Hasa Diga Eebowai wrote:Now in hindsight since getting an education and reading academic articles the difference is stark. I haven't gone back to FARMS for years, but reading the the mopologetic rants when compared to the books they are reviewing and then the counter responses shows how stark the difference is. They have encouraged their own insular culture of attacking that fails to address the criticism and is not appropriate for an academic journal.
Make no mistake, the apologists who write slam articles that fail to engage the actual arguments of the work they "review" are banking on two things: 1) the bias of their reader against any difficult information or criticism; 2) the reader's inability to assess critically the review itself. In cases such as these, the only thing the piece can possibly serve as is a stopgap measure or diversion. Most anyone who comes to such reviews with any critical reading skills will see them for what they are and be sorely disappointed. It is a paltry gain for the harm that it does. I say, unless one has the knowledge and skill to give a book an adequate and fair review, one ought to decline the opportunity to do so. Certainly one should not be invited to do so by a responsible editor, and by all means the editor should exercise his or her responsibility by not publishing inadequate reviews.
On MDD, one of the posters seems to get the basic idea, but he applies it to John Dehlin's interviews:
Robert F. Smith wrote:I'd feel a whole lot more comfortable about it if Dehlin bothered to prepare himself for his interviews. It is obvious that he hasn't done his homework, hasn't read widely enough to get a feel for the true nature of the issues. I suppose that is to be expected, coming as he does from a family (as he himself said) which was anti-science and very conservative (the way fundamentalist christians are typically rigid and conservative).
Perhaps his interviewing will by itself help him learn something about the issues, but I doubt it. He is so poorly informed at this point that he has little to judge his interviewees by, and little context in which to place their responses. He is more likely to be whipsawed by every little piece of propaganda, regardless of the source. Aside from all that, he seems like a nice guy.
Robert F. Smith is right. The value of an interview depends in part on the level of preparation that goes into it. Of course, when one listens to John Dehlin, no one is kidding themselves into thinking that John is a professional journalist. Most people come to understand that he is a busy student, provider, and father, with a lot of irons in the fire. And, it is not like he brings nothing to the table. Most of all, as Smith concedes, he "seems like a nice guy."
The last phrase is a common refrain over there, which strikes me, in the way it is phrased and the context in which it is phrased, to be a backhanded compliment. "Oh, he may be an apostate ignoramus and wolf in sheep's clothing," they say, "but he
seems like a nice guy." Ahem. Yes.
The thing that makes what John is doing useful and interesting, in my view, is that he provides casual exposure to people and subjects that many have not encountered before. His stated purpose was for people to tell their stories, hence "Mormon Stories." It was never to provide scholarly coverage of the minutiae of LDS history and doctrine. So, yes, Mr. Smith, duly noted. But there is none of the false advertizing here that a number of apologists have insidiously implied. John is open about who he is. You guys just don't like it and think it has no place in the LDS world.
How worse that we have these "reviews" that pass as scholarship, but are not uncommonly mean spirited accusations that an LDS writer is a wolf in sheep's clothing, tool of the Devil, and apostate. Frankly, it is hard not to reach the conclusion that such reviews are notes for the Committee for Strengthening the Membership that are simply dressed up in slightly more readable (if no less disturbing) prose suitable for feeding an Inquisition. If there is any false advertizing, I would submit that it is this intellectual subterfuge that seeks, on the claimed authority of no one higher than an editor who works for BYU, to marginalize LDS authors and other personalities where church discipline has yet to reach.
And, it seems that what counts for the purpose, is not that the review be rigorous and accurate, but mostly that it be calculated to make the person who wrote the work look either inept or like a threat to the Body of Christ. The former task is acceptable, inasmuch as it is a responsible scholar's job to provide in his review a fair scholarly assessment, and inasmuch as that person is qualified to make such a judgment and does so responsibly. The latter is nothing less than an arrogation of inappropriate authority and the misuse of the scholarly pose as a weapon, illegitimately wielded in lieu of the proper exercise of priesthood authority.
So who, then, is the wolf in sheep's clothing? The doubting member who goes online or makes a podcast to discuss his doubts openly, or the person who preempts priesthood authority by maligning fellow members with the goal of ostracizing them where church discipline has yet to act? Personally, I think that the latter is far more dangerous. And we have seen how time and again the apologetic effort at BYU has been used to conduct this kind of warfare where the church has yet to act officially, using the institutional credibility of BYU to lend an air of official authority to this speaking evil of brothers and sisters in Christ.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist