How Wide The Divide?

[_Ray A]

The church is going to hell in a handbasket, if this is how a majority of members feel.

Fortunately, I think the number of members who feel this way is a very small miniority. Very small.

I suspect many members in the mission field (a.k.a., anywhere outside of Utah) would read the article in the Trib that quoted the FAIR spokesperson and not be at all fazed. Why? Because they don't know who or what FAIR is, and couldn't care less.

I agree with you there, harmony. What I'm wondering, though, is how much a small minority can influence the masses, be they apologists or critics. Brodie was only one person, and in spite of much criticism, her book influenced many. The Tanners were only two people, yet a prominent Mormon educator voiced real concern that they were being more effective than the leaders imagined.

The average member is hardly concerned, and as you say even unaware of the "Mormon wars", or "the battle for the Book of Mormon". I strongly suspect, though, from my experience, many members have already given much thought to their own personal beliefs, and just how literally they should approach the Book of Mormon. I have sensed skepticism, but also an unwillingness to go where belief could be eroded, because of fragility.

See Roger's post for confirmation of that. Protection is often the only way to stop the erosion of belief.

[_Ray A]

One more thing, Blixa, I do think the "Bitton phenomenon" is worth looking at. I have some things to do, but I'll go into that a bit later.

[_Ray A]

I guess what I would be interested in hearing your speculation on, Ray, is why this has come about, what are the conditions of necessity for this approach? What explains the historical shift from B.H. Roberts to (fill in the black with whoever)? How to account for Arrington to (is it Turley?) or early Bitton to later Bitton (an even more stark contrast)?

Part two of my reply to Blixa. I've done a bit of searching and found an old Dialogue article that might be of interest, written by Brigham Madsen. B.H. Roberts Studies of The Book of Mormon.

I think this will help a little in understanding the shift, but one that will give a better understanding is James Allen's BYU Studies article on Roberts' battles with the hierarchy, and in particular Joseph Fielding Smith, over the publication of his [Roberts] book The Truth, The Way, The Life. No surprise that JFS plays a prominent role in criticising Roberts. My opinion is that the leaders were correct in their decision not to publish TWL, and some of Roberts speculations then are way out of the ball court, but we can see that even more clearly today. This however marks early divisions on important doctrine that is still debated today. Roberts' willingness to reinterpret the scriptures in accordance with science is perhaps a forerunner to modern apologetics.

Madsen's article, I think, lays out a good case as to why Roberts' faith in the Book of Mormon was sorely tested, and you really need to read that to get the gist of his thought. Sterling Mc Murrin also speculated that since the 1950s the Church began to gravitate towards greater orthodoxy, and he mentions several times in various places that one of the signs of the beginning of this was technology and the GAs writing out prepared conference talks. We've also seen the re-enacting of Ronald Poelman's conference talk, and then the simplification of the Church's three-fold mission, and of course Elder Packer's warning of the "three perils" that endanger the Church. All of this comes, I think from a growing worldwide Church facing new challenges, which brings me to your comment:

I think the most popular response would be to talk about the impact of the internet and the resulting increase in the circulation of previously less-accessible texts and arguments. But I don't think that is the entire story and I'd be interested in hearing thoughts on connecting apologetics to internal institutional shifts and transformations (especially the place of "correlation" in all of this) as well as the connections between those "local" changes and larger historical forces which shaped them.

I think I at least partly answered your comment about institutional shifts. With the Church becoming worldwide, its previous cohesion could be threatened, and it tightened up in many areas. The systematic defence of the Church, in my opinion, began with FARMS. This was not in response to the Internet, but a large and growing literature that began with Brodie, the Tanners in 1959, the founding of Dialogue in 1966, and later Sunstone in the 1970s, The Mormon History Association, and other related societies which were "questioning" in nature, and looking for more open histories, Signature in 1980, and so on. In other words, since Brodie there was a flood of "anti-Mormon" literature abroad. FARMS, as far as I know, was the first LDS apologetic organisation to reply to the Tanners. I think that while the Internet facilitated the flow of information, I don't believe that the Internet is the root cause of the apologetics which we see today.

So in my opinion the apologists went on the defensive with all these developments. Take the case of FARMS, which initially only wanted to focus on the Book of Mormon, and scholarship about the Book of Mormon, but by 1989 it shifted its focus to anti-Mormonism. In this atmosphere there was much less room for dialogue, and apologists began to focus wholly on defence of the Church (excepting METI, in the case of FARMS). And that's where we are today. Almost everything is a response to critics. And that is the motto of The Maxwell Institute, the two important points being:

Describe and defend the Restoration through highest quality scholarship

Provide an anchor of faith in a sea of LDS Studies

As Brigham Madsen noted, the Community of Christ adapted better than LDS to the new challenges. They downplayed the importance of the Book of Mormon as history, and allowed members more leeway to make their own decisions about it, and they have experienced little friction in comparison to LDS. They also eliminated a powderkeg - polygamy - and most of the doctrines which cause LDS continuing problems or a need for a strong apologetic arm.
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