Where is the article? Where can I view/download it on the web. Did Dehlin himself ever read it? Who here has read it?
Dehlin himself posted a lengthy account of his travails, both here and at the MD&D board, which, for our purposes now, we should return for a bit of serious analysis.
For the record, I'm going to lay out the facts (as I know them) regarding the Greg Smith, Daniel Peterson, Lou Midgley happening of the past few weeks and months.
1) A few weeks back someone contacted me to let me know that the Maxwell institute was about to publish a lengthy, footnoted article dedicated to critiquing/attacking me and Mormon Stories authored by Greg Smith.
2) I immediately emailed Daniel Peterson, and cc'd a few people I consider to be friends, to find out if this was true -- telling him that if, indeed, the story was true, that I would appreciate knowing about it, and that I would be contacting my GA friends to ask for their involvement. This was his response:
Quote:
You're threatening, blackmailing, and defaming, and I don't appreciate it.
I also don't have time for it, and I'm definitely not in the mood: My older brother, my only sibling and only remaining connection to my parents, died suddenly on Friday. I'm at Harvard to give a lecture tonight and will be in California later in the week for my brother's funeral.
Coincidentally, I had to contact the Orem police yesterday -- and not for the first time -- about threats of violence from an unhinged former Mormon in California.
I don't find what you're attempting here even remotely acceptable.
If you cared at all about my good will, you chose a very bad approach. And your timing couldn't possibly have been worse.
-dcp
3) I replied with the following:
Quote:
Dr. Peterson,
I am very deeply sorry to hear about your loss.
Also, please know that it is not my intention to do any of those things that you allege. I did not create this situation. Simply, I was very disturbed yesterday to learn that the Maxwell institute might be preparing a hit piece on me, so I responded the best way I knew how to get a response from you.
When things improve for you personally, I hope that you and the Maxwell institute will consider a different approach than you have used in the past. You harm many people, including the church you seek to help, when you attack people publicly for their struggles with legitimate issues. ..... There are I sincerely believe that attacking the messenger harms everyone involved -- you, me, the Maxwell institute and the church included.
My sincere well wishes to you and yours during a hard time. Also, I'm happy to reconsider my approaches, and I hope that you will do the same.
Sincerely,
John Dehlin
He did not respond.
Several things stand out immediately:
1. Dehlin had not seen an advance copy of the piece. He had not read it, he had no idea what it actually contained, and he here appears unconcerned with its actual contents.
2. "Someone" contacted him. Classic Scratch. Classic Graham. This is the Woodward and Bernstein 'unnamed source" style of anti-Mormon criticism that has now become the coin of the realm within cyberspace. An unknown second had source tells Dehlin that his how-to-leave-the-church-with-minimal-guilt-and-anxiety project, centered in Mormonstories, was about to cold light on intellectual scrutiny.
He had not seen the essay. He apparently still has not, and no one here has yet, to read it.
4) When I attended the UVU conference, several people (faithful members of the church) came up to me and told me that they were aware of the article written about me, and were sickened by it -- including people who had read it.
This could be something close to the truth or it could be a purely self serving personal narrative of what actually happened, embellished and amended by Dehlin's own personal and psychological agenda. How do we know? Good question.
I was informed that there was significant disagreement within the Maxwell institute itself about whether or not the article should be published.
Apparently this is true, but the dissent here, we now know, has come from a kind of counter-culture that has evolved within NMI, a counter-apologetic movement that is put off by the very idea of defending, using the methods and disciplines of scholarship, the church of which they are members. Dehlin doesn't want to approach that aspect of it. All of his friends and supporters here are "faithful" members (we've heard this before, time and again, and the red flags surrounding it should be readily apparent), in his telling. Does he name them? No. Its all a very big, dynamite-filled secret. Dehlin has friends in in high places in the Church. Dehlin has boosters at UVU who are "faithful" in some LDS sense.
5) After my panel discussion at UVU, Lou Midgley came up and verbally assaulted me (that's how it felt to me, anyway) -- threatening me and attempting to tie me to the death of a missionary on my mission (Brian Bartholomew), and trying to tie me to Grant Palmer back in 1992 (one of the most bizarre accusations I've ever heard, since it was another decade before I even learned his name). People took pictures and video of the affair (which I have)....
Good. Where are they. Let's see them. What has Midgley said. What is his version of events? Anything beyond bare assertion here? Notice also that Dehlin is clear that what Midgley said to him felt to him like a verbal assault. Now the question is, how high or low is the bar in Dehlin's mind for what constitutes "verbal assault.?"
6) I decided to contact a GA friend of mine to let him know about the piece, and to ask him to intervene. Given Midgley's verbal allegations, I was not about to be slandered in that way, and I honestly felt like such an article would sully Neil A. Maxwell's good name, and would be damaging to BYU, the church, and to many members of the church who value what we do with Mormon Stories. The GA told me that he would contact a few people in high places, and that he would do his best to intervene.
7) A few days later I was informed by a very, very reliable source that some very clear communication was given to the Maxwell Institute that publishing this article about me was ill advised, and that an apostle was involved in that communication. I was informed that the decision was made to no longer publish the article via the Maxwell Institute, and that it would be returned to its author, Greg Smith. I was also told to not be surprised if the article ended up being published by FAIR.
So here we have the origin of the entire exmo/anti-Mormon narrative that has developed - John Dehlin's personal story of woe. That appears to be it. I've seen no exerpts from the article. I've seen no quotes from the article. Has John Dehlin himself even read it, as of this juncture?
Someone please post some links, so I can read the essay for myself. I haven't as yet been able to find a link with Google.
Snip...
A final note: I don't mind being criticized. Not at all. Also, I need to clarify something: I did not respond this way out of a desire to protect or save myself, or out of a spirit of censorship. My guess is that this article, in the end, would have probably given us more credibility and publicity regarding the good things we are trying to do at Mormon Stories
Dehlin is again fuzzy here bout whether or not he had ever read the essay and had the slightest idea what it actually said. Nor do I see any interest in this forum regarding what it actually says.
So why did I fight the article? I did it because I believe in my heart that the old school, disingenuous, ad hominem-style apologetics a la Daniel Peterson and Louis Midgley are very, very damaging: to the church, to its members, to its former members, and mostly to its targets.
Translation: For personal reasons, I left the true Church of Jesus Christ, a church I knew to be true, raped and violated my own mind and conscience, and have now become extremely sensitive to even the slightest criticism or questioning of my choice and the beliefs/ideology/philosophic I now purvey. I've never read the essay in question, but I had it spiked at its source by a babe-in-arms because, whatever it said, it was a scholarly and intellectually exhaustive - and hence, extremely dangerous - critique and potential unmasking of my real agenda, motives, and core beliefs (which may have then been exposed as a bit different than the Barney the Dinosaur image I want you to accept as accurate with respect to Mormonstories).
My strategic hope was that fighting this article within the ranks of church leadership could be used to help bring light these damaging tactics, and hopefully drive a death nail or two into them (these tactics).
What tactics. Have you read the essay, John? Have you ever laid your eyes on it? Can you or anybody else here savaging Danial, Louis, NMI, applogeitcs etc. please point me to a single sentence in the essay in question for perusal?
Thanks in advance.
Loran