Posted on 02/12/2015 12:20:33 PM PST by Colofornian
SALT LAKE CITY- A Mormon man who gained notoriety over the past decade for running a website that offers doubting Latter-day Saints a forum to chat has been kicked out of the religion.
John Dehlin announced the decision from regional church leaders Tuesday.
He becomes the second high-profile church member to be excommunicated in the past year in what Mormon scholars consider to be the Utah-based faith's way of keeping dissenters in line.
Regional church leaders in North Logan told Dehlin in a letter that they made a unanimous decision to excommunicate him for apostasy. The church defines apostasy as repeatedly acting in clear public opposition to the faith.
(Excerpt) Read more at fayobserver.com ...
(Hey, nothing like a dissenter dust-up to potentially draw THOUSANDS of people to the dissenter's website!)
So...for those who'd like to visit & listen to John Dehlin's podcasts...and, please, be selective ...some are good...and the social issues' ones off-base.
SALT LAKE CITY- A Mormon man who gained notoriety over the past decade for running a website that offers doubting Latter-day Saints a forum to chat has been kicked out of the religion. John Dehlin announced the decision from regional church leaders...Regional church leaders in North Logan told Dehlin in a letter that they made a unanimous decision to excommunicate him for apostasy.
#1...ALL of those "regional church leaders" in Logan -- where Dehlin was a Mormon church member -- are lay people.
#2...given the national media coverage the church knew that this excommunication would elicit, 'twas no way it was a decision made at the "regional" or local level...by fellow "lay people."
#3...this is born out in the very location of the story...the first words out of the shoot in this article reads "Salt Lake City."
Dehlin didn't live in SLC; and the supposed excommunicators were in Logan, which is NOT a suburb of SLC and is, in fact, over 80 miles away.
So, the Mormon Church's transparency-by-gaffe attempt to make this out to be some "local" decision shows itself to be a farce, which is itself scandalous of its general authorities in SLC. This was not only evident in articles like this thread, but was shown in Wednesday's article that ran in two Lds-owned media venues -- KSL.com and The Deseret News.
The article -- see Mormon Stories founder Dehlin's spread of 'false concepts' results in excommunication from LDS Church -- ran in both outlets and carried, therefore, the same spin...
In those articles, it claimed from an Lds HQ "statement" -- which was a very minor part of the article and was buried in the article -- that "church discipline is a local issue"
Otherwise, the piece from the get-go took great pains to present the whole thing as "local" very early in the article...
..."his LOCAL church leader..."
..."North Logan Utah stake president..." (Dehlin's stake)
and then the local "council" this and "council" that...
YET the author Tad Walch -- gave a "giveaway clue" to the whole thing.
Like this article in the Fayetteville Observer, Walch and his editors gave the dateline location as "Salt Lake City" -- even though the actions were supposedly about what a North Logan stake president and his North Logan "council" "decided."
Why would "Salt Lake City" be the epicenter of this article?
There'd be no need for that...unless, of course, the Lds general authorities were 100% running the show from "Salt Lake City!"
Ethics' lesson: When Lds general authorities aren't "ethical" and show integrity about basic facts of who's doing the decision-making...
...when they sign off on PR-pieces-masquerading -as-news-articles that carry a "Salt Lake City" acknowledgement -- therefore partially unveiling who's really pushing the buttons while otherwise totally undermining the narrative thrust of the PR piece...
...yet when they fail then in trying to slouch this decision off as one in the proper chain of command...
...it goes beyond farcical
Grassroots Mormons -- if they had any sense of accountability -- should demand that heads should roll unless greater transparency comes out of Salt Lake City.
(Don't look for that anytime soon in hierarchical Utah, especially coming after a grassroots "dissenter's" dismissal)
in before the flood of people who mistake you for a current mormon.
the guy deserved to be excommunicated.
Not for righteous unbelief, but for supporting women priests and homosexual marriage and other ills.
May I have the ‘throwing size rocks’ monopoly in Utah for the next week?
PLEEEZE!
Beats the Muslim punishment for apostasy.
I think the question is why didn’t he have the integrity to have quit something he doesn’t believe in?
Now if only the Catholic Church would bother to do such.
At least the Mormons stay consistent to their values.
The Catholics used to but not anymore in this day and age.
#1...the lds church made it VERY CLEAR in their statements that priesthood/same sex marriage, etc. wasn't involved in excommunication reasoning.
#2...even on "women priests"...Lds doesn't have any professional priesthood...they let 12yo boys be "aaronic priests" for crying outloud...!!!
If kids can be a 'priest' in the Lds church...women aren't a stretch!
When I realized I no longer believed, I just walked away. No press conference, no spectacle, just gone.
At least the Mormons stay consistent to their values. —
Not so much - Changed the ‘inspiration’ of blacks in the preisthood, and polygamy, and other stuff.
Not so much - Changed the ‘inspiration’ of blacks in the preisthood, and polygamy, and other stuff. [scrambler bob]
Exactly.
Lds say polygamy fine for "eternal marriage" even NOW...yet supposedly NOT fine for temporarl marriage...
Lds said polygamy fine for some families in 20th century; but NOT fine for most new unions in 20th century
Lds said polygamy fine in latter half of 19th century; but NOT fine in first half of 19th century.
What kind of a "god" is so wishy-washy?
Plenty of people who enjoy being a "cultural American"...yet gave up in believing traditional American values long ago.
Same thing here...Dehlin deems himself a "cultural" Mormon...
In a broad sense of the word, Lds actually think ALL of us non-Mormons are "apostates"...descendants of those who "apostatized" from Jesus' church as part of a "universal apostasy"...
In this way, Lds treats Christians in the exact same way as Muslims do...
Muslims call Christians "infidels"...
Lds call Christians "apostates"...
Lds has more in common with Islam than it does Christianity.
Good thing he’s not on FR.
Blog Pimps and all.
What kind of a “god” is so wishy-washy? —
Kind of like that moHAMmed, and the re-interpreted craporan.
Moslems cut the throats of apostates.
OH WAIT! MORMONS were supposed to do that too! Sins that were so horrible (to the Mormon Mind) were to be cleansed by the spilling of the sinner’s blood.
Now they use a firing squad.
LOL
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