Stendahl's Rules

[_Mister Scratch]

In a recent thread dealing with Gary "The Berry Picker" Novak's "Best of the Anti-Mormon Web" Internet site, the very scholarly poster called "Tom" linked to the following piece written by Bishop Daniel C. Peterson:

http://farms.BYU.edu/publications/revie ... m=1&id=275

Towards the end of this piece, DCP delivered up what can probably be termed a kind of "mini-manifesto" concerning the way that critics of the LDS Church ought to be treated.

Some of us . . . are considering the establishment of an award for "America's Funniest Anti-Mormons," although we certainly welcome international contributions, as well. (If there are enough submissions, perhaps we can open up a new category, like the annual "Foreign Film" Oscar at the Academy Awards.) We have settled on at least two prizes, to be known respectively as the "Korihor" and either the "Philastus" or the "Hurlbut." The latter titles come from the name of one of the very earliest anti-Mormons, "Doctor Philastus Hurlbut" who, in an eerily prescient move that has since been emulated by several countercult luminaries, carried the name of "Doctor" without ever earning a degree.

Why would we go to such trouble? Simply because we hope to see better anti-Mormon writing. We desire an anti-Mormon literature that will be yet more creative and entertaining than it has already been. This is a tall order, but, as the dawn of the new millennium draws nigh, who can doubt that the future is bright with promise?

I thought this was interesting. Here we have Prof. Peterson, arguably the Light on the Hill for Mormon Apologia, issuing a statement concerning the way that Church critics ought to be treated. But, as one of my anonymous informants usefully pointed out to me recently, Peterson's comments come into striking relief when compared to the rather well-known "Stendahl's Rules." These rules were dealt with in a FAIR piece entitled (rather humorously and ironically) "Breaking the Rules: Critics of the LDS Faith":

http://www.fairlds.org/Anti-Mormons/Cri ... Faith.html

In the piece, the author, Cooper Johnson, neatly summarizes the Rules:

1. Ask adherents, not enemies
2. Don't compare your best with your worst
3. Leave room for holy envy

LDS apologists---amateur or otherwise---have often insisted that agnosticism and atheism are also "religions," or at least, that they are (in some sense) spiritual ideologies. I wonder, though: Do these Rules of Stendahl get applied to LDS Church critics? Or, rather, are these Rules only applicable when Mopologists want to be given a free pass?

Let's take a more specific example. Using DCP's "Lotus Eaters" piece, one would think that an examination of the "Worst of the Anti-Mormon Web" would require---per Stendahl's Rules---comparison with "Worst of the Mormon Web." So, which believing LDS is going to be placed on the chopping block? Wade Englund's CSSAD? Juliann's Black LDS webpage? Presumably, the assumption on the part of the apologists is that *no* LDS webpage is *ever* as bad as the antis'.

Johnson continues:

When it comes to scholarly defenses of the LDS faith by LDS scholars, Dr. Peterson correctly points out that all too often our critics dismiss them altogether as "nothing worth looking at." This popular view allows our critics to avoid all LDS scholarship while relying heavily on works produced by those on their side of the fence. This produces, what Dr. Peterson calls, a "kind of intellectual incestuousness among our critics." In other words, dismiss out of hand all that the LDS camp produces and simply use and support only sources that agree with the critical conclusions.

Does this not sound rather like DCP's endless insistence that criticism on the messageboards is "nothing worth looking at"? He has been asked, on multiple occasions, to invite J. Tvedtnes, or L. Midgley, or G. Novak to the boards. (And yes, I realize that he will simply dismiss what I'm saying here, insisting that published works are far more important than MB posts. However, that is still a violation of his own rules.) Surely, the Book of Abraham criticism of Kevin Graham, among others, is some of the best. Do the apologists deal seriously with this material?

Later, in relation to the 3rd of Stendahl's Rules, Johnson identifies something called "Peterson's Rule":

So the principle that came to me on this was that if you are looking at a religious tradition that has a large number of adherents...then there must be something in it that appeals to different people.

Mormonism, for example, has clearly lasted long enough and has clearly appealed to a wide enough cross section of people that you don't have to concede that it's true to say there must be something there that appeals to people; bright people, practical people, highly educated people, uneducated people; all sorts of people in all sorts of cultures have found something appealing in this movement. The same is true of Hinduism, Islam and Christianity.

Criticism of the LDS Church is, as Johnson and many others have pointed out, as old as the Church itself. It has a large number of adherents, and (again) as the Mopologists have pointed out, it can definitely be seen as a kind of "counter-religious tradition." So, I'm curious: What do the Mopologists find appealing about the critics' POV? Aside from that apparent fact (and here cf. DCP's "Lotus Eaters" piece) that it is a fun target for ridicule?

Towards the beginning of the FAIR piece, Johnson concludes:

How do our critics score in using Stendahl's rules? Based on the examples that are on the shelves of Christian bookstores, examples that are preached over Protestant pulpits, and examples splattered all over the Internet, we find, as does Dr. Peterson, that the critics of the LDS faith fail miserably.

Well, how do the Mopologists score? Miserably? It seems to me that, try as the might, the Mopologists have failed rather spectacularly when it comes to adherence to their own rules. I hope that, in the future, they will take this criticism to heart, and that they will try to improve.

[_Nightingale]

Please excuse my little bit of a tangent:

Scratch quotes Johnson (LDS):

Johnson concludes:

Quote:
How do our critics score in using Stendahl's rules? Based on the examples that are on the shelves of Christian bookstores, examples that are preached over Protestant pulpits, and examples splattered all over the Internet, we find, as does Dr. Peterson, that the critics of the LDS faith fail miserably.

____

I've listened to piles of Protestant preachers preaching over many Protestant pulpits and to date have heard zero Protestant protestations relating to Mormonism or other non-Protestant preaching, teaching or believing.

As for Christian bookstores, I have seen a few, very few, books about the JW and LDS faiths, which is different from the image of "shelves" full of examples.

As for Internet "splatter", well, even that is relative.

In regard to being consistent, objective, and always keeping things in perspective, well, good ideals, hard to achieve, for everybody.

[_Nomad]

Please excuse my little bit of a tangent:

Scratch quotes Johnson (LDS):

Johnson concludes:

Quote:
How do our critics score in using Stendahl's rules? Based on the examples that are on the shelves of Christian bookstores, examples that are preached over Protestant pulpits, and examples splattered all over the Internet, we find, as does Dr. Peterson, that the critics of the LDS faith fail miserably.

____

I've listened to piles of Protestant preachers preaching over many Protestant pulpits and to date have heard zero Protestant protestations relating to Mormonism or other non-Protestant preaching, teaching or believing.

As for Christian bookstores, I have seen a few, very few, books about the JW and LDS faiths, which is different from the image of "shelves" full of examples.

As for Internet "splatter", well, even that is relative.

In regard to being consistent, objective, and always keeping things in perspective, well, good ideals, hard to achieve, for everybody.

Permit me to welcome myself to this board for the first time. Thank you, thank you.

Now, to the point, I am certain that someone, somewhere has a fairly accurate count of the books written for the purpose of discrediting Joseph Smith and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The tally, I'm sure, is well into the four-digit range, and perhaps even surpasses 10,000. I think that would definitely fill a few bookshelves, as I've heard it does in the church history department's collection.

As for Mr. Scratch's initial post on this thread -- I struggled to discern the coherence in any of it. What a strange bird he is.

[_Nightingale]

Hi Nomad. Welcome!

10,000 books? That does surprise me. But still I think my point stands. On the shelves of Christian bookstores, which was the reference, there are nowhere near 10,000 books about Mormonism (in particular, critiquing it). I frequent a fair few bookstores and Christian bookstores. There are your usual dated Walter Martin paperbacks that slam both JW and LDS faiths, in addition to a handful of others on similar topics that do manage to be somewhat more objective or at least moderate, substantive and accurate.

So, while there may be 10,000 "anti" Mormon books out there (?!) they are not filling the shelves of the local Christian bookstores. That was my point - that saying they fill the shelves is not an accurate portrayal, in my experience. It is far more likely that the books for sale will be about the mainstream Christian faith with only a small part of one shelf set aside for discussions about other faiths, especially very negative or inaccurate tomes, of which I see very few.

10,000 could fill the shelves, but they don't, is all I'm sayin'. :)

[_Mister Scratch]

Permit me to welcome myself to this board for the first time. Thank you, thank you.

Hi there, Nomad. Welcome!

As for Mr. Scratch's initial post on this thread -- I struggled to discern the coherence in any of it. What a strange bird he is.

It basically boils down to this: Do the apologists follow their own rules? Do they follow Stendahl's Rules, or Peterson's Rule?

[_Gadianton]

Thank you for another important installment Mister Scratch. It appears to me that Stendahl's Rules and the apologetics of FARMS, FAIR, and others, are like oil and water.

[_Daniel Peterson]

1.

Right on cue, Gadianton Scratch arrives to endorse Mister Scratch's post. This ritual of mutual praise and adoration is one of the signature characteristics of the Scratchite sect.

In the spirit of interfaith respect, outsiders should make every effort not to laugh.

2.

I can assure Nightingale that, as an observer of Christian bookstores principally in California and Colorado (though my interest in them has waned in recent years), I have indeed seen whole shelves of anti-Mormon materials in more than a few.

3.

It's oddly reassuring to see that Scratch's creepy network of anonymous "informants" continues to feed his insatiable appetite for material that he imagines he can use as ammunition in his bizarre and obsessive crusade against me. Constancy in a world of change. Day and night, night and day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty-five days a year, the malevolent Eye of Scratch never sleeps.

4.

In dealing with other religions, I think I follow Krister Stendahl's rules (on which I've spoken and published many times, most recently in Orlando, Florida, less than two weeks ago) reasonably well.

My articles on various Christian denominations and world religions for Meridian Magazine, my books and articles on Islam, my many scores of firesides on Islam, my participation in interfaith ventures on four continents, and my efforts to translate and publish classical Islamic, Jewish, and eastern Christian books are on public record.

I don't, however, consider anti-Mormonism a religion. While I've never written a single thing criticizing the faith of the Southern Baptists, I've published several items critical of Southern Baptist anti-Mormonism. I don't mock other faiths, but I do, occasionally, have a hearty laugh at Ed Decker, Bill Schnoebelen, and their pals. The black robed votaries of orthodox Scratchism don't appear to like humor, but they need to learn to live in a pluralistic, multifaith society, as the rest of us have done.

[Guest]

DCP:
"I can assure Nightingale that, as an observer of Christian bookstores principally in California and Colorado (though my interest in them has waned in recent years), I have indeed seen whole shelves of anti-Mormon materials in more than a few."

Ah. I was forgetting for an instant that I am living in a different country and that my world is not necessarily the norm for others. OK, I will have to modify my statement and adjust my impression. In my vast experience of Christian bookshops in my little world up here in Western Canada, their tomes relating to Mormonism do not fill up even one shelf, not even close.

Perhaps many US bookshops are more cosmopolitan or there is a special interest in that topic or a different focus from the Christian groups there? Up here, we pretty much just feed our own faith needs when it comes to Christian reading. I don't think the vast body of believers is really into doctrine all that much and certainly not doctrinal analysis. Most adherents just go to church. Only the differently oriented actually sit and pore over doctrinal matters, like maybe pastors, priests and students in religious studies.

I see (and ignore) books by Martin et al. I think that most Christians would join you in laughing at such as Decker and then ignoring him. Or maybe I'm just very fortunate to hang with those who are moderate in their views, not slamming, not mocking, not divisive. I like it that way.

PS: This doesn't mean that most Christians here say that anything goes or that we don't recognize The Wide Divide in our views when compared with Mormonism, of course. We just don't fill up our bookshops with Decker & Pals.

[_moksha]

I've listened to piles of Protestant preachers preaching over many Protestant pulpits and to date have heard zero Protestant protestations relating to Mormonism or other non-Protestant preaching, teaching or believing.

Wasn't there a minister from Florida who made quite a splash last year attacking Mitt Romney and the LDS Church over his radio ministry? What about that Utah group who protested so loudly when they were refused being allowed to videotape a Mormon Pageant so they could add derogatory narration and sell it on their website? This same group had women dress up as Joseph Smith's many wives at the Moroni pageant. Do you believe they fail to mention Mormons at their services?

.

[_Mister Scratch]

I don't, however, consider anti-Mormonism a religion. While I've never written a single thing criticizing the faith of the Southern Baptists, I've published several items critical of Southern Baptist anti-Mormonism. I don't mock other faiths, but I do, occasionally, have a hearty laugh at Ed Decker, Bill Schnoebelen, and their pals.

Does this mean that you don't think that Stendahl's Rules, or Peterson's Rule apply to the critcs' point of view?