Postmodern LDS apologists

[_Ray A]

Postmodernism is not cut-and-dried. Many postmodernists believe science should be empirical and data-driven, but sometimes these empirical observations need further scrutiny and analysis, and do not necessarily stand on their own as final conclusions. For example see: http://www.xenos.org/CLASSES/papers/pomosci.htm

I am critical of some postmodern thought.

[_beastie]

The following is an excerpt from “A Teacher of Teachers”, by President Boyd K. Packer, Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, as contained in the magazine “McKay Today Magazine, Fall 2006”, published by BYU.

President Packer was discussing his general ideas behind teaching and shared this story:

Under similar circumstances in 1938, President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., had delivered The Chartered Course of the Church in Education.” If you do not have a copy of that and read it at least annually, you are missing a great influence in your life.

In reviewing that history 10 years ago, I went back to the time that George H. Brimhall was president here at Brigham Young University. Having already served 19 years as president of BYU, he determined to establish a recognized teachers college. He had hired three professors: one with a master’s degree from Harvard, one with a doctorate from Cornell, and the other with a doctorate from Chicago. They hoped to transform the college into a full-fledged university. They determined that practicality and religion, which had characterized the school, must now give way to more intellectual and scientific philosophies.

The professors held that “the fundamentals of religion could and must be investigated by extending the [empirical] method into the spiritual realm, “ and they “considered evolution to be a basic, spiritual principle through which the divinity in nature expressed itself. The faculty sided with the new professors, and the students rallied to them.

Horace Cummings, superintendent of Church schools, became concerned that they were “applying the evolutionary theory and other philosophical hypotheses to principles of the gospel and to the teachings of the Church in such a way as to disturb, if not destroy the faith of the pupils.” And he wrote, “Many stake presidents, some of our leading principals and teachers, and leading men who are friends of our school have expressed deep anxiety to me about this matter.”

Superintendent Cummings reported to the board that:

1. The teachers were following the “higher criticism”…treating the Bible as a “collection of myths, folk-lore, dramas, literary productions, history, and some inspiration.
2. They rejected the flood, the confusion of tongues, the miracle of the Red Sea, and the temptation of Christ as real phenomena.
3. They said John the Revelator was not translated but died in the year A.D. 96.
4. “The theory of evolution is treated as demonstrated law and their applications of it to gospel truths give rise to many curious and conflicting explanations of scripture.”
5. The teachers carried philosophical idea too far: (1) “They believed sinners should be pitied and enlightened rather than blamed and punished.” (2) and they believed that “we should never agree. God never made two things alike. Only by taking different views of a thing can its real truth be seen.”
6. …
7. The professors taught that “All truths change as we change. Nothing is fixed or reliable.
8. They also taught that “Visions and revelations are mental suggestions. The objective reality of the presence of the Father and the Son, in Joseph Smith’s first vision, is questioned.


Superintendent Cummings concluded his report by saying that the professors “seem to feel they have a mission to protect the young from the errors of they parents.”

President Brimhall himself defended the professors – that is, until some students “frankly told him they had quit praying because they learned in school there was no real God to hear them.”

Shortly thereafter, President Brimhall had a dream:

He saw several of the BYU professors standing around a peculiar machine on campus. When one of them touched a spring a baited fish hook attached to a long thin wire rose rapidly into the air…

Casting his eyes around the sky he [Brimhall] discovered a flock of snow-white birds circling among the clouds and disporting themselves in the sky, seemingly very happy. Presently one of them, seeing the bait on the hook, darted toward it and grabbed it. Instantly one of the professors on the ground touched a spring in the machine, and the bird was rapidly hauled down to earth.

On reaching the ground the bird proved to be a BYU student, clad in an ancient Greek costume, and was directed to join a group of other students who had been brought down in a similar manner. Brother Brimhall walked over to them, and noticing that all of them looked very sad, discouraged, and downcast, he asked them:

“Why, students, what on earth makes you so sad and downhearted?”

“Alas, we can enver fly again!” they replied with a sigh, and a sad shake of the head.

Their Greek philosophy had tied them to the earth. They could believe only what they could demonstrate in the laboratory. Their prayers could go no higher than the ceiling. They could see no heaven – no hereafter.

Now deeply embarrassed by the controversy and caught between opposing factions, President Brimhall at first attempted to be conciliatory. He said, “I have been hoping for a year or two past that harmony could be secured by waiting, but the delays have been fraught with increased danger.” When an exercise in administrative diplomacy suddenly became an issue of faith. President Brimhall acted.

You can see a powerful lesson in that dream- the dream of the snow-white birds.

Note: the ellipses and the missing number six are in the original document. I have no idea what is missing.

[_Runtu]

beastie, thanks for posting that. It's interesting how that ties into Eagleton's idea that fundamentalists are afraid of change; that seems to fit Packer. Ironically, Brimhall, lauded by Packer for his spirituality, ended up committing suicide.

[_beastie]

Wow, runtu, that is disturbing. I didn't know he committed suicide. Poor guy.

[_beastie]

Ray, good summary in the link, thanks.

Like with most things, there are certainly elements of truth in the po-mo position. It's just that, taken to the extreme, it is ridiculous.

[_Ray A]

Wow, runtu, that is disturbing. I didn't know he committed suicide. Poor guy.

I didn't either, but here one link:

Suffering chest and abdominal pain that reduced his effectiveness, Brimhall was asked to resign the presidency of BYU in 1921, although he remained head of the Department of Theology and Religion. His health continued to deteriorate, and he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.

http://www.answers.com/topic/george-h-brimhall

Brimhall had two wives and fourteen children, one of whom was the mother of biographer Fawn McKay Brodie. She described her grandfather as only "nominally devout" in the Mormon faith, a "free spirit" with a "fine mind." Apparently some members of his faculty also considered him mentally instable. In 1911, Brimhall dismissed three faculty members who advocated evolution and higher criticism. Brimhall had hired all three and was sympathetic to their views, but he bowed to the wishes of Superintendent of Church Schools Horace Cummings, who was determined to rid the university of modernists.

[_Runtu]

Wow, runtu, that is disturbing. I didn't know he committed suicide. Poor guy.

I didn't either, but here one link:

Suffering chest and abdominal pain that reduced his effectiveness, Brimhall was asked to resign the presidency of BYU in 1921, although he remained head of the Department of Theology and Religion. His health continued to deteriorate, and he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.

http://www.answers.com/topic/george-h-brimhall

Brimhall had two wives and fourteen children, one of whom was the mother of biographer Fawn McKay Brodie. She described her grandfather as only "nominally devout" in the Mormon faith, a "free spirit" with a "fine mind." Apparently some members of his faculty also considered him mentally instable. In 1911, Brimhall dismissed three faculty members who advocated evolution and higher criticism. Brimhall had hired all three and was sympathetic to their views, but he bowed to the wishes of Superintendent of Church Schools Horace Cummings, who was determined to rid the university of modernists.

Yet in Packer's talk, Brimhall was noble for caving into Cummings. That's really what the church requires of its members: to put loyalty to the organization over their own conscience. Don't believe me? Reread Packer's talk to the All-Church Coordinating Council.

[_Ray A]

Yet in Packer's talk, Brimhall was noble for caving into Cummings. That's really what the church requires of its members: to put loyalty to the organization over their own conscience. Don't believe me? Reread Packer's talk to the All-Church Coordinating Council.

Don't disagree at all. But if that's what members want to do, it's still their choice. They are slaves to no one if that's the choice they make. I un-chose that in 1987.

[_Runtu]

Yet in Packer's talk, Brimhall was noble for caving into Cummings. That's really what the church requires of its members: to put loyalty to the organization over their own conscience. Don't believe me? Reread Packer's talk to the All-Church Coordinating Council.

Don't disagree at all. But if that's what members want to do, it's still their choice. They are slaves to no one if that's the choice they make. I un-chose that in 1987.

I did not say they were slaves. I just find it dismaying that there is such tremendous pressure to conform, no matter the cost. That price was too high for me.

[_Ray A]

I just find it dismaying that there is such tremendous pressure to conform, no matter the cost. That price was too high for me.

I know what you went through, and I respect that. A little later I may post a Thomas Paine quote I used in my "explanation" to the stake president at the time.