Today I sit down with Richard Ostler. Just released as the Bishop of a Young Single Adult Ward, Richard sits down with us to share what it means to be inclusive and to love without limits. He recently was featured in Jana Riess’ column titled “What one bishop offers Mormons who don’t ‘know’ the church is true”. Richard unabashedly is a LGBT ally and an advocate for better understanding those with doubts. We talk of his hope for the future of Mormonism and what we can each do in the meantime to nudge ourselves to where we need to get to.
This episode goes public on November 5th – 1 year after the “policy” leak.
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I don’t mean to be overly critical, but to hear the two of you refer to 18-31 year-olds as “kids” bugged the heck out of me. It confirms the exmormon view that everyone is treated as a kid in the church up until the time that they get married. A 28 year old male, married with two kids, would never be called a kid. But a 28 year old single male in a YSA ward is a kid? That doesn’t seem right. All the chaperoned and superficial dating activities aimed at these very adult “kids” is preposterous.
Bill, I do enjoy your podcast a great deal, but when you start talking nuance, I feel like pulling my hair out. I think that nuance is limited to one’s own head space. One can talk about nuance all day long, but “The Church,” in my opinion, does not want anything to do with nuance. Not the leaders of the Church nor the average orthodox members. The leaders want strict obedience to doctrine.
I’d be rooting for you, Bill, but if you were to lay out these nuanced ideas in a podcast with, say, Elder Bednar, it would not go well. He’d shoot everything down and call you to repentance, as sad as that would be.
I would welcome that recorded conversation you speak of at the end. In terms of “kids” I get it but Bro. Ostler loves these people as if they are his “kids”. In terms of nuance…. I would prefer to let go of that term too but until the Church welcomes “reality” the word nuance describes well the closed mindedness the church wants vs reality. Thanks for writing
I love this–Richard is a true hero and a true leader/servant.