Jason Bourne wrote:I have to say I disagree with Liz here. I remember as a missionary listening to so many Paul Dunn tapes and I was just awe. I think it was very unethical for him to stretch the truth and fabricate stories as if they were true. More than tall tales they were. I felt the man was larger than life and it was very wrong for him to do this. When I first heard this I even defended him thinking it cannot be.
People who set themselves up to be heroic, and Paul Dunn did this,fall hard facts come out that show their stories to be false.
Embellishment is one thing. But Dunn flat our made stuff up.
For some, it seems to be OK if it fills the pews and buys baby Dunn new shoes.
The scandal with Paul Dunn happened when I was a very young girl, long before I had any interest in the LDS church. As such, I have no personal feelings regarding Dunn. I feel no sense of betrayal or loss over what happened with him.
But I have heard many amazing talks from evangelical speakers, some of which contained testimonies of miraculous events or incredible rehabilitations from dark circumstances. I have felt moved and awed and experienced the power of the Holy Spirit through their words.
And if I ever found out that those speakers lied to me about their experiences, I would feel devastated. I would wonder why it was that they felt like the truth was not enough to nurture my faith, why they felt like God's message needed the assistance of lies and half-truths---as if His arm was too short to reach us. I would question how much they really believed in the message they preached to think lies and half-truths would be edifying in the long run.
If there is anything that I have learned from studying religious history, it is that half-truths and embellishments and fabrications are no soil for genuine faith. Real life is not always glamorous, it is not always pretty, it is not always easily presented as a faith-promoting narrative, but it is the firmest place to grow faith because it is real. And when faith is grown there, no amount of uncomfortable surprise information can shake it because it is real. You may not always find faith-promoting accounts there with the ease and frequency with which Dunn crafted his narratives, but when you do find it, it is absolutely exhilarating because of its realness. Faith like that is compelling and powerful. Faith that can only survive on fabrications and embellishments and half-truths is not real faith at all, it is brittle and dull and impotent.
The other problem with doing what Dunn did is that it calls attention to the possibility that other accounts of miraculous events are likewise embellished. If Dunn did it in the 20th century, who's to say that Joseph Smith didn't do it in the 19th century? That the apostles did not do it in the first century? How many of the miracles of Christ were later embellishments and fabrications by well-meaning followers?
I don't believe that any of them were, and I reject the prophetic claims of Joseph Smith for reasons that have zero to do with Paul Dunn. But Liz---I'm sorry, I could never do what you've done and shrug off Dunn's actions because he was a nice guy and his lies were told with good intentions. Lies don't stop being harmful just because they're told with good intentions, and lies told from the position of power and trust of an ecclesiastical leader are some of the most harmful around.
P. S. --- If the material I have read concerning Lynn Packer is accurate, what happened to him was deplorable.
"It seems to me that these women were the head (κεφάλαιον) of the church which was at Philippi." ~ John Chrysostom, Homilies on Philippians 13
I enjoyed Elder Dunn's talks. He was one of the best speakers that the Church had.
So what if some of his stories were made up? He probably could have made quite a bit of money putting them all into a novel. Instead, he devoted his life to the Church. His messages were positive gospel messages. If he had been a preacher in any other Church, he would have likely been hailed.
Bah! We Mormons are way too judgmental. And Ex-Mormons don't tend to fall too far from the tree.
I think that Liz is basically saying that there are some things that are more important than truth. Many would subscribe to that sentiment.
I would disagree. I don't believe that anything is more important than truth.
ETA: But perhaps that would a topic for a separate thread.
Last edited by Guest on Tue Oct 11, 2011 7:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Holy cow. I didn't realize what a giant sack of crap Mr. Dunn was. Stolen valor. Admiral Boorda shot himself out of shame when it was noted he wore a simple "V" device. Guys like Mr. Dunn make me sick. What a turd monster.
without Respect, DC
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.
Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
Paul Dunn had many problems with the Brethren before he was exposed by Packer. He suffered from real poor judgment.
The Church's response to Dunn was mostly internal. He was removed from any position of responsibility, and early. Whatever else occurred with respect to his fellowship is between the Church and Dunn.
Packer's problems were his; the way he approached it and the way he turned a critique of Dunn as an a generalized attack on the Brethren (again, many of whom had prior issues with Dunn) was Packer's problem alone.
But, the Dunn story just reminds us all that general authorities are human beings. There are general authorities of the 20th century who did far worse things than Dunn. But, I remind you that the New Testament also contains descriptions of apostolic strife. Apostles jockeying for position in a ranking system; Judas; Paul calling Peter a "false brother" for going back on his revelation to the Gentiles. And then there's all of Paul's baggage himself.
Buffalo wrote:Maher was excommunicated at some point between 2002 and 2010, while Garn remains a member of the Church. She says she was excommunicated for an extra-marital affair. I’m dying to hear how Maher’s extra-marital affair (presumably with another consenting adult) warranted excommunication while Garn’s extra-marital affair with a 15 year-old didn’t. Yet no one is blogging about this (outside of links to news stories in the sideblogs).
What am I missing here?
I'm betting it's because Garn never admitted to penetration.
Yahoo Bot wrote:Packer's problems were his; the way he approached it and the way he turned a critique of Dunn as an a generalized attack on the Brethren (again, many of whom had prior issues with Dunn) was Packer's problem alone.
Exact quote?
Parley P. Pratt wrote:We must lie to support brother Joseph, it is our duty to do so.
While serving in Alabama, my companion and I had lent a talk tape, "17 points of the true church", to an investigator. She was intelligent, middle class, and well grounded socially. The trite label of "golden" would apply here I guess.
One evening we arrived home to quite an exhilarating message on our answering machine. This lady recounted how she had listened to the tape, and she was emotionally overcome. She said she cried openly. Well, any of you who have served a mission can relate when I say my companion and I were on cloud 9 for a good long time. Now she never joined, but that isn't really the point of the story.
Many months later, while still serving, an edict came from a our mission president regarding this issue. If memory serves, both "17 points" and the "Dunn" tapes were said to be questionable, that the stories may not have actually taken place at all or in the manner described. We were told to no longer use them as teaching aids.
From that point til the end of my mission I carried a lump in the pit of my stomach. Now, the teaching aid we used could have very well been one of Dunn's stories, or perhaps some other fabrication thet gets tossed around in the church for the purpose of eliciting an emotional response. The lesson for me was that a lie can easily be pawned off on all of us as a legitimate spiritual experience, and we are none the wiser.
My curiosity lies with how this affected Pauls own testimony. When someone repeatedly fabricates stories, and this someone arguably played to some of the largest LDS audiences through his tape distribution, but somehow feels confident that he will not fall prey to the spirit of discernment held by apostles and prophets that he regularly rubs shoulders with, can we conclude that deep down he knows that the bretheren are men, and not just when acting as such, but in reality are only "just men" all of the time?
I don't expect to see same-sex marriage in Utah within my lifetime. - Scott Lloyd, Oct 23 2013
I joined the Church in 1978, and heard many of Elder Dunn's talks.
I purchased quite a few of his books and tapes, to boot.
Although I have no doubt that Elder Dunn was a fundamentally good human being, I have to say he strikes me as simultaneously fundamentally flawed.
He told fabricated spiritual experiences in which he was miraculously saved time and time again.
Even the stories where he was not saved seem to focus on self-aggrandizement.
Surely he knew that if word got out he was making this stuff up, it would be a monumental blow not only to his own reputation, but to the reputation of every general authority who has ever lived; i.e., if we know Elder Dunn lied about spiritual experiences, why should we take at face value anything told by any GA? And you can trace this all the way back to Joseph Smith. (Yes, and even to the gospels, if you have the desire.)
My feeling is that what Paul Dunn did is unforgiveable; but that is not the right word.
Inexcusable.
That's what I think it is.
All the Best!
--Consiglieri
You prove yourself of the devil and anti-mormon every word you utter, because only the devil perverts facts to make their case.--ldsfaqs (6-24-13)