I hope to contribute here to a distillation of these philosophical issues. I believe these issues are very important for Mormon scholars and thinkers (Meridian Expand’s intended audience) as we seek to pursue scholarship and simply to think carefully from a standpoint faithful to the Restoration. There are real personal and professional hazards to navigate as we honor eternal truth and at the same time share intellectual pursuits with others with their own priorities.
What might these "philosophical issues" be? Hancock goes on:
In a word, and to use a short-hand that risks being emotionally charged but whose convenience cannot be denied: there are those LDS scholars who mainly practice “apologetic” scholarship, and those who mainly practice “mainstream academic” scholarship, and reasonable people of each type recognizes the legitimacy of the other. Since the names are familiar to anyone who knows what I am talking about, let them be named: on the one hand, Daniel Peterson, who has raised critical questions about Benjamin Park’s review, agrees that a “Mormon Studies” that engages non-Mormon, even “secular” scholarship on Mormon things can be good for Mormon; while, on the other, Terryl Givens and David Holland, who have defended Park’s goals, though not necessarily his phrasing, agree (unlike some voices at the new Maxwell Institute) that “Mormon Apologetics” is a useful an intellectually respectable enterprise.
Now, I know I've seen DCP claim that he supports "Mormon Studies" and that he understands how it can be valuable, but can someone show me where Givens or Holland have *ever* characterized "Mormon Apologetics" as a "useful and intellectually respectable enterprise"? Hancock never says, and in fact, it's not clear what he means by "Mormon Apologetics," beyond the rather bland testimony-bearing and affirmation of the Book of Mormon's historicity. The apologists themselves denied repeatedly that they engaged in "testimony bearing" (cf. DCP's "The Witchcraft Paradigm"). So, what does Hancock think "Mormon Apologetics" is, exactly, and in what sense is it an "intellectually respectable enterprise"?
Later, he paraphrases Brian Birch:
Brian Birch wants to give apologetic scholarship a place at the Mormon Studies table, but only on condition that the apologists accept answering to the authority of academic standards: their positions must be “publicly sustainable” and “objectively correctable”: “they need to be publicly accessible to criticism and potential defeat.” Only in this way, he thinks, can the “conversation stopper” of appeal to authoritative revelation be avoided.
Birch, of course, makes an interesting point. And one might say that the apologists suffered an absolutely massive and devastating "defeat" in the form of their getting kicked out of the Maxwell Institute. But it's worth pausing and asking: what might Birch have meant by being "publicly accessible to criticism and potential defeat"? All along, many critics of classic-FARMS cited the nastiness and viciousness of far too many of the articles--everything from "Text and Context," to Hamblin's "That Old Black Magic," to Greg Smith's Dehlin "hit piece" (to say nothing of things like "Metcalfe is Butthead"). Could it be that Birch is asking whether or not the apologists are at last willing to own up to these criticisms and admit that they acted wrongly? (Further, how might Hancock defend any of the items I've cited as part of an "intellectually respectable enterprise"? Does he really know what he's defending here?)
Hancock wraps up on a somewhat maudlin note:
Truly to expand by engaging other thinkers and other traditions open to the perennial human search for Truth may appear to threaten certain “apologetic” enterprises, but, any engagement with such authentic forms of human seeking promises ultimately to nourish our appreciation of the Truths we think we already comprehend. Apologists and seekers must be friends, and they must invite mere contextualizing scholars to join them, but on the higher ground of the pursuit of Truth.
Sounds kind of nice on the surface, though again: how is this attitude supposed to flourish when some of the main advocates of apologetics are still stressing the need for "negative apologetics"?:
Two of the six participants in the roundtable propose a “strong pluralist” conception of the project of Mormon Studies. Daniel Peterson argues against indifference to the question of religious truth or falsity, and thus for the continuing role of apologetics, including “negative apologetics,” or the task of answering critics.
How is the "perennial human search for Truth" supposed to flourish in an atmosphere of ridicule, sadistic mockery, bullying, and smearing? At heart, this is what's wrong with Hancock's analysis--he seems completely and totally unfamiliar with the apologists' oeuvre, or with their various online antics, which to be frank, are part of the same general thing. I could be wrong, though. Perhaps Hancock really has read the Mopologists' work, and he really does think that it's part of an "intellectually respectable enterprise." If that's the case, let him defend "Questions to Legal Answers," or the Greg Smith "hit piece." Let him show us how writings like that fit into his utopian vision of collegial intellectual exchange. Without specific, concrete discussion of the sort of things I've mentioned, Hancock's discussion is pure hot wind.
In the "Comments" section to the piece, there is one response, from someone named "Jack":
Thank you, bro. Hancock. This is wonderful. Couldn't the MI just offer two journals? One dedicated to religious studies and the other to Mormon studies?
It's interesting that he says "religious studies" rather than "apologetics." And besides: there *is* an apologetics journal--it's called Mormon Interpreter! These days it is getting more and more difficult to determine what it is that the apologists want, exactly, besides revenge and the complete destruction of the new MI. They've got their journal; they get to say what they want; they've got their blogs. Do they want back in under the umbrella of respectability offered by BYU? Perhaps these are questions that Hancock might consider asking himself the next time he pens something for "Expand."