Kevin Barney declares it isn't "natural" to keep commandments.

Of course, it isn't.  That's why the "natural man" (or woman) doesn't keep the commandments.  Of course, Kevin seems okay with that. 

Well, Kevin & co., continue to be "natural" and insist on "naturalness."  The Book of Mormon is quite clear on where the "natural" person's final destination will be.  (hint: it's not the presence of God).

BCC declares we need more people like them in church

"If the church wants to retain and grow, it has to have enough “cool” people in it."

That's likely untrue, as the churches obsessed with being cool (i.e., mainline protestants) are declining in both percentage and absolute numbers, as well as influence.

However, this is proof, as I've always said, that the 'Nacle (BCC in particular, but nearly all the other blogs as well) is the cool kids clique you always hated in school but secretly wanted to be a member of. 

If I see that "Howard" has posted a lot of comments

If I see that "Howard" has posted a lot of comments on a particular thread on any Bloggernacle post, I tremble in fear.

Most discussion threads in the 'Nacle are wastes of time, and their value is near zero.

Howard, however, with his snide passive-aggressive progressive self-righteousness, actually creates negative value. Reading his comments doesn't just waste time, it actively steals values from time you spend doing valuable things.

Me, I'm the disembodied embodiement of the discontent on and of the Bloggernacle and its various subsideries and spin-offs.  I have to read it all (the horror - the horror).  You, on the other hand, might find your productive morning suddenly losing all it's value because you chose to read Howard's take over of a thread.

Steve Evans: "they sound stupid and hateful"

You mean like 95% of the content at the blog beast you created?

And really, Steve: "It takes particular insight to be able to voice disagreement intelligently with the Church without sounding like a typical disgruntled DAMU denizen — most of those able to do so are already permas here."

Nope.  BCC is basically the DAMU-lite, and insight is rare to non-existent among any of your permas.  If you had any real insight, you'd realize BCC actively cultivate the stupid and hateful crowd.

And then, when we insist

that we should enter the Celestial realm, despite having done very little to actually build the kingdom (being too busy building up our online reputations as well), God can also learn to say "no."

Screwtape would be proud.

At BCC, Screwtape must be handling their cases personally. You can read that book and see just how it works.

Case in point:  Compare this post to Screwtape Letter 10.

A few points of comparison:

Screwtape: "your patient has made some very desirable new acquaintances and that you seem to have used this event in a really promising manner. I gather that the middle-aged married couple who called at his office are just the sort of people we want him to know - rich, smart, superficially intellectual, and brightly sceptical about everything in the world."

BCC: "I found myself being drawn away from art and into classes on religion, sexuality, and philosophy. I found that academia both gave me tools with which to think about religion with nuance but also allowed me to have a safe space for my questions and critiques to be engaged."

Screwtape: "Sooner or later, however, the real nature of his new friends must become clear to him, and then your tactics must depend on the patient's intelligence. If he is a big enough fool you can get him to realise the character of the friends only while they are absent; their presence can be made to sweep away all criticism. If this succeeds, he can be induced to live, as I have known many humans live, for quite long periods, two parallel lives; he will not only appear to be, but actually be, a different man in each of the circles he frequents. Failing this, there is a subtler and more entertaining method. He can be made to take a positive pleasure in the perception that the two sides of his life are inconsistent. This is done by exploiting his vanity. He can be taught to enjoy kneeling beside the grocer on Sunday just because he remembers that the grocer could not possibly understand the urbane and mocking world which he inhabited on Saturday evening; and contrariwise, to enjoy the bawdy and blasphemy over the coffee with these admirable friends all the more because he is aware of a "deeper", "spiritual" world within him which they cannot understand."

BCC: "During this year, I put a strict divide between my religious and academic worlds. Eventually as I progressed in my degree, I relaxed my boundaries between my religious and academic worlds, cautiously allowing them to ever so slightly bleed into one another. Negotiating between those worlds is still a delicate balance that I will probably continue to work on throughout my entire life. Yet I can’t help notice that the way that my unique position of both academically digesting religion and being an active participant affected the way is embodied in which I framed both of these images."

John C needs a new headline writer

Let me fix that for you:

John C's title: "Actually reading Nephi"

Better title:  "Speculating wildly about Nephi's psychology based on my idiosyncratic reactions to the actual text, which doesn't really support my forced readings"

(He even admits this: "this is speculation based on the tiniest textual clues" - his entire argument hinges on such speculations).