, found it's not a bill, it's not a building, it's not a it's not the leadership hierarchy, it's not the power, it's it's it's the people. And that's that's who Jesus cared about, and that's who that's who I'm trying to go to bat for are the people.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:09

Aaron Powell Well, and and I want to point out too that this whole idea that we're hurting the church, uh there's a quote, and I'll I'm sure I'm gonna butcher it, but it's something along the lines of if the truth destroys something, then that thing needed to be destroyed. But along those lines also is that and there's another quote, um I've got to butcher this one as well, but something along the lines of the the truth doesn't mind being questioned, but a lie hates being challenged. And so these people saying, quiet, don't, don't, don't expose what's going on. You know, sunlight's the best disinfectant, right? The this idea that, oh, how dare you shine a light on this? It's it's so destructive what you're doing. I vehemently disagree. I think by bringing, as my wife said, bringing these things to light, we've given other people hope and faith. And we've actually had people say, Man, what I went through was way less than what you guys went through, and you guys are still being faithful. I guess I can too. Uh so yeah, I I disagree with that that comment that somehow we're hurting the church and missionary work. But I want to point out, too.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:12

Well, you'd have to say that Jesus hurt the church. Jesus hurt the church.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:16

Yeah, he he uh because he was very destructive for the church. He wasn't being Christian. Um but I but I want to point out though, what what the ideal would be is for these individuals to properly deal with the problem. Hannah had a great point. Problems are gonna happen. It's it's human nature, especially in an organization with 17 plus million members, there are going to be problems. Not everyone, again, not everything's rainbows and unicorns in the church, even though we try to present that. The church is not perfect because the people aren't perfect. Let's stop with that mentality and let's stop with the idea that the leaders are infallible. They're not. They make mistakes, policies that get passed that they cause issues, sometimes well-intentioned, regardless. What would be better is for these individuals to go, oh, I see what happened. I see the damage that this this caused. Let's get it corrected. That would be a much better ending to the crazy training. And I think that would do wonderful missionary work. Because people would watch our story and go, oh, well, the church really screwed up. Oh no, they didn't. Wow. They are inspired men of God. They do try to do what Jesus taught. Wow, that that's amazing. That's what, and just so you know, Claire, that's what we're hoping for.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:25

A good ending.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:26

Is for a good ending, an appropriate ending for some people to step up and do what's right. And again, and that was why we did it to begin with. We wanted to start a discussion to say, hey, here's what actually happened. Here's the truth. Now let's have a discussion. And instead, the response was shut them down, defame them, make everybody think they're violent and crazy and whatever, and we'll use the church's law firm to do it. And that's not okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:54

Because I think we want to see the church, even as an institution, live the gospel that is taught in this book, okay, in the scriptures, okay. We want to see them live what they're supposedly supposed to be teaching to the members.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:09

Unfortunately, that's not happening. From this experience, I've realized that a lot of people who are ex-Mormon are actually ex-Mormon because they have gone through similar experiences and they have been hurt very badly. It's not because they don't have a testimony of the Book of Mormon. It's not because they don't love God. It's because of hurt. And just a simple apology would just go a long way.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:40

There's a lot of darkness happening in every institution, every church, every corporation, every, I mean, school education systems, medical systems, government systems. Oh my goodness, the corruption is everywhere and it runs really deep. And unfortunately, the one thing that we don't want to see as people that are in this church that we thought was so wonderful, we're like when we see, oh no, there's corruption in our church too. It like devastates us. We don't want to see that, but it's there.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:09

It's supposed to be, it's supposed to be a haven.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:12

The Bible, the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine of Covenants, any of our scriptures, you're like, how could you arrive at the conclusion that the church never has problems?

SPEAKER_01 1:26:21

Right. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:23

Moses was in the mount for 40 days, 40 days, and they created a golden calf and went crazy. In 40 days, are you telling me that there's like are you telling me that you can't have problems in the church? Like that, that's how long it takes. Like it just it can it can turn on a die. Immediate. It really is. And so the this idea somehow that, yes, it may be God's restored church, but it doesn't mean that that doesn't have problems. And it but the thing is that God gave ways to resolve the problems, and we're ignoring those too. And I guess that's part of my problem is we've heard many times now when we were asking for a a was it leadership council and membership.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:07

And they call it membership council. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:08

We asked for a church corp for my son. And they're like, oh, well, we don't as as outlined in DNC 102. And they're like, oh yeah, we we don't do it that way anymore.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:17

Like And it's like, why not? Why not? And and it's like, well, new revelation, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, well, don't worry.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:24

Well, show show me the new revelation.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:26

Jesus said to do this.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:27

This is in line with what Jesus taught when he was on the earth. And he re-revealed it in the latter days. Like, what seems to me like he meant it.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:35

Yeah. And like you said earlier, it never ends well when you just disregard what Jesus asks. It it never epithets. There are always unintended consequences when you go, huh, I actually know better. And I'm just gonna I'm just gonna ignore this. It doesn't end well.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:57

No. No, it doesn't. And I I think our hope is in what you were talking about, Hannah, and that the true church is the people. It's the people following Jesus. And I personally think that's in every church. If you're following Jesus, you're part of his church. And so that's the hope is that we can rise up as Christians, as people who are being discipled by Jesus Christ and say, nope, this isn't okay. We don't have to go along with the institutions because the institutions are evil and corrupt. And I feel like they're getting more and more evil by the day. So that's the last days.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:29

The funny thing is, though, is having you know been a part of the crazy train and being out there in the in the public as people have reached out to us and shared with us privately some of their experiences. And again, not just our church, all sorts of different churches. Um we got the Baptists and we've got the uh the Seventh-day Adventists and we've got the Catholics. We've heard some wild stories where people have run into as Paul says, we fight fight not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and and darkness and high places. But people are people no matter where they're found, and unless there's accountability. And we we we claim to say, oh, well, they're accountable to God, therefore we don't have to do anything. I also disagree with that. I think we have a responsibility as Christians to act and to do and to speak up. And yes, God is the ultimate judge, but in the meantime, it's our job to stand up for what's right. Otherwise, what are we doing here? And I've heard that, and that drives me crazy that this will all get taken care of in the next life. And I'm like, oh, well, if that's the case, then why did Jesus do anything? Why did Jesus even bother to show up? What was he doing during his mortal ministry? What was his three years on the planet of of preaching the gospel? Why? If it's all gonna get taken care of later, why do why even bother? Like, why didn't he just go sit go on a mountaintop, sit down and watch everybody destroy each other and go, well, God's gonna figure it out because he because we have a responsibility now, now is the time for men to prepare to meet God. Now is the the day to perform our works, not not the nighttime when the darkness comes. Like it's our job as Christians to do what is right.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:11

The gospel is the hope. Jesus died for us on the cross so that we can confess our sins and then stop doing them. And that's that's where the church is brushing sins under the rug, and more and more people are getting hurt because they're brushing sins under the rug. And I'm like, there's no shame in confessing your sin and then stop doing it. And we won't even apologize. Now, me and my husband joke, this is the Mormon apology where people just go, Well, I'm sorry for the part I played in it. It's like, that's not an apology. You gotta take, you gotta have accountability. You've got to take responsibility for everything that you did and let the other person take their responsibility. That's repentance. And there's no shame in that. It should make you feel free doing that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:56

Yes, no, that's the whole, but I think that's the whole point is to to give you that freedom. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:01

And you know, back to earlier on in our story, when we were trying to follow what Jesus taught about, hey, when there's a conflict with your brothers and sisters, like in the church, how you're supposed to go, talk to them privately and resolve it. And if they confess, that's it. You know, you you do you do let it go at that point. You've gained a brother's own. You reconciled your brother and sister, you gained a brother's. Unless they did something publicly, which I think like spreading gossip, you do actually need to say something publicly to set it right, which Jesus he talks about that as well. We just we were just looking to resolve the conflict. If if it had, if we had been able to talk and go and privately and it resolved at that point, it would have been dropped. It would have been nothing. It would like, okay, go on with life. But that's not what happened. Um, but also even like with Bruce Holt, I went and talked to him in private multiple times. And the last time I went uh to talk to him in his office, I I directly said, Hey, you're trying to, you're trying to blackmail me. This needs to stop. And and you've you lied about my son. I yeah, in the last meeting with the stake president, you totally changed your story and you're falsely accusing my son of your ecclesiastical position as bishop to do it. To do it, um, which is causing which is way more damaging. He denied that he had ever, he's like, I I never said that. I I didn't do that. I I never said your son like uh confess, like I I never ever said anything like that. And I was like, I was like, okay, good, great. Um then all I want is for you to email that to the state, do a group email to the state president, me and my husband confirming that that that's the truth. And then he was like, uh, well, I mean, I can't do that. I, you know, I can't actually confess that. I can't like I I'm I'll tell you that in private, but I won't say that in front of the stake president. And so I was like, okay, this is what this is what I want you to do. Well, I'll have to think about that. So I gave him a time period to do that, and he never did, which was the the communication of no, he was gonna keep on lying and he knew he was lying. But at that point, I didn't care that he had flip-flopped his story and he had lied. If he was willing to set it straight then and was willing to go, hey, yeah, that never happened and and confess to it and put it in writing and send it to the the state president, I would have dropped everything else because I really didn't care. And so, but because he persisted in that sin and persisted in that lie, that's why it had to be dealt with. It had to like escalated.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:55

Well, and let's get into gossip a little bit here. Gossip is something that I think everybody participates in at one point in their lives or another.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:02

Oh no, you know what I heard?

SPEAKER_01 1:34:04

No, I'm just gonna I think we do not understand how much gossip damages each other when we're just yabbing to our friends. And I want to point out that I think that true gossip is about spreading lies. And I think it's okay to talk about the truth of a situation, but where it gets sticky is when you hear are hearing third, fourth, fifth hand accounts, and then you're going and spreading the third, fourth, fifth hand accounts to everyone else. That's where if you hear a third hand account, you need to go to the first hand or don't believe it until you go to the firsthand. Because we're just spreading stories because they're interesting. And really, what we're doing is we're changing the narrative for this person's life and we're manipulating their life and their narrative. And we should not be doing that. That is harming people. Yeah. And so that's what they tried to do with Caleb. They tried to manipulate his narrative of, oh, he's just a regular normal dude that hasn't hurt anybody sexually too. Now he's sexually assaulted this girl. And the thing that makes me the most mad about women that spread lies like that is that there are girls that in the church that actually are sexually assaulted by guys. And when you're making up stories, you make those girls look really dumb. Like, oh, it drives me nuts.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:21

Because those are basically it um when you're when you're crying abuse, when when there is an abuse, uh, it ends up undermining the people who actually are abuse are undergoing it. And and um it minimizes minimizes and trivializes their experience. That it frustrates me too.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:43

Yes. So that's why we need to deal in the truth and we need to go back to firsthand accounts of things before we talk about what is happening. I understand why we need to talk about what's happening in our communities to protect our kids, to protect ourselves, to warn people, but we need to make sure that what we're talking about actually is what's happening and none of this third, fourth, fifth account garbage because it's destroying people. And it's not just destroying people in the Mormon church. Like this is happening to people that have left the church, people that were never in the church, people in Christian churches. Gossip is detrimental to people. We need to be going to the individuals, not to just groups that want to talk about stuff.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:25

When you're knowingly spreading a lie about someone, it isn't just gossip. Oh, I heard this and blah, blah, blah. It isn't just idle gossip. Oh, uh, you've stepped into something that's a little more serious, uh, which God calls bearing false witness. Oh no, evil speaking. Um, evil speaking, bearing false witness, um, where, oh, I saw this myself and I like they did this, and I know, like, where you're bearing witness, and you can destroy another person's life doing that. Um, and that's why it's in the Ten Commandments not to bear false witness, is because you can you can cause so much destruction doing that.