Certainly, there have been so-called "liberal Mormons" for some time. B.H. Roberts is a guiding light to liberal Mormons. But liberal Mormonism, if it is Internet Mormonism, is so problematically. A liberal Mormon believes in evolution as does an Internet Mormon. A liberal Mormon may even have far more radical beliefs than an Internet Mormon. For instance, a liberal Mormon might think the Book of Mormon isn't historical, yet still "true", while virtually no Internet Mormon holds this position. Internet Mormons and liberal Mormons in fact, are greatly opposed to each other generally, the former going so far as to denounce the latter as anti-Mormons.
Internet Mormons recognize a distinction between themselves and liberal Mormons. In contrast, Internet Mormons deny a distinction between themselves and Chapel Mormons. They claim, as Dr. Shades pointed out long ago in his original work on the subject, that their Internet Mormon beliefs constitute the real doctrine, and that Chapel Mormon beliefs, if they even exist at all, are cultural artifacts that never really had anything to do with Mormon Doctrine to begin with.
So Internet Mormons, like Chapel Mormons are "TBMs", whereas the consensus seems to be that liberal Mormons aren't. And while Internet Mormons have a great deal of contempt for Chapel Mormons, they seem to recognize Chapel Mormons as legitimate Mormons, and the relationship is only really strained in situations like Rodney Meldrum's where a Chapel Mormon does recognize the difference.
In the grain of the TBMness, Internet Mormons radically believe in the moral right of Mormonism to rule the world. Hence, hand in hand with Internet Mormonism usually goes their unique brand of missionary work called apologetics which sets out to empirically prove Mormonism is true.
At this point, we might say then, the first real, truly recognizable Internet Mormon(s) would be the first emperically armed apologists. Of course, we think of Hugh Nibley here. A few days ago on MAD, Dr. Peterson wrote,
Dr. Peterson wrote:[Nibley]...Among other things, he was the only really serious scholar of antiquities in the Church for much of his lifetime.
Now there are many. I believe that the succession to Nibley, if you want to think of it in those terms, is collective. Which is a very good thing.
If Nibley was like King Arthur, then the FARMS boys became the Knights at the Round Table, and the first true Internet Mormons.
The most important part of my essay puts all of this into perspective by a quote from Louis Midgley, from his recent essay on Nibley in the Review 20/2,
Midgley wrote:The other "open letter" included in this collection was addressed to "Dear Sterling" McMurrin (pp. 142—47), who back then was the leading light among cultural Mormons. Nibley concludes this stunning letter with the following candid comment: "I am stuck," he says, "with the gospel. I know perfectly well that it is true; there may be things about the Church that I find perfectly appalling—but that has nothing to do with it. I know the gospel is true" (pp. 146—47).Everyone with any sense knew exactly where Nibley stood on fundamental issues. This freed him to act as a staunch defender of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, as well as an apologist for the gospel of Jesus Christ, but also as a kind of gadfly pestering both lazy Saints and cultural Mormons alike.
Midgley clearly paints the rise of Nibley as the founding leader of what we know from Peterson's quote is his own legacy. Chapel Mormons are clearly identifiable here in Midgley's pejoratives "cultural Mormon" and "lazy Saints". Nibley is TBM, yet finds much of the church "appalling" and engages the membership, as FARMS continues to do in their reviews, with hostility and "pestering". This quote from Midgley is highly revealing, and illustrates the beginnings of Internet Mormonism and apologetics when we take into consideration other comments such as those made by professor Peterson recently about Nibley's status as the sole antiquarian of the church for decades.