Who is Dehlin's Target?

[_Kishkumen]

My name is Stanley T. (that's why I use the screenname static). What's yours?

Interesting new story. Personally I thought Doctor Scratch's observation that your handle was an apt description of your contributions on this board was better.

In other words, based on your performances here thus far, I am not inclined to believe much of anything "static" says.

You seem like a fairly reasonable fellow, so let me bounce this off you:

If no one has read it, why speculate about it at all? Why the mormonstories flip-out-call-everyone-he-knows-email-general-authorities hoopla?

Yes, exactly what I was talking about. More static.

[_Gadianton]

Static,

I'm interested in your opinion on my post. For a moment, let's ignore whether or not the apologists are looking to discredit Dehlin or even the Church for that matter. What is your opinion on how Dehlin, or a Dehlin-like person should pick his battles?

Should a Dehlin character worry about what apologists say about him? Would this be a distraction? Is the behavior of apologists relevant to the problems disaffected members have?

[_Equality]

I think at the top it might be very strange, almost like, they've been hired by company X, so they are indifferent to the ultimate good company X provides the world, they are there to make it successful. I would personally have a hard time believing that the leaders are decidedly out to defraud the world, like Joseph Smith was.

Good point. Maybe they are more like the many people who worked for Madoff or Enron or Allen Stanford who believed they were engaged in a legitimate enterprise but in reality were taking money from people to support what was, at its heart, a corrupt organization. I agree that it is difficult to believe the people the leaders are decidedly out to defraud the world. At least not all of them.

[_static]

Static,

I'm interested in your opinion on my post. For a moment, let's ignore whether or not the apologists are looking to discredit Dehlin or even the Church for that matter.

Every good business has a steering committee, Gadianton. If you had to write out "mission statement" of MDB as implicitly brought forth by its steering committee (you, D.Shades, D.Scratch, Kishkumen... the big players), what would that mission statement look like? If you combined all threads on MDB, how many pages would that "hit-piece" be?

What is your opinion on how Dehlin, or a Dehlin-like person should pick his battles?

Should a Dehlin character worry about what apologists say about him? Would this be a distraction? Is the behavior of apologists relevant to the problems disaffected members have?

He or she should not fight battles in which there cannot be a positive outcome. What's the point? Why put yourself out there for criticism if you aren't willing to be criticized? Why criticize others if you can't handle criticism yourself? The owner of Mormon Discussions (I purposefully don't use his name) is, as Hamblin says, member on paper only. I am not here to judge his faith or devotion to Mormonism, but I think it might be wise to be honest about it instead of leading people astray with the "I'm one of you" ploy. I hated being led on when I was dating, and I hate being led on now.

[_static]

There are about a dozen threads here on the subject, including a 22-page thread in which you were an active participant, and more at other boards. If you don't know the answer to this question by now, you are a complete imbecile. But you are not an imbecile; you are a troll.

Calm down, dudette.

[_Kishkumen]

Every good business has a steering committee, Gadianton. If you had to write out "mission statement" of MDB as implicitly brought forth by its steering committee (you, D.Shades, D.Scratch, Kishkumen... the big players), what would that mission statement look like? If you combined all threads on MDB, how many pages would that "hit-piece" be?

This makes no sense as a response to Gadianton's post. More static.

He or she should not fight battles in which there cannot be a positive outcome. What's the point? Why put yourself out there for criticism if you aren't willing to be criticized? Why criticize others if you can't handle criticism yourself?

How many 100-page articles on Greg Smith has John Dehlin written?

I have never had the impression that Mormon Stories was about criticizing people.

The owner of Mormon Discussions (I purposefully don't use his name) is, as Hamblin says, member on paper only. I am not here to judge his faith or devotion to Mormonism, but I think it might be wise to be honest about it instead of leading people astray with the "I'm one of you" ploy. I hated being led on when I was dating, and I hate being led on now.

There are few things I dislike more than the attitude expressed above. It is crap. The old "in name only" slur, which essentially means, "you don't adhere to my viewpoint, which represents the only true way, so you are not welcome in my Church." Who the hell are you? Who do you think you are? You don't get to decide those things, chief. No one made you that guy's stake president, and it is frankly none of your business.

No one is "leading you on" because no one here wants to date you. You go to Church with lots of folks who think differently from the way you do. Deal with it.

[_Doctor Scratch]

Back to the issue posted in the OP: it's tough to say. I agree that one can sense a shift, and that the Church is more oriented towards "customer service," as you put it, Dean Robbers. As for Dehlin's "target," I was under the impression that he was mainly interested in reaching out to wavering or questioning members, though I guess this automatically entails an inclusion of the Church itself, or one of the Church's entities, on some level. Wavering members really have nowhere to go within the Church itself, beyond FARMS and FAIR.... So do you target the Church itself, or do you target the Mopologists?

[_Gadianton]

Every good business has a steering committee, Gadianton. If you had to write out "mission statement" of MDB as implicitly brought forth by its steering committee (you, D.Shades, D.Scratch, Kishkumen... the big players),..

That is true Static, every good business does have a steering committee. Part of what I question is the relevance of apologetics to the direction of the Church's committee.

This board is not a church and there is no mission statement from anyone but Shades. I've rarely if ever given Shades my opinion on board matters. Shades has disagreed quite a bit with Scratch on issues, so I don't see any kind of organization that would have a mission statement beyond what involves interactions.

What is your opinion on how Dehlin, or a Dehlin-like person should pick his battles?

He or she should not fight battles in which there cannot be a positive outcome. What's the point?

I think most people would have a hard time disagreeing here. Of course, I'm not saying this is what he's doing, not at all, I haven't followed his work enough to say one way or another.

Why put yourself out there for criticism if you aren't willing to be criticized? Why criticize others if you can't handle criticism yourself?

Again, I think it would be hard to disagree with you here in the abstract. Do you think Dehlin isn't willing to take criticism?

The owner of Mormon Discussions (I purposefully don't use his name) is, as Hamblin says...

You're really losing me here, so unless it strongly relates to my thread here, I'm going to pass on asking for clarification.

Well, let me ask you this. Do you think that a spat with the apologists in any way reflects poorly on the Church's mission? Do you feel that coming into good relations with apologists reflects positively on the Church's mission?

It seems to me, when it comes to the sticky issues, that the church's response is "no comment" and if unavoidable, some vague, customer-service oriented boilerplate that is not a real answer. And it seems to me, when it comes to the sticky issues, the Mopologists rush to stick their faces in the camera and have at it with anyone who questions the Church for any reason. So if one wants to examine anything about the Church, there is this problem. Questions are met with a landslide of Mopologetics, and however one fares here, whether becoming bitter enemies or coming to friendly terms, one has not even scratched the surface of the original query regarding the Church itself.

Take Dr. Scratch, for instance. He's a student of Mopologetics only and has little interest in what the Church itself teaches or how the Church deals with critics and members and so on. Thus, his interactions with Mopologetics make sense. Now Dehlin? I just don't know, and I'm open to opinions. I thought his interest was primarily with the Church. I could be wrong here, perhaps his project is more broad than this. If this is correct though, then it seems to me there are two major difficulties. 1) getting passed all the folks who stick their faces in the camera and don't matter. 2) Penetrating the sealed-off meeting chambers of the church leaders. Because of the difficulties with 2), it would be easy to get sidetracked with 1) for the sake of generating material. But one might question the point of it. Anyway, Static, do you see where I'm coming from? Am I making any sense at all?

[_Kishkumen]

Wonderful, OP, Dean Robbers. I can see that the faculty needs to get you some release time from administrative duties more often. We have been missing your keen insights and erudition.

I agree with something the Good Doctor said above: Dehlin has been aiming his efforts at helping the wavering members of the Church who suffer and are unable to find the help they need from FAIR/SHIELDS/NMI. There is clearly a need, and from the beginning, Dehlin's approach overall has been positive and constructive. This is because the initial goal was not to fight anyone, put anyone in their place, or come off victorious in a rhetorical battle. The initial goal was to reach out to those suffering emotionally and give them a place to find comfort.

In many ways, John is more like the corporate Church than the ragtag band of feisty apologists that want to destroy him. Maybe this is one of the reasons they find him so threatening. He has a corporate background, and he believes in using the tools of psychology and social science to find real answers that are focused on the people. He doesn't think that in the long run chiasmus or tapirs will do the job of helping certain people, and I think he is right.

So, John is ahead of his time, in my view, as is Mormon Stories. Mind you, I do believe there is a place for good LDS scholarship that is more humanistic in nature. It does add richness to people's experience of LDS culture and their faith. But it is not for the person who is reeling because their world has just crumbled before their eyes, and who is undoubtedly not going to be soothed by the knowledge that the Mayans had chipped obsidian "swords."

I know that I have brought up some of the sore points that the apologists often get tweaked about, which might rankle some of them. Rest assured, I have enjoyed other work you have done. Dr. Peterson's piece on Nephi's Asherah, Kevin Barney's work on Mother in Heaven, some of Blair Hodges' ideas about continuing revelation and the Restoration. It isn't all tapirs and obsidian, and I hope people do check out some of their cool ideas.

All I am saying is that some of that stuff is clearly not going to help the people who seek out the Mormon Stories community. The real question is: is the Church interested in maintaining a positive relationship with those people at all? I think it is safe to say that John's critics are those who do not think so. Like "static" who finds any ambiguity in a person's views too disturbing to handle, these guys want everyone who desires to be associated with the LDS community to have simple, affirmative, classic testimonies, or to get the hell out and shut up.

[_Gadianton]

Reverend,

Thanks for the comments. Your spirituality is unmatched.

in many ways, John is more like the corporate Church

Well, I think I had it wrong then. I thought John was a questioning member himself, and was trying to find a place within the Church for questioning. If I'm reading you right, JD is a fully believing member, and is trying to resolve concerns of those who have questions?

and who is undoubtedly not going to be soothed by the knowledge that the Mayans had chipped obsidian "swords."

Lol! but wait...

He has a corporate background, and he believes in using the tools of psychology and social science to find real answers that are focused on the people.

Interesting. This is very interesting to me. What do you mean by "real answer?" As hard as I laughed -- a laugh of mirth and spiritual celebration of course -- at the poor archeological findings the apologists force on questioning members with zealousness that borders on anger, if there were some kind of fantastic evidence for the Book of Mormon, I do believe that a scholarly presentation of it could be considered a "real answer." And further, if the questioning member was not willing to put the effort into understanding the evidence, that might reflect a flaw in the questioning member. Further, an answer that consoles the member and makes the member find meaning in the community may be leading the member into falsehood, but of course, one would have to argue at this point to what extent a church is supposed to reflect truth about the world, or to be a supportive community for members.

Let me give you an example. Here's my own slant from either the missionary guide, Covey, or Ziggler, I can't remember. A car salesman of brand X, a car that has horrible consumer reviews and riddled with problems, is approached by a customer who tells him, "I've read that brand Y is much better then the car you're selling and I can get one across the street for the same price as this brand X crap you're selling."

The Mopologist car salesman would become red in the face and go toe-to-toe with the customer, making mechanical-related arguments above the customer's head, question the bias of the review, and even question the possibility of truth itself while blaming the customer for being stupid. His salesmen buddies will high-five him, and all will be strengthened, but the customer ain't going to buy anything. So this tactic is unsustainable. Further, it is also ineffective for the brand Y salesman to go this route with a customer who has read a factually untenable review of brand Y, even if the truth is on his side.

The way to handle the situation according to the motivational speaker is to skirt the matter of truth entirely. The proper response is, "You know, brand Y is a great car and I can understand why you're skeptical of brand X. But let me show you some great things about this car." A real possibility here is that the customer now happily drives away in a lemon. Is this salesman really that much better in a moral sense just because he's more effective at retaining a customer? Sure, we have to control for other activities such as the first salesman possibly making harassing phone calls to the customer or taking the fight to his workplace.

I agree that the latter approach is much more effective and superficially more appealing, but what I worry about a little is that sometimes the antics of the apologists become such a big issue, that wrong answers become OK when delivered from a gentleman because of the welcome contrast with less psychologically functional representatives. If good customer service becomes an end in itself, could this tacitly empower an organization with severe issues more than it should?

Of course, to make the discussion fair, I can't just assume the Church is false. But I don't want folks to forget that a major issue seems to be whether or not Joseph Smith was a prophet, whether there really is a Celestial Kingdom and so on. Then again, I could be wrong, perhaps all that doesn't matter as much as I think it does. But, I do think that we should be clear about our expectations and not be easily persuaded on the grounds of civility only.