Rosebud wrote:
Nope. I don't follow much of Mormonism anymore. You provide links here. I follow them when I can. I keep a Mormon Church Google Alerts going to see what hits the major media. I definitely do not follow Sam. as far as I know, any book he's published did not hit the major media.
He has definitely not made this all about victims. Again, I am glad that he is taking stories about others to his hearing rather than making it all about himself.
I'd prefer he just resign.
So what you're admitting here is that you've lifted even less than a finger to investigate the practices and purposes of a man whom you are openly criticizing. You condemn a man and his movement both of which you know nothing about simply because he's an LDS man and prefer to see him through the John Dehlin colored glasses that you have permanently installed over your minds eye. Your uninformed condemnation is unwise at best, at worst it is unethical. I stop short of calling it immoral.
I have posted perhaps one tenth of his Facebook postings and blog entries on this board over the past few months, selecting those that I think indicate significant points in the development of the movement and also the development of his spiritual journey. His goals, his purpose, and his presentation have remained consistent throughout.
He has progressively taken a stand for the existing victims of abuse and provided solutions to prevent the creation of more victims going into the future. Now, he has taken a public stand for Jesus and whether or not you or anyone else here believe Jesus, his coming through the past four years or so with an increasing love for the stand alone teachings of Jesus Christ as represented in New Testament scripture is a profound process in and of itself considering the fact that he has come up through Mormonism as a child through adulthood to draw out of Mormonism possibly it's best feature that is the teachings and practices of Jesus Christ whom he has sought to emulate through his words and actions.
He has stepped out of the "herd" as we like to refer to it here, and stepped forward (much on his own) to follow the example of Jesus as we see it portrayed in New Testament scripture and literally took this cause to the streets.
Over one thousand people marched with Sam in March to protest the interviews that are in place and practiced by the LDS Church. They carried the petitions and 15 book bound copies of 500 child stories of abuse to church leaders. He is currently adding over 200 more stories to the collection, to produce a book that has exactly nothing to do with himself.
Should he ever, at some point in the future, choose to actually author a book about his own journey, I would be among the first to purchase it not only because I have watched with wonder his journey take place before my eyes, but to help reimburse him the extraordinary amount of money he has spent on his campaign perhaps a fifth of which he has received back through donations. But also because over the past three decades or so, I have had the experience of coming to know people whose spiritual journey somehow led them out of Mormonism to Christianity, a process that challenges my mind to comprehend how that could happen given Mormonism's influence in every aspect of their lives and now, over the past several months I have had the privilege of seeing a man who shares my passion for the well being of children and their families, live out that transformation before my very eyes.
As a child advocate of decades ongoing, watching this movement, supporting it, and transferring news about it on this board has been a gift to me and given me hope that there are those people in the world who will feel compelled to choose to act as the voice of the children. From a believer's perspective, thinking and suspecting that I was seeing a man move towards the stand alone teachings of Jesus and now actually see him taking a stand for Jesus in his own church and in writing and put his name to it, has been nothing short of a blessing.
I find it sad that you live in a world where every LDS man is a John Dehlin clone and attribute to them the same negative traits that you believe you see in John Dehlin. And while a healthy amount of skepticism is good for us all, you are letting your bias prevent you from seeing a good man, with a good purpose, who has invested his own time and hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money to do good in the world for the sake of others and not for himself.