Not sure if you’ve heard, but all you ex-mo’s out there missing your “super sexy” garments can now get them without the requisite temple recommend. www.mormonssecret.com has recreated them, symbols included. I’m tempted to buy some of these for my wife for role-playing:
(I kid, of course. Nothing sexy about these, despite the picture. And my wife hated garments.)
Second news item: Everyone’s favorite apologist to hate – Daniel Peterson – has been given the ax. Apparently his ad hominem attacks went too far when he was involved with a 100-page tirade against John Dehlin. Dehlin, who has, amazingly, managed to stay on the border of Mormonism longer than I ever would have imagined possible, has friends in high places. One phone call later and Daniel Peterson was out the door on his keister as editor of The Mormon Studies Review. So long, Daniel. Can’t say we’ll miss you!
OMG MY EYES! THE GOGGLES DO NOTHING!
@ Goldarn: What goggles would those be, good man? The rose-tinted ones leave her nekkid!!
DCP gone, eh? I read a bit of the Dehlin/DCP kerfuffle (on another site) and have to admit that I lost interest quite quickly. There seemed to be a measure of information missing on Dehlin’s side and before you know it he trotted out the ‘I-just-called-my-friend-in-high-places’ rebuttal and all gloves were off. I don’t think it did anything for either side. I am interested in the vision that Bradford has for the future of the Maxwell Institute and wonder whether they’d consider asking Richard Packham to come on board!!
I followed that kerfuffle too, and I have to admit that I’m pretty surprised that this is the outcome! It will be interesting to see what happens next!
I think the Maxwell Institute (MI) would probably do well to issue a longer statement in the very near future (rather than link to the statement directly, I’ll refer to Ms Jack’s just-the-facts reference; the announcement is the first June 22 entry). The very short statement sounds more like the announcement of an unforeseen politburo shakeup than a new scholarly journal. It boils down to: the Mormon Studies Review will be getting a new editorial team, to make it academically better. Soon we will put together a committee of scholars to advise us on who should be on the new team.
The MI announcement sinks without much of a splash into a larger body of online discussion, contributed by two mutually adversarial groups. My impression of them, after doing a little reading from Ms Jacks’ links:
One group is to be found at MormonDiscussions.com, an open-membership discussion forum dominated (as far as I can see) by longstanding critics of Mormon apologetics. They are motivated, interested, and have been minutely following goings-on at MI for years, aided by leaks from within. They have a lot to say about this event. If you want to know more about MI’s future plans for the Review, they offer plenty of analysis, prediction, speculation, and Kremlinology to fill your time while MI assembles its advisory panel of scholars.
The discussion forum for defenders of MI is http://www.mormondialogue.org. Critics appear not to be welcome, even as readers: the site has an unusual policy that allows only something like 10 page views per day without registration via email request. The discussion I’ve been able to see through that peephole does nothing to improve the MI’s academic reputation (nor does it purport to). There are informative posts, but the signal to noise ratio is low. I was able to read (I think) the first two or three pages of the June 20 Hamblin thread Ms Jack links to. I don’t have them in front of me (unwanted reboot), but my memory is that it began with a literate and intelligible post by Hamblin, who speaks only for himself (not MI), is sympathetic to Peterson, and critical of the MI’s action. By the end of the first page, other participants had reached (and reiterated) agreement on some important points, such as (1) Peterson was fired by email, the vilest possible way of firing someone, and (2) a traitor at the MI has leaked emails to apostates and anti-Mormons (i.e., the other forum’s critics), these emails concern personnel matters and leaking them is therefore a criminal act (???), the traitor is risking jail time, who is the traitor, I demand a witch hunt, I will not be donating to MI until all witches are duly burned, and so on and on. Except for the specific metaphor of a witch hunt, which is my own characterization, this is (amazingly) a paraphrase of remarks actually appearing in the discussion.
So, if MI has exciting new plans for the Review, this might be a good time to give them some visibility.
@4 Wow that’s wild — thanks for the links!
The best part is Big Jay’s comment:
and the the Parable of Shooting the Lawyer which does just that!
Until Dehlin is willing to name names and provide proof, I’m not going to take seriously his assertions that he had general authority support for anything he’s been up to. Dehlin likes to crow about support from the brethren when it suits his purpose – the rest of the time he’s usually criticizing them.
As far as I can tell, any planned publications about Dehlin had little to do with this. This is obviously an inter-faculty spat that has been building pressure for some time. Dehlin has a bit of a messiah-complex. So it’s hardly surprising that he’d want this to be about him. But I seriously doubt it.
I also found it deliciously ironic that Dehlin is out there bragging about his attempts to basically censor material that MIGHT be negative about him. But any time a faithful Mormon tries to pull the same crap – he screams bloody murder.
As far as I’m concerned this hasn’t exactly been Dehlin’s finest hour. He’s probably going to regret bragging about it so vocally in the future.
Seth R; Since I’m not a follower of JD (although familiar with the name) I appreciate your insights about him. I also am not a follower of DP, (also recognize the name)–do you have equally keen insight into him, and would you share?
@7 — DCP brought up the connection with the Dehlin kerfuffle himself (in an email to 18 people, including, apparently, a spy), which is why I mentioned it. But it’s true that it might be a coincidence, and hot air.
I think Dan made a mistake in engaging in polemics on cesspools like MDB. Those are very hostile and rude environments, and the people who participate there have a hard time avoiding growing more hostile and rude themselves – no matter what good intentions they might have had going in.
From what I can tell Dan just mentioned Dehlin as one example in a laundry list of gripes he had with Bradford. I see little evidence that that was the crux issue that got him fired.
I guess Dan (re-reading his email) may have given Dehlin more credit than I do. But I’d simply note that prominent faculty shake ups like this have usually been building a long time, and can’t be blamed on any one incident or publication decision.
I guess what I find odd about DCP and his defenders is that apparently none of them think that there would be anything at all strange about a journal published by a university-affiliated institution (at a university run by a church no less) running a hundred-page attack piece on an individual. But it seems to me that that’s the kind of editorial judgment that might have jeopardized any academic editor’s job.
It’s possible that DCP said this in order to discourage Bradford from firing him by pointing that it would be widely read as a victory for John Dehlin (regardless of whether that incident was the central or only reason for the decision).
Kuri, would you consider any essay or research paper that took a popular trend and critiqued it while naming the sources of those who were forwarding the ideas an “attack piece” that should not be published in an academic journal?
Were all those essays I read as a law school editor critiquing the legal theories of Justice Scalia “attack pieces?”
For that matter, what if a film student wanted to write a thesis that wound up being largely critical of the work of filmmaker James Cameron and made the mistake of actually naming him in the thesis?
“Attack piece?”
Kuri — I see your point, and yet I feel like we’d have to see the piece in order to judge it.
To join Seth in playing devil’s advocate, it wouldn’t necessarily be inappropriate for a medical research journal to do an extensive critique of the work of Andrew Wakefield, for example, including an explanation of the public health harm that is the result of his continued following.
I think it would be inappropriate for a medical journal to publish an editorial attacking Wakefield’s purported personality and motivations rather than (or along with) his work, yes. Is that not common sense?
Of course, almost no one who’s written about the spiked article has actually seen it (yet — I would lay odds that it eventually comes out somewhere), but is anyone going to assert that Mormon Studies Review under DCP would never, ever, have published anything that could fairly be characterized as attacking someone’s purported personality and motivations?
Kuri, if the motivations where of academic importance, wouldn’t it be appropriate to publish about them? Not that I know anything about the content of the article. I haven’t read it. I know the author a bit, but I don’t have any sort of scoop on this. And neither does anyone else at present.
As someone who publishes in professional journals and edits one, I’d say, “No.” We don’t, typically, allow discussion of people’s motivations, unless someone has explicitly stated what his/her motivations are and they are DIRECTLY related to some question of interest. On rare occasion you can subtly insinuate what you think someone’s motivations are, but attacking motivations in the areas where I work is a sure-fire way to: (1) get your “research” rejected and (2) get you labeled as an unprofessional “scholar.”
I seriously doubt that’s a categorical rule profxm.
Since motivations actually matter a lot in a lot of academic fields.
Um, Seth, it is a general rule.
In which “academic” fields do motivations matter? Chemistry? Physics? Biology?
I know people have motivations, and they can influence their work, particularly in the social sciences. But pick up a copy of any reputable peer-reviewed journal in the sociology of religion (or any sociology journal) and I highly doubt you’ll be able to find the word “motivation” in that journal. We don’t go there. It immediately enters the realm of “ad hominem” and that just isn’t the currency of academia.
profxm,
I wasn’t born yesterday.
I know exactly why you deliberately chose “chemistry, physics, and biology” and conveniently didn’t mention fields like history, theology, law, political science, and such.
Articles in reputable political science and economics journals don’t address the motivations of individuals. Those in history journals certainly do, but is Dehlin a historical figure? I can’t really speak to law and theology journals, but I would be surprised if ad hominem criticism is a common feature of law journals. I suppose it wouldn’t actually surprise me if that sort of thing goes on in theology journals, but then I have a low opinion of the field, so that may just be my bias speaking.
I guess maybe that’s what the debate really should be about.
What character do we all think that apologetics – as an academic discipline – ought to take?
In any event, Dehlin is a prominent public figure starting a new movement within the church that is hopelessly entangled in his motives and personal background. I don’t know how you’d report on that without addressing it at least somewhat.
Of course, the word “report” sounds like journalism. Certainly in journalism, motives are fair game all the time. But I suppose some would object to an academic journal engaging in journalism.
Anyway, having heard a few conversations with the author and those involved – it was quite apparent they were very aware of this criticism and at pains to avoid attacking Dehlin, but rather citing the stuff he says correctly.
I think the problem is that the heads of the Maxwell Institute want the institute to be an academic institute and the Mormon Studies Review to be an academic journal, and they recognize that apologetics is not and cannot be an academic field. So they’ve purged the apologists. Their motivations are as simple as that, I think.
Of course, whether that purge and how it was carried out is fair, just, ethical, and so on in light of the origins and history of the institute is quite another question.
Kuri, I think that’s an incorrect assessment on one point.
Apologetics is an academic field and has long been an accepted academic field at many established universities. Christian universities, of course. But respectable universities nonetheless.
Secularists mainly base their subjective opinion that apologetics cannot be a valid academic discipline on the theory that the subject matter apologetics seeks to defend and establish is “not true.”
This is, I repeat, a subjective value judgment and has little to do with the status of apologetics as a field of proper academic inquiry.
Now, whether some of the faculty of BYU are engaging in a form of self-loathing about their own religious identity or not, is another interesting topic.
Yes, of course.
Right, that’s my point.
Me too — and it will be very interesting when that happens!!
No. Seriously, I have no idea what’s in it. I don’t read it.
That’s not the problem. Truth and falsehood are pretty much irrelevant. The people who purged the apologists from the Maxwell Institute presumably believe in the “truth” of the church yet still disdain apologetics (at least as part of the mission of their institute).
No, the reason apologetics isn’t a respectable academic discipline is that it reasons backwards from conclusions. In other words, it fits data to explanations, rather than fitting explanations to data. There may be nothing “wrong” with that in terms of value judgments (although one can certainly argue that there is), but that’s not what academic disciplines are supposed to do.
That’s not to say that all academics and journals practice some sort of naive empiricism, nor that there may not be pockets of academia that are virtually indistinguishable from apologetics in their approach. But there is a way to properly do research that is generally recognized across all primary academic fields, and apologetics severely violates that norm.
@chanson #27, I have only a passing acquaintance with FARMS/MI and its journals, but my impression is that ad hominem is a well-honed tool in its arsenal. So it wouldn’t be out of character if the Dehlin piece includes that. But I haven’t seen it, so I could be way off base. I won’t mind retracting my speculation on the content if I’m wrong.
Who says that’s what academic disciplines are or are not supposed to do?
Also, I think you are incorrect that apologetics simply reasons backward in that fashion. The best apologetics doesn’t even bother with the foregone conclusions.
For instance, I read a pretty good essay on why the popular atheist narrative of Gallileo’s run in with the authorities is incorrect.
But the author said absolutely nothing about Christianity’s foregone conclusions. He simply shoved aside Sam Harris’s superficial description of the history, and looked at the real know historical data and presented it.
What’s not “academic” about that?
What’s not academic about pointing out that Sorenson’s DNA critique of the Book of Mormon only worked if you assumed a continental population model for the book – which under objective textual analysis, Sorenson clearly failed on?
What’s wrong with pointing out the numerous historical inaccuracies and shoddy analysis in Smith’s “Nauvoo Polygamy” book?
How is any of that not “academic?”
Because it supports an institution you consider untrue?
Kuri, before calling ad hominem a “well-honed tool” in FAIR/MI’s arsenal, perhaps you should have a bit more than a “passing acquaintance” with the actual publications.
Look, I don’t believe in the church anymore, and my view on apologetics today is pretty clear: I think it’s nothing more than (sometimes rather frantic) retconning in the face of information that contradicts cherished beliefs. I have no respect for any part of it except at times its sheer ingenuity.
But I used to be a believer. And even then, I didn’t find it impressive and I certainly recognized its weaknesses as a quasi-academic discipline. As do, apparently, the people running the Maxwell institute.
As for the examples you cited, well, pointing out the “failure” to consider a limited-geography model rather than a hemispheric model for the Book of Mormon when there is no credible evidence for any model of the Book of Mormon as real history is exactly what I’m talking about. Unfortunately, I think your inability to recognize that sort of thing makes conversations about apologetics with you ultimately frustrating and pointless.
Sure, that’s a valid criticism. So would you, then, answer my first question in the affirmative and assert that Mormon Studies Review under DCP would never, ever, have published anything that could fairly be characterized as attacking someones purported personality and motivations?
Sorry. Correct link for “nothing more than (sometimes rather frantic) retconning.”
Haha, I beat you to it!! I guessed that was what you meant to link to, and fixed it before I saw comment #33. 😉
I’m so predictable! 🙁 😉
No, I wouldn’t assert that FARMS would “never ever” be all mean and nasty like you mentioned. I see no reason to take that sort of an advocacy stance.
I’m aware of your background. Which is why I suggested from the first that the kind of assumptions and subjective value judgments that tend to be held by those with your background were likely driving the dismissal of apologetics as a valid field.
And your objection to the Sorenson example pretty much solidifies my point.
You seem to be under the mistaken impression that the subject of academic debate has to be firmly established as existing in the real world before you can have an academic debate about it.
I reject that assertion.
There was a lot of perfectly valid academic work going into critiquing Sorenson’s mishandling of the genetic data, and misreading of the text. Even if you believe the events in the Book of Mormon never happened – Sorenson’s mishandling of the text and the scientific data is still very much a valid academic topic.
Well, the text exists in the real world, as does the genetic data you mention, hence questions of whether they were mishandled or misread is a debate about things that have been shown to exist.
Yes Chanson, that’s basically my point. And most apologetics limits itself to that realm. Discussion of common points of reference.
Your suggestion from the first was that unbelief drives dismissal of apologetics as an academic field. I’ve been telling you that belief and unbelief are irrelevant. I, as a believer, dismissed apologetics as an academic field. The current leaders of the Maxwell Institute, presumably believers, apparently dismiss apologetics as an academic field as well. It’s not a question of believing in the church or not. It’s a question of believing in generally accepted notions of what an academic field is. It’s believing in Science 101 and its attempted application to the social sciences and (sometimes) the humanities as well.
As for Sorenson, he’s not the issue. Sure, there are convoluted improbable ways that modern AmerIndians could be descended in some degree from ancient Semites without us being able to find it in their DNA. But decades before there was ever a DNA study, the entire weight of New World archaeology, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of data points, supported the idea that indigenous Americans came from Siberia. (And, unsurprisingly, DNA studies support the archeology.) But that doesn’t fit with commonly-accepted Mormon beliefs about their holy book.
Well, some Mormons revised those beliefs. Maybe, as I think, it was simply retconning in the face of mounting new evidence (science advances and religion retreats; it’s never the other way round); maybe it was a realization that limited geography actually does fit better with the text of the holy book. It doesn’t really matter. It still ignores the overwhelming weight of the evidence. Because the apologist’s search is not “What does this evidence suggest is the most likely thing that happened?” it’s “How can the holy book still be true in light of this evidence?”
That’s fine, I guess, as a religious exercise. But it’s not an academic one as generally understood in the hard sciences, the social sciences (the very hard sciences), and some branches of the humanities. And that’s the case whether one believes in the church or not.
The genetic explanations from FAIR are not convoluted. They’re pretty simple and commonsense. But you’re right, that was just an example and not the topic of our exchange. And your assertion that the overwhelming evidence is against the Book of Mormon is simply empty rhetoric. This is not an overwhelmingly decided field at all. Claiming that apologetics for the Book of Mormon is “un-academic” because of overwhelming evidence against the book (which you don’t have) is nothing more than an attempt to poison the well.
The Maxwell Institute has not dismissed apologetics as an academic pursuit. They’ve simply dismissed it as part of THEIR desired pursuit and focus. There’s a difference there. There just seems to be a lot of desire floating around (on both sides) to give this event more meaning and import than it really has.
I know you sincerely believe that Seth. (Indeed, my shock when I first realized that led me to write one of the blog posts I linked to above.) As I said above, that’s why I think discussions of apologetics with you are ultimately frustrating and pointless.
Same back at you.
The whole DNA critique also revealed to me how utterly pointless trying to convince a lot of critics of the Book of Mormon was.
If they were too ideologically blinded to see how rubbish Sorenson’s critique was, then there really wasn’t any point talking with them until they’d gotten over their emotional exit story enough to actually engage in rational thought again.
Oh, I agree with some (not all, though) of the criticism of Sorenson’s article. But it’s not some obscure biologist’s little article that is so devastating to the historicity of the Book of Mormon, it’s many decades of peer-reviewed archeology. That’s what I mean by the weight of the evidence: everything we know about New World archeology points to the irrelevance of the Book of Mormon to anything that actually ever happened in this hemisphere before Joseph Smith was born.
Thanks for the clarification. I think you’re on better ground there.
Mind – I think that position relies on the proposition that “absence of evidence is evidence of absence” and I’d also query as to exactly what archaeological evidence would be considered as supporting the book – if we were going to get into a debate about that topic, which I don’t think we are.
But at least its a viable position for the unconvinced.
there really wasnt any point talking with them until theyd gotten over their emotional exit story enough to actually engage in rational thought again
Because that’s exactly what Jesus did, was preach rational thought and disdain for the suffering that your actions hurt.
Fuck you, Seth. I hope you choke on your own fuck and die.
Yes. That’s exactly the sort of lucid, rational thought I was talking about.
@45 Taryn — that last bit was really not civil, or necessary.
chanson
I find Taryn comment way more civil to the issue than it deserved and while inappropriate to this blog, necessary.
Cruelty masquerading as enlightenment need to be forcefully challenged.
Agreed, on principle, but I’m not sure it applies to this particular discussion.
When Taryn had a similar reaction to Seth on another site (after Seth said that gay people only want to get married in order to flip the bird to the religious right), it made more sense. That comment was, IMHO, offensive, in addition to being a personal insult to regular readers and commenters on the site, hence merited a forceful challenge.
In this case, however, I don’t get quite what the objection is. Sorry to be dense, but I’d rather have Taryn explain clearly what was objectionable about what Seth said here (rather than telling him to fuck off).
Was Seth’s comment objectionable because he suggests that recent deconverts from Mormonism are too clouded with emotion to think rationally? I grant that that could be read as a personal attack, but I’d like to be clearer on what is being forcefully challenged.
Let’s not leave out the context here Chanson.
My comment was in response to Kuri’s where it was being suggested that my own mental capacities were in question. Kuri was being diplomatic about it, but the underlying meaning pretty much amounted to the same thing.
You expect that to pass without objection?