What motivates a man like Gerald Bradford

[_Kishkumen]

I think it is obvious that Gerald shares a view of dealing with the study of Mormonism and apologetics that is much closer to John Dehlin's than DCPs. I recommend reading his article The Study of Mormonism: A Growing Interest in Academia. It is obvious to me from reading that article written before he was placed in the position he now holds that in Gerald's view the best way to defend Mormonism is to place it in the context of other faith traditions. For example instead of defending temple garments by finding vague references to Adam being given a lambskin and trying to force an anachronistic LDS interpretation on it, like current mopologists, Gerald would probably approach it by showing that many different religious traditions have undergarments or clothing that are considered sacred. Truth claims become secondary to ritual and the effect of the religion on the lives of believers. Which is the opposite of the current mopologetic obsession with finding plausibility even in the most convoluted ways. It is obvious why there would be a tension between these two views.

This article is from 2007 so it is obvious that Bradford hasn't suddenly come to this realization, but rather has probably wanted to make these changes for a long time. I imagine the only reason it hadn't happened was because of Daniel's refusal to allow it to. Which would explain all of the leaks from MI if there were obvious factions wanting different things. The tension has obviously been there since he took up his position, but I think Daniel thought he had Jerry under control. It seems the real game changer was the John Dehlin article. Bradford didn't need to read the article because he already knew it was going to be a full-frontal attack on everything that Bradford himself wants for Mormon studies and the mopologists pushed him too far.

The part of this that rings truest to me is Bradford's interest in Mormonism in its contemporary context. So much more needs to be done in this area. To date, mostly it has been Reorganites who were interested in this kind of thing. People like Dale Broadhurst. Now, fortunately, we may see more scholarship on the topic coming from BYU campus through the MSR. I think this is where the future is in terms of really understanding Mormonism through secular scholarship. I think that there will also be benefits to the faith gained thereby.

[_why me]

If they are not present, then it is an easy case to make that all of it is a pious fraud.

There is no such thing as a pious fraud. It is a contradiction.

[_Equality]

It seems the real game changer was the John Dehlin article. Bradford didn't need to read the article because he already knew it was going to be a full-frontal attack on everything that Bradford himself wants for Mormon studies and the mopologists pushed him too far. I honestly doubt that there was GA involvement or even involvement with superiors other than Jerry informing them of his decision.

Interesting. So even though we know Dehlin contacted at least one GA, you don't think that GA or any other pulled the Dehlin hit piece, but Jerry acted on his own authority. Pretty ballsy of Jerry if that was the case. Maybe just knowing that Dehlin had GAs in his corner who could counter the ones DCP had in his was sufficient cover for Jerry to make the call. It's an intriguing idea, though I am not sure I am persuaded. Jerry seems like the kind of administrator who would not rock the boat unless given a command to do so by one of his file leaders. He seems like a company man to me and not one who would make controversial decisions like spiking the Dehlin hit piece or sacking DCP without clear authorization and express approval from higher ups. But I admit I am merely speculating on rather limited information, and I could be completely wrong about this.

Incidentally, the GA who was copied on Dehlin's email was not Jensen; it was some Seventy in Europe (was it Scandinavia), If I recall correctly, but I can't remember his name and I am too lazy to search those interminable threads to find the name.

[_Droopy]

I’ve also discovered that my love affair with God is best expressed in terms of a range of things that I try my best to do – worship him with full intent (with all that this entails in terms of fasting, prayer, singing hymns, and so forth), partake of the Lord’s Supper (in an attitude of repentance and thanksgiving, while promising to always remember him and abide by his commandments), and participate in prescribed priesthood ordinances aimed at blessing others (while also being the recipient of blessings by this same means) and by this and other means try my level best to deal properly with them and do right by them (with all that it entails) – more so than by focusing on my beliefs about God or other related matters or on what I say or write about him.

What this, tellingly, seems to indicate, is that, for Bradford, God is a rather nebulous entity - perhaps in a much more abstract sense than for the majority of faithful, believing LDS - then the very concrete (yet perfect and infinite) being defined and clarified in the scriptures and modern revelation, as the Church understands such.

Bradford participates in worship and priesthood activities, but in the name of a God that he doesn't appear to understand concretely or have grasped in a coherent, conceptually organized manner. Why else would it not matter to Bradford what God was and was actually like ("what I say and write about him) relative to various religious activities and practices associated with God?

I find that my perspective on this differs from others, including, it seems, some fellow Saints.

It "seems?" Yes, given the very clear and divinely revealed fundamental knowledge (with emphasis on this dispensation, as that term is understood in LDS thought) regarding God's basic nature, character, and attributes, as revealed by living prophets in our day (concepts which, one would think, Bradford would be well acquainted with, given his long association with the church as a member), Bradford's misty, indistinct conceptualization of God is rather baffling, especially given the characterization of this as a "testimony."

It has been my experience that many Latter-day Saints view their faith almost exclusively from the vantage point of what they believe, rather than in reference to the many things the Savior asks them to do.

This is incoherent. What the Savior asks them to do is an integral aspect of what they believe about him, just as God's ontological features are key in understanding what he asks of us and why. What is Bradford trying to say here?

This may account, at least in part, for why some find a need to elaborate on, if not speculate about, a whole range of church teachings or beliefs (what are often referred to as “doctrines”), thereby giving the impression that the gospel of Jesus Christ is complex and that to be a Latter-day Saint means devoting a great deal of time and effort trying to figure out what all these beliefs mean, how they hang together, how they can best be used to explain things, and so forth. I once understood my faith this way. But not any more.

This is fascinating and telling in its contemporary (precisely post baby boom) psychology and attitudinal position, for both a LDS and a scholar - supposedly an "intellectual." The entire historic LDS focus on teh gaining if knowledge, education, learning by "study and also by faith," and seeking deep knowledge and wisdom, is here ejected from Mormonism as beneath elite, cloistered academic contempt. It appears that, for Bradford, nothing that is not "scholarly," in a professional, academic sense (as he and his cohorts understand this) is worthy of consideration as reliable or worthwhile knowledge. Apologetics, for Bradford, apparently falls outside the boundaries of legitimate intellectual activity. Period. This is, as well, a traditional conceit, smugly reiterated time and again, by the traditional secularized apostate intellectuals who have become the church's most vigorous and serious opponents.

Bradford, astoundingly, has here deracinated the gospel of any philosophical depth, meaning, or intellectual complexity - denuding it (very much as Sister Brooks does, in another way) of the vast, panoramic philosophical penetration of the "terrible questions" the gospel itself teaches the gospel exists to answer and explore. Bradford appears here to want a kind of LDS version of an intellectually unengaged, philosophically and theologically neutered mainstream Protestant "social gospel" that is, laudably, concerned with doing good, Christian things for each other, but unconcerned about the larger metaphysical/cosmological truths the gospel exists to focus our minds and hearts upon (exaltation, and our place in the universe, in other words).

I suspect that what Bradford is really trying to get at here is a kind of LDS version of the "overlapping magisterium" of the late Stephan J. Gould. The idea here, and I think this is what we may be seeing in the purging of Danial, Midgely et al from the NMI, is the relegating of the gospel and church to the safe and unthreatening realm of ethics and morality, while leaving description and discourse about "reality" (everything else, including the fundamental nature of the universe and humans themselves) in strictly secular theoretic and philosophical hands.

This is an old, old project, and dates, in one form or another, since the 18th century. Its presence among LDS intellectuals who consider themselves "faithful" or "believing" LDS is no puzzle (the parable of the sower subsumes all of this within its conceptual precincts very well), but it is a challenge to the Church and the long and wearying war to compartmentalize the gospel and spiritual concerns from intellectual.

To see this modernist conceit alive and well among the management of what was once FARMS, and connected, apparantly, to attitudes being cultivated within BYU, is, indeed, alarming.

There is no reason - none - why two new institutions could not have been created here, one dedicated to scholarly apologetics, and another dedicated to more generalized religious scholarship with relevance to the Church if and when it arises. The hurried and ham fisted purging of NMI to make room for Bradford's intellectual allies bespeaks another mentality at work.

(Note: I have returned to this forum for one reason, and one reason only, and that is to deal with this issue and provide some counterpoint and alternative perspective in what now is a full fledged echo chamber. lI will not be engaging anyone on any other subject, or entertaining any ad hominem cut down contests that will arise due to my very presence here).

[_RayAgostini]

This article is from 2007 so it is obvious that Bradford hasn't suddenly come to this realization, but rather has probably wanted to make these changes for a long time. I imagine the only reason it hadn't happened was because of Daniel's refusal to allow it to. Which would explain all of the leaks from MI if there were obvious factions wanting different things. The tension has obviously been there since he took up his position, but I think Daniel thought he had Jerry under control.

Your imagination is running wild:

What I can say, though, is that the notion that, having been “given the opportunity and plenty of time,” I “fought” the “new vision” and defiantly “refused to embrace it” is a flat out lie, whether it’s this particular author’s or somebody else’s.

My Name is Emmanuel Goldstein.

[_Kishkumen]

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

[_Chap]

....
(Note: I have returned to this forum for one reason, and one reason only...

Course you have, Droopy.

Really, you have a million better things you could do than posting here. Nobody will listen, and you are just going to make yourself feel angry and frustrated.

(Not that I am dis-inviting you. I quite enjoy seeing what happens when you post here. But afterwards, I sometimes wish I was a nicer person.)

[_Equality]

One Mormon attacking another Mormon's faith and devotion.

Seems like Droopy is a fan of the attack-dog style of apologetics that the Brethren, by letting DCP go, have indicated they disapprove of. Why do the Mormon apologists want to attack fellow Mormons? I don't get it.

[_Droopy]

His focus seems to be living the gospel, instead of just talking about living the gospel.

"living" the gospel, however (the core focus of the church) is inextricably connected to the doctrines, principles and fundamental metaphysical verities taught and described by the church and the authorized vehicle of the true gospel of Jesus Christ (which is a core truth claim of the Church). There is no innate compartment between what one "says and writes" about God and how one responds to God's character and nature (living the gospel).

Do you think Dr. Bradford accepts those core truth claims (the plan of salvation, a literal First Vision, restoration of the Book of Mormon by Moroni, the reality of the gold plates, the historicity of the Book of Mormon, the authentic ancient provenance of the Book of Abraham, a literal Fall, the core moral, social and cultural standards/critiques of the gospel in their entirety, etc), or do you perceive him to be a voice for an alternate view, a view which he finds incompatible with LDS apologetics as a concept?

[_Droopy]

One Mormon attacking another Mormon's faith and devotion.

Seems like Droopy is a fan of the attack-dog style of apologetics that the Brethren, by letting DCP go, have indicated they disapprove of. Why do the Mormon apologists want to attack fellow Mormons? I don't get it.

And yet, I've seen not a shred of evidence yet that is indicative of this unban lengend-like ad hominem, "attack dog" tradition among the FARMS scholars that apostate critics say exists, but find difficult to demonstrate in forums such as this.

Given the traditional approach of many exmo critics, and most prominently, those of leftist or "progressive" leanings, the claim of an ad hominem, crusty tradition within FARMS is both risible as well as lacking in meat.

I've read a lot of FARMS material over more than a decade, and I haven't seen what is claimed.