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There has been a lot of talk lately about Shades' "Internet Mormon" discussions and connections to Poll. The way I see it, Shades' distinctions are original enough that no reference need to be made to Poll, though certainly, including Poll may enrich the discussion. I also think Nibley's "4 ways" of dealing with criticism compliment the discussion nicely, Midgley wrote an essay on this in Review 20 volume 2. What all three have in common is they categorize Mormon belief styles to resolve some problem they are up against, they all turn their categories loosely on liberal/conservative thinking, and they are all "political driven". I had to LMAO over on MAD when DCP denounced Poll for being political charged in his categories. As if the founder of modern apologetics, Hugh Nibley, was never agenda driven and has passed down his neutrality to the apologists today. LOL! HAHA!

Interestingly, the "Chapel Mormon" term in all three are roughly equal. Chapel=iron rod=publish fluff/ignore opposition/"don't teach us anything new". The three writers favor one term over the other(s). Interestingly Dr. Shades is unique in clearly favoring the "Chapel Mormon". The others don't despise the Chapel Mormon, but take a lower view of him.

The other terms are more colorful. Internet Mormons are apologists, TBMs driven in intellectual desperation to justify the church, even if they have to sell out the brethren, foundational doctrines, whatever, but they'll redefine the whole thing and say, "hey, this is how it always has been, you just didn't understand it", because like the Chapel Mormon, they are rabid TBMs who don't believe in change. Internet Mormons are only doctrinally "liberal". The stuff that can't be "disproven", like social issues, aren't at issue and Shades is silent here. Interestingly, I believe the Internet Mormon/apologist is equally if not more socially conservative, typically, than the Chapel Mormon. Apologists are heavy "anti-gay" hitters. They frown on earrings and tattoos. They become infuriated quickly with questioning members. They advance in church callings and seek to dominate the world with Mormonism.

Poll's "Liahona Mormon" is NOT an Internet Mormon. Liahona Mormons are both socially and doctrinally "liberal". They may question the brethren outright. Poll's motivation is very different than Shades', he's trying to justify the liberal intellectual in danger of excommunication. The Liahona Mormon is not an apologist, has not formed his views to salvage the church. Though the two may have shared beliefs in evolution, some aspects of church history, and a local flood -- the Liahona is progressive, enjoys change, finds diversity interesting, finds worldly conflicts with his faith a learning experience and freely speaks about it where as the Internet Mormon is opting for a cover-up, won't admit there are any conflicts between science and Mormonism (after redefining the appropriate beliefs), is not interested in diversity but mainly in toeing the party line. The Internet Mormon/apologist is sort of a Frankensteinian hybrid of Iron Rod/Liahona Mormon, arguably exemplifying the least desirable traits of both.

Nibley's "Cultural Mormon" is very close to Poll's "Liahona Mormon", except for Nibley's political motivation is opposite, for Nibley, being a "Cultural Mormon" is undesirable. It's mostly about showboating, pretentious wisdom, and overconfidence in what the world thinks. Nibley is writing from the apologist/Internet Mormon perspective. He resents simplistic Chapel Mormons/Iron Rod Mormons, but despises "Intellectuals" who are agreeable with the world. The true champions of Mormonism "publish in the journals" of their opposition which I take to mean bringing apologetics to the academic level where the apologist is thoroughly educated in scholarly techniques and uses this knowledge freely in defense of the church, but is wary of the academy and first and foremost a Latter-Day Saint. The saintly apologist is brilliant, educated, and a fierce debater, able to overturn the world on its own terms, but also humble, meek, and bears testimony with tears when appropriate.

To sum up via the "marginalized" terms which I think underscores the differences rather nicely between authors:

- Shades is writing from the perspective of the Iron Rod Mormon
- Poll is writing from the perspective of the Cultural Mormon
- Nibley is writing from the perspective of the Internet Mormon

Shades has historically identified social conservatism within Mormon culture as the more "Chapel" side. I remembered this quite clearly, but only recently was able to find some links:

http://pacumenispages.yuku.com/topic/7010?page=7

Notice that in Shade's survey he identifies thinking God displeased with using birth control as "Chapel." He'd say the same of avoiding caffeine in all drinks or watching R-rated films.

I think your generosity towards Shades here actually goes a long way towards making the main point I was making in the above linked thread.

THANK YOU, Gadianton, for that analysis! Someone needed to compile it, and as a person with "a dog in the fight," I wasn't the one to do it.

EAllusion wrote:Notice that in Shade's survey he identifies thinking God displeased with using birth control as "Chapel." He'd say the same of avoiding caffeine in all drinks or watching R-rated films.

I would? That's news to me. I don't recall the Internet Mormons ever contradicting the prophets on either of those. (Regarding caffeinated drinks, I don't recall any firm statement one way or another from the prophets to begin with, so there's nothing for the Internet Mormons to redefine.)

Dr. Shades wrote:I would? That's news to me. I don't recall the Internet Mormons ever contradicting the prophets on either of those. (Regarding caffeinated drinks, I don't recall any firm statement one way or another from the prophets to begin with, so there's nothing for the Internet Mormons to redefine.)

It would make sense within the context of other examples of social conservatism you relate to Chapel Mormonism. Both examples I gave involve interpretations of prophetic advice that some LDS take more seriously than others depending on how much fidelity they have to whatever prophets are saying or speculating. But hey, it's no matter. Drop those examples. The birth control example is more than enough to make my case, and I just provided a direct link to you using that one. You never really were able to provide any sort of evidence that this trait meaningfully coheres with the others you were speaking of into an identifiable grouping of belief, but Gad's attempt to rescue you here that you are endorsing actually contradicts what you've said. You obviously weren't silent on social issues, and you weren't identifying Internet Mormonism as socially conservative, much less more conservative.

In that case, it appears I was wrong to identify the birth control issue as one that Chapel Mormons and Internet Mormons are split over. Mea Culpa.

I'll drop it from the essay when I update it in a day or two.

EA,

It's a shame the apologists can't collectively come up with criticisms as good as yours. Let's take a step back for a moment. First of all, I have a terrible memory, so the main thing I can say is that as I recall it, what impressed me about Shades the most is the specifically apologist Book of Mormon/Bible/Book of Abraham beliefs because I had never heard them before. The idea of "liberal" Mormons wasn't new to me, I think I just assmed that the apologists put the two together, even though my previous experience had been that "liberal" Mormons liked to rock the boat. I believe it was a discussion with you in chat one day that convinced me I shouldn't just assume social/doctrine would follow each other. But I still believed they did, I just kept on the lookout and have had it in the back of my mind. It was participating in discussions over time that convinced me in fact, the apologists were often just as gung ho on tithing, gay issues, etc., perhaps to compensate or perhaps simply because in the end, none of thsoe kinds of issues are ones that can really be proven or disproven.

So the bottom line is, I know I believed the two were correlated, but I don't recall that being specifically motivated by Shades's output rather than my own assumptions, and to me it's secondary.

Anyway, it's possible Shades was wrong on that aspect. If so then it's a matter of merely updating things a little.

By the way, I'm comfortable enough in my anecdotal interaction with online apologists Shades would label as "Internet Mormons" to put money down on most LDS who subscribe to LGT also being skeptical of evolutionary theory to one extent or another. Lot of explicit and implicit fans of what the DI is doing among them.

I could be mistaken in that speculative bet, but I think it demonstrates that it isn't obvious that one trait Shades describes as Internet actually is predictive of another trait he'd describe as Internet.

EAllusion wrote:I could be mistaken in that speculative bet, but I think it demonstrates that it isn't obvious that one trait Shades describes as Internet actually is predictive of another trait he'd describe as Internet.

Let's compare this to politics.

Is one trait that you'd describe as "right-wing" actually predictive of another trait that you'd describe as "right-wing?"

Dr. Shades wrote:Let's compare this to politics.

Is one trait that you'd describe as "right-wing" actually predictive of another trait that you'd describe as "right-wing?"

To an extent, yes, but that's because "right-wing" has taken on a connotation that goes beyond right-leaning on the political spectrum.

That said, I don't regard "the right" as signifying a distinct group within political classification. Rather it is a loose, shifting term that describes a variety of viewpoints associated at this time with views generally regarded as more conservative and/or Republican. It's of relatively limited use. If you tell me someone is on the right of the political spectrum, you have given me a limited amount of knowledge, especially if you haven't specified relative to the politics of what country.

"Internet Mormon" and "Chapel Mormon" on the other hand are supposed to be referring to identifiable groups of belief. The analogy would be closer to a term like "neo-conservative" that does refer to a more coherent set of political views that are strongly predictive of one another. (Well, at least before it entered common parlance and became so consistently misused.)

The more you make this about a simple spectrum of belief - or compliment of spectrums as it were - the more trivial and superfluous your terms become. You mean there are relatively conservative and liberal stances in the LDS faith? Really?

EAllusion wrote:You mean there are relatively conservative and liberal stances in the LDS faith? Really?

This isn't about conservative/liberal; I was only drawing a parallel to help you see what this is about.