Mormonstories.org provides a podcast, an analysis of LDS truth claims, the Thrive Project, Faith Crises resources, and a section on Understanding Mormonism.
We think Mormonstories provides an important service for people who question their beliefs and who want to know more about the Restoration, including the Community of Christ, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and other Restoation groups, as well as Christianity generally.
Decisions to join or leave any organization involve multiple complex considerations. The stakes are even higher when joining or leaving a religion. We are all free to believe whatever we want and we are free to choose whatever organizations we want to belong to or affiliate with. Ideally, we make informed decisions.
John Dehlin demonstrates genuine empathy and understanding for the people he interviews and supports. We applaud that approach. Every organization should do the same for its members and others.
However, we think John has evolved away from openness toward a dogmatic editorial stance that confirms his own biases and does not provide his audience with an honest variety of perspectives. We're not here to debate, but to offer some alternative perspectives.
By "alternative perspectives" we're not referring to FairMormon and similar sites, with whom we disagree on some important issues.
Overall, MormonStories focuses on the views and theories of LDS intellectuals as represented by what we call the M2C citation cartel, including FairMormon, Book of Mormon Central, the Interpreter, BYU Studies, and Meridian Magazine. This group, in important ways, have repudiated the teachings of the prophets and caused confusion. We think MormonStories has pointed out some of the problems created by the citation cartel.
Usually, people who share the same assumptions reach the same conclusions. For that reason, we examine the assumptions behind the conclusions.
We will discuss and explain alternative perspectives in each section of our review.