Dr. Shades wrote:DCP wrote:. . . we had agreed that the Institute would add a Mormon studies function — a deliberate, intentional, institutional outreach to non-LDS scholars — to the functions for which the Institute had been created and built up until that time. This was perfectly all right with me. It was, actually, something I had long wanted the Institute to do. . . That option was already open to the Institute. It had always been open both to the Institute and to individual Mormon scholars, and the Institute could easily have fostered such activity without the upheavals and unpleasantness that in fact occurred.
Does this mean that scholars like David Bokovoy with views like David Bokovoy's would've been welcome at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute of Religious Scholarship?
If so, do recent goings-on bear that out?
This is an excellent question, and one that was at the forefront of my mind when I read DCP's piece.
If the old Book of Mormon Roundtable, which was exiled from BYU campus in response to the protests of more conservative LDS scholars, is any indication, I would have to say, "no."
That said, the Interpreter did publish a piece by David Bokovoy. The thing is, David, being the good mensch he is, submitted something suitable for that venue. So, I don't think it is accurate to say they would not publish David the person. It would probably be accurate to say that they would not publish the views which they have recently attacked.
Would that they were only attacking his views, and not falsely attributing to him views in what could be interpreted as an attempt to get him in trouble with the LDS Church.
But this was not your point. Your point, which deserves more consideration, is that, for all of DCP's protestations that he is open to multiple approaches to Book of Mormon scholarship, he would not have been open, and, in fact, his friends have been quite hostile to what they have dubbed the "secular" approach to Book of Mormon scholarship.
The old Book of Mormon Roundtable had such participants as Princeton's Professor Elaine Pagels, no doubt a scholar who is not to be counted among the believers. It was supported by the distinguished Professor Richard Bushman, who is so counted. Yet, it was kicked off of BYU campus, and my understanding is that it is likely that FARMS participants were instrumental in seeing the roundtable ejected from BYU.
I don't think one can suppose that either liberals' or non-believers' views, which may not accord with the conservative LDS interpretation, would be allowed. And this is what makes DCP's statement so odd. He and his friends have a veritable meltdown over Ben Park's essay, identifying it as the harbinger of a secularist Maxwell Institute, and yet now we are to believe that DCP is open to all kinds of approaches. I guess so long as they don't venture into Ben Park or, worse yet, David Bokovoy territory.
With all of the hair-splitting, equivocation, and misrepresentation coming from the classic-FARMS camp, I can't help but think this is some kind of rhetorical scramble to find some way of reviving old FARMS.