As you know, I take personal interest in tracking the fate of the Mopologists, so to speak. It takes me back to my days watching VH1's "Where Are They Now"? Or, perhaps more appropriately, The Fate of the Persecutors of the Prophet Joseph Smith, which was inspired by Lactantius' De mortibus persecutorum. I would love this thread to become a kind of perpetual index of the fates of the Mopologists. Posts can be edited or expanded, but addenda by other authors should contain a link to the original post.
I open up with Hanna Seariac, the young Mopologist who made a splash as an ex-Catholic convert to Mormonism and culture warrior majoring in Classics at BYU. She pioneered narcing on liberal BYU professors, and she worked for the FAIR podcast. She clearly had DezNat sympathies, which were evident in her abandoned and deleted blog defending the legacy of Brigham Young. From BYU she moved on to journalism at Deseret News and is currently the Communications Director at the Utah Office of the Attorney General, which she joined when Republican Derek Brown took the helm in January of this year.
Hanna has been quiet in the field of Mopologetics, which is a little ironic considering her feisty final entry at Medium:
But I’m not stopping, I’m not backing down, I’m just getting started.
"He disturbs the laws of his country, he forces himself upon women, and he puts men to death without trial.” ~Otanes on the monarch, Herodotus Histories 3.80.
Can you imagine how exhausting it must be carrying water for a cult whose leaders couldn’t care less about you?
I think that a closer look at Hanna’s career will show a savvy, ruthless climber who will do what it takes to rise up. She no more cares about them than they do her.
"He disturbs the laws of his country, he forces himself upon women, and he puts men to death without trial.” ~Otanes on the monarch, Herodotus Histories 3.80.
I think that Mormon apologists deal with a lot of fear as they read non-church-related material. We all have to deal with fear, and the recent posts about tribalism show what happens to it when threatened—but especially when truth threatens the tribe. Some people seem to find that they like the approval they get when joining a race: they are handed a baton and sprint to the next person. The whole tribe is cheering and the “like” buttons increase dramatically, but one might ask—are they happy when coming home, sitting in their favorite chair and having thoughts that create discomfort, and are there ways to help?
Zen and mindfulness have been circulating through my orbit for the last forty years, when my Psychology 101 instructor said we could get extra credit for writing a book report on Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I looked at it and really couldn’t follow the thoughts very long, so I just put it down. In the last few years it keeps being brought up in different ways, so I’ve listened to it, and now have read it and go back and reread parts of it. In looking for more information on Zen and pain, I read about Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn. MBSR teaches participants to embrace chronic or extreme psychological discomfort—such as stress, anxiety, or pain—through body scans, yoga, and meditation, and he wrote a book called Full Catastrophe Living. Imagine those who are in the apologetics business embracing the pain after new information is brought to light and starting to use a form of mindfulness. Does one want a doctor to smooth-talk you until the very end and then let you know what you should have known years before so you could make a proper plan?In a more extreme example, Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), created by Marsha Linehan, has a “radical acceptance” module that involves fully embracing painful realities without resistance, even in extreme daily distress like emotional dysregulation or interpersonal conflict. Or even Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), developed by psychologist Steven Hayes, which encourages “psychological flexibility” by accepting uncomfortable thoughts, emotions, and sensations rather than avoiding them.
If people watch some of the John Dehlin Mormon Stories videos, they might observe some people experiencing tremendous emotional pain when new information appears about the LDS church, and maybe some small parts of these therapies can help when addressing distressing historical information. And with Mormon apologists, or any group or thought one encounters that threatens one's ego, one might try curiosity, compassion, calm, clarity, courage, confidence, creativity, and connectedness—which Richard Schwartz explains so brilliantly in his Internal Family Systems (IFS) as he describes the parts that protect us, especially their job in protecting the exile. His system may actually be the best way to understand Trump and Mormon apologists.
Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.
Curious, I clicked on the link to read that blog entry. Here's what was there, all emphasis mine:
Hannah Seriac wrote:Recently, I made the following statement, “I don’t know who needs to hear this but reading the CES Letter and listening to Mormon Stories doesn’t qualify as rigorous research. Sorry not sorry. Engage tough history and doctrine. Jesus says that there are hard sayings. And there are. But if you want to engage tough history and doctrine, you have to put in the hard work of reading contemporary accounts and searching diligently.” This tweet soon gained traction and led John Dehlin to make a TikTok and Jeremy Runnells to include it in his common attacks section of the CES Letter website.
As I am a public figure, criticism of what I say and do is expected, but it does not negate the social responsibility that individuals have to approach discourse by being aware of particular power dynamics. In this case, both Dehlin and Runnells did not acknowledge the massive disparity between me and them in terms of privilege and power.
The disparities in privilege and power center around both the combination of my age and gender as well as platform size. I am a twenty-two year old woman operating in a male-dominated space. Latter-day Saint apologetics in particular has far more men involved than women, especially in terms of public apologetics. As one of the youngest apologists and one of the more public female apologists, my gender and age combination specifically restricts my power and privilege, especially compared to Dehlin and Runnells who do not experience those same obstacles as me.
My orthodoxy in conjunction with my age and gender work against me in this arena. I have to battle harder to be taken seriously than male apologists and I am reminded of this frequently. Dehlin and Runnells did not indicate any understanding of these complex power dynamics in their responses to me. While they are used to responding to men with comparable power and privilege to them, they indicated their blind spot here; a blind spot with which they and others need to grapple with to make space for other young women to be able to have a voice.
Luckily, I have friends willing to stand up for me publicly and to encourage me to keep carving out my own space in this arena, but I worry for the young women who might not have that same privilege or might experience massive overwhelm when older men with substantially larger platforms attack them. Responding to an attack as asymmetrical as happened to me takes courage.
I hope that Dehlin and Runnells do not dismiss my claims as easily as they dismiss the claims of other apologists, but more importantly than that, I hope that in the future, they exercise more consideration around these particular power dynamics that prevent so many bright women from entering into apologetics.
But I’m not stopping, I’m not backing down, I’m just getting started.
Helpfully, the commenter "Encyclopedia Botanica" responded as follows:
I don't understand, Runnells didn't talk down to you at all. He just rebutted the implication that he claimed it was ever meant to be scholarly research and then reiterated the point of the document.
It was a very tame response. I'm not sure why he would need to proactively recognize a potential sensitivity that you may have about gender dynamics.
Seems he's addressing you the same way he'd address any other LDS apologist, male of female. Wouldn't that be what you want?
Indeed! A fact that's clearly and completely lost on her.
Kishkumen wrote:I think that a closer look at Hanna’s career will show a savvy, ruthless climber who will do what it takes to rise up.
Quite obviously so. By playing the "power dynamics render me a perpetual victim" card, she's the one who wants privilege--the privilege of having her words be immune from rebuttal merely because she's a young woman with a smaller platform.
.
"When the Mormon God requires a PR crisis to act moral, we've clearly outgrown him."
Can you imagine how exhausting it must be carrying water for a cult whose leaders couldn’t care less about you?
I think that a closer look at Hanna’s career will show a savvy, ruthless climber who will do what it takes to rise up. She no more cares about them than they do her.
Speaking of protein, you can add chicken, steak, salmon, tuna, shrimp, beans, crispy tofu, pork and eggs to boost the protein content of your salad.
Those are some real gems of insight. How did Hannah become so knowledgeable about food?
She's going to give DCP a run for his money if he's not careful. He may have to step up his game and not just label a restaurant he visited as "very good."
