This open post to Tom and to any here who may be interested is a continuation of a now buried thread that I fear may be overlooked:
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1765446Tom Phillips, I actually thought of you often during the editing process of this video and the other Jeffrey Holland parodies I recently created. Here is why.
Disclaimer: I've never met Holland personally, just heard his talks.
Some background: About ten years ago a sitting mission president officially resigned from the church and came here to RfM under the moniker: SLDrone who I have met in person over lunch along with several other local exmos here in SLC, UT.
SLDrone shared stories of his cordial meetings with Holland after his return from the foreign mission field. SLDrone lives in Utah so met Holland at 47 East South Temple. I believe SLDrone did NOT have the Second Anointing, as you, Tom Phillips had.
SLDrone's attitude (from my perceptions) was non-confrontational and non-antagonistic with Holland or the Brethren. SLDrone concluded LDS was false (Book of Abraham started his shelf collapse, if I remember properly.) The shelf collapsed quickly, ended his mission president experience approximately half way through the usual three year stint, did not try to de-convert the missionaries under his care, assumed or concluded that the Brethren, including Holland were true believers (TBM's) so was not angry at them.
SLDrone told us that Holland considers himself to be an "iron rodder" meaning that he's seen others leave the fold but he's in for the long haul no matter what. Holland claimed to interested in SLDrone just as a person, expressing wishes to remain in touch with SLDrone but that interest had dropped off shortly and no further contacts were made by Holland towards SLDrone. I recall that the two met at least twice personally, maybe more.
SLDrone rarely posts here at RfM anymore but archives will reveal many eloquent and expressively exmo posts enjoyed by a majority of us here including admin. SLDrone, if you happen to catch this thread please pipe in and correct any mistakes I may be making here.
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Now more reflections on Jeff Holland gleaned from reports from Tom Phillips and my viewing of Holland's public discourses on YouTube, lds.org and the BBC. I have not kept a tally but I have listened to, viewed, slow-motioned and analyzed Holland behavior many times out of curiosity and in searching for soundbites and parody material (of which there is plenty).
First a look at the polished, professionally produced, public, pompous, priesthood pounding the pulpit performances:
1. The Conference Center is nothing more than an huge sound/video production stage for television broadcast with audio and lighting effects designed for maximum emotional effect upon Mormons, not upon the general public. (The non-Mormon public does not watch.)
2. There is a mock podium/teleprompter studio in the basement of the old tabernacle that new General Authorities rehearse on to hone their teleprompter reading and speech delivery skills. There is a skill and talent level to switching your gaze from side to side and up and down while reading the prompters. It can be disorienting to a newbie in front of the grand poobah pulpit for the first time. This studio is also used when a GA has to redux a botch performance in the main session of General Conference.
3. In my opinion Holland has mastered these podium skills to the highest level among the current top fifteen. Paul H Dunn would give him a run for this money if they were contemporaries. He's not perfect with it but it's obvious he takes the preparation and production seriously. He's right up there with all the other paid professional priesthood prodigies like Falwell, Robertson, Osteen, Roberts, Hubbard, Baker, Graham but in a uniquely Mormon way. With Holland it's push the play button he's all on.
Here are the gospel gimmicks and testimony ticklers I notice Holland employing:
1. Sappy emotional/spiritual bait and switch. Tell some stupid story about a couple living in a storage unit in order to finance their child's mission expenses, or about two brothers climbing rocks, getting stranded and leaping for safety, cry and tag it to "The Spirit" bearing testimony of the Gospel. This is really cheap and cheesy, so apparent to exmos but sponged by the suckers in the congregation.
2. Self depreciation decoy dismantling damnation slight of tongue technique. Confess a moment of poor parenting towards his son at age five, the shame and attempt to secure forgiveness is cried through and confirmed with a tag to the Son's Atonement under a all wise and all loving Father in Heaven. Confess a personal bout of depression and tearfully tag it to God's love will win in the end. Only the foolish fall for this false comparison and messed up metaphor.
Holland's confessions to a bout of depression, being a non-perfect "servant of the Lord", less than stellar husband, etc endear him to the Mo-masses but in reality have nothing to do with whether the LDS Church is true or not. Holland is using the pulpit to take charge of and moderate a huge self-help group therapy session and self flagellation exercise - emotional yes, manipulative yes, healthy questionable.
3. Word play, clever nuance, devil in the detail, pause for power, captivating cadence and sincerity saturation all designed to come across as powerful humility leading the listener to the feet of Christ to grovel for mercy and salvation, but only through the saving ordinances of Mormonism for a small fee, of course.
4. The irony and maybe the reason Holland works so feverishly at his skills is to overcome the sad and drooping face through which the delivery is dished out. He appears haggard, defeated and worn out. There is a definite gradient, miss-match, paradox, split and incongruent layer with Holland. Tony Robbins, Wayne Dyer (until his death) Depok Chopra, Zig Zigler had Holland beat hands down even though they are all in the same business.
5. The Brethrenly Bluster, Brighamly Bullying, Boyish Bravado appealing to authority (his as apostolic) is the last grasping at straws in the stuffy air of the conference center.
Remember this is a performance, not a spontaneous manifestation of some spiritual real time experience. Holland hopes that his listeners will feel an emotional/spiritual surge strong enough to keep them in the fold which is in reality is his calculated exercise in mass mind/heart control.
Ok, so that's Holland at the pulpit or behaving in any other official church capacity. He's like a righteous robot with a turn on button/switch that kicks him into the cultural cookie cutter of Mo-speak, GA cadence, gospel-speak, faith frequency "Mo-merize" that Mormons march lock step to.
Now challenge Holland by removing him from his familiar rameumptom and you see a magical morph into an unstable bowl of melting Jell-o with jowls a flapping in a flustered flurry of false authority. No better example exists of "Dr Jeffery - Mr Hide" than when he is nailed to his own cross by a BBC reporter:
https://youtu.be/wST_N0u9BiY especially at the 8:30 minute mark.
Holland has no recourse but to retreat to his pathetic appeal to authority after his obfuscation, misleaders, tangents, illogics and irrationalities fail to impress the reporter. Since Holland spends a majority of his time preaching to his own choir for self validation he is completely out of his element with a gentile who honestly can not fathom the nonsense spewing forth. Holland attempts to retain some civility towards the reporter but fails there as well.
Ok, so now Holland faces Tom Phillips, an insider who has been trusted enough and respected enough to have had the "Second Anointing" and who now is calling Holland out publicly.
Now comes a spiritual jousting match with Holland mounted on a tapir-testimony and Phillips on a purebred warhorse of fact and reason. Holland's mister nice guy facade is ripped off and as Phillips thrashed him to the ground Holland is forced to assume a Monty Python rebuttal "Tis only a flesh wound!" as he retreats to his cave in the Church Administration Building.
In summary, if you watch a Holland conference talk and then the BBC video, the discrepancy is glaring. A third video needs producing, but will never happen and that is a clip of Holland screening his BBC interview with the other apostles and being critiqued on his pathetic performance.
If Holland really were a man of truth, spiritual maturity and wholesomeness he would have responded without any defensiveness, uncomfortable body language, insults and accusations. The listener would feel calm, tranquil and maybe even inspired at the conclusion.
Holland's plea from "authority" is actually a backhanded insult implying that his listeners are too stupid, spiritually impaired and incompetent to find their own way. It's his way or the highway.
Holland's supposed humble blubbering as actually a weepy weapon of brain-mass destruction for the duped. Sorry, Jeff I not only don't buy into your celestial circus but find your behavior shallow and disgusting.
The only reason Holland was "nice" to SLDrone is that SLDrone did not confront or challenge Holland's cherished stance of faith.
And thanks to you Tom Phillips for sniffing out our droopy dog of a snake oil salesman.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/09/2016 10:27AM by cricket.