Rosalynde Welch takes on Mormon Stories

[_Kishkumen]

This is why I laughed so hard when a commentator on Ralph Hancock's critique of Joanna Brooks called Dehlin the leader of the Bloggernacle. I can only imagine how irritated some Nacle regulars must be to hear anyone perceiving John Dehlin as their leader.

Well, Ralph Hancock has no problem bloviating out of his rear end, that is for sure.

I get the fact that the 'nacle folks are tense about showing how true blue they are, and that they don't care for John Dehlin for this reason. I am having a hard time believing, however, that Jack Welch's daughter-in-law adding her two cents on Mormon Stories at this time is a coincidence.

[_Kishkumen]

Part of the problem with critiquing Mormon Stories is you have to ask, Which Mormon Stories? At one point, Dehlin flushed Mormon Stories down the toilet and vowed never to do it again, only to reverse himself after Mormon Expression started podcasting. The Mormon Stories before and after this break were entirely different beasts. The Mormon Stories before the long break was much more focused on intellectual issues, the one after the break has been much more focused on community and social issues. If I have a critique of Welch, it's that she conflates the two in her post.

for what it's worth, I preferred the Mormon Stories before Dehlin took his long sabbatical.

I have many points of disagreement with Welch, including the idea that support groups for people who have had a rough time are fundamentally silly. So, in her view, it is morally insipid for gay students to seek comfort, support, and to create understanding in an environment of bullying and marginalization. The evidence of a basic obtuseness and lack of compassion in her perspective is clear. I think it is worth calling this out for what it is.

Mormon Stories seems like a textbook liberal mini-institution, a lot like a high school gay-straight alliance and about as important.

So the fact that gay kids feel marginalized and seek emotional support is morally insipid and silly? You mean the same kids who end up taking their own lives when they get bullied and don't have emotional support?

I extend my middle finger at you, Rosalynde Welch.

[_Equality]

My guess is that the bloggernacle has always fancied itself as Mormon intelligentsia, and always perceived Mormon Stories as lowbrow, a piece of Mormonism they would rather not see on display. This I think is the root of Welch's comments.

This is spot damned on. Welch and her fellow travelers at BCC and T&S drove me straight into the DAMU back in 2005. At the time I was simply a faithful Mormon looking for more stimulating conversation than could be found on Sunday morning in church. I found it for a brief while, in the Bloggernacle. But their thinly disguised viciousness was terribly off-putting. It was precisely what Welch criticizes in her blog post--the lack of authenticity in the Bloggernacle--that led me (and many others) to find folks who could talk intelligently about Mormonism without all the pomposity, arrogance, and elitism found in the major 'Nacle sites. What Mormon Stories and the DAMU blogs and discussion boards provided then and now was a place where people could feel free to express themselves on their own terms. We didn't have it in church, where every thought that strays beyond the pages of the correlated manuals must be squelched and left unexpressed for fear of becoming the ward pariah, subject to church discipline and social ostracism. But we didn't have it in the Bloggernacle, either, where certain topics not typically discussed in Sunday School could be approached, but where the likes of Welch and Brown were always on the ready to scold and denigrate those who expressed views deemed too unorthodox for the slightly heterodox Naclers. The self-censorship required to participate in the online faithful communities may not have been as exacting as that required to participate in Sunday School, but it was still an ever-present suppressive influence. Welch may not have an authentic self, and that may be why she fits in so well in the LDS church and the Bloggernacle.

[Guest]

I find it stunning that a young woman of her obvious intelligence could be so astoundingly ignorant of these basic facts of history from the past few decades. If Dehlin is guilty of a certain naïveté, she is certainly no less so. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

I think this can be explained by the fact that she is not trying to demonstrate her intelligence, rather, she is fighting a battle and trying to score rhetorical points for her teams. It seems that Mormon Stories is a special two-faceted enemy for her, in that (1) as Aristotle mentioned, from the time Dehlin came into the fray (in the weeks before launching Mormon Stories), he was challenging her Bloggernacle team, claiming that they weren't "filling the intellectual void," and creating Mormon Stories, in part, to address those shortcomings, and (2) as you pointed out, Dehlin is now in conflict with her FIL's FARMS team, claiming that the institution's polemics are damaging the Church.

-JV

[_Cicero]

Kish,

The bloggernacle has never liked Mormon Stories. And Rosalynde Welch was/is a member of one of the big blogs in the bloggernacle. I have never gotten to the bottom of the animosity, but it seemed to be pretty universal in the early days of Mormon Stories, none of the blogs liked him. My guess is that the bloggernacle has always fancied itself as Mormon intelligentsia, and always perceived Mormon Stories as lowbrow, a piece of Mormonism they would rather not see on display.

BINGO! Keep in mind that the naccle was largely started by a bunch of law students in the early 00's that were interested in philosophy, PoliSci and Mormonism of course (true at least of the early Times and Seasons and By Common Consent). It has of course expanded greatly since then, but the old guard blogs (weird to call them that already) have always been very ivory tower high brow stuff in my opinion, and not really all that interested in troubling issues (you're much more likely to see a blog posting about court systems in Utah or Kierkegarrd then you are about Book of Abraham papyri). Dehlin is, in his words, much more of a "meat and potatoes" guy. The naccle has also nevery really been about a support community at all.

[_Bob Loblaw]

I never got into the bloggernacle. I read a few things and didn't like the superior attitude. Besides, they don't really talk about anything that relates to my life. After reading the excerpts posted here, I have no desire to read any of it.

[Guest]

At the time I was simply a faithful Mormon looking for more stimulating conversation than could be found on Sunday morning in church. I found it for a brief while, in the Bloggernacle. But their thinly disguised viciousness was terribly off-putting. It was precisely what Welch criticizes in her blog post--the lack of authenticity in the Bloggernacle--that led me (and many others) to find folks who could talk intelligently about Mormonism without all the pomposity, arrogance, and elitism found in the major 'Nacle sites.

That accords well with my experience. The 'nacle is the place where people like Nate Oman, who is essentially a more sophisticated apologist in some ways, thrive. I respect Oman's intelligence, but some of his arguments in defense of the orthodox Mormon community have been positively risible. I thought his open letter to Dialogue was pretty hilarious and completely idiotic from a historically literate point of view. To call the community of marginalized and uncorrelated voices associated with Dialogue on the carpet for consciously excluding the same people whom an apostle warned off of participation in these journals and fora was a breathtaking act of chutzpah (if it was not just evidence of ignorance).

To be fair to Oman, however, he does have his good points. He is not an uncomplicated character, and I have seen him take a principled stand out of the public eye. So, regardless of my dislike of some of his more ludicrous apologetics, I do respect him very much in other ways. Welch may be the same kind of person, but her comparison of Mormon Stories to a gay-straight alliance in a high school, as though that were a bad thing, was unfortunate and rather revealing, I think.

[_Juggler Vain]

Welch and her fellow travelers at BCC and T&S drove me straight into the DAMU back in 2005.

Similar experience here, but I didn't attempt to participate in the discussion -- lurking was enough.

...certain topics not typically discussed in Sunday School could be approached, but where the likes of Welch and Brown were always on the ready to scold and denigrate those who expressed views deemed too unorthodox for the slightly heterodox Naclers.

People expressing views that were too orthodox were also scolded and denigrated. Your views had to hold just the right amount of heterodoxy in order for you to fit in. I assume that's still how it is over there, but I haven't looked in a while.

-JV

[_Kishkumen]

People expressing views that were too orthodox were also scolded and denigrated. Your views had to hold just the right amount of heterodoxy in order for you to fit in. I assume that's still how it is over there, but I haven't looked in a while.

-JV

This is one of the most unfortunate things about all of these communities. I have no doubt that it afflicts Mormon Stories as well. It is the demand for a kind of in-group orthodoxy. Is it just a function of LDS culture that any group springing up from it suffers from an anxiety over controlling the discourse tightly? I know I have seen the same in the Mormon Stories community, come to think of it. It is as though each of these little groups has their charismatic leaders whose genius and authority are assumed to be sacrosanct.

[_Cicero]

I have to say that I am somewhat miffed that John would call out people to defend him on Facebook. For someone who demands that the church open itself up more for criticisim, he seems to have a very hard time getting criticized himself.