Review (Rebuttal?) To Smith'S "Dubious Mormon Stories"

[blackstrap]

So, some are complaining that Greg spent considerable time looking through many sources and viewing many quotes so as to give a broad view of Dehlin and MS. They call it cyber stalking. I wonder what complaint would have been raised had Greg pick only one or two quotes and then wrote a couple hundred pages expanding on them.

[Scott Lloyd]

So, some are complaining that Greg spent considerable time looking through many sources and viewing many quotes so as to give a broad view of Dehlin and MS. They call it cyber stalking. I wonder what complaint would have been raised had Greg pick only one or two quotes and then wrote a couple hundred pages expanding on them.

When the virtual entirety of someone's output is podcasts, blogs, message-board posts and social-media entries, about the only way to do valid scholarly research on that output is to engage in what some would call "cyber stalking," I suppose.

[Daniel Peterson]

I am of the opinion that there was also an email campaign against Dan, Louis, Bill and Gregg. Am I wrong about this? I had the impression that john's supporters and the critics were emailing the MI, BYU or the church about MI under Dan et, al. Am I wrong about this.

I believe you're right.

Other such campaigns have been attempted, too. Recently, somebody proposed a letter-writing campaign to try to get my columns dropped from the Deseret News. I don't think it's really come together, though.

A perhaps related item: I spent much of the morning reporting a recent series of anonymous internet threats to the Salt Lake field office of the FBI -- they said, as I expected they would, that, since there was no express threat of violence or extortion, they could do nothing -- and to Google. (A significant proportion of the threats have come through Gmail.)

Some feel (and they may be correct) that their most effective weapon is to suppress and silence those who disagree with them.

[Calm]

So, some are complaining that Greg spent considerable time looking through many sources and viewing many quotes so as to give a broad view of Dehlin and MS. They call it cyber stalking. I wonder what complaint would have been raised had Greg pick only one or two quotes and then wrote a couple hundred pages expanding on them.

And others are of the opinion he didn't look through enough material.

[Daniel Peterson]

Dan I'm just giving my opinion and I specifically said I was writing about "the impression" I got reading it the second time. The first time I posted on this matter I was amazing by the apparent dossier that someone had collected on John over the years. Saying how that unhealthy interesting cyber stalking a individual reminds me of your greatest fan "doctor" scratch.

I'm not the only one that feels this way about Greg's piece. I was reading on a VERY pro LDS discussion board the other day and one of the very LDS moderators there had the same impression. To quote her she said she was "truly sickened by his paper". I find Smith's review in poor taste, mean spirited, and yes I consider it a personal attack on Dehlin not a review of Mormon Stories.

We disagree. I knew that it would be controversial, and I understood that, by publishing it, Greg and Lou and Bill and I would be inviting a renewed wave of nasty personal attacks. (They've never really subsided.) I haven't been surprised by the sequel.

To compare what Dr. Smith has done, though, with the six or seven years of relentless smears that have come from my Malevolent Stalker (and that have, on the whole, been received with complacent satisfaction and even enthusiastic applause from Kishkumen and some of the others there on the Contempt and Defamation Board) strikes me as an incredible stretch.

[ALarson]

We disagree. I knew that it would be controversial, and I understood that, by publishing it, Greg and Lou and Bill and I would be inviting a renewed wave of nasty personal attacks. (They've never really subsided.) I haven't been surprised by the sequel.

So are you saying that you have officially published Greg Smith's review?

(I'm far from being an expert on this and there seems to be quite a discussions as to whether or not the piece has been published, so thanks in advance for clarifying).

[phaedrus ut]

We disagree. I knew that it would be controversial, and I understood that, by publishing it, Greg and Lou and Bill and I would be inviting a renewed wave of nasty personal attacks. (They've never really subsided.) I haven't been surprised by the sequel.

To compare what Dr. Smith has done, though, with the six or seven years of relentless smears that have come from my Malevolent Stalker (and that have, on the whole, been received with complacent satisfaction and even enthusiastic applause from Kishkumen and some of the others there on the Contempt and Defamation Board) strikes me as an incredible stretch.

It's unfortunate for you that being front and center has made you cannon fodder for such behavior. I think it's wrong. and when I've seen it done to you and others I've expressed the same opinion of my distaste for their actions. My observation was that saving years of Dehlin's deleted Facebook posts suggests to me someone is preparing to do something specifically personal about him. And what was it about him specifically that would motivate such a data collection?

Phaedrus

[Daniel Peterson]

It's unfortunate for you that being front and center has made you cannon fodder for such behavior. I think it's wrong. and when I've seen it done to you and others I've expressed the same opinion of my distaste for their actions. My observation was that saving years of Dehlin's deleted Facebook posts suggests to me someone is preparing to do something specifically personal about him. And what was it about him specifically that would motivate such a data collection?

My understanding is that Dr. Smith spent about two months -- not full time, of course (he's a physician and, now at least, a bishop) -- reading and gathering materials. He hasn't been maliciously "saving" things for years, compiling something like one of my Malevolent Stalker's creepy "dossiers."

He fully understood that, if he leveled serious criticisms against a figure to whom so many seem to be devoted, he would be accused of lying and distorting and cherry picking, and he wanted, as far as humanly possible, to dot every "i" and cross every "t." Not, of course, that doing so has actually spared him from accusations of lying and distorting and cherry picking. Given the nature of his and my critics, that was a forlorn hope from the start.

[Daniel Peterson]

So are you saying that you have officially published Greg Smith's review?

(I'm far from being an expert on this and there seems to be quite a discussions as to whether or not the piece has been published, so thanks in advance for clarifying).

It's been published in the loose sense that it's been made public.

It hasn't been, and probably won't be, published more formally as a part of Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture. With its companion piece, it would basically constitute an entire volume of the journal, and that would deviate too far from the nature of the journal as we've conceived it. Moreover, it would require a huge proportion of our very limited resources to typeset and otherwise prepare it for such formal publication. Anyway, anybody who wants to read it can now do so.

[Darren10]

Cinepro;

So, instead of starting with the very product he is supposedly reviewing, Mormon Stories, Smith went to Dehlin’s FB page?

Isn't John Dehlin's facebook page directly connected to Mormon Stories.

After this, he searched for what others (“LDS critics and former Mormons”) had said on message boards about Dehlin.

About mormon Stories and John Dehlin's work regarding Mormon Stories, correct?

As I recall it, John Dehlin repeats much of his mormon Stories rhetoric on his facebook pages and in other forums people repeat what John Dehlin says. If I were to review cinepro's posts on Mormon dialogue, what distraction is it for me to begin my research based on the repetition of your posts on other forums, including your facebook?

Letters a-t (especially t) are in direct connection to establishing the character of Mormon Stories. By pointing to John Dhilin and his beliefs, Smith makes a connection to what Mormon Stories' positions are.

Although a few of the items a-t do need to be placed into context, I'll focus on just one, "k. Smith, apparently role-playing as Dehlin’s bishop, attacks Dehlin’s worthiness to hold a temple recommend. (See id. at 38-42);". No, Smith did not 'attack' John Dehlin's temple worthiness in the connotation made from item k. Smith discredited John Dehlin as a true believe in LDS worship by showing that among John dehlin's personal beliefs, John Dehlin would not be worthy to attend the temple. Smith did this *only* because John Dehlin, as shown by Smith, used his temple recommend, hinting at his worthiness to attend the temple as a means to give credit to his movement, Mormon Stories. Smith's review of his recommend, let's say, "diligence" was superbly done. Smith could otherwise not case less if John Dehlin was temple worthy.

A serious flaw with the Dubious Review is that it was published after (i) John Dehlin had returned to full activity in the LDS Church

First off, was it published after John Dehlin's return to the LDS Church only because John Dehlin sent out to have it censored and not published or was all that after his return to the LDS Church. It seems so,

January 28, 2013, when a podcast interview of Dehlin appeared on Mormon Stories. Smith’s two essays, however, were published for the first time nearly 4 weeks later, on February 23, 2013.

Even with the date correction of October 2012 as opposed to January 2013 as Dehlin's return to church date, Smith's paper was scheduled to be published before Dehlin's return to church. From the Interpretor we read, "“Dubious ‘Mormon’ Stories,” is the review originally prepared for inclusion in the Mormon Studies Review in the spring of 2012." (http://www.mormonint...mormon-stories/). Had Dehlin not meddled with its affairs, it's publication would have preceeded Dehlin's October return to church. Dubious Mormon Stories was to be published long before Rollo Tomasi's own admission of when Dehlin returned to church had John Dehlin not intervened and influenced certain allies to decide not to publish it. I sure hope you don't think this is a reason you find Tomasi's response "one of the best", cinepro. Tomasi's argument implodes on itself. Also self implosive is that Tomasi himself dates Smith's research back to "November 2011". Tat would make the research at least a year long before its publication. How can Tomasi critque the publication date to an event which happened long after the research was completed and the article published?

Even so, John Dehlin's "return" to church has everything to do with the social benefits of attending church and not so much for the spiritual. Even after returning to curch he continues to bare false witness against people who are his biblical neighbors and brothers in the gospel. Pirtraying John Dehlin as a repentant soul holds no weight for me. His personal actions will speak for themselves and thus far they don't show humility or repentence. I think John Dehlin wants the comfort of the safety of the church social settings but doesn't strive at all for the spiritual benefits. He's fully welcome ot attend church. In fact, I'd love it if he attended my ward. But he isn't beyond critique merely because he's going back to church.

I'll comment later on Trevor Holyak according to the portion Tomasi provided from the conversation there. For now though, saying, "Smith may have felt he needed juicier quotes or material from Dehlin, so he had one of his helpers on the essay (i.e., Holyoak) engage Dehlin on Facebook under the pretense of honest inquiry, when really he was just goading Dehlin into making statements that Smith could use against Dehlin" is very loaded. Isn't this the kind of attack John Dehlin says LDS apologists use to drive Mormon members aways from Mormonism? Yet here it is on Mormon Stories? Has John Dehlin condemned Rollo's post? Since John Dehlin is the primary owner of Mormon Stories, he doesn't even have to call a General Authority to strong arm its censorship. I guess I'd like to here from Greg Smith on this board as at this point I'd advise anyone to avoid positng on Mormon Stories. Especially Smith himself.

The publication of the Dubious Review after Dehlin’s return to full Church activity, undercuts the essay’s portrayal of Dehlin as a modern-day “wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

How so? If one has helped more people to leave the LDS faith than to stay in it, how does that person's return to full activity not aide the meme of 'wolf in sheeps clothing'?

As for items a-j which "negatively impact" Smith's article, this is true but is it not negatively impacted on Dehlin for impeding the article's publication in the first place? Furthermore, again, return to the Interpretor and note that the publication is the original form Smith wrote. There was no attempt to update anything since I think those behind its publication wisely chose to show the paper as it would have been published on its original publication date. As for item j, Dehlin fully plans to engage in Mormon Stories, period. He's said so himeself and he is continuing his attacks upon LDS apologists by falsy witnessing their response tactics.

All Smith had to do was update his essay before allowing it to be published. But he didn’t (it appears from Smith’s Timeline that he has not worked substantively on the essay since 2011). A lot has happened in Dehlin’s life since then, including Dehlin’s return to full Church activity. By failing to update his paper, Smith has published an essay that can only leave the readers with a false characterization of Dehlin’s current status vis-à-vis the LDS Church. Smith is spreading untruths about Dehlin.

As noted before, Dubious Mormon Stories was published in its original form deliberately. This is in no doubt to Dehlin's frequent insitancy that it be published after he did what he could for it not to be published. By releasing it in its original form, readers may view for themselves what the hoopla was all about.

Now, Tomasi critiques Smith's paper in part for not qualifying Dehlin's statement that he (Dehlin) was referring solely to online sources to outline LDS history. Since Mormon Think is an online publication (primarily so at least) than it can probably be assumed that Smith assumed people would think as much. I don't know for sure though. Perhaps Smith himself can come on board here and clarify but it seems reasonable to me. And to say that Mormon Think is more objectionable than FAIR is ludicrous. I think John Dehlin needs to actually read FAIR and particularly its great pieces which take Mormon Think to task.

We can see from this that Dehlin remained focused on the best (i.e., least biased) online source for LDS history, and Dehlin concluded (correctly, imo) that Mormon Think is far less biased than FAIR or FARMS. I suspect Smith cherry-picked from Dehlin’s quotes and grafted them as one to suit the objectives of a “hit piece” (as well as to likely get back at Dehlin for disparaging Smith’s beloved FARMS and FAIR). This tactic appeared throughout the Dubious Review.

Thus far Tomasi's conclusion that Smiths article was a hit piece on Dehlin is based primarily on suspicion.

Smith provided no context whatever for why Dehlin would say such a thing, other than to vaguely refer to “leaders’ motives and approach.”

Neither has Dehlin.

Ah, now we can see why Dehlin was so pissed – this wasn’t just some ‘kneejerk’ reaction to classic-FARMS apologists, but to an article by DCP. Click on the link and read that article and you will see why it set off Dehlin. DCP’s article recited examples in the BofM about bad guys trying to destroy the Church, and then DCP compared the BofM bad guys and their tactics to unnamed “modern counterparts,” such as … perhaps … John Dehlin? Notably, DCP’s article received some nasty comments, including this comment by one reader in Salt Lake City:

I just read the Deseret News article. What part references John Dehlin? Who has accused John Dehlin in covertly trying to destroy the LDS Church. While I do not shy away from writing that I find John Dehlin's works destructive towards the Church, neither I nor any LDS apologist I can think of has said John Dehlin's "real goal" is to destroy the Church. Folks at Mormon Think have said as much and, hey, isn't that who John Dehlin likes "50X" more than LDS apologists?

For convenience, I'll repost the article's link is here: http://www.deseretne...hites.html?pg=1. And that's directly tothe article itself. Tomasi linked otthe comments section where you cannot read the article until you click on another link there.

And I personally like the "Mormon counterparts" paragraph, Peterson wrote:

We know how the story of Alma and the sons of Mosiah ends. It finishes wonderfully, in redemptive divine grace. Do we know, though, how to recognize their modern counterparts? And, please, don't doubt that they exist. As President Ezra Taft Benson repeatedly insisted, the Book of Mormon was "written for our day."

If John Dehlin truly hopes for a redemption as Tomasi claims, than it's available to him as much as it was to Alma the younger and the sons of Mosiah. I just don't experiece him advocating people to prcure this real redemptive power which the Book of Mormon so plainly speaks.

Furthermore, what actually elicited Dehlin’s “creepy” comment was his discovery that his bishop had assigned a ward member (also serving as a stake high councilman) to try to join (anonymously) private chat rooms to which Dehlin belonged, in order to get more dirt. Would anyone, after finding that he or she was being spied on in this way, NOT think it was “creepy”? Of course not. That’s why Smith included the quote in his essay without any relevant context.

If accurate (I have not listened to that podcast) than, yes that would be creepy. But still Tomasi's conclusion that Dubious Mormon Stories is a hit piece rests on presumtptions.

Here’s another example of Smith’s improperly leaving out context to paint an unfair picture of Dehlin. In the section entitled “Uncorrelated Mormons” (Dubious Review at 63-70), Smith described the podcast of a conference put on by Dehlin in 2011, apparently using Dehlin quotes from the conference. I checked out the podcast and discovered that what Smith used were not statements from Dehlin’s actual speech, but words that appeared on PowerPoint slides used as part of the presentation. I suspect Smith did this because he did not want to listen to the long podcast, so he instead grabbed the slides, offered them up as quotes, and ignored the context. As anyone knows, however, PowerPoint slides in a vacuum generally are not helpful without the actual speech

Good grief that's presumtuous ten fold!!!

I find myself inadequate to comment on the podcasts since I have notl istened to them. But still, tomasi's conclusions are entirely presuptuous. I do not find this exciting or in anyway as a means to move me towards thinking anything great about Tomasi's post.

Since I lack in listening to Dehlin's podcasts (most of what i know I read from him and others who know about him) I cannot comment on many of the latter critiques in Tomasi's posts. I will say this about the Coe interview. I know a littleabout Coe and he's very anti-mormon. Adn from wha I read about Dehlin's interview with Coe, the two laughed things up to make LDS believers seems stupid and ignorant. Furthermore, Smith succeeds in pointing out how Dehlin missed great opportunities to counter Coe's false calims about archeology and the Book of Mormon. Dehlin, as he himself notes, doesn't prepare for his interviews and prides himself on that. By failing to prepare than I think John Dehlin prepares to fail in his interviews. This is especially true when someone like Coe who knows better comes makes claims which are blatantly incorrect.

There may be a point in the steel swords being separate from shields and I do like Tomasi's of Lucy Smith's first-hand account of the Nephite breastplate but I'd like a source to that and i'll look for one but not at this time.

Overall I think Tomasi's critique of Smith's crituque is presumtuous and not very convincing. I would not be surprised at all fi this is the best one out there but it doesn't move the conversation forward for me except for my wanting to learn more about the Nephite breastplate.

Edited March 9, 2013 by Darren10

[ERayR]

The review of the review from RT made me go back and read the original review again. And I came away with a different impression the second time. I realized that the motivation to attack Dehlin wasn't out of animosity but jealousy. This isn't FARMS defending themselves from Ed Decker. These are personal attacks on fellow Latter Day Saints.

Mormon Stories was growning to be quite popular with hundreds of podcasts, thousands of subscribers, regional conferences and lots of media coverage. I got the impression that since these cafeteria Mormons don't get saddled with all the intellectual baggage of limited geography, tapirs, maquahuitls, lost papyrus, prop 8, etc....their easy burden is somehow offensive to those who use those devices to retain their belief. The situation is very similar to the way Smith went after Rod Meldrum, another fellow believer, with his Often in Error, Seldom in Doubt review. Like Mormon Stores, Medrum's group was gaining popularity and getting attention. Like Dehlin, Meldrum felt that Smith's essay was a personal attack calling it "most vitriol of all the attack articles in the FARMS Review" and that his review is "is steeped in condescension and contempt".

In a way Smith is like Jeanie Bueller. You see Jeanie was Ferris's sister and she spent so much of her life upset about what her brother got away with and she didn't. The final dialogue with her in the police station explains the situation best.

Boy: What do you care if your brother ditches school?

Jeanie: Why should he get to ditch when every body else has to go?

Boy: You could ditch.

Jeanie: Yeah. I’d get caught.

Boy: So you’re pissed off because he ditches and doesn’t get caught, is that it?

Jeanie: Basically.

Boy: Basically. Then your problem is you.

Jeanie: Excuse me?

Boy: Excuse you. You ought to spend a little more time dealing with yourself, a little less time worrying about what your brother does.

Hopefully now the Maxwell Institute can spend less time attacking the way fellow Mormons embrace their religion and more time "dealing with yourself"

Phaedrus

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Oh. Were you serious?

[phaedrus ut]

My understanding is that Dr. Smith spent about two months -- not full time, of course (he's a physician and, now at least, a bishop) -- reading and gathering materials. He hasn't been maliciously "saving" things for years, compiling something like one of my Malevolent Stalker's creepy "dossiers."

Here is an example:

March 2011 (2:56 PM),https://www.facebook.com/johndehlin/posts/153090308088491

. The page has either expired or been deleted, copy in my possession

So this is a quote from 2 years ago that was deleted shortly after the exchanges happened. For the record Smith cites Dehlin's Facebook posts 45 times in his review. Many of these "deleted, copy in my possession" quotes he references were deleted long ago, don't exist in archived or cached sources, and would only be available to someone who decided to manually archive it themselves.

Phaedrus

[Pahoran]

Whether or not it's appropriate or in good taste is a matter of opinion. But I'm glad that you too recognize that Smith was making a critique of people.

Phaedrus

This is, of course, the obligatory position of Dehlin's boosters. However the fact remains that Smith was critiquing the so-called "Mormon Stories." What the founder, proprietor and prime mover of the so-called "Mormon Stories" has to say about why it exists, what he hopes to achieve thereby and how he chooses his interview subjects is, to everyone outside the anti-Mormon clique, entirely relevant to what the so-called "Mormon Stories" is and does.

Far more so than keeping track of Mister Dehlin's frequent changes of status. So he's checked himself back into his religious outpatient clinic again, has he? So what?

Regards,

Pahoran

[Louis Midgley]

This is, of course, the obligatory position of Dehlin's boosters. However the fact remains that Smith was critiquing the so-called "Mormon Stories." What the founder, proprietor and prime mover of the so-called "Mormon Stories" has to say about why it exists, what he hopes to achieve thereby and how he chooses his interview subjects is, to everyone outside the anti-Mormon clique, entirely relevant to what the so-called "Mormon Stories" is and does.

Far more so than keeping track of Mister Dehlin's frequent changes of status. So he's checked himself back into his religious outpatient clinic again, has he? So what?

Regards,

Pahoran

Pahoran has it right. Dehlin is nothing if not unstable in what he has to say. He has been saying he intends to do this and that, or close up shop. Most recently, he made frantic effort to get Richard Bushman, Phil Barlow, Terryl Givens and also Elders Holland and Jensen to block publication of an essay neither he nor his devoted followers had read. On 29 March 2012, he told me that the Brethren had looked into Greg's paper and had disapproved of it. Rubbish. What he had managed to do is pitch his so-called "survey" to them, and he thought he had them in his pocket. More recently he has faced having conversations with his Stake President, and then announced that he was attending Church services again. There has been, as far as I have seen, no verification of even this shift in behavior. And there has been no repudiation of a thing he said in that troubling interview by the Larsens. And his hostility to Professor Peterson (and me) has not ceased. Thought I am told that he takes down items from his public Facebook wall, when they become embarrassing, there has been no effort at all to jettison items going back years in which he strives to court the disaffected, hostile, sometimes rather unstable critics of the faith of Latter-day Saints. Presumably Grant Palmer is still the "incomparable" one, and "Mr. Deity" is worthy of the attention of all. Has anyone seen anything by Dehlin that recants his wild, unfounded claims about an essay he had not read but had tried hard to censor?

The most recent event in the long “Mormon Story” began when someone from the Maxwell Institute leaked a version of Greg Smith's essay to his friend in Florida, and this then allowed the dark/enigmatic “Mr. Scratch” to post portions of it on the Shades board. At that point there was no reason for the Interpreter Foundation not to make that essay, as well as its sister essay entitled "Return of the Unread Review: A Mormon Story," available to the public.

We have seen various efforts to counter that previously unavailable and hence unread essay on Dehlin's ambitious and unstable Mormon Stories business endeavor. But I am not away of any damage control that been written about Greg's sister essay, however. Dehlin and his disciples have simply ignored that essay. I wonder why.

There are other questions: what are we to make of one of his associates who recently announced on the Shades board that Dehlin is a liar (repeated over and over), and that he should nw cease his public activities and tend to his family problems? What is behind this PR problem that has arisen from within his circle of disciples? Dehlin was immediately on the Shakes board doing damage control on matters he has brought upon himself it seems with his unstable and questionable effort to make a living, among other things, posting podcasts and then holding conferences often featuring folks he fears and loathes, and perhaps depends upon for support.

[Benjamin McGuire]

It is also possible that Smith engaged a similar tactic through one Ben McGuire, a FAIR member, FARMS author, and current member of the Board of Editors for Interpreter. In November 2011 (while Smith was working on the Dubious Review), McGuire recounted to Smith (in written correspondence) an “interaction” between McGuire and Dehlin “[f]ollowing the appearance of Dehlin’s interviews with [Grant] Palmer ….” (See Dubious Review at 48-49 & nn. 154-55). The subject of the “interaction” was McGuire’s offer to appear on a Dehlin podcast and “provide some balance to the [Palmer] discussion.” (Id.). Smith noted that Dehlin did not take McGuire up on his offer (id. at 49), with Smith complaining that Dehlin didn’t allow FAIR or FARMS to respond to Palmer, even though FAIR and FARMS “have produced a large body of work that counters Palmer’s theses” (id.). We all know that “large body of work” is code for the numerous ‘hit pieces’ published about Palmer.

On November 6 or 7, 2011, McGuire provided Smith with McGuire’s written recollection of his “interaction” with Dehlin. (See Dubious Review at 48 n.154). This timing suggests that McGuire may have had his “interaction” with Dehlin at the same time Smith was working on the Dubious Review, and possibly, as with Holyoak, that McGuire engaged Dehlin to coax out new material that Smith could then use in his essay. However, the actual date of the alleged “interaction” (if it occurred in or around November 2011) is questionable because Dehlin interviewed Grant Palmer just twice – May 2006 (or, well over 5 years before McGuire sent his recollection to Smith) and February 2013 (or, well over one year after McGuire sent his recollection to Smith). Thus, it appears McGuire’s recollection to Smith (in Nov. 2011) was done well after the first Palmer podcast, bringing into question its accuracy due to the passage of time, and it did not at all relate to the later Palmer podcast in Feb. 2013 discussing Joseph Smith’s sexuality with his polygamous wives (Smith suggested erroneously, on p. 48, that McGuire’s offer to appear on a Dehlin podcast occurred after both Palmer podcasts – Smith’s own timeline shows this to be impossible).

Greg contacted me on November 5, 2011. The next day, I sent him a lengthy e-mail. Here is part of that e-mail:

John Dehlin published his podcast (IIRC) in the spring of 2006, and at some point decided he needed a response to Palmer to keep his site fair and balanced. After not succeeding in getting any responses, he asked for opinions about who might be willing, and as he wrote me, he said that he had received a couple of responses indicating that I might be interested in doing an interview. We had discussed the issue on the FAIR mailing list for a while, and at that time we had decided that FAIR (going by memory here) was not interested in formally representing. I think part of this was that FAIR really didn't want to legitimize Dehlin's new thing any more than they had to.

John and I set up a time, and I called him. We talked for an hour or two. We briefly discussed format, he explained how he dealt with concerns, let me know if I needed them, that I could have a list of questions pre-approved. In the course of our discussion, I explained to him that I was not much of an expert on Church history. The issues that I was aware of in Palmer's book, from the historical perspective, I would generally rely on what had been published (for example, Palmer's discussion of the dates, the revivals, and so on that had in my opinion been adequately addressed by others.). We then had some discussion about chapters 2 and 3, I pointed out the flaw with the Lazarus parallel and the account in the Book of Mormon that Palmer compares it to. I explained how they couldn't actually be related, and why Palmer's discussion relied on the most superficial sort of approach to sound reasonable - but that once you read the actual texts in comparison, the comparison fell apart. We discussed the Golden Pot. Then we had a bit of a discussion (and I remember this quite distinctly) where I talked about this other issue of how what Palmer was actually doing and what he was describing in his book were two very different things. Palmer spoke of environmental influences - but, when we talk about a parallel (from the Golden Pot) of a "green sward", or we discuss the significance of a many word shared phrase between the Book of Mormon account of Lamoni and the New Testament narrative of Lazarus, we aren't actually talking about environmental influence, but of deliberate theft or mimesis. Part of the problem for me (as I explained it) is that deliberate mimesis or theft, when it involves such a superficial imitation, is a hard argument to make - especially when the argument is weak to begin with.

Our discussion ended with an uncommital John Dehlin letting me know that he would get back to me if he decided I was a good fit. He never actually responded to me. I had no idea about why John didn't want to do a podcast with me on this topic until only in this last year, when John suggested that my approach was too technical for his desired audience. I felt before that (based on our discussion), and his answer didn't change my opinion much, that in reality, my response was something he himself wasn't prepared to deal with himself. He would have been much happier with a regurgitation of much of what had been published and discussed - I was something very different, and I didn't represent a version of Grant Palmer that he was comfortable discussion.

So, John first contacted me about a podcast (not the other way around). This was after he had posted in these forums and contacted FAIR looking for someone willing to do an interview. This occurred around the end of 2006 or the beginning of 2007 (long before Greg Smith decided to do an article). John and I have discussed that encounter publicly here on these boards at least once.

Ben M.

[ERayR]

Whether or not it's appropriate or in good taste is a matter of opinion. But I'm glad that you too recognize that Smith was making a critique of people.

Phaedrus

I think it more appropriate to say he was critiquing his ideas as expressed in what he wrote.