Who would he be? Who would the brethren choose as the greatest Mormon apologist hero of all time? It's key "damage control" consultant? It's academic "front man"? Its star center for the apologists who spin doctrines like the Harlem Globe Trotters spin balls? Who would be destined to be greater than Nibley, McConkie, Pratt, and most of the FARMS crowd rolled together? Who would he be?
And speaking of rolling, who would be worth bankrolling to the tune of not the mere wad of bills that bust open the billfolds of the likes of smiling recipients such as Dr. Hamblin. Not the handsome salary that Dr. Gee is paid as a fulltime Egyptapologist. Not the comfortable checks stacking up in the mail for Dr. Peterson to cover "expenses" from apologetic outings, firesides, fundraisings, and functions requiring lavish travel. We are talking serious, very serious sums, not suitcases full of Washingtons, but mountains of Abe Lincolns. Though "honest Abes" they may not be.
Does the Church have a covert agenda for apologetics?
Do the apologists rake in cash for their services?
Do "shadowy fundraisers" as has been suggested pump the hands of wealthy Mormon businessmen on the golf course?
Do all parties involved have a need for "plausible deniability", laundered funds, and the appearance of loose coordination to each other if any at all?
And here's a targeted question: Was one, Armand Mauss of Claremont blinded by the flashy bling bling of high-paid Mormon executive sales?
A Recap of Recent Apologetic Discussion
Mr. Scratch has documented much of the controversial history of apologetic sneakery over the years, he's been bustin' 'em wide for the last two weeks without rest. No doubt this important breakthrough would be conveyed with greater fairness and sobriety by him. But I'll ask you all to bear with me as I struggle to find the words, and fill in some important gaps with this recent development. I do hope Mr. Scratch, Trevor, CKSalmon, Sethbag, and others who have been fleshing out Scratch's narrative have some commentary today.
I've posted in the past on what I feel are important logical connections between a wealthy church and apologetics. Why wouldn't the church pay for its defense? Clearly, as it has surfaced recently, apologists are paid, and their organizations have been funded. To an extent, but I've been puzzled, because as Louis Midgley suggests, an important deep-pocket organization like the LDS church can spring for serious work, unlike the bankrupt counter-cult ministries. And while real funding is there as Lou's bank account is well aware, I just can't help but to think, when are they going to step it up a notch?
Ray A most certainly has helped me clarify some of the finer points of apologetic payments in my mind. He makes comments like, "I think they should pay the apologists more." And I think, "I have no problem with that," but I believe a refinement of Ray's position is needed. Yes, the church should be putting more money into apologetics, but not necessarily the current apologists. As Dr. Peterson himself has reminded us, we shouldn't just pay every prostitute more money for the heck of it, we should pay our prostitutes more money only if they really are very good at performing their services. It also struck me the other day, just because the church doesn't put the funds I'd expect, tens of millions, into apologetics, doesn't mean it wouldn't do so or doesn't wish to. But rather, it simply doesn't see the future returns. And a large part of that I think is because they can't control the market, and they are smart enough to know it. People withhold their money from the stock market or real estate when they just don't trust it. Until, of course, a really good buy turns up. And then what do they do?
The Poor State of the Market for Apologetics
It's been noted before that the Church is clearly not going to pay every poster on MAD for their time. In fact, the Church might very well pay to have 90% of Mormon apologetics buried in the archives along with equally embarrassing materials from generations gone by. What for them, would be worth paying for? The Maxwell Institute for one. But even here, there seems to be restraint. And for good reason.
FARMS historically had been the “best the Lord's got” to defend the kingdom intellectually. I mean, seriously, pay a visit to FAIR sometime and witness what the Lord is NOT going to give up his sweet savorings for. FARMS has a mixture of Ph. Ds and weekend warriors. Some of those Ph. Ds know something professionally about the field they are writing about. Even fewer, but not non-existent, are Ph. Ds who write defenses of the church within the very field they command. These services pay the most, logically, either directly or indirectly. But the Maxwell Institute -- as it has ironically been named after what had been one of the most good-natured apostles ever -- isn't the big step up from FAIR that I originally thought it might be. I mean, consider all the recent light Mr. Scratch has shed on the goings-on within the dark halls of that Institute.
You've got articles written with hidden jokes, many of which probably hit the market unnoticed and probably to this day get "high-fives" and belly laughs out of the mischievous culprits. You've got "Skinny-L", the secretive attack base of plotting MI personnel who coordinate and launch juvenile attacks on critics. You've got SHIELDS waiting to post online email exchanges where the apologists badgered their marks into swearing. I'm talking the gang-up verbal assault at the Tanner's bookstore in the 90's. The pictures of confused apes and “I'm laughing at you" slogans on the apologists' websites. I’m speaking the endless ad hominems directed at Quinn and critics everywhere from the MI pulpit. All in all, the MI has a very nasty reputation. More than a scholarly clearinghouse as it originally aimed to be, it has become an angry, childish backlash against anyone who questions the truth of the Church. Many of its participants have reputations for anger management issues. So much so that they've even put off their own fellow Mormon intellectuals, notably at the Times and Seasons blog. While the church surely approved of all of these incidents in some way, and funded them, it has done so with a bit of reservation and mixed feelings. Even Mr. Scratch suggested that the Church might up its funding to get rid of and control some of these embarrassing excesses of "bathroom humor" apologetics. But how?
Yet here's more. There is a problem with apologetics. A problem deeper than the immature -- or shall I say "wicked and irreverent" -- personalities involved with it though this problem surely exasperates the already flustered FROB gang. And that is, Mormon apologetics is a joke to the academic world. No one takes it seriously at all. It doesn't matter how many posts Dr. Peterson writes where he lauds the recent book of one of his friends in a field tangentially connected to Mormon concerns. Everyone knows that these professors might have their reputations in other areas, but everyone also knows that their Mormon apologia appears in one place, and one place only, because the rest of the world has no interest in pseudoscience and strained arguments for anti-establishment proposals such as, Jesus visiting America and other fairytale history.
There was an interesting post on Times and Seasons regarding this issue, and tied it into what most of you have guessed is our matter at hand today, the Claremont Chair of Mormon Studies.
http://www.timesandseasons.org/?p=3668
The poster called Melissa makes a stunning observation in response to Blake Ostler:
Blake,
The job ad reads the way it does for two reasons.
1) There are almost no qualified tenured scholars with doctoral degrees in fields other than American Religious History. There are younger scholars (mostly still students) with degrees in Religious Studies programs, but we aren’t applying for these senior positions.
2) The reason why almost all of the senior scholars in “Mormon Studies” (a ghettoizing category I find problematic, incidentally) are historians is because “Mormonism” has been understood in the academy as properly part of “American Religious History” and gets studied as part of an American Religion track. Those who wanted to study Mormonism, therefore, pursued doctoral studies in American Religion programs. Those few of us who are doing very different kinds of work on Mormonism (ethics, philosophy, women’s studies, anthropology, etc. ) are taking a risk—an exciting, path-breaking kind of risk, but a risk nonetheless in suggesting that the academy rethink its categorization of
Mormonism.
M.
In other words, the "academy" thinks that Mormonism is a bizarre historical oddity, and for that reason alone worth studying, but it certainly has no interest in debating "theology" and learning from Mormon specific philosophizing. Apparently, the church has learned something along the lines that Mellisa is talking about. That Mormon specific themes are so embarrassingly ridiculous that apologists look crazy defending them, and coming across as cranks. So some money passes hands for the MI, but it's been a better bet over the years to just downplay its doctrines and history as it has, to deny anything weird.
This would be a fine course to continue on if it weren't for the information explosion, the modern-day Guttenberg known as the Internet. Unfortunately, the church will need to invest in apologetics, it knows that, but where to turn? Nibley and FARMS were scholars and worthy of testing merits of apologetics with, but they were also little better in the end than well-articulating crackpots when it came to Mormon proofs for silly, supernatural things. And it's bloody, deceptive, and womanizing history, how to deal with that?
A really Good Buy Turns up
What will it take to get the church to cough up some thicker green? I would say a legitimate academic foothold in the real scholarly world, not the pretend MI world that only members of the church think is scholarly. So, behold, the Claremont Chair of Mormon Studies, the best piece of real estate on the market for a GA shopping for an an effective apologetic outlet. But the course will be difficult to navigate. See, the academy wants serious scholarship, they want a better, more honest understanding of the world. They do not want Mormon Mazery and its universe full of Gods and Indian Nephites. But the church, on the other hand, does not want serious scholarship, they want apologetics. So when these rare opportunities come, they've got to set things up just right to pull off their "apologetic coup.” The Yale fiasco is a perfect example, with the apologists' threat of withdrawing funds unless the deck were to be stacked in their favor. And that would take the right negotiators, salesmen, and scholarly brass. Oh, and the right price. In the end, if by no other means, the Church will buy academic credibility from anyone gullible enough to sell it.
The Claremont Chair, you can read about plans for it here:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_q ... _n16221375
Armand Mauss states,
There are no stipulations that the person would have to be a (church) member, or even that the person must be friendly to the church. What is there is that whoever is hired for that position will have a satisfactory enough relationship that he or she will have access to the LDS Church Archives (in Salt Lake City) for research,
The post was designed to "make sure the teaching and research done is legitimate academic research, and not something in support of the LDS Church's mission," Mauss said.
As Mauss well knows, this is tricky, because the LDS Church's mission has nothing to do with legitimate academic research. But as Mr. Scratch has demonstrated, apologetics and the tacit involvement from the General Authorities is a very, very sneaky business. No doubt, something underhanded is afoot.
http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/2518
At least three other schools are contemplating chairs in Mormon studies -- Claremont Graduate University, the University of Wyoming and Utah State. At Claremont, the school of religion has nearly completed raising $5 million for a Mormon studies chair to be named after Howard W. Hunter, a late president of the church. Nearly all the money has come from Mormon businessmen in the state, the school says. Prof. Torjesen, the religion-school dean, traveled to church headquarters in Salt Lake City to build rapport with church leaders. The school's Mormon-studies advisory council includes two BYU professors among its dozen members
Armand Mauss had nothing to worry about. To guard against corruption, special controls were put into place. First, all the money to support the position comes from wealthy Utah businessmen with their "we'll take it back" tactic a matter of record, next, oversight from BYU professors, and finally, two of Howard W. Hunter's children involved with the administration. How could anything go wrong for academic integrity!
Given all of the above, then, is it any surprise then that Richard Bushman would be named the lucky candidate? Is anyone shocked? Is it any surprise that his wife will also be teaching at Claremont now? The church has effectively just unleashed apologetics onto the world from the towers of academic credibility. The cost: Six Million. Six million the wealthy LDS were glad to pay, or greatly intimidated into paying, at least. Meridian Magazine makes the apologetic nature of the position frank and open, and spills the beans on the discussions going on in the dark corners behind the scenes:
http://www.meridianmagazine.com/churchu ... shman.html
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.
In other words, "support of the LDS church's mission" to become a world power.
No doubt Bushman was the right pick, well worth six million, as opposed to the "wad of bills" tossed to others. Bushman is a fiercely serious scholar and well-respected. He does not have a reputation of adolescent game-playing that the key MI participants have. He is a serious, measured, and tactically informed consultant. And he is an avid, dyed in the wool apologist. Just as important to his personal qualifications, he's in the right field. A Bushman Egyptologist wouldn't do, nor a Bushman Theologian, as Mormon studies in the "American History track” is all the academy will at present take seriously. Well, Armand, an apologists has snuck in and left a live grenade behind the bunkers. Step one of the GA master plan has been accomplished.
For those who still have doubts that Bushman's aims are apologetic, note his Summer Smith seminar:
http://farms.BYU.edu/sumsem.html
The emphasis will be less on providing answers to every question than on putting the adverse evidence in a new light. Our aim is to persuade readers that the facts do not compel them to discard Joseph Smith. In fact, negative information can sometimes illuminate his cultural situation and mission.
But just as interesting as Bushman's narrow allegiance and criminal lawyer’s burden, is Bushman's understanding that his colleagues have failed. They haven't been the best "prostitutes" so to speak,
Many Latter-day Saints have been affected adversely by these criticisms, and the materials supplied by our apologetic institutions have not always met their needs.
And note Trevor's summary of Bushman's reservations toward Yale. How Bushman had worried over the movie-star attitudes of his peers. He knows how unsubtly the whole Yale operation was "set up". He knows he's worked with amateurs in the past, by comparison. He knows the MI has largely failed in its aims to convert the academic world to anything positive towards the church. And now he's been called in for the cleanup. A real professional, mercilessly focused on his goal. No more adolescent stunts, the academy really has something to be afraid of now.
I'm sorry Dr. Mauss, but you've been had.