Gerald Bradford and the Last Crusade
Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2012 7:42 pm
I just saw something while doing surfing around regarding Dr. Bradford (I'd like to know more regarding what "makes him tick") and I found this:
http://maxwellinstitute.BYU.edu/publica ... m=1&id=640
Now, Bradford makes some excellent points in this essay, but what struck me in reading this paragraph was the statement that "if one position is privileged over another and is thereby granted unquestioned status in the academy (something that, unfortunately, often seems to be the case), then a genuine, open-ended, and pluralistic approach to the study of religion becomes even more difficult to achieve." Please forgive me if I seem to detect a layer of the classic postmodernist fear of hierarchy and of "truth," in the sense that it can actually be grasped and classified relative to "non-truth" as a discernable property of an idea, proposition, argument, or body of belief, and of the now regnant epistemological egalitarianism that wishes to accord all ideas, no matter how preposterous or facile, equal status. But isn't the scholarly question, not epistemological status, but just knowledge? Knowledge of something, and its comparison and contrast to other bodies of belief? If someone actually believes one body of doctrine or teaching is better and more valid than another, or that one is true, or contains truth, and others don't, or contain less, why is that a problem for the scholarly study of all of them? It could be, of course, but I see no reason that this is a necessary condition associated with believing in an actually existing hierarchy of value and truth in the universe, nor that holding to such a hierarchy of values and truth is necessarily an inappropriate or improper perspective to bring to scholarly study.
This, I think, provides some insight into why Bradford chose to summarily dismantle NMI and purge the old 'FARMS group from the institute, rather than split the institute into two somewhat distinct, but overlapping organizations. To put it simply, in Bradford's mind, one cannot do scholarship and apologetcs at the same time because apologetics implies, by definition, the privileging of the fundamental claims the apologist seeks to defend and articulate; it implies truths, in a vast hierarchy of ideas and claims in which truth is asserted to reside, in comparison and contrast to which other claims, religious or otherwise, are to be distinguished as legitimate, open to question, or unfit as truth claims.
This seems to bother Bradford quite a bit. Personally, I do not see why LDS apologists, approaching the work of scholarship from within this frame of reference, cannot study, critique, and do substantive scholarly investigation of any and all subjects under the rubric of comparative religion and do it from an apologetic standpoint at the same time. I do not see the vast dichotomy here that Bradford appears to see. I see no logically compelling reason, in any case. I see no reason why a serious scholar cannot be both one who accepts and advances the concept of absolute, unalterable truths in the universe, and relative to the human condition, and at the same time approach other religions, as well as other aspects of the human condition, in an intellectually substantive manner as a scholar. I see no reason why the privileging of LDS truth claims should be a barrier to good scholarship (which is nothing more than a disciplined, organized, and methodical way of studying, thinking, and articulating ideas), nor why doing scholarship from within an LDS apologetic frame of reference would be detrimental to the study and understanding of other religions on the sole basis of a bias toward LDS truth claims.
In other words, FARMS was originally intended, not primarily as a clearinghouse for comparative religious scholarship or biblical studies, but as a scholarly clearinghouse for reasoned, intellectually substantive answers and challenge to the church's critics and detractors. Scholarship and comparative religious studies were a central feature of such a mission (it was done from within this intellectual framework (as opposed to less methodically researched and articulated approaches) but not its overarching focus. Bradford appears to be fundamentally uncomfortable with apologetics qua apologetics, which may be a substantial part of the reason for the ham-fisted and ugly way he summarily dismissed the last of the "old guard."
Bradford appears, from my armchair at least, to be another example of an LDS intellectual who has absorbed and imbibed a bit too much of the culture, ideology, and mental set of the contemporary academy, and is uncomfortable with those who do not share it. Anyone who knows anything about modern academia knows that purgings, denial of tenure, clever administrative ploys, and other techniques are deployed against people who are not "correct" in one way or another, are the coin of the realm and have been for some time when dealing with disliked intellectual Kulaks. Bradford's kind appearing words to those dismissed seem to belie the guillotine-like suddenness and finality of his actions.
Just my two cents.
In other words, students of religion need to become familiar with well-established critical positions on the question of religion--materialist views, espoused by Marxist critics and others, atheistic and secular humanistic interpretations, along with various reductionistic views of religion, articulated in, say, forms of positivism or numerous psychoanalytical interpretations of religion. Precisely because such ideologies rival traditional systems of religious belief, they should be studied together. If this is not done, if one position is privileged over another and is thereby granted unquestioned status in the academy (something that, unfortunately, often seems to be the case), then a genuine, open-ended, and pluralistic approach to the study of religion becomes even more difficult to achieve.
http://maxwellinstitute.BYU.edu/publica ... m=1&id=640
Now, Bradford makes some excellent points in this essay, but what struck me in reading this paragraph was the statement that "if one position is privileged over another and is thereby granted unquestioned status in the academy (something that, unfortunately, often seems to be the case), then a genuine, open-ended, and pluralistic approach to the study of religion becomes even more difficult to achieve." Please forgive me if I seem to detect a layer of the classic postmodernist fear of hierarchy and of "truth," in the sense that it can actually be grasped and classified relative to "non-truth" as a discernable property of an idea, proposition, argument, or body of belief, and of the now regnant epistemological egalitarianism that wishes to accord all ideas, no matter how preposterous or facile, equal status. But isn't the scholarly question, not epistemological status, but just knowledge? Knowledge of something, and its comparison and contrast to other bodies of belief? If someone actually believes one body of doctrine or teaching is better and more valid than another, or that one is true, or contains truth, and others don't, or contain less, why is that a problem for the scholarly study of all of them? It could be, of course, but I see no reason that this is a necessary condition associated with believing in an actually existing hierarchy of value and truth in the universe, nor that holding to such a hierarchy of values and truth is necessarily an inappropriate or improper perspective to bring to scholarly study.
This, I think, provides some insight into why Bradford chose to summarily dismantle NMI and purge the old 'FARMS group from the institute, rather than split the institute into two somewhat distinct, but overlapping organizations. To put it simply, in Bradford's mind, one cannot do scholarship and apologetcs at the same time because apologetics implies, by definition, the privileging of the fundamental claims the apologist seeks to defend and articulate; it implies truths, in a vast hierarchy of ideas and claims in which truth is asserted to reside, in comparison and contrast to which other claims, religious or otherwise, are to be distinguished as legitimate, open to question, or unfit as truth claims.
This seems to bother Bradford quite a bit. Personally, I do not see why LDS apologists, approaching the work of scholarship from within this frame of reference, cannot study, critique, and do substantive scholarly investigation of any and all subjects under the rubric of comparative religion and do it from an apologetic standpoint at the same time. I do not see the vast dichotomy here that Bradford appears to see. I see no logically compelling reason, in any case. I see no reason why a serious scholar cannot be both one who accepts and advances the concept of absolute, unalterable truths in the universe, and relative to the human condition, and at the same time approach other religions, as well as other aspects of the human condition, in an intellectually substantive manner as a scholar. I see no reason why the privileging of LDS truth claims should be a barrier to good scholarship (which is nothing more than a disciplined, organized, and methodical way of studying, thinking, and articulating ideas), nor why doing scholarship from within an LDS apologetic frame of reference would be detrimental to the study and understanding of other religions on the sole basis of a bias toward LDS truth claims.
In other words, FARMS was originally intended, not primarily as a clearinghouse for comparative religious scholarship or biblical studies, but as a scholarly clearinghouse for reasoned, intellectually substantive answers and challenge to the church's critics and detractors. Scholarship and comparative religious studies were a central feature of such a mission (it was done from within this intellectual framework (as opposed to less methodically researched and articulated approaches) but not its overarching focus. Bradford appears to be fundamentally uncomfortable with apologetics qua apologetics, which may be a substantial part of the reason for the ham-fisted and ugly way he summarily dismissed the last of the "old guard."
Bradford appears, from my armchair at least, to be another example of an LDS intellectual who has absorbed and imbibed a bit too much of the culture, ideology, and mental set of the contemporary academy, and is uncomfortable with those who do not share it. Anyone who knows anything about modern academia knows that purgings, denial of tenure, clever administrative ploys, and other techniques are deployed against people who are not "correct" in one way or another, are the coin of the realm and have been for some time when dealing with disliked intellectual Kulaks. Bradford's kind appearing words to those dismissed seem to belie the guillotine-like suddenness and finality of his actions.
Just my two cents.
