Louis Midgley Threatens to "Pay a Visit" to Gina Colvin

[_Doctor Scratch]

Well, we're off to an interesting start this year. I'm sure that many here are familiar with the blogger Gina Colvin, who also writes for Patheos, via a blog called, "KiwiMormon." Earlier last month, she wrote a post describing her current situation:

I would be remiss if I didn’t give a huge shout-out to President Russell Nelson who has, by decree, un-coupled the LDS Church from the moniker ‘Mormon’. This means the word ‘Mormon’ can now refer to any one of the 400 or so churches and groups who have genealogy right back to Joseph Smith’s original Latter-day Restoration Movement. It also paves the way for a much needed ecumenical conversation between all expressions of the LDS Restoration.

It also means I can still blog at KiwiMormon without having a crisis of identity.

Colvin, you may recall, was summoned to a Court of Love last year after she refused to affirm her loyalty to Pres. Nelson (and also because she was doing this in a public way). And, of course, the Mopologists hate her: she exists in the same orbit as people like Jana Reiss and Kate Kelly: people who are not to be taken completely seriously because they are women, but people who nonetheless *must* be taken at least semi-seriously because they are publicly saying challenging things about the Lord's Church.

Again, here is Colvin summing up her remarks:

Nathan worships with the Brighamite Mountain Saints off-shoot and I worship with Emma’s Plains Saints people. Our boys float between the two – but their community faith life has settled pretty squarely with the Anglican Church where Nathan serves as a youth leader during the week and I still attend semi-regularly as a parishioner. We figure it’s our job as parents to attend to the spiritual formation of our children rather than their religious socialization so that when they choose (if they choose their own religious tradition) they’ll have enough spiritual juice in the tank to make their decisions wisely.

It’s an unusual place for us to have landed. We couldn’t have foreseen it, but it’s very lovely.

So, thank you, President Nelson. Your policy decision means I can still blog at KiwiMormon. I get to still claim my Mormon roots right back to Emma Smith who, like me, refused to go with Brigham. And in that refusal, I have discovered a church that has evolved into a spiritually nourishing and mature Christian tradition that I feel very, very proud to be a part of today.

So, she has found some peace, but is also having a bit of fun at Nelson's expense--what with his bizarre shunning of the "Mormon" label. But Midgley is not having any of it, and he makes an intrusive entrance into the "Comments" section:

Gina:
I know of only one Community of Christ congregation in New Zealand. It is located at 311 Glengary Road, Glen Eden, Auckland. A search does not turn up Community of Christ congregation in Christchurch. Would you please explain where this Community of Christ group meets in Christchurch and also how many there are in this group? I will, God willing, be in New Zealand in February, and might drop in to see your new venture, but I will need an address and so forth.

Hmm. So, what's he getting at here? There seems to be a two-pronged approach here: first he's trying to call her out on whether she is CoC at all--because, hey, if she's not attending a meetinghouse, then she must not be a legitimate member of the CoC, right? (Just like how LDS who don't live near the temple, and for various reasons, cannot attend the temple, cannot be real, actual LDS, right?) That, as far as I can tell, is his main challenge: he's trying to prove that she is not actually "religious" at all.

But this is awfully damned creepy. Is there a single person out there who is encouraged by the thought of Louis Midgley showing up to visit--regardless of the reason? It would seem that I'm not alone in my thinking, because very swiftly, a person called "EV" steps in to deal with Dr. Midgley:

Hi Gina, I enjoy your blog very much! But please, do not give this person, Louis Midgley, any of the personal information he is requesting. If you take a look at his posting history, almost every comment he makes is either attacking people, or fishing for information, which he then uses, almost always inaccurately, to slur and defame anyone who disagrees with him.

And by attack, I mean some of the most vicious, angry, nasty comments it is possible to make about another human being. I can’t believe his comments are allowed on Patheos, but for some reason, they are. Read through his post history— his incorrect assumptions about other people’s lives lead to slurs and statements of defamation that will shock you.

He loves to tell stories about how he has confronted and tried to embarrass people- when I read he might be visiting your area and wanted to “drop in” on you, my blood ran cold. His intent is NOT good. Please do not give him any information.

EV: Utter rubbish.

Anyone can look at your posting history. You stalk people, you collect little bits of information which you then use to make up disparaging stories about other posters, and you have told many anecdotes about how you collect private information, which you then use to harass people. Now you are asking for an address of this blog owner’s private and unadvertised place of worship, because you would like to “drop in.” Anyone in their right mind will avoid you like the plague.

EV: I will, God willing, be in Christchurch and will attend a Sacrament meeting. If Gina turn up, fine. I would like to meet her. My point was that, if she is not busy doing her Anglican thing, she only has her former Latter-day Saint Ward in which to worship, since it is likely that she is the only member of the Community of Christ south of Auckland.

Please notice that EV hides her/his identity and this allows them to spout all kinds of rubbish about me.

So....the point is to show how isolated she is, I guess? His sole intention all along was just to be mean?

LMidgley: “My point was that, if she is not busy doing her Anglican thing, she only has her former Latter-day Saint Ward in which to worship since it is likely that she is the only member of the Community of Christ south of Auckland.”

So your intent was to tell her she has no place to worship, if she doesn’t attend your religion? That’s naïve. It also doesn’t explain your original intrusiveness:

LMidgley: “Would you please explain where this Community of Christ group meets in Christchurch and also how many there are in this group? I will, God willing, be in New Zealand in February, and might drop in to see your new venture, but I will need an address and so forth.”

Why do you need to know how many people are in a congregation? Why do you need an address if your point was only to naïvely and rudely tell her she has no place to worship outside of your religion?

Posters like you are why anonymity is recommended. Your post history speaks for itself. As an example, here is a description of Gina you posted on another religious blog, apparently gleaned from little bits of details you scavenge for, which you then assemble as disparagingly as you can, given you don’t actually know anything:

http://disq.us/p/26bne4c

LM: “ Gina Colvin ceased posting as "Kiwi Mormon" for quite a while, after she faced a DC by her Bishop. But she is back posting again, after having her name removed from the membership records of the Church of Jesus Christ. She was earlier baptized an Anglican and became some sort of lay Anglican preacher, and now she is a member of the Community of Christ. There is a tiny Community of Christ congregation in Auckland, but not even one other member of that sinking ship in Christchurch, where she lives. So Gina Colvin is now the only member of the Community of Christ on the South Island of New Zealand. She has, it seems, found a "community" that fits her desire to enjoy her own "spirituality." “

THAT’S why I recommend that no one give you any personal information, ever. Posters like you, who stalk and disparage, are why anonymity is necessary.

On on Professor Daniel C. Peterson's sic et non blog, he wrote in response to EV the following: "Why, GFC, do you feel the need to praise gemli and to disparage Professor Midgley? Is that what involvement with the Malevolent Stalker Hate Board has conditioned you to do?"

So EV was posting as Gemli's Fan Club." For those who have never heard of gemli, he held the record for posting atheist rubbish on the New York Times, until they shut that thing down. Then he joined an atheist blog that soon gave him the boot, and has subsequently posted something like six thousand times on sic et non.

If anonymity is all that necessary, why not urge Gina Colvin to hide her identity? Whoever EV is, he or she is one sick puppy.

What??? What on earth is he talking about? What's his evidence that "EV" and "Gemli's Fan Club" are the same poster? Has DCP been feeding him private information in the hopes of "doxxing" people?

Wow. Are you responding to me by talking about me in the third person? Are you attempting to be insulting? It reads like something an uneducated person might do, in an attempt to be condescending. And accusing me of being yet another person who dislikes you seems a bit paranoid, don’t you think?!

Your post is quite telling, however. Your garbled story about gemli points out exactly your technique I warned about. Based on your posts, that’s another person you stalked, collecting bits of information, which you have assembled into some garbled story where you attempt to disparage and libel them. You have done this literally dozens upon dozens of times to the poster named gemli, as well as many others. Commenters are well advised to give you no information as your main goal in posting seems to be to stalk and disparage.

More rubbish from someone who hides their true identity behind various handles.

And still, your only explanation for your stalking and disparaging that has been documented using your own words is to attack the person who pointed it out. And you are still using that uneducated third person approach, lol.

Back to my original point, Posters should not give you ANY in real life information, because you will stalk them with made up and hateful versions of it, repeatedly, regardless of the topic. The fact that you went even further this time and asked Gina for the actual address of a congregation she meets with, PLUS how many meet there, is beyond creepy.

Dear EV: I do not "stalk" anyone. I do call critical attention to rubbish, or fibs.

There is nothing uneducated about responding in the third person. That is merely a matter of personal preference or the current situation.

I did not ask Gina for an address where the Community of Christ worships on Sundays in Christchurch. Instead, I more than hinted that she is the only member of the Community of Christ south of Auckland. What is "creepy" about mentioning that she is likely to be the only member of that sinking ship in Christchurch?

I have exactly no interest in where or when she does her Anglican thing.

Now if Gina Colvin just happens to be in the Ward in which we are planning to attend Sacrament meeting, I would not mind meeting her. But, if we end up in the same sacrament meeting and she does not care to introduce herself, that is fine with me.

Okay...but what was the "rubbish, or fibs"? He seems to be wanting to say that Colvin's conversion to CoC is "fake" somehow. The Mopologists have long maintained that they don't "attack others' faith," and yet.... It would seem to me that accusing someone else's of holding "fake" beliefs to be a pretty aggressive attack on their faith.

Whatever the case may be, this is vintage Midgley. He really seems to be on a roll at the moment, just look at his apoplectic comment to Moksha:

nterpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship would have nothing to publish. Without the dedicated efforts of source checkers, editors, peer reviewers, and page-layout specialists, we wouldn’t dare to publish. Without the consecrated labor of people doing bookkeeping and secretarial tasks,...

Please donate so that consecrated oil can be applied to the bookkeepers and secretaries. The others will receive alternative forms on compensation. The Peer Review Cloning Program is right on schedule and is expected to go online in the second quarter of 2020.

I believe that Professor Peterson warned Moksha not to bring his rubbish with him from the sewer from which he came. I think it is time for Moksha to be sent back to the sinbin for a month or two so he can decide if he wants to be part of the civilized world.

(Sidenote: in respose to the above, "FourFingeredJake" called Moksha "a despicable jerk." Wow.)

Moksha is the master of zingers like that: it's too bad that the Mopologists don't have a sense of humor. In fact: I'm still scratching my head over the idea that one of the chief "SeN" editors would be so bowled over by someone challenging his imprecise use of the word "several" that he'd go off on a strange, racist, misogynistic rant over it. "How dare anyone not understand me! What I say *several* I mean *TWO*!!!" Okay, then, why not just say "Two"? No need to blame this on a "race thing" or a "gender thing," sir. Sometimes, we just misspeak, or we trip over the vagaries in the language. No need to get all bent out of shape over it!

In any event, it would seem that the Mopologists are determined to hit the ground running in 2020.

[_Gadianton]

Wow, those are some interesting although perfectly predictable developments. Mock another person's spiritual journey and then pretend by asking for the address of the church the person attends, the church that had just been actively mocked, that one is just trying to be friendly. EV certainly gave Gina some good advice, that's for sure.

In fact: I'm still scratching my head over the idea that one of the chief "SeN" editors would be so bowled over by someone challenging his imprecise use of the word "several" that he'd go off on a strange, racist, misogynistic rant over it. "How dare anyone not understand me! What I say *several* I mean *TWO*!!!" Okay, then, why not just say "Two"?

Quite a fascinating rant by the proprietor. A young black girl working at a fast food joint failed to prove a linguistically adequate interlocutor for the great world-traveling white professor. The funny thing is, the great anglophile displayed his inadequate understanding of basic logic. He admitted to be pedantic; a defender of the precise meaning of words, and loathes the decline of proper speaking. The implication is that many folks out there would, for instance, be likely to misuse "a couple" to refer to values other than two. That means, when he places the order and says "a couple", the person taking the order has no way to know if the person giving the order is one of those who understands what "a couple" means or one of those who doesn't, and so the burden of clarification rests squarely on the shoulders of the belligerent customer in this case.

[_Dr. Shades]

Would you please explain where this Community of Christ group meets in Christchurch and also how many there are in this group? I will, God willing, be in New Zealand in February, and might drop in to see your new venture, but I will need an address and so forth.

So far, so good. . .

EV: I will, God willing, be in Christchurch and will attend a Sacrament meeting. If Gina turn up, fine. I would like to meet her.

Wait, what? His idea of defending himself against the charge of attempted stalking is by pretending that he was referring to her showing up to where he is?

Just how short does he think the memories of his audience are? Does he assume the population at large is just as sycophantic as the FAIR types?

[_Dr LOD]

How about this one? By Midgley

Dr. VelhoBurrinho: If I remember correctly, this highly educated native American from some unidentified tribe, who is, alas, an MD, who merely glanced at what I have written in defense of the Maori Latter-day Saint historical narrative, and could see solid signs of latent racial hostility to Maori Latter-day Saints. And when challenged, Dr. VB insisted that he stands behind his absurd bald assertions.

This Tapir stuff is pure rubbish borrowed from critics of the Church of Jesus Christ by one who seems to me to fit snugly in the category of Cultural Mormon. I happen to have fashioned this descriptive label to identify marginal or former Latter-day Saints who are essentially critics of the Church of Jesus Christ and hence the faith of Latter-day Saints.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... ology.html

He is doing some classic Projection by saying I’m racist.

I have a dinner on Friday with someone of influence over the MI and indirectly the Mopologists this will make for some colorful discussion.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Quite a fascinating rant by the proprietor. A young black girl working at a fast food joint failed to prove a linguistically adequate interlocutor for the great world-traveling white professor. The funny thing is, the great anglophile displayed his inadequate understanding of basic logic. He admitted to be pedantic; a defender of the precise meaning of words, and loathes the decline of proper speaking. The implication is that many folks out there would, for instance, be likely to misuse "a couple" to refer to values other than two. That means, when he places the order and says "a couple", the person taking the order has no way to know if the person giving the order is one of those who understands what "a couple" means or one of those who doesn't, and so the burden of clarification rests squarely on the shoulders of the belligerent customer in this case.

What's up with DCP making this a race thing? He could've just related the story and left her 'blackness' out of it.

BYU Professor. Mormon priesthood holder.

- Doc

[_Stem]

You have to take Midgley as a silly old goofball at this point, otherwise you'll end up seeing the most egregious sounding comments this side of the internet. I picture him showing up unannounced at some real life event and spouting off his angry posts whenever I read them. Every onlooker would think, "oh man, that guy's lost his marbles. Where's his caretaker?" Every possible offense melts away quickly when my imagination runs in this direction and I feel the urge to hug him, "you'll be ok. Let's just breath and find a seat <yelling> can someone get us some water?"

[_Dr Moore]

Please give me the address of your sinking ship...

How magnanimous.

Showing up at someone’s faith blog, Colvin’s living room, to mock her beliefs — isn’t this the very behavior Louis condemns on an hourly basis at SeN?

He would do well to delete his comments over there, if escaping moral equivalency with the denizens of this board is a priority.

[_Kishkumen]

What makes me happiest about this is that this is all the Mopologists really have. They can bluster, insult, and threaten, but, at the end of the day, they have no teeth for critics, dissidents, and the disillusioned. Moreover, they make themselves look really, really bad. In short, the only teeth they have are fastened on their own butts.

These stalking incidents do the LDS Church no favors. Imagine, a retired BYU professor stalking people online, casually throwing around accusations, and berating people. It's not a good look. If this is an "offering to the Lord," then it can only be such in completely unintentional ways. He is showing us how LDS people should not behave but unfortunately have behaved all too often. He is showing us exactly why it is people like Gina Colvin need to look elsewhere for spiritual nourishment.

If the Church can learn from Lou's mistakes, it will really have gained something of value.

I wish Lou well. I do not anticipate he will change, and that is too bad for the LDS Church. I know he means well, but his behavior in situations like these completely backfires with younger generations.

[_Dr Exiled]

I agree with Stem that Dr. Midgely should be viewed in some respects as an angry old man that may be losing his faculties and not too dangerous. Even so, I wouldn't underestimate his nastiness toward all his enemies, both real and perceived, which is probably 99% of the population. He seems bent on doxing anyone and everyone in his quest to attack the antis he sees around every corner. Ms. Colvin should at least be aware of this because sheriff Midge is on the beat and coming to her town shortly to prove there isn't a CoC meetinghouse in Christchurch. He is bent on exposing something when he goes there.

[_Maksutov]

What makes me happiest about this is that this is all the Mopologists really have. They can bluster, insult, and threaten, but, at the end of the day, they have no teeth for critics, dissidents, and the disillusioned.

They have to go after Moksha, fer Chrissakes. Pathetic dunces.