I read an interesting Facebook exchange tonight between Dr. Peterson and Ortner on why people leave the church. Ortner, replying to a blog post on the topic by Peterson, wrote: “I think you are generally correct that most often people drift to inactivity. But my anecdotal impression is that an increasing number of people (myself included) are leaving because of historical or doctrinal concerns.” Seems to be a recent move.
Tom,
Is that Daniel Ortner, author of several Interpreter articles? Is he really leaving the Church? If so, WOW!
I read an interesting Facebook exchange tonight between Dr. Peterson and Ortner on why people leave the church. Ortner, replying to a blog post on the topic by Peterson, wrote: “I think you are generally correct that most often people drift to inactivity. But my anecdotal impression is that an increasing number of people (myself included) are leaving because of historical or doctrinal concerns.” Seems to be a recent move.
Tom,
Is that Daniel Ortner, author of several Interpreter articles? Is he really leaving the Church? If so, WOW!
Hugh Nibley claimed he bumped into Adolf Hitler, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Gertrude Stein, and the Grand Duke Vladimir Romanoff. Dishonesty is baked into Mormonism.
The Facebook exchange I refer to is on Dr. Peterson's Facebook page (underneath his link to his latest SeN post on why people leave the church).
Off topic, but you’re from Ophir, Utah? That’s cool. I went up through your town a number of months back and went out the other end of town, through the cow herd on the road, and ended up at Lion’s Loop Trailhead. I went up the trail a ways and then thought a bit about the name of the trail and the fact that I was alone. I turned around and went back. I didn’t finish the loop.
Beautiful little what used to be a mining town. There was a guy mowing his small patch of grass on a John Deere at his house across the street from the outdoor mining museum.
More stream of consciousness reactions to the latest announcement regarding a defected apologist.
I would have to say that if I were to devote myself to a new religion, it would have to be some form of Christian orthodoxy or maybe a more strictly monotheistic sect.
The Protestant sentimental Jesus really does not work for me. Sort of like that whole cultish fad about flicking on the Holy Ghost switch at every LDS meeting back in the early 2000s. Not only do I think things do not work that way, but anyone who imagines the kind of robotic, saccharine platitudes repetitively intoned in hushed voices is invoking the power of Deity is, in my humble opinion, on the wrong track.
I remember a fellow saying to me that what passed as Christianity in most corners was nothing of the kind. While I don't strictly agree with him and found his comments to be too judgmental and dismissive, I also see that he had something of a point. Certainly it is not my idea of Christianity.
And then I am not sure I really like Christianity as it developed. The form we encounter it in the New Testament canon doesn't appeal to me. A lot of Paul, including the authentic epistles, well, I just don't like it, really. I increasingly think that Paul was an interloper who hijacked the Jesus Movement in one of the most successful religious sales jobs in history. On the one hand, brilliant move, and, on the other hand, what a prick!
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow