Why John Dehlin Faces Church Discipline: Updated for Meridian Magazine

Meridian Magazine is running an updated story about the real reasons John Dehlin is most likely facing disciplinary action. The article merges and updates my Real Clear Religion post and my Difficult Run post.

This is not a topic I enjoy writing about for several reasons. First, I feel no ill-will towards Dehlin and therefore no happiness at all that he faces disciplinary council. It is simply sad. Second, there is a lot of material to read through in order to write a post like this, and none of the material is intrinsically interesting or uplifting. Lastly, this kind of post tends to bring out the more adversarial aspects of Internet communication, and that is something that I do not enjoy. My days of being excited at the prospect of a flamewar are long, long gone.

I wrote my initial piece[ref]The RCR and DR posts were one post before the RCR version got substantially edited for length[/ref] because I thought it was important for there to be a rigorous and balanced alternative to Dehlin’s narrative. When Meridian invited me to republish the post there, I did the work of merging and updating for the same reason. I hope I’ve accomplished that goal.

EDITED 2017-Mar-28: There was originally an image on this post. The image was a screenshot of an iOS device with a notification from the New York Times stating “Prominent Mormon Faces Excommunication for Backing Gay Marriage.” The person who took that image contacted me today and asked me to remove it and also his/her name, and so I have.