Spending any time at all on social media can rapidly distort your sense of reality when it comes to what most Mormons believe. We often forget that more than half of Mormons live outside of the United States and that almost none of these people care about the petty concerns of the various factions out there. In my relatively conservative ward in rural northern Colorado, most people don’t follow any of the blog-based battles. Most people are simply too busy getting kids to and from school and various events, as well as doing their callings and trying to find time to go to the temple, to worry about the latest outrage fest.
But every once in a while I follow some on-line conversation down the rabbit hole and end up shaking my head at the angst among various factions. And apparently — unbeknownst to me — there are a LOT of liberal Mormons who hate Mormon apologists. And I am not talking about slight disagreements — I am talking about real hatred (at least in their on-line expressions).
I am not going to defend everything ever Mormon has ever done in the apologetics world. I am sure there are mistakes and exaggerations out there.
But I will defend my vision of the importance of apologetics, and it is really quite simple: Satan is happy to use deception to convince people not to be religious and not to believe in the Church. Good apologists simply point out the deception and provide another way of looking at things that supports a faithful point of view.
So imagine you were on the Sanhedrin when Christ was brought up for trial (see Matthew 26:57-67). The accusers were looking for false witnesses. I see apologists as the people willing to stand up and point out the deceptions going on. I see the apologists as those willing to point out all of the good things Jesus did. I see the apologists as those willing to protest a nighttime, unjust trial. I see the apologists adding their testimonies that Jesus is the Christ. What could possibly be wrong with opposing injustice, false reports and outright lies?
One of the questions I ask myself is: what would I have done if I had been in Jerusalem at that time? Would I have spoken up for the Savior? Would I have even had a testimony? Would I have been one of those people silently standing by? Would I (God forbid!) been one of those people actively trying to persecute the Savior?
I think the same things about the events in June 1844 in Illinois. Would I have been willing to travel to Carthage with Joseph Smith? Would I have been willing to criticize the political environment that allowed him and Hyrum Smith to be killed? Would I have been willing to stand up to the Carthage Greys and point out his innocence? Or would I have remained silent in the face of so much public hatred for the prophet?
We are at a time when much of the world is opposed to our prophets and apostles. We are still a peculiar people. So much of the supposed “information” the public has about the Church is either false or highly exaggerated. What could possibly be wrong about trying to set the record straight?
It is ironic that many liberal Mormons who appear to hate the apologists are sometimes apologists themselves. I have seen people who say they are against apologetics set the record straight when somebody says something that is obviously wrong like, “you know, all of those Mormons still practice polygamy.” The liberal Mormon will, rightly, point out that this is simply not true. So, what is wrong with an apologist doing the same thing about another issue?
My wish is a simple one: in my experience most people have good intentions. This certainly applies to Mormon apologists, even the annoying ones who write things you don’t like. Give these people a break. They are not perfect and none of them pretend to be. But their intentions are good. They are the people who see themselves defending the innocent, the innocent Savior and the innocent prophet. Every Mormon who has gone to Church for any length of time has defended the faith in one way or another. Don’t let yourself feel disdain for people who are trying to do this on a regular basis. They are not necessarily heroes (although some of them may be), but they are certainly trying to do what is right. And that is a very good thing.
New Post: Give Mormon apologists a break: Spending any time at all on social media can rapidly di… https://t.co/3kK7t1Qs5g #LDS #Mormon
TheMillennialStar: Give Mormon apologists a break https://t.co/bYIAC0Hx9y #lds #mormon
Apologists are in a tough business, trying to use archaeology, biology, philosophy, history, or whatever to convince people of things that only the Holy Ghost can teach.
RT @Millennialstar: New Post: Give Mormon apologists a break: Spending any time at all on social media can rapidly di… https://t.co/3kK7t…
Yankee, if somebody is trying to convert using archaeology, biology, etc, they are probably not going to be successful. Here is how I see it: the Holy Ghost opens up the mind to Truth and confirms Truth. The role of apologetics is to provide reasonable explanations for the inevitable objections. There is obviously a role for apologetics at the beginning, but I don’t think true conversion can happen through apologetics alone. Ever.
As Neal A. Maxwell stated eloquently many years ago, with respect to defending the Church and gospel, there ought to be “no uncontested slam dunks”. We’re allowed to defend the Church to our friends, our families, our associates, and to anyone seeking knowledge.
“Though argument does not create conviction, lack of it destroys belief. What seems to be proved may not be embraced; but what no one shows the ability to defend is quickly abandoned. Rational argument does not create belief, but it maintains a climate in which belief may flourish.”
—Austin Farrar, Light on C. S. Lewis, p. 26.
Good thing I’m not an apologist. I would be sad to think people are hating on me…
I am merely a person who, like the child in the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes, points out that the flowers are yellow and cake is yummy and that man over there is butt naked.
Speaking of which, John Fuller (L26F-T7Y) is now ready for ordinance work to be performed. I am a girl and my local temple is closed. And I know my ancestors well enough to know that my ancestors don’t appear to be related to Catherine Laur or Josiah Fuller…
Anyone who defends any position they hold—religious, political, scientific, or otherwise—is an apologist.
We are all apologists.
YG: “….trying to use archaeology, biology, philosophy, history, or whatever to convince people of things …”
Just making an observation: I’ve read a few apologist-haters who make that accusation against apologists. I assume that either the apologist-hater didn’t read the apologist, or didn’t understand the apologist, or just likes to lie about the apologist.
Elder Maxwell predicted, “There will be a convergence of discoveries (never enough, mind you, to remove the need for faith) to make plain and plausible what the modern prophets have been saying all along.”
Do you wanna know the truth? Apologists save testimonies. My faith crisis lead me to greater understanding (instead of total doubt) thanks to people like Jeff Lindsay and the volunteers at FairMormon. Apologetics doesn’t _prove_ stuff to me. It puts things into the realm of _plausibility_ (and, many times, probability). It makes room for my spiritual witness.
Apologetics is also one of the only reasons new converts can join and stay in the Church if they speak English. If you ask nearly any recent convert to the Church about their conversion process, they’ll tell you they had months (or years) where they had to go back and forth between critics and apologists. If it weren’t for places like FairMormon, we’d have very very few English-speaking converts.
Critics love to say things like, “FairMormon did more to destroy my testimony than anything else, and everyone else says so too.” Bullcrap. I’m a student at BYU, and I can tell you from firsthand experience that I’ve only heard positive things from my fellow students about FairMormon. We millennials practically live online. Without apologetics, there wouldn’t be much to counter the militant critics.
I do like the “lived faith” approach of progressive Mormons, but it’s only part of the solution.
The Savior reserves His fiercest condemnation for those who offend His little ones — and I believe this means those who are “young” in the gospel (as well as little children). Apologists do a very important work in aiding those with budding testimonies as well as those with older fledgling testimonies.
As a member of FairMormon I’m loving this post. 🙂
Daniel, please email me at membershipatfair@gmail.com I have a question for you. Thanks!
Where apologetics is perhaps most useful is convincing any disaffected returned missionaries that they served in Jesus Christ’s restored church. I would suggest if you wish to help such a person, you direct them to Barry Bickmore’s “Restoring The Ancient Church”. It is plain from the detailed sources cited by BYU Professor Bickmore that Joseph Smith could not have restored the Early Christian Church without divine help:
“I can only attribute to Joseph Smith’s genius or heavenly intervention his uncanny recovery of many elements in ancient Jewish theurgy* that had ceased to be available either to Judaism or to Christianity, and that had survived only in esoteric traditions unlikely to have touched Smith directly.”
Prof. Harold Bloom
Yale University
in The American Religion
* the working of a divine or supernatural agency in human affairs.
It is difficult for me at least to give apologists a break since they are almost all amateurs (in the truest sense, even if they hold advanced degrees in other academic fields or professions) who are trying to prove things of the highest import. Whether Daniel Peterson passing himself off as a scholar of the bible or Barry Bickmore posing as an expert in early Christianity, neither have any necessary training in these fields or track records of peer reviewed scholarship (in non-LDS venues) to show that they are reliable sources when it comes to making claims/criticisms to establish the weightiest matters. We shouldn’t farm out our most critical matters of faith to hobbyists. You wouldn’t do the same for your heart or you GI track. They do the best they can, yes I grant that, but they don’t deserve a break for biting off more than they can chew. That is not a service to our community, it is a folly.
So the polemicists are credible and peer-reviewed?
Credentials are all that matter! Unless I don’t like them, and then I will declare their credentials to be the wrong ones!
It’s interesting how, for example, Jana Riess, who is nothing more than an apologist for very liberal Mormonism, is often referred to as “Dr. Riess” by the progressive side of the Mormon blog world, even though many of the things she comments on would technically be even further out of her credentials than most “apologists” (her degree is in American Religious history, but she feels free to comment on things that have more to do with psychology or biology). The same people attacking Daniel Peterson give her a pass.
Of course pretty much all the same people calling her “Dr. Riess” never refer to me as “Dr. Wolfe” when I defend the more conservative/orthodox stance.
It’s a catch 22. You want credentials, but who has the proper credentials to defend Mormonism? Brian C. Hales, for example, has done the best work, to date, on Joseph Smith’s polygamy. And yet, he’s an anesthesiologist by trade, not a credentialed historian. It can only be amateurs who defend the church because there are no “bonafide” programs in Mormon Studies.
That said, we have many professionals who publish in peer reviewed journals, but never in the capacity of defending the church. So three cheers for those professionals who are willing to dawn their “amateur” caps (in the eyes of the world) and do the thankless work of apologetics.
Uh, that’s “don” not “dawn.” Oh, well, I’m an amateur.
Hi Jack,
Not sure I’d credit Brian Hales with having done the best work.
Voluminous work, yes. But not necessarily best.
Meg
Yeah, none of those comets that hobbyists discovered are really there. Can’t be if they didn’t have a PhD in astrophysics.
And that patent clerk with his whole relativity thing. Please, he is just a patent clerk.
All these people that start businesses without graduating college, you know that none of them will ever succeed.
If you aren’t part of the club, your opinion (or paper or study or whatever) just doesn’t rate. Leave everything to the professionals (as self regulated) and remain in your place.
I am not sure how to dialogue with people who are happy to allow amateurs, or even prefer amateurs, to set the tone, parameters, and methods for arguing for what matters most to them (I’m assuming faith is most important to those here). This makes no sense to me. Maybe this is some sort of intrinsic orientation thing by which I am blind to other positions.
My sense and experience is that amateur apologists and their audiences don’t seem to want to hear criticism that challenges or upends their presumed conclusions–and this criticism is often leveled by those trained in the various fields. Sure, hobbyists find comets and people patent things all the time. But we’re talking about the *most* *important* *things* *here*. I can’t fathom why you would trust amateurs with this. But maybe you here believe that these amateurs are doing some sort of consecrated thing and are therefore likely to be led by divine power? I confess that I have not the same faith.
Or maybe I had the apologist orientation beaten out of me through nearly a decade of graduate school in a field that directly deals with issues of scripture/faith/etc. Maybe none of you here has experienced likewise and that is the cause for this gulf between us.
“Or maybe I had the apologist orientation beaten out of me through nearly a decade of graduate school in a field that directly deals with issues of scripture/faith/etc. Maybe none of you here has experienced likewise and that is the cause for this gulf between us.”
Actually, I do believe that this is a lot of it. (By the way, that patent guy was Einstein, but what does that matter.)
There are certain methodologies that are expected or accepted in certain fields. When there are amateurs that intersect with those fields without having first “paid appropriate dues” or followed the accepted (by those that agreed to these methodologies) means or methods, there will be those that say that this is not acceptable. That quite frankly is common place throughout history in many fields of science, business, government, sociology, etc. Yet, over time some get accepted while others do not. Results are often a reason why.
Over time some methodologies change, as do theories, understandings, etc. Many of the great discoveries through the ages came from those initially branded as a heretic of one sort or the other.
Ooudenus.
Who qualifies, then, to be an acceptable apologetic? You set the parameters, so can you name a few who fit the bill?
Are critics also required to have such credentials? Again, who among all the critics fits such a bill?
I love fairmormon, knowhy, the church essays, and other writtings from faithful church members. It reminds me so much of Alma 37:6. As a missionary I met a man who was paid to panhandle during the AZ Temple easter pageant who realized after spending some time listening to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir playing over the speakers that the message he was paid to say did not match what he heard. He met with the missionaries and was baptized soon after.
I love how the testimony of the weak and the unlearned continues moving the gospel forward.
I guess I could state it more simply.
Please tell me in what broad field an amateur has never made a meaningful impact.
(I know that it might be easy to get all wrapped up in deciding as to what qualifies one as an amateur and if the amateur of 200 years ago is the same thing as the amateur of today. But, I think that it is pretty evident that truth does exist without peer review. In fact, it even exists in spite of it, and some times peer review fails to establish it, in spite of its best efforts.)
Geoff begged folks to criticize my construct regarding Joseph Smith.
Brian Hales responded, mainly by suggesting I was making things up. However many of the points he accused me of making up are grounded in documented fact. Though one point was a typo on my part, which I corrected and have noted as being a correction.
When one shifts from a schema where the Church is true to God’s purpose and shifts to a schema where the Church is based on lies, one’s memory of the past is altered. Thus appealing to former prowess as a believing Mormon is relatively meaningless.
After all, Dr. John C. Bennett was an Assistant President of the Church for a brief spell. Hard for anyone to depart the faith more spectacularly than he did.
As for me, I have faith in an Omniscient God and final judgement. Therefore I don’t worry much about mortal arguments that play fast and loose with facts.
I love that Kevin’s argument above says “don’t try to defend a bunch of apologists who have a financial stake in trying to perform whatever mental gymnastics is necessary” when everybody else is worrying about the value of the apologists PRECICELY because they have no financial stake involved in the matter and are armatures and not professionals.
Kevin’s comment is not going to make it on this blog. There are approximately 100,000 other blogs where he can leave anti-Mormon stuff. Not here.
“It is difficult for me at least to give apologists a break since they are almost all amateurs (in the truest sense, even if they hold advanced degrees in other academic fields or professions) who are trying to prove things of the highest import.”
I thank God for “amateurs” who try to do good! The haters of Jesus Christ and His church don’t require credentials for themselves who seek to destroy, yet insist on credentials for those who want to testify of truth? Such hypocrisy…
It is far better to sustain rather than to mock, to build up rather than to tear down, to uphold rather than to trip. May God bless all those who try to sustain, build up, and uphold, however imperfectly they may do so.
1. ” ….. confess that I have not the same faith.”
2. “Or maybe I had the apologist orientation beaten out of me through nearly a decade of graduate school in a field that directly deals with issues of scripture/faith/etc. ”
I think I see your problem.
oudenos, as far as I know there are few if any schools that offer a BA or MA or PhD in “Mormon Studies.” Remember, we are talking about Mormon apologists here, not people with advanced degrees in studying the New Testament, for example.
I am at a loss to see exactly what credentials would be acceptable for an apologist NOT to be an amateur. You pooh-pooh the credentials of people like Daniel Peterson, who has decades of experience writing about Mormon issues. Who exactly would have acceptable credentials for you, and why would that person be more knowledgeable about *Mormon issues* than anybody else?
I would also like to point out that I have learned more about the Book of Mormon and Church history from other Church members during Gospel Doctrine and High Priests than in reading the dozens of books I have in my personal library. Yes, Hugh Nibley is awesome, but frankly a good discussion with a group of smart people on Sunday is much more enlightening than all of the works of all of the scholars out there (at least for me).
So I would urge you to reconsider your disdain for “amateurs” because from my perspective it seems petty and nonsensical.
I can’t fathom why you would trust amateurs with this
Because a) while we marmins don’t cotton to none o’ that thar fancy book larnin’, it strikes me that factual claims and logical arguments should generally stand independent of any ad hominems a critic may make against their proponent; b) amateurs don’t tend to someone like a wart on a pig’s backside for having dared to get a doctorate in the wrong field forty years ago; and c) amateurs tend to intellectually engage with their lay audiences rather than telling us not to worry our pretty little heads about things we’ll never understand and pontificating at length about “the gulf between us”.
I am glad there is a balancing voice in discussions. I tend to look at both sides of the argument and take the middle. My experience tells me, the truth tends to be closer to the middle. Whether it is Brian Hales assertion that JS’s polygamy/polyandry was not sexual in nature, with counter claim that polygamy rose out of a need to justify his desires. I can take a middle approach on this, that both played a part in how polygamy rolled out in Kirkland and Nauvoo.
As mentioned in this post or another? No horses in the Americas, vs. there are remains of horses found dating back millennia. I accept there were animals used by humans, I leave it at that. Apologetics helps me find my middle ground and a line I can accept. Without it, a less than spiritual person like myself would be pulled by both arms, and both feet to one side completely…but I also need my dose of skepticism as well. As you stated above, not all apologetics is created equal.
The irony of the comments of anti-apologists such as Kevin and oudenos is a marvel to behold. Just think of it, by their own assertions, to be a “qualified” defender of the faith you must have an advanced degree in the subject matter at hand from an accredited school. A corollary thereof follows that to be a “qualified” critic, one must have a comparable advanced degree from an accredited school on the same subjects.
Does Kevin have such a degree? Or oudenos? If they do, let them present their bona fides to prove they can take the scholarly high-ground as it were in these discussions. They won’t because they can’t. Therefore, by their own standards, they are unqualified to comment or criticize.
Should they claim they can speak by weight of their personal experience, then those of us who defend the Church, its doctrines and practices, can claim the same by the weight of the authority of our personal experiences? For them to assert a right they deny us is unjust and hypocritical… and typical of their kind. My $0.02
Ken Cluff,
I hold a couple of MAs and a PhD in fields directly addressing areas that fall under the interests of apologists. You can believe me or not, I don’t care.
Here’s the thing. Take Barry Bickmore. He is writing all about early Christianity. But set in front of him Justin Martyr in Greek and he couldn’t read it. Or Tertullian in Latin. Same result. Sure, he can rely on others’ translations and commentary (none of which were done by Mormons) but he isn’t doing original work at this point. And likely he doesn’t read German and French so he simply will not have access to what other scholars have said about these texts for the past 200 years. Now you can dismiss this as irrelevant, but that says far more about you than all of that work performed by some of the best minds. And he doesn’t read Coptic in all of its various dialects, so when he quotes the Nag Hammadi literature, he’s not engaging with texts first hand. These are only a few tools of the trade–tools that take years and years to acquire. Does Bickmore control the greater literary environment in which these texts were produced? No he doesn’t and therefore can’t make legitimate comparisons, only shallow parallels. At best, Bickmore can only report on what others have said the evidence says. At worst he can manipulate what he cannot access himself and so mislead his audience which itself cannot access the evidence. Why lionize this?
Have some humility, people. Just because I can read English and can write somewhat cogently doesn’t license me to write manuals on the tax code or about the Higgs Boson. I don’t understand why this is even controversial.
I only read apologetics and Shakespeare in the original Klingon.
So when I claim to not be an apologist, it is because my interest is based on family history. As most people know, genealogists tend to want truth above all. If I write about Joseph Smith, it is because my ancestor was his plural wife. I opine about Eliza Snow because she knew things about my male forebear that she couldn’t have known if she wasn’t supposed to be married to him in a pretend marriage. I write about Brigham Young because he ought to have become my lady ancestor’s husband after the death of Joseph Smith. As to the messy end of polygamy, I write about that because my great-grandfather was in the thick of the conspiracy to continue plural marriage despite the manifesto.
Thus, if not maximally fluent in the “Greek” of Mormon polygamy, I care deeply and have invested much time and study towards becoming as fluent as possible in those times and the milieu and people surrounding my ancestors.
I’m always open to new facts. Not as patient with those spewing ad hominem attacks or claiming that what I asset is unknowable and that I must be lying, by extension.
For what it’s worth, I find my version of Joseph Smith to be more honorable than the Joseph Brian Hales discusses.
Oudenos, I am beginning to think you are a troll. Your comments are completely nonsensical.
“Just because I can read English and can write somewhat cogently doesn’t license me to write manuals on the tax code or about the Higgs Boson. I don’t understand why this is even controversial.”
Er, actually it does. In fact, “uncredentialed” people write about these types of things all the time. And some of their books or articles are really quite good.
Some of the best books about science and/or tax policy have come from journalists or everyday writers (i.e., uncredentialed people) who study a subject and write about it in language that the average person can understand. Your view that only credentialed people should write about these subjects means that they can only be discussed by academics, which creates an insular bubble culture of navel-gazing in dry language only understood by insiders. True breakthroughs and original thoughts take place when people from outside of the bubble offer new viewpoints that the “experts” have never considered. Witness: Einstein, Bell, Jobs, Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Edison, etc.
Is your PhD in Mormon studies? Remember, we are talking about Mormon apologists here.
I am not going to defend Barry Bickmore because some of his scholarship in some areas has been pretty embarrassing, but I will defend the *idea* of him or anybody else writing a book on early Christianity. In fact, I would think a true scholar would welcome anybody writing about such subjects because it might draw in new readers. I would be willing to bet a fair amount of money that there are a few people who have read Bickmore’s book and decided to study the subject in earnest, and perhaps some of them have learned how to read Greek and Coptic themselves. And perhaps they will build on and/or correct or add nuance to some of the things Bickmore has had to say because of his lack of language skills.
New people with fresh perspectives is a good thing, not a bad thing. You might want to consider a paradigm shift.
Hi Geoff,
I’m not a troll but I think that we see things so differently that I may come off as one. My apologies for being obtuse. I hope that you and others don’t think that all academics do is reserve our thoughts and work for each other. I teach hundreds and hundreds of undergrads per year and I thrill to hear their insights into texts that I have read and taught many times over and even publish on professionally. I do community outreach to high schools and helped create and currently proctor a program to bring high school students to our campus for day long visits. And in fulfilling my church calling I currently teach adults (youth recently) while drawing upon my professional training and research. I will bow out of the conversation. No hard feelings, all!
Oudenos, good to hear. I think we are not as far off as you may think. I just think you have not really thought through your position on this issue.
So let’s say one of your undergrads had a blog. And let’s say one of your undergrads decided to write an article about something she was really excited about on her personal blog. And let’s say this undergrad didn’t read Greek/Latin/Coptic. But this undergrad was so inspired that she wrote something *even though she was uncredentialed.* Would this be a good thing or a bad thing?
It is possible (probable) that this person would make errors. But it is also possible that this person would have fresh insights that the credentialed people have never considered. And it is possible that this person may have some insights that caused her readers to get interested in the subject and research it themselves. Who knows: maybe she has a unique writing style and a fresh approach.
So, let’s go back to your first comment, which I will repeat in full:
“It is difficult for me at least to give apologists a break since they are almost all amateurs (in the truest sense, even if they hold advanced degrees in other academic fields or professions) who are trying to prove things of the highest import. Whether Daniel Peterson passing himself off as a scholar of the bible or Barry Bickmore posing as an expert in early Christianity, neither have any necessary training in these fields or track records of peer reviewed scholarship (in non-LDS venues) to show that they are reliable sources when it comes to making claims/criticisms to establish the weightiest matters. We shouldn’t farm out our most critical matters of faith to hobbyists. You wouldn’t do the same for your heart or you GI track. They do the best they can, yes I grant that, but they don’t deserve a break for biting off more than they can chew. That is not a service to our community, it is a folly.”
Can you see now how this comment is really way off?
In the same way that it is a GOOD thing for your undergrad to follow her passion in a subject you teach her, it is also a GOOD thing for the supposedly uncredentialed people to write apologetics. They are simply following a passion. And writing in a different style outside of the box of academic approval allows for fresh approaches that will attract different types of readers.
Does this mean everything they write or say is correct/historically accurate/peer reviewed? Obviously not. But the process to follow when that happens is a polite correction from a more knowledgeable person, *not a comment saying that only people who are credentialed should write,* which is basically what you say above.
I appreciate all the comments.
Daniel Peterson could read Justin Martyr in the original Greek, so that example doesn’t work when it comes to him. In fact, his degrees/credentials (in Greek, Philosophy, and Near Eastern Languages) make him more qualified to be a Scholar of the Bible than many of those attacking the apologists.
In fact, there are many LDS apologists who do have degrees/credentials in the appropriate fields, but people like oudenos would find some other reason to disqualify them.
(Also, the few degree programs that allow for a speciality in Mormon Studies tend to treat Mormonism as a sociological/historical phenomenon, so even a degree in Mormon studies wouldn’t really help much with arguments about what Paul really meant when apparently condemning homosexuality, for example).
But, Paul, a tentmaker, should have just given up and never written all those letters. And that fisherman, Peter – gee whiz, where was his degree in? Should have left it all to the Scribes and Priests of the time.
I view degrees and credentials as more of a driver’s license. There are plenty of bad drivers with them, and a least a few good drivers without them, but having a license or degree is generally a good way to ensure at least a minimum quality of driving. There is nothing to say that an amateur can’t read and analyze primary sources in their own language. For example I focused on US history and the Cold War as an undergraduate. But I switched fields, taught myself Chinese, started researching, and recently gained acceptance into one of the top PhD programs in the world. People generally react with shock, like I just told them I became a nuclear physicist or something. But the principles are the same in just about any field in or outside of academia. You have to study, master the tools of the field (for a historian this includes items like language training and being able to find primary sources), research, marshal the evidence and present your arguments. Whether its Chinese military history or a variety of fields contained within the rather large umbrella of Mormon studies, its not that difficult, special, or exclusive as people like Oudenos make it sound. Degrees and the c.v. that academics build are helpful and certainly aid the quality of apologetics, but they are hardly essential as people like Brain Hales (and if I might humbly add, me,) regularly show.
The irony is, Oudenos–or some other LDS academic blogger who also goes by that moniker–is well aware that being overly involved in apologetics (or even just being a little too publicly devoted to one’s own religion) can be a kiss of death for any LDS applicant to a religious studies graduate program. See http://www.patheos.com/blogs/faithpromotingrumor/2015/10/tips-for-the-future-lds-grad-school-applicant/
So, I kind of wonder where these highly trained apologists are going to come from and precisely they would be defending; since it seems like the only ones who would make it through Oudenos’ filter would be those who have a proven history of not defending the LDS Church’s fundamental truth claims.
Hm, taking my standard middle ground…
If you claim credentials matter to be allowed to express yourself, and then identify yourself without your credentials (aka, real name, degree school), do you not see the irony in this?
JimD, my primary response after reading that horrifying post at FPR is: don’t walk, RUN away from those absolutely insane academics. Their stultifying, insular world is so closed-minded that they don’t even realize how absurd it appears to the rest of us. Yikes!
So, you can A) be an academic and spend all of your time trying to impress intolerant yahoos or B) you can get a real job and research things you are interested in as a hobby and…you don’t have to worry about the politics. My advice to smart young undergraduates would be option B.
Of course, Geoff, the people at FPR have some sort of bizarre interest in discouraging orthodox apologetics, so that post should be taken in the light of their overall project (see their recent posts trying to “prove” Dan Peterson is a plagiarist and deserves to lose his academic career).
A good response to their nonsense is here:
http://fornspollfira.blogspot.com/2015/11/on-supposed-tips-for-lds-graduate.html
“A recent blog post over on the ironically named “Faith Promoting Rumor” blog purports to give advice to prospective graduate students in Religious Studies (broadly conceived), the Ancient Near East, Hebrew Bible, New Testament, Early Christian Lit., Late Antique, Patristics, etc. . . There are some clear indications that the author of the blog post does not know what she is talking about.”
Ivan, thanks for that link, now I feel better.
Wowzers, according to Geoff and Ivan I’m some sort of lunatic pariah! It’s a wonder I convinced a search committee to hire me, students to rate me highly, and even more bizarre I somehow manage at once to get my work published in peer reviewed journals and teach GD every other week! And get this, I have two peer reviewed articles that can be used to substantiate a vital piece of LDS scriptural interpretation, even apologetically (gasp). Y’all need to get a grip.
oudenos, just to be clear, I was actually not referring to you (although I can see how the comment could be read that way). I was referring to an academic world where you can be disqualified for writing for one journal or another that is not on the approved list. I hope you can see that from the perspective of those of us not in the Academy that can seem pretty darned crazy.
I think you’re right, oudenos. “Apologists,” or scholars who have published work in defense of the Church’s scripture, doctrine, and history, should have academic credentials before we listen to anything they say.
That’s why I’ll be going to scholars like John Gee (PhD, Yale) and Kerry Muhlestein (PhD, UCLA) on matters pertaining to, say, the Book of Abraham and the Joseph Smith Papyri.
Or Ugo Perego (PhD, University of Pavia) on the Book of Mormon and Native American genetic ancestry.
Or Dana Pike (PhD, University of Pennsylvania), or David Seely (PhD, University of Michigan), or Thomas Wayment (PhD, Claremont Graduate School), or Richard Holzapfel (PhD, UC Irvine), or Eric Huntsman (PhD, University of Pennsylvania), or Kent Jackson (PhD, University of Michigan), or Jeffrey Chadwick (PhD, University of Utah), or Lincoln Blumell (PhD, University of Toronto) on biblical studies.
Or Mark Wright (PhD, UC Riverside), or Kerry Hull (PhD, University of Texas at Austin) on Book of Mormon archaeology.
Or Richard Bennett (PhD, Wayne State University), or Steven Harper (PhD, Lehigh University), or Mark Ashurst-McGee (PhD, Arizona State University), or Alexander Baugh (PhD, Brigham Young University), or Michael MacKay (PhD, University of York) on early Mormon history.
Man, sure looks crowded up there in that ivory tower of yours, huh?
Mr. Smoot,
I was young like you once and the world of BYU Rel Ed profs seemed so certain and comforting. Come and chat with me after a decade of graduate school. If you still feel the same, I’ll buy you dinner and hear you out at SBL or something. You are on the cusp of a great adventure and I bid you nothing but good fortune, sincerely. I also offer my ear to listen. Graduate school in bib/rel studies pushes people to their edge and almost always over it. I won’t be able to provide much advice or any answer, but I can listen with full empathy. This too I offer sincerely.
If what really matters is credentials, then critics and fencesitters should gladly accept the writings and claims of LDS apologist Dr. Ugo Perego (Ph.D. in Genetics and Biomolecular Sciences from the University of Pavia, 2010, specializing in Native American DNA) over those of ex-Mormon critic Dr. Simon Southerton (Ph.D. in Plant Science from the University of Sydney, 1989) or non-Mormon critic Dr. Thomas Murphy (Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Washington, 2003).
Clearly Dr. Perego is more qualified to comment on the issue of the Book of Mormon and Native American DNA, yet those who do not accept the Book of Mormon as an ancient document dismiss him and prefer the opinions of others who are less qualified in this area of study.
There must be a reason for this. If only I could discover what it is.
The danger of tribalism isn’t something that only “liberals” need to worry about (as this post amply demonstrates). And maybe a few liberals are certainly trying to do what’s right, too, and deserve a break.
I think the quality one should seek to cultivate when dealing in apologetics (second only to charity) is humility. Who doesn’t have room to become more humble? I like this poem by C.S. Lewis.
Apologist’s Evening Hymn
From all my lame defeats and oh! much more
From all the victories I have seemed to score;
From cleverness shot forth in Thy behalf,
At which, while angels weep, the audience laughs;
From all my proofs of Thy divinity,
Thou, who would’st give no sign, deliver me,
Thoughts are but coins. Let me not trust, instead
Of Thee, the thumb-worn image of Thy head;
From every thought, even from my thoughts of Thee,
Oh thou fair Silence! fall and set me free.
Lord of the straight way and the needle’s eye,
Take from me all my trumpery lest I die.
Maybe I’m out in left field (happens all the time, so entirely possible), but Blair, while the poem you quoted is great, I’m not sure it applies to Mormon apologetics as much as it does traditional Christian. In my view, Mormon apologetics is not so much about proving God exists, as providing plausibility for believing LDS truth claims. I don’t know any apologist who says that things they research, discuss or even argue about, prove that the church is true. They just provide plausible explanations based on their research and study.
P.S. If apologists would invoke that Lewis poem as often as we invoke the Austin Farrar quote and the apocryphal slam dunk quote I think we’d all be better off.
Oudenos:
Re: “lunatic pariah” – you said it, not me (and that’s nowhere near what I think about you or the rest of your tribe at FPR). I just quoted/linked to someone with credentials who disagrees with you. Not sure where “lunatic pariah” comes from, actually.
BHodges:
Your comment seems a bit of a non-sequitur.
Hi Ivan. My response wasn’t intended as an expression of formal logic, so identifying it as a non sequitur would be a category error. Unless you’re employing the term in the literary sense to suggest what I wrote was an absurd response. Can you say something more direct about what bothers you about someone encouraging humility?
DeeAnn, in referring to Lewis’s poem I don’t intend to suggest Latter-day Saints would make the same particular arguments about the nature of God. I’m calling attention to Lewis’s awareness of some of the dangers of apologetics. These dangers include pride and a recalcitrant attitude. Trumpery. Egotism. Overconfidence. Etc. This is an apologist speaking this way
Well, BHodges, I likely would explain, but your response is quite passive-agressive (and somewhat self-righteous), so I will abstain.
Blair,
Yeah, my fingers were not writing what my brain was thinking. I meant to say that “In my view, Mormon apologetics is not so much about proving the church true, as providing plausibility for believing LDS truth claims”.
I agree, though, that apologists, and generally speaking all of us, need to be cautious about pride, overconfidence, etc…
Regards.
Attacking the supposed lack of credentials of LDS apologists misses the larger point:
If any of the folks Stephen Smoot lists, decided to go back and get the credentials that Oudenos states they ought to have in order for their apologetics to be deemed respectable–by Oudenos’ own admission, the academic community would deny them the opportunity to obtain those credentials. This is not because of their intellectual incapacity to do the work and acquire the skills pertaining to those credentials; but because what these individuals would do with those credentials if and when obtained. There seems to be, by Oudenos’ own admission, a consensus amongst academics that the prestige they have husbanded and sought to monopolize, must not be deployed in the defense of Mormon orthodoxy.
It’s ironic, in a way. LDS intellectuals are usually the loudest voices in demanding the democratization of Church government and free, open discussion of Mormon issues. But they are also the ones who now advocate the creation of a church-within-a-church whose priesthood would be through a process devoid of accountability to the church membership (to wit: by overwhelmingly non-Mormon academics). A priesthood whose makeup would be ideologically homogenous, whose pronouncements would be infallible, whose claims on the Church membership’s loyalty and affections would be exclusive, and whose edicts would excommunicate heretics like Gee and Tvetdnes and Peterson.
What could possibly go wrong?
Oudenos,
I might be the only one here who is read Barry Bickmore’s book after my own research on the subject and therefore has an opinion to offer. Bear in mind that that represents the first problem with your statement. It’s not like anyone here has read him and is basing their belief on him even one iota.
Furthermore you seem to be of the opinion that he thinks he has proven that the early Christian church was identical to the Mormon church. He actually states that this is not the case in his book. This is the second problem with your statements.
That being said, I think I understand the frustration you’re trying to express over his book. He only collects similarities between Mormonism and early Christianity and often ignores additional data that reduces the similarities in historical context. The end result is that if you read the book without any knowledge of the source material you’re left with the false impression that the two might be one in the same.
As someone that’s actually – as an amateur – read more widely early Christian documents, I can attest to that is not the case. Barry doesn’t do enough to make this clear in my opinion, outside of just simply stating it, which generally isn’t enough. So had you stated this less flagrantly and more true to Barry’s stated purpose, I would have agreed with you.
However, you are without a doubt misunderstanding Bickmore’s stated purpose. He actually quite adequately shows that many Mormon beliefs that modern Christians call anti-Christian existed within some group of Christians in early Christianity in at least similar forms. (The level perceived of similarity is of course subjective.)
You may argue that he doesn’t take all the data into consideration – undoubtedly true. But as a layman who will entirely talk to other layman’s throughout my life I can tell you pointblank that the average Christian layman would be thoroughly completely shocked at the similarities even with all data considered. That’s because the average (non-mormon) christian layman has a very false view of early Christianity in their head. Bickmore’s purpose was to attack (and in fact thoroughly demolish) this ‘christian layman’s’ false view that Mormons have absolutely no historical precedent in their beliefs.
The real truth is that early Christians were so all over the map beliefwise that basically all modern Christian religions, including Mormonism, can easily find analogous beliefs in early Christian documents.
In short you’re claiming Bickmore was trying to prove the LDS church true when in fact he states this isn’t the case. Therefore you must take considerable responsibility for the misunderstanding, though I admit it’s partially Barry’s fault in his presentation.
But the real problem I have with what you stated is that it boils down to that a belief that no one should go try to study things out on their own and instead they should simply take the opinion of someone more knowledgeable — like yourself. To be perfectly honest that’s a dumb point of view and I advise you to give up on it as it really will never be believed by any human being ever — including yourself — and for good reason.
Bickmore was right to form his own opinion best he could using what was available to him and any wise person would not attack him over this but applaud him. He was even right to then share his opinions in a book.
Frankly, so much of scholarship is in fact interpretation that is subjective and based on personal biases. So the idea that people should decide their religious beliefs based on your greater knowledge just isn’t true. So there is really no reason at all that anyone should take your opinion as better then their own, despite your greater knowledge. Deciding to believe one’s religion instead of your personal views is quite a rational course for them. You just made it clear that am amateur has no access to your greater knowledge anyhow without considerable training, so by implication you are suggesting as an alternative to blindly follow you. Deciding to blindly abandon one’s religion because ‘you say so’ would be a rather stupid thing to do. This is the problem I have with your approach.
BHodges,
I like you, and consider you a friend and have appreciated your past thoughtful comments to me. So I’d really like to help you understand why your statement would be taken bad by any group of people and suggest how to better communicate with this ‘tribe’.
Absolutely no one here ever suggested an apologist not be humble. (Indeed, I have noticed that a certain kind of humility is quite common among Mormon apologists — usually upfront stating that they aren’t trying to prove anything but simply point out that such and such attack on Mormon beliefs isn’t certain. There are exceptions of course, but I can hardly name any at all.)
You then out of the blue show up quote CS Lewis and claim apologists need to remember to be humble.
How would any normal human being takes such a statement in such a context? I can assure you it would never be taken as a simple reminder that apologists need to be humble — a point no one would ever disagree on. If I did something similar on BCC, I promise you it would not be taken in a positive light either.
The context and the way you state it implies something more than a mere reminder of the importance of humility. Everyone is responding to that implication rather than what you actually said since that implication must invariably be drawn due to the context of how you stated it — whether you intended it or not.
May I suggest that you start again? There is probably plenty of room for agreement here between you and this ‘tribe.’ And you often have valuable things to say. (Indeed, what you said, if stated differently, was probably valuable.)
Thanks, Bruce, for the measured response. The problem I see with the original post is that it calls for charity from one perceived group while not extending charity to that caricatured group. It asks for what it does not offer in return.
Then I saw a few commenters had added some of the shopworn quotes about apologetics, so I added one that I wish was as prominently known and quoted. The Lewis poem. I hope it gets a wide reading.
Btw Oudenos, had Bickmore been trying to prove the church true and many people believed in the LDS church because of his writings, then your criticisms would have been spot on.
DeeAnn: and thank you! Nice to find common ground.
When I see BHodges going over to BCC, FMH, and other similar blogs and (on pretty much every post) pointing out their “calls for charity from one perceived group while not extending charity to that caricatured group” then I might believe he really has something.
As for now, his behavior is identical with a concern troll.
(and that non sequitur about non sequiturs – they aren’t just for formal logic and literature; I was using the term in the rhetorical sense – my doctorate is in rhetoric and I have training in formal logic as well; I was going for the meaning of “it does not follow” – I was giving BHodges a chance to explain how it really did follow, but instead he went passive-aggressive and did more concern trolling).
Ivan, in my original comment I remarked: “The danger of tribalism isn’t something that only’liberals’ need to worry about (as this post amply demonstrates). And maybe a few liberals are certainly trying to do what’s right, too, and deserve a break.”
This was said with recognition that there are no innocent “sides” in conversations like this one. I don’t often read FMH so that helps explain my lack of comments there. I’m on the BCC backlist so I’d be more likely to offer feedback on tone there than in a comment thread. I also don’t recall seeing posts there that call out a particular blog or caricatured group of fellow church members, but I don’t read every post so I might’ve missed something. I can be as consternated (If it’s not a word it should be) by your “liberal” lack of charity as by your “conservative” lack.
I can’t imagine how what I said could be labeled as a rhetorical non sequitur, but I lack your credentials! 😛
I can’t help but believe that some of our more left-leaning folks are worried about a perceived lack of humility, or (should I say) deference to the academy on the part of LDS apologists. And if so, all I can say is that you have to be a bit of a maverick to be an LDS apologist. The academy ain’t gonna yield no ground on their own turf.
Blair, I can’t talk to everyone here, so I confess it’s possible that you’re at least partially right that this post and some of the comments were a caricature of liberals on BCC.
However, I can talk to myself and how I took the post. Remember I spent a year on Mormon matters as a permanent blogger. There are in fact two groups of Mormon liberals: believing liberals (several comment here consistently, and I understand yourself to be in that category) and nonbelieving liberals (i.e. John Dehlin style),
I have very little experience with the BCC style liberal. I started reading BCC and reporting it here regularly with intent to correct that lack of knowledge. But I got sick and couldn’t continue. I know from my conversations with John Crawford – who I consider a friend – that he’s often very upset with things I say about Mormon liberals based on my experiences on Mormon matters, even though I often clarify I’m not referring to BCC Mormon liberals. I think it’s very clear that it’s hard to separate the two at times in the BCC Mormon liberals heads, a problem I wish I could correct somehow. As I said I don’t actually know enough about BCC style liberals to understand the connections and differences. It’s my understanding that there’s quite a bit of difference, however. In other words, I may in my own head be only criticizing nonbelieving liberals but for some reason what I say is very offensive and strikes home hard on believing liberals as well even though I don’t know why.
The CS Lewis’s quote that you quote is actually quite personal to him. CS Lewis crossed the line as an apologist in a way most Mormon apologists don’t. He believed he could prove Christianity to be true using certain types of arguments. He then got publicly humbled in a debate with a fellow Christian who did not believe his arguments were any sort of proof. He was so embarrassed – or so some versions of the story go – that he gave up apologetics and only wrote devotional Christian writings afterwards. We know when the date of the debate was and we know that he did stop apologetics afterwards.
So it’s not clear to me that you’re using that quote in anything like unto a comparable context. I don’t read Mormon apologists much these days, but I used to read them all the time. My opinion is, that for the most part religious defense scholarships is not that very good. (There are some notable exceptions.) But I was always very impressed with Mormon apologists that they put testimony first, did not attempt lame proofs like CS Lewis did, and clarified that they were just going for plausibility – a very low bar to prove. I am therefore of the opinion that Mormon apologists are at definitive cut above apologists for every other religion I have read to go for lame proofs.
So please understand, that I’m talking about Mormon matters nonbelieving style liberals now. My experience on Mormon matters suggests that this post is absolutely 100% spot on. Their view of apologists does not match even a single Mormon apologist that I had ever read. They always spoke of ad hominem attacks and how Mormon apologists “only use ad hominem attacks.” (I once had someone say this to my face, and I asked them to give a single example. They could not.) I honestly can’t think of a single example of this, unless I misunderstand ad hominem attacks as equivalent to discussing a writers biases – a completely rational and appropriate thing to discuss, though one often quite embarrassing for nonbelieving liberals like John Dehlin. So I do not believe, that if this post was aimed at Mormon matter liberals, that it was not extending charity to them. I believe it was simply factually true. The Mormon matters portrayal of Mormon apologists was simply false and in my opinion deserve to be called out just like this.
Now having said that, since you seem to be a BCC liberal rather than a Mormon matters liberal, I am open to the possibility that the way it states things might be offensive to a BCC liberal. But I’m far less clear how – if say I had written the post – I should rephrase it to still say what I want to say but make it nonoffensive to BCC liberals who I have no beef with. I would appreciate a thoughtful response from you – off-line would be fine – explaining how that could be done in the future.
Please forgive my bad grammar, I’m using dictation to save my arm.
By the way Blair, my stronger response to Oudenos compared to my response to you is a very good example of what I’m talking about. Oudenos said so many things so completely off base about Mormon apologists that it wasn’t something that could be left unchallenged and deserved a strong response pointing out just how off-base his point of view was. I don’t know Oudenos, but I have no reason to doubt that he is in fact a legitimate scholar. And if he really has a PhD in religious scholarship, that I have no doubt he knows far more than Barry Bickmore on the subject of early Christianity. (I went so far as to point out the places where Oudenos got things correct.) Yet none of that matters since his whole argument was flawed from the outset because it misrepresented Bickmore’s stated purposes as proof through scholarship of the truth of Mormonism rather than a plausibility argument. Oudenos was using the exact same false arguments that I saw on Mormon matters on a regular basis and it deserve to be called out.
Regarding the OP, this is what I wrote regarding Mormon liberals:
“there are a LOT of liberal Mormons who hate Mormon apologists. And I am not talking about slight disagreements — I am talking about real hatred (at least in their on-line expressions).”
and:
“It is ironic that many liberal Mormons who appear to hate the apologists are sometimes apologists themselves. I have seen people who say they are against apologetics set the record straight when somebody says something that is obviously wrong like, “you know, all of those Mormons still practice polygamy.” The liberal Mormon will, rightly, point out that this is simply not true. So, what is wrong with an apologist doing the same thing about another issue?”
Note what I did not say: that all Mormon liberals hate apologists. That Mormon liberals are part of a “tribe.”
I was simply stating a fact. Some self-identifying Mormon liberals seem (by my perception) to hate apologists.
Interestingly, no self-identifying Mormon liberal came on to say they did NOT hate apologists. I deleted a few comments that showed some true hatred. (Bruce N has argued in the past that I should leave those types of comments, but we disagree on that; I feel it cheapens the quality of the blog to leave nasty, personal comments like that on the blog). One person, oudenos, did not deny he hates apologists and then went on to justify his opposition to apologists. And then Blair came on to say Mormon apologists should be more humble and accused me of having no charity for his “tribe.”
There would have been an easy way to refute my OP, which is for a self-identifying Mormon liberal to point out that he or she does not hate Mormon apologists and that the majority of Mormon liberals don’t hate apologists, but so far this has not happened. Which is interesting in itself.
Jack, I’ve heard you have to be a bit of a maverick to be an LDS liberal, too. 😉 But I’ve found the academy is a more diverse place than your remark about turf can account for.
I’m still chuckling at the notion that to contribute in any meaningful way to an Mormon apologetic endeavor, you must be able to read Tertullian in Latin.
Bruce, what I want to resist most about your response is the simple categorization. I think it demonstrates the limits of dealing with people according to labels. Yes, there are clearly differences between someone like John Dehlin or say, Jana Riess. And discussions about particular ideas and claims can be very fruitful. We should explore this a little further at some point, but I don’t want to belabor it here. (And I’m typing this on a phone bleh.)
It’s interesting that you bring up Lewis’s personal context. I’m getting ready to interview George Marsden on the Maxwell Institute Podcast. He wrote a biography of “Mere Christianity” as part of the Lives of Great Religious Books series. He follows more recent Lewis studies that challenge the simplistic but very common narrative about the famous Anscombe debate. If there’s time maybe I can bring that part up in the interview.
I can make some time to discuss things further, feel free to send an email my way.
P.S.- For the record I think B.B.’s book is pretty severely flawed, but I’m not up for going over it here.
Geoff, I think one problem is that some people you would consider Mormon liberals don’t recognize themselves in the descriptions you give, and so wouldn’t self-identify under your label. Thus, no counter-evidence. Another problem may be that few “Mormon liberals” read this blog to start with.
I’m a liberal Mormon, though not in the simplistic ways depicted in many of these online debates. I don’t hate apologists. I have disagreements with some of them. But I don’t hate them. My call to humility was equal opportunity.
While I don’t think the label itself is very useful, I operate in an apologetic vein in my work and in my personal life. I edit a series of books intended to enrich and bolster faith. I serve in church callings to do the same.
Speaking of which, did Deseret Book approach this blog about reviewing Patrick Mason’s “Planted”? If not, send me an email and I’ll have them contact you.
I consider myself a good reader who has picked up many scholarly and non-scholarly books. For the most part there is no difference between a good scholar and a good armature in writing and proofs on the same subject. I dare anyone to put the best graduate school paper against the best armature paper . This is particularly true of the “soft sciences” like history and literature.
When I hear people complain that writing has not been “peer reviewed,” it only makes me weary of those writings that are. What that person is saying is basically a clandestine secret organization who is beholden to no one other than themselves has a say on what can and cannot be said. You want to make an argument against what has been written? Make an argument. If the “peer reviewed” person is so much smarter and better qualified, their own work should speak for itself. What a perfect teaching opportunity for the rubes to learn from an amateur’s mistakes getting pointed out. In the end it doesn’t take graduate studies to spend a life reading and studying a subject to become proficient. In fact, it used to be a sign of intelligence for a person to know a lot about more than one sphere of knowledge.
P.S. auto correct isn’t good at picking out amateur and armature.
Blair, I had one thing I wanted to add. In the past I’ve written about my concerns over charges of uncharitableness in dialogue. I am sincere in asking you how this post could have been rewritten to your liking while still stating a criticism that needed stating.
However, my honest opinion is that we often subconsciously use the charity argument as a way of shutting up valid criticisms we don’t want expressed.
In this post here:
https://www.millennialstar.org/why-we-fight/
I wrote about how we judge the charity of the dialogue based primarily on whether the argument is in our favor or not. (This makes sense once you accept the idea of “meaning-memes.” https://www.millennialstar.org/what-is-religion-religion-is-a-type-of-meaning-meme/ )
Liberals and TBM’s have entirely different moral worldviews that are incompatible with each other at this time. It is perfectly natural that we perceive charity as being consistent with what we believe to be obviously morally correct, i.e. our personal moral worldview / meaning memes.
Because both sides see our own (but incompatible) moral worldviews as the basis for charity, it stands to reason that “charitability” in dialogue is actually a subjective perception that is really an extension of what we understand the ultimate moral reality to be. Therefore we will not perceive charitable dialogue in a consistent manner and will likely always hold our opponents to a much higher standard than we hold our friends. That is to say we will always be unfair to the other tribe in our charges of lack of charity.
Take a look at the post that I put a link to, i.e. the first one. Even my very brief time on BCC was marked with maltreatment (from my point of view) and a complete lack of charity. (Again, from my point of view.) I do not perceive this OP as at all uncharitable by comparison. But then that stands to reason given my biases.
But those are my honest perceptions. (Seriously read my post and I think I will help you understand why I do perceive it that way given my biases.) For you to swing in here with a quote about apologists needing to be humble and this post needing to be more charitable, it would be very hard for me (given my experience and biases) to not see that as anything but inconsistent with my own treatment at BCC’s hands. This is the inherent problem with demanding more charity in dialogue like this. It’s really just a weaponization of charity and a drag on true dialogue.
My own conclusion about this problem is that a correct charitable response probably isn’t a careful rewording of the original post, or for that matter the comments aimed at me on BCC to criticize me. I suspect that such careful rewording is probably impossible while still being able to express your moral worldview and your criticisms and being a biased human being.
I think the correct charitable response is to accept our humanity. And what I mean by that is, to accept that blogs have value-boundaries and safe zones that should not be violated and that must be enforced and therefore to not expect equal treatment for all on a blog.
Here on millennial star that absolutely in my mind means allowing a post like the above – which I do believe applies to some liberals and clearly did on this very comment thread. I believe the correct charitable reading is to not read it as a slam on every member of the tribe but rather as appropriate for some of the liberal tribe members. Further I believe that as a liberal, you should take into consideration that you are on a TBM blog with a TBM intended audience, i.e. you are not an intended part of the audience, so it really is nothing personal. Indeed Geoff did make it clear he wasn’t talking about all liberals.
I believe your reaction is really a read through based on your belief that he means “most liberals” rather than “many liberals”, although he never said that. And by the way, you might be right. But it’s important to note that he never said that and is just an assumption on your part. Perhaps a correct assumption. But given this is a TBM blog aimed at TBMs and not aimed at you, I don’t really believe you making that read through is appropriate here — even if you are right! I believe you owe the people on this blog the benefit of the doubt here. And that means sticking with what was actually said, i.e. “many liberals” not “most liberals.”
Likewise, I have no issue at all with you making that read-through *on BCC* because that’s really the right place for you to make such an accusation about “many TBMs.” To me the context of the blog and its intended audience matters.
Likewise, I believe the charitable reading of BCC’s criticisms of me (I mean the ones mentioned in my post) was to look at it from their point of view, and to accept that their blog is unabashedly favoring liberals, and to accept that it wasn’t meant for me and that I only there at their sufferance. Therefore their criticisms had validity to them within that context and was a valid part of the dialogue. But had they made equivalent comments on millennial star, Geoff would have deleted them (and had been right to) given the intended audience here.
I am very skeptical of the idea that your criticism being offered here is anything but inconsistent with the behavior of bloggers over at BCC. I think it would be pretty easy for me to find on BCC a similar sort of non-stated generalization that you are reacting to here, and therefore point out the inconsistency of your criticism. Can you see what I’m seeing here? It is just impossible to expect everyone to so carefully monitor their tone that even though they say “many liberals” you won’t read through it to “most liberals.” (Indeed, would it really have hurt that much to first acknowledge that Geoff did say “many liberals” [not most liberals] — and that this is true of many liberals — before launching into your quote? Had you done that your quote would have then come across as a simple reminder rather than an attack by implication.)
That is why I don’t generally consider ‘charity in dialogue’ as a valid argument except in the most obvious cases.
In other words I’m turning charity on its head here: to me, charity isn’t not criticizing, its about accepting criticism in the best light. It’s about accepting the validity of even biased criticisms as all part of the ongoing dialogue because all criticisms come from humans and all humans are solely and profoundly biased to their own moral worldview. Therefore the only true criticism is biased criticism.
So the idea that the OP is being unfair – perhaps this is true – is really just beside the point to me because it easily met the realistic standards of charitable dialogue. I.e., using the phrase “many liberals” so as to not claim it all members of that tribe.
Yes, of course the OP could’ve spent several more paragraphs softening the blow on the liberal tribe as a whole — an act I have never seen done at BCC, btw. But I don’t believe for a moment any human being will ever do that. I don’t believe for a moment you do that. I think it’s an unrealistic demand and therefore an inconsistent one.
Or maybe I’m wrong about this. It stands to reason that I’m going to read the post in a certain way and therefore miss things you might see. Maybe there really are nice easy things that could be done to clean up the tone without ruining the point. I suppose this is a distinct possibility. But we really have to get into specifics. Which is what I’m asking you for here or off-line. I’m all in favor of realistic tone improvements so long as it doesn’t blunt the criticism. I’m far more in favor of criticism than I am in favor of improved tone. But where possible I want both.
“The danger of tribalism isn’t something that only’liberals’ need to worry about…”
“This was said with recognition that there are no innocent “sides” in conversations like this one…”
I can certainly agree with these statements.
Bruce, I honestly don’t have time to offer a substantive enough response to your comment here. I hope a few remarks will be enough.
It seems true that calls for charity can be issued more to shut down a conversation than to really encourage charity. It’s also true that pointing this fact out can be used to avoid confronting honest and justified calls for increased charity. (This post from Geoff, for example, was a call to give apologists a break. Put in religious language, I see it as a call to charity. Whether the call is justified, or is a way of delivering a caricature or shutting down discussion, is as you say in the eye of the beholder.)
I reject the idea that “TBMs” and “Liberals” have completely incompatible worldviews, though I don’t deny there are significant differences of perspective in the church. What concerns me, what I resist, is the easy categorization that happens in conversations like this.
My basic rule of thumb for exercising charity in rhetorical settings is that one should seek to accurately reflect the views of a conversation partner to that person’s satisfaction before offering criticism of those views. This means from the outset that one must view the other as a conversation partner, not an enemy, not a member of an opposing camp with an irreconcilable worldview.
When it comes to your interactions at BCC, I admit I don’t remember anything about it. I don’t think this is a common point of focus at BCC. I do think that online communities can be difficult to reckon with and that a certain amount of social capital has to be built up over time by those who want to have a positive experience in them. Part of the problem with my own entrance into the present conversation is my evident lack of social capital among the regulars. (Also, apparently my comments are being filtered before they appear whereas that isn’t the case for others? It certainly disincentivizes my further participation here.) This goes back to the tribalism I spoke negatively about in my original comment, and it’s not a charge I levy in only one direction.
Since it wasn’t clear before, I want to avoid confusion by directly rejecting your categorizing me as a liberal-rather-than-TBM Mormon. That does not represent or account for me.
You say: “In other words I’m turning charity on its head here: to me, charity isn’t not criticizing, its about accepting criticism in the best light.”
If that is so, I wonder what “liberal criticism” is being accepted in the best light here at this blog. I don’t read here often, so I may just not be aware. My comment, which was a muted criticism at best, and not exclusive to people here, seems to have been accepted in its best light by DeeAnn, and I thank her for that.
As I say, I’ve spent more time on this than I have right now, so I’ll cede my remaining time to the floor.
Geoff: email me about Planted if you’d like a review copy. Thanks!
One last comment for Jettboy: have you ever submitted a paper to the peer review process? Instead of experiencing it as a secret cabal where pride and control are the rule of the day, my experience with it has been humbling, that is, sometimes humiliating, and I believe that, for all its problems (and the process is definitely imperfect), it’s actually a wonderful way to serve and be served. My experience in the academy in general has been incredibly, sometimes oppressively, humbling. That doesn’t mean pride never rears its head, it certainly does, but it’s not as black and white as some people seem to think.
Blair,
I’m sorry to belabor this. I made the two comments above before I saw your responses. This is a subject of great interest to me for various reasons.
So let me try to simplify this a little down to what my real question is to you:
You said, “The problem I see with the original post is that it calls for charity from one perceived group while not extending charity to that caricatured group. It asks for what it does not offer in return.”
In fact you go on to say, “And maybe a few liberals are certainly trying to do what’s right, too, and deserve a break.” Now since Geoff never said there weren’t ‘a few liberals’ trying to do what’s right, its very hard to understand your point if I’m just looking at what was said and what you are responding to. Further, the fact is that this statement is a tacit statement that you believe Geoff meant “every liberal” in his post. (How else to read your claim that there are a ‘few’ trying to do what is right as being at odds with his post?)
Here is another one from you: “I don’t hate apologists. I have disagreements with some of them. But I don’t hate them.
” Okay… but so what? Geoff never said all liberals hate apologists, did he? Where did he say that? Why are you even assuming he’s talking about you at all?
Now let me be clear, I do not see how to read your statement as anything but a claim that Geoff was talking about the entire group of liberals at a tribe. And yet when I read Geoff’s post there is nothing that he says that would suggest that in the words themselves.
In fact the only mentions liberals twice in the whole post. Here are the two quotes:
“And apparently — unbeknownst to me — there are a LOT of liberal Mormons who hate Mormon apologists. And I am not talking about slight disagreements — I am talking about real hatred (at least in their on-line expressions).”
“It is ironic that many liberal Mormons who appear to hate the apologists are sometimes apologists themselves. I have seen people who say they are against apologetics set the record straight when somebody says something that is obviously wrong like, “you know, all of those Mormons still practice polygamy.” The liberal Mormon will, rightly, point out that this is simply not true.”
Neither of these quotes seem to justify your assumption that he was talking about liberals as a tribe. Further, I don’t think there’s any doubt at all that they are straight up factual statements. There *are* some liberals that really do hate Mormon apologists in the very way Geoff claims. I have met several in my time. (John Dehlin wrote quite a bit about how horrible they were.)
That is why I suggested that maybe you’re doing a read-through. I mean let’s face it, you have history with Geoff and with this blog and probably with all of us. And you’re just human. And so are we. So it doesn’t strike me as at all odd the possibility that even though Geoff didn’t make any claims about liberals as a tribe, that maybe it would make sense for you to assume he meant that way. And maybe that read-through isn’t without justification. But could we then at least acknowledge that it is specifically a read-through and not a response to the actual OP wording?
But I don’t want to put words in your mouth. So for now let’s ignore my readthrough conjecture.
What I’m asking you to do is explain to me how to make sense of your statements in light of the fact that they don’t seem to me to fit what Geoff actually said (unless I assume a readthrough on your part.)
Bruce, I really like this…
“In other words I’m turning charity on its head here: to me, charity isn’t not criticizing, its about accepting criticism in the best light. It’s about accepting the validity of even biased criticisms as all part of the ongoing dialogue because all criticisms come from humans and all humans are solely and profoundly biased to their own moral worldview. Therefore the only true criticism is biased criticism. ”
I think that both sides should stop equating “criticism” with “dislike of someone”. I personally disregard some groups and authors if I think their intelligence will preclude them from understanding a criticism. Sharing a criticism, is a sign of humility on my part that I think they may be able to understand and apply the criticism. To assume that they could never understand, would allow a higher level of disrespect than simple disagreement or criticism.
There are things in the world about which I don’t care. I don’t criticize them. The things I do care about, in the church, in life, that I do. As an example… If I encounter some hip-hop veloca-rapper who cannot speak prophet English properly and communicate, if he says something incorrect, I’m not going to correct it (criticize) because I don’t care for him at all. But my brothers nephews, who speak too loudly, indistinctly, and too fast I will correct because I care about them and want them to do well.
They could interpret criticism as dislike. Or even worse, they could blame their inability to communicate on my suggestions. But in reality, their inability to communicate attend from their flaws.
Both sides need to learn to accept criticism, and to stop claiming criticism as a sin. My criticism of a church leader (if true) doesn’t harm their ability to lead. Whatever failing they have does. That failing certainly isn’t my fault. And just like allowing my nephews to speak indistinctly perpetrates they incoherence, so does withholding valid criticism of of some misplaced understanding of sustaining.
“Bruce, what I want to resist most about your response is the simple categorization. I think it demonstrates the limits of dealing with people according to labels. ”
Blair, this is a separate argument. This is what I call “The All Purpose Labels are Too Limiting” argument. As with the charity argument, it strikes me as at once always applicable and therefore never applicable, Yes, of course, People are more complicated than simple labels. And by ‘labels’ I mean ‘words.’ But it would be impossible to have dialogue without words. Words are labels. They always oversimplify. There is no way around that. So the argument “your labels are too simplistic” will always be a valid argument for any discussion. And therefore is never a valid argument for any sincere attempt to communicate.
Let’s also keep in mind that you used the label ‘liberal’ and the word ‘tribe’ first and I simply borrowed it from you. Furthermore, you never even addressed my whole point, which was in fact that the word liberal is too simplistic a label because there are different types, and therefore maybe this post wasn’t ever aimed at you — and why are you assuming it is?
You literally responded to me having said that (and illustrating the fact) by calling it still too simplistic a label — which is undoubted true. But it was *not* too simplistic for the point I made to you — which you have ignored altogether.
How is this post aimed at you? How is my separation of at least two kinds of liberals too simplistic in telling you this post might not be aimed at you? Please explain. I honestly do not see your point here. It honestly seems to me that you simply jumped on the fact that I use the same label as you to try to turn it into a morality play on not using labels rather than responding to my attempt to point out that this possibly was never aimed at you at all.
“Geoff, I think one problem is that some people you would consider Mormon liberals don’t recognize themselves in the descriptions you give, and so wouldn’t self-identify under your label.”
Again, Blair, why are you assuming he even meant liberal of your views? This is another good example of how you’re assuming more than he actually said.
“He follows more recent Lewis studies that challenge the simplistic but very common narrative about the famous Anscombe debate.”
I don’t know if you noticed, but I actually acknowledge that there is more than one point of view on this. However, even though the common narrative is probably false is there really any serious doubt that the debate humbled Lewis and this did move him towards more devotional works? Furthermore, is there really any doubt that the reason why he got humbled is for exactly the reasons I gave – he thought he could prove his point and therefore prove his doctrines true. As an AI geek, I find Lewis arguments at the Anscombe debate to be particularly lame.
I think the idea that it devastated Lewis is probably not true. For one thing he did go back and update his book to include the criticisms. Hardly the actions of a devastated individual. Yes, I’d be very interested in additional information about this. I think I got all my information off Wikipedia. Or from somewhere anyhow I don’t actually remember.
In any case, I feel here that I gave quite a bit of nuance you ignored and then threw me under the “common narrative label” unfairly. I also limited the discussion to certain specific issues that seem valid even under alternative interpretations — namely that Lewis wasn’t randomly criticizing all apologetics but the specific mistakes he made — namely thinking he could prove things. I believe this is another example of read through an your part. You are not giving me enough credit for allowing for multiple view points here and I believe you may jumping on what you thought was a mistake on my part and therefore ignoring my actual point — which I think was still valid whether or not the common narrative is correct.
“P.S.- For the record I think B.B.’s book is pretty severely flawed, but I’m not up for going over it here.”
I’d be interested in discussing this with you. Did you see where I admitted that he leaves false impressions via omission?
Did you see that I acknowledge that all he’s really doing is finding the similarities amongst a giant group of teachings in which every denomination could find similarities?
Both of these problems strike me as fitting under a gross label like “severely flawed” so we may agree here. Or do you have more to suggest?
These aren’t small matters that you keep overlooking when I say things like this acknowledging the other point of view. It’s the entire difference between an actual dialogue between two points of view and one person preaching to the other.
Blair, everyone is going to moderation on this one. I just happen to have the key.
“I reject the idea that “TBMs” and “Liberals” have completely incompatible worldviews, though I don’t deny there are significant differences of perspective in the church.”
Yeah, many would disagree with me here. But I believe it is true nonetheless. At least within a certain valid view point. Long discussion for another time. Of course it matters what you mean by “compatible” here. Certainly both can be compatible in, say, the sense that they can easily go to church together and have something to offer each other.
“My basic rule of thumb for exercising charity in rhetorical settings is that one should seek to accurately reflect the views of a conversation partner to that person’s satisfaction before offering criticism of those views.”
Long discussion here. I think you are well meaning when you say this. I also believe you to be absolutely wrong about it. There are far too many cases where a correct understanding of another point of view *never* be accepted to the person’s satisfaction before offering criticisms. This is a case of an impossible standard that I guarentee you do not hold yourself to, so it should be abandoned as it doesn’t work in real life at all. Criticism should be leveled however it is possible to do so at the moment to your best understanding. No other standard should exist.
“Since it wasn’t clear before, I want to avoid confusion by directly rejecting your categorizing me as a liberal-rather-than-TBM Mormon. That does not represent or account for me.”
To be honest, I disagree. However, I see TBM and Liberal both as no insult. But I don’t believe for a moment you are what most people understand “TBM” to mean. And I’m pretty sure the ‘liberal’ label fits you pretty well. Approximately, of course.
“If that is so, I wonder what “liberal criticism” is being accepted in the best light here at this blog. I don’t read here often, so I may just not be aware.”
My link was a specific example of this. Did you read it? There probably aren’t many good examples. I was suggesting improvement for both sides here. We are not very charitable to each other for the most part.
Jettboy (if that’s your real name!!!),
I’m still amazed that you would trust the judgement and claims of a person purporting to write about early Christianity but unable to access the evidence in its languages. If you are satisfied with derivative arguments and claims that the author can’t argue past what others have told him, well, enjoy your discount hotdog from yesterday’s rollers and processed soft drink of your choice.
And your description of the academic peer review process is laughable. You have no idea what you are talking about, truly. Peer review doesn’t guarantee perfection or “truth” or whatever. It guarantees hard thinking, revision, expanding ideas, limiting scope, the humility to see weakness and do the labor of overcoming it. It is altogether healthy, but not perfect.
But you go ahead and keep laughing at me. Meanwhile I and my awful ilk will continue to do the pedestrian work of incrementally expanding knowledge that, who knows, may end up in your own scripture or lesson manuals a few years or decades down the road.
oudenos, I do think you are making a fair point, but just saying it very poorly at times. You probably need a more measured response here.
Bruce,
Undoubtedly so. I was getting a little frustrated. Darn it if internet interactions don’t do that to me sometimes. I will try to do better.
Oudenos, I missed the fact that believingthomas had claimed Bickmore had proved Joseph Smith had restored the ancient church (a claim Bickmore himself doesn’t really make at all.) So from this perspective, I can see why you launched into how you know so much more than Bickmore and he’s an amateur compared to you. All of which I’m sure is true.
But if I might offer some unwanted advice… What a missed opportunity here for you. You have all this knowledge of the languages and a PhD in religious studies but instead of laying out examples using this knowledge of where Bickmore gets things wrong — instead you simply talked about your credentials. No one will ever care about your credentials (on the internet anyhow). Use your knowledge instead.
I like Bickmore’s book even if you don’t, and note that I still laid out some pretty heavy criticisms of it using my extra knowledge. (i.e. there are so many early Christian doctrines that they would match pretty much any religion if we’re allowed to pick and choose.) This is a knowledge-based response. I’m sure you could’ve done better than that given your greater knowledge than me. Note that Geoff acknowledges this too. So we don’t really disagree with the point you were actually trying to make, I think. We’re sort of more taking exception to your tone and approach I believe and strongly reacting to what we saw at the time as a “you should just believe me because I have a degree” attitude (which I realize now — given the context I missed before — you probably did by mistake and didn’t intend.)
Also, you went on a big tirade about people basing their faith on an amateur. Okay that’s stupid I admit, but also apparently quite rare even on this one chain. You’d do well to acknowledge things like this so that you don’t come across like an enemy. Heck, if you do that you’ll have Geoff and I on your side acknowledging that its a bad idea to base your testimony on Bickmore. (And it goes a long way to make sure you aren’t coming across at threatening to a blogs target audience.)
Also, I still feel you aren’t giving Bickmore the credit he deserves for what he actually says: i.e. he’s not proving anything and he’s just showing that Mormon beliefs did exist in similar forms in ancient Christianity (Which is — I assert — subjectively true given the subjective word “similar”.) Bickmore doesn’t claim to be a professional, he doesn’t claim proof, he doesn’t really claim much at all. People can and should search our their own knowledge and share it. You’d do well to acknowledge this as well.
And note that I’m offering you a number of acknowledgements in reverse. Don’t over look this please.
In any case, I do see and acknowledge your point now.
RT @Millennialstar: New Post: Give Mormon apologists a break: Spending any time at all on social media can rapidly di… https://t.co/3kK7t…
I note that FPR has posted a “re-write” of this post that mostly just switches around liberal and apologist.
I’m not sure what it’s supposed to prove, since that switcheroo creates a post that I’m sure Geoff or most (if not all) of us at M* could (mostly, perhaps some quibbiling about specific word choices in the re-write) agree with. I guess it’s supposed to call us out on a double standard or something, but I can say I know a handful of self-styled apologists that pretty much hate liberal Mormons, and I wish they would cool it (they seem to exist merely to feed the confirmation bias of some progressive Mormons that they are in a culture that persecutes them).
From my viewpoint, the hate dished out toward Mormon apologists, however, dominates the Bloggernacle, and the hate from some self-styled apologists towards liberals is mostly confined to private facebook groups, but that’s just my anecdotal perspective.
Whatever it is, the post at FPR seems pointless, since it seems clear TT is trying to call us out as hypocrites or something. When I do rewrites like that, it’s to show how the same reasoning/logic can be used to reach conclusions unacceptable to the original audience (so, for example, arguments for the acceptability of same-sex marriages in the church can be pretty easily re-worked to argue for the acceptability of any sin), but since FPR’s “parody” reaches conclusions that are acceptable, it seems the real point is for TT to keep getting accolades about how clever he is from the normal FPR fanbase.
Yeah, I have no problem with the FPR post, but my post obviously hit a nerve with them. Hilarious. Also hilarious that they are accusing Dan Peterson of plagiarism….
I’m dismayed to learn from “oudenos” that I’ve been dishonestly masquerading as a specialist in academic New Testament studies, or something of that sort.
I’m not sure when and where I’ve done this, but it’s doubtless merely yet another (redundant) manifestation of my profound lack of intellectual integrity.
I am not a specialist in New Testament studies.
There. I’ve said it. I read Greek. I took at least two undergraduate classes on the Greek New Testament. I have functional biblical Hebrew. I’ve lived in Israel for a total of roughly a year (in Egypt for four), and, for a very long time, I’ve been visiting major biblical sites in Israel at least once annually. I’ve read a fair amount of New Testament scholarship, I try to keep up with biblical archaeological news, and I read in the New Testament (in various languages) daily.
But I’m not a member of the guild. I am not, to admit it yet again, a specialist in New Testament studies.
I thought it permissible for people lacking guild membership to hold and express opinions publicly.
My mistake. Non-specialists have nothing to contribute and nothing to say.
I apologize to “oudenos” and to all of the many others out there who’ve been similarly outraged by my brazen effrontery and my shameless, illegitimate lèse majesté.
Oudenos: you don’t have to answer this, of course, but do you believe the foundational truth claims of the LDS church?
I find that studying the New Testament Greek (NA28) alongside the Klingon Language Version of the World English Bible clarifies and elucidates many doctrinal and manuscript issues. If you can’t read Klingon, well . . . I guess I have to question your apologetic bona fides, as well as your entire paradigmatic intellectual worldview. I suggest we immanentize the eschaton immediately.
http://crosswire.org/study/parallelstudy.jsp?del=WEB#cv
I’m still amazed that you would trust the judgement and claims of a person purporting to write about early Christianity but unable to access the evidence in its languages.
You misapprehend your audience. As a sometime consumer of apologetics, I don’t trust the judgment and claims of anyone. It strikes me as very curious indeed that an academic would a) think I would unquestioningly accept an apologist’s claims, and b) demand, by virtue of her credentials, the exclusive right to the unblinking credence and devotion she thinks I give to apologists generally.
Oudenos – I tend to agree with you that it is generally advisable to look to credentialed experts in the field for information regarding that field (without absolving oneself of the responsibility to read critically). Not that non-credentialed individuals have nothing to say – you just have to wade through so much more muck to find any gems, and most people don’t have the training to know the difference between a broken beer bottle and an emerald anyway.
This is by no means a conservative vs. liberal issue, however. In fact, I am usually the one trumpeting your argument on more liberal or critical blogs, and I usually receive the same type of reaction you received here.
I have a little more time to add another thought. I think it’s obvious that there are a group of critics out there who like to bag on Mormon apologetics and apologists in general. Many of them are former church members, probably most of them. Disparaging apologetics or apologists is a common trope for some of the Mormon Stories folks, and on message boards and Reddit. A lot of this criticism isn’t careful or informed, it’s just part of the overall exit narrative that people adapt to as they leave the church. (I’m not saying adapted group narratives are an unqualified terrible thing; a similar phenomenon happens with LDS testimonies.) There are people who won’t “give apologists a break” no matter who asks them to. So what can apologists do? Instead of tangling with critics or playing up the persecution complex they might look to see if there’s anything to the criticism, a teeny bit of truth, and take advantage of it to improve themselves or their arguments. I’ll write something more substantive on this theme soon.
Blair, interesting comment… Perhaps you could drop it’s compPlex conjugate over at fpr… “Mormon liberals could exercise a bit of humility instead of getting defensive” you know, to preserve the parity of the universe.
You may not believe it but I think a lot of apologists jump into the fray because they want to protect Mormon hatchlings from misinformation. It’s a battle worth fighting.
I think Jack’s point is spot on — for some, I suppose, it is not a purely academic pursuit, but one of building and strengthening faith — an act of charity.