I’m going to start with an anecdote that made me think, “Yes! That exactly validates my opinion about that particular problem!” And while I was thinking that, I was also thinking that Bishop Bill would define this as confirmation bias. But whatever; just because it’s confirmation bias doesn’t mean my reading is invalid, right?
When Archuleta got famous, he got to know Elder M. Russell Ballard. Archuleta described their relationship as grandparent/grandson. At least at first. When he was faithfully Mormon and willing to be a PR victory for the Church, Elder Ballard was warm towards him. But when Archuleta started bringing up his attraction to men, Elder Ballard got uncomfortable and tried to brush him off (p.218). Archuleta didn’t go quickly from faithful Mormon to out and proud, so he and Elder Ballard had several conversations while Archuleta began to realize that he couldn’t pretend to be straight, no matter how hard he tried.
After Archuleta publicly came out by posting on Instagram, Elder Ballard asked to meet with him in person (p.243). Elder Ballard wasn’t thrilled about what Archuleta had done. Per Archuleta’s recollection, Elder Ballard said “Well, David, to be honest, I don’t know much about any of this. We don’t really have the answers on what to do about LGBT people. We’ve gone as brethren and prayed about this, but we’ve never received any answers. All we have is the family proclamation that states marriage is between a man and a woman, and they must create children.” Elder Ballard said that the brethren try their best to fill in the blanks about what to do about LGBT people (p.245).
Archuleta described this is a “big moment” because he used to think that Church leaders got divine revelation from God. But Elder Ballard had just said that the Church leaders don’t really know what God thinks about gay people. They’d never gotten a clear answer. “Yet they acted like that had” (p.246). This conversation is when Archuleta “really started questioning the validity of these men being messengers of God and how they promised God would never lead them astray” (p.246).
So here’s my epiphany: The brethren aren’t getting revelation because they aren’t praying “with real intent.” I recalled a story that I believe I heard in General Conference. I thought Oaks was the speaker, but I searched the website and can’t find the talk. If this rings a bell with anyone else, please let me know in the comments. It involved Moroni’s Promise, which is in Moroni 10:4. “And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.”
The story was that a missionary was teaching an investigator who claimed to have prayed to find out the truth and didn’t get an answer. The missionary was puzzled. After discussion with the investigator, he found out that the investigator didn’t really intend to follow through with joining the Church, regardless of the answer. He didn’t want to make lifestyle changes. In other words, he wasn’t praying “with real intent” because he did not intend to act on the revelation he said he was seeking. He did not have “a sincere heart” because he was just curious, not committed to action.
My epiphany is that the brethren don’t get revelation about LGBT people because they are not praying “with real intent.” They cannot comprehend that God would reveal to them that procreative sex within the bounds of marriage is not the only sex that is not a sin. God isn’t worried about whether a man and woman make a baby every time they have sex. (That’s why he didn’t create humans to have heats like dogs). Gay sex is not a sin. But the brethren would not be willing to make the massive changes to the Church that would be required if they received that revelation. So, apparently, they get no answers at all. If you aren’t willing to act on a revelation, you won’t get a revelation. That’s the lesson about what it means to pray with “a sincere heart” and “real intent.”
There, I have solved the conundrum on why the Brethren are floundering around about gay issues. They don’t have open minds and sincere hearts about this issue. They want God to say gays shouldn’t exist and here’s how to change them. God can’t reveal something like that; the Brethren don’t want to hear anything else. Thus … heavenly silence.
Now Onto the Book Review
The full title is Devout: Losing My Faith to Find Myself (Gallery Books 2026). The book delivers on the promise of the subtitle. It’s a very personal look into his faith and identity, and how those two things came into conflict and how he eventually resolved that conflict.
The book is very readable. I finished it in two days and enjoyed it all. There weren’t any parts that dragged for me. Archuleta avoided the trap of over-sharing and getting bogged down in details. And yet he said enough about some sensitive and difficult episodes to give the reader context for his actions. Despite the personal nature of some of the events, the book didn’t feel voyeuristic. Kudos to Archuleta and his editor.
I also loved how he extended grace to everyone involved. Most people know about his rocky relationship with his father, who controlled his career through Archuleta’s teen years. Archuleta is candid about what that was like for him, and also acknowledges his father’s struggles, and shares about some recent improvements in their relationship. He doesn’t create a bad guy and blame him for everything. He didn’t do that with the Church either. He’s candid about the good parts of the Church and about when the Church failed him. More of a “here’s what happened” and not a “look at how bad they are.”
In his memoir, he’s very candid about his three engagements to women and his feelings during those engagements. Archuleta realized he couldn’t do right by a woman and he broke the engagements. Painful, but better than the alternative. To people who think gay (or bisexual) men should marry straight women even though they are not sexually attracted to that individual, I say that women deserve to marry someone who loves them wholly. Marriage shouldn’t be a service project to try and ‘fix’ a spouse. I’m not sure anyone believes that anymore (other than some extremely religious believers).
He was also very candid about his sex drive not being very high. I think that’s important because of the homophobic misinformation that tries to paint queer people as promiscuous sex maniacs. The truth is that sex drive varies between individuals, whether they’re gay or straight.
Chapter 28, The House Crumbles, is Archuleta’s conversation with Elder Ballard about gay issues and the Church’s double standard and strange assumptions about LGBTQ people. He says he’s frequently asked if he was molested as a child. He wasn’t, and he knows a few people who were molested and they are straight. (I deal with this as well. I’m asexual. Yes, I was molested, but I have a friend who was also molested and she’s straight. There are plenty of asexual people who were not molested. Being molested doesn’t cause a certain sexual orientation. Stop assuming people are queer because they haven’t been forgiving enough. Because that’s what that question sounds like: ‘did someone break you? You know that if you forgive them, the breakage can be healed and you can be straight again.’)
My favorite exchange between Archuleta and Elder Ballard in this chapter is when Ballard cautioned him against getting married “because then you’ll want unnatural sex, and that’s against God’s laws.” Archuleta explained what marriage would mean for him — love, companionship, growing closer. Perhaps start a family — after all, straight couples can adopt, or use IVF. Then he said, “It’s so interesting to me that all you think about is sex.” Elder Ballard had no reply to that.
And YES, that’s my frustration with the Church’s law of chastity and rejection of queer experiences as well. The Church is so insistent that God decreed a law of sex. And … what if he didn’t? What if God created bodies and sexual pleasure for a lot of different reasons? Sex is more than just making a baby. Even between straight married spouses, sex is for more than making a baby. Teach principles of consent and respect and let people fall in love with the person they’re attracted to. It’s just so counter-intuitive to me that the Church prioritizes sexual orientation over kindness, respect, charity, and other traits that Christ encouraged.
Questions:
- Have you read Archuleta’s memoir? Do you seek out his music?
- The Church is fine with straight couples adopting, or using IVF. The Church loves and supports single parents. Why not extend that support to gays?
Wheat & Tares 
Outstanding post! Well done!
Have you read Archuleta’s memoir? Yes. It is thought-provoking and well worth the read.
The Church is fine with straight couples adopting, or using IVF. The Church loves and supports single parents. Why not extend that support to gays? Good question. The Church’s policy that excludes married LGBTQ couples from the temple has many flaws, and you mentioned one of them. In addition, Biblical texts used to justify homophobia are disputed by many scholars, including Dr. Dan McClellan. I would highly recommend his research.
A side note: Archuleta met with Elder M. Russell Ballard, not Melvin J. Ballard.
This is my blog post regarding David Archuleta: https://exponentii.org/blog/david-archuletas-memoir-devout-exploring-his-transformative-journey/
The Ballard David dealt with was M. Russell Ballard, apostle from 1985 to his death in 2023 at the age of 95. He was the grandson of Melvin J. Ballard, an apostle from 1919-1939 (M. Russell’s full name was Melvin Russell Ballard Jr., after his father). M. Russell’s other grandfather was also an apostle, Hyrum M. Smith (apostle from 1901, when he was only 29, to 1918 when he died from a ruptured appendix at age 45). Hyrum was the oldest son of Joseph F. Smith, 6th president of the Church, who coincidentally also served from 1901-1918. Shall we talk about nepotism?
Good review – I look forward to reading the book. Regarding your epiphany of the church leaders not receiving an answer because they’re not praying with real intent, I’d say that the most important part of “real intent” is having a proposed solution worked out, which requires an open mind and willingness to consider an answer that may challenge their long-held convictions (cf. ending the temple/priesthood ban on black members). Only then do they take that proposed solution to the Lord for “confirmation.” That’s how revelation works in church history, they study out an issue, reach something of a consensus, then pray for confirmation – that feel-good emotion that confirms they made the right decision. But none of the nonegenarians in charge has the ability to do the first part yet.
I suspect you are correct that GAs do not have a good answer to the LGBT problem because they cannot pray with real intent. Possibly some of them cannot get an answer because they are unwilling to admit to the years of being wrong, others are already certain they already have the right answer, and they get silence because God doesn’t agree. Others would be too afraid to act on an answer that comes in vastly different than what the evangelicals believe. They are already in bed politically with other MAGA so called Christians and would have to admit to being wrong about that. So, they are stuck with the kindest of them feeling torn and the most arrogant already certain. But none of them would be able to say, “oops, we have been wrong for a few years now.” They can’t say that because some of them are still painting themselves into their corner. Just like we discussed the other day with Hawks post about moral amplifiers. They, or at least some of them are suffering from misplaced certainty. They have a problem in that they know the church is losing members and they know their treating a God given trait as sin is problematic, but they are certain that it *IS* a sin because they find it icky. And if it is icky, then it is unnatural and must be a sin because “purity culture”. And they don’t know how to answer things like if it is all over the animal kingdom, then obviously it *IS* natural, but but but… they are too proud to even consider that silence is “stupor of thought” and pray about a different idea after studying things a bit more. If they DID study they might find that science says it is inborn and the fact that it is all over the animal kingdom says it is natural, even if it does not reproduce the species. There is SOME reason it evolved or God made things that way, because it is natural. But they are too chickensh*t to study it out in their minds. Because they do not want to admit they are wrong.
Seeing as I worked as a counselor to adults who had been molested as children, I have some data on that idea that “molestation causes same sex attraction”. The idea the church seems to believe is that guys who anre molested “learn” to associate the pleasure of sex with other guys. But they forget that being molested is NOT pleasant. It is rape and associated with fear. If anything it is the opposite and people are repulsed by the idea of sex with the gender who raped them. So, yes, I even had clients who were at first sure their being molested by a man made them so disgusted with men that they decided to be lesbian. But after talking about it, say in support group, they would acknowledge that they are bi and attracted to both men and women enough to decide they want a relationship with one or the other. But I saw happily heterosexual married women molested by a woman, happily heterosexual married women molested by a man, happily lesbian molested by a woman and happily lesbian molested by a man, AND a few who claimed they made a choice but admitted she is bi and the molestation was what swung her choice, and one who was bi but decided the guy she liked was worth it. Not one of the guys I ever had as a client was gay, or molested by a woman, so, absolutely zero clients who were molested by a guy and “learned” that. Even my husband and brother were molested by older males and are hetero. So, if I run into anyone insisting that being molested causes the guy to learn that behavior and end up being gay, big nope, not once. If anything it causes women molested by a man to learn to hate that and go lesbian because she finds guys disgusting.
And no, I have not read the book and right now I want happy escape literature because I want happy escape. Too much crap in real life to deal with a heavy thought provoking book. Maybe after my son is declared cancer free and the docs figure out the strange growths in my daughter’s eye and lungs and if my kids still have jobs after puke face gets through purging any government employees who are not loyal puke face supporters.
It should be noted that Archuleta has said that he was suicidal at some point. He’s an incredibly brave person and I commend him for his wonderful book.
I haven’t read the book yet; it’s on my list. So far, I’ve only encountered the book through podcasts and written book reviews like this one. Whether because I prime myself for it or some other reason, that encounter with Elder Ballard has figured prominently in most of the reviews and interviews that I have engaged with.
I think the history of the priesthood and temple ban also illustrates your “real intent” epiphany — especially if you ask why it took until ’78. Pres. Oaks — in the “Race and the Church” Q&A of the Topics and Questions section of the Gospel Library — says that there is no value in trying to resolve the question of divine origins for the priesthood and temple ban, and I think he’s wrong for this very reason. If we find that God withholds revelation from the church because members and leaders do not have “real intent,” then we need to come to grips with the implications for LGBTQ+ and gender equality and other controversies the church faces.
I’m not likely to read the book. I’m fairly allergic to memoirs and celebrity watching. I’m aware of his music, but it’s not my thing.
It’s interesting how different the messaging from Apostles is in different contexts. I can’t imagine Ballard (or any apostle) repeating his statement in General Conference about how little they know. This seems to be a pattern. In person, one on one, apostles seem to be wonderful, personable people. I’ve heard stories about even the apostles I like the least that seem very genuine. And then in GC, they stand up and proclaim that the church is always right about everything and always has been and will never apologize. And some apostles seem to have a third side that only comes out in random firesides (do those still happen?) or stake leadership meetings where they really rail on how we need more excommunications or something. (This seems less common as we’ve entered the era of smartphones recording everything.) It’s not like apostles are unique in presenting different faces to different groups, but I guess I just grew up expecting a little bit more from an apostle.
One more aside: It’s weird to me that Ballard would say something like “all we have is the family proclamation . . . ” He is one of the signatories on that document. He was 10th out of 15 in the Q15 at the time, so not one of the senior apostles, but still, he’d been in for nearly 10 years at that point. He was presumably in the room when that was written and discussed. The “all we have is the proclamation” line feels like an excuse for just following written policy, which is underwhelming enough when it comes from my bishop, who is just a random guy in the ward, but becomes really underwhelming coming from an apostle that signed the proclamation. Hard to imagine that the church could ever canonize the proclamation if even Ballard treats it this way.
It is nice to read about Elder Ballard being forthright about the topic, instead of dissembling in terms of pretending that there is an answer.
Janey I’m bookmarking this to read in approximately 8 weeks when it’s my turn to read this book! =) Really looking forward to it.
The lack of theology for the queer community was probably the #1 reason my family left the church. If God can change missionary service ages and the length of church and which gender can be sunday school president, surely he has a plan for his queer children. It’s leadership’s failing if they can’t find it.
Many thanks to the people who corrected me about which Elder Ballard was in the book! I made the correction in the post.
Brad D – you are correct that Archuleta was suicidal. He’s candid about the experience in the book. All his struggles were described candidly. He’s a strong person, to be able to find his own health and happiness.
Anna – thanks, as always, for adding your insight. I hope you find some happy books to read.
The discussion about the reasons for not getting revelation has been very interesting to read. It seems like it should go without saying that one reason you might not get an answer is that you’ve closed your heart to it. You’d think the Brethren would know that.
DaveW – yep, different books appeal to different people. I enjoy the occasional celebrity memoir because they reveal their humanity. They’re just regular people with a special talent. And about Ballard’s comment on the family proclamation — Archuleta said that sounded odd to him too. The Fam Proc was only written in 1995, so it wasn’t like Ballard was talking about studying scripture.
I had one encounter with David Archuleta a number of years ago, after he became famous but before coming out. We were doing hurricane relief work in one of the SE states, Louisiana I believe, on a Saturday. As EQP, I was our work team’s leader. We returned to base for new assignments around lunch time and one of the home base people asked me if I could take a group from Tennessee. I agreed. Brother Archuleta came over and I welcomed him to our team. He asked me if I knew who he was, and I said no. I knew that I had seen his picture somewhere, but I had no clue. He said “Good.” I told him we would be setting out in 10 or 15 minutes. A teenage girl on our team and her parents recognized him when we were talking, and they asked if that was David Archuleta. I said yes, because that clicked. The teenager got all googly eyed and wanted a selfie with him. I told them to keep it low key because it was apparent that Brother Archuleta was there to work, not to be seen. Before we were to leave for our next project, word came that Elder Ballard, who had flown down to be there Sunday morning, wanted Brother Archuleta to join him and to accompany him for the rest of the day. Brother Archuleta was visibly disappointed, not because he didn’t like Elder Ballard, but because he came to work and he was deprived of the opportunity. I never saw him again. I have wanted to apologize to him that he could not work with us. I suppose that Elder Ballard wanted to minister to Brother Archuleta, and he thought that having Brother Archuleta spend time with him might have been more valuable than working incognito with a nobody from a nobody ward, but I think that Brother Archuleta would have been much happier working than visiting with people who wanted to spend time in an apostle’s presence or with a celebrity. I was never able to apologize to Brother Archuleta that his desire to work quietly was taken from him. I don’t doubt Elder Ballard’s good intentions, but I wonder if he wasn’t being a little selfish, too, because him being seen in the presence of Brother Archuleta would give Elder Ballard more popularity and approachability with the young people who were there. I’ve wondered since then if good intentions in one person can thwart another person’s desires. I think Brother Archuleta would have preferred to have been left alone that day. At least I feel that in my heart. I could be totally wrong.
Anna, you are a warrior, but good warriors do what you’re doing: take time to heal, reflect, laugh, and enjoy. I stand with you and by you.
I haven’t read the book, although I find David Archuleta admirable. I listen to a podcast called Glamorous Trash where they read and discuss various memoirs (so I don’t have to!) and I specifically listened to their recap of this one, but there was another interview with him that I ended up listening to about the book, and it was really great.
One thing he said that really stuck with me is that he felt for a long time like he and the brethren were sort of in the same boat due to celebrity with everyone watching everything they do and say for signals that they are certain / inside / good church members. He talked about the pressure of living your life that way and he had a lot of empathy for the Q12 because they really can’t be genuine, human, and authentic.
“We don’t know what to do with LGBT people.”
I’ll be honest—that statement feels less like confusion and more like avoidance.
And before I go further, I’m aware I have my own blind spots shaped by upbringing and experience. But this isn’t complicated enough to hide behind uncertainty.
Why do we need divine clarification to treat people with the same basic dignity we already extend to others? No one asks, “What do we do with people who are overweight, autistic, or physically disabled?” We instinctively understand they’re human beings worthy of respect—not problems to solve.
So why does that instinct suddenly disappear here?
We’re not talking about criminals, yet the language makes it sound like we are. And invoking God as the reason for hesitation doesn’t make it more righteous—it just sanctifies distance and delays accountability.
At some point, “we don’t know what to do” stops being humility and starts becoming a way to avoid doing what we already know is right