My Sunstone Presentation on the Bloggernacle

Thanks again to all of you who provided me thoughts and feedback on my Sunstone bloggernacle presentation.

 For those who asked….here are 2 links:


It may be a bit weird to try to synchronize the PPT with the audio…and there may be things I talk about in the presentation that you can’t see….but hopefully you’ll get the idea.  :) 

Please let me know where I got it wrong…or right.  I hope I adequately conveyed how cool and important I think you all are….

I look forward to your feedback.

John>

22 comments

  2. John Dehlin

    Dude…you’re right. That totally blows chunks. I feel like crud about that. You’ve been a super strong support/help.

    I’m gonna have to figure out a way to atone.

    Sorry, man. TOTALLY my bad.

    Mark my words…I will make it up to you. :)

  10. Pingback: Times & Seasons » The Deep Meaning of the Bloggernacle (Abridged)

  11. Justin B.

    I enjoyed listening to your interesting presentation, John. Are you planning to do similar presentations at Salt Lake or Sunstone West next year?

    It might be worth noting the presence of ex-Mormon blogs on the web. I’ve seen a few, such as Mormon Curtain (which culls its material from exmormon.org and other blogs), Mormon Truth, and Trapped by the Mormons. However, it doesn’t appear that any of the well-known anti-Mormon ministries/figures have turned to blogging. (Actually, James White does say things about Mormonism on his blog at times.)

  12. Justin B.

    I also thought of another angle: blogs devoted to Mormon apologetics. Off the top of my head, I can only think of Mormanity (which draws a mixed crowd), but there may be others.

  13. Samuel

    Hey Justin B, thanks for mentioning the “Mormon Curtain” and my bolg, “Mormon Truth”, at “Mormontruth.blogspot.com.” I think that the Mormon Curtain is great and I also have a subject heading there, listed under Mormon Truth.

    My blog is one of the many passions in my life at the moment. It will only continue to grow thanks to all the people that read it and email me with their thanks plus my own deep seeded passions, that motivate me to keep it going strong.

    I agree that these EXMO sites should be mentioned at the next Sunstone meeting, but I also understand that these aren’t the type of sites that most of the people at Sunstone are looking for.

    John, I do enjoy your podcasts but sometimes I have to twist my brain into a pretzel to try to understand how you can justify or come to an acceptable understanding of certain things. I’m not sure how you do it but as long as you are happy with the conclusions that you have drawn, I’m happy for you and I’m glad that you have found the same peace that I have.

    My favorite Podcast so far, was predictably, the one that you did with Hyrum from thechurchisnottrue.com. I thought that it was excellent!! I very much look forward to the one that you are going to do with Mike from Josephlied.com. I do appreciate your willingness to be open to us Ex-Mormons and our views.

    Also, I can relate to many of your mission experiences as I was punished as well, for confronting the numbers game and political BS that was happening in the mission. I stood my ground and paid the price but I don’t regret it for a second that I fought for what was right. I would do it again if I was in the same situation. I respect you a ton for standing up for what was right and defending truth. We also had 7 year olds getting baptized in my mission. It was disgusting!!

    John, I must say, that despite the fact that we are coming from different points of view, with different goals, I highly respect you, your passion, your energy and attempt to try to take controversial things from the Mormon Church and make them understandable. I was very impressed with how civil and respectful that you were with Hyrum and I look forward to your future shows.

    Take care now,

    Samuel the Utahnite

  14. John Dehlin

    Hey Justin! I appreciate your feedback. I would love to present at the other Sunstones…but I’d hope to maybe loop some others in as well. Maybe do a panel or something?

    I have to admit that I didn’t even know there WERE ex-Mormon blogs out there. Those 3 you mentioned are quite formidable….so I’m super glad to know about them. I will add them to my next deck for sure (if there is a next deck).

    I’ll check out Mormanity as well.

    Also, I enjoy your blog as well. That Peggy Fletcher Stack article was a great find. Thanks for sharing it!!!

    Anyway, thanks for stopping by, and please come back soon!!!

    John

  15. John Dehlin

    Samuel,

    Your site is pretty powerful. Wow. I can see I have a lot to read. Thanks for the reference. I will add it to my RSS reader.

    Thanks for listening to my podcast! I definitely have enjoyed getting to know Mike Norton and Hyrum. They are cool/good guys….from what I can tell….

    I do think it’s sad that ex-Mormons are labeled and marginalized by active Mormons. I think all lose when that happens.

    I’m hoping to interview Mike soon. That should be fun.

    I’m sorry you had that mission experience. You’re never the same in the church when that happens, and history seems to continue repeating itself. Where was your mission?

    Anyway, Samuel, thanks for the kind words–I respect you as well, and fervently believe that we share a HUGE amount of common goals/interest–namely to 1) minimize the pain experienced within the church, 2) promote the open/honest awareness of the factual history, and 3) allow for an open, honest discussion about Mormonisms.

    On these issues, I hope we can continue to be united.

    Please keep in touch!!!

    John

  16. Jett X

    Thanks for putting the link up to your presentation.

    Have you thought about making it the next Mormon Stories podcast? Or would that be a little too self aware?

    I found your thoughts quite interesting and also many props for helping getting more Sunstone casts and resources up. I’ve been sending links to various casts all over and check every day to see if there is a new Mormon stories or Sunstone or Sunstone classic cast.

  20. Samuel

    John, thanks for your kind comments as well. You are absolutely correct in what you say we have in common; “we share a HUGE amount of common goals/interest–namely to 1) minimize the pain experienced within the church, 2) promote the open/honest awareness of the factual history, and 3) allow for an open, honest discussion about Mormonisms.”

    Now, if only the Mormon Hierarchy could feel and believe how we believe, we could really see some healing and progress. Darron Smith, from DarronSmith.com
    was prominently featured in the Salt Lake City Weekly story “White Wash.” He is a current BYU Professor and in a Bishopric.

    I think we both feel as he does; all he wants and desires is for the Mormon Church to simply apologize for their sins of being racist and for the racist comments of Brigham Young and many others. You covered it very well John in the presentation that you did regarding race. I enjoyed that slide show very much!!

    You should seriously look into having this man, Darron Smith on your show, I would love to hear his complete views on Mormonism and the racism that has existed for well over 150 years.

    For those that haven’t read the article in the Salt Lake City weekly, here’s the link:

    White Wash

    I found this article to be a very straight forward, honest and fair depiction of the problems with racism within the Mormon Church. Darron Smith was a major contributor and may God bless him in his quest for change, that so many of us would love to see.

    It shouldn’t be so hard, but the fact remains, that for the Mormon hierarchy, it must be excruciating to even consider asking for forgiveness. I think that they are very afraid that if they did indeed apologize, people would see that as weakness and basically invalidate the Church and the Prophets/Apostles from being in the “divinely inspired category.” I feel that that is a legitimate fear but enough is enough.

    All I can say is that they have to do it at some point if they ever expect the Church to get past this and be able to move forward. They need to apply the same repentance process that they apply to us “normal members.” If it’s required of us to be sorrowful and humble in order to be forgiven, then the Mormon Hierarchy needs to live by those same “exact” standards and do what they would have us do. Right? It’s only fair and besides that, it is the only right thing to do.

    Thanks again John for your efforts and kind words and I hope that you enjoy reading my blog. You’re right about one thing, there is a lot to read…LOL!! Anyone is welcome to email me, especially you John, with any comments or questions that you may have.

    John, I appreciate you letting me post here even though my blog or what I have to say may be considered very offensive to some. I’m going to include a link to your site on my blog, so that my readers can discover you and your work if they haven’t already.

    Take care,
    Samuel

    My Email Address:

    SamueltheUtahnite@yahoo.com

    My blog:

    Mormon Truth

  21. Bryce I

    A very nice presentation, John, especially considering the relatively short amount of time you’ve been involved in the bloggernacle.

    If you’re going to be giving the presentation in some form again, you might note the following:

    Planet LDS was the first web-based aggregator for LDS blogs (as far as I know).

    Nauvoo.com is a pretty popular LDS forum run by Orson Scott Card.

    You include slides from mormon-blogs.com, which is maintained by David Sundwall. Time was, if you wanted to announce your arrival to the bloggernacle, you’d send him an email, and have him announce it on his blog at A Soft Answer. This was an important service early in the bloggernacle.

    A discussion of the official Church presence on the web might be instructive.

    There’s a small number of missionaries blogging their missions. To me, this seems like a very interesting development.

    Again, overall, well done. Plus lots of quotes from me — obviously you know what you’re doing!

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