Today at 12 PM Mountain Time Mormon Stories will be discussing 2016 LDS growth developments and reviewing my article regarding
the ten most encouraging and ten most discouraging LDS growth developments in 2016. Sociologists Ryan Cragun and Rick Phillips will be participating in the podcast. Click
here to view the podcast.
For those who don't know, Mormon Stories is run by a former Mormon, John Dehlin. He is at times fair the the church-- particularly recently on issues of church growth--and at times not, given his worldview about LGBT issues. I hope the podcast was fair.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment, Michael. I just wrote a massive post about it. Check it out.http://ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com/2017/01/response-to-mormon-stories-podcast.html
ReplyDeleteI have heard several podcasts by John Dehlin over the years and while he does try to put objectivity into his I have always found it hard to accept his views on the subjects he talks about. The first such podcast that I heard, he discussed research from his masters degree work. He claimed that the conversion and deconversion processes were parallel and largely the same. He had collected about 1000 stories of people who had asked to have their names removed from the church. What he saw as parallel processes, to me sounded like the conversion process followed steps that could be summarized as faith, hope, and charity (of course meaning the Love of Christ). The deconversion process as he outlined it from his research could be summarized by Yoda as fear, anger, hate. Yes there are emotions in these steps, but they did not sound parallel to me. Each step is pretty much the opposite on the two paths.
ReplyDeleteThere are others I could mention, but I won't.
I really like the podcasts by Julianne Dehlin Hatton, who I think is his sister.
I appreciate the fact that so-called "Mormon scholars" have made this post Matt did a matter of a podcast. But from what I have read about Dehlin, I have little if any desire to listen to anything he's done. His seems to be a classic case of leaving the Church without being able to leave it alone. Church history is interspersed with tales of apostates who at times acted quite vituperatively towards the Church after their disaffection. I can understand why some may enjoy listening to his views, and I certainly wouldn't begrudge anyone the option to do so. In that sense, I applaud Matt's mention of this for that reason. However, I prefer to read actual posts done by Matt because his view of such developments is not biased. The reason I have enjoyed his posts as much as I do is his objectivity, though clearly he enjoys reporting on these developments as a faithful Latter-day Saint. I do hope that someday, each of the former members of the Church that have now turned against it might be able to be reconciled to the faith they once embraced. The accounts in Church history we have had in this regard are so inspiring. But I am getting off the track again. Thanks for reporting on this development, Matt, such as it is.
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