I've just learned something new. "Socialcam,"of which I'd never before heard, announces on facebook if you've watched something on it. I got a facebook notice earlier today that a friend had watched something that seemed . . . er, questionable. Surprised that he would watch it, but REALLY surprised that he would (as I thought) choose to ANNOUNCE that he had watched it, I watched it, too, to see if there was something funny or significant in it that would lead him to want to announce it to all of his facebook friends. (There wasn't.) And now I find that I'VE seemingly chosen to announce that I watched the same thing -- which, at least, helps me to understand what happened to my friend (but is, otherwise, slightly embarrassing and quite irritating). My apologies. I've got lots of shortcomings, but this kind of stuff isn't among them.For better or worse, his viewing of this material was announced to his hundreds of Facebook friends.


9. Liz3564 Becomes a Mopologist. The once-loved moderator and poster Liz3564 formally resigned as a Mormon Discussions moderator after a slow decline that culminated in her attempting to use private information in an attempt to intimidate and "punish" another poster. Liz began her posting and moderating career in 2006-2007, after a fallout involving the moderating team at the board which was, at the time, called FAIR (later MAD, now MDD). She was celebrated by critics for daring to oppose Juliann, Dan_G, and the rest of the anonymous FAIR/MAD moderators, though of course, her old friends felt that she had betrayed their trust. Sadly, as the time wore on, Liz eventually began to turn on those who had supported her here.

Indeed, Liz's curious and multi-faceted personality unfolded in interesting ways: it emerged that [in real life information deleted on request]. She drinks alcohol (notably White Zinfandel) and coffee. She watches pornography. She writes spanking-themed pornography. She [Telestial-caliber allusion deleted]. She criticizes LDS Church leaders, in spite of insisting that she is a loyal "New Order Mormon."

Perhaps the real slide began last year, following Liz's launch of an invitation-only messageboard called, "The Cafeteria." Whether intentional or not, the board became something of a forum for complaining about this messageboard, and Liz ultimately shut down shop after a "Meltdown of Epic Proportions" involving Mopologetic "Kingpin" Daniel Peterson. Liz's private messageboard concept was revived this year, though, in the form of a Star Wars-themed forum called, "Geeky NOMs," which was a place that was designed to allow for explorations of the members' "Pass Times."

There seem to have been two key events that led to Liz's crossing over into the "Dark Side" of Mopologetics: (1) the banning of her good friend Jersey Girl, and (2) her ongoing friendship with DCP and her newfound alliance with Pahoran. It was this latter development that caused the alienation of some of the last vestiges of her friends: Just Me was banned from "Geeky NOMs," and MsJack and Blixa both left in protest. Meanwhile, Infymus announced that he had relieved Liz of her moderating responsibilities at the ExMormon Forums, due to the fact that he could "no longer trust" her--mainly on account of her support for Dr. Peterson--support which, in the eyes of some critics, including playing "Messenger" for the noted Mopologist.

With this announcement, with Liz's support of Pahoran (and her extension of an invitation to Droopy to join "Geeky NOMs"), she formally crossed over into full-blown Mopologist status. Liz has also become perhaps the only moderator in all of Cyber-Mormonism to have been "fired" as a mod from three separate messageboards. It's impossible to imagine the Mopologetic landscape without her, though one cannot help but wish that things had turned out differently.

8. Trevor Holyoak Raises the Bar on Mopologetic Cyberstalking. The large-pored Mopologist names Trevor Holyoak continued his ascent as the creepiest LDS apologist in cyberspace. Seldom appearing to make actual arguments or to challenge critics in the field of debate, Holyoak has chosen to opperate almost entirely behind the scenes: picking fights with people on their Facebook comments threads; digging up dirt; and accumulating ammunition for FAIR Wiki entries. Indeed, Brother Holyoak seemed to be ubiquitous when it came to various scandals involving various LDS critics and "NOMs." His forays into creepiness and cyberstalking were so extensive that he managed to snag shared honors with Dr. Gerald Bradford for the pretigious Sampson Avard Golden Scepter award. It remains to be seen whether or not Holyoak will begin publishing and/or engaging in more substantive Mopologetics. In the meantime, he continues to function as a kind of Shadow Operative.


7. Pahoran Tries to "Out" Darth J. In early November, Darth J submitted the opening post of what eventually became an epic thread:

http://mormondiscussions.com/phpBB3/vie ... =2&t=26769

In it, he revealed a number of surprising and painful details: He had accepted a voluntary suspension from the Utah Bar; he was involved in litigation against the LDS Church for matters pertaining to alleged sexual abuse; Dr. Peterson had sent him an arguably defamatory PM about another poster; perhaps most significantly, Pahoran had been using this information as a means of trying to intimidate Darth J. Most observers agreed that Pahoran failed rather miserably. Instead, the majority of posters were reminded yet again of the largely rotten tactics that are employed by resentful and angry Mopologists.

6. The David Twede Fiasco. The critical Web site "Mormon Think" occupied much of the spotlight in the second half of 2012, most notably because of Mopologetic attempts to subject MT editor David Twede to Church discipline. Twede began to complain about Mopologetic harrassment on various messageboards, and the story eventually received national media attention, where, rather incredibly, it was revealed that FAIR President Scott Gordon had played a major role in contacting Salt Lake City "allies" who then somehow put things in motion ot punish Twede.

But there were multiple, hazy stories: Wiki Wonka surfaced to explain that Twede--or a Twede sockpuppet, or an alleged Twede sockpuppet--had engaged in trolling behavior on PostMo. Scott Gordon announced on MDD that he hadn't contacted Twede's ecclesiastical leaders--that he'd only notified some people in "Salt Lake City" (though he wouldn't elaborate on who this was).

In any case, after Twede complained to the mainstream media, the Church quickly changed course and decided not to discipline him after all. Whether this was done out of a desire to avoid negative media attention, or because of the Mitt Romney presidential campaign, is anybody's guess.

And here, as with the Number 2 Happening, Trevor Holyoak played an important role in gather "dirt" to use against Twede. Several here have speculated that some of this material--including the alleged "trolling" bits mentioned by Wiki Wonka--has landed in a Strengthening Church Members Committee dossier in the COB.

5. The Mopologists Lauch Mormon Interpreter. If there is any reason to continue watching Mopologetics in 2013, it's the new MI--named, as some have speculated, as a kind of angry rebuke to the original "MI"--the now much-maligned Maxwell Institute.

In late July / early August, at the conclusion of the FAIR Conference, Dr. Peterson ceremoniously announced the launch of a new, online "scholarly" venture called, Mormon Interpreter--a "journal" which was billed as a "peer reviewed" forum for studying Mormon scripture. Despite some setbacks (notably of the financial variety), there was enthusiasm amongst Mopologists of every stripe that the MI would pick up where the old FARMS Review left off.

But it was not to be. Instead, readers were treated to an almost hilariously inept production that still somehow managed to publish "new" material once a week. The articles were poorly edited; they were besotted with typos; they often seemed cobbled together out of snippets from old, rejected FARMS articles. Rather than fulfilling the promises of a legitimately "scholarly," "peer reviewed journal," the MI has instead become the best place on the Web to observe the buffoonery, toxic rage, and grudge-carrying of classic-FARMS Mopologetics.

Of special note were articles by Cassandra Hedelius (who hurriedly took down her own personal blog in the wake of criticism of her MI article), Louis Midgley, and John Sorenson, who angrily harrangued his old friend/colleague, Michael Coe. Midgley, on the other hand, was met with accusations of "pervy-ness" after he used 7-year-old blog postings about a BYU co-ed having sex in the library bathroom as a means of smearing her.

Of course, in the beginning, there was a great deal of hype surrounding the MI, with editor and tech guru Bryce Hammond waxing orgasmic about his love for Midgley, Peterson, Hamblin, and Nibley, and with Hamblin offering up support and announcements both on his own blog, and on the Mormon Dialogue Board. The Mopologists also attempted a foray into video "Roundtables," which were almost universally a failure--barely managing to garner any audience at all.

Perhaps the best word to describe the editorial mindset at the MI is "delusional." Without fail, Editor-in-Chief Daniel C. Peterson has continued to trumpet the claim that the MI publishes something "new" once a week. What he has failed to tell his readers, though, is that a good portion--perhaps more than 50%--of the "published" articles have been retreads from other sources: articles by Tvedtnes, Midgley, and Skousen were recycled from previously published material; a large chunk of the original articles were "harvested" from the final issue of the Mormon Review, which MI chief M. Gerald Bradford refused to publish.

Meanwhile, in a most remarkable blunder, the Website manager posted the budgetary expenses for the months of August and September, which revealed that the Editor may very well be compensating himself thousands of dollars for his work on the MI, which has once again caused some to wonder whether or not Mopologetics is, on some level, a commercial venture (at least for the guys at the top).

In any case, Mormon Interpreter will be worth watching in 2013.

4. The Apologists Self-Destruct on the TIME Lightbox Comments Section. This technically occurred in 2011, but these lists tend not to account for events in December of the preceding year; thus, it makes this year's list. The photographer Brian Shumway published a photo essay for TIME magazine detailing his experience in Utah's Happy Valley. The photos brimmed with the oftentimes quiet life and somber vitality of Mormon life in this area. Perhaps because "no one was smiling," top Mopologists immediately swarmed to the site, attacking Shumway on the basis of everything ranging from his reading habits, to his photography skills (which the Mopologists dismissed as "pedestrian" and "amateurish," respectively).

Their commentary drummed up a ton of interest, though, with Dan Peterson amassing well over a hundred posts in response to critics who appeared to denounce his condescension and arrogance. Mike "Tuffy" Parker turned up, only to hit the "eject" button after it appeared that he might be formally labeled an "apologist" alongside Peterson and Hamblin. Later, Will Schryver appeared, only to leave after several commenters linked to MsJack's thread on his misogyny (which, incidentally, was the Top Happening in Mopologetics of 2011).

Only DCP persisted, apparently unable to stop his torrent of self-defeating, whiny, condescending, persecution-complex and grudge-carrying replies. Strangely, when critics attempted to revisit the site this past autumn, it was discovered that all the comments have disappeared into the ether. Did the Mopologists contact the people who maintain the site in order to get the embarrassment cleaned up? Did they threaten litigation? As Dr. Midgley has recently observed, "The story of efforts to invoke censorship has yet to be told."

3. The Rise of Mopologist Blogging. Messageboard participation had long been the bread and butter of online Mopologetic interaction dating clear back to the pre-ZLMB/UTLM days, but in 2012, the Mopologists began to shift their activities over to private blogs, where they (presumably) could do a better job of controlling their own rhetoric and of deleting unflattering comments.

Four blogs quickly emerged as the most important:

1. Dan Peterson's Blogger/Patheos "Sic Et Non"
2. Will Schryver's "Imetatron"
3. Bill Hamblin's "Mormon Scripture Explorations"
4. The most recent entry--John Gee's "Forn Spo;ll Fira"

To a certain extent, the blogs represented the same-old same-old: the usual resentments, anger, and juvenile antics, but they also extended and enlarged these tendencies. Perhaps most shocking was "Sic et Non," which revealed an alarmingly extremist political streak, replete with ruminations on the value of having an entire citizenry "packing heat" as a means of curtailing random shootings, and an off-the-wall post about how U.S. Blacks should be "thankful" for slavery because it resulted in them getting the privilege to live in modern-day America (a sentiment that was echoed on "Imetatron.")

Hamblin's blog, meanwhile, has tended to be more narrow in focus, though it was an object of interest after he began to broadcast his dissatisfaction with M. Gerald Bradford, the Maxwell Institute, and the entire budding field of "Mormon Studies," which Hamblin sees as an almost wholly negative and threatening development.

These blogs have become a treasure trove of bizarre commentary and seriously misguided antics, the most recent and noteworthy of which was DCP's attempted "outing" of the posted called, "Chino Blanco." After attempting to tie Chino to the "deranged" and "mentally and emotionally disturbed" straw man that he's spent over half a decade creating, Peterson reversed course and deleted both of his blog postings and all of the commentary. In fact, the deletion was so thorough that even the Google cache entries were blasted from cyberspace. Speculators observed that Peterson will likely never be able to engage in an attempted "unmasking" like this without facing the possibility of a retaliatory "false light" defamation lawsuit.

2. The John Dehlin "Hit Piece." One or two years ago, Mopologetic "Kingpin" Daniel C. Peterson appeared on John Dehlin's popular podcast, "Mormon Stories." DCP wasn't interviewed by Dehlin himself, though; instead, the questions were posed by "Mormon Scholars Testify" contributer Dan Wotherspoon. The interview went extremely well, with posters on both sides of the critic/believer divide praising DCP for his openness and thoroughness. Later, though, he and John Dehlin squared off on the "Comments" section of the "Mormon Stories" Website, and this seemed to be a harbinger of things to come.

Indeed, something was brewing behind the scenes on the secret L-Skinny channels, and in the dark corridors of the Maxwell Institute. It eventually emerged that the Mopologists had long been at work on a kind of "Death Star" designed to attack John Dehlin as a secret, apostate "wolf in sheep's clothing." In April of this year, it was announced that, in fact, a 100+-page "hit piece" was in the works and was set to appear in the already tardy issue of the Mormon Review (nee FARMS Review).

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=23562

But the Mopologists failed to anticipate the extent of Dehlin's power. The "hit piece," which was penned by the goat-like apologist Greg Smith, was circulated quickly throughout the LDS power structure, with the end result being MI Director M. Gerald Bradford ordering the issue of the Review canceled. Dehline indicated that, after his entreaties to Prof. Peterson were ignored, he eventually turned to a General Authority for help, and further, a member of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles stepped in to intervene. (The apologists have steadfastly denied that there was any GA involvement at all--a fact that is belied by the inclusion of a GA on one of the early emails that Dehlin sent out.)

The apologists' main counter to the events was to insist that Dehlin was "invoking" censorship--that he was throwing his weight around in an effort to stifle criticism of his "apostate" activities. Of course, the Mopologists themselves--most notably and recently John Gee--have shifted over to blogging precisely so that they could censor critical commentary at will.

What no one could have realized at the time is that the suppression of the Dehlin Hit Piece was actually a harbinger of things to come. It showed that, in fact, the power structure in Salt Lake City had ceased to feel sympathy for the attack-minded antics of the "classic-FARMS" apologists. It was arguably this event that set in motion the inevitable events that culminated in June of 2012, in the form of this year's Most Significant Happening:


1. The End of FARMS. I doubt that there will ever be a bigger "no brainer" Number 1 event on these lists. I'm referring, of course, to the resignation of Daniel C. Peterson as editor of the FARMS Review, and the dissolution of FARMS as a significant force on the BYU campus. As a consequence of his response to an email sent by MI Director M. Gerald Bradford, the Mopologetic edifice that had resided at Brigham Young University for almost a quarter century, was formally dissolved, and cast out into the Wild West of cyberspace:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=24378

It had certainly been a long time coming: critics and TBMs alike had been complaining for years about the problematic "tone" of the Review. The MI apologists had been entangled in lawsuits; they faced accusations about ad hominem attacks and smear campaigns; they made dubious claims; the distorted sources; and they cited incredibly controversial authors as legitimate sources. THe apologists responded by claiming that the whole episode amounted to a kind of coup d'etat staged by Bradford and perhaps one or two other Maxwell Institute associates, and had been planned out and executed over the course of a few years. Though it seems obvious that the move was approved of by a General Authority, the Mopologists--as with the Dehlin incident--have sworn up and down that this isn't the case. Later in the summer, the events achieved a special kind of finality when DCP announced on his blog that he was orderd to clean out his office at the MI, reducing his total office count to 1.

This was the Top Happening in Mopologetics for the year because it represents a seismic shift in what the Mopologists are able to do. Prior to June of this year, they could always claim that their works were formally endorsed by BYU and the LDS Church (this in spite of the silly disclaimer they always include about not speaking for the Church). Even their most absurd, bigoted, and sophomoric publications always carried the BYU imprimatur. Now, though, as Dr. Peterson observed in his now-infamous email to Gerald Bradford, virtually the entire output of the Mopologists' run will now be interpreted as wrongheaded, since the dissolution of FARMS must be seen, in Peterson's own words, as:

as an institutional rebuke of me and all my works

Not just his works--but the works of Midgley, Hamblin, Gee, Smith, and all the others that worked to build FARMS into an attack Machine. Now, though, just as DCP realized, the apologists have been cast out, and they enjoy the status of non-scholarly Internet cranks, just like millions of other people. The events of June 2012 were, to paraphrase Greg Smith, a "game-changer."

* * * * *

Thus concludes this year's list. I fear that 2013 cannot possibly as monumental as 2012 was, but who knows what the future will bring? Certainly, 2012 was so jam-packed with events that I feel obliged to break with tradition and list some of the "Honorable Mention" items that didn't quite make the list:

--The McLays Appear on "Mormon Stories"
--Mitt Romney's Presidential Run
--Droopy Launches a Blog Devoted to Attacking Joanna Brooks
--David Bokovoy is Shafted by BYU
--Randy Bott is Canned for Making Comments About the "Curse of Cain" Doctrine
--Jersey Girl is Permanently Banned from MDB
--Mike Parker Attacks Richard Packham and Others on the FAIR Blog
--Jeremy Orbe Smith Gets Entangled in an Online Dispute with Mr. Stakhanovite
--Scott Lloyd Dines at Chik-Fil-A Because He Hates Gay People

Happy Holidays to all!