Fence Sitter wrote:As an institution, starting with Joseph Smith, the Church has sought to control the narrative. The destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor was a misguided attempt to control the narrative. BYU has a Religious Education department which only seeks to control the narrative. The term "faithful history" is based on controlling the narrative. The Church's correlation department was specifically introduced to control the narrative. I guess so long as it is done under the guise of religious authority, controlling the narrative is okay but when "critics" do it, it is wrong, but then I am only attempting to control the narrative.
No kidding. And part of the history of that narrative control has been a consistent demonization of Mormon dissenters, of internal critique.
I am with Kishkumen here on highlighting this as problem, one that should give believers pause and be the impetus for individual and institutional soul-searching rather than the unthinking search for another venue in which to produce more chapters of this sorry story...
From the Ernest L. Wilkinson Diaries: "ELW dreams he's spattered w/ grease. Hundreds steal his greasy pants."
All institutions try to control the narrative all the time.
Here we see an example of FAIR trying to control the narrative.
"And the human knew the source of life, the woman of him, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, 'I have procreated a man with Yahweh.'" Gen. 4:1, interior quote translated by D. Bokovoy.
Hardly. Sure, a little glee and fun in poking the bastards when they are down but not dancing in the streets. I suggested that Dr. Scratch buy a fine bottle of wine to celebrate the email offerings which were like a pair of Thanksgiving dinners for critics to munch on.
But "dancing in the streets"? I don't think so. But if the First Presidency was to come out and declare Mormonism a hoax and that the church was going to be completely restructured into a mainstream Christian organization there would follow with lots of dancing in the streets!
beastie wrote:Given how brazenly apologists have lied about the accuracy of Scratch's intel over the past few years, I will never believe another thing they have to say about the matter.
I found DCP's leaked email to be a bit pissy and immature. But, I'm sympathetic to having that reaction given that he was just fired via email. Maybe not his best moment, but I don't see it as that big of a deal. I know him threatening to take his ball and go home with the donors feels weird given the LDS institutional involvement, but I again think the guy just got fired.
The interesting aspects of the private communication is that it lets out information that he was publicly being disingenuous about. One of those was the way in which Scratch's "intel" was made fun of when DCP clearly was privately aware of leaks that were more legit than his rhetoric implies. As I said before, Scratch seems to really have been a LDS apologia world equivalent of the Drudge report with all the polemics and partial accuracy that implies.
The one that really gets me is how DCP used to dance around the idea of being paid for apologetics and vociferously argue that it was an insignificant amount of no consequence. Remember how much mocking went on with that? Seems like he was pretty concerned about that supposedly insignificant compensation when it came to his firing.
I submitted this to the blog's comments but it will never see the light of day:
Mike was once known as one of the more rational apologists over at FAIR, but that myth has been exploded by recent events. First, his embarrassing comments in FAIR's Book of Abraham DVD - which he refuses to address- and now this pathetic service as Hamblin's parrot. He has done nothing here than collect comments from Bill Hamblin's various forum/blog posts and repackage them in a rant he wants everyone to accept as gospel truth.
There are so many problems with this post. First, is his obsessive focus on what those evil "apostates" are thinking and doing. Here are the facts:
1. The apostates aren't dancing in the streets. That is just something Hamblin asserts without evidence, and he does so even while admitting he never reads anything the apostates are saying or doing over at the other forum. It is just something he wishes were true so he could use it to energize his fringe base and rally the troops to his side. Anyone vaguely familiar with the FAIR message forum (recently given the misnomer "Mormon Dialogue,") can easily see some of their most loyal apologists acting like a mad mob calling for Gerald Bradford's head. Posters have been calling for his resignation and even his temple recommend, and others have posted his private contact information to encourage harassment. And where is FAIR and Hamblin in all this chaos? They're encouraging it. And why? Because they desperately want to make DCP a martyr.
The fact is the only sense of gratification on the side of the critics comes because for years we had been telling Dan and Bill that their cheap-shot publications do more harm than good, and now we see their own Church agrees with us. For years they were in denial over their own unscholarly actions, and even now they remain in denial, choosing instead to accept the wisdom of their Church's decisions, to rather fight the "good fight" as self-anointed modern Danites who refuse to see any other world view but "us vs. them."
2. Mike and everyone else on the FAIR message boards, is basing all their judgment on an extremely biased, one sided version of what this is all about. Of all the preaching I get from these folks about how anti-Mormons are irrational idiotc for drawing conclusions "before all facts are known," they apparently have no reservations about jumping to conclusions based on the claims of disgruntled former employees.
3. This wasn't Bradford's decision. Anyone at all familiar with BYU administration knows it is micromanaged from those on high, and I had two long discussions with two prominent BYU scholars recently who "assured" me this wasn't strictly Bradford's doing. It is Dan Peterson who is trying to make this personal, and about Bradford as the fascist director.
4. Dan wasn't "fired." Dan was informed that his role would be changing, as employees' roles frequently change within corporations. Dan didn't like that so he responded like a petulant child, resigned instantly and took his ball (in this case his donors) and went home.
5. Dan has already proved he is lying since he told the critics for YEARS that he never got paid one dime to do apologetics. And now here he is admitting the email response was his. The email makes much ado about his compensation as editor and he also admits that what makes his presence unique is his willingness to engage in apologetics.
6. Dan is not criticized because he is an apologist. That is just something he and Bill have been misrepresenting. The problem the Church has is with their bloodsport approach of attacking anyone who dares challenge their views, which as they will readily admit, do not represent official LDS doctrine.
7. In fact Dan isn't an apologist at all. He lectures nonsense and absolutely refuses to address his critics in any forum, no matter how cordial or civil their approach. He is a coward in every sense of the term.
8. Dan was instrumental in trying to damage the careers of both Michael D. Quinn and Robert Ritner. In the case of Ritner, Dan, over the course of six years, posted comments of a private affair that had nothing to do with Ritner's refutations of John Gee, his former student. Dan's retelling of that event resulted in Ritner threatening to post the original emails to prove Dan was lying. Dan immediately ceased talking about that subject. Whether or not Dan's rumors were true is beside the point. The fact is Dan is a very unprofessional scholar who has no reservations about destroying the careers of anyone who tries to challenge him or any of his FARMS cohorts.
9. FARMS was not reprimanded by the Church for doing "apologetics." It was the aggressive tactics they used that was an embarrassment to the Church. There is nothing wrong with apologetics per se, and you see apologetic material published in the Ensign all the time. So this false distinction between apologetic and nonapologetic is one of their own making, and they lie about this to further rally the troops at FAIR whose mission in life it seems, is apologetics.
10. Mike claims Dehlin didn't try to contact Dan, but that is a lie. The fact that he would say this proves he doesn't have the faintest clue what he is talking about.
That's 10 points of fact right there, and I could post another 10 as well. But it seems the FAIR mindset has been made up from the beginning. Their willingness to eat their own young is precisely the kind of thing the Church wants nothing to do with anymore. I don't blame the Church for that. I congratulate it. But that doesn't mean I am "dancing in the streets with glee" over this. No one has ever tried to "silence" Dan Peterson. To assert something like this is just pure nonsense. But FAIR has never really been interested in truth, nor have they ever really took the time to provide evidence for their wild claims. FAIR is now the Tea Party of Dan's little sub-cult that has been effectively marginalized by the Church. I hope you're all proud of yourselves. You spend more time and energy trying to create wedges between believer and unbeliever than you do in addressing critical arguments.
There is much, much more I can say on this, but we all know my post will be instantly removed. The FAIR mindset is very much like a cult in that it goes out of its way to suppress other views and they do so proudly. This has been standard practice on their forum for years, and I don't expect things to suddenly change in the blogosphere.
EAllusion wrote: Remember how much mocking went on with that? Seems like he was pretty concerned about that supposedly insignificant compensation when it came to his firing.
It was the bottom line, literally. The most important part for last.
Kevin Graham wrote:9. FARMS was not reprimanded by the Church for doing "apologetics." It was the aggressive tactics they used that was an embarrassment to the Church. There is nothing wrong with apologetics per se, and you see apologetic material published in the Ensign all the time. So this false distinction between apologetic and nonapologetic is one of their own making, and they lie about this to further rally the troops at FAIR whose mission in life it seems, is apologetics.
10. Mike claims Dehlin didn't try to contact Dan, but that is a lie. The fact that he would say this proves he doesn't have the faintest clue what he is talking about.
Kevin makes a lot of good points here, but these deserve special attention. It is false to see this as a blanket repudiation of apologetics, and it is false that Dehlin did not try to contact Peterson.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
EAllusion wrote: Remember how much mocking went on with that? Seems like he was pretty concerned about that supposedly insignificant compensation when it came to his firing.
It was the bottom line, literally. The most important part for last.
Paul O
HappyPrideDay
"And the human knew the source of life, the woman of him, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, 'I have procreated a man with Yahweh.'" Gen. 4:1, interior quote translated by D. Bokovoy.
Just a note, Parker let me know my post wouldn't be published due to "personal attacks" which is just hilarious given that's all that blog post was about to begin with. He also let me know I had confused him with Mike Ash, which is true.