Source: Mormon News Update | May 5, 2026 🏊🏻‍♀️ Channel: Generally Unquotable Published: May 5, 2026 | Archived: May 24, 2026

Video: Mormon News Update | May 5, 2026 🏊🏻‍♀️
Channel: Generally Unquotable
Published: May 5, 2026
Duration: 20:54
Views: 3,896
Category: News & Politics
Video ID: DCG_7RkdOHU

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Patreon: https://patreon.com/GenerallyUnquotable?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_fan&utm_content=copyLink

Former Mormon shares raw truth about the LDS Church, baptismal covenants, polygamy, and institutional control. 🧵

In this episode, we cover: My Mormon Stories interview with John & Margi Dehlin and why it changed how I think about people I’ve never met

Ruth Johnson’s story, married to polygamist Samuel Bateman at age 14, and what her experience reveals about coercion disguised as religion

David Bednar’s disturbing teaching on baptismal covenants and agency, and why your 8-year-old self never truly consented

Dale Renlund’s omission of “mourn with those who mourn” from the baptismal covenant…accidental or strategic?

A new LDS Church SA lawsuit in New Jersey The Allen/Fairview Texas ward closure amid claims of “tremendous growth”

The Davao Philippines Temple dedication and the photo the Church quietly deleted

If you’ve ever questioned the LDS Church, left Mormonism, or are navigating a faith transition, this episode is for you.

#MormonStories #ExMormon #LDSChurch #FaithTransition #MormonTruth #Polygamy #ReligiousTrauma #Baptism #DavidBednar #DaleRenlund #MormonNews

Links:

My Mormon Story: https://youtu.be/dL_BKA_7usI?si=nWnc28ylwRM56GV_

3:12 Do you have a Testimony? https://www.ksl.com/article/51488479/former-child-bride-of-polygamous-leader-shares-her-story-following-netflix-documentary https://www.youtube.com/live/P96APKw1EfQ?si=FPNxj24tK1HshtKi

9:14 No Covenant to Mourn: https://scripturecentral.org/knowhy/at-baptism-what-do-we-covenant-to-do https://youtu.be/iaHAjvXczDk?si=yepaGDD_2GjDZ4Bl

12:25 Outrageous Negligence? https://www.nj.com/passaic-county/2026/04/mormon-church-in-nj-sued-by-man-who-says-he-was-sexually-abused-in-1990s.html

15:17 Fairview Loses a Ward: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/initiative/mckinney-texas-information?lang=eng

15:41 Temples over Nature: https://news-ph.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/elder-renlund-dedicates-the-davao-philippines-temple

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Transcript — YouTube panel (human-authored)

0:00 Good morning everyone. Here’s your Mormon news update for May 5th, 2026. Not only is it Cinco de Mayo, but it’s also Taco Tuesday, so I hope you’re prepared. Also, my Mormon stories interview aired yesterday. It will be linked in the show notes. I just wanted to quickly share that meeting John and Margie Delin in person was incredible. John actually reached out to me 2 years ago about coming on his show, and things finally fell into place after we spoke at St. George Thrive in February, which led to me traveling out to Utah to do the interview with my sister and my best friend Julie. Over the years, I’ve heard a wide range of things about John, about his character and his motivations. Even during the two years we were in contact, there were moments that felt a little difficult, mostly because Jon is so busy, and I sometimes felt lost in the shuffle. But after spending time with him and Margie in person, sharing a meal, talking, and going through the

0:59 interview process, I came away with a much more personal impression. I just want to emphasize how genuinely compassionate the Dindins are. John truly has a heart of gold, and Margie to me felt like a healing hug. The entire experience reminded me how human we all are and that I need to be very intentional about how I think of people that I’ve never met in person, especially those who are brave enough to put themselves out there for the whole world to see. Now, let’s go to KSL where it says, “When Ruth Johnson was 14 years old, she was swinging in the backyard when she suddenly heard her dad call her into the house. The next thing she knew, she became Samuel Baitman’s seventh wife. Baitman is spending 50 years in prison for conspiracy to commit transportation of a minor for criminal activity and conspiracy to commit kidnapping. He is also the subject of a recent Netflix documentary titled Trust Me the False Prophet where documentarians Christine Marie and her

2:04 husband Tolkatus gained his trust and recorded things that became crucial in the FBI investigation against him. Johnson, now 20, was one of Baitman’s underage wives shown in the documentary. The polygamous religious leader claimed more than 20 spiritual wives, including 10 underage girls. “My dad took me up in his room and said, “Do you know who you belong to?” I said, “There’s only one option here, and I don’t want to do it,” she recalled. “Ruth Johnson’s dad is Moroni Johnson, and her mother is Julia Johnson. Both are featured in the documentary. Moroni Johnson is serving a 25-year sentence for similar charges to Baitman’s.” Ruth Johnson told KSL that she knew marrying Baitman was inevitable because she watched him marry her three older sisters and her younger sister, who was just 9 years old at the time.

2:57 “My dad gave me a hug,” which we never did,“ she recalled. He said, “Samuel’s outside waiting for you.” I went out the back door and Samuel said, “Do you have a testimony about this?” I was like, “What’s he going to do if I said no?” So I said, “Yeah.” Personally, this reminds me so much of when I went to my interview so I could be deemed worthy to be baptized at age 8. My dad, who I was afraid of, was the branch president at the time, and he did my interview. He may have asked me if I wanted to be baptized, but I don’t remember that even being a question. I do remember him asking me if I knew what it meant to be baptized. I said, “It means to follow Jesus.” I was 7 years old and was expected to make an eternally binding promise. A promise that I did not understand. Let’s listen to David Bednar explain exactly what it means to be baptized.

3:53 Now, this is why you need to be buckled up. When we enter into that covenant and begin to have the name of Christ come upon us. Our agency is enlarged. You will indeed need to buckle up because he is about to describe what enlarged means to him. Typically, if someone said my agency had been enlarged, I would think that I’m about to have more choices or maybe that my ability to choose or decide had grown and I was feeling more confident.

4:29 It’s no longer individual agency. It is enlarged to become representative agency and representing Christ and his name at all times in all places and in all things becomes more important than what we want. The reason we need to always remember him is so we can effectively represent him. The reason we need the companionship of the Holy Ghost, yes, that blesses us, but we need that companionship of the third member of the Godhead.

5:28 So, we can represent him. Did you get all of that? Bednar is preaching that members have individual agency just long enough to sign papers and get into the baptismal font. And the very second they come up for air out of the water of that font, they have traded their individual agency for representative agency. And representative agency means that they are no longer acting for themselves.

5:54 They are now a representative who has a contractual obligation to act according to the rules of the one they represent. And who makes those rules? Bedar and his pals. That doesn’t sound so enlarging, now does it? We have already pledged that we will keep the commandments. Have you heard someone say, “A member of the church who has entered into the baptismal covenant, I have my agency. I can do what I want.

6:30 You ever heard that? Yeah. You know what the answer is? No, you can’t. You don’t understand agency. You don’t have agency to do whatever you want. We have the hymn choose the right, don’t we? In espanol. The hymn is called choose the right. Now choose what you want. This is so insidious. Bednar is making doctrine designed to produce a representative who has no internal conflict because they have no internal wants left. He is constructing a psychological template for the ideal institutional soldier. Someone who has so thoroughly subordinated their own desires to the organization that they experience no internal conflict. Not because the conflict was resolved, but because the self that would generate the conflict has been systematically dismantled and rebranded as the natural man. He is speaking to youth. He is teaching a generation of young people that having personal wants is a theological problem and that the

7:43 solution is to replace those wants with institutional representation. So from tonight on don’t ever use a misunderstood concept of agency to justify sin. You can’t just choose what you want. And when you begin to understand that principio, then you’re on the road to becoming spiritually self-reliant. He did not just finish that with a straight face while saying giving up choice is the path to self-reliance.

8:31 The word self is doing absolutely no work in that sentence. He just spent 10 minutes prior to that methodically dissolving the self. He redefined agency away from personal choice, reframed personal desires as spiritual defects, and told a room full of young adults that their baptismal covenant means their wants no longer belong to them. There is no self-left to rely on. What he is actually describing is institutional reliance. Total complete theologically mandated dependence on the church’s framework for every decision.

9:07 And this, my dear friends, is why we as mainstream Mormons are not so different than the young girl who was given to Sam Baitman. Also, while we are on the subject of baptism, let’s listen to a small clip from the Words of the Prophets podcast episode 407 where the host Todd says this that ministering is not part of our baptismal covenants because she referenced specifically mourn with those more comfort. That’s not the baptismal covenant. And Elder Renland especially has gone out of his way to teach people that is not the covenant. Um, otherwise you would be renewing every sacrament meeting. When they say the sacrament prayer, they would say, “And you promise to mourn with those of mourning.”

9:49 Wait a hot second. Mourn with those who mourn is not part of the baptismal covenant. But scripture central says, “This passage, Mosiah 18:8-10, concisely indicates that baptized believers make a covenant to do the following. Come into the fold of God. Be called his people. Bear one another’s burdens. Mourn with those who mourn. Comfort those who need comfort. Stand as a witness of God at all times and places. Serve God and keep his commandments. I think Scripture Central must be wrong. Lelay gasp. Because Dale Renland has said this.

10:28 Baptism is the first covenant that everyone makes on the covenant path. The baptismal covenant is a public witness to Heavenly Father of three specific commandments. To serve God, to keep his commandments, and to be willing to take on the name of Jesus Christ. The other facets that are frequently associated with the baptismal covenant, that we bear one another’s burdens, mourn for those that mourn, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, are fruits of making the covenant rather than part of the actual covenant. This is all news to me and it got me thinking. Why would Dale go out of his way to omit mourn with those who mourn and comfort those who need comfort from the baptismal covenant? Is it because if those are covenant obligations, things members actually promise God at baptism? Then the church is accountable when it fails to do those things? When it cuts off a grieving mother who asks faith crisis

11:24 questions? When it dysfellowships someone struggling with their testimony? When it prioritizes institutional reputation over the comfort of abuse survivors, when it sues John Delin instead of mourning with the people his podcast has helped. If those things are covenant, the church has to answer for every time it didn’t do them. But if they’re just fruit, if they’re merely the natural behavior of a converted soul rather than a binding promise, then the institution is maybe off the hook.

11:53 There’s no breach of covenant when they don’t show up for people. It was never a promise to begin with. It was just a nice idea about what good members naturally do. Maybe Renland didn’t accidentally stumble into this theological distinction. Maybe he went out of his way to teach it because the result is a version of baptism that is entirely upward-f facing three commitments to God and the institution with the horizontal human community elements quietly reclassified as optional expressions of personal righteousness. And now let’s go to nj.com where it says a New Jersey subsidiary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been sued by a man who claims a branch president from Bergen County essayed him decades ago.

12:40 The man states in court papers he was 13 in the mid 1990s when church leaders from Soldier Hill Stake in Emerson visited his Patterson home to recruit his family to attend services. The branch president immediately showed an inappropriate interest in plaintiff and convinced him to attend church services without his mother states the lawsuit filed in Pake County Superior Court on April 14th. The lawsuit says the teenager was not a United States citizen at the time and was in the process of obtaining his green card. His immigration status made him more vulnerable to the branch president’s inappropriate advances and grooming tactics. The suit says the complaint says the teen began attending services and was later invited to the branch president’s home when the leader’s wife and children were not present. The lawsuit alleges the teen was essayed more than 50 times over a 2-year period.

13:37 Court documents state the branch president offered to pay for the teen’s tuition at a Catholic high school and the boy’s mother agreed. The branch president then asked the teenager to move in with him, but that never happened according to the suit. That’s because the man became the focus of an investigation by local law enforcement for inappropriate contact with minors, including the teen. According to the complaint, while he was under investigation, the man moved to another state. New Jersey court records do not list criminal charges for the man, and it’s unclear whether he was ever charged. The lawsuit alleges the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Soldier Hill Stake, and others were negligent in that they failed to protect minors from the branch president. The church’s failure to prevent abuse were outrageous and were done recklessly with a conscious disregard of the risk of

14:31 harm to plaintiff. The suit alleges defendants failed to take reasonable steps and failed to implement reasonable safeguards to avoid acts of unlawful conduct. the suit claims. A spokesperson for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said Thursday the organization dedicates significant resources to prevent, report, and address abuse. The spokesperson emailed a link to a website of resources available to people in crisis, which includes information on how to prevent abuse. Oh my god. In response, they emailed them a web address. Oh, you were abused because of our negligence. But that’s too bad. I hope this website that details what we could be doing but aren’t doing helps. Now, let’s go to some quick information from Rebecca Bibliotecha that says the LDS church closes Allen 7th ward in Fairview, Texas. This ward now combined with Allen 3rd and fourth ward met in the meeting house on the Fairview temple lot.

15:34 Tremendous growth was a major reason cited for needing a Fair View, Texas temple. Does this add up? And speaking of temples, over the weekend, Dale Renland dedicated the Davo Philippines temple. The church news says Elder Dale G. Rland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles dedicated the Davo Philippines Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Sunday, May 3rd, 2026. The dedicatory session was held in the morning and rebroadcast in the afternoon to meeting houses within the Davo Philippines Temple District where thousands of Latter-day Saints gathered to participate. In his message prior to the dedicatory prayer, Elder Renland spoke about an original painting hanging at the main entry of the Davo Philippines temple. The painting titled Mountain Morning depicts Mount Oppo, the tallest mountain in the Philippines. He used the mountain as a spiritual metaphor, drawing from Isaiah’s prophecy

16:31 that in the last days, people would go up to the mountain of the Lord’s house. While Mount Oppo is widely known for its beauty and history and has been considered sacred by early Filipinos, Elder Renland taught that no physical landscape, however majestic, has the power to transform people, offer saving ordinances, or bind families for eternity. Only the temple, the true mountain of the Lord, he said, can do that. Wow. Is he implying that the Mormon’s man-made structure is better than nature? By emphasizing that only the temple has the power to transform, perform saving ordinances, and bind families, Dale shifts focus away from personal lived spiritual experience and toward Mormon authority. This reflects a worldview in which the divine is accessed through officially sanctioned spaces rather than encountered freely in the natural world. And sadly in that framing even something as ancient and onspiring as a mountain becomes secondary to a structure deemed

17:35 authorized subtly elevating what is built and administered by the institution over what already exists and has long been experienced as sacred. The article goes on to say, “In the dedicatory prayer, Elder Renland prayed for the people who will be served by the Davo Philippines temple. He asked Heavenly Father to bless them in their personal circumstances and help them fulfill their purpose. Please pour out specific blessings on these people,” he prayed. “Please restore to them what they cannot restore themselves. Heal wounds they cannot heal. Fix what has been irreparably broken. compensate them for any unfairness they experience and permanently mend even shattered hearts.

18:16 Please grant these blessings so that they can fulfill their mission’s immortality. For someone who holds the priesthood and is an authorized witness of Christ, he is doing a whole lot of begging and very little pronouncing. I guess it is a prayer and not a blessing, but it still seems a bit wishy-washy to me. Back to the article, Elder Renland also prayed about the central role of temples in pointing people to the Savior, Jesus Christ and about his atonement and gospel. And it is through him that those blessings are made possible. We sense that he yearns for us to access his power so that he can forgive our sins and pardon us from the punishment that we would otherwise warrant. Elder Renland continued, “We recognize that he wants to transform us to have us become perfected in him, thus helping us be sanctified. We stand all amazed at the love he offers us. We stand amazed at the love thou offers us.

19:12 We are forever indebted to him and to thee.“ Whoa. The punishment that we would otherwise warrant. What does it even mean to build a relationship with the divine on the premise that we are fundamentally deserving of punishment in the first place? Let me know your thoughts in the comments. And arguably the most interesting part of this entire temple dedication is that when the article was first published, it featured this photo of Dale and his wife walking along while a person of color holds an umbrella over them to shade them from the sun. Not a great look. And it seems that as soon as the church realized that, they removed this particular photo from their newsroom article. And last up today, let’s go to this great quote from Wendy Wilcock Jensen that says, “When a church pays big money, tithing money, to use the judicial system to shut down their critics, you know, the natives are getting restless listening to the honest stories of their peers. And it’s

20:13 starting to have impact. They are going to blame it on the times and Satan’s effort to destroy God’s church rather than see how the institution is failing. You know, their profit is not a mouthpiece for Jesus Christ. He’s just a lawyer who believes God’s justice is served through the courts, not through Christ. They believe their pockets run deep enough to control every opposition.

20:37 Not because they have the truth, but because they believe money has the power. The truth doesn’t need to silence their critics. And that’s your update for today, folks. I absolutely hope you have the day that you deserve.