What motivates a man like Gerald Bradford

[_Droopy]

My hope is that he has sufficient resources behind his decision to make it stick. The change in tone alone should be a useful tool in getting new subscriptions.

From who? Who would be the bulk of the new clientele of NMI, vs. the balance of the older subscribers and readers of NMI work?

[_Droopy]

True , bcspace. But Bradford clearly alludes to the covenants that constitute the material that fills that function.

The covenants, however, are both irrelevant and unknowable, according to LDS doctrine...without the doctrine.

[_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.”

[_Darth J]

It wouldn't surprise me to learn that Bradford is a leftist, too.

[_Droopy]

Makes ya wonder what took them so long. I mean... 20 years? really? Surely someone figured out that the tone wasn't quite... the ideal Mormon?

And yet, outside of claims in this regard, I've seen no particular or noteworthy evidence of this (and I've read my share of FARMS essays over well more than a decade).

[_Droopy]

It wouldn't surprise me to learn that Bradford is a leftist, too.

That wouldn't surprise me at all either, Darth (although I highly doubt he would be willing to attach to himself the dreaded 'L' word, probably preferring the much more inspiring 'P' word).

Worldviews do, in point of fact, come bundled together in clusters of self reinforcing ideas.

[Guest]

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[_Darth J]

It wouldn't surprise me to learn that Bradford is a leftist, too.

That wouldn't surprise me at all either, Darth (although I highly doubt he would be willing to attach to himself the dreaded 'L' word, probably preferring the much more inspiring 'P' word).

Worldviews do, in point of fact, come bundled together in clusters of self reinforcing ideas.

It certainly must give one pause that secular humanism continues apace among the proponents of the Restored Gospel who don't understand that apologetics qua apologetics is the lifeblood that gives light to critics who advance unabated against the outer perimeter of defense of the Church, while leftist ivory tower types delude themselves into believing that their leftist agenda is compatible with the Gospel in any serious intellectual and philosophical sense.

[_Droopy]

I am not going to play armchair quarterback for Dr. Bradford, but you do understand that Dr. Peterson had two important pieces prepared for the Review, in two successive years, that were scuttled by Bradford at short notice, right?

Yes, one of which was a lengthy and exhaustive critique of John Dehlin's I'm-here-to-help-you-out-of-the-Church project, something for which FARMS, and intellectually serious LDS apologetics was originally conceived to answer and respond to.

Why do you think an LDS scholar such as Gerald Bradford, a director of an institute originally, and at its core, dedicated to the intellectually rigorous and detailed criticism of precisely anti-Mormon arguments and criticisms of the Church of the very kind deployed by John Dehlin, would protect an apostate critic who openly provides intellectual ammunition and comfort to those moving away from the Church and into apostasy, and scuttle intellectually serious and researched criticism of, what is essentially, an openly hostile dissident LDS intellectual and advocate for apostasy from the Church as a legitimate pursuit?

[_RayAgostini]

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.”

7 My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment;
8 And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes.
9 Thy friends do stand by thee, and they shall hail thee again with warm hearts and friendly hands.
10 Thou art not yet as Job; thy friends do not contend against thee, neither charge thee with transgression, as they did Job.
11 And they who do charge thee with transgression, their hope shall be blasted, and their prospects shall melt away as the hoar frost melteth before the burning rays of the rising sun;
12 And also that God hath set his hand and seal to change the times and seasons, and to blind their minds, that they may not understand his marvelous workings; that he may prove them also and take them in their own craftiness;
13 Also because their hearts are corrupted, and the things which they are willing to bring upon others, and love to have others suffer, may come upon themselves to the very uttermost;
14 That they may be disappointed also, and their hopes may be cut off;
15 And not many years hence, that they and their posterity shall be swept from under heaven, saith God, that not one of them is left to stand by the wall.
16 Cursed are all those that shall lift up the heel against mine anointed, saith the Lord, and cry they have sinned when they have not sinned before me, saith the Lord, but have done that which was meet in mine eyes, and which I commanded them.
17 But those who cry transgression do it because they are the servants of sin, and are the children of disobedience themselves.
(D&C 121)