538: Tom Phillips, the Second Anointing, and Apostle Jeffrey R. Holland Holland Pt. 4 - Correspondance with Elder Holland

Mormon Stories Podcast

Dr. John Dehlin

Religion & Spirituality

4.6 • 5.2K Ratings

🗓️ 27 April 2015

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In June of 2012 I interviewed Tom Phillips, former LDS church stake president in London, England U.K. In this interview he discusses the following:

His early experiences as a bishop and stake president in the LDS church, along with is friendship with LDS apostle Jeffrey R. Holland.
His experience receiving a secret/sacred LDS church ordinance called the "Second Anointing," wherein he was anointed by the hands of Elder M. Russel Ballard, and assured exaltation in there hereafter.
His subsequent loss of faith over historical and scientific issues with the church.
His direct correspondence with then friend, LDS apostle Jeffrey R. Holland, over these troubling issues.
The pain, suffering, and ultimate divorce that he and his family experienced as a result of his faith crisis.
Additional detail about Tom's story can be found here.

At the time I conducted this interview I was in deep discussions with my stake president, Mark Jensen, over my status with the church, and my ability to baptize my son. Out of fear of church discipline, and as a sign of good will to President Jensen, I decided to not release this episode via Mormon Stories podcast, and instead granted permission to Tom to do with it as he saw fit.

Over the subsequent months and years I have come to regret this decision made largely out of fear, and want to publicly apologize to Tom for it. I now feel it is appropriate to release this interview, not because I seek to show disrespect for the LDS church or its temple ordinances, but because Tom's story a very poignant example of the pain and suffering that can come about as many LDS members continue to experience legitimate struggles with the LDS church's truth claims.

Since this interview openly discusses secret/sacred LDS temple ordinances, listener discretion is strongly advised.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Music
0:07.0	Mormon Stories Podcast is a production of the Open Stories Foundation. All donations to Mormon Stories are fully tax deductible and go directly towards keeping the podcast alive and towards building a community of support for Mormons like you.
0:21.0	To support the podcast or to join the community, please become a monthly subscriber today at MormonStories.org.
0:28.0	So it's now 2012, so that's eight years after you first stopped believing in the church, right?
0:36.0	Yeah. So you wrote a letter to Elder Holland. When did you write the letter?
0:42.0	I did that recently and again that was the last ditch attempt because I can't ask my family anymore. So what I did, I wrote to Elder Holland and I copied it to my family.
0:52.0	So what I hoped here we'd take some of the emotion out of it and look at it more objectively. Here's the father or husband writing to an apostle. Now let's see how the apostle responds and it's observed this. That's what I was hoping for.
1:08.0	And when did you write the letter?
1:10.0	I think it was in May of 2012.
1:14.0	Well, yes. So last month. So you wrote a letter and what was the basic, if you could give a summary, what did you do in the letter?
1:22.0	Okay, I reminded Elder Holland of our personal relationship, which obviously hadn't forgotten anyway and how much we thought of him and our family and everything.
1:31.0	And that I had this issue with my family that they obviously were following him and his teachings.
1:36.0	And I was not, I wasn't and I wanted him to resolve things with us. I said, okay, taking his talk in 2009.
1:46.0	I took from that talk what evidence he was giving for the truthness of the Book of Mormon. And I offered my rebuttal of those evidences.
1:57.0	And I'm just going to, I'm just going to say that the way you open the letters really powerful because you said, oh, you've read it.
2:03.0	Okay, I've just got right here. You said after you set me apart as state president, right?
2:07.0	You said, Tom, we are now sealed, which is, which is something that I can totally see Elder Holland saying.
2:13.0	Yeah, you said that.
2:15.0	And, and so you're basically saying, this is my heart. This is my experience.
2:23.0	These are my struggles. And if we're sealed, please, please help me understand these issues.
2:30.0	That's it. That's right.
2:32.0	And then, and then you, you kind of refer to his talk on the Book of Mormon and his challenge about that, right?
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -3626 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Dr. John Dehlin, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Dr. John Dehlin and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.