Does Jonathan Neville Pose a "potential threat to the peace and unity of the Saints"?

[malkie]

...

Meanwhile, did you know that there are legitimate professors and/or PhD-holding folks who support the Heartlanders? Check this out. Wow: Dr. Kevin Price appears to have some authentic credentials, including long stints teaching at actual universities. Man, how are Midgley and DCP ever going to respond to that? I can help but be impressed by the Heartlanders' commitment. They are going all in with their use of SENSYS technology to do field research. The Mopologists are pumping millions of dollars into theatrical movies. Why aren't they out there getting their hands dirty and proving that Zarahemla is in the Yucatan?

Perhaps they remember what happened to a Mormon apologist who actually did get his hands dirty:
How a Mormon lawyer transformed archaeology in Mexico—and ended up losing his faith

After decades of stressing the importance of the scientific method and using it to shore up his own faith, Ferguson now found himself at its mercy. "I must conclude that Joseph Smith had not the remotest skill in things Egyptian-hieroglyphics," he wrote to a fellow doubting Mormon in 1971. What's more, he wrote to another, "Right now I am inclined to think that all of those who claim to be ‘prophets’, including Moses, were without a means of communication with deity."

This doubt ultimately spread to Ferguson's archaeological quest. In 1975, he submitted a paper to a symposium about Book of Mormon geography outlining the failure of archaeologists to find Old World plants, animals, metals, and scripts in Mesoamerica. "The real implication of the paper," he wrote in a letter the following year, "is that you can't set Book of Mormon geography down anywhere—because it is fictional."

[Philo Sofee]

Ferguson
"The real implication of the paper," he wrote in a letter the following year, "is that you can't set Book of Mormon geography down anywhere—because it is fictional."

And we are 46 years later, and this has not changed even a little bit, in spite of some heavy work going on down there in those jungles.

It isn't like there has been no interest or desire to discover more down there either. It hasn't had a lull in activity, discoveries of new temples (I'm thinking of Richard Hansen's) and other situations. What's more, how much forest has been cleared in that time, and still nothing worthy has been found? The deforestation has been utterly insanely massive and idiotic, yet there is nothing available for the Book of Mormon anywhere, in millions of square miles of exploration and forest destruction.

[Doctor Scratch]

But there's more here that's strange. Not long ago, DrW referred to Dr. Peterson as having "narcissistic personality disorder," and was upbraided by the good Reverend over this. Well, I'm no expert in psychology, but this sentence is downright strange: "Once I noticed Mr. Neville’s propensity to demonize those who don’t share his geographical theories, however, and his urgent need to attack me over and over again, I began to realize that he poses a very unfortunate potential threat to the peace and unity of the Saints." Huh? Why would criticism of DCP equal a "potential threat to the peace and unity of the Saints"? Does Dr. Peterson really feel that he's that important?

Did you notice that there has been a change to that paragraph you quoted?

Once I noticed Mr. Neville’s propensity to demonize those who don’t share his geographical theories, however, I began to realize that he poses a very unfortunate potential threat to the peace and unity of the Saints. And his curiously urgent need to attack me over and over again has also been brought to my attention....

Thank you *very much* for pointing this out, Lem. I'd be willing to give Dr. Peterson the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it was a kind of "Freudian Slip", and he simply mistyped? In any case, the meaning has now shifted. Whereas in the original, DCP was equating himself with the institutional Church and saying, in effect, that any attack on him (i.e., DCP) was equivalent to an attack on the actual Church, now he is trying to frame his fellow Latter-day Saint as a "threat" to the Church--presumably in the hopes that Neville will face a court of love. His revisions makes clear that this is a smear campaign, in other words.

If the Mopologists' support for the LGT were not a legitimate issue, there would be no need for them to pick these kinds of fights. But this is arguably their singular achievement: i.e., that they--and not the Brethren--have determined Church doctrine. They basically have usurped even Joseph Smith on the matter of where the Book of Mormon took place. That's why their battles over this issue have been so bloody.

[Gadianton]

If the Mopologists' support for the LGT were not a legitimate issue

Doctor, I'm at a loss on this one. It could be the same reason why he' doesn't openly reject evolution, even though he clearly rejects it and hates the theory. He's afraid of being wrong. Hopefully evolution is wrong, but if not, 'oh well!' no skin off of his nose. But he's never hinted at it being even less than gospel. In fact, I'm pretty sure I remember statements like -- and my memory could be way off here -- if the Book of Mormon didn't happen in Mesoamerica, then it didn't happen.

So what gives? My best guess is it's political. But I just don't know.

So, I can't remember the source, but I've seen a mention that when cigarettes were banned from advertising on TV, that it helped the cigarette companies. They don't have to waste dollars going to war in media. If somebody else advertises, then you have to advertise to balance it out.

We know the Heartland following is huge. They have these mega-center gatherings where Heartlanders and "freedom" based Mormon enterprises promote their products. Years ago, at a family reunion I ended up having multiple extended family associated with various efforts of Meldrum. Nobody really knew what FARMS was when I brought it up. FARMS is getting demolished in geography market share.

The apologists have gone the route of telling Meldrum that he's not allowed to have a testimony of the Heartland model, that they aren't allowed to incorporate it into their overall belief system, that Book of Mormon geography is just an academic thing. So the best I can come up with is he's saying look, it's just geography, hoping that eventually the Brethren will enforce the matter, and stifle any geography model being claimed is the orthodox model of the Church. My guess is that if the Heartlanders were outnumbered by them, he wouldn't be so charitable.

[Gadianton]

This isn't the quote that I'm trying to recall, but it's "getting warmer"

In one particular area of study I am in a position to offer unique testimony. I have been concerned for sixty years with the topic of the Book of Mormon in relation to the scientific/scholarly picture of ancient America. As a result, I say that the Book of Mormon is an ancient Mesoamerican record, derived ultimately from a native book written in the fourth and fifth centuries AD. More than four hundred elements of the book’s text are written in a manner and display content that cannot be accounted for except by supposing its Mesoamerican origin. Of all the theories of origin for the Book, the only acceptable explanation for how it came to be published in English in 1830 is that offered by Joseph Smith, puzzling though the details may be. No nineteenth-century person could have known enough about ancient Mesoamerican civilization to account for the depth and breadth of the “Mesoamericanisms” the scripture contains.

https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/tes ... l-sorenson

That the LGT is a matter of testimony for the Apologists and that it shares no shelf space with other geographies is effectively all right here.

However, the statement that I'm trying to recall is stronger than this one, even.

[Philo Sofee]

Well, just remember, DCP has no interest at all in geography, it certainly doesn't keep him awake at night or busy during the day....

I LOVE how he pulls the authority/expert card out......I, ahem, have 60 years involved in this material, therefore I know, *I KNOW*......and so, by implication.....of course......I am correct, just ask me, I'm the expert here.

[Dr Moore]

Isn't Neville a threat for the simple reason that he insists on specificity where today's Q15 vote for ambiguity? I mean, it's apostacy, as they've defined it. By refusing to defer to the brethren about what we know, as well as what we "don't know" -- really the same thing. If he gains followers, it's DEFCON 1 of potential threats to the peace and unity of the Saints.

[Doctor Scratch]

Isn't Neville a threat for the simple reason that he insists on specificity where today's Q15 vote for ambiguity? I mean, it's apostacy, as they've defined it. By refusing to defer to the brethren about what we know, as well as what we "don't know" -- really the same thing. If he gains followers, it's DEFCON 1 of potential threats to the peace and unity of the Saints.

I don't know about that, Dr. Moore. How is Neville et al.'s activity any worse than the Mopologists' insistence on a Mesoamerican Book of Mormon? Midgley, as you'll recall, once said that they Mopologists had to wait for Elder Peterson *to die* so that they could advance the LGT. So, I don't see how the Heartlanders are really any different from the Mopologists, when push comes to shove.

[Lem]

Isn't Neville a threat for the simple reason that he insists on specificity where today's Q15 vote for ambiguity? I mean, it's apostacy, as they've defined it. By refusing to defer to the brethren about what we know, as well as what we "don't know" -- really the same thing. If he gains followers, it's DEFCON 1 of potential threats to the peace and unity of the Saints.

I don't know about that, Dr. Moore. How is Neville et al.'s activity any worse than the Mopologists' insistence on a Mesoamerican Book of Mormon?

Especially when Peterson is the headliner for a cruiselady "Book of Mormon Lands" cruise to central America. And yes, the company specifically advertises these as "Book of Mormon Lands" cruises. How is that any different from Neville's approach?

[Dr Moore]

I don't know about that, Dr. Moore. How is Neville et al.'s activity any worse than the Mopologists' insistence on a Mesoamerican Book of Mormon?

Especially when Peterson is the headliner for a cruiselady "Book of Mormon Lands" cruise to central America. And yes, the company specifically advertises these as "Book of Mormon Lands" cruises. How is that any different from Neville's approach?

You're right. The Mopologists do disagree, sometimes "violently," about some things with the brethren, and that was maybe poor wording on my part. The point wasn't about Neville being out of bounds on specific vs vague ideas. The point was that he does so with clearly questionable loyalty to the Q15.

On reflection, I shouldn't have mentioned Neville's beliefs at all, because they are entirely irrelevant to his being a "potential threat." At least on his publicly stated ideas alone, Neville is no more a threat than Jim Bennett or Terryl Givens or Richard Bushman.

As you point out, Mopologists do propound non-chapel (eg, non-Q15 confirmed) theories all the time. But, the Mopologists, and this list still includes Bennett, Givens and Bushman, do it while publicly holding their sustaining arms to the square. As soon as that arm goes down, watch TF out.

Here's a diagram to correct my prior message.