John Dehlin And Faith Reconstruction

[Calm]

I remember when we were all amazed when charity and zakuska got 10,000 posts. Whatever happened to charity? I know that she was sick at one time.

My understanding is that her eyesight interfered with her being able to use the computer. Last I heard she was not in the best of shape. I worry about her.

[robuchan]

I grew up and Utah, and found that it was never that monolithic. The schools and the media offered different views on a daily basis. I had neighbors with different religions. I the older I got, the more aware I was of alternative views. As soon as I got personally serious about asking questions, I was amazed at how much good material I could find even in my own house, on shelves, just waiting for me. "Seek and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." I had exposure and access to uncorrelated materials from the time I could read. TV, movies, libraries, comic books, etc., I never found a scripture that said, "Blessed are they who sit like lumps, for they shall be spoon fed, and never caught of guard, and never, ever disappointed by anyone."

Sounds like your upbringing was more liberal than mine was and many other of my peers. You should try being more empathetic to those who didn't have uncorrelated material in their homes and who were taught to avoid it, and believed they were following God by avoiding it.

I never found a scripture that said, "Blessed are they who sit like lumps, for they shall be spoon fed, and never caught of guard, and never, ever disappointed by anyone."

This kind of stuff is arrogant, hurtful, and doesn't further the discussion.

[Calm]

I am at the low end of the spectrum. I did not realize the rep point system until just a while ago. I am trying to upgrade my response now.

Use references. I give points to people who make an extra effort to document their claims without being asked.

[Calm]

whoops

Edited February 7, 2013 by calmoriah

[rongo]

Well, from my anecdotal experience Why Me is incorrect in his assertion.

My anecdotal experience is that inactivity is almost never due to historical issues. When I was a bishop, my people with historical issues seemed drawn to me, and they tended to be active members (they also didn't consider themselves to be NOM or Middle Wayers). My stake president marveled that I was able to work with so many, and I told him that most wards have more members who struggle with historical issues than most people think, but they wouldn't usually know who they are unless they feel comfortable talking about their issues. Our ward is quite different in this regard --- we held numerous firesides, 5th Sunday discussions, etc. dealing with many of these things in a faithful manner. I even had Dan Peterson conduct a combined third hour Q&A when he and his wife were in town to do a stake fireside.

Inactives just weren't that religious. Pretty much as simple as that. When inactive people activate themselves, this is due to a surge in religiosity in them. They feel it, and as President Packer said, "true doctrine understood changes attitudes and behavior."

My apostates had fundamental disbelief issues in the bedrock: they didn't believe in God, the atonement/resurrection, etc. Much more fundamental than Joseph Smith or the Restoration. I only had two members request name removal in 5+ years, and neither of them had issues with historical items.

Libs wrote:

I did leave over some of these issues, plus the political issues that church insists on supporting. I didn't stop reading my scriptures nor did I get bored. I was very active and held a TR the whole time I was in the church, attended Temple often. I still miss a lot of things about the church, including the Temple.

Uncanny. My apostates had profound political disagreements with Church policy, and they also *loved* the temple. Which is strange, given their atheistic/agnostic bent, but it also squares with my anecdotal experience. The temple left a huge positive impression with them, even in the face of loss of belief in God, Jesus, etc.

My experience is also that, although there are politically liberal people in the Church who are active and productive members, people who become consumed with "kicking against the pricks" of the dominant conservative culture often find themselves plagued with Glaubensverlust or outright antagonism.

[mfbukowski]

From Position 6:

FROM HERE ON THE PERSON WILL FEEL FRUSTRATION IN TOO-STRUCTURED OF AN ENVIRONMENT.

Dang.

I think I was born there. No wonder I have never had a real job

Yet here I am, a sheep in the fold. How did that happen anyway?

[mfbukowski]

I grew up and Utah, and found that it was never that monolithic. The schools and the media offered different views on a daily basis. I had neighbors with different religions. I the older I got, the more aware I was of alternative views.

I don't know how you could go to general conference, with what goes on on the streets, and NOT know there were "alternative views" of the gospel.

I found Utah, at least SLC, very polarized actually. You either saw garment lines or no shirts and tattoos, Deseret News or the Tribune. That is of course an exaggeration but not much of one. Maybe it has changed.

Edited February 7, 2013 by mfbukowski

[why me]

whoops

Maybe I should give you a rep point for this post. Can you provide a reference?

[mfbukowski]

I don't have that impression. You need to work a little harder at conveying it, I suppose.

Hmmmm. Ok.

"You are just a sycophantic member of the cabal!"

Did that help?

[robuchan]

If I wanted to portray myself as a victim of inaccurate history, I could do that with US history. How come none of my American history classes or texts or movies or TVs at any level ever mentioned the 1922 Tulsa Massacre? By and large, I attribute the lack of information on that sordid episode to most people not knowing about it, not to an organized conspiracy to keep me in the dark. And for the record, I bought my own copy of Brooks on Mountain Meadows at Deseret Book in South Temple.

You think our positions are different because I took a close minded view of learning and you didn't. But you are wrong. Our positions are different because you think the nature of the difference between what we were taught as LDS youth and what we now perceive to be the actual and complete view of the facts are minute and inconsequential to the overall view while I think they are huge and completely alter the view.

We both agree on the concept. We both can agree its possible to conceive of a situation where a youth is influenced by parents and culture but have lots of opportunity to learn and decide for themselves. If a child born in Alabama to racist parents becomes a close minded and racist 30 year old, that person is clearly accountable for not obtaining enlightening information that is freely available in our society. He can't blame his parents for still believing in some absurd, racist belief that has been disproven.

But we can also both agree its possible to conceive of a situation where a youth is influenced so much that they really have no blame and it's not reasonable to expect them to seek out the truth on their own. Ask someone in North Korea in 1995 to explain the history of the United States. You would not be so righteously indignant about their responsibility to seek out truth. You would probably agree that it's very normal for that person to not have the truth and you would blame the institutions and culture involved for the lack of information.

So, clearly it's not an issue of whether we agree on this concept of responsibility of an individual to seek out and learn truth. The difference is where in this spectrum is the kid growing up inside Mormonism and being counseled to avoid anti-Mormon material. Whether it's reasonable to assume he would have access to the material, whether he had or should have trust in people telling him to avoid certain material. The discussion is where in the spectrum is this. This is where we disagree.

[mfbukowski]

There are many things you will not get rep points from me for, diet coke preference is one of them.

Actually I love Dr Pepper now that beer is out of the question. But of course that has sugar, so I am stuck with my Diet Doctor now.

But now I find out that any soda- even diet- is not good for you.

Sigh.

I guess I will just have to follow what my wife tells me to do and actually drink water. Well at least I can put in a squirt of lemon or something.

[go_utes01]

You think our positions are different because I took a close minded view of learning and you didn't. But you are wrong. Our positions are different because you think the nature of the difference between what we were taught as LDS youth and what we now perceive to be the actual and complete view of the facts are minute and inconsequential to the overall view while I think they are huge and completely alter the view.

We both agree on the concept. We both can agree its possible to conceive of a situation where a youth is influenced by parents and culture but have lots of opportunity to learn and decide for themselves. If a child born in Alabama to racist parents becomes a close minded and racist 30 year old, that person is clearly accountable for not obtaining enlightening information that is freely available in our society. He can't blame his parents for still believing in some absurd, racist belief that has been disproven.

But we can also both agree its possible to conceive of a situation where a youth is influenced so much that they really have no blame and it's not reasonable to expect them to seek out the truth on their own. Ask someone in North Korea in 1995 to explain the history of the United States. You would not be so righteously indignant about their responsibility to seek out truth. You would probably agree that it's very normal for that person to not have the truth and you would blame the institutions and culture involved for the lack of information.

So, clearly it's not an issue of whether we agree on this concept of responsibility of an individual to seek out and learn truth. The difference is where in this spectrum is the kid growing up inside Mormonism and being counseled to avoid anti-Mormon material. Whether it's reasonable to assume he would have access to the material, whether he had or should have trust in people telling him to avoid certain material. The discussion is where in the spectrum is this. This is where we disagree.

Just to be clear, you are comparing the institutional Church with the totalitarian regimes of the old Soviet Union and North Korea, right? Or, are you comparing your parents/home/neighborhood/culture to those regimes?

[Calm]

I found Utah, at least SLC, very polarized actually. You either saw garment lines or no shirts and tattoos, Deseret News or the Tribune. That is of course an exaggeration but not much of one. Maybe it has changed.

I spent part of grade six attending classes in Utah. It was where I learned all the vulgarities (well, probably not all knowing me, but let us say the standard ones). For some reason kids in Chicago didn't feel the need to express themselves in the same way at that age.

[Calm]

Maybe I should give you a rep point for this post. Can you provide a reference?

Making me laugh is another way to get points.

Everybody get back on topic, please. Let's not make this thread any longer than necessary.

[Daniel Peterson]

Good grief. My "ranting and raving" on this thread -- what "ranting and raving"? -- demonstrate that I'm "a real classless man," and it's impossible to get either "reason or compassion" from "Mopologists." So say commentators on the other board.

Sigh.

[Scott Lloyd]

Hmmmm. Ok.

"You are just a sycophantic member of the cabal!"

Did that help?

There's a difference between fostering a rebel's image and merely being annoying.

[rongo]

Just to be clear, you are comparing the institutional Church with the totalitarian regimes of the old Soviet Union and North Korea, right? Or, are you comparing your parents/home/neighborhood/culture to those regimes?

That was my thought, too. Seemed like a Godwin's Law violation to me . . .

[Calm]

There's a difference between fostering a rebel's image and merely being annoying.

He needs to get a motorcycle and leather jacket.

[Scott Lloyd]

I don't know how you could go to general conference, with what goes on on the streets, and NOT know there were "alternative views" of the gospel.

I found Utah, at least SLC, very polarized actually. You either saw garment lines or no shirts and tattoos, Deseret News or the Tribune. That is of course an exaggeration but not much of one. Maybe it has changed.

Born and reared in Utah. Lived here most of my life.

I've found the culture neither monolithic nor polarized.

[robuchan]

Just to be clear, you are comparing the institutional Church with the totalitarian regimes of the old Soviet Union and North Korea, right? Or, are you comparing your parents/home/neighborhood/culture to those regimes?

Neither really. I'm trying to explain the concept of a person being raised and influenced by culture to the point where you understand why it's unreasonable to expect them to have or believe certain information.

[Calm]

Born and reared in Utah. Lived here most of my life.

I've found the culture neither monolithic nor polarized.

When I lived here a short time, it felt that way, probably because I was depending on visual cues. The longer I live here now, the less monolithic it appears to me, probably because as people get to know me more and I them they share their ideas and lives more and thus I am exposed to more of the behind the scenes stuff which tends to be as varied as the number of people there are....just like everywhere else I've lived long enough to get to know the people well. Edited February 7, 2013 by calmoriah

[Calm]

Neither really. I'm trying to explain the concept of a person being raised and influenced by culture to the point where you understand why it's unreasonable to expect them to have or believe certain information.

But pointing to an extreme case says little about cases that are not extreme.

[robuchan]

KC:

It's against the rules to talk about Joseph's sexual activity, and I don't plan to here. But that is an example of something I never knew about until the internet age. I was told by my parents and seminary teachers that the marriages were only spiritual, and I accepted that answer. My focus in studying the gospel was in the scriptures, general conference talks and well accepted LDS books. I was taught that digging in too deep into church history was something only anti-Mormons do. My focus in studying the gospel was on faith, baptism, repentance, fall/atonement, sacrifice, obedience, discipleship, consecration, grace, justice. Where in all this was my responsibility to identify whether or not Joseph's marriages were physical? You can tell me it doesn't matter or that there's a reason for it. But please don't tell me this was common knowledge or that I should have known it if I had studied the gospel at all.

"Blessed are they who sit like lumps, for they shall be spoon fed, and never caught of guard, and never, ever disappointed by anyone."

Please don't use this to tell me that God was displeased with my study focus as a youth and that I should have been focused on things like whether you can ride a tapir into battle or not.

[rockpond]

go_utes makes a valid point here. And it seems to me that self-selection is apt to skew the results even more than normal, considering the subject of the survey and its highly sensitive nature. The self-selecting respondents are apt to be the ones who are most passionate (or, to put it another way, the most bitter) and apt to blame the Church doctrine, history, apologists, etc. for their disaffection.

I'm having trouble keeping up with individual responses so I thought I'd just try to clarify my thoughts in a single response (this is not directed just toward you, Scott, just using your reasoned response as a jumping off point).

Yes, the self-selection is a problem. I also have never gone through the data to analyze statistical significance of the survey (though statistical significance is largely irrelevant once you've biased your sample -- there some advanced statistical techniques that can help but I see no evidence of those having been applied in Dehlin's study).

My point was this... all the comments I've read so far are just anecdotal experiences with those in their ward, their mission, their extended family, etc. We've also had some on this board share their own experiences. We shouldn't disregard any of those experiences. Likewise, Dehlin's survey represents anecdotal evidence that we ought not disregard. Is his sampling skewed? Yes. Is the sampling here on this thread skewed? Yes.

But, in this thread of everyone sharing their anecdotal data it strikes me as unproductive to...

1) Ignore a study of over 3,000 anecdotal experiences.

2) Conclude that one set of anecdotal experiences is more skewed than another.

3) Make statements such as "most people go inactive because they lose interest or are bored" when we don't have solid data to support such a conclusion.

I believe there are those who get bored and lose interest. And I think we ought to search for ways to engage them better. And I believe that we lose people over historical/doctrinal issues. And I think we ought to search for ways that we can prevent that.

[Kevin Christensen]

Sounds like your upbringing was more liberal than mine was and many other of my peers. You should try being more empathetic to those who didn't have uncorrelated material in their homes and who were taught to avoid it, and believed they were following God by avoiding it.

By uncorrelated material, I include things like Readers Digest, Life Magazine, the Deseret News (not counting the Church News), an old Encyclopedia, school text books, novels like The Sea Wolf, Tarzan, Destry Rides Again, and TV shows like Perry Mason and 77 Sunset Strip. Father Knows Best, the **** Van Dyke Show, Hollywood Palace, Bewitched, !2 O'Clock High, and Cheyenne, movies like Going My Way, The Saint in London, The Glen Miller Story, The Robe, Bugs Bunny, Gunga Din, Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color etc. And of course, the radio. Music in the 60s did have more than just a beat you could sometimes dance to. It did manage to push for a complete social revolution. All that stuff was quite enough to convince me that Mormonism was not the whole world. My parents were, and are quite conservative in their LDS faith. I had go get Sunstone and Dialogue and BYU Studies on my own, after my mission. I am actually quite sympathetic to those raised by parents whose testimonies are on a bit too tight. The single most strict and narrow set of parents I have known, who are very nice people in most respects, had a most tragic outcome with some of the children. They ended the way Brigham Young said when he talked of parents who never let their children read novels, see plays, etc. But the kid still made his own choices. And the parents meant well according to their lights.

I gather from a subsequent post that by uncorrelated material, you mean stuff like Brodie and the Tanners and the like. The closest thing we had to that was a volume of A New Witness for Christ, which quotes a surprising amount of the early negative stuff. And Nibley articles in the Improvement Era, that I never so much as glanced at until I got back from England, and was shocked and pleased at how much good stuff they had. I don't think it's particularly oppressive to tell your kids to avoid the anti-stuff. I think it's wise to prepare them for what they'll find there, and think we could do a far better job of that. My own contributions have that very thing in mind. I've read a good bunch of anti-Mormon material, and didn't have the shattering experience some others have had because I had prepared myself beforehand. It's not just the seed, but the soil and nurture that determine a harvest.

This kind of stuff is arrogant, hurtful, and doesn't further the discussion.

It's not meant to hurt and I've found it often does further the discussion. It's meant to be memorable and to the point. It's meant as a prod to self reflection, rather than flatter me or anyone else. As to the arrogance, if that's what you see here, I'm sorry.

And as to facts altering the view, by me, increased knowledge is supposed to alter the view. Completely. If I never learned more than I knew as a child, and if what I learned doesn't change anything, then what is the point? A child has to learn what a child can learn. A child has to start somewhere. In Kindergarten, I was not protesting that what we really needed was Calculus and Matrix Math. I didn't ask for Faulkner, rather than Fun with **** and Jane. As a child, I had to learn as a child from the materials available and appropriate in the best judgement of those who taught and published. That is true both for what I was taught in public school and in Sunday school. As teenagers, well, our attention span constituted a serious obstacle for learning, something that I have to consider. A certain kind of person gets involved in writing pedagogical materials for Sunday School Manuals. They tend to be conservative, tend, I think to be of SJ temperament, which means a tendency to respect tradition and authority. So I have realistic expectations, not an easily shattered unrealistic idealism. Teachers cannot teach what they do not know. How much did most of my Sunday School teachers know? Realistically?

So, for me, it's not whether my view has changed. It has, quite radically in many instances, and often about quite fundamental issues. Sometimes I've tried to encourage changed understanding. For me, the key is that it still points to something that is real.

And let me assure you, that not in my wildest dreams, or most arrogant days, would I ever suggest to you, or my own children, for that matter, that they should focus their attention on finding whether you can ride a tapir into battle. I might, however, suggest to that it would help a lot to know whether anyone in the Book of Mormon ever rode anything into battle. And perhaps, I might mention my experience in England in discovering that they used words differently than I thought. Boots there weren't what I put on my feet. Nor bonnets on my head. Nor were chips crisp and thin, nor were cookies mentioned or biscuits what I expected. A prerequisite for disillusion, is holding to illusions. A prerequisite to enlightenment, is a willingness to let one's mind expand. Brittleness is not conducive to expansion, but rather, to shattering.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Bethel Park, PA

Edited February 7, 2013 by Kevin Christensen