Posted by:
Beavis Christ
(
)
Date: March 14, 2011 07:27PM
In my observing of mopologists over the years, it has become apparent to me that they do not believe their own arguments, at least they do not believe them consistently. This lack of consistency is why Mormon apologetics will be fundamentally bad for the church down the road.
This is most apparent when it comes to mopologists treatment of what they believe to be their "trump card," a testimony of the Holy Spirit.
LDS apostle Dallin Oaks provided a good example of this belief in his 1993 speech to FARMS:
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"I maintain that the issue of the historicity of the Book of Mormon is basically a difference between those who rely exclusively on scholarship and those who rely on a combination of scholarship, faith, and revelation. Those who rely exclusively on scholarship reject revelation and fulfill Nephi's prophecy that in the last days men 'shall teach with their learning, and deny the Holy Ghost, which giveth utterance' (2 Ne. 28:4). The practitioners of that approach typically focus on a limited number of issues, like geography 'horses' or angelic delivery or nineteenth century language patterns. They ignore or gloss over the incredible complexity of the Book of Mormon record. Those who rely on scholarship, faith, and revelation are willing to look at the entire spectrum of issues, content as well as vocabulary, revelation as well as excavation."
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Thus, according to Oaks, people looking to authenticate the truth claims of the Book of Mormon would do well to combine both scholarship and prayer. Prayer, in the beliefs of the neo-orthodox Mormons, is still the best way to know whether or not something is true.
Oaks's statement of belief is fully consistent with Mormon doctrine. Doctrine and Covenants 8:2 states: "I will tell you in your mind and in your heart, by the Holy Ghost, which shall come upon you and which shall dwell in your heart."
But do mopologists actually believe this? It is apparent that they do not, at least not in the case of Rodney Meldrum, a paleo-orthodox mopologist who has rejected the Mesoamerican theories expounded by the likes of John Sorenson and his intellectual heirs. He's also different than the Mesoamerican LGT believers in that he does exactly what Oaks urged people to do: combine faith and scholarship.
This is utterly unacceptable to the FARMS and FAIR Mesoamerican supporters who have starkly ridiculed and condemned Meldrum for "attempt[ing] to assert revelation for those outside of his stewardship."
And yet, Meldrum has actually done nothing of the sort. In fact, he has merely indicated that he has felt spiritual manifestations in support of his "work." In an email sent to his supporters reprinted by FAIR, Meldrum repeatedly speaks of his own "fasting and praying," and how God gave him several "miracles" to encourage him to expand his efforts to prove a North American setting for the Book of Mormon. At no point in the email, however, did Meldrum state that God told him to tell Mormon leaders that they needed to adopt his theories.
Meldrum appears only to believe "the Lord is watching out for this project." That is a far cry from him saying that God is endorsing his theories. Perhaps God wants to encourage a multiplicity of theories about Book of Mormon geography in the hopes of encouraging more people to talk about it--and by extension its precepts and the churches who believe in it.
Assuming limited humans cannot know the mind of God, how can Mesoamerican supporters deny that this might be the case?
They do it by denying the veracity of personal spiritual experiences.
In their arrogant dismissal of Meldrum's spiritual witnesses, mopologists are actually acting very much in character for their own intellectual tradition, but also in the tradition of religionists trying to justify belief in their own minds. This pattern of behavior has repeated itself thousands of times throughout world history and is the reason that we have so many religions and sects today.
Such religions and sects are entirely the product of single individuals who took a look at existing faith traditions and decided that none of them quite made sense in their minds. Religions in a sociological sense are nothing more than groups of people who agree with a particular set of supernatural beliefs.
The one advantage that Mormonism had going for it was its claim that its founder and all of its subsequent leaders have a direct pipeline to God and thus should be listened to. It's a position not operationally different from Catholicism but vastly different from those of other religions such as Islam or Protestantism. It's no coincidence that neither Mormonism nor Catholicism have had repeated episodes of schismaticism aside from the isolated events (Great Schism and the death of Joseph Smith, FLDS is too small to count).
Mopologetics is endangering to this systemic advantage that Mormonism has, though. And that is because it is an intellectualizing of a faith. Unlike the efforts of, say, Thomas Acquinas, however, today's Mormon apologists are tearing down their faith tradition as much as they are building it up.
By continually discounting official statements and books like the History of the Church or the Journal of Discourses as "just his opinion" or "not doctrinal," mopologists are engaging in a demystifying of their own past leaders.
A delightful irony here is that demystification of societal constructs is an obsession among postmodernist writers who are bent on tearing down and destroying belief in traditional religions and their descendant social structures in favor of atheistic socialism. Hugh Nibley and his clueless followers use many of the same tactics to try to build up Mormonism as Runtu and others have written well about.
It won’t work in the long run, however. Demystification is useful in the short run because it helps mopologists preserve a version (however tortured) of Mormon beliefs in the modern world of DNA and anthropology but in the long-term, the removal of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, et al. from their pedestals has bad implications for the successors of Thomas Monson.
That's because there is no good reason that if lay members can discount or dismiss the General Conference pronouncements of Brigham Young as "just his opinion," they can't also do the same with those of Monson. If I can disregard Spence Kimball's statements about Indians turning white why can’t I decide to ignore Gordon Hinckley’s discussion of earrings or Russ Ballard’s bleatings about reading the Book of Mormon?
In the long run, the more this attitude of disregarding the past prophets spreads within the LDS church, the more it will undermine the authority of the current General Authorities.
Dr. Shades has called this split a dichotomy between Internet Mormonism and Chapel Mormonism, a distinction which has a lot of merit and is generally appreciated by ex-Mormons. Mopologists vehemently disputed this characterization, saying that it is overly broad. As proof, several offered the idea that when they took Shades’s survey of orthodoxy, they came out as Chapel Mormons.
Shades has responded to this contention already but I think an additional response is worth adding that, assuming mopologists are accurately stating that their personal beliefs do correspondent to Chapel Mormonism, this may be more of an indicator in a flaw in the comprehensiveness of the survey questions than in their actual beliefs. The reason for this is that Mormon apologetics, like modern religious apologetics in general, is more about constructing ad hoc rationalizations for beliefs that were created prior to the stunning advancements of scientific knowledge of the past 150 years than it is about building a coherent intellectual edifice which integrates well with the theological tradition which spawned it. It is perfectly possible that a Mormon apologist could answer in the Chapel affirmative for even a majority of Shades’s questions, simply because he/she has not had the emotional need to reach for the ad hoc rationalized answer.
The ad hoc nature of neo-orthodox Mormonism makes it inherently unstable. Subconsciously, I believe that the existing hierarchy is aware of this and that many are uneasy with Mormon apologetics. The members certainly are. I've sat in at least 40 different wards' Gospel Doctrine classes and whenever someone started on about how there wasn't a world-wide flood, maybe evolution is true, or how the Book of Mormon did not take place throughout the hemisphere, the general membership reacted strongly in a negative fashion.
Some of the Big 15 are more vocal in their suspicion of mopologists. Boyd Packer is their champion. His infamous “The Mantle is Far, Far Greater than the Intellect” is a clarion call against attempting to justify Mormon beliefs through secular means:
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It is an easy thing for a man with extensive academic training to measure the Church using the principles he has been taught in his professional training as his standard. In my mind it ought to be the other way around. […] If we are not careful, very careful, and if we are not wise, very wise, we first leave out of our professional study the things of the Spirit. [Rodney Meldrum, anyone?]
I have walked that road of scholarly research and study and know something of the dangers. If anything, we are more vulnerable than those in some of the other disciplines. […]
One who chooses to follow the tenets of his profession, regardless of how they may injure the Church or destroy the faith of those not ready for "advanced history," is himself in spiritual jeopardy. If that one is a member of the Church, he has broken his covenants and will be accountable. After all of the tomorrows of mortality have been finished, he will not stand where be might have stood.
I recall a conversation with President Henry D. Moyle. We were driving back from Arizona and were talking about a man who destroyed the faith of young people from the vantage point of a teaching position. Someone asked President Moyle why this man was still a member of the Church when he did things like that. "He is not a member of the Church." President Moyle answered firmly. Another replied that he bad not heard of his excommunication. "He has excommunicated himself," President Moyle responded. "He cut himself off from the Spirit of God. Whether or not we get around to holding a court doesn't matter that much; he has cut himself off from he Spirit of the Lord."
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The natural progression of things is that Mormonism is headed for schism. Certainly that's what happened with the RLDS church which was in the rationalization business long before the Brighamites were. It will take time, however.
My theory is that mopologists will gradually take over the elite circles of the church. I don’t mean to say that Dan Peterson or Mike Ash is going to be receiving an apostleship any time soon but rather that people who believe in a neo-orthodox form of Mormonism will become ascendant within the church hierarchy.
There are signs of this already, most famously the insertion of “among” in the introduction of the Book of Mormon’s description of Lamanites being the ancestors of the American Indian. The abrupt and little-publicized renaming of the “Lamanite Generation” dance troupe is another. The continual attenuation of revelatory claims from the heady days of Brigham, Joseph, and Orson talking of angelic beings coming over for lunch are never coming back.
Over time, you will see more such subduction of traditional Mormon beliefs (but never apologies for them) and new emphases on metaphorical interpretation of the scriptures, when they are even talked about at all other than to quote Chicken Soup stories from.
In following this route, Mormonism is going right along with its Protestant siblings, seeking to find a way to justify non-rational faith in a world ruled by reason. It will work to some degree but to see where it will ultimately end up, just take a look at the mainline Protestant denominations like Methodists, Unitarians, or Lutherans.
They still have bigger numbers than the Mormons but they are in their death throes, thrusting about wildly, grasping at such silliness as liberation theology or “social justice” which have nothing at all to do with books written by ancient desert people. And their congregations know it, too, which is why they are leaving in droves for secularism. No one wants to worship a metaphor or hear stories about a people that vanished into thin air.
Eventually, far down the road as the church moves further and further into mainstreaming itself, I think you will see a splinter group just like what happened with the FLDS in the 20th century and the Restoration Branches in the 1980s. Tough to say how long all of this will take, especially when it’s difficult to see who will succeed Boyd Packer as the preeminent paleo-orthodox Mormon leader. Regardless of when it happens, I believe it will since people can only take the discarding of important beliefs at the hands of sneering people deriding you as a “fundamentalist.” It’s happening within the Anglican church now over homosexuality, one wonders what the dividing issue will be within Mormonism when that does happen. Luckily for whoever these future rebels are, today's mopologists will have done the work for them in demystifying the prophets.
I’m going to need some popcorn in any case.