Now I’m a little disgruntled and must go re-tool a post I was working on for this site on the very same topic. But, I’m glad nonetheless!

I’ve had seasons of my spiritual journey that have been deeply fruitful and centered, and feel blessed to be enjoying such a season right now. But other seasons have been riddled with doubt. I trust and believe that such angst is not merely something to pass through as quickly as possible. Doubt is simply God’s way of telling us that it is time for us to grow. We must be patient with ourselves, and equally as importantly, with others when they are passing through such a requisite season. I have been there before, and know that if I am growing and progressing as I ought, I will be there again. And I am grateful that there will be a place for me, both in the Bloggernacle and in the kingdom.

I have friends who are in DAMU (is that an official group?), and they’ve never once even hinted they might help me leave the church. They’ve always been respectful to me and of me.

On the other hand, I’m pretty iconoclastic as Mormons go and I’ve never been criticized on the bloggernacle ever for it. I’ve been chided for my language, which I’m sorry for, whole world, but nobody kicked me off. I would have kicked me off.

Angst. Isn’t this a Jewish word for constant worry and self examination? I’m angst personified if that’s the case. I’ll go look it up.

Ann, don’t let anyone run you off. We’re all good people here. Except for that person I’m going to go over and name on my enemies list in a moment.

BTW, I have read your posts on those topics. When I said “faith promoting” I didn’t have a Boyd K. Packer standard of faith promotion in mind. More of a “why I stay” type of faith promotion.

But seriously, I chuckled at your inclusion of me in your community. I guess I’ve got something to tell the bishop if they ever try to make me scoutmaster! In general, though, I just like to keep an eye on folks who link to my blog — and T&S gets enough DAMU attention that it makes sense to stay informed about what’s going on.

I’ve read your own story a few times on the blogs, and I’m sorry that you felt like the bloggernacle wasn’t welcoming to you. I’ll agree that the nacle doesn’t (generally) accept ranting very well. On the other hand, I’ve got to quibble with your characterization of the nacle as requiring that everything has to be “wrapped up with a faith-promoting bow.” Um, have you seen some of my posts? Duty to dysfunctional wards; why does God call women whores?; women-and-the-priesthood, about 27 times; whether medicinal marijuana is allowed under the Nyquil exception; why it’s okay to be pro-choice; one popular post on why we don’t have a duty to always present the church in a favorable light; enough posts and comments and arguments with Adam about gay marriage that it’s now a bloggernacle running joke; and so forth. (Links available on request :P ). Now, to be fair, I tried to be evenhanded in my discussions, and I don’t think that I’d characterize them as venting, or axe-grinding. But to suggest the opposite — that they’re all tied up neatly in faith-promoting bows — seems inaccurate. I analyzed the issues, as they made sense to me; faith promotion not a required baseline. (And I’m far from the only T&S or BCC poster to write posts that can’t be accurately described as complying with a requirement of faith promotion.)

Early on, we adopted our comment policies at T&S, based around two major principles. “Times and Seasons is a forum for believing members or for others who are willing to respect members’ beliefs. Commenters do not need to believe in the Church, but comments that suggest that all believers are per se unintelligent or uninformed are not welcome. On the flip side, it is also unacceptable to call into question a commenter’s personal righteousness.”

I can’t say how many times I’ve had to lay down the law in one direction or the other, but the number is really high. Every single month, we get drive-by comments that clearly violate one of these guidelines. Either “I can’t believe you would talk this way about the church, you’re all going to hell.” Or “You Mormons are all so stupid don’t you see that Joseph Smith was a fraud.” Either way, they find their way, pretty much immediately, into the waste bin. We really do try to avoid the ranting and harshness from either side of the divide. (Keep in mind that I may be saying on this thread that the DAMU has tone issues, but I’m also on the record as saying, probably several dozen times, that FARMS Review has tone issues and needs to cut out the crap. I didn’t buy the “FARMS is not a monolith” defense, either. You can be non-monolithic and still have tone problems.)

You and others (e.g., Hellmut and Equality) have written that the DAMU can be a helpful therapeutic outlet for needed ranting. That’s fine; I don’t begrudge the DAMU that space, and it’s reasonable that some folks are going to need a ranting space. But at the same time, that doesn’t fit well in the nacle dynamic. There are interesting discussions to be had about some of these issues, that just can’t be had if one is being constantly ranted at in the one direction, or preached at in the other. Hence our policies at T&S.

Given the differences in norms, some posters accustomed to DAMU social norms on ranting are potentially disruptive to the different environment of the nacle — just as I would be disruptive to the ranting environment if I tried to insist on T&S comment policies at RFM.

I can’t speak for J. Stapley, but it’s my impression that in the original post, he was merely trying to remind commenters of that difference, and trying to remind commenters of the appropriate norms and boundaries on his own blog. Perhaps he did so in a way that was overstated; but he’s since done his part to clarify that.