What?????s wrong with Mormon Apologetics? My reply to Seth Payne

[_MrStakhanovite]

The answer? Substance...

There is a level of just how bad the various examples I’ve provided are, The guys at the Church Office Building who edited that church manual were probably unaware just how religiously illiterate they are, merely products of Utah Mormon culture. Myers is at least dimly aware of how religiously illiterate he is, but he doesn’t want to interrupt the textual back rubs from his fans and the feel good vibes the drum circle at FreeThought blogs provides. Daniel is another order of magnitude above this, he is religiously literate, but misinforms his fellow Mormons for reasons that elude me to this day.

I’d like to point out to Seth that the disappointment he felt when he found out Nibley’s critique of Fawn Brodie was without merit was not because of the rhetoric itself, but because the rhetoric used was not justified by the substance of what Nibley wrote. That is the problem with Mormon apologetics, it is not the rhetoric that needs to be scaled back, it is that the substance is lacking. Honoring the Lord God in your heart demands that apologetics of the LDS Church be substantive, it does not demand a moderate tone.

To quote the mysterious Patrice Mersault from the comments section of Seth’s blog, “Mormonism deserves better” and it does, more now than ever.

SAUCE

[_sethpayne]

The answer? Substance...

There is a level of just how bad the various examples I’ve provided are, The guys at the Church Office Building who edited that church manual were probably unaware just how religiously illiterate they are, merely products of Utah Mormon culture. Myers is at least dimly aware of how religiously illiterate he is, but he doesn’t want to interrupt the textual back rubs from his fans and the feel good vibes the drum circle at FreeThought blogs provides. Daniel is another order of magnitude above this, he is religiously literate, but misinforms his fellow Mormons for reasons that elude me to this day.

I’d like to point out to Seth that the disappointment he felt when he found out Nibley’s critique of Fawn Brodie was without merit was not because of the rhetoric itself, but because the rhetoric used was not justified by the substance of what Nibley wrote. That is the problem with Mormon apologetics, it is not the rhetoric that needs to be scaled back, it is that the substance is lacking. Honoring the Lord God in your heart demands that apologetics of the LDS Church be substantive, it does not demand a moderate tone.

To quote the mysterious Patrice Mersault from the comments section of Seth’s blog, “Mormonism deserves better” and it does, more now than ever.

SAUCE

Stak,

Excellent post. I am thoroughly persuaded by your argument. It is not rhetoric, in itself, which is problematic for LDS apologetics. Rather, there has been lack of substantive response and rhetoric has often been used to mask this substantive anemia. McGregor's review of Holding is a perfect example of this dynamic at work.

Did you read the article in Signature's "American Apocrypha" regarding the phenomenon of automatic writing? I found this article utterly fascinating! A true mystery; perhaps of evidence of Jung's collective unconscious. For me, this article absolutely, once and for all, discredited the argument that a "simple farm boy" with no education couldn't produce a complex literary work. Several examples were given of others writing about things which they had no knowledge given their cultural context. In any case, I was very interested to see an apologetic reply and to my disappointment, I found no substantive response. In my mind, yes, the thesis that automatic writing explains the Book of Mormon origin is weak when considering the totality of evidence. Yet this thesis (which I don't recall the author putting forth too stridently -- i could be wrong) wasn't really all that important. The author clearly showed that people with no knowledge of X can, under certain conditions not fully understood, write extensively about X and in a manner well beyond their "normal" skill. THAT is the argument which should have been engaged. Rather, a myopic focus on how Joseph Smith wasn't under the influence of automatic writing. Ok. I believe you, move on. Respond to the overall theme and focus of the article.

I wonder now, having been convinced by your argument, if it is polemics which should be absent from LDS apologetics? Perhaps not. Ed Decker deserves polemics. He's an a@@ clown. JP Holding and Fawn Brodie deserve better.

Seth

[_SteelHead]

Now that was a good read.

[_Aristotle Smith]

I see we share similar opinions on education, including having read too much Bloom and blaming John Dewey.

I think this is a large problem in Mormon culture in general. For example, the Sunday School lesson my wife had last Sunday was largely about how to answer questions "correctly", with almost no attention paid to the substance of the answers. In fact it's so ingrained into Mormon culture that I think Seth's initial response to the problem may be a proof by demonstration. Mormons, even those who no longer accept the truth claims of the church, still have a deep seated impulse to attribute public relations problems to tone, attitude, style. In other words, anything but substantial issues.

I think there are many reasons for this, but I think the most deep seated reason is the fact that LDS church leaders have largely made the LDS church a substance free zone. Since words no longer carry much substance, all you can do is argue over how you say them.

[_Kishkumen]

Dear Stak-

That was a wonderful piece. I think it is actually better in some respects than the Great Camus Correction. It seems to me that one of the reasons for the lack of substance, however, may be a function of the culture of corporate technocrats and PR people that have come to dominate Mormondom. In this world, literature, art, philosophy, and the like are a kind of garnish, like the Relief Society sisters getting together to quilt pillow covers on a weekday night. Substance would be terribly threatening, since it has the tendency to make demands on those who believe that God has called them to run His Kingdom on the Earth.

Next to the inspiration of the Holy Ghost as given to an authorized wielder of the keys of the kingdom, what does a PeeehDeee have of value to add? In addition to an almost complete lack of respect on an institutional and cultural level, there is the fact that apologists like Daniel have been forced to contend with people who are illiterate themselves. It is not as though Ed Decker and the Tanners were great intellectual lights. They brought largely ignorant brands of Christianity to bear on the problem they saw in Mormonism, and the result was in some ways guffaw-worthy.

It seems to me that the entire LDS intellectual scene is immature and stilted. With time, it will get better, whether the LDS Church continues to resist or eventually embraces it. There are great minds in the Mormon world, but they have very little room within Mormon contexts for expressing their thoughts. The power structure and society of Mormondom are incredibly stifling. It is a world where the discourse is hamstrung by the mantra "I know the Church is true," and its opposite.

[_Kevin Graham]

In a word, the problem with LDS apologetics is dishonesty.

These guys will lie straight to your face without flinching, and then get all indignant when you have the audacity to hold them accountable for lying to you. I mean, these are the same people who invest a great deal of effort propagating this meme about how anti-Mormons lie, deceive, withhold facts, etc. and that we should take note and apply the "by their fruits" argument so we can then dismiss them before reading anything else they say.

[_sethpayne]

I see we share similar opinions on education, including having read too much Bloom and blaming John Dewey.

I think this is a large problem in Mormon culture in general. For example, the Sunday School lesson my wife had last Sunday was largely about how to answer questions "correctly", with almost no attention paid to the substance of the answers. In fact it's so ingrained into Mormon culture that I think Seth's initial response to the problem may be a proof by demonstration. Mormons, even those who no longer accept the truth claims of the church, still have a deep seated impulse to attribute public relations problems to tone, attitude, style. In other words, anything but substantial issues.

I think there are many reasons for this, but I think the most deep seated reason is the fact that LDS church leaders have largely made the LDS church a substance free zone. Since words no longer carry much substance, all you can do is argue over how you say them.

Hi AS,

As I've been pondering this over the past day or so I think one of the reasons I didn't mention substance as being a primary concern is that I haven't typically engaged others on the nitty-gritty of any particular apologetic issue. For example, I see the Abraham facsimiles and that's enough for me to draw a firm conclusion.

Certainly, there are other areas where I feel I could engage in a more substantive manner, such as in the clear 19th century theological influence on the Book of Mormon, but have been reluctant to do so because I know that if I engage the issue, I'll be caught in a spiral of distraction and misdirection.

A few years ago I posted on MADB that Mormon theological ethics allowed lying if it furthered the purposes of God. To me this is as clear cut a position as there can be. Yet, I was taken to task and because incredibly frustrated by the response. It became personal and the discussion, again, avoided the substance of my position and focused on peripheral issues. To engage in this type of discussion sucks the life out of a person..... Plus, I see how people like Chris Smith and even David Bokovoy are attacked for their arguments (note, they are attacked ... not their arguments) and have been turned off to the whole enterprise.

Anyway, I think Stak is right on. The root cause for all of this is a lack of substance in many cases. I read Bushman's response to the claim that the Book of Mormon was anti-Masonic etc... and while I disagreed with his conclusions I was still impressed that he engaged the issue directly. He brought *all* relevant evidence to the table.

Thank you for your thoughts. Gives me more to think about.

Seth

ETA: This old blog entry may add a bit of color on how I approach apologetics generally.

http://www.sethpayne.com/?p=917

[_MrStakhanovite]

Hi Seth,

Thank you for the kind words, I really do appreciate them.

For me, this article absolutely, once and for all, discredited the argument that a "simple farm boy" with no education couldn't produce a complex literary work. Several examples were given of others writing about things which they had no knowledge given their cultural context.

I’ve not the read the article in question, but I am familiar with automatic writing. It is certainly a possible explanation, but I don’t buy the “simple farm boy” either. I recall reading about these two researchers (Lord and Parry) who were doing work in ancient epic poetry, and went to Montenegro to find the last few Guslars (medieval slavic bards) before the tradition died out. They found this illiterate butcher who couldn’t read in his native language, but could recite some 80,000 lines of verse from memory, I mean Lord and Parry recorded this guy giving a 16 hour recitation of just one poem. This Butcher even listened to a epic poem he was unfamiliar with, and after one hearing, was able to recite it back in it’s entirety, with a bunch of extra lines added on the fly.

Humans can do some amazing stuff, I don’t understand the sentiment that the Book of Mormon is just too amazing for Joseph Smith to complete on his own.

I wonder now, having been convinced by your argument, if it is polemics which should be absent from LDS apologetics? Perhaps not.

I think there is always a place for polemics, there is a time and place for just about everything.

[_MrStakhanovite]

Question for Kishkumen and Aristotle Smith,

So what is it about the Roman Catholic Church that allows all kinds of scholarship to thrive under a patriarchal hierarchy that is similar to the LDS institution? I mean, you have serious Catholic Geo-centrists (google Robert Sungenis) but it also has Jesuits like Fitzmyer whose “The One Who Is To Come” puts a lot of secular scholarship to shame in how damning it is to Christian interpretation of the Hebrew Bible concerning the role of the Messiah.

[_MrStakhanovite]

Now that was a good read.

Thanks Steel