Listen, this is about people like John Dehlin. The fact that John was called in too is no coincidence, and if anyone is a problem for the LDS Church right now, at least in the eyes of its more conservative elements, it is Dehlin. Frankly, while I love John, and think he has his heart in the right place, I think he has made some dangerous moves, and by dangerous I mean that they were not well calculated to avoid getting shown the door.
How much John cares at this point is another matter entirely.
What John did was help a lot of people who felt alienated from the LDS Church try to find a place for themselves within it--a place they could feel good about in terms of personal integrity and in which they would not have to cut all ties. These people often value things about the Church. They don't want to leave. But the Church does not do much to help them. John and his friends were there to help people go through the soul-wrenching experience of navigating this territory.
The post you should link to in order to understand why this development is disturbing is
this one.It may be the case, although it is not clear at this point, that Church Headquarters specifically instructed the stake president to call in this fellow.
I spent an hour and an half with the BP today. This meeting was by request from the SP.
Perhaps the most disturbing part of my "interview" was the BP told me that the SP has been in contact with church headquarters, and has asked for my "records" including tithing amounts from the previous year.
At the very least, these events were put in motion by the stake president, although I think it is possible that someone higher up is pulling his strings.
That the stake president requested his tithing records is interesting. I am not exactly sure why this would be done. The fellow claims that he declared to the bishop that he was not a full tithe payer the previous year. It appears, though, that the stake president, or someone else, had done a little online research too:
Also - I was asked about my Facebook status which has Buddhism as my religion and several Dalia Lama quotes as well a picture of the Dalia Lama being one of the influential people in my life. My daughter has used Dalia Lama quotes on MANY occasions at Stake events and such, so I can imagine the concern. Why would the SP be on my Facebook page? He's not my "friend" and I barely use that thing anyway.
Anyway, it appears like they are treating this movement to try to stay in the Church, even if you don't believe all of the truth claims, as a schismatic group. Or, it could be that they have taken this posture as they try to figure out exactly what it is that the "Middle Way" is. Based on this fellow's interest in Buddhism, they may have latched on to the possibility of doctrinal heresy in a feared mixing of Buddhism and Mormonism. It is, after all, the case that even respected LDS authors have made reference to the writings of the eastern-influenced Eckart Tolle. And, there has been an upsurge in interest in eastern religion, philosophy, and meditation at Sunstone symposia and in the magazine.
Finally, while I know this is a stretch, I think it is an interesting coincidence, at the very least, the Lou Midgley has recently locked horns with Kerry Shirts on the issue of the significance of mysticism in Mormonism, with Kerry having a more open view, while Midgley, true to form, has a very retrograde, orientalist view of mysticism as being fuzzy-headed eastern nonsense--as did Nibley before him.