The Eclectic Cleric aka Rev. Dr. Tim Jensen Just Got "Memory Holed" By Rev. James Ford On His Monkey Mind Blog

A rather questionable comment by Rev. Tim Jensen aka Rev. Dr. Timothy W. Jensen aka the so-called self-titled (not to mention self-appointed) "Eclectic Cleric" has been deleted aka "memory holed" by Rev. James Ford on his Monkey Mind blog. Most ironically this deletion of Rev. Tim Jensen's questionable words by his professional colleague Rev. James Ford took place on his Monkey Mind blog post entitled 'On Deleting Blog Entries' after Rev. Ford had initially approved of and posted this comment by The Eclectic Cleric. In that Rev. Tim Jensen insulted and defamed me in his questionable comment I submitted a rebuttal of his U*U BS that was cross-posted here late last night. It seems that Rev. James Ford was unready and unwilling, albeit not actually unable, to post my response to Rev. Tim Jensen's insulting and defamatory attack on me which would have been the genuinely just and equitable thing to do and chose to delete Rev. Dr. Timothy W. Jensen's personal attack on me instead.

As U*Us know I am not big on the "memory holing" of blog posts and comments, perhaps especially when they contain evidence of the transgressive behavior of U*U ministers since such "memory holing" can be readily interpreted as an attempt to cover-up and hide the evidence of the transgressive U*U minister's "sins". For that reason I am reproducing verbatim everything that Rev. Dr. Timothy Jensen said in his questionable comment for U*U posteriority here. . . There will be no further comment from me in this particular blog post but I will almost certainly be questioning what Rev. Tim Jensen said in this rather questionable comment in some upcoming blog posts. I will respond to any comments on this blog post however, and I cordially invite Rev. Dr. Tim Jensen to comment here since I think he has some more explaining to do. . .

The Eclectic Cleric said...

I think anytime we write or speak in public as clergy, we are balancing a careful equilibrium between our duty as writers (and preachers) to "speak the Truth in Love," and the privileged trustworthiness and confidentiality people expect of us as clergy, whether we ask for it or not. I don't believe one or the other value ever really trumps its opposite; it's just that these two sometimes conflicting values cannot really be "compromised" without a serious loss of integrity on both ends.

Telling "the Truth, the Whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth" is a fantasy at best; none of us really knows the WHOLE truth to begin with, while all kinds of opinion, bias, and even prejudice slip into our analysis of "truth" often without even our own awareness. Thus none of us are ever truly objective either, even if we do have a viewpoint that allows us to consider multiple perspectives. Instead, we owe to our readers accuracy, authenticity, and humility -- to make our narratives as honest and real as we can, in recognition of our profound limitations both in perception and our ability to communicate what we perceive.

But this isn't really what's got me going today. What I want to know is why do you and other prominent UU bloggers allow Robin Edgar to latch on to your readers like a parasite in order to spread his...well, insanity...to larger and larger audiences?

I just found out today that I even rate my own TAG on his site, which includes what I can only take to be a not-particularly-subtle death threat in his post of January 4, 2009. My offense? Apparently he thought I should have given him credit for seeing the same image and having a similar (and I imagine quite common) reaction to it as he did.

I'm not even going to try to go any deeper into the situation as it evolved than that. All I can say is that, for whatever reason, Robin is pretty clearly a very deeply disturbed soul, and we don't do him or ourselves any favors by spreading his disturbance any more widely that he is capable of doing so on his own. I actually feel quite strongly and personally threatened by his unsolicited and undesired attention, and would feel quite grateful if everything that Robin has ever said, read, or written about me could be conveniently "memory-holed" and never see the light of day again. Personally, I just try to ignore him as much as possible, and have for quite some time now (which is what makes the thought that I somehow went to his site and "stole" his idea even all the more laughable). I don't approve his comments on my blog, and generally even avoid commenting myself on posts where he has already commented. And I sure wish other UU bloggers would do the same.

Keep this in mind: the mission of healthy religious organizations is to take people who are hurt and to help them become whole, and then take people who are whole and help them become wise. But dysfunctional institutions (often in the name of important values like "inclusion" or "empowerment" or "the democratic process") inevitably end up turning effective control of the organization over to its least functional members. The healthy people eventually come to share the illness, while the wise people see what is happening and leave. Which may help explain why over two/thirds of the people who ALREADY identify themselves as Unitarians, Universalists, or Unitarian Universalists are not active members of ANY UU congregation....

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