Responding to Jacob Hess' "Biggest Church Lie" Call-Out - Part 1

Jacob Hess wants you to believe that a podcast is single-handedly dismantling Mormonism. In a recent video titled something like "The Biggest Church Lie," Hess, a mental health researcher with controversial views on LGBTQ Mormons, pointed his camera at Mormon Stories Podcast and declared it ground zero for faith destruction. It is a familiar accusation in LDS circles, one that mistakes correlation for causation and treats honest historical inquiry as a contagion rather than a symptom of institutional crisis.

Background: The History Behind the Video

Hess has history with John Dehlin, the founder of Mormon Stories Podcast. Years ago, Hess contacted Dehlin to challenge his academic work on LGBTQ Mormon experiences. While Dehlin holds a PhD in clinical psychology and has published peer-reviewed research on the harms of conversion-adjacent therapies, Hess advocates for celibacy or mixed-orientation marriage as viable paths for gay Mormons. Their worldviews collided again when Hess released a twenty-one-minute video suggesting that Mormon Stories operates as a kind of spiritual poison, a "lie" that travels fast while truth struggles to catch up.

The video employs what Dehlin and co-host Cara Burrell identify as "sacred science," a concept from Luna Corbden’s research on undue influence. This is the claim that religious authorities possess special perceptive powers, such as the ability to read countenances or interpret spiritual signs, that bypass normal critical scrutiny. Hess speaks in the measured, low-register cadence often associated with General Authority addresses, a vocal technique that triggers conditioned positive associations in longtime members.

Key Claims and Evidence

Hess builds his case on two assertions that do not survive contact with the documented record: Mormon Stories causes faith crises rather than accompanying them. Hess frames Dehlin as a puppet master pulling strings, asking how dare listeners trust "one podcaster over the testimony of millions." The Mormon Stories audience responded en masse to dispute this, reporting they found the podcast only after their shelves had already cracked. They came seeking validation and historical context, not demolition. Critics of the Church are mentally unwell. Hess suggests that those who criticize the institution exhibit unhealthy behavior, stopping just short of clinical diagnosis while heavily im