The Six Million Dollar Man

[_Jason Bourne]

The major flay with all this posturing and horn blowing is Scratch has demonstrated very little. All he has are innuendos and flowery hyperbole which you attempt to mimic. Come on with some solid evidence please and stop this nonsensical self congratulatory chest pounding. There is nothing mysterious, dubious, shady, aggressive, under handed, sneaky, danitish or so on about any LDS apologetic activity. Do some apolgists act like jerks at times? Sure. Do they have the corner market on it. Certainly not. Your OP is fine evidence of that.

[_Jason Bourne]

Another note. Bushman is not really an apologist. I recommend you listen to the interviews of him on Mormon Stories. He is failry sympathatic as well to people who have questions that challenge their faith in the LDS Church.

I think this is a great move and a great choice.


But all you can see Gad is black helicopters. How sad.

[_Jason Bourne]

Though that is possible, William, I doubt it. Trevor and Sethbag at least I expect to be tough to convince.

I simply don't buy into conspiracy theories very easily. I actually think there's a major kernel of truth in what you wrote. I just don't think it ought to be dressed up with all the conspiratorial and dark language.
.

This was a fantastic post.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Why give it any attention, if all you can give is a blanket denial?

I deny it because it implicates me, people I know, and enterprises in which I'm involved in ways that I regard as both negative and wholly false.

I would also, if asked, deny the claims of the Flat Earth Society. But I wouldn't waste time doing point-by-point refutations of flat-earthers.

[_Mister Scratch]

Why give it any attention, if all you can give is a blanket denial?

I deny it because it implicates me, people I know, and enterprises in which I'm involved in ways that I regard as both negative and wholly false.

"Implicates" how? *You* are starting to sound secretive and conspiratorial. Why not just state your specific problems with Gadianton's post?

[_Gadianton]

I've got a lot of posts to respond to, I appreciate all the great feedback and vigorous critique of my ideas.

Sethbag,

A fair question. What makes me think it's political and part of a broader scheme for world domination? Let me quote the material from Meridian again:

He was aware, Elder Holland continued, “that a Mormon studies program in just such an environment could greatly impact scholars, opinion leaders and public policy makers, ultimately from all over the world.”

Elder Holland recalled that President Hunter encouraged us to “talk with those beyond our own circle.” He urged us to “communicate first and foremost in our language of faith.” But, Elder Holland reminded, President Hunter also urged that wherever possible we should “add the language of scholarship, which would expand our circle of influence even further.

I don't think that anyone can argue otherwise. Elder Holland sees Bushman's appointment as true to the crazy, global subversion plans of Howard W. Hunter. Clearly, the implications support other contentions I had too. That they were "watching the market". Just because one is willing to put millions of dollars into this kind of investment, doesn't mean the opportunity is there for it.

But holding the goals of a Mormon studies program, something which should end in only sound scholarship, better understanding, and at most, paving the way for diversity (as Mauss explains) is most definitely not what Holland and the church have in mind. They want to "expand their circle of influence" and affect policy making on a global level.

Let me turn this around for a moment of cross examination. Is there any evidence at all that rich, elite Mormons, general authorities, and others in prominant positions who are not scholars themselves have any interest at all in a more true representation of Mormon History? Can you or anyone else supply a quote from a general authority that reads something like, "What a great opportunity we have here to explore thorough, objective, and rigorus scrutiny of our sacred prophets and their history?"

Finally, just because a conspiricy doesn't succeed, doesn't mean it isn't a conspiricy. While I doubt Hunter's diabolical plans will see themselves to fruition, I will note that the inhabitants of Europe at one time had no idea they'd be thoroughly decimated and enslaved by a bunch of "Christies".

No problem on the word count. The world needs more of your words, Sethbag.

[_Jason Bourne]

I don't think that anyone can argue otherwise. Elder Holland sees Bushman's appointment as true to the crazy, global subversion plans of Howard W. Hunter. Clearly, the implications support other contentions I had too. That they were "watching the market". Just because one is willing to put millions of dollars into this kind of investment, doesn't mean the opportunity is there for it.

Could you share with us the global subversion plans of Howard W. Hunter? This is just shocking news to me. Please enlighten me but spare the flourishing bad hyperbole. It is getting a bit old.

[_Gadianton]

Another note. Bushman is not really an apologist. I recommend you listen to the interviews of him on Mormon Stories. He is fairly sympathatic as well to people who have questions that challenge their faith in the LDS Church.

I think this is a great move and a great choice.


But all you can see Gad is black helicopters. How sad.

What you wrote only reinforces what I've been saying, Jason. The fact that he's sympathetic to the opposition is one of the main reasons he'll be an effective apologist. In fact, you pretty much, by implication, just sent the efforts of your colleagues down the river. What, are you implying apologists aren't sympathetic to people who have questions and challenge the Faith? Of course, you'd be right. All you have to do is spend time on MAD, reading the FROB, or hit the archives at SHIELDS to know that.

This kind of apologetics isn't working. It apparently hasn't been worth funding significantly. Bushman was an excellent choice. He's worth every penny of that six million.

[_Ray A]

But holding the goals of a Mormon studies program, something which should end in only sound scholarship, better understanding, and at most, paving the way for diversity (as Mauss explains) is most definitely not what Holland and the church have in mind. They want to "expand their circle of influence" and affect policy making on a global level.

I'm not entirely skeptical about this idea, generally, because most religions want some kind of influence in world affairs. Catholicism has done quite a lot of influencing, and still continues to do so. A good measure would be to determine how much influence Mormons have had in America. Romney didn't make it. ETB did, and influenced US politics in the 1950s. I listened to Harold Bloom talking with Phillip Adams on Late Night Live (Oz radio program) many years ago, and this comment from him struck me: "One day the Mormons will rule America." I don't think Bloom is a prophet, but he has studied Mormonism at some length. This wasn't Bloom's conspiracy theory, he mentioned it matter-of-factly.

One problem I see (with the world domination idea) is the ideological diversity among Mormon politicians themselves. How Church leaders can influence them, I'm not sure, and some of them even take positions which differ from the GAs. "Expanding the circle of influence" probably means just getting accepted by the "mainstream". Some barriers have already been broken, like lifting the Black ban in 1978, yet the repercussions from this are still felt. Another eye-opener is that America may yet see its first Black president, yet we haven't seen a Mormon one yet. When Mormonism began slavery was still going. Obama's popularity says something for the contemporary American psyche, and a Muslim to boot.

The only way, I think, Mormons will even come near some kind of "US domination" is through further secularisation, if we can call things like lifting of the ban, and the abandonment of polygamy, "secularisation". The FLDS certainly think this is what it is. So in fact it would work the opposite way, instead of "expanding influence" through theological means, it would require a greater drift to mainstream thinking. By that time any threat of theological domination would be significantly watered down.

[_Gadianton]

Ray and Trevor,

Both of you provided a lot of substance here. I am going to respond to you together since you touched on the same issues. Something I didn't possibly have room to tie into my post is the eerie forces of the postmodernist movement. Now you really have to hear me out here. For years, I argued against some of the MAD folks who think that Mormons are intellectually trendy because they don't believe in "truth" wheras critics are no better than creationists and religious fundamentalists because they do believe in "truth". It would be too painful to go into more detail on that at the moment. But the primary source material in support of this ridiculous contention was a fairly bad article written by Massimo Introvigne. I eventually had to have it out with Massimo himself in an email correspondence. I did not see one shred of evidence that Mormon intellectuals had any "postmodern" leanings. In fact, FARMS on the whole is if anything, dogmatically devoted to rigid standards of proof and evidential reasoning. How well they fare in their efforts is debatable, but Dr. Peterson, for instance, is very opposed to postmodernisms of all varieties.

But then, something happened. There was this "Yale conference" and those little summaries of the talks. I wish Dr. Shades had been there to take notes. Because this was the first whiff I'd ever got of a serious apologetic efforts to use methods of investigation influenced by postmodernism. But I hadn't seen anything building on that stuff since. Perhaps it was a "one off", the apologists presented material from every angle to see what the Yale folks might buy into.

"Narrative Theology" as a possible way to get Joseph Smith and everything he created off the hook isn't a bad way to go. It allows for inconsitency, no testable standards, and essentially, whatever the de facto state of affairs happened to be is what we should consider divine and awe-inspiring.

Bushman has similar leanings. How could he not? The only way he could possibly be upfront about Mormon history is by moving the commonly accepted goalposts. He's the guy who's gotta turn moles into beauty marks. What other option is there that could be worth heavily funding?

Think about it, both of you mentioned the Book of Mormon as literal history. Trevor I believe mentioned that there was some meeting where the Mormons got to interact with important scholars and this was a landmark for them, but then things started going south when the apologists talked evidence. Guys, Mormonism is in an impossible situation here. As I understand it, Most serious academics won't tolerate talk about evidence for Jesus's resurrection or Joshua stopping the sun. Why on earth would anyone think that they'd waste their time talking about evidence for a Book that's not even in their own tradition? The apologists would butt in here and say, "But, But, But we aren't arguing for anything supernatural. We're arguing for the Book as plausible history..." BUT, no one is dumb enough to buy it.

Because, ok, it's likely that Zerahemla was a real city, but we can hold in suspension judgements on whether Jesus did miracles in the Americas. Well, that's no different than saying, "Ok, we don't want to slip into fantasy here, we want to be serious, we, er, found this shroud, and our chemical analysis done by faithful...." no one is interested. No one is interested in it for the Bible, which they believe in, why would they hear it out for the Book of Mormon? If the Book of Mormon is history, you just can't deny that Joseph Smith was a prophet, or at least some part of a highly advanced galactic conspiricy. Because of that undeniable connection, there is no possible way for the academy to ever take traditional Book of Mormon research seriously. It's not like the Bible where you can pick and choose. If anything in the Book of Mormon really happened, the Mormon church is true. No one's going to consider it.

So the only projects that will be viable, and worthy of extreme funding from the Church, are ones that can be taken seriously by the rest of the world. And that's where Bushman comes in.

I'm not suggesting that anyone who de-emphasizes or sidesteps the literal history of the Book of Mormon is a postmodernist, I doubt Ray is. But tangent movements like narrative theology are one way to pull off the big picture to make room for historical truth as a secondary consideration or even the very idea of it as an oppressive metanarrative.

So, it's been a huge shock for me at least, to discover that part of the overall scheme of the elite Mormon powerbrokers includes a murky, postmodernist agenda.