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“Bart” has been posting his link to the perfection checklist on lots of Bloggernacle sites the past couple of days. He also has gotten into it on Jeff Lindsay’s blog, “Mormanity” – and he’s commenting just like a “grace alone, Mormons are cultists because they believe they have to do things” evangelical. He even said that Mormons have a limiting view of salvation, since not being exalted was the equivalent of damning everyone to Hell. I was much more blunt than usual, mostly because he essentially is now spamming the Bloggernacle with his link and bashing the LDS Church openly and quite condescendingly – and because he won’t admit that many of the things on his Pharisee list are from the Bible and should apply to every Christian denomination. He’s using Biblical injunctions to show that Mormonism is a uniquely Pharisaical sect, and that hypocrisy just rankles. Just thought I would let everyone know.
Wow. Good to know that background. He seemed to tone it down quite a bit here, but something we should make sure doesn’t develop and stir things up. Thanks for the heads up. I think he didn’t get the reaction, overall, that he expected here. Everyone was nice, and we had a good thread about it, but it wasn’t the “you’re so right; the LDS Church is horrible” conversation I think he expected. I think our conversation here was OK. I was a little worried when he asked to join the site to comment on the list, but he seemed to be relatively decent about the direction it went here. Let’s keep an eye on things. Our site is our site. I don’t really want to get into the business of policing people’s comments on other sites. I’ll send him a PM just to let him know our concerns, to give him a heads up. Perhaps that will head things off before we have to do any post-comment moderating work.
He sent me the following private message: Quote:I’m sorry for my sarcasm. I’m new to this forum & don’t know all the rules.
I will be more careful.
In the future, if you want to correct me, please do it by a “Private Message”.
When I look at this web site, there is no clear purpose.
As a result, it cries out for sarcasm.
Mike Brown
I was quite direct in my response, mostly to see how he would respond:
Quote:I would have corrected you in private, frankly, but your sarcasm was public – so I decided to respond publicly.
As for the lack of explicit rules, you ought to appreciate that, I would think – not slam it and say it cries out for sarcasm. (Yes, that was sarcastic – and I typed it only to make a point. I”m smiling as I type this, not upset in any way, but I’m sure it didn’t come across that way.)
Please, before you continue to comment, read through a bunch of our posts on other topics. You’ll get a much better feel for the tone and nature of this site and our purpose that way. You’ll see that sarcasm just isn’t what we do.
If it helps at all, the central issue is that when someone enters a community and only comments on one thread, and the comments in that thread are a bit combative, red flags go up. The admins here, of whom I am one, have to be aware of the possibility of “trolls” coming here just to sow discord, since that happens too regularly. Therefore, when we read things that might indicate a troll, we have to walk a fine line in trying to figure out what the purpose of the new commenter is. It’s not easy, but we have to do it in order to preserve the “spirit” we want at the site.
Fwiw, I was serious in my other comments about your list. I really do appreciate the effort it took to compile it – but I also don’t see it as a totally legitimate list, and I simply reject, personally, the idea that we don’t have to do “all we can do” if we are trying to be committed disciples of Jesus. I see “all we can do” VERY differently than many (most) members, since I don’t believe in or like a “checklist” approach – but I just can’t accept, personally, a view that eliminates real effort after acceptance of grace.
I hope this helps you understand why I wrote what I did – and, frankly, it was as much to see how you would respond (sincerely and humbly or combatively) as anything else.
That might have been a bit harsh, but I really do want to see the tone and attitude he takes in response – and I thought it was SO ironic that he mentioned the lack of rules as a bad thing. Very instructive, actually.
Hey Ray, I’m a little confused. Did you get names mixed up? The author of the checklist is the new user named “afterallwecando.” That guy “Mike” has been on the site for a little while, and I didn’t think we were having a problem with him.
I haven’t seen any of the arguments elsewhere, so I don’t know how contentious your experience has been outside of StayLDS. It still seemed to me like the discussion in our forums was going OK, and we were discussing a topic that affects a lot of people who go through the whole faith crisis experience.
Yeah, maybe I did. I’ll go back and re-read the thread and see if I got it wrong – addressed to the wrong person. If so, I’ll apologize directly.
Yeah, Brian, you were right. I didn’t pay attention to the name and thought he was the checklist guy. 😳 I just apologized to him.Mike made a point about Bart’s site that I’m going to research a bit. I’ll let you know what I find.
Cool. Thanks Ray! The guy (afterallwecando) seems to be engaging in a meaningful discussion. Don’t activate the nuclear option yet
Yeah, I’m backing away a bit. I like how he responded to the comments after my initial “probe”. We’ll see if he admits that his own list is a more than a bit Pharisaical in its interpretation of Mormon Pharisee-ism. 
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