Interpreter starts a “new” podcast

[Gadianton]

I wonder how much of all this nonsense Maxwell believed when he reached the end. I'd bet against it.

Anyway, what's fascinating is how static the world is for the apologists. If fifty years ago, Neal A. Maxwell said he liked FARMS, then from that time on and forever more FARMS must exist exactly as it was in that moment with the exact same leaders and nothing could ever change. And for decades and decades, the apologists will look back and talk about how because that moment happened the spotlight should have been theirs forever.

[Tom]

I wonder how much of all this nonsense Maxwell believed when he reached the end. I'd bet against it.

Anyway, what's fascinating is how static the world is for the apologists. If fifty years ago, Neal A. Maxwell said he liked FARMS, then from that time on and forever more FARMS must exist exactly as it was in that moment with the exact same leaders and nothing could ever change. And for decades and decades, the apologists will look back and talk about how because that moment happened the spotlight should have been theirs forever.

That's quite right. The Afore was entitled to a lifetime appointment as editor of the Mormon Studies Review and chief apologist for the church.

Looking again at Elder Maxwell's 1991 remarks, I am struck by the tepidness of his words: "I myself would be reluctant if you ever moved away from what had become your traditional role. Enterprises of scholarship may be like some businesses who fail at enlargement or lose the essence of what they have been successful at doing. I appreciate what Jack and Steve delineated tonight, that shows a faithfulness at doing what you do best—and I would hope that you would always do this" (emphasis added).

That's it? "I myself would be reluctant" and "I would hope"? It seems to me that the "downfall" of FARMS was set in motion six years later when BYU, led by a board of trustees made up of the three first presidency members and five or six members of the quorum of the twelve, engineered what Bill Hamblin called a "hostile takeover" of FARMS to "gain control of land that FARMS owned, and be able to manipulate potential donations to FARMS." Did Elder Maxwell express "reluctance" to President Hinckley and the other Brethren regarding BYU's hostile takeover in 1997?

More from the podcast episode:

Royal Skousen's work

Peterson: "Interpreter has been involved and--heck, when I was with FARMS and, before that, the Maxwell Institute, we were deeply involved with Royal Skousen's work—and have tried to be supportive of it, and not everybody [he laughs] has been supportive of it, so."
[Crosstalk]
Hutchinson: "I have the volumes. I, as you know, I did a daily book review for more than thirty years on the radio, and so I even interviewed Royal ... on a radio program."
Hutchinson: "Confession time, Dan: that was a rough one."
Peterson: "Oh. I can imagine."
Hutchinson: "For consumer radio, we'll just put it that way. But the books are brilliant."

Hutchinson does not elaborate on why the interview with Skousen was "a rough one."

Kevin Christensen's review of Thomas Riskas' book, Deconstructing Mormonism

Peterson: "That book by Thomas Riskas, I don't know that it's had much impact. I know one ex-Latter-day Saint who thinks it's just a devastating exposé on the church. I don't know of anybody else who was convinced by it or particularly impressed by it. It hasn't made much of a splash, but it got a really [he laughs] solid review there, I think."

Greg Smith, John Dehlin, and Mormon Stories

Hutchinson: "I'll tell you that, to a certain degree, I think we'd have to say that Greg Smith is one of the reasons why the Interpreter Foundation exists."
Peterson: "Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, he was with us with the old FARMS Review, and when I got the boot, he got the boot, too. And so several of us decided we're not going to drop the torch. We're going to pick it up and keep it going, and so he was one of the people I tried to invite from the early, from the very beginning."
Hutchinson: "Well, on the website we still have available the paper that caused all the things ... problems [?]"
Peterson: "Yes."
Hutchinson: "... that was never published except that it was available on the website. Those are drafts."
Peterson: "Right, right. And that ..."
[Crosstalk]
Hutchinson: "It took a minute to find it, but I did."
Peterson: "Yeah. Huh, huh, huh [transcription of his laughter]. It was a response to John Dehlin, and it was meticulously documented."
Hutchinson: "Oh, yeah, yeah."
Peterson: "I thought it a really valuable contribution because, you know, even his ecclesiastical leaders--John Dehlin's--were not aware of all that he was up to. Because he wasn't publishing it so much as doing it in online venues and so on."
Hutchinson: "Yeah, yeah."
Peterson: "When you put it all together, he's denying the deity--not only the deity but the existence--of Christ, attacking the doctrine of the atonement, denying the existence of God and he'd still call himself a Latter-day Saint. Well, how?"
Hutchinson: "Well, for me, the most devastating part of Greg's papers was how he meticulously treated what Dehlin would say to one audience ..."
Peterson: "Yeah."
Hutchinson: "... and then to another."
Peterson: "Yes."

Yes, that's why Smith's review was valuable: it made Dehlin's ecclesiastical leaders "aware of all that he was up to." It provided the Strengthening Church Members Committee with material for a file to use against Dehlin.

Will Bagley and Dan Vogel

Hutchinson: "You know, I ran across this with Will Bagley in my book show down in St. George. So he did this book on the Mountain Meadows Massacre in, I want to say, 2005 [sic], something like that, maybe earlier."
Peterson: "Blood of the Prophets."
Hutchinson: "Blood of the Prophets. And, you know, I had him down, we had a friendly conversation on the air for about forty-five minutes, and then I heard him on KUER in Salt Lake--I happened to be up here driving to court, and I heard the interview--and he was 180 degrees different than what he told me in St. George. Very anti-Brigham. And so then he came down again, and I had him on a different program. That was not as pleasant for him, we'll just say that, because ..."
Peterson: "Huh, huh, huh."
Hutchinson: "... when you do that, the authors don't appreciate it. Now, I don't mind, I had Dan Vogel on, and people were really frustrated with me. But it's like, you know, I got him to admit, he's not an active LDS member, because he was selling his Joseph Smith biography as someone who comes from the Mormon tradition."
Peterson: "Yuuhh, yuh."
Hutchinson: "And, you know, you can't--you have to be intellectually honest, and if you are, you're fine."

Louis Midgley

Peterson: "Louis was at [the Interpreter Foundation] birthday party, by the way, Saturday night. He's ninety-six. Frail-looking, but still very sharp. . . . Yeah, he's one of the grand old men. I'm really fond of Lou. One of the strongest personalities [he laughs] I've ever encountered. In fact, last night somebody said to him, 'well, Lou, we're glad to have you here. Between the speakers, we want you to do the haka'--you know, the Maori dance. He began doing it [he laughs] right there. 'Calm down, no, no.' [he laughs]"

[Doctor Scratch]

Great post, Tom. I, too, hope that the Afore will correct what appears to be a pretty significant mis-remembering of events and dates.

But the passage from Elder Maxwell's talk that stands out to me is this:

I’ll never have any greater appreciation than I did a few years back when our enemies were lobbing all sorts of mortar shells into our Church encampment, and among the few guns that were blazing away were the guns of FARMS.

Who are the "enemies" these days, and where are the "guns...blazing away"? In what sense is an 80-part documentary on Brigham Young a response to "enemies"? The Interpreter President himself has said that the intended audience is loyal Latter-day Saints. And really, aside from the occasional hit piece from Greg Smith, the Interpreter blog seldom seems to be responding to "enemies." (And who might the "enemies" even be these days? FIRM and the Heartlanders? The "POB"?) Despite everything that was said about the "new" Maxwell Institute abandoning the mission of FARMS, Interpreter has basically abandoned it, too. The same goes for Scripture Central, which is about as inoffensively "faith promoting" as it gets.

[Gadianton]

Indeed, as you say, Maxwell's hesitation may have been just that. I have no doubt that Maxwell wouldn't have outright embraced the New MI 15 years later, as he had spearheaded the charge against "relativism" and that's the core doctrine of the new MI. But if the first presidency were convinced, I have no reason to believe Maxwell wouldn't listen to the first presidency. My guess is Dan has convinced himself that the First Presidency were just figureheads that weren't in touch with the war on the ground.

The problem with this line of reasoning is that in a traditionalist view of things that Maxwell championed, the prophet isn't unaware of anything if the Lord wants him to be aware of such things. And if the first presidency authorized the change to the MI, then the Lord must have wanted that. To rely on the argument that prophets aren't perfect, that Brethren could be fallible in highly relevant matters, Dan is open to "That Noble Dream" in order to make room for whatever is best for him. But is this a slippery slope? He had no problem at all taking a pat on the back from Massimo Introvigne as a fashionable postmodernist who need not respond to critics obsessed with facts. These are the very same motives that it would seem might urge church leaders into considering avoiding be wrong by switching to a "Mormon studies" framework where Mormonism is no longer criticized objectively but sought to be understood and celebrated provisionally, and from the perspectives of those who practice it.

This seems to at once get Mormonism a less judgmental academic audience of some kind, which is something, in comparison to no academic audience whatsoever with the FARMS-based approach. Have the apologists ever been invited to present a paper on Book of Mormon archeology at Yale or anywhere? Nobody wants to hear it. In fact, the situation is far worse than that. Even in the 90s, in the Maxwell era, there was no research program centered on any of the apologetic topics. I think I saw a special topics class offered once as a graduate course at BYU, but in general, not even BYU had a class the average student could take to learn about Book of Mormon archeology or geography. What do you think Maxwell thought of as FARMS core mission? Reprinting old Nibley books that they don't even believe themselves and doing book reviews on the research of others isn't much of a mission. Perhaps the response to evangelicals was something Neal thought was sorely needed. But we're talking about a research foundation at a full-scale university. I mean, we could get the members of this forum together and do our own book reviews and possibly even buy the copyrights to old books we don't care about and get them reprinted somewhere, and we'd be the equivalent of FARMS.

Herein is Dan's most potent insight. What Interpreter is doing, really is a continuation of FARMS in the purest sense. A bunch of random, disjointed projects that don't require university resources. It was more of a club than a foundation.

[Tom]

More from the podcast episode:
….
Will Bagley and Dan Vogel

Hutchinson: "You know, I ran across this with Will Bagley in my book show down in St. George. So he did this book on the Mountain Meadows Massacre in, I want to say, 2005 [sic], something like that, maybe earlier."
Peterson: "Blood of the Prophets."
Hutchinson: "Blood of the Prophets. And, you know, I had him down, we had a friendly conversation on the air for about forty-five minutes, and then I heard him on KUER in Salt Lake--I happened to be up here driving to court, and I heard the interview--and he was 180 degrees different than what he told me in St. George. Very anti-Brigham. And so then he came down again, and I had him on a different program. That was not as pleasant for him, we'll just say that, because ..."
Peterson: "Huh, huh, huh."
Hutchinson: "... when you do that, the authors don't appreciate it. Now, I don't mind, I had Dan Vogel on, and people were really frustrated with me. But it's like, you know, I got him to admit, he's not an active LDS member, because he was selling his Joseph Smith biography as someone who comes from the Mormon tradition."
Peterson: "Yuuhh, yuh."
Hutchinson: "And, you know, you can't--you have to be intellectually honest, and if you are, you're fine."

Perhaps Dan Vogel will see this exchange and can comment on Hutchinson’s suggestion that he was being intellectually dishonest during promotion of his Joseph Smith biography. As it happens, I did not catch Hutchinson’s interview.

[drumdude]

It’s not really about being intellectually honest, though. Vogel comes from the LDS background. It’s about Church members being trained like Pavlov’s dog to avoid anything remotely connected to ex-members. If apologists can say he’s inactive, then the members’ instincts kick in to shut off the brain and cover their ears.

It’s one of the very cult like behaviors that church members are indoctrinated into.

[I Have Questions]

It’s not really about being intellectually honest, though. Vogel comes from the LDS background. It’s about Church members being trained like Pavlov’s dog to avoid anything remotely connected to ex-members. If apologists can say he’s inactive, then the members’ instincts kick in to shut off the brain and cover their ears.

It’s one of the very cult like behaviors that church members are indoctrinated into.

Has Vogel resigned his church membership or been excommunicated? Because if he’s just not an active believer, then the Church claims him as one of their own every April when they announce the number of members. Is Peterson as quick to disown the 10 million + members that think similarly to Vogel? Does Peterson dismiss our own Kishkumen who, like Vogel, claims Mormon tradition but rejects attendance and sustaining of the current leadership?

[I Have Questions]

I note that Peterson and the other jettisoned apologists who maintain their “mission” is valid are basing that on the relatively ambiguous comments of one past member of the Q12, mentioned during a single social engagement. The church itself argues against taking that very approach as the basis for understanding. Can you imagine the fun they would have with a critic who tried to argue a point on the basis of what one now-deceased Apostle said, ambiguously, at a BYU social gathering 35 years ago, but which hasn’t been said by any other Apostle on any other formal occasion?

The events of 2012 should have informed Peterson and Co that the Lord wanted things done differently. Instead of complying they went full-on “woman scorned”. And have been bitterly trying to claim their legitimacy ever since.

[Doctor Scratch]

Greg Smith, John Dehlin, and Mormon Stories

Peterson: "Yeah. Huh, huh, huh [transcription of his laughter]. It was a response to John Dehlin, and it was meticulously documented."
Hutchinson: "Oh, yeah, yeah."
Peterson: "I thought it a really valuable contribution because, you know, even his ecclesiastical leaders--John Dehlin's--were not aware of all that he was up to. Because he wasn't publishing it so much as doing it in online venues and so on."
Hutchinson: "Yeah, yeah."
Peterson: "When you put it all together, he's denying the deity--not only the deity but the existence--of Christ, attacking the doctrine of the atonement, denying the existence of God and he'd still call himself a Latter-day Saint. Well, how?"
Hutchinson: "Well, for me, the most devastating part of Greg's papers was how he meticulously treated what Dehlin would say to one audience ..."
Peterson: "Yeah."
Hutchinson: "... and then to another."
Peterson: "Yes."

The double standard here is really pretty remarkable. They are saying that they regard Dehlin as a kind of two-faced liar because he changed his tune depending on the audience he was dealing with? Gee, is that in any way like telling a wavering member that you're just there to "help," but when you're amongst your fellow Mopologists, you admit that you were on an errand for the SCMC? Or is it like telling your donors that you don't accept any money from Interpreter and that, in fact, you are a *donor* to Interpreter, only to then spend well over $10,000 of the organization's money on travel, dining, and hotel rooms? And not only that, but to facetiously claim that this was actually Red Brick's money (even though Red Brick is paid via Interpreter's donations)?