1425: A Mormon Seminary Teacher Loses His Faith - Marc Oslund Pt. 3

Mormon Stories - LDS

Join us now for Part 3 of what many are calling a truly groundbreaking Mormon Stories Podcast series - my interview with teen convert, former All-American athlete, and former Mormon seminary teacher and CES employee Marc Oslund.

In today's episode Marc shares with us:

• An insider's view of how the Mormon church began realizing that it was hemorrhaging its youth and young adults, and how the church has experimented in seminary/institute/CES with both "inoculation" and "avoidance" when confronting its long-denied problematic history.
• How the Mormon church relied on Terryl Givens and other progressive Mormons to help re-train Mormon CES employees, the backlash that ensued from orthodox instructors and managers, and how the Mormon church worked hard to simultaneously distance itself from Terryl Givens' teachings.
• An observation that Mormon apostles no longer act as guardians of doctrine and theology, and how they have now "outsourced" that work to progressive theologians like Terryl Givens and others, in part so that they can maintain plausible deniability.
• Marc's transition from an orthodox Mormon to a progressive/liberal (Terryl Givens)-type Mormon as a Mormon seminary teacher, in response to the training the church provided him, and how that ultimately undermined his own career in CES.
• How Marc was ultimately and literally pushed out of CES for explicitly following the advice of Mormon apostles like Elder Ballard to openly discuss the problematic issues.
• How the CES System continues to promote orthodox leaders in spite of its lip service to promoting openness and tolerance for diversity.

You will not regret the length and depth of this interview.