Further Comments on John Dehlin's interview with Bill Reel

After reading my previous post, a friend pointed out that another reason apologists have tended to turn down John Dehlin's invitations to be interviewed is that he engages in ad hominem (the very thing he believes apologists do). A prime example is the treatment of Brian Hales in the episode currently under discussion. He also pointed out that John never learns anything from his guests - he's always starting from scratch with the same old criticisms, which have already been asked and answered repeatedly over the years in his podcasts.

Something I hinted at in my earlier post on this topic is that John Dehlin does not typically let comments get posted that he does not agree with. Bill Reel posted on a forum that he's been getting "overwhelmingly positive feedback" on this podcast. He may not realize that it is at least partly because Dehlin makes it so.

Bill Reel also stated on a forum (different than the one mentioned above) that "there is a 'whistleblower' of sorts in Fair's top leadership." He appears to be referring to this blog and insinuating that a member of the top leadership of FairMormon believes the organization is behaving in a way that is wrong. This is totally incorrect. I am neither a member of FairMormon's "top leadership" (although I am involved as a lower-level manager), nor do I believe FairMormon is doing or has done anything wrong. My purpose here was to explain - in an unofficial capacity - my understanding of what happened and why I believe the way it was explained in the Mormon Stories episode was incorrect.

Bill also said, "I requested specifically (with good reason) they take my audio down and not use it (audio podcasts only). They refused and said they wouldn't as it helps people. So it is neither true that I requested all things with my persona be removed nor that My material on Fair was hurting the faith of others."

At the time of the e-mails that Bill is referring to, it is correct that it was felt that his material that was on the FairMormon website was helping people. This later changed, however, and when it was felt that the implied endorsement was doing more harm than good, based on the discussion in the e-mails of removing or altering his podcasts, I believe that it would be reasonable to expect that such might be done to any and all material involving him.