Dan McClellan on Mormon Stories

[Calm]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

If Dan is not "advocating against faith" in the Restored Gospel, then what, in your view, are Dehlin et al "cheering {Dan} on" in doing?  

Maybe for the same thing I cheer about Dan, his efforts to try and teach what scripture actually meant to those who wrote it.  Just because someone is a critic of the Church doesn’t mean they can’t love scholarship because they love learning.  Not every critic or follower of Dehlin has an agenda where everything they do with religious study is for the purpose of destroying the Church or people’s acceptance of it.

I don’t think that is even Dehlin’s purpose.  I see his purpose as primarily fame and fortune, criticizing the Church is a vehicle he has chosen.  I could be wrong, I am heavily biased in his case and not because he is a critic.

I know what scripture means to me, I know quite a bit of what it means to people in the here and now.  I don’t need more lessons on those, not from someone who doesn’t hold those beliefs…I don’t need a LDS telling me what Catholics or Protestants get out of the Bible, even if they are a scholar.

Otoh, I need scholars desperately if I want to attempt to know what it meant back when the original of these words were shared in that ancient faith community.  Scholars are more likely to approach those beliefs given their ability to better understand the original language and context.  Hardly a perfect system, but better imo than believing we can get there by reading and interpreting with our own biases a modern translation.

Dan makes that study very accessible.  And he is good at pointing out where people are claiming to be doing that, but aren’t.  Not the part of his work I am interested in, but I think it has great value in this political environment.  We should be questioning why others are promoting their positions.  We should be especially questioning why we promote our own and dumping false justifications.  True agency requires awareness of why we make the choices we do.  IMO, this is the primary lesson we are here in mortality to learn.

[Calm]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Also, how do you reconcile your "he never advocated against faith" thing with his statements about how he is providing "reasons for people to feel justified in not remaining faithful," and that this is - for him - the "sweet spot" and evidence that he is "probably doing something right?"

I don’t need to reconcile it since I don’t remove context, his own words, that tells me he is not trying to persuade people to alter their faith positions, whether they believe or don’t believe.

Ripping off Seeking’s effort to provide fuller context:

Quote

As long as I have supporters and detractors across the entire spectrum, I'm probably sitting in a sweet spot.  I'm probably doing something right if I'm offering reasons for people to remain faithful and reasons for people to feel justified in not remaining faithful."

I am not someone who feels we should be wearing our missionary tags 24/7 even if we need to be Saints every second we exists.  That’s not the calling every Saint holds, imo.  Our faith has multiple missions of caring for others.  At times that means proselytizing.  At times it means redemption of the dead.  At times it means looking out for others’ physical and emotional welfare.  At all times it should mean caring and compassion and valuing truth.  Valuing truth in all the fields it exists in is part of perfecting the Saints imo.  I believe Dan is doing this by sharing what he has learned through his academic studies.  I think he has chosen to exclude public declaration of his personal faith in his public teaching so as to make this scholarship accessible to the most people and to try to avoid as much as possible his work being used to hurt and control others.  Not possible to stop that from happening, even Jesus’ efforts have gotten weaponized to the extreme by many, justifying what is actually greed and arrogance by clothing it in piety, something he spoke directly against.

Edited 18 hours ago by Calm

[smac97]

11 minutes ago, Calm said:

Quote

Why, if he "has never advocated against faith," did he need to publicly declare that he is not an atheist?

Why do Latter-day Saints need to publicly declare we are Christians?

Because some segments of society go out of their way to speak for us, rather than let us speak for ourselves.

That's not the case with Dan, who has every opportunity to speak for himself.  In so speaking, he seems to be giving some (many?) people the impression that he is an atheist.

11 minutes ago, Calm said:

Because people infer all sorts of things when others don’t follow the same rules they do.  

I can go along with that.

I'm not sure it applies here, where Dan has said things that a regular person can reasonably construe as being incongruent with accepting the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.

11 minutes ago, Calm said:

They often never question the assumptions they bring to the world, so others’ behaviour can only mean certain things to them.

Yes, this can happen.

For some, though, Dan's behavior is open to interpretation (such that it does not "only mean certain things").  

11 minutes ago, Calm said:

And in Dan’s case, this often means they refuse to allow the possibility he has actual faith while approaching scripture publicly with academic methodology.

I allow the possibility that Dan "has actual faith."  Much of what he says, though, seems to give the impression that he does not have faith.  Hence his need to produce social media content to explain to his listeners that he is not an atheist.

Also, I think Dan is doing a lot more than just "approaching scripture publicly with academic methodology."  I also think Dan often uses pretensions about "the data" to smuggle in and bolster his personal opinions and presuppositions and ideological commitments.

I still watch some of Dan's content, but his social media stuff is coming across more and more as self-aggrandizing, conclusory, stirring-the-pot, politicized, click-baity, berating and dunking on amateurs, etc., and less about thoughtfully distilling and presenting the nuances and complexities of biblical scholarship to a lay audience.  That is sort of the risk you take when you make yourself a social media content creator.  Clicks count.  Edgy and provocative stuff gets clicks.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Calm]

4 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Because some segments of society go out of their way to speak for us, rather than let us speak for ourselves.

That's not the case with Dan, who has every opportunity to speak for himself.  In so speaking, he seems to be giving some (many?) people the impression that he is an atheist.

And yet here you are, speaking for him, telling us what you see him really believing, even editing his quotes so they say something they don’t say in their original form.

And that doesn’t remind you of anything?  C’mon, Smac!  You can see it when others do it.  Wake up, please.

[smac97]

38 minutes ago, Calm said:

I don’t need to reconcile it since I don’t remove context that tells me he is not trying to persuade people to alter their faith positions, whether they believe or don’t believe.

I don't do that either.  I have considered his comments in context, and find that he is subversive, in ways similar to how Dehlin behaved prior to his loss of membership.

38 minutes ago, Calm said:

Ripping off Seeking’s effort to provide fuller context:

Quote

As long as I have supporters and detractors across the entire spectrum, I'm probably sitting in a sweet spot.  I'm probably doing something right if I'm offering reasons for people to remain faithful and reasons for people to feel justified in not remaining faithful."

 

I have quoted this, and more.  Here.  Here.  Here.

I don't know that this context improves or clarifies what he seems to be bragging about, namely, that he is "offering ... reasons for people {that is, Latter-day Saints} to feel justified in not remaining faithful."  He said that on Dehlin's podcast, and now has said it on Rogan's podcast.

38 minutes ago, Calm said:

I am not someone who feels we should be wearing our missionary tags 24/7 even if we need to be Saints every second we exists.  

I don't know what you mean by "missionary tags 24/7."  And while "wearing our missionary tags 24/7" is one thing, Dan publicly - and repeatedly - bragging about "offering ... reasons for people {that is, Latter-day Saints} to feel justified in not remaining faithful," and calling this a "sweet spot" and indicative that he is "doing something right," is quite another.

I am thinking of Mosiah 18:

Quote

7 And it came to pass after many days there were a goodly number gathered together at the place of Mormon, to hear the words of Alma. Yea, all were gathered together that believed on his word, to hear him. And he did teach them, and did preach unto them repentance, and redemption, and faith on the Lord.

8 And it came to pass that he said unto them: Behold, here are the waters of Mormon (for thus were they called) and now, as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light;

9 Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life—

10 Now I say unto you, if this be the desire of your hearts, what have you against being baptized in the name of the Lord, as a witness before him that ye have entered into a covenant with him, that ye will serve him and keep his commandments, that he may pour out his Spirit more abundantly upon you?

I don't think I have ever given someone the impression that I am an atheist.  I think Dan has.  Apparently quite a lot.  Enough that he has to produce social media content to explain that he is not.

38 minutes ago, Calm said:

That’s not the calling every Saint holds, imo.  Our faith has multiple missions of caring for others.  At times that means proselytizing.  At times it means redemption of the dead.  At times it means looking out for others’ physical and emotional welfare.  At all times it should mean caring and compassion and valuing truth.  Valuing truth in all the fields it exists in is part of perfecting the Saints imo.  I believe Dan is doing this by sharing what he has learned through his academic studies.  

You really think that Dan going on Dehlin's and Rogan's podcasts and talking about how he is "offering ... reasons for people {that is, Latter-day Saints} to feel justified in not remaining faithful," and calling this a "sweet spot" and indicative that he is "doing something right," is one of the "multiple missions" of the Latter-day Saints?

38 minutes ago, Calm said:

I think he has chosen to exclude public declaration of his personal faith in his public teaching so as to make this scholarship accessible to the most people

Yes, that is possible.

38 minutes ago, Calm said:

and to try to avoid as much as possible his work being used to hurt and control others.  

I don't know what you mean here.

38 minutes ago, Calm said:

Not possible to stop that from happening, even Jesus’ efforts have gotten weaponized to the extreme by many, justifying what is actually greed and arrogance by clothing it in piety, something he spoke directly against.

Dan has repeatedly and publicly spoken about the "reasons" he is "offering" to other Latter-day Saints "to feel justified in not remaining faithful" to the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.  He has called what he is doing a "sweet spot" and indicative that he is "doing something right."

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited 18 hours ago by smac97

[Doctor Steuss]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

Why do Latter-day Saints need to publicly declare we are Christians?

Because people infer all sorts of things when others don’t follow the same rules they do.  They often never question the assumptions they bring to the world, so others’ behaviour can only mean certain things to them.  And in Dan’s case, this often means they refuse to allow the possibility he has actual faith while approaching scripture publicly with academic methodology.

The immediate thing that popped into my mind reading the statement you responded to was, "If he is an advocate against faith, why would he publicly pronounce he's a person of faith"?

I think a lot of the angst comes from the difficulty we all have compartmentalizing when a consensus/expert opinion doesn't match our own personal opinion -- so when we see someone else compartmentalizing those things (particularly, publicly), it seems unnatural and off-putting.  Which naturally brings out that rascally fundamental attribution error. 

I think we all like to convince ourselves that we live our lives as "black and white" as possible, but ultimately, we're all just getting crotchety because someone is inhabiting different shades of grey than we do.

Edited 18 hours ago by Doctor Steuss

[smac97]

34 minutes ago, Calm said:

Quote

Because some segments of society go out of their way to speak for us, rather than let us speak for ourselves.

That's not the case with Dan, who has every opportunity to speak for himself.  In so speaking, he seems to be giving some (many?) people the impression that he is an atheist.

And yet here you are, speaking for him,

I am not.  I am quoting him, verbatim, frequently, with links, and then I am responding to his quotes.  I am letting him speak for himself.

I have not imputed to him admissions that he is subverting the Church's efforts.  That is my own conclusion.

34 minutes ago, Calm said:

telling us what you see him really believing,

Not sure I have done that.  

34 minutes ago, Calm said:

even editing his quotes so they say something they don’t say in their original form.

I haven't done that either.

34 minutes ago, Calm said:

And that doesn’t remind you of anything?  C’mon, Smac!  You can see it when others do it.  Wake up, please.

I'm happy to listen to what you have to say.  I can't do much with unsubstantiated assertions.

I think some Latter-day Saints are listening to Dan, and he is saying that he is offering them reasons to abandon their faith.  Ipso facto, I think Dan's conduct along these lines is subversive.  I have explained in some detail why I have reached this conclusion, much of which includes hyperlinks and verbatim quotations.

I have also explained, many times, that I hope that I am wrong.

I don't begrudge anyone their right to free speech.  Dan is perfectly at liberty to say what he likes.  And his audience is likewise at perfect liberty to listen to what he has to say and draw inferences therefrom.  Some apparently have concluded, based on his social media content, that he is an atheist. I have found some of that content to be subversive relative to the Church and its efforts.  I may well be wrong.  I hope I am.  If I'm right, though, I think that needs to be addressed by those having authority and stewardship.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited 18 hours ago by smac97

[Calm]

9 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I am not.  I am quoting him, and then responding to his quotes.

Only part of them.  Why do you only offer up and ask me the question with half of what he says?

Quote

That is my own conclusion.

Which you support by showing the trimmed quote.

Quote

I haven't done that either.

That you can’t see it here when I see you recognizing it in others is troubling to me.

Quote

I can't do much with unsubstantiated assertions.

Please compare what you quoted when asking me to what Seeking quoted when providing context.

Quote

I have also explained, many times, that I hope that I am wrong.

I have no doubt this is true.  But it doesn’t mean you aren’t trimming a quote which changes its meaning, leaving out half of the equation.  I don’t know why you are doing this, I just see it happening.

Edited 17 hours ago by Calm

[smac97]

2 hours ago, Calm said:

Quote

If Dan is not "advocating against faith" in the Restored Gospel, then what, in your view, are Dehlin et al "cheering {Dan} on" in doing?  

Maybe for the same thing I cheer about Dan, his efforts to try and teach what scripture actually meant to those who wrote it.

Only if you ignore the context:

Quote

Dehlin asks: "Going back to the end of your employment with the Church, I could just see how all sorts of maybe even good or well-intended church leaders would say 'We gotta get Dan out of here because the implications of what he's teaching is not, in the long term, good for orthodox Mormon faith."  Dan responds:

"As long as I have supporters and detractors across the entire spectrum, I'm probably sitting in a sweet spot.  I'm probably doing something right if I'm offering reasons for people to remain faithful and reasons for people to feel justified in not remaining faithful."

Dehlin responds: "On behalf of so so many of my listeners and friends, we're all just loving what you do, in awe of it, and cheering you on."

Dan: "Well, thank you so much."

Dehlin seems to have made the same inferences I have.

2 hours ago, Calm said:

Just because someone is a critic of the Church doesn’t mean they can’t love scholarship because they love learning.  

Quit a non sequitur you have there.  Quite a mischaracterization.  

2 hours ago, Calm said:

Not every critic or follower of Dehlin has an agenda where everything they do with religious study is for the purpose of destroying the Church or people’s acceptance of it.

Another non sequitur.  I am not speaking of "every critic."  I am speaking of Dan McClellan.

I think it is incumbent upon faithful and observant Latter-day Saints to not offer reasons to other Latter-day Saints for them to abandon their faith.  That is how Dan has characterized his work, and he seems to be quite proud of it ("sweet spot," "doing something right").

2 hours ago, Calm said:

I don’t think that is even Dehlin’s purpose.  

I do.

2 hours ago, Calm said:

I see his purpose as primarily fame and fortune, criticizing the Church is a vehicle he has chosen.  I could be wrong, I am heavily biased in his case and not because he is a critic.

I think we ought to embrace the healing power of "and."  He is actively working against the Church, and he enjoys the money and notoriety that he is generating along the way.

2 hours ago, Calm said:

Otoh, I need scholars desperately if I want to attempt to know what it meant back when the original of these words were shared in that ancient faith community.  Scholars are more likely to approach those beliefs given their ability to better understand the original language and context.  Hardly a perfect system, but better imo than believing we can get there by reading and interpreting with our own biases a modern translation.

I continue to listen to Dan's content for this reason.

2 hours ago, Calm said:

Dan makes that study very accessible.  And he is good at pointing out where people are claiming to be doing that, but aren’t.  Not the part of his work I am interested in, but I think it has great value in this political environment.  We should be questioning why others are promoting their positions.  We should be especially questioning why we promote our own and dumping false justifications.  True agency requires awareness of why we make the choices we do.  IMO, this is the primary lesson we are here in mortality to learn.

I think our purpose is to exercise our agency to make good choices, choices congruent with God's will.

Dan McClellan has publicly and repeatedly made statements describing himself as providing "reasons for people {that is, Latter-day Saints} to feel justified in not remaining faithful," and that this is - for him - the "sweet spot" and evidence that he is "probably doing something right?"

I don't think that is congruent with God's will.  

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited 16 hours ago by smac97

[smac97]

12 minutes ago, Calm said:

Quote

I am not.  I am quoting him, and then responding to his quotes.

Only part of them.  

Oh, brother.  I provide links, Cal.  You and others have complained that I am too verbose, and here you are complaining that I am not including enough content.  

12 minutes ago, Calm said:

Why do you only offer up and ask me the question with half of what he says?

Because that is the half I find problematic.  

For the umpteenth time, I continue to listen to Dan, as I think he has some useful things to day.

That said, I also think he is seeking to subvert the Church's efforts.

12 minutes ago, Calm said:

Quote

That is my own conclusion.

Which you support by showing the trimmed quote.

Again, I frequently provide links.  I am quoting those things he has said which I find problematic.  

12 minutes ago, Calm said:

Quote

Quote

even editing his quotes so they say something they don’t say in their original form.

I haven't done that either.

That you can’t see it here when I see you recognizing it in others is troubling to me.

Ah.  The "if you don't know I'm not going to tell you" approach.

Feel free to present evidence that I have misrepresented Dan.  Again, I am willing to listen.  

12 minutes ago, Calm said:

Quote

I can't do much with unsubstantiated assertions.

Please compare what you quoted when asking me to what Seeking quoted when providing context.

I can't read your mind, Cal.  If you have a complaint, lay it out.  

12 minutes ago, Calm said:

Quote

I have also explained, many times, that I hope that I am wrong.

I have no doubt this is true.  But it doesn’t mean you aren’t trimming a quote which changes its meaning,

Please show me where.

12 minutes ago, Calm said:

leaving out half of the equation.  

Oi.  

12 minutes ago, Calm said:

I don’t know why you are doing this, I just see it happening.

I suspect that you are equating A) disagreement with you to B) me not "seeing" what I am doing.  It may well be that I am not misrepresenting Dan.  I am, however, willing to listen to what you have to say.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Calm]

2 hours ago, smac97 said:

can't read your mind, Cal.  If you have a complaint, lay it out. 

I think I have been very clear what my issue is with your approach in the last several posts.  I have focused on one instance to avoid confusion and the need or inclination to fill in gaps.

Maybe I will put it through Chat when I get home since you seem comfortable with it.

But since I am waiting in a doctor’s office, I will resort to a math analogy for now.

Dan says something (see the full quote) that could be framed as -1 + +1, where negative 1 is the fact that there are those who see his stuff as supporting lack of faith and positive 1 is for those who see his stuff as supporting their faith.  (This is obvious with the premise faith is positive, which is not the precise premise I work with but seems to be the one you are using, feel free to correct me if I misunderstood and you do not see a loss of faith as a negative without much nuance.)

Taken together, such an equation results in a balance, a neutral position.  But if someone removes the -1 from the full equation and points to that as if it exists independently of the other half of the equation, people would assume the equation total is -1, where the negative is only supports loss of faith.

But is that an accurate portrayal of the actual equation of -1 + +1 in your view?

[Rain]

3 hours ago, Calm said:

Maybe for the same thing I cheer about Dan, his efforts to try and teach what scripture actually meant to those who wrote it.  Just because someone is a critic of the Church doesn’t mean they can’t love scholarship because they love learning.  Not every critic or follower of Dehlin has an agenda where everything they do with religious study is for the purpose of destroying the Church or people’s acceptance of it.

I don’t think that is even Dehlin’s purpose.  I see his purpose as primarily fame and fortune, criticizing the Church is a vehicle he has chosen.  I could be wrong, I am heavily biased in his case and not because he is a critic.

I know what scripture means to me, I know quite a bit of what it means to people in the here and now.  I don’t need more lessons on those, not from someone who doesn’t hold those beliefs…I don’t need a LDS telling me what Catholics or Protestants get out of the Bible, even if they are a scholar.

Otoh, I need scholars desperately if I want to attempt to know what it meant back when the original of these words were shared in that ancient faith community.  Scholars are more likely to approach those beliefs given their ability to better understand the original language and context.  Hardly a perfect system, but better imo than believing we can get there by reading and interpreting with our own biases a modern translation.

Dan makes that study very accessible.  And he is good at pointing out where people are claiming to be doing that, but aren’t.  Not the part of his work I am interested in, but I think it has great value in this political environment.  We should be questioning why others are promoting their positions.  We should be especially questioning why we promote our own and dumping false justifications.  True agency requires awareness of why we make the choices we do.  IMO, this is the primary lesson we are here in mortality to learn.

Reading the book Misreading Scripture Through Western Eyes opened my eyes to this need. How can you really hold to the teachings of a book if you don't understand what the author means? Obviously, Dan doesn't know it all and probably has some things wrong, but he could be one of the tools people use to gain understanding.

[Calm]

2 hours ago, Rain said:

Reading the book Misreading Scripture Through Western Eyes opened my eyes to this need. How can you really hold to the teachings of a book if you don't understand what the author means? Obviously, Dan doesn't know it all and probably has some things wrong, but he could be one of the tools people use to gain understanding.

I had long ago realized the issue with reading modern day family relationships into ancient scriptures and not just because they were willing to have laws stoning their children for disrespecting even if they didn’t use them much or at all.  Also community needs and endurance over the individual needs.  But the client-patron relationship I hadn’t factored in and certainly don’t have the background or depth needed to do that decently.  Had quite a few aha moments over what was being said about God with that.

[california boy]

On 10/12/2026 at 3:28 PM, smac97 said:

I give Dan very little thought outside the few threads on this board about him, but "the facts" are there.  He is saying things about the Church that are, in my view, subversive.  From the first link:

Same goes for his public comments about the divinity of Jesus Christ.

I think this is subversive stuff, coming as it is from a self-identified Latter-day Saint.

Per this video, Dan apparently felt it necessary to explain that he is "not an atheist."  It looks, then, like what he says, publicly, on social media and to podcasters like Joe Rogan and, earlier John Dehlin, is not facially congruent with what most folks expect Latter-day Saints to say.  And not just in my view, but for a sufficient number of persons that he felt this public explanation was necessary.  A person with a substantial Social Media presence who has to go out of his way to declare that he is "not an atheist" may well be someone who is giving a lot of people the impression that he is an atheist.

In the same video, posted a few months ago, he says he is an "active member" of the Church.  I am quite willing to take that at face value.  Subversion is, after all, something that happens from within.  But again, that he has to go out of his way to say that he is an active member of the Church may be indicating that he is giving no small number of listeners the impression that he is not active, or that he is active-but-not-believing.

He deliberately and specifically declares his personal beliefs "have nothing to do" with the "scholarship" he shares on social media.  I have noted, quite a few times now, how I think Dan is doing quite a bit more than merely purveying "scholarship."  I also don't really buy the "nothing to do" line, as I think he has his ideological presuppositions and commitments along with the rest of us.

He also goes on to say it is "embarrassing" to other people who say that he is an "apologist" for the Church or the Book of Mormon.  By no means do I take him to be an "apologist," that is, "a person who speaks, writes, or argues in formal defense of a specific belief, institution, doctrine, or political system."  When he does speak about the Church and its doctrines - particularly the divinity of Christ and the revelatory provenance of the Book of Mormon, he certainly does not advance a faith-promoting viewpoint, but he has said quite a bit that seems calculated to demote faith.

Nor do I accept his "Hey, I'm just an impartial scholar, objectively doling out 'data' like some sort of bearded Pez-dispenser" line.  Again, I think he is doing a lot more than doling out scholarship.  Again, he has his ideological presuppositions and commitments along with the rest of us.

Right.  He professes to be both an "active Latter-day Saint" and publicly declaring - repeatedly now - that he is "offering ... reasons for people to feel justified in not remaining faithful" in the Church.  I see that as subversion, don't you?

I think what Dan is saying is subversive.  "Objective" is hard in an explicitly religious setting, but what he is saying sure sounds subversive (see the above bullet list, and his publicly-declared happiness that he is "offering ... reasons for people to feel justified in not remaining faithful" in the Church).

As an observant and fairly well-informed Latter-day Saint, I have listened to Dan and find many of his comments to be subversive.  I say this not because I want to insult him as a person, but to note what he has said publicly.

John Dehlin, Natasha Helfer, Jeremy Runnells, Denver Snuffer, Sam Young, Kate Kelly, and many others have sought to subvert the Church while ostensibly members of the Church.  If that is what Dan is doing, he wouldn't be the first one.

I have not done this.  Anyone who engaged in sexual misconduct, as a criminal matter, should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.

I find the sexual licentiousness of the events of that night be terrible.  I think influences like Hookup Culture and sociological defects in the Greek System have contributed to this, but in the end each adult must be held responsible for his or her own conduct.

I surely would like to see Dan as not merely an "active" Latter-day Saint, but as a sincere and believing and observant one.  His public pronouncements about the divinity of Jesus Christ are pretty hard to square with that.  I don't see him as an advocate for the Church and its most fundamental tenets.  To the contrary, he has said quite a bit to tear down those tenets, particularly as to the divinity of Jesus Christ and the revelatory provenance of the Book of Mormon. 

Thanks,

-Smac

If you only want to hear stories based on faith, then listen to General Conference,  They will tell you if you just pay your tithing, then even though you couldn't afford new shoes when you didn't pay your tithing, you now will be able to because of your faith.  But the data doesn't support that.  If you want to hear about 3 Nephites that have been alive since the days of Christ, then got to sunday school.  But the data doesn't support that possibility. If you want to hear about how the Book of Mormon was an ancient record revealed by magic stones in a hat, then look to the Church.  But the data doesn't support that.

In essence you seem to be upset because Dan is not giving a sunday school lesson or a conference talk or a faith promoting story about the Book of Mormon.  He is giving you a scholarly evaluation of those things.  You want him to no longer be a Biblical scholar and only want him to sit in the back of the chapel listening to faith promoting stories.  They are two entirely different objectives.  Scholars are not in the business of only telling faith promoting stories.  They are interested in context and digging into who said what when and why. If you want to just read the scriptures and ask the General Authorities what they mean, listen to conference.  If you want to know the context, what the language meant at the time, how that cross references with known historical data of the time, etc, then listen to Dan.  Your choice.  But don't make Dan out to be a villain for just doing his job.

 

[Calm]

53 minutes ago, california boy said:

You want him to no longer be a Biblical scholar and only want him to sit in the back of the chapel listening to faith promoting stories.  They are two entirely different objectives.

My guess is most LDS interested in scholarship but who find the faith promoting stuff as important or even more important for some, don’t want only the faith promoting stuff.  It’s too easy to ignore scholarship if that is all they want, imo.  Why should they bother with it.  They want to hear the scholarship along with a heartfelt acceptance of belief in the faith.  My husband is one of those.  He loves to hear me relate what I have learned about history.  I don’t need to tell the faith promoting stuff because he knows I have a solid belief and he knows I often explore possibilities based on faith even when I talk about the warts.  However, he didn’t like Rough Stone Rolling.  He judged Bushman in this text as trying to be all things to all people, people pleaser in essence.  He preferred his earlier book, JS and beginnings of Mormonism and was expecting more of that.  Btw, it was his rather conservative father who gave out RSR to all his children (8 of them).  I was impressed as previous years it was a Gerald Lund book.

However, my husband has never judged even those more critical as “subversive” when they have stated they are members who care about the community.

FAIR has gotten trashed a lot for not being faithful enough, for catering to the intellectual crowd, for contributing to people’s loss of belief.  I feel bad they can’t see the possibility of being more open about the negatives in history and evidence doesn’t have to be faith demoting and very grateful this doesn’t stop FAIR from putting stuff up, even with warts, to defend the Church.  And defending the Church need not include pretending it’s all butterflies and unicorns.  Or altering science to fit our preconceptions.  One can be a faithful Saint and believe in evolution!!!  We are not apostates or sheep in wolves clothing even if there are Saints, probably good, devout Saints (with a rather skewed view of reality in my view 😛 ) proclaiming so. 

Many others (better informed and reasonable  ) have expressed gratitude that we have helped them come to a greater faith, stayed strong in faith even when dear family members have tried to persuade them to doubt.  Sounds like the sweet spot to me. 

I don’t compare Dan’s work to FAIR’s own since our mission is to defend the Church and his is to present the academic scholarship and demonstrate what scripture does and does not say in the context of the the early faith communities.  We can take his and other scholars’ work and use it where appropriate to help our own mission (Ben Spackman is a great example of this, imo), but that doesn’t mean he needs to tailor it to our mission or the Church’s any more than a guy who sells cars need to.  Keeping to a standard of honesty and a desire to find and teach truth and understanding seems quite sufficient to me.  I think he is reaching a much greater audience than FAIR ever will and that is good because he is sharing good information about scripture, helping many desire to study them more deeply.

Dan Peterson has said stuff that in my view is along the same lines as DanMcClellan, only it’s God hitting the sweet spot in the evidence he allows for our faith.  If it’s okay for God, not sure why it should be an issue for Dan M.

Quote

Does the evidence for the claims of Mormonism reach such a level that it should compel belief in the minds of the intellectually honest?  I don’t think so.  I think there are legitimate grounds for doubt.

Does the evidence against the claims of Mormonism reach such a mass that continued belief is only possible at the expense of intellectual integrity?  Again, I don’t think so.  I hear this claim from time to time, but I believe it to be too confident by several light years.

The claims of Mormonism are, I think, right about where they’re supposed to be:  Not so obviously true as to coerce acceptance, and not so obviously false as to make acceptance illegitimate.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/04/evidence-and-proof.html

Edited 9 hours ago by Calm

[Calm]

From a Mormonstories interview of Dan’s:

Quote

When I get up in the morning and think what I'm going to do the day, at no point have I ever had the goal to try to destroy anybody's faith, to try to hurt anybody's feelings, to try to do anything like that. My goal has always been to try to share knowledge, to share data. And I think there are absolutely folks out there who are engaged in what I would call destructive and corrosive representations of the Bible and the data regarding the Bible. And I want to challenge that not because I think those are necessarily bad people or because I just want to score some rhetorical points, but because I think a more objective, a more honest, a more informed perspective on the Bible could go a long way towards healing a lot of the social ills that we are experiencing today, and particularly in the United States.

Smac, do you believe Dan is lying here when he states he has no intent, no “goal” to try and destroy anyone’s faith?

Edited 8 hours ago by Calm

[Calm]

Dan came to the Church as an adult, at the age of 20, then went on a mission.  I can see how that could very much influence his approach to his personal faith.

https://www.relationscapes.org/p/mcclellan-transcript/

Quote

 

And so I was exploring different philosophies, different religions, read the Bhagavad Gita, read a bunch of other texts, poked around in the Bible for a little bit and thought, this is a weird text. But it was a series of events that led me to be baptized in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the LDS Church, the Mormon Church, when I was 20 years old.

And then a year later I left to serve a two-year proselytizing mission in Uruguay. And in that year I decided I needed to—I had a lot of catching up to do with the other folks who were going to be serving with me as missionaries. And so I decided to read the entire Bible and then all of the uniquely LDS scriptures.

Quote

I love the Bible. I think it has a lot of wonderful, wonderful things in it. However, I think we also need to take it on its own terms and acknowledge that there are plenty of things that are not so wonderful and many things that are just straight up bad in the Bible. And if we don't let it operate on its own terms, we're not really giving priority to the Bible as an authority.

We are imposing our own terms on it and compelling the Bible to fit whatever terms we bring to it. And I see there's a role for that in a lot of religiosity, but it's just not the way I have ever approached the Bible. One of the artifacts of joining the LDS Church as a 20-year-old reasonably well-educated person is that I did not come into the LDS Church with a lot of simplistic binary ideas about how the world worked, how I worked, how the Bible works.

I came into it just bringing in the perspectives that I have always had. And so I've always kind of approached these things, these texts, as things that are products of human industry, things that are not free from error and ideology and things like that. And no one ever disabused me of that within the LDS Church.

And I'm sure in no small part because the LDS Church doesn't really have a formal doctrine of inerrancy, and certainly not for the Bible….

And so no one ever sat me down and said, look, here's how you have to think about all of this.

Most of the sitting down and instructing on things was related to other things. And so I've always just approached it as I'm going to let it operate on its own terms, even if I don't agree with it. And so that's always come natural to me. And then when I got into formal education on the Bible and graduate education and a PhD on the Bible, that was all just constantly being reaffirmed by the things I was learning, the resources I was gaining, the skills I was developing.

I love that he teaches the Bible this way because he wants to respect its authority.  I think he is spot on there.

And his comments about his experience in the Church is what I would expect.

[Calm]

Quote

But at the same time, as I said, I came into the church as a critical thinker in a lot of ways and have never really been disabused of that stuff. That critical thinking has kind of been a through line in my relationship with the Bible all through my membership in the LDS Church.

And so I have never experienced, I don't think, the process of deconstruction that a lot of people are going through, particularly the people who reach out to me for help. I am not a deconstruction guru. I'm not going to be a good therapist for anybody who wants to know how they can maintain faith while also engaging critically with the Bible.

It makes even more sense why he avoids sharing his personal experiences or placing himself as someone who can show how to maintain faith while studying the Bible critically (in an academic sense).  His was an atypical exposure coming to the Church already set in a critical methodology and never was pressured by the Church in his view to change his approach.  It seems he doesn’t see his experiences as relating much to most of those who have issues with doubt.  And I am guessing he doesn’t want to wing it, he seems too careful in finding evidence/data for his public behaviour.  He hasn’t had training as a counselor in faith or anything else, so he refuses to take on that role even when others want him to do that.

To me that is respectful.  He doesn’t appoint himself an authority even when others are urging him to do so.  Very much not subversive or manipulative in my view.  
 

And I am glad to see his employers and church leaders understand his choice of boundaries and accept them as a valid position for a faithful member (since he was employed by them)

”

 I was able to say, "Hey, here are the boundaries of what I'm doing on social media." And this is part of my professional training. This is part of, even to some degree, what I did for the church: critically examine the linguistics and all of this and try to guide translators in interpreting and then translating not just the Book of Mormon, but also the Bible.

And so, yes, when people would call in and complain about me and I had to go talk with folks, it was always, "Here are the boundaries." And they said, "Look, as long as you stay within those boundaries, we're good." And because those were the boundaries that I established initially on my own for my channel, I didn't really have any trouble with that.

And so, no, I've not faced any kind of ecclesiastical discipline or anything like that. And then also, while I was an employee of the church, I also ran for the state legislature twice as a Democrat, which meant there's an additional dimension in which I'm operating in a kind of parachurch capacity.

I'm doing things that normally members of the church are probably not totally comfortable doing. But, you know, if you're running for office, it wouldn't really be above board for a church to be like, "How dare you defend the legality of abortion and things like that?" And so as a biblical scholar, I think I was doing the same. Look, this is my job.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

DAN MCCLELLAN: This is my side hustle, let's put it that way. But I'm a professional. I need to be able to act as a professional in doing that job. And everybody was okay with that.”

 

Edited 8 hours ago by Calm