Problematic John Dehlin, a short list

[SaturdaysVoyeur]

To your direct question, of course I obtained explicit consent, including obtaining approval for my post introducing her story and sharing the Google Doc in full. Redacting their names was my choice, which was also agreed upon.

That's good enough for me! I had sort of assumed that to be the case, since they didn't appear to be surprised it was being discussed here. But thank you for the confirmation.

I am kind of curious why they wanted it made public here. Of all places, why here? It just seems that there were bound to be responses that would be hurtful, without anything to be gained from it. Notwithstanding a few pro-Dehlin or anti-Dehlin partisans, this board is disinclined to accept anything at face value and was bound to push back. (That's one reason I rarely ever posted on the old board; I was too shy!)

Unless they did want a variety of opinions. That can be helpful sometimes. This is a small, but quick-witted group. I would definitely NOT post anything on here that I was particularly sensitive about though.

You can be concerned about whether I had consent to share, and I can be concerned about whether you had consent to share. See how that works?

No, I don't see. Because I haven't shared anything that isn't (or at least wasn't as of yesterday) publicly viewable. What could I have possibly needed consent to share? I don't have access to anything private about this matter.

[Meadowchik]

To your direct question, of course I obtained explicit consent, including obtaining approval for my post introducing her story and sharing the Google Doc in full. Redacting their names was my choice, which was also agreed upon.

That's good enough for me! I had sort of assumed that to be the case, since they didn't appear to be surprised it was being discussed here. But thank you for the confirmation.

I am kind of curious why they wanted it made public here. Of all places, why here? It just seems that there were bound to be responses that would be hurtful, without anything to be gained from it. Notwithstanding a few pro-Dehlin or anti-Dehlin partisans, this board is disinclined to accept anything at face value and was bound to push back. (That's one reason I rarely ever posted on the old board; I was too shy!)

Unless they did want a variety of opinions. That can be helpful sometimes. This is a small, but quick-witted group. I would definitely NOT post anything on here that I was particularly sensitive about though.

You can be concerned about whether I had consent to share, and I can be concerned about whether you had consent to share. See how that works?

No, I don't see. Because I haven't shared anything that isn't (or at least wasn't as of yesterday) publicly viewable. What could I have possibly needed consent to share? I don't have access to anything private about this matter.

I started this thread as a response to a question in the recent Rosebud thread. That's why I asked to post about this woman's story here, because in my opinion it is a relevant example of a pattern in Dehlin's behaviour.

You said you found information which was publicly viewable in two places. One, in the MS group, I already knew. The other place you claimed it was--her Facebook--is not confirmed. I never saw it there.

If that was public you could have linked to it.

[Kishkumen]

I’m interested in identifying cult-like thinking and then behavior. What we’re witnessing, much like with the Snufferites, is a nascent spiritual movement. So, of course I’m interested in watching the follies and foibles of a wannabe public persona earning a living by the temple. It’s really no different when a preachy politician, sports figure, or, uh, preacher is inevitably exposed as a greasy hypocrite - it’s the infinite recursion of human fallibility. It’d be nice if more people were actually decent like an Obama, or John Wooden, or Jimmy Carter, but they’re not. And it should be pointed out before they become a Smith or Trump.

- Doc

Do you really think that everyone has the capacity to become a Joseph Smith or a Donald Trump?

[Meadowchik]

Do you really think that everyone has the capacity to become a Joseph Smith or a Donald Trump?

In personality, lots of people may have that capacity.

Having thousands or millions of followers? The field is competitive, so there's only room for a few figureheads at a time. It's hard to say who will rise to the top before it happens.

Once it does happen though it is difficult to undo. Better to try to demand and reward better behaviour in the early stages.

[Kishkumen]

In personality, lots of people may have that capacity.

Interesting. I don’t think that is true.

Having thousands or millions of followers? The field is competitive, so there's only room for a few figureheads at a time. It's hard to say who will rise to the top before it happens.

Once it does happen though it is difficult to undo. Better to try to demand and reward better behaviour in the early stages.

I don’t think that JD is in the early stages of becoming a cult leader.

[SaturdaysVoyeur]

You said you found information which was publicly viewable in two places. One, in the MS group, I already knew. The other place you claimed it was--her Facebook--is not confirmed. I never saw it there.

If that was public you could have linked to it.

Or you could have just looked it up for yourself. I still don't see why it was my responsibility to dig through all that again. You have more access than I do. You could certainly have applied a little elbow grease and scrolled through that date range yourself. I told you which two pages everything came from, and others had also confirmed that they found it.

It's not like I was combing through NoManIsMyBishop's Facebook. I opened her page, and I opened the Mormon Stories' page. I was somewhat surprised to find that the allegations were still available on the Mormon Stories thread, albeit mostly in the form of screenshots.

My access to NoManIsMyBishop's posts and the replies to it on her own page came either exclusively or almost exclusively via the screenshots on the Mormon Stories page, which opened onto her Facebook page when I clicked on them. A few of the posts might have been only on one page or the other, but like I said, I couldn't swear to that. Either way, I'm not friended to her, so what I could access is (or was) definitely publicly viewable. I would have no means of viewing that stuff if it weren't.

I just don't see why you expected me to do all that digging for you or what the point of that would be. I really don't WANT to go back and dig through her personal information. I haven't returned to either page since.

[dastardly stem]

LOL! That's pretty funny, stem. I have seen that some are eager to compare this to the LDS Church, which is a pretty wild stretch, in my opinion. I am happy to agree with you that he overreacts to criticism in certain circumstances. That seems to be one of his failings.

I get the "it's not that big of deal" position in part. It's interesting, to say the least, to see he is more intolerant of criticism than the Church is. He seems to justify it because he is making money off of it, and is trying to "help people". The Church is the same on those two fronts. It is only fair to determine whether he is also guilty of the criticisms he puts on others. You can try to pass that off as "well the Church and MS are different", but that doesn't really address the issue. Of course they have differences. The comparison is meant to determine whether his behavior shows if he's more or less tolerant than the Church when it comes to criticism. Of course, as he puts it, he has no choice but to squelch all criticism, spending hours at it, in hopes to survive. Of course the Church isn't near as obsessed with criticism as that. Seems to be a pretty valid concern, at the very least.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

I’m interested in identifying cult-like thinking and then behavior. What we’re witnessing, much like with the Snufferites, is a nascent spiritual movement. So, of course I’m interested in watching the follies and foibles of a wannabe public persona earning a living by the temple. It’s really no different when a preachy politician, sports figure, or, uh, preacher is inevitably exposed as a greasy hypocrite - it’s the infinite recursion of human fallibility. It’d be nice if more people were actually decent like an Obama, or John Wooden, or Jimmy Carter, but they’re not. And it should be pointed out before they become a Smith or Trump.

- Doc

Do you really think that everyone has the capacity to become a Joseph Smith or a Donald Trump?

No. I was just giving relatable examples. If I had named minor celebrities or even obscure niche celebrities it wouldn’t have had the same rhetorical effect. I just find the patterns and behaviors of narcissistic public personas to be somewhat similar as they attempt to achieve their aims, which often include leveraging their support, organizational and populist support, as a means to wealth, sex, attention, validation, power, influence, etc. MLK, for example, started out as a small time preacher in an insignificant part of the world, and if it weren’t for a series of events and fortunate timing, in addition to a lot of hard work, he might’ve remained in obscurity. MLK did a lot of good for the world, no doubt. But he also screwed a LOT of women along the way. And he made a LOT of money. And he ended up treating a lot of people very poorly - but he got away with it because there was a cult of personality around him, AND, he did good things. This is how these things go. I don’t see a problem, in this era, to pull back the curtains on any public persona, big or small, and give them a good looksee. Do we continue the patterns of ignoring bad behaviors from questionable people because they do what we think are good things, or do we hold them accountable and get good people into positions of power and influence doing good things?

Best to nip that crap in the bud, imho.

- Doc

[Lem]

For you, did you go from very believing to disenchantment, or was it that the misgivings always there were finally given space when you were in school? Or something else?

It was more the latter, but it's not an easy thing to explain. Being indoctrinated from birth to think literally no other way of living is worthwhile is hard to get past.

[Jason Bourne]

This is response to request for an elaboration on my claims that Dehlin tends to problematic behaviors. I decided to start a new thread since this topic is more broad than his relationship with Rosebud.

1)Open Stories Foundation impropriety and his responses since: including the Rosebud drama, the disagreements with Amy Grubbs (under NDA) and Kristy Money. Much of that seems to be a pattern of seeking free or underpaid labor, and then running into trouble when people don't like how they're treated. Dehlin seems to have a habit of needing to get rid of all or most everyone at Open Stories Foundation, refilling the positions, then having to purge again.

https://dearjohndehlin.wordpress.com/tag/kate-kelly/
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1385 ... 21729.html
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1335 ... 87272.html

2)Professional grey area in representing himself. Dehlin touts his Phd in clinical and counselling psychology yet to this day remains unlicensed to practice therapy in Utah. He gets around this by calling his services “coaching.” What he is doing might be technically legal in Utah, but I think we can say it is ethically questionable.

https://www.johndehlin.com/coaching/

3)Pretending to be anti-misogynist then silencing women who hold him to account. He explicitly asks for feedback and ends up deleting, muting, or blocking dozens of women who raise legitimate concerns about his own behavior. He and his friends do this in several groups in response to criticism of him.

4)Centering himself continually, like when Michael Quinn passed away, he was one of the earliest to post the news, and he did it before Quinn’s family.

He has a personal problem which ends up hurting people: he has built his livelihood around this while not being competent enough to de-center himself. He therefore invites (not just attacks from believers or smears) legitimate criticisms. But instead of really responding to consumer feedback like a competent professional, he reacts in Mormon-authoritarian fashion. He’s perpetuating those unhealthy behaviors. His media reach amplifies that and the damage such behavior causes, both the potential for damage and the actual harm.

Ideally, Dehlin would be more responsive to criticism. But at the very least, hopefully more of us can continue to unlearn the very Mormon tendency to look for a male authority figure and be more circumspect about who we support. Ultimately, I hope for multiple communities of broader support, communities with less infighting and more self-awareness.

I don't know. This obsession with Dehlin seems over the top. The dude is not perfect. Like all of us. But he offers something apparently people want and appreciate. I do. I listen to some of his podcasts still when it is one that interests me. And I donate $$ to Open Stories Foundation once in a while, just like I do to RFM. I sort of feel like you all ought to cut the man some slack.