- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
I get a bit nervous when disciplinary actions and church leaders begin to be talked about on this site … where it opens up debate for people to take sides on whether the church leaders should be doing what they are or not. It is not our place to judge the church leaders … however, we can provide support for those going through difficult situations with church leaders that may or may not act the way we’d want them to based on 2nd or 3rd hand accounts. We need to keep to the mission of the website. We don’t need to incite panic that keeps people away from this forum for fear of big brother watching and excommunicating bloggers. Should we remind posters to the thread not to attack church leaders directly? How should we best direct/moderate that thread to keep it positive and supportive?On the other hand, cwald’s SP behavior is interesting to me, and is not what I’d expect (and I assume it is because I don’t have the whole story)…and cwald is jumping to conclusions that it is related to John D’s recent meetings. This is something I wonder if John could help provide some info on to squelch fears or hypotheticals around. Would John be able to share if there is any real fear from church leaders, or any witch hunting going on? More info helps.
Do we need any statements on the website that we are not affiliated with any such “Middle Way” groups, or any other movement?
I made one attempt to reign in the “witch hunt” conspiracy theories being insinuated. Does that suffice for the thread, or do we moderate further? Great job steering the conversation a bit Heber13. Thanks for watching this. I threw in a comment too. I feel OK about the thread. I think it is productive, and Cwald needs our support. I think he is processing this very sad and unfortunate experience in a spiritually mature and admirable way. As always, let’s keep an eye on things. I am comfortable with the thread though.
I had the same concern when some of the comments started to get into what I think was over-reaction, but I like the way it went when you stepped in. I really like that cwald himself started defending his SP and the general leadership. We’ll see how it goes, but I am ok with it right now – knowing I commented here before reading the newest comments on that thread.
Still lots of insinuations being used on cwald’s thread. I can understand certain leaders in specific areas not understanding us and calling us a cult unto ourselves … or an apostate group … but I am not comfortable with statements like
cwald wrote:My association on this board, is considered to be apostate behavior from the leadership in the Logan/Franklin county stakes. That is a fact.
I still don’t think it is a fact. I think it is a specific situation related to cwald raised by his family, unless others know something else more definitive.Now that it has been posted, I don’t think we can lock the thread or shut it down or delete it. But it needs to be addressed so people lurking don’t go away from the site or hesitate to join the forum. Our image is important.
Is it better to remove the “Middle Way” words, especially the ones in capital letters, from the site and the essay … distancing ourselves from any association with groups that may be adopting this?
Can’t lock the thread down now. People all over on other sites and in FaceBook have been linking to it. It would be a PR disaster. I believe that Cwald has a brother who is a SP in Cache Valley, and I believe that Cwald’s brother probably is freaked out about his sibling’s participation in anything that is not an official church site. So that probably makes it a fact that at least 1 person in high leadership in Cache Valley thinks we are apostates.
Actually, I hope he didn’t mistakenly visit StayLDS.
ORG. One of these days if we can ever raise about $3,000 I would love to file a complaint against that jerk for cyber-squatting to damage our site. I did some investigations, and that’s about the cost of filing a complaint with the domain registry arbitrators. I actually was going to ask the same question about the essay and the post. I am in favor of it, personally. What do the rest of you think?
I can understand editing the caps so that it is not a proper noun, a name for a philosophy or potentially a “movement.” Eliminating the words might be a pain. We would have to come up with another set of words that means the same thing. At what point are we chasing our tail in circles? We are talking about a belief that is somewhere between the opposite poles of total belief in everything, and total belief that it is all false and damaging. What do you call the people in between? It is the middle…
Quote:Actually, I hope he didn’t mistakenly visit StayLDS. ORG.
That is a very valid question. I would agree with anyone in Cache Valley stating StayLDS.org is apostate.
However, cwald is referencing the fact they are monitoring the discussions and threads. That doesn’t sound like StayLDS.ORG
FWIW, I pointed that out in my recent addition to the thread. I also posted an open invitation to talk to me via phone for any leader that might be concerned about us. I have no problem discussing what we do. Communication is a fantastic disinfectant that cures toxic misconceptions. I’m curious if some of the concern about Middle-way Mormons [pun ?-Chuurch of … MWMs ??] could be coming from John’s recent podcast from NY where he talks about starting a network of support groups for uncorrelated Mormons. My real suspicion is that this might be somewhat related to John Larsen, the creator of the Mormon Expression podcast, actually be starting a new church. He was a long-time NOM / middle-way type. Link:
http://thelivingcommunity.org/ I think he recently moved from North Carolina to Utah, the specific neck of the woods out there were all this freak-out seems to be happening. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is tied into it somehow.
That dude has balls of steel, man! And that is the REAL type of action that gets the Church all worked up and defensive. Sites like ours? not so much. We aren’t a movement. We’re just a bunch of disorganized people whining about stuff (their perception).
Brian Johnston wrote:I have no problem discussing what we do. Communication is a fantastic disinfectant that cures toxic misconceptions.
toxic misconceptions also produce a flurry of fun activity
😈 did you check out the view count and post count for cwald’s thread??? That must be a record.Little controversy makes things interesting, huh? As long as we watch it carefully and keep directing the thoughts about who we are and what we do and what are NOT
Brian, nice post on contacting you if anyone wants to. I was gonna leave a similar post that anyone who thinks we are apostate can contact me at
BITEME@StayLDS.com , but yer post sounded nicer!.Thank you, Heber, for not posting that e-mail address. 😆 😮 😯 
😳 :crazy: 🙄 :wtf: – and every other imaginable emoticonRegistration activity is way up too. There’s no such thing as bad PR, or so they say in Hollywood.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.