Problematic John Dehlin, a short list

[Meadowchik]

I don’t care what you say, Meadowchick!

You don’t know anything.

You are not in a position to give us any information.

Stop passing on hearsay.

Present the witness or knock off this ridiculous exercise.

For the love of God!

I presented an intro to the story, and then the Google Doc with Dehlin's own words about the situation, in which he corroborated the majority of the facts, including the ones you call into question.

[Meadowchik]

The comments from consiglieri and Kishkumen have been extremely revealing. It is people like these two that make it so difficult to come forward when something has happened.

Between the comments like 'mental,' 'are you unhinged', 'she's losing it', 'serious things happened today how dare you have a problem,' the 12 single sentence paragraphs mocking the person while simultaneously stating they don't know the person, the poster who suggested this is trivial but still made the effort to look up a pic and determine if it was actually "sexy" or not, the one who stated it was her fault for doing the "crap" necessary to notice excessive liking but won't acknowledge that someone may legitimately feel uncomfortable, the "you don't know anything" while NEVER applying a similar standard to his own posts, all while defending their abuse by saying they think Dehhlin could behave better--but not actually applying the same rigid standards to him that they have used to trash women, etc. , this thread is a perfect example of the Crap people face when trying to come forward about something.

Kish, you stated recently that you think you have interacted well with women online. Let me add to your information--no, you haven't. You absolutely have NOT. And consig, wow. I would never have thought this before this week, but you're a pig.

On the other hand, other posters such as Doc Cam, dastardly stem, Dr. exiled and others have made some great, rational comments. Thank you. It has been an enlightening week here. I'm pretty sure I understand why various well known women from MD's past have for the most part left this forum.

Bingo. Thanks, Lem.

And this is why, when a person was willing to come forward, I took the time to post it here as a relevant addition to this thread. As trivial as it may seem to some, it does demonstrate a pattern of behavior that others who have been close to John Dehlin have claimed to observed and experienced.

[Meadowchik]

Yeah, with incomplete information about factual behavior, context and intent, it's pretty much a guessing game. Which makes threads like this a waste of time and talent, with nothing but negative externalities. Now that the iron dome has collapsed, I wish someone would call a cease fire in this holy war over the Dehlinian strip.

<3 to all of you.

You can refer to Dehlin's own words for corroboration of facts, you could also do like (another poster) Atlantic did and review the Facebook post yourself in Dehlin's Facebook group.

[Kishkumen]

Dehlin already corroborated that it was much more than one photo.

I don't see that the fact it was much more than one photo makes a big difference here. I have always understood that we were talking about more than a single photo, so I guess I am confused about your insistence on this as though I were contesting that banal fact.

[Kishkumen]

And this is why, when a person was willing to come forward, I took the time to post it here as a relevant addition to this thread. As trivial as it may seem to some, it does demonstrate a pattern of behavior that others who have been close to John Dehlin have claimed to observed and experienced.

Was a complaint filed with Open Stories Foundation?

[Kishkumen]

You can refer to Dehlin's own words for corroboration of facts, you could also do like (another poster) Atlantic did and review the Facebook post yourself in Dehlin's Facebook group.

Yeah, I thought it was pretty rude to throw that in his face publicly instead of taking care of the issue behind the scenes, but whatevs.

[Meadowchik]

Dehlin already corroborated that it was much more than one photo.

I don't see that the fact it was much more than one photo makes a big difference here. I have always understood that we were talking about more than a single photo, so I guess I am confused about your insistence on this as though I were contesting that banal fact.

Then why did you interject in my exchange with consiglieri who said it was just one photo?

[Kishkumen]

Then why did you interject in my exchange with consiglieri who said it was just one photo?

consiglieri has always known it was more than one pic too.

[pistolero]

I don’t care what you say, Meadowchick!

You don’t know anything.

You are not in a position to give us any information.

Stop passing on hearsay.

Present the witness or knock off this ridiculous exercise.

For the love of God!

I presented an intro to the story, and then the Google Doc with Dehlin's own words about the situation, in which he corroborated the majority of the facts, including the ones you call into question.

Some of us aren't calling into question the situation. But we would like as much information as possible to make any sense of this. I honestly can't tell if it's storm in tea cup or a pattern of behaviour.

I don't have Facebook, so can't comment with any degree of certainty, but with my limited understanding, I probably wouldn't have liked the image(s) in question, but I wouldn't begrudge anyone liking them. I thought that's how Facebook worked? You post stuff and it makes you feel nice when people like your photos and you want to do it more (dopamine)? Did he leave a comment? Was there any suggestive language in his comment? Seems all fair up to that point, I mean he describes them as being in a sequence, and I haven't heard anyone dispute this fact. It's not like he cherry-picked the appealing one(s)?

If however, he's un-liking and then re-liking, then that moves the behaviour to the next level and could be indeed be a bit creepy, message sending, signalling, flirting, or whatever. Was the un-like re-like in a sequence of images? But has JD recognised that he re-liked any photos? Does he dispute this?

And even then, I'm not sure this makes him a definitive internet stalker or whatever, but I think we would need to hear more from JD about what he was playing at. It seems to show good faith that he was willing to sit down with lady+hubby and Margi to discuss it.

I would make only one suggestion as to why I'm not completely unopposed to the idea of any kind of concerted or deliberate internet campaign to raise this issue. When you're an individual, sometimes, sometimes, you want your voice to be heard. And sometimes this is only possible by raising the stakes a tiny bit.

JD is a big boy and will survive - he has to - it's only going to get worse anyway. He's going to be in the cross hair for some time to come. But at the same time, I find the continued pot shots, smearing, etc... at JD to be a bit jarring. Can we focus on someone else in the ex-mo world just to mix it up a bit?

But then I fall back to: if I take JD out of this situation and replace him with HW... and them I'm stuck.

[dastardly stem]

There are very few people who profit from Mormonism more than John Dehlin, and I mean to say that with a "if any" qualifier. I get why people want to play this incident, and others, off as no big deal, not worth mentioning and other such things. And it's not as if there's not a valid point to that. Its not as if liking women's photos as a cover to be flirtatious is a big deal, all things considered. Its creepy, its perhaps a bit of a power move, or whatever. So why make a big deal out of it? And I agree, it's not the biggest deal. But the incident is worth mentioning and reviewing all things considered, I think.

John has done some good work, as they say, to set up a good interviewing business, with added accessories. In so doing, though, it appears, he's set himself up as a leader of a group of devoted followers who testify of his worth much like Church members do regarding the Church, and perhaps its leaders. This helps build his following. He relies off of donations from these followers--people devoted to the point of thinking his product is worth selling, much like the Church (of course the Church is so rich it need not the donations and on that ground is running the scam MS will probably never build itself up to). People devoted or casually attached wonder if it's worth scrutinizing since it's been a helpful product, some may even go so far, as it seems at least one poster here has done, to say a voice opposed is the voice of the enemy. That is, of course, just like the Church--heavily devoted members and those who are attached casually often see voices of descent as voices of the enemy.

He's also admitted a number of times that he has to squelch descent. His letter attached to this incident suggests this is his survival technique, much like the Church did in it's early days trying to survive. He's also painted it as if those who dare criticize him are evil, are out to get him, are just jealous and other such things. This is a precise description of the Church, of course. So as it is, he now has sway over perhaps a few hundred devoted followers (True Blue Dehlinites) and perhaps many more casual followers. He's played the victim to the degree no Mormon I know has ever done, in order, it seems, to maintain his position. And he does all of this on the grounds of saying, "hey look, I'm just trying to help people."

Yesterday as this little story about liking pictures was happening I went to MS Facebook page to view the noise. I saw at the top a post titled "Warning signs of a Cult".

1. The leader is ALWAYS right.
2. Criticism of the leader or questioning the leader is consider persecution.
3. Anything the leader does is justified, no matter how harmful it may be.
4. The leader is the only source of truth, everybody else is lying.
5. Disciples must be devoted to the leader and NEVER question him.

Applying this to Mormonism, I get why ex-members be like, ok...I mean there's some application here. I would say as much as this applies to Mormonism it applies to Mormon stories, or JD's org. Neither group is completely spelled out in the 5 points. Both, though, seem to fit, at least roughly. Surely JD's cult is even smaller than Mormonism's. It'll never be larger due to it being but a scavenger feeding off of Mormonism's scraps. But here we are a group throwing stones at another group, while residing in a glass house.

In addition to the above, it might be worth pointing out that for every Tavares Standfield, willing to defend Dehlin because of his great benefit to his life, there are a million or so Mormons willing to defend Mormonism for being even a greater benefit to their lives. So there's proper imbalance, in terms of impact in numbers and quality, that should be noted.

All of that said, I say, Dehlin is just another guy, running in this world, trying to make noise in his own way, trying to do what he thinks is good. It always seems ugly to single out someone out there, trying to be a part of the world, and calling out his minimally bad behavior. One must ask is it going too far, are we digging to deep to call out a ten year old relationship or a taboo of liking sexy photos from a young lady? That's all personal business and shouldn't really matter to the product. some seem intent to shame any who might think it worthwhile. And in the end, maybe it's not worth it. But the question is if the Church is wrong with it's behavior then why not point out the one criticizing that behavior seems to be setting up a copied organization benefitting financially, a very few, at the expense of others? Should someone at the top of an organization devoted to helping people wield that kind of power?

Maybe I'm playing a bit of Dehlin with this flare for the dramatic. Maybe. Or Maybe, Dehlin needs far more pushback, far more questioning, and followers need to realize the community saves as a whole and not one person.

One important mention, I think, since it was brought up in this thread. This is not a case of some random woman bombarding and harassing Dehlin as he has painted it, with friends piling on. This is a case of Dehlin requesting to identify specific cases of men in the exmormon world behaving poorly towards women, and one woman calling out an incident wherein Dehlin treated a woman poorly. He asked for this information and when it came he went wildly crazy attacking the person as evil and jealous and many other things. It all comes off as very disingenuous to maintain business cred.