Scott Gordon, Destroying the Church One Snitch at a Time

[_Gadianton]

then why the lie about tomorrow's 'court of love' being postponed due to bishop being out of town? If it is truly postponed, if not rescheduled until after Nov 6,

I think the answer here requires us to look at how this situation evolved. Even if SCMC channels were used, this went down at a local level, even the letter sent out is terse and unprofessional. It only later got pushed into the spotlight where the brethren would become involved. I doubt the local leaders were told unequivocally by SLC that it's over and to pull the plug. I am inclined to believe that questions were raised, a postponement became necessary, and the excuse has some legitimacy. My belief is that the Church will be working with the local leaders in the way the local leaders should be working with Twede; they have likely made their decision, but rather than use brute force, will help the local leaders come to see the bigger pictures and let the leaders call the matter off on their own eventually.

[_sock puppet]

then why the lie about tomorrow's 'court of love' being postponed due to bishop being out of town? If it is truly postponed, if not rescheduled until after Nov 6,

I think the answer here requires us to look at how this situation evolved. Even if SCMC channels were used, this went down at a local level, even the letter sent out is terse and unprofessional. It only later got pushed into the spotlight where the brethren would become involved. I doubt the local leaders were told unequivocally by SLC that it's over and to pull the plug. I am inclined to believe that questions were raised, a postponement became necessary, and the excuse has some legitimacy. My belief is that the Church will be working with the local leaders in the way the local leaders should be working with Twede; they have likely made their decision, but rather than use brute force, will help the local leaders come to see the bigger pictures and let the leaders call the matter off on their own eventually.

Hey, Dean,

Just wondering what LDS titles you think the two "Church executives" hold?

[_Gadianton]

I may not have all the details you do, where do these mysterious pair of executives factor in?

[_sock puppet]

I may not have all the details you do, where do these mysterious pair of executives factor in?

Twede was summoned to meet with his bishop, his SP and two "Church executives".
Daily Beast

[_Gadianton]

huh, that's very strange. Well, did the letter read like it had been vetted by the brethren to you? I suppose I could be wrong and the brethren were involved from the beginning; they didn't bring their A-game on that one if so, in my opinion. Another possibility is that the executives are affiliated with the SCMC and are executives from a business standpoint but have no priesthood authority in this capacity, just there to be witnesses or to offer material proof of the charges as needed.

[_sock puppet]

huh, that's very strange. Well, did the letter read like it had been vetted by the brethren to you? I suppose I could be wrong and the brethren were involved from the beginning; they didn't bring their A-game on that one if so, in my opinion. Another possibility is that the executives are affiliated with the SCMC and are executives from a business standpoint but have no priesthood authority in this capacity, just there to be witnesses or to offer material proof of the charges as needed.

no, it didn't. and I should note, two 'Church executives' could be the reporter's gloss of specific positions twede might have explained to that reporter.

[_Yoda]

Couldn't the unnamed Church executives simply be the Stake President's counselors? For non-members, that whole line of authority is a littlle confusing, particularly since the counselors are also referred to as "President".

[_Racer]

Kudos to the Church for shutting Scott Gordon up. My hope is that Scott Gordon, DCP, Bill Hamblin and others will finally realize that they are a dying breed.

Are you saying Gordon was personally censured or disciplined for this? From what I can see, Gordon has walked away unscathed. The only ire he seems to be drawing is on sites like this. When you say kudos to the church for shutting him up, are you referring to the postponed court, or are there other factors at play here that I missed?

[_sock puppet]

Couldn't the unnamed Church executives simply be the Stake President's counselors? For non-members, that whole line of authority is a littlle confusing, particularly since the counselors are also referred to as "President".

Certainly. Or bishop's counselors. Or high councilmen. Or area presidency members. Or traveling GAs. Or...

We don't know. It is strange terminology, "Church executives". That's why it might be the reporter's gloss on roles/positions that Twede might have tried to explain to the reporter. The reporter might not have wanted to draw undue attention to titles that would be, as you say, confusing.

I'd just like to know what positions those actually were before I assume they were any positions that could fall within 'Church executives'. I think that bit of information will be helpful in determining how local or how COB-ish this whole episode has been. The fact that it got genned up from a distance by Scott Gordon notifying someone at the COB certainly implicates COB to some extent.

[_Yoda]

Couldn't the unnamed Church executives simply be the Stake President's counselors? For non-members, that whole line of authority is a littlle confusing, particularly since the counselors are also referred to as "President".

Certainly. Or bishop's counselors. Or high councilmen. Or area presidency members. Or traveling GAs. Or...

We don't know. It is strange terminology, "Church executives". That's why it might be the reporter's gloss on roles/positions that Twede might have tried to explain to the reporter. The reporter might not have wanted to draw undue attention to titles that would be, as you say, confusing.

I'd just like to know what positions those actually were before I assume they were any positions that could fall within 'Church executives'. I think that bit of information will be helpful in determining how local or how COB-ish this whole episode has been. The fact that it got genned up from a distance by Scott Gordon notifying someone at the COB certainly implicates COB to some extent.

Agreed. Since Scott obviously brought this to the COB's attention, we know where the initial information came from. However, standard Church protocol is to hand cases like this over to the person's local Church authorities, which is what appears happened.

I think that, although there may be some truth to them wanting to wait until this bishop got back in town, the larger reason was likely the fact that Twede's supporters had organized two protests at two different temple sites for the day of the court. Since one of those temple sites was the Orlando temple, and, Romney needs the Florida vote, my guess is that they decided to wait until after the election to pursue this.

I just think that Twede is making a big mistake in thinking that he is completely off the hook. Fence Sitter mentioned that the reason Twede may be grandstanding is that now his apostate status is "out there", and his family knows about it, his Church membership is not a big deal to him anymore. However, I don't think that is the case. If Twede was completely unconcerned about his Church membership, he would have either resigned from the Church, or not bothered to show up or fight the Church court at all. I think that, as most of us who are members realize, inactivity and disbelief of a family member is a drastic difference from an excommunicated family member. I am sure that even though Twede's family is aware of Twede's feelings regarding the Church, it would still hurt them greatly if he was excommunicated. There is a huge stigma that goes along with excommunication that is simply not fun for family members to deal with, even if the person who was excommunicated doesn't care about it. Twede does strike me as someone who cares about his family, and I am sure that he does not want to see them hurt, which, right or wrong, they would be.