Radical Incoherence

[Dr Moore]

If occurs to me that church membership is becoming just as divided along widening ideological fault lines as the United States has become.

And to that point, take note: in 2020 we had BLM protests across America, and LGBTQ+ rights protests across BYU campuses.

[Kishkumen]

If this is the proposition -

Radical orthodoxy is radical because it promotes bold exploration beyond what is familiar, and therefore rejects the obstinateness of fundamentalism.

... and this is the claim ...

Those who embrace radical orthodoxy are not afraid to ask questions, and they eschew dogmatism with regards to lesser controversies—

... yet, in the end, the ‘radical orthodox’ member must still do the following -

we are careful not to dishonor the prophets of the past, undermine the projects and programs of the church, or ignore the moral witness and counsel of living prophets and apostles.

... then a member is still left idling in the ‘obstinateness of fundamentalism’, aside from any hushed conversations with close friends that won’t make it to the Bishop’s ears.

What sort of dogmatism does the author believe will be eschewed with regard to any lesser controversies, let alone larger social issues?

Maybe I’m just missing the author’s nuance here because it’s late, but the argument doesn’t seem convincing.

All of those are excellent questions, canpakes. I saw a blogpost about the redundancy of this manifesto, and I am inclined to agree. I am sure we can take the list of signatories and compare their records to this document and draw the reasonable conclusion that what we have here is a group of people setting themselves up as exemplars for what they have already been doing for decades now. Whether they are bringing attention to themselves in this way to be a light for others or to show their account books to their leaders, I don't know. Perhaps both? I don't doubt that this document carefully sets out their position and purpose in one of the ways that is safe to do in an organization like the LDS Church. If people are into that, as mentalgymast clearly is, then, hey, cool. They can knock themselves out.

What I don't see here is "Radical Orthodoxy."

[Kishkumen]

If occurs to me that church membership is becoming just as divided along widening ideological fault lines as the United States has become.

And to that point, take note: in 2020 we had BLM protests across America, and LGBTQ+ rights protests across BYU campuses.

As usual, Dr Moore, you go to the heart of the matter. Yes, no doubt the signatories are genuinely concerned about these divisions. My deep-seated unhappiness with their approach and answers remains the same. What do they cling to? Obedience to leaders. Fealty to Church. What is missing? Nourishing thought, deep discussion, any attempt to educate such that we all want to understand. There is, unfortunately, implicated in this whole exercise the authoritarianism that they prop up. We follow the leaders. You trust our authority as PhDs who follow the leaders that this is the posture we should all have.

One argument with one of the signatories that came up on Facebook dealt with the meaning of Radical Orthodoxy. The signatory, one Russell Stevenson (whose work, incidentally, looks extremely interesting in a good way) was insisting that Radical Orthodoxy worked as a title because the manifesto was informed by the work of G. K. Chesterton. I burst out in laughter. G. K. Chesterton? Seriously? And I kid you not, instead of explaining why Chesterton was really apropos to this discussion on the basis of his authorship of the book Orthodoxy, Stevenson pulled the usual Mopologetic, "Well, if you don't know, then you haven't done your homework."

OK. Wow. So, this is what we can anticipate from these signatories? If they get any criticism, they will start lashing out instead of doing what they claim in their manifesto they intend to do? Is there anything terribly "radical" about behaving like an asshole in defense of the Brethren? Doctor Scratch can correct me if I am wrong, but that is pretty much Mopologetics 101, and there really isn't anything radical about it.

If this is what one can expect, then all of this is just window dressing. Or, worse, this is a sign of how embattled the forces of LDS apologetics feel. They picture a world in which they are drowning in fundamentalists and progressives, and they set forth their radical willingness to have interesting conversations about nonessentials as their weapon against the hordes of orcs storming the keep.

[Analytics]

The irreconcilable conflict is between what we know and what we don’t know. That naturally creates a certain degree of cognitive dissonance. It’s to be expected. It’s called ambiguity.

Cognitive dissonance and ambiguity are not synonyms.

The path that believers follow is between that which we know in a worldly sense, and that which requires reasonable but not blind faith.

The Church requires faith in some things that can rightly be considered "reasonable." But it also requires faith in things that are absolutely, unequivocally, knowably, false.

Unfortunately, fundamentalism...and its different manifestations...leads to a place of ‘either/or’ with little or no room for exploration or further understanding.

If somebody wants further understanding, they need to be free to embrace intellectual integrity without fear of being marginalized or ostracized from their faith community. Intellectual integrity is not a form of fundamentalism.

Ambiguity and the fact that we don’t ‘know it all’ leads towards a state of being in which we live our lives having to deal with some uncertainty. Some deal with this better than others. The manifesto is simply saying that there are core truths that are adhered to.... [emphasis added]

My point is that in general, the so-called "core truths" that "are adhered to" (note the passive voice you use here) aren't true at all. The Church forces you to adhere to false truths under threat of disappointing God, failing the test of life, losing your exaltation, being separated from your family for all of eternity, be marginalized or ostracized from the faith community, etc. Being required to adhere to false truths is inconsistent with most of the values in the manifesto. That is the problem.

[Kishkumen]

If somebody wants further understanding, they need to be free to embrace intellectual integrity without fear of being marginalized or ostracized from their faith community. Intellectual integrity is not a form of fundamentalism.

Powerful, Analytics. I agree.

[Dr Moore]

OK. Wow. So, this is what we can anticipate from these signatories? If they get any criticism, they will start lashing out instead of doing what they claim in their manifesto they intend to do? Is there anything terribly "radical" about behaving like an asshole in defense of the Brethren? Doctor Scratch can correct me if I am wrong, but that is pretty much Mopologetics 101, and there really isn't anything radical about it.

Isn't this just a phase in the ongoing cycle of dragging those dogmatically clung to old ideas to the table of change? They will stamp feet, call names, and bemoan the wicked wrong anti-churchness of the faithless "progressives." And then when all seems lost to contention, church authorities will not only fully concede the point, they will embrace the new version of Christian love so fully as to rewrite the history -- as if they and God were "there" all along. It was the spiritually blind members who needed clarification! Then everything will be right, like Jesus calming the waves on the boat, and the saints will sing another round of "we thank thee o God for a prophet."

[mentalgymnast]

[The church] requires faith in things that are absolutely, unequivocally, knowably, false.

So are you referring to things like the Atonement, Jesus as the Savior, Joseph as a prophet of God, ordinances of salvation/exaltation, and the eternal nature/progress of man?

If somebody wants further understanding, they need to be free to embrace intellectual integrity without fear of being marginalized or ostracized from their faith community. Intellectual integrity is not a form of fundamentalism.

Does intellectual integrity require leaving one’s faith at the door of intellectual discovery and engagement? If that is your point of view isn’t that rather limiting in and of itself? Can one not be intellectually honest if they are open to the eternal nature of man? Or that there is a means by which we are all on a level playing field in a plan we refer to as the Plan of Salvation? Or that God reveals Himself, under certain conditions, to mankind to some degree or another?

I seriously don’t understand why secularism/materialism is the only intellectually acceptable game in town. Maybe you can help me understand.

...so-called "core truths" that "are adhered to" (note the passive voice you use here) aren't true at all.

To be clear, what are those core truths?

The Church forces you to adhere to false truths...

What false truths am I being forced to adhere to? And how can a truth be false if it is true? How is it that you are the arbitrator of that which is false or true when it comes to those things that we refer to as the metaphysical or within the LDS parlance, the spiritual?

Being required to adhere to false truths is inconsistent with most of the values in the manifesto. That is the problem.

Are you saying that those that wrote/adhere to this manifesto are being forced to adhere to false truths? If so, what are they? The values in the manifesto seem to adhere to central core values/beliefs such as those I listed at the beginning of this post.

Do you reject those out of hand? If so, is that intellectually honest? And how do you know that your brand of intellectual honesty is the only game in town that, at the end of the day, has merit?

Or maybe I’m reading too much into what I think I hear you saying and I’m asking unwarranted questions. If so, correct me. I’ve been wrong before.

Regards,
MG

[Kishkumen]

Isn't this just a phase in the ongoing cycle of dragging those dogmatically clung to old ideas to the table of change? They will stamp feet, call names, and bemoan the wicked wrong anti-churchness of the faithless "progressives." And then when all seems lost to contention, church authorities will not only fully concede the point, they will embrace the new version of Christian love so fully as to rewrite the history -- as if they and God were "there" all along. It was the spiritually blind members who needed clarification! Then everything will be right, like Jesus calming the waves on the boat, and the saints will sing another round of "we thank thee o God for a prophet."

Here's the thing, though. I would love to see them explain in a compelling way what their problem with progressives and fundamentalists is. Love to. But they never do. Or, if they have, I have not seen it done persuasively. Usually it amounts to name-calling or, as this document does, simply asserting they are wrong so as not to identify with them at all.

"We all know fundamentalists and progressives are wrong because they are not following the Brethren. We follow the Brethren, so we are in the right place to lead a discussion that is truly mind-blowing, just not paradigm-shifting in a way the Brethren might freak out over."

And yet, I think they truly believe that they can win over or persuade would-be fundamentalists or progressives by scare tactics such as these. I mean, if all of this boils down to who one takes orders from, then that is a pretty sad sort of theology. Is this what being Chestertonian is about? Or is this what is meant by radical orthodoxy? What is here for us to learn from?

Teach me, guys. Persuade me. Tweed jackets optional.

[Gadianton]

If they get any criticism, they will start lashing out instead of doing what they claim in their manifesto they intend to do? Is there anything terribly "radical" about behaving like an asshole in defense of the Brethren

yeah, this is guaranteed, if not the point of the whole thing. Nobody invents a new worldview and calls it something as wild as "radical orthodoxy" without tipping their hand that they'll be impossible to have a conversation with.

[mentalgymnast]

...I would love to see them explain in a compelling way what their problem with progressives and fundamentalists is.

I can’t speak for them, but here is my thinking. Progressives reject the fundamentals, or at the very least, dilute them. Fundamentalists reject the progressive evolution and maturation towards greater understanding. Further light and knowledge.

Both extremes rock the boat.

Regards,
MG