The Many Faces of William J. Hamblin

[_Ray A]

Shades's dichotomy is, and has always been, tendentious and silly.

That's why even the folks at Sunstone rejected it.

That's news to me. The Sunstone folks rejected it?

[_Daniel Peterson]

I've been told, by someone who was there, that Shades's simplistic and agenda-driven dichotomy was not well received when he presented it at a Sunstone symposium some years back.

If that's incorrect, if the audience and other panelists were enthusiastically positive, Shades is welcome to correct my bad information.

That's why even the folks at Sunstone rejected it.

Somebody died and made Sunstone the only arbitrator of things LDS?

"That's why even the folks at Sunstone rejected it."

How does that sentence imply that they're "the only arbitrator of things LDS"?

What did the good people at Sunstone think of Truth Dancer's presentation? Or Addictio's?

I have no idea.

[_Dr. Shades]

So Paul is:

1) A Chapel Mormon.

2) An Internet Mormon.

???

OH. MY. GOD.

Don't tell me that you're still misunderstanding this, all these many years later?

Internet/Chapel refers to the brand of Mormonism one adheres to. The mere names refer to the places that these two brands of Mormonism are typically promulgated.

Notice that I said "typically" promulgated. Paul Osborne, a Chapel Mormon, promulgated his Chapel Mormon views via the Internet, a rather rare thing.

Much more common is the fact that adherents of the Internet Mormon brand of Mormonism also attend church in physical structures.

Again: Paul Osborne is a Chapel Mormon. You know, the "Joseph translated the papyrii correctly, the Egyptologists are all wrong" variety.

That's news to me. The Sunstone folks rejected it?

Why do you find that (albeit false) notion humorous?

That's why even the folks at Sunstone rejected it. . . I've been told, by someone who was there, that Shades's simplistic and agenda-driven dichotomy was not well received when he presented it at a Sunstone symposium some years back.

So which is it? Was it the rather absolute "rejected," or the much more neutral "not well received?"

If that's incorrect, if the audience and other panelists were enthusiastically positive, Shades is welcome to correct my bad information.

You're half right. The audience was split right down the middle in a bell curve. According to the host, a statistician (or something similar) by trade, the votes in my favor were in the majority, but they weren't enough to shift the bell curve statistically beyond a 50-50 bent.

That's quite something, considering how few Sunstone attendees spend time in online debates and thus were hearing about the Chapel/Internet Mormon split for the very first time. Going from 0-100 against me to 50-50 in favor of me after only a 20 minute presentation is quite an accomplishment by anyone's standards.

And for every person who told you it was "rejected," I probably had two or three people who came up afterward and complimented me on it.

And after all is said and done, it was only one of two or three presentations that was specifically mentioned, and discussed, in the pages of the Salt Lake Tribune.

Did yours and Whiting's earlier BYU panel on Lamanite DNA do much better than 50-50?

[_antishock8]

For what it's worth, I think Dr. Shades' analogy is spot on.

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[_Pokatator]

See the amazing Professor Whimsy reveal the secret motivations of his enemies! Watch as he performs death-defying feats of hostile misreading! Gasp with horrified amazement as he pulls nonsense out of a hat!

This sounds like the Joseph Smith translation story, especially the nonsense part.

[_Daniel Peterson]

That's quite something, considering how few Sunstone attendees spend time in online debates and thus were hearing about the Chapel/Internet Mormon split for the very first time.

It's quite something, considering that the Sunstone attendees tend to range from liberal through disaffected to hostile. It was an audience that should have received your proposed dichotomy well.

Going from 0-100 against me

!!!!!!!

to 50-50 in favor of me after only a 20 minute presentation is quite an accomplishment by anyone's standards.

An illusory one.

Where's the evidence that the audience was 100% opposed to you before your oration?

And after all is said and done, it was only one of two or three presentations that was specifically mentioned, and discussed, in the pages of the Salt Lake Tribune.

Any observer of journalism knows that being mentioned in a newspaper is no guarantee of quality.

Did yours and Whiting's earlier BYU panel on Lamanite DNA do much better than 50-50?

I've never been on a DNA panel at Sunstone.

[_Dr. Shades]

Did yours and Whiting's earlier BYU panel on Lamanite DNA do much better than 50-50?

I've never been on a DNA panel at Sunstone.

Notice that I said "BYU" panel, not "Sunstone" panel.

Again: Did yours and Whiting's earlier BYU panel on Lamanite DNA do much better than 50-50?

[_Ray A]

Notice that I said "typically" promulgated. Paul Osborne, a Chapel Mormon, promulgated his Chapel Mormon views via the Internet, a rather rare thing.

How is that a rare thing? MAD has 8,093 members, with 672 active members. Are they all Internet Mormons? Or even a majority? How would you even determine what these people really believe? Did you do a survey?

I fully understand how you classify the terms, because I've read your essay. In regard to this:

Internet Mormons tend to want to "filter" a prophet's words through both his likely cultural influences and his limited sphere of knowledge. Chapel Mormons tend to take a prophet's words at face value.

So what would you say of typical chapel Mormons who don't follow the prophet in, for example: home storage, contraception, political preferences, ear-rings, genealogy, working mothers, etc? Did mothers take the prophet's words not to work at face value? Or did couples take the prophet's teachings about contraception at face value?

Then this:

Chapel Mormons believe that a prophet is a foreordained man of the highest moral caliber. Internet Mormons believe that a prophet is not necessarily any better than his societal average.

That is highly disputable, on both counts.

And:

Internet Mormons believe that the scriptures supersede the living prophets. Chapel Mormons believe that the living prophets supersede the scriptures.

Then Joseph Fielding Smith must have been an Internet Mormon, because he told Eugene England that if anything he taught contradicted the scriptures, he would be in the wrong. He virtually admitted to England that what he was taught about blacks came from his traditional beliefs, and he couldn't justify it from the scriptures.

So that's totally in line with your observation about Internet Mormons:

Internet Mormons believe that the only real and binding doctrine in Mormonism is that found between the covers of the four Standard Works--all else is mere conjecture.

And:

A spectrum of belief is probably common in most religious traditions, but within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints a different dynamic is at work: Both Internet Mormonism and Chapel Mormonism have each taken on independent lives of their own. The most interesting aspect of this dichotomy is that each group claims that its views are the "true" Mormonism.

Again highly disputable. Did a Liahona like Richard Poll (as one example) ever claim that what he believed was "true Mormonism"? Did Henry Eyring, with his firm belief in evolution, and his disagreements with Joseph Fielding Smith?

These categories are too simplistic. The definition attempts to make clear differences, when in real life the variety of beliefs among Mormons is far more complex.

[_Dr. Shades]

For what it's worth, I think Dr. Shades' analogy is spot on.

Thank you, antishock8.

Notice that I said "typically" promulgated. Paul Osborne, a Chapel Mormon, promulgated his Chapel Mormon views via the Internet, a rather rare thing.

How is that a rare thing? MAD has 8,093 members, with 672 active members. Are they all Internet Mormons? Or even a majority? How would you even determine what these people really believe? Did you do a survey?

How many of those 672 active members are openly declaring that Noah's flood covered every square inch of planet earth and that scientists are wrong and that Adam and Eve were the first human beings on the planet?

That's how it's a rare thing.

Internet Mormons tend to want to "filter" a prophet's words through both his likely cultural influences and his limited sphere of knowledge. Chapel Mormons tend to take a prophet's words at face value.

So what would you say of typical chapel Mormons who don't follow the prophet in, for example: home storage, contraception, political preferences, ear-rings, genealogy, working mothers, etc? Did mothers take the prophet's words not to work at face value? Or did couples take the prophet's teachings about contraception at face value?

They took the prophet's words at face value. They just feel like they're committing a sin to some degree by not following it.

Just because some Mormons do not follow, say, the Law of Tithing doesn't mean they don't take the Lord's mouthpieces seriously on that topic and consequently possess a degree of fear for their eternal salvation. It just means that they are failing to do what they feel they should do.

(An Internet Mormon, on the other hand, would not feel he/she is sinning by not following those directives.)

Chapel Mormons believe that a prophet is a foreordained man of the highest moral caliber. Internet Mormons believe that a prophet is not necessarily any better than his societal average.

That is highly disputable, on both counts.

How so?

Internet Mormons believe that the scriptures supersede the living prophets. Chapel Mormons believe that the living prophets supersede the scriptures.

Then Joseph Fielding Smith must have been an Internet Mormon, because he told Eugene England that if anything he taught contradicted the scriptures, he would be in the wrong. He virtually admitted to England that what he was taught about blacks came from his traditional beliefs, and he couldn't justify it from the scriptures.

Key words: "He told Eugene England." He told one guy, with a wink and a nudge, behind closed doors out of the public eye. He did not thunder it forth with the voice of Alma of Old in full view of the collected assembly of the General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Keeping one's Internet Mormon views hidden does not obviate the fact that the Corporate church goes to extreme lengths to propagate Chapel Mormonism as a theological system.

A spectrum of belief is probably common in most religious traditions, but within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints a different dynamic is at work: Both Internet Mormonism and Chapel Mormonism have each taken on independent lives of their own. The most interesting aspect of this dichotomy is that each group claims that its views are the "true" Mormonism.

Again highly disputable. Did a Liahona like Richard Poll (as one example) ever claim that what he believed was "true Mormonism"?

I have no idea.

Did Henry Eyring, with his firm belief in evolution, and his disagreements with Joseph Fielding Smith?

I doubt it. He most likely was strict to promulgate Chapel Mormonism in all his talks, speeches, and sermons.

These categories are too simplistic. The definition attempts to make clear differences, when in real life the variety of beliefs among Mormons is far more complex.

Do you believe that the words "pro-choice" and "pro-life" are too simplistic, and that the definition attempts to make clear differences, when in real life the variety of beliefs among pro-lifers and pro-choicers is far more complex?

Do you believe that the words "liberal" and "conservative" are too simplistic, and that the definition attempts to make clear differences, when in real life the variety of beliefs among liberals and conservatives is far more complex?

[_Daniel Peterson]

I've never been on a DNA panel at Sunstone.

Notice that I said "BYU" panel, not "Sunstone" panel.

Ah. My mistake.

Again: Did yours and Whiting's earlier BYU panel on Lamanite DNA do much better than 50-50?

No vote was taken, so I can only give my impression, which is "Yes, much better."