Do Apologists Want to Destroy Critics' Lives?

[_Rollo Tomasi]

Not one dime of my salary comes from doing apologetics.

You are absolutely correct: not one dime. Actually, it's 200,000 dimes (check my math -- it should equal $20,000).

[_Daniel Peterson]

Rollo! Long time, no sneer!

Not one dime of my salary comes from doing apologetics.

You are absolutely correct: not one dime. Actually, it's 200,000 dimes (check my math -- it should equal $20,000).

We've been over this a hundred times or so.

You assert it, I deny it.

Observers will make their judgments about this based on whether they consider me a liar or not, and on whether or not they think I'm likely to know more about my personal finances than you and the other Scratches do.

I see no reason to repeat this more than a few score times more.

So here goes: I deny your claim. It's flatly false.

[_Daniel Peterson]

I get the picture. Ira Fulton doesn't want Quinn anywhere near a university he sponsors because Quinn's historical writing is offensive to him. The point is not whether Quinn's account of, for example, post-Manifesto polygamy, is the truth (as explained by his stake president), but whether it "denigrates faith".

Big bucks and wealthy sponsors Trump the search for historical truth.

You're assuming that Arizona State should have, and otherwise would have, hired Mike Quinn.

Based on the usual situation in the academic marketplace, though, I'm guessing that Arizona State had fifty to a hundred applicants for that position -- maybe more -- and I would be mightily surprised if Mike Quinn was the only one among them who seeks historical truth.

Lots of factors -- training, background, publication record, personality, area of expertise, focus of research, quality of teaching, fit with a department's peculiar needs and/or strengths, etc., etc. -- go into hiring a professor. I know; I've been involved in this process a number of times for my own department. Do we know for certain that Mike Quinn was the absolutely objectively obviously best candidate for the Arizona State position, and the best fit for the department and its curriculum?

I don't.

Fulton must have well absorbed Packer's admonition that "some truths are not very useful". Every one who reads this should now understand the genesis of Quinn's excommunication. Money is more important than truth.

I don't see how you can deduce that from anything you've posted here.

[_Ray A]

You're assuming that Arizona State should have, and otherwise would have, hired Mike Quinn.

Based on the usual situation in the academic marketplace, though, I'm guessing that Arizona State had fifty to a hundred applicants for that position -- maybe more -- and I would be mightily surprised if Mike Quinn was the only one among them who seeks historical truth.

Lots of factors -- training, background, publication record, personality, area of expertise, focus of research, quality of teaching, fit with a department's peculiar needs and/or strengths, etc., etc. -- go into hiring a professor. I know; I've been involved in this process a number of times for my own department. Do we know for certain that Mike Quinn was the absolutely objectively obviously best candidate for the Arizona State position, and the best fit for the department and its curriculum?

I don't.

But we also know Fulton's view of Quinn. The point isn't whether he was the best candidate of fifty or a hundred. The point is that because of Fulton's view of Quinn he was "unhireable".

I don't see how you can deduce that from anything you've posted here.

It's very obvious. Quinn was threatened with punishment for his 1985 article on post-Manifesto polygamy, an article that you said, if I correctly recall, was good (though you feel that his later work was not as good).

So the message is very clear: The Church leaders do not want the truth if they feel it will threaten faith. And they are prepared to excommunicate any historian who crosses boundaries they have set.
The same thing happened to David Wright. Nothing he wrote from a biblical scholar's point of view was objectionable, but once again it threatened faith.

The message is very clear: The Church has engaged in modern inquisitions of it scholars who "step out of line" with "The Brethren".

[_Daniel Peterson]

But we also know Fulton's view of Quinn. The point isn't whether he was the best candidate of fifty or a hundred. The point is that because of Fulton's view of Quinn he was "unhireable".

Welcome to the real world of universities. There are more candidates for positions than there are positions.

Many candidates are rejected. Sometimes they're rejected at least partially because a donor or a member of the board of trustees or a member of the state legislature or the general public objected.

Why has Mike Quinn not been hired by one of the several hundred (if not thousand) other history departments in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, or the UK?

I don't know. But I can pretty well guarantee you that it wasn't because of Ira Fulton, because of me, because of FARMS, because of Elder Packer, or because of the insidious, demonic SCMC.

I don't see how you can deduce that from anything you've posted here.

It's very obvious. Quinn was threatened with punishment for his 1985 article on post-Manifesto polygamy, an article that you said, if I correctly recall, was good (though you feel that his later work was not as good).

That's Mike Quinn's claim. I don't know whether it's true or not.

So the message is very clear: The Church leaders do not want the truth if they feel it will threaten faith. And they are prepared to excommunicate any historian who crosses boundaries they have set.
The same thing happened to David Wright. Nothing he wrote from a biblical scholar's point of view was objectionable, but once again it threatened faith.

The message is very clear: The Church has engaged in modern inquisitions of it scholars who "step out of line" with "The Brethren".

I don't believe that there's anything wrong with a church determining the acceptable boundaries of opinion that are consistent with membership in it.

I also don't see anything even remotely like an "inquisition."

[_Ray A]

Why has Mike Quinn not been hired by one of the several hundred (if not thousand) other history departments in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, or the UK?

Maybe because his area of expertise is Mormon history? I know he has a Ph.D in history, but for most of his career he has written on Mormon history, and you're not going to find 3,700 LDS students in any university in Australia, much less a department that studies anything Mormon at a significant level.

I don't know. But I can pretty well guarantee you that it wasn't because of Ira Fulton, because of me, because of FARMS, because of Elder Packer, or because of the insidious, demonic SCMC.

Quinn's reputation as a scholar was gradually affected by what "faithful Mormon scholars" were saying and writing about him over the years. Yet many non-Mormon scholars praised his work. That's because there was a belief-bias at work - Quinn wasn't writing "faithful history".

Packer and Quinn:

When I was admitted to the faculty of Brigham Young University, I had the same kind of interview that all prospective faculty members have, and that is that a General Authority of the LDS Church meets with the prospective faculty member. ... The person who interviewed me was apostle Boyd K. Packer. We were together about 45 minutes, and almost all of that was a lecture. He began by asking me what position I was going to be hired in or was being considered for, and I said it was as a professor in the history department. The very next words out of his mouth were -- and I'm not exaggerating; these were seared into my memory -- Elder Packer said, "I have a hard time with historians, because historians idolize the truth." I almost sunk into my chair. I mean, that statement just bowled me over.

Then he went on to say, quoting him as accurately as I can ...: "The truth is not uplifting. The truth destroys. And historians should tell only that part of the truth that is uplifting, and if it's religious history, that's faith-promoting." And he said, "Historians don't like doing that, and that's why I have a hard time with historians."

That's Mike Quinn's claim. I don't know whether it's true or not.

Your claim is that you never received $20,000. I guess no one really knows if it's true or not.

I don't believe that there's anything wrong with a church determining the acceptable boundaries of opinion that are consistent with membership in it.

I also don't see anything even remotely like an "inquisition."

Now you know one reason I'm no longer a member. I went willingly because I could fully see that truth and the Church were strangers.

[_Trevor]

The minute Mike Quinn defied the leadership of the LDS Church over what he should be researching and publishing was the minute his academic career, as defined by holding a tenured or tenure-track position at a university, was effectively over. He became a pariah to faithful LDS people everywhere, and as with many other kinds of niche studies it is the community that sustains these academic positions, not popular demand. Am I happy about what happened? Not at all. For a person of Mike's particular make-up, it was a no-win situation.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Why has Mike Quinn not been hired by one of the several hundred (if not thousand) other history departments in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, or the UK?

Maybe because his area of expertise is Mormon history?

Precisely. That may well be the crucial reason. It's almost certainly a contributing factor. As I've already mentioned just above.

I don't know. But I can pretty well guarantee you that it wasn't because of Ira Fulton, because of me, because of FARMS, because of Elder Packer, or because of the insidious, demonic SCMC.

Quinn's reputation as a scholar was gradually affected by what "faithful Mormon scholars" were saying and writing about him over the years. Yet many non-Mormon scholars praised his work. That's because there was a belief-bias at work - Quinn wasn't writing "faithful history".

Or perhaps it's because the non-Mormon scholars didn't know the area well enough to recognize the problems that many of his LDS colleagues found painfully obvious.

Are you really suggesting, incidentally, that the small cadre of Mormon scholars who criticized Quinn carried the day, so thoroughly convincing all of the many thousands of non-Mormon historians out there that his work was flawed that nobody was willing to hire him anywhere?

Wow. That's a pretty heady thought. We don't have very many such total triumphs under our belts.

Historians concentrating on Mormonism have gotten jobs outside of Mormon universities, at places like Durham (in the UK), Queen's University (in Canada), the divinity school at Vanderbilt University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and etc. It's not impossible. So it must have been me and Elder Packer who done him in.

When I was admitted to the faculty of Brigham Young University, I had the same kind of interview that all prospective faculty members have, and that is that a General Authority of the LDS Church meets with the prospective faculty member. ... The person who interviewed me was apostle Boyd K. Packer. We were together about 45 minutes, and almost all of that was a lecture. He began by asking me what position I was going to be hired in or was being considered for, and I said it was as a professor in the history department. The very next words out of his mouth were -- and I'm not exaggerating; these were seared into my memory -- Elder Packer said, "I have a hard time with historians, because historians idolize the truth." I almost sunk into my chair. I mean, that statement just bowled me over.

Then he went on to say, quoting him as accurately as I can ...: "The truth is not uplifting. The truth destroys. And historians should tell only that part of the truth that is uplifting, and if it's religious history, that's faith-promoting." And he said, "Historians don't like doing that, and that's why I have a hard time with historians."

It's simply unthinkable that there might be another side to that story.

When Mike Quinn speaks, the thinking has been done.

Your claim is that you never received $20,000. I guess no one really knows if it's true or not.

I do.

Now you know one reason I'm no longer a member. I went willingly because I could fully see that truth and the Church were strangers.

Sorry, Ray. I think that's nonsense.

Incidentally, I'm headed up right now to an appointment at the new Church History Library in Salt Lake City, which is one of the finest such facilities in the world, and a tangible monument to the falsity of what you just wrote.

[_Trevor]

When Mike Quinn speaks, the thinking has been done.

Sure, if his account were implausible on its face, I might even be moved to disbelieve it. As it stands, it is consistent with almost everything I have ever read or observed about Boyd K. Packer, and I do not believe he is a bad person.

[_Ray A]

Sorry, Ray. I think that's nonsense.

Mind reading, Dan?

Here is a portion of my original exit letter:

I also intensely dislike the strong anti-intellectual trend that has been and still is gaining great momentum within the church. I do not necessarily lay blame upon individuals for this condition, but see it as a reflection of a church dedicated to rigid conformity, which I view as destructive to the creativity and true freedom of the individual.

After studying Mormon history over the last several years I am alarmed and disturbed at inconsistencies which I find irreconcilable, many of which destroy the bases of contemporary Mormon practices and beliefs and which church authorities have taken great measures to prevent average members access to such information (despite recent protestations to the contrary) for fear that such information may damage the faith of simplistic Mormons.

What makes you think it's "nonsense"?