I read Fawn Brodie’s courageous book and left the church 3 days later! I named my son Brodie after her. I love her. I wish she only knew how many of us good women she saved! Thank you John - Carah -and Newell for helping us to bring to life this fabulous woman and fellow truth teller back to life and another chance to pay homage to her and her work.

Fun story, my great aunt was married to LaMar Petersen who wrote Hearts Made Glad. My mother and father knew him very well. He told my mother that he got called into David O McKay’s office where he was told not to publish it. He said but it’s all true. David O McKay told him Yeah but people can’t handle it. He published it anyway and got excommunicated.

My Wife read Fawn’s book to me while we drove from SLC to Dallas/Plano Tx during our exit from the LDS Corporation early March 2018. March 23, we resigned! Fabulous Book!

Thank you, Mormon Stories and Dr. Dehlin for healing my mind and soul today! I feel less depressed and have hope for my future without the LDS church. Thank you so much, friends! ((hug))

No Man Knows My History and Insiders View of Mormonism by Grant Palmer. These two books made me finally realize the church wasn’t what it proclaims to be. I sent in my resignation shortly thereafter and never looked back.

My mother was a nonbeliever from Mormon ancestry and had many active family members. When she decided to stop cancer treatment, she asked three of her grandsons for a blessing before she went on Hospice. I believe she thought it was comforting to her and her grandsons. Being terminally ill did not change her feelings about the church.

Never been Mormon, but this was so fascinating. I appreciate that Newell did his level best to be as fair as possible in his assessments and has such a wealth of knowledge on the subject.

A longtime listener, don't know how I missed this epic episode. Notable that this is my first ever comment. Blown away by the brilliance, balance, depth and breadth of Newell's scholarship. Mere words fail me. Simply amazing! As John says, he's a treasure. Deep gratitude to Newell, John and Carah. (Feel free to edit)

Thank God for Newell Bringhurst who avoids black and white thinking, is a careful historian, and can see and explore nuance without prejudice.

This is fascinating. Prior to when I finally gave myself permission to read her book (No Man Knows My History), I was fully expecting it to be an angry, anti-mormon book, full of lies, as this is how lds leaders presented it. I was shocked to find out that it was, for the most part, just straight history. Now, I'm finding out that her mentor counseled her to refrain from injecting her own feelings about her subject. It makes complete sense that she felt just as shocked and betrayed as the rest of us. To her credit, the book is a remarkable achievement of historical recording, that withstands the test of time.

I'm Jewish and live in London. But in 1966-67 I was a young boy living in Los Angeles, where my father taught at UCLA. I remember the Brodies. They were his colleagues. Fawn Brodie was a nice lady - and a legendary scholar, known to have created a sensation with her Smith book years earlier. They lived in Pacific Palisades. We lived in Westwood - in a house owned by a senior LDS official at the Santa Monica Blvd Temple. Mormonism, all around my family, both fascinated and repelled us.

9 years ago, while questioning/studying the history of the Mormon church, I was introduced to “No Man Knows My History”, which I read cover to cover in short order, it was the pivotal study which allowed me to write me resignation letter and leave the LDS church. I absolutely love this discussion into the personal life/history of the book. Thanks to the three of you for the discussion!!

Newell is such a treasure. I vote to have him back with more insight into the complex world of LDS. I am enamored of Fawn Brodie and am going to order her book.

This was a WONERFUL interview! I actually hung on to each word hearing about Fawn Brodie, as I did with her words about Joseph Smith. It's time to re-read .No Man...".

I have this book and applauded her for standing up aginst all the religious opposition ,speaking truth and asking those 🙊🙉hush hush questions. She's a great lady to me .Thank u so much for the video ,I've been waiting to hear this 😊

Having served a 2 year mission for the LDS church in New Zealand completed in 1981. I had come out of the Mormon Church in that same year. In regards to Fawn McKay-Brodie, I had read her book No Man Knows my History back in 1978 and it really shook me. It prepared me for 1981 where many Mormons in NZ had left the church.

This was a blast. Trully enjoyed this interview. Fawn Brodie was such an inspirational woman and I have a huge respect for her work and research! Her book "No Man Knows My History" is brilliant. Still can't comprehend how she already pretty much uncovered all the issues with J.Smith and mormonism in 1940s! Looking forward to future interviews with Newell!

Love Mormon stories, it has taught me a lot!! Which I never even knew!! Like tbom is a work of fiction!!! I'm freaking out!!! I'm born under the covenant and this really rocks my world!! This is a great Mormon story!

I will never forget the day I read NMKMH. My respect for Fawn’s intelligence and courage still completely blows me away. I’m excited to read Newell’s books! Thank you 🙏

Fawn Brodie, a woman so ahead of her time in many areas. She will always be a legend to those seeking to know the truth. Thanks for this presentation it was epic…👌🏽

This would have to be the most important episode of Mormon stories - Deal with major biographies of Joseph Smith.

This is one of the best podcasts you have shown. It gave me an appreciation of Fawn Brodie. I read the book many years ago and it has always been important to me. Thank you.

This interview was so good!!! I’m reading the book for the first time but already can see why she really is the pioneer of accurate church history.

so glad I am not in the cult anymore.

Love the Biographical episodes, as well as the historical ones. I think Fawn Brodie was one of the most extrodinary. What a brave and smart woman!

I really appreciate the show notes. I have so much reading to do!

In the LDS Church authority trumps truth.

I grew up in the Bay Area in the 60s. Stokley Carmichael and Eldridge Cleaver and others were always in the news when I was in high school In the 1980s I attended a cottage meeting in Orem that Eldridge Cleaver spoke at. It was amazing to hear him. I will be looking forward to your book Newell. I am sure it will be most intriguing.

Fantastic episode. Newell had an excellent analysis and gives a nice, rounded perspective

One of your best episodes. Thanks Newell Bringhurst.. I have really loved the historical episodes with people like John Hamer, Brent Metcalf, Matt Harris, Dan Vogel and so forth.

I was in Huntsville Canyon this past summer. My family came there to that area around 1851. My uncle Keith drowned in the pool at the club down the canyon from there as a ten year old. There was a fire around Huntsville the day after I was up there in late July. I always remember President McKay when I was growing up and his face on family home evening book that we followed.

I have been binge watching and listening for two weeks. This video is superb. Interesting, informative, validity, and so well done. Thank you John, Newell, and Cara. I want more! I cannot wait to read the book, but I wish I could have known Fawn Brodie. Oh! your time line John...Fawn was excommunicated right around by birthday June 9th, 1946. That HAD to be a very important bench mark for my Smiths as I am a Smith girl by birth! Hahaha

What a juggernaut of an episode. Still digesting. Amazing work John and team!

So much in my mind of upbringing. Dad devout southern Utah heritage and mom HATING the church....at 75 still lingers in my persona...its all so intense.....

Free tip (my previous post does not seem to have gone through!): Newell's article on the vain two-faced seer David O. (he reportedly stopped the excommunication of Sterling McMurrin of the U, but obviously let the razor drop on Brodie, his own blood!) can be found for free in the kindle sample of the book "Dimensions of Faith", edited by Stephen C. Taysom.

This was such a small part of the interview, and please know that I am a *huge* fan of Mormon stories, but when referring to Thomas Jefferson and Sally, can we not call it a relationship? She was his slave...she had no ability to consent or even leave his residence.

Such a great interview! I just finished her book. Loved it.

Great Show thank you I brought 3 books as a result

I love the historian shade. It brings me back to my college days, the humble "well...I... don't really agree with him..." And then proceeds to eviscerate the other historian's argument, writing and research. *Chef's kiss

This story is amazing and extremely interesting! And I'm not even Mormon. My consciousness of my own religion has been enhanced. I may get this book.

Excommunication works! It stigmatizes and ostracizes from family, friends, and from church-related institutions, and from participation as an alumnus of BYU, and even from participation in Utah politics.

I found Brodie's account of Joseph Smith honest and frank yet still in some ways sympathetic in regards to his personality, intentionality, and humanity.

Being called rebellious eventually became a compliment to me. THINK FOR YOURSELF AND QUESTION EVERYTHING!!

Love that you have brought this amazing story about this courageous, determined woman❤️

I came here from Netflix Murder among Mormons. Mormonism is very vulnerable to con artists.

Awesome video! Thank you! Love this episode about Brodie! She's literally inspiring especially the work that she did considering she did it many decades ago way before the internet! Very grateful so much to live in an age I could easily & freely know about this. THank you!

Fawn Brodie saved me from the Mormon madness. Read that book, realized what a complete fraud Joseph Smith was, and never looked back. Loved her Jefferson biography as well, although he - unlike Smith - had so many redeeming qualities, as Fawn so eloquently described.

Absolutely fascinating episode. Thanks to all. Carah, you're a beauty just like Fawn!

There are countless stories of strong Mormon women. I wish this would get more attention so thank you for the focus here. Pioneer women had to carry on if their spouses died along the way to Utah; some right after childbirth. Holding things together while their spouses were with other wives or off on missions. My Aunt from Ogden who served in WWII. There should be a You Tube channel devoted to Great Mormon Women in history. Start with Mary Helen Van Orden Grant- a Mormon Annie Oakley (my Great GrandmotherX3 sister and niece of Isaac Haight)

In regards to JS been a sexual predator, I think this term is more than appropriate. Here is a man who uses his influence and power, to actively prey on women, just as predators hunt for their next meal. This term is used as that is how we would describe him in today's terms. In his day, he would have been seen as a man who didn't have his actions questioned due to his status.

I visited Monticello a few years ago. They have finally started to come around - less than a century later! They are trying to integrate Sally Hemings’ story into the tour. And when my (conservative Christian) Dad, who was on the tour with us, asked about Jefferson’s religiosity, the guide pointed out that Jefferson wasn’t exactly Christian; he was a Deist, a product of the Enlightenment.

I was in the BYU bookstore when they were giving Eldridge Cleaver a grand tour of the school. He passed within two feet of me.

Wow. Compelling testimony. I want to read Fawn's book!

Tbh part of the reason I watch this podcast as a never Mormon is Carah.

Fascinating episode. I feel like I just discovered a new National treasure in Fawn Brody. Thank you for your work. It's great to see you so excited and I appreciate your deep respect for the contributions of the women.

I’m more than halfway through No Man Knows My History. With what I already knew and learned about church history, combined with what I’ve learned thus far from Ms. Brodie, I can honestly say the missing puzzle pieces of the Mormon Narrative are in place and I see the bigger picture now. Joseph Smith was a fraud.

Truth always wins...

Although I'm a never Mormon, I've long been fascinated by Mormon history. I got super lucky to find Fawn's book in a used bookstore when I was in Jr. High. That book made a big impression on me!

Outstanding episode!

Someone needs to do audible version of no man knows my History! Thanks for the discussion, it was really interesting

I can’t find Fawn McKay Brodie: A Biographers Life anywhere online. I read No Man Knows My History years ago. I grew up in N Ogden. My dad was LDS in his childhood but not as an adult. Mt dad had a Copy of No Man Knows My History. That’s where I first came across it. My dad left Mormonism about the time this book was published. I wish I could find Newell Bringhurst’s book!

So in 1945 Fawn Brodie spoke publicly about JS ''translating'' the book of mormon by a stone in a hat and yet when I joined the church in the early 1970's I was taught that he translated it directly from gold plates and when I served my mission I was told to teach what I was taught [now known as lies]. All the while the church leadership knew it was all lies and the truth was always the stone in the hat. Had I been told the truth I never would have joined because the ''stone in the hat'' is so ridiculous. There never were any gold plates. I feel so stupid for believing that rubbish for decades. We have all been treated as fools by church leaders.

Was the realization that Fawn Brodie would see the original iteration of the First Vision if permitted to view it by her uncle, the reason Joseph Fielding Smith cut it out of the diary?

Certainly this episode & # , is one that will be remembered & committed to memory. You knocked "the 🏀 ball out of the park" this tim. Fantastic episode. Thank you John.

Thanks!

This was excellent. Good work.

I learned a evil little ditty at BYU Fawn M Brodie took an axe And gave the Prophet 40 whacks And when she saw what she had done She gave Tom Jefferson 41 Like most things I learned in Provo fun but mean

UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS! That's my Alma Mater!

Fawn Brodie -“I am No Man!”

Attempting to write truth is a horrible addiction.

David O' McKay not ever speaking to his niece again- hum - as you say not Christ-like Matthew 5:43-45: ' But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven."

We need an audiobook of No Man Knows My History on you tube as soon as possible please.

This interview got me interested in the life of Fawn Brodie which is out of print but I found it used. It would be great if someone created an audio book version of "No Man Knows my History"

💗Fantastic topic!

Please ask Newell to compare briefly Fawn Brody’s biography of Jefferson with Annette Gordon-Reed’s Jefferson.

Was David McKay’s white suit fetish, which continues with Russell Nelson, an open expression of Mormon leaders’ ongoing competition with the papacy as recently further expressed by the appearance of all the Q15 at the new Rome temple?

Thanks for remembering my quip!

Rather more like Colonel Sanders than a Mark Twain figure. 😉

Sooo I have a connection to her. Even though I'm ex Jdub I actually have Mormon connections throuh my great grandmother and other things, namely my dad's ex girlfriend was friends with Fawn. LOL. So I knew things about Mormons I thought were common knowledge among Mormons, but it turns out that was not common knowledge.

I love this woman. I do have an almost completely off topic question, however. Is McKay an especially Mormon name? I've never heard it pronounced like that and never as a Christian name. We have McKay (pronounced McKy to rhyme with sky) as a surname. It's only since I have started listening to Mormon Stories Podcast and Ex-Mo content that it has come to my attention.

1:38:45 The irony of critiquing "the Brodie Book" for its literary and novelistic style to then come out decades later with that official multi-volume tripe "Saints", following Brigham Young's injunction to write history in a "narrative style" (what else?).

May God Bless her in struggles against the pure evil that is cultism in any form.

On my channel I have begun uploading audio for each chapter of “No Man Knows My History” along with accompanying commentary on each chapter. It has been a fun project to revisit such an important piece of Mormon literature/history.

I'd like to know Mormon strategy re: all the temple building with the church decline

About two years before my mission, I started taking a college US History to 1870 course. Part of the course was a final project to produce a some-page paper on a topic in US History from the period. We had to announce our chosen topic in the second lecture. Being a bit of a Mormon nerd, I said, "I want to do my project on the persecutions of the Mormon pioneers from 1838-1847." I'll never forget the lecturer's response, because it, though perhaps well-intentioned, was one of the most toxic things for my faith deconstruction apart from coming across the cartoon from the God Makers. He asked, "Are you a Mormon?" "Yes," I answered. "I require all my Mormon students who do this topic to read No Man Knows My History." I found that, and still find, that comment to be incredibly inappropriate. If he had asked me to stick around after class for some suggested sources, I probably would have ended up reading No Man Knows My History and deconstructing my faith much sooner (I was on a razor's edge at the time anyway). Instead, I was trapped in the shame cycles of Mormon orthodoxy for another decade, in part, because of how that teacher broached the subject.

I don't necessarily believe being rebellious is a bad thing. So many things we take for granted today is because people rebelled and said no. So much for the Mormon Church preaching charity which they say is unconditional love. But that is not what they practice. Unless you are a good little Mormon that does not apply.

Fantastic Interview ! Hail to the Truth Tellers ! I am Binge Watching these amazing Truther interviews ! Dr. Ramani is also fantastic on Narcissism !

All the episodes about Fawn Brodie and the Tanners are my favorite. Some one should do a movie about her and her husband Benjamin Brodie.I would love to know how their 3 children fared. Brodie was employed by the RAND Corp in the 1960s and I worked for SDC an offshoot of RAND in the same time period. I knew nothing about Mormons then and everything I have learned recently is watching KZfaq and Mormon stories. It seems to me that Warren Jeffs and Joseph Smith are 2 peas in the same pod. One emulating the other. Does anyone else make that comparison? Thank you for providing such interesting insights. I have really enjoyed the series.

The question of why the everyday Mormon was unaware is maybe because as my experience happened.spend a year getting worthy. Go through the temple and make big promises. Also being told to stay away from anti Mormon material. All this happening as we move into adulthood.

I think McKay's white suits paralleled the Pope's white vestments.

Excellent!

@Dr.John Dehlin I agree with John I would MOST DEFINITELY refer to Joseph Smith as a sexual predator.

He was being too nice at the end. JS was a plain and simple pervert.

I think that it's much easier to believe that any religious book was just written by humans when you read it for the first time as an adult and a complete non-believer. I find that easy with every religious text that I read (and I've read a them from a few different religions now) that I wasn't raised in but for the Bible (because I was raised Protestant) it took reading/ listening to what a lot of scholars had to say about its creation to be able to start to see it.

Fawn Brodie opened the door for of us to leave the cult of Baal. She gave us the truth that was hiding in broad daylight. Anybody that goes through the temple ceremony and stay in the church, is either a 2 digit IQ person or he is happy to see the light provided by Baal.

for those who haved been excommunicated i salute you.

Does Dr. Bringhurst still reside in the greater Sacramento metropolitan area? I live in Sacramento; I’d like to buy him dinner in the not too distant future.

BIG WOWS, awesome story here... i may get around to reading NMKMH soon and this is a very good intro... i was LDS for 30 years and resigned when I came out 30 years ago. I had no problems with JS, but had put him on a denominational shelf with other prophetic founders of faiths (Anne Lee, Mary Baker Eddy, Ellen G. White, William Miller, George Fox, Charles T. Russell, Fox sisters, etc.) I moved on to new agey things like Unity, where you believe whatever you like that works for you. Wouldn't a wider Mormonism be nice, where everyone is welcome and all beliefs are welcome and no exes happen for daring to think differently. We can dream of that at least... maybe sort of a Rainbow Mormonism Community, like a hippie communal kind of community... isn't that what the United Order ideals could be like for today when everyone seems to be struggling to make ends meet and maintain a faith in a good and happy system where all are equal and all are cared for... Dream on for sure... :)

John!!!! Stop interrupting!!!!!!!!!!

I grew up in highly Mormon areas in the west and Fawn Brodie's biography of Joseph Smith was like a fable. It was whispered that if the library had a copy, Mormons swiped it from the shelves. Some time back in the 90's I found a hardback cover at a yard sale and was happy to buy it. It is such a good historic work that in my opinion, she showed Joseph Smith both as a man and prophet, as a product of his times and geographic area. I am not Mormon and have never been, though I have some opinions, mostly highly favorable, of LDS church members. I do not believe Fawn Brodie dishonoured Joseph Smith, whether one thinks he is a prophet or simply a man. My personal guess is that Smith had some spiritual experiences. Lots of people do. There may have been intended deceit in some of his activities but maybe the church grew faster than he ever expected. However it is, he shared in a number of sufferings brought on by the faith and his wife and children were exposed to the same. Even the issues of polygamy and polyandry are difficult to understand. If Joseph was simply wanting to stray from his marriage, why did he marry wives of his friends and associates? He was a complex man who I believe, began to flounder when his following grew too big. We have seen this with a number of religious leaders who started with good ideas and ended in tragedy when they thought themselves bigger and more omnipotent than they were. In short, I do not believe Brodie's book is harmful to the church. Christians believe the only perfect human was Jesus. By that measure, all other humans have a level of sin and failure, including prophets.