Terryl Givens unhappy about PBS documentary

I recently commented on the Church's advance response to the PBS "American Experience" four-hour documentary on Mormonism. The Church's news release referred to unnamed scholars, some of whom participated in the documentary, who were deeply displeased with its emphasis on polygamy and take on the Mountain Meadows Massacre. I was bemused by the omission of the identity of these scholars, wondering why on earth they needed to remain anonymous.

Well, it turns out that at least one of these anonymous scholars, and one who did appear on the documentary, was Dr. Terryl Givens, professor of Literature and Religion at the University of Richmond. Dr. Givens recently visited Duke (University, I suppose) and told members of the Church there that (and here I am quoting a paraphrase of his words posted on RfM) "the film will be a major disappointment to Church members who are expecting a favorable or even well-balanced treatment of the Church."

The criticism continues:

"Part of this is due to choices by the director but in some cases higher-ups at PBS' Boston affiliate, WGBH, mandated changes or edits that made the documentary less favorable. Note that the PBS affiliate in Boston is the one handling the documentary. Bro. Givens seemed to think that this had something to do with displeasure over the Romney campaign. My advice would be to watch it, but I wouldn't recommend it to your non-Mormon friends."

Here is an excerpt from the 4/28 article by Peggy Fletcher Stack published in the Salt Lake Tribune:

"But Givens, a professor of literature and religion at the University of Richmond in Virginia, takes strong exception to the film's inclusion of footage of some modern polygamists and their leader, Warren Jeffs, who is charged with being an accomplice to rape for conducting a marriage to which the bride objected. The LDS Church discontinued its official practice of polygamy in 1890.

"This does a grave disservice to the church in light of Helen's stated objective to get beyond the stereotypes," Givens said.

"Nineteenth century polygamy is part of Mormon history and deserves to be told. But there is no possible justification for including Warren Jeffs. It is misrepresentation at best and defamation at worst."

That would be like "showing photos of serial killer David Berkowitz, "Son of Sam" in a piece on modern Judaism," said Givens, who was interviewed at length for the film. "They are trying to turn PBS into 'Big Love' or 'Jerry Springer.' "

For a scholar, Givens indulges in some pretty sloppy reasoning here. Warren Jeffs' crimes directly resulted from his pursuit of a lifestyle that had been mandated as essential for exaltation in the kingdom of God in 19th century Mormonism. David Berkowitz claimed to have been a Satan worshiper when he committed his murders. Unlike Jeffs, whose activities were tied up in historical Mormon practices, Berkowitz neither claimed, nor gave any indication, that his crimes were motivated by or related to the Judaism of his adopted parents.

Givens elsewhere took aim at Will Bagley's contribution to Whitney's work on the Mountain Meadows Massacre. I am not aware of the piece where Givens does this, unless it is in the lds.org Newsroom commentary I refer to in a prior post. In any case, here is Bagley's response:

"A copy of this fanatical assault on a beautiful film about Mormonism reached me through the email grapevine. Long experience has shown that apologists have little regard for the truth, and I would like to appeal to you to suggest that your fellow ward members watch the film and make up their own minds. I care little for whatever Dr. Givens thinks of my work--altho he shows no evidence of ever having read a page of it--but that work speaks for itself.

What does bother me is his zealotry, which apparently extends now to trying to destroy Helen Whitney's career. I suppose this modern Savonarola was offended he could not act as the film's censor and make it as happy and inspirational and dishonest as a Lee Grosberg or Keith Merrill movie.

"The Mormons" is a sympathetic, humanist look at a new religious movement that baffles outsiders. The American Experience presents all sides and opinions about Mormon history, but the film puts a very human face on Mormons. I expect it will increase understanding and sympathy toward Latter-day Saints and deepen the American public's understanding of a religion that is too often caricatured and mocked.

As for my "personal mission of trying to destroy Brigham Young," I pretty much put that in the tank when I published the heroic portrait Thomas Bullock paints of this frontier dynamo at the highpoint of his career in "Pioneer Camp of the Saints" lo these many years ago. And despite Dr. Givin's [sic] terrors, the Old Boss and his reputation is likely to survive even Helen Whitney's beautiful film."

If I were to guess who it was that wrote the commentary on the Whitney documentary at lds.org's Newsroom, I would say Terryl Givens. Givens perhaps felt silly, or a little vain, writing about himself in the third person, so he instead referred to a nameless collection of scholars that probably includes the Mormon friends he ranted to.

Balancing Reality and Fantasy

Yesterday I posted a piece on the LDS Church's response to the April 22 broadcast of PBS's "Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly" in which the program was criticized for certain comments made regarding temple covenants. Unable to locate the piece a second time, I mistakenly believed that it had been removed. As it turns out, the piece is still there, and so I will now comment on it using quotes.

As I mentioned the first time (I have since edited the post for being erroneous), a high-level Baptist official made a controversial remark about temple covenants on the show, which elicited this commentary from unnamed Church writers:

"Dr. Phil Roberts, president of the Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, claimed, for example, that Church members who attend the temple — including Mormon politicians — swear “allegiance to the Mormon president.” This is simply not true. The center of temple worship is a commitment to God and devotion to the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ. In a place of quiet reflection, Church members contemplate and decide how their temple attendance will be reflected in their personal lives."

I did not see the broadcast, so I can't comment in full on Dr. Roberts' claims, but I will say that the Church response to them is incomplete and, therefore, arguably evasive. It is true that 'commitment to God and devotion to the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ' are central aspects of LDS temple worship. It is for this reason that for many years I enjoyed worship in the temple with my fellow Latter-day Saints.

What began to bother me, however, was the central position allegiance to the Church as God's kingdom on earth held. In fact, I would say that some of the greatest covenants in the temple center on the devotion of the individual member to the LDS Church. I came to think that the greatest commitments I make in life should be to God instead of a Church run by human beings. This is one of the reasons my interest in participation in the temple waned in recent years.

In any case, to say that 'Church members who attend the temple — including Mormon politicians — swear “allegiance to the Mormon president”' is a reasonable inference, which one might take issue with, but the Church does not so much engage the assertion as misdirect. The reason for this, I suppose, is that the truth of the matter is so close to Roberts' assertion that any attempt at an honest response would leave people with the impression that Roberts was essentially correct.

Who the heck are these people?

In describing reactions to the long-awaited Whitney documentary on Mormonism, the Church relates these reactions:

"A few scholars, including some who appear in the documentary, have seen substantial parts of the program.

Their initial reaction: Church leaders and members are extraordinarily eloquent in explaining the tenets of their faith. The film is not superficial, which is often a criticism leveled at television coverage.

However, some raised concern about what they feel is a disproportionate amount of time given to topics that are not central to the Church’s faith. For instance, polygamy comes in for extensive treatment in the first program, including substantial attention to present-day polygamous groups that have nothing to do with today’s Church. The time devoted to portrayals of modern fundamentalist polygamy seems inconsistent with the filmmaker's stated purposes of getting inside the LDS experience, and of exploding, rather than reinforcing, stereotypes.

Other scholars criticize what they say is an imbalance in the treatment of some topics, particularly the events at Mountain Meadows in 1857. One said the film provides a distorted and highly unbalanced account of Brigham Young and the Mountain Meadows Massacre alike."

Now here is a model piece of clarity. Why, pray tell, are the "few scholars," the "some," and the "other scholars" not mentioned by name? Are they ashamed of their sound opinions and reasoning? Do they fear Whitney's wrath for having criticized her work? Or, do they even exist? Are they instead figments of some PR firm's imagination?

One thing they do not fear is tooting their own horn ("Church leaders and members are extraordinarily eloquent"). It looks to me that someone in the Church hierarchy, perhaps, wanted to make an anonymous complaint and attribute it to nameless "scholars" in order to add that air of objective authority. I guess I can't blame them. I remain anonymous, but, then again, I am not the one with the power.

BYU students on Cheney's visit and protest

I decided to check out as much of the coverage of the BYU protest as I could find to try to figure out what it was the students were saying about Cheney's visit and the two demonstrations (pro-Cheney, and anti-Cheney). Some interesting rhetoric came from both sides of the issue--rhetoric I find somewhat revealing and disturbing.

To me it sounded as though the anti-Cheney demonstraters had been given a script. They all spoke of how Cheney did not represent BYU or its students, although none of them were very eloquent about the reasons why he didn't. One student referred to the vice president's ties to Halliburton and his permissive attitude about the use of human torture during interrogations. For the most part, however, students expressed that Cheney did not represent them or the University.

One reason for the continuity in the script was because a communications professor at BYU had presented their position more eloquently and probably molded the overall rhetorical strategy for the others. Woodworth's strategy was to condemn Cheney on moral grounds, a position that is likely to find more sympathy among people who purport to take their morality very seriously.

The other reason for this approach was that the university's administration placed some strictures on the protest in advance. In the words of one student, "...they sent an email out with a list of different things you could put on your sign. There's no real freedom of speech here, like a real protest, and you can't criticize the BYU administration at all, which is the point of the protest, but to get the protest approved they had to say they were just protesting Cheney, even though in reality the protest is about the BYU administration's decision to bring Cheney here."

So, there you have it. A polite 'protest' because it is the only kind that is allowed. The students were told when and where they could protest, how long it could last, what they were forbidden to say, and that they had to 'keep it down.' No shouting, etc. When they left the protest area, they were not even allowed to take their own signs home with them. If Martin Luther King and Ghandi had observed such strictures, we would still have segregation and a British India. And this is exactly why BYU handles things this way, because they do fear their youth and don't want change.

Allowing these young people to speak for themselves is very revealing. It helps us get behind the purported intentions and self-representations of those in power to what is happening among these students on the ground. It helps us understand what the BYU system is teaching them to do and to value. I thought this was particularly poignant:

"I've had fellow students to tell me to turn in my temple recommend, or that I am not a real Mormon, or that I don't support the First Presidency, all of which are completely false. We're just regular, good Utah Mormons who happen to disagree with the Vice President." -Diane Bailey, BYU College Democrats

You will not find similar sentiments coming out of the mouths of BYU College Republicans, because no one questions the Mormon loyalty of conservative Republicans. What does that tell you about the LDS Church as it is lived and taught at its flagship university? Leaders and adults may *say* that there is no political bias or agenda, but the behavior of the kids on the ground tells a more revealing story. It's a milder version of the child who reveals something embarrassing about his or her parents in Primary. The child just doesn't know what to hide.

What troubles me most, however, is the rhetoric of the pro-Cheney demonstraters. Regardless of political sympathies, I should think we would all be troubled to hear things like this:

"It's just an honor to have such a large part of the administration come and recognize us and speak at our graduation ceremony...to recognize us as one of the top universities, I mean, usually they speak at the Ivies, and its just such an honor to be up in that caliber." -BYU student

"We're excited to have him come, because we're excited for the opportunity for BYU students to have that close of a personal interaction with someone who has such power and an ability to alter and change the day to day actions of the United States and much of the world." -David Lassen, BYU College Republicans

Doesn't seem like such a big deal I suppose, but remember that this is a university that prides itself on providing a Christian learning environment. In other words, we might expect the values that Jesus taught expressed in the views of BYU students. Instead, we hear quite the opposite. The first student quoted above is impressed by recognition from the world. "BYU is just as cool as the Ivies now!" The second is impressed by POWER. "We get to have close personal interaction with a powerful man." This is interesting in the context of the anti-Cheney demonstraters who essentially made an argument from values and ethics (the recurrent theme of their position).

Hinckley reaches out to touch your BYU student

I recently watched an amateur video shot during the marathon two-hour protest against Cheney's commencement invite that BYU students held in a "free speech zone" on BYU campus. First of all, let me say my hat goes off to all of you idealistic young Mormons who are willing to make your voices heard on Rush Limbaugh's dream campus.

Kudos to you, O Plucky Ones! Your optimism and trust that you are making a difference against all evidence to the contrary is truly touching. And I can see that your fearless master, Cecil Samuelson, took notice and duly deigned to appear in person to show his warm sympathy for your cause. His "we're not afraid" was both heartfelt and utterly convincing. There is a man who truly cares about what you think. And he should, for according to all claims, BYU is a university, where people like Cecil are paid to help improve your thoughts. Do you think he is happy with the results of his hard labor?

Let's look at this from a different perspective. There is a cuddly little nonagenarian in Salt Lake City who wanted to reach out and touch you on that warm spring day. His heart went out to you as you expressed your feelings about the pressing issues of the day. In fact, he was so anxious that you feel his concern that he relied on HIRED GOONS to make sure your signs were gathered into a safe place and that you were shepherded out of your free speech zone to the unfree speech zone that comprises your daily lives on campus.

Consider this, O parents of the BYU students. When a University, a temple of the mind, has to designate a 2-hour free speech zone, you know your child's education is in expert hands.

Anyway, when I saw that giant, cuddly Polynesian bear of a fellow in his Secret Service suit placing his hands on your children, I thought of the love of President Hinckley for each of your little ones. He would have loved to have been there in person to intimidate your precious children into cooperating, but he just isn't that intimidating, and he didn't have time to make the trip.

Sad isn't it, when you think of it. There is a man in Salt Lake City who commands immediate respect from just about every person on that campus. Had he come in person, the bright-eyed, faithful BYU students and professors would have stood in awe, singing 'We Thank Thee, O God, For A Prophet,' eager for any half-credible explanation for his invitation of one of the most despicable public figures since Richard Nixon to BYU campus.

Surely the prophet, being God's primary spokesman on the earth today, would have a real good explanation. After all, not only is he the numero uno spokesman, he is also the Lord's PR man. And besides, he didn't need an explanation. I would wager that the little charmer could have cracked a wry joke, as he is wont to do, and much good will would have been won without any real dialogue or a change in the commencement program.

Such is the charisma of the Mormon prophet. Interesting that he shows absolutely no inclination to get involved and smooth out the untidiness created by the invitation he made. Interesting that the influence of this 'gentle man of God' brought the intimidating presence of Polynesian bouncers to put your children in their place, and will yet bring the bloodstained plutocrat Dick Cheney to serve as their moral exemplar. By the way, I bet they shipped that bouncer down from Hinckley's personal detail, just so that BYU students could fear the hand of the man who clasped the hand of the prophet.

Let me ask you, BYU parents. Is this what you envisioned when you sent your kids to BYU? Is this what proximity to the Lord's anointed wins them? Are you feeling the love? Because you should know that that love is Gordon Hinckley's love. I don't know about you, but I find that disconcerting.

Orson Scott Card: One Odd Duck

OK, let me get something out of the way. I love "Ender's Game." It is a really fun novel, and I hope it is made into a movie some day. Oh, and I suddenly have an urge to read the Alvin Maker series.

Having said that, I find the author of these novels, Orson Scott Card, a completely perplexing individual. Or maybe completely predictable. He is perplexing because as intelligent as he is, he seems unable to parse the problems of the LDS Church in a realistic fashion. He is completely predictable, because like many intelligent people who continue to cooperate with authoritarian regimes, he has a fancy set of partitions and blinders that help him stay on the right side of the regime.

Card begins a recent article entitled "Is Mitt Romney Serious?" with a slew of disparaging comments about Hillary Clinton and high praise for the probity of Mitt Romney. Is *this* guy serious? I quote:

"Everyone knows that Christian evangelicals hate Mormons so badly that if they had to choose between a bribe-taking, FBI-file-stealing, relentless-lie-telling, mud-slinging former first lady, and a Mormon ex-governor who doesn't lie, who's still married to his first wife, and who supports the entire Christian evangelical agenda, they'd still rather die than vote for a Mormon."

All I can say, Orson, is that you have devoted at least part of your dear soul to sheer lunacy. First of all, in your contention that Christian evangelicals would rather vote for Hillary Clinton than a Mormon man, you are laughably off target. I think it should be abundantly clear by now that what Americans really fear is a female president. I am sure evangelicals would be happy to overlook Mitt's Mormonism in order to get his maleness, whiteness, and dubious, opportunistic social conservatism. They, and millions of other more closeted misogynists, would happily sell their mothers to get to the polls to oppose a woman occupying the Oval Office. The fact that it is Hillary they would be opposing only provides a pretext to hide their deep hatred and fear of women.

As for your conviction regarding the moral probity of Mitt, this too is evidence of your indulgence of illusion. Mitt is not honest. The guy betrayed his polygamist ancestry in order to head off the gay lobby's political use of Mormon polygamy. He said that the federal government had been correct in harrassing and persecuting the religious practices of his own ancestors! I would say that if evangelicals have any reason to be afraid of Mitt, that would be the right one.

The fantasy continues:

"They try to leave the impression that the Mormon Church is racist, wacko, breeding like flies, and obscenely rich. "This tithing has helped the church amass an estimated $30 billion in wealth," says The Week. "Mormon holdings include the biggest beef ranch in the world and the largest producer of nuts in the U.S."

Here Card blames the press for attacking the LDS Church instead of facing the issues. In truth, the LDS Church does have things to answer for. I am sorry that Mitt has to take the brunt of this (am I?), but if his beloved Church had acted with sensitivity, integrity, and openness, he wouldn't have half of the troubles he is having.

Let's face it, the African American community has not let the United States off the hook for slavery (and rightly so), and so it is even less likely that the LDS Church will be let off the hook for an implicitly racist theology that persists to this day. And, for the record, I think the Church should be actively pursued by black activists for failing to apologize for racist doctrines and practices.

In other words, let's be realistic instead of whiney. Is it *fair* that people attack Mitt's Mormonism? Is it classy? Hell no! But since when is politics about fairness or class? (Well, it's obviously got a lot to do with social class, but that is not what I mean.) My guess is that Americans continue to be suspicious of Mormonism, and that they believe they have good reasons to feel that way. Mitt will pay for it. The Church and its membership can continue to indulge in persecution scripts, or they can actually openly and honestly address the issues that make others uncomfortable.

There is much talk about Mitt's situation being comparable to Kennedy and his Catholicism. I think there is a *huge* difference here. Sure, at the time people thought that Kennedy might obey the pope instead of acting in the interests of this country. Now we know that American Catholics listen to the pope about like they read Leviticus. They recognize his authority and largely ignore him when convenient. As a Catholic acquaintance of mine once said, "the only way to be an American Catholic is to attend mass and otherwise act like a Protestant."

Mormons have quite a different relationship with their prophet. And all Mormons know this. *They* even contrast him with the pope. Any Mormon can tell you that while the pope is both infallible and ignored, the Mormon prophet is fallible only when you need to make an excuse for him. Otherwise his most irrelevant muttering on Larry King is obsessed over with amazing energy.

It also makes a huge difference that Utah is smack dab in the middle of the Rocky Mountains, while the Vatican is located in Italy. Mormons aspired to have an independent theocratic nation in the Mountain West not even a century and a half ago. Brigham Young sympathized with the Confederacy. He enshrined racism in Mormon theology. Mormons authorities lied repeatedly about the practice of polygamy to the government and their own people.

In other words, unlike the pope, the Mormon prophet has been America's homegrown issue for many, many decades. The fact that this is still an issue in the Romney campaign is less evidence of human prejudice, which we can take for granted as always being present, than of the failure of the LDS Church to deal with uncomfortable issues in a satisfactory manner. The Church must bear the responsibility for this failure. One cannot rely on the fairness of American politics or the uprightness of the press on the best of days. Mormonism's leaders and rank-and-file members should stop whining and do something about things they can change.

Somehow, I am not confident they will.

Dutcher on Dutcher

LDS filmmaker Richard Dutcher recently bid farewell to the community of LDS cinema and the LDS Church too. His comments, some of them barbed, elicited an outpouring of bile from Kieth Merrill, whose worst work (Legacy, Testaments) is one of Dutcher's targets. To his credit, Merrill apologized.

As a Mormon of sorts, I find Merrill's bile and penance a familiar script. Mormons can get angry in the most juvenile ways, and then absolve themselves through their equally dramatic regret (I am quite familiar with this behavior because I have often done it myself). Both the bile and the regret are sincere, and yet oddly calculated at the same time. I know that subconsciously calculated is an oxymoron, but somehow it seems to fit here. Maybe 'culturally programmed' would be the better term.

Dutcher, too, has his stock Mormon rhetorical faults. There is a measure of arrogance in his initial farewell that is also familiar. Yet, Dutcher's rhetoric also has a wonderful self-reflective quality that transcends the usual boundaries of Mormon moral navel-gazing. It seems that every time I see a Mormon I have not been around for a while, that person engages in some talk about being scandalized by the state of the world (usually the lack of morals in the media) in order to communicate their continuing allegiance to the "true gospel."

Dutcher has so much more to offer than this. He understands Mormonism with the sympathy of an insider and the perspective of a more dispassionate outsider, all at the same time. Perhaps this is why his Mormon movies are effective, and Kieth Merrill's Mormon movies are cinematic pop tarts.

Dutcher recently added an addendum to his farewell, and man is it powerful. I think it is even more on target than his original farewell. This guy "gets it." My favorite part was his discussion of the ritual slandering of the "lost soul" in historical and contemporary Mormonism. I'll let him speak for himself:

"Thomas Marsh was one of the leaders in the early Church. Most of us know him only as that silly man who left the Church because his wife cheated another sister out of some “milk strippings.” The matter ended up with local Church leaders who determined that Sister Marsh had, indeed, acted dishonestly. As the story goes, Thomas was so offended and angry that he left the Church and didn’t come back until he was an old man, dead broke and half-senile.

But there’s so much more to the story.

Although the “milk stripping” incident is factual, it is not the reason Thomas Marsh left the Church. He left in those chaotic days in Far West, shortly before Joseph was arrested and taken to Liberty Jail. These were the days of Sidney Rigdon’s reach for power and his “Salt Sermon.” They were the days of the Danites (Yes, Virginia, there were Danites), and the days when Oliver Cowdery left the Church. Oliver’s complex and difficult decision was made at a time when his life was being threatened by other Church leaders. It was a crazy, dangerous time and Thomas was right in the middle of it. I’m sure those old milk strippings were the last things on Thomas Marsh’s mind when he mounted up and got his family the hell out of town.

Yet this man’s complex life, and his difficult decision, has been reduced to an inaccurate Sunday school lesson in Pride. I believe this “lesson” is a slander, and a violation of a very complex human being.

Although it may be out of my hands, I do not intend for something similar to happen to me. At least not without a fight.

It’s unpleasant to acknowledge, but the LDS community has a history of character assassination. It is an ugly truth, but it is the truth. I have often joked (darkly, and among friends only) that when wandering sheep stray from the fold, Mormons don’t go looking for them. What happens is: somebody climbs up on a really tall tower, takes out a high-powered rifle, gets the poor straying soul in the cross-hairs, and then blows his wandering brain out.

When individuals leave the fold, why do we find it necessary to blacken their names? This has been the case since the earliest days. Back then, a church member or leader could be in full fellowship one day and considered a wonderful, decent, loveable human being. The next day, if that individual chose to make an exit, he was the “blackest, basest of scoundrels,” an “adulterer” and a “counterfeiter,” etc.

Today, we’re a little less melodramatic. But still, when a scholar, artist, intellectual, or even a rank and file member of the Church decides to leave, his character is instantly under attack: “I think he’s gay” or “I bet she’s having an affair” or “I’ve heard he’s a drug addict,” etc.

Just for the record: I’m not having an affair. I’m not gay. I’m not a drug addict. I’ve never tried to illegally reproduce hundred dollar bills and I haven’t killed anyone. Sadly, I can’t even claim to have beaten anyone up, not since the 9th grade anyway. (Actually, now that I think of it, I didn’t win that particular fight. A neanderthalic 12th grader beat the snot out of me.)"

Dutcher then continues to speak about his leaving the fold as a progression through Mormonism instead of an eschewing of his experience in it--the latter being the usual ex-Mormon trope. It was this that I tried to express in my last post, but Dutcher does it so much better. I really like this guy.

The Church is "True"

I have been spending too much time over at RfM (Recovery from Mormonism). I question my purpose for visiting almost every time I pop over there. I think I do it because every once in a while some interesting tidbit appears from behind the 'Zion Curtain.' I find myself wanting to believe that the guy who is claiming to have worked at the COB, recently been a mission president, or some such, is actually the real deal. These guys have the unflattering stories that reveal the Church for what the skeptical among us want to see in it: a fumbling organization wherein the ambitious few prey on the good intentions and gullibility of the many.

Yup. It's not pretty. And this is really as good as it gets, at least for me. I am generally tired of all of the stories about the Church destroying people's lives, fabricating history, working for the Republican cause, etc. You see, I take all of that for granted by now. And, revisiting it for the umpteenth time is, well, boring. I know others out there really need to see that they are not alone, that the Church has hurt other people, etc. I generally find more people like myself out there on the good old DAMU. Different strokes, right?

One thing that I truly have lost patience for, however, is the declaration that a person has discovered that the LDS Church is "not true." I understand that for them this is a very important personal discovery, but others out there have discovered something even more worthwhile--that "true" was a problematic assertion in the first place. So if the expression that Church is "true" is fraught with problems and complexities, then the idea of the Church not being true is really vexed. Unfortunately, LDS people never had any discussion about what the former meant, so skipping right through to the "not true" part just leaves so many unanswered questions.

I can agree that I once thought that God had restored His Church through a farmboy named Joseph Smith. I once thought that this knowledge, and the life that I would lead on that understanding, would save me from some woes I now view as either imaginary or beyond fixing. I used to get up at Church and assent to all of this kind of stuff by using the expression, "I know the Church is true." I have to say, however, that I quit using that language long before I quit attending.

I think the problem with it, for me at least, was that it did not begin to cover the nuances of my actual thoughts and feelings on the issue. Such a statement, if used carelessly, could cover a multitude of doubts and misgivings in a manner that I found increasingly deceptive. This is the reason I quit saying it. Not because I suddenly thought the LDS Church was of no value, but because I wanted to express something of my real experience of it. At the same time, I understood that most people did not want to hear about that stuff.

Then I found the internet, and I felt a rush of liberation. I formed a Yahoo! group for liberal Mormons, and some interested friends and I started batting around the ideas and feelings that one is not comfortable sharing in the chapel. Having found that liberation, and having expressed those thoughts and feelings, I increasingly saw testimony baring as woefully inadequate. It was easy to drop it, because I now saw my statement encompassing so much I could not express, that I had no confidence I was sharing anything more than a gross banality. Worse yet, people listening to me say it could jump to whatever conclusions about me they wanted to.

In that wonderful spiritual journey, I grew into secular humanism. Ah, the dreaded evil. A spiritual humanism is the perspective that most appeals to me. Sure, there were many discoveries along the way about the inadequacies of Mormonism and the LDS Church. I found that most of what faithful Mormons believed about the LDS Church, its history, and its doctrine were things I no longer believed, at least not in anything but the most symbolic sense. This has not led me to say, however, that "Mormonism is not true." Somewhere along the way that expression lost all meaning to me. Instead, I came to understand that Mormonism was part of my learning process in life. For a time it gave me some valuable things, a long time. Now I no longer get out of it what I once did, and I do not want to participate in it or assent to it any longer.

Sure, I *could* say that "Mormonism is not true," and that would save a lot of time, but there is also something crass about it that would make me feel as though I never learned anything along the way.

The Book of Zelph

Brothers and Sisters,

I would be truly ungrateful if I did not stand before you this day and bear my testimony concerning the Book of Zelph. The Book of Zelph is an ancient record, inscribed on plates of leather, that the Lord revealed to Josh Anderson, his latter-day prophet, seer, revelator, and translator. It truly is another testament of the Book of Mormon, confirming its truths and answering difficult questions like, "how did Lamanites get Asian DNA?" God has truly not left us helpless in these perilous times. No longer need we rely on FARMS apologists and their LGTs and whatnot. I have tested the divinity of this work according to the promise recorded in Melph (5:4):

And I promise thee that if ye ask if this book be not true, and roll a pair of dice with a sincere heart, and desire exceedingly for the book to be true, yea, the dice shall reveal the truthfulness of this book unto thee.

I rolled the dice many times, and they did come up with the right answer... eventually.

In the name of Cheese and Rice, Amen.

Here lies Hiram.

Thurl Bailey ROCKS!

Just when I thought I would never see a Mormon celebrity with some pizazz, I stumbled upon the website of Thurl Bailey, former member of the Utah Jazz. Go check him out for yourself at www.ThurlBailey.com. President Hinckley should look into getting the GAs webpage intros like that one!

The Church is as true as the Gospel, or is it?

True is a word that covers, well, almost anything in Mormonism. "The Church is true" is one of those all-purpose phrases that tends to end anything approaching interesting or controversial speech in the LDS Church. Not surprisingly, there has been some confusion over precisely what is to be considered 'true' and what is not necessarily to be considered so.

In the area of apologetics, something is to be defended as true until it is no longer useful, or it is even embarrassing, to do so. Wonderful new definitions of Book of Mormon geography and ethnicity are springing up in response to the troubling realization that perhaps the book does not live up to its own claims. There is a hierarchy of true that helps apologists navigate these troubled times. At the pinnacle, or core, depending on how you picture it, reside those things that must be maintained in order to have any excuse for an LDS Church, period. Just about anything else is up for grabs and may be dumped to protect what really must be true for the sake of institutional survival.

It was fashionable at one time to separate the trueness of the Church from the trueness of the Gospel. An LDS GA even had the cajones to speak about it in the October General Conference of 1984. His name was Ronald Poehlman. His message was inspirational. He suggested that the Church was merely a vehicle or tool for transmitting the Gospel. Members might utilize it to their own benefit, but they should not mistake the Church for the really important stuff--the Gospel.

Well, the powers that be did not approve of that one bit. They had Ron rewrite the whole thing, or, rather, they rewrote it for him. Members needed to know that the Church was indispensible, and that without the Church there could be no Gospel. There could be no rebel hippie types inspired by the free-wheeling thoughts of Mr. Poehlman. He was required to re-record his talk so that history could be changed for you and me. Check the record. You'd never know the original talk was ever offered.

Another interesting view came from Eugene England, who wrote "Why the Church is As True As the Gospel." His fascinating argument essentially boils down to this: it takes an organization as screwed up as the LDS Church to test your soul enough to get into the highest degree of celestial glory. No other organization could possibly offer the same challenge to your sanity and self-respect. Only the LDS Church, therefore, is true enough to allow you to experience the soul-wrenching trials promised in the true LDS Gospel. They are a match made in heaven. OK. This is admittedly my reading of his talk.

I have yet another interesting perspective. The Church is a human organization rooted in the career of the self-proclaimed prophet Joseph Smith. Joseph had some cool ideas, and some damned stupid ones. You can tell which ones were stupid partly from they way they contributed to his assassination. You know, ideas like polygamy and destroying a printing press that did not belong to him. The heirs of Smith have some nifty and some stupid ideas too. I'll leave it to you to sort out which ideas fall into which category--and this is the way it should be.

As a human organization, the LDS Church can be altered to suit better the needs of its members. Unfortunately, because most Mormons tend to deify the Church, they have no appreciation of this fact. They also have no idea of the power of their voices. They believe that the leaders of the LDS Church hold all the power, and that these leaders alone have the right to make changes. So, the Church goes trundling along, sprouting ex-members in its wake. And it never asks itself whether crucial course corrections are in order.

Instead we hear delightful talks from leaders like Elder Bednar, who places all the blame for leaving on individuals who take offense at things they shouldn't be offended by. Surely, no one could have a real reason for leaving, because, from the Bednar perspective, such a thing does not exist. Or there is Elder Ballard who tells people just to chill out and not fret over stats to the point that these mean more than people. Once again, the people need to change, not the organization. It is close to perfect.

NEWS FLASH! Organizational problems are not always the fault of individual members! Outside of the LDS Church, people sometimes realize that if an organization has problems, the problem just may be the organization's! But if you maintain that the Church is true in the sense that God has put everything in place as it is and only he can change it, responsibility can only lie with the poor schmucks who just don't get the divine plan. It is they who need to change and to repent. The Church is as close to perfect as anything can be. Boy, you were really silly not to see that.

I propose that we approach our Mormonism in the spirit of the old, hatcheted Poehlman talk. You have the power and responsibility of choosing things in this life. We used to call that "free agency." You have the freedom to think that the Church may indeed have problems, which someone could fix if they would extract their heads from their asses. You can go to Church or not go. You can believe in what Joseph Smith taught on issue "X" or not. You can be Mormon and drink the damned coffee. Are you going to hell? Are you even going to a lower kingdom? Hell no. Let God be the judge of that. Or, if you don't believe in God, to hell with it.

My own little spot on the DAMU

Nothing excites my vanity like the thought that every once in a blue moon one of those cybernauts with an interest in Mormonism--positive or negative--drops by my little corner of cyberspace. I have only recently become aware that this blog is linked at a couple of other websites on the DAMU.

I also discovered that I am not the only peep stone owner out there. Little did I know that the prophecy of everyone having their own seerstone would be fulfilled right before my eyes! Just one more on a long list of confirmations that the Gospel is true.

One of my fellow "peepers" (I just couldn't resist) is named Simeon. Poor Simeon recently suffered a trauma in his DAMU life when his dear wife ratted him out for his wicked blogging. My sympathies to Simeon. I too have gazed into the stone and seen the darkness that lies within. I too have written down my revelations for posterity. I am just grateful my spouse never took it up with local Church leaders.

Sadly, Simeon is not alone. There are many LDS spouses out there whose love of God extends so far as to sacrifice marital trust. These spouses believe, as does the Church that trained them, that one must simply act out of a regard for the eternal welfare of another's soul, even if that means screwing them over royally in the short term. It's kind of like those good old days, when Joseph or Brigham called a man on a mission and then promptly took his wife and property--or doled them out to other worthy brethren. They know what's best for you. Really.

When people can be convinced that all of this is somehow part of the divine will, they can be convinced of nearly anything. And that is how we end up with people who sell out their spouses to the LDS Church.

All the latest on Hiram

It seems like forever and a day since I last posted anything. Much has happened in that time too. First of all, I started a new job, and that job is very time consuming. But the BIG news is that I stopped going to church at my LDS ward.

"How did it happen?," you might ask. Or, "it doesn't surprise me in the least," you might say. Surely someone who complains about the LDS Church as much as I do can't hold on for long. Perhaps, but then there is Robert Kirby, who has done plenty of complaining and finds himself returning week after week--as far as I know.

To answer that one person out there who might both read this and ask the first question, I was not the one who motivated the big exit. It was instead my wife, who, upon taking our daughter into nursery one Sunday, felt a wave of nausea overtake her as she recalled all of her unpleasant experiences as a young woman in the LDS Church. Very soon she contacted a member of the bishopric to explain how she could not continue, and she had me deliver up her temple recommend.

So, I was shocked. I mean, I had been complaining and criticizing for years. Here my wife, moved by deep-seated pain, decided to put a stop to her participation in the Church abruptly. It took this to get me to stop too. I have lived in paranoia and fear for some time that I would get delivered up to the powers that be--as if they really care. Now, unless I break the 11th commandment ("thou shalt not publish") I should be, like many other disaffected LDS people, just fine in my apostasy.

Now, oddly, I find myself in mourning. I guess it isn't so odd really. A child can mourn the death of an abusive parent. I can mourn my partially self-imposed incarceration in the LDS Church. I say partially because I did not choose to be raised as a Mormon. Neither did my parents. My 19th-century ancestors thought it was a good idea.

Many of them had lived under an English monarch, so perhaps the freedom to have Joseph or Brigham as a king didn't seem like such a bad idea. Now, I understand that the decision they faced wasn't exactly put in those terms. Rather, they thought they were off to join the people of God in building His kingdom--Zion. To achieve that goal they were willing to sacrifice. Unlike me, they did not have such a radically individualist concept of freedom to make some of these sacrifices seem odious.

As I have grown older and looked on as the Reagan Revolution aged into the would-be hegemony of the Religious Right--as I have seen us endure humiliation and shame ourselves in the quest to rid the world of evil by throwing billion dollar weapon systems and innocent lives down the tubes, settling for the illusion of security and selling our birthright for a mess of pottage--I have come to value my dissipating personal freedom.

I believe in having a say and a stake in my personal future, no matter how small and seemingly insignificant it may be. I feel damn fortunate to have had what little freedom I have enjoyed. I believe that people can govern themselves. It is my hope and ideal to see more people empowered to govern themselves. While this may be overly optimistic, it is an optimism I believe we must indulge. Considering the alternatives is simply unthinkable.

This faith in humanity is precisely what has affirmed our decision to quit attending the LDS Church. The idea that God chooses another person to rule over me and to speak the divine Word to me is no longer acceptable. This is, simply put, a spiritual monarchy. Inculcating in people an unquestioning obedience to arbitrary authoriy is a great way to transform adults into spiritual children and slaves. It does nothing to bring about the avowed goal of eternal progression to divinity. Correlation has brought hierarchical control so close to the average member that there is no longer any room to breathe.

Oh, I still consider myself Mormon. I am a Mormon inasmuch as I believe that progression toward better things is a worthwhile ideal. I am a Mormon inasmuch as I believe that it is vital to search after further light and knowledge. I am Mormon inasmuch as I believe in the value of cultivating a polite and respectful environment. I am Mormon inasmuch as I value the adventuring spirit of Joseph Smith, even though he clearly went too far when he sought multiple wives and a Mormon monarchy. I identify with the restless creativity of Joseph Smith and his audacity.

Today that adventuring spirit has departed. The audacity has hardened into arrogance. The Joseph Smith of today's LDS Church never existed. His image is a whitened sepulchre. He has been reduced to a palatable and quantifiable object of devotion. St. Joseph of a Bransonized Nauvoo.

How do I hold on to my Joseph as I let go of the Church he founded? I hope it is in continuing on the quest for more wisdom and knowledge. I hope it is in my pledge to be a friend and brother with a determination that is fixed and immovable. I hope it is in my cultivation of the Grand Fundamental Principles of Mormonism. I still seek for the kingdom, but the kingdom I am seeking has no kings unless all are sovereign over themselves. It is a unity of heart and mind that comes through love, persuasion, and toleration, not compulsion or constraint.

In recent days I have read about Elder Holland working to drum up support for Mitt Romney's presidential bid. I have seen the Church's refusal to comment on what is happening with all those pine benches in the Tabernacle--of all the silly things to hush up. I have read the racist comments of a BYU-Idaho professor and the hateful taunts thrown at a little child because his mother is a Democrat in Rexburg. I have read with sadness the parting comments of BYU's one black, female law professor, who discovered that the LDS Church really does not support women in the workplace when it has a say in the matter.

In short, I have discovered that this is not my Church, and that I do not want the people who actively seek after these things to be my people. Do I hate them? No. I am simply choosing what I hold to be the better part.

The Mormon King by G.W. Anderson

The following little ditty was posted on a discussion board by an LDS apologist. It's pretty funnny, even if it isn't very flattering of old Brigham.

LYRICS
THE MORMON
KING.

Words by G. W. ANDERSON, Irish Vocalist.

Air--King of the Cannibal Islands.

Oh hark kind friends while I do sing,
About Brigham Young the Mormon King,
Who swears that he'll do everything,
Out in Salt Lake City.

He also says we'll rue the day,
That e'er we came into his way,
For all of us he'll surely slay.
Out in Salt Lake City.

Poor Brigham's mind it can't be right,
Or else he's surely lost his sight,
To think he'd a Yankee 'fright,
Away from Salt Lake City.

CHORUS...........Old Brigham mind your P's and Q's,
Or we will show you what to do,
If we get our hands on you,
Out in Salt Lake City.

Old Brigham he has somewhere's near,
About seventy wives and children dear,
Oh Lor' they must be very queer,
Out in Salt Lake City.

They say their children are quite tall,
And like their father loudly squall,
And often make old Brigham bawl,
Out in Salt Lake City.

If that's the case some future day,
We'll make him bawl another way,
For his motley crew we'll surely slay,
Out in Salt Lake City.

Old Brigham must'nt think we are fools,
To be knocked about like wooden stools,
But we will let him know our rules,
Out in Salt Lake City.

If any fuss he goes to make,
The whole of his city we will take,
And then fasten him unto a stake,
Out in Salt Lake City.

If we get old Brigham in our paws,
We'll make close his heavenly jaws,
And let him know that we've got laws.
For old Salt Lake City.

A Chinese internet any Mormon can be proud of!

I embark on this commentary with some ambivalence. Like most people, I like a pleasant environment. I may not have created the most comfortable environment for everyone on this blog, but ordinarily I enjoy to spend time in places that are clean and with people who are polite, friendly, and in control of themselves. Does this characteristic give my Mormon background away? Mormons are past masters of creating pleasant environments. Mormon temples are the apotheosis of pleasant. They are not very lively. Mr. Rogers would have felt very comfortable with the level of stiumulation in a Mormon temple.

The Chinese government is also interested in maintaining what it considers to be a pleasant environment on the internet. The New York Times online edition of May 9 reports that 500 students at Shanghai Normal University are employed voluntarily as internet monitors, who report explicit and controversial material and steer heated debates in more 'appropriate' directions. The students who participate deny that they are controling speech, but claim they are rather "guiding" it. They are very concerned about the moral environment of the net. Says one volunteer monitor, "a bulletin board is like a family, and in a family, I want my room to be clean and well-lighted, without dirty or dangerous things in it."

Sound familiar? The reasoning sounds very persuasive at first. After all, who wants to live in a garbage bin? Like many of you, I prefer a safe environment. I suppose the problem is that I prefer to make my own decisions regarding my safety. We rightly fear the Patriot Act precisely because in embracing safety uncritically, one can sacrifice a great deal of constitutional freedom. Such freedom is not simply a legal fiction, it is supposedly one of the pillars of Mormon theology. Some would call it moral agency. Modern technology is challenging our belief in moral agency. Agency can be lost through addiction, and modern technology has found the means of fostering addictions very effectively. Agency isn't gone, but it is severely challenged by powerful drugs, etc. Freedoms also leave us exposed to their misuse by others with whom we disagree.

How far are we willing to go to seek after safety? How much power do we want to hand over to governments and other human leaders to protect us from ourselves and the decisions of others? At a certain point, the power we give to these people will be used by them for their own interests. Not yours and mine. It's the nature of the beast. Any institution that hopes to continue its existence will fabricate its moral imperative to exist, and will thus take the measures necessary to continue that existence at the expense of others. For this reason we must be very careful when we give power to these institutions to keep us safe.

In the case of the Chinese government's bid to tame the internet, it is clear that there is an effort to strike a balance between the safety of the internet and the safety of a governement that sacrifices a great deal of what Americans value in the principle of freedom of expression. Mormons as a group tend to feel comfortable with the idea of voluntarily sacrificing a great deal of their personal freedom for the safety of the kingdom of God. As long as that kingdom exists within the boundaries of larger entitities that really call the shots when the chips are down, this is not viewed as especially dangerous. You can get out by writing a letter. Therefore, Mormons are happy to look to leaders to give them the guidelines to remain safe from the ravages of "the world", which is usually characterized by the worst aspects of extra-Mormon reality.

I agree that this is relatively harmless. No one but Mormons need be concerned. Until, of course, the financial might of the Mormon Empire is committed to efforts like fighting against gay marriage, the supposed dangers of which seem largely illusory. We fear these seemingly benign institutions like the Mormon Church today because they organize themselves behind political issues and exercise a great deal of power thereby. The fact that Mormons want a safer internet may translate into you living with a more restricted internet in the future.

You may be happy to sacrifice pornography in order to have a safer internet, and if this were the limits of the issue I might be inclined to agree. Mormons claim that the political issues they involve themselves in are moral in nature. There is of course, the little issue of the definition of moral. And, from my perspective, Mormons have a bad record of separating the moral from the cultural and the political. Was ERA really a moral issue? Is the motivation to raise the gay marriage amendment issue now unrelated to the election cycle? Is it related to the election cycle for purely moral reasons (i.e. use of the strategic advantage of elections for the sake of the issue v. use of the issue for the electoral advantage of a party)?

One small example may illustrate my concern quite handily. Years ago a young, female BYU student was hrown out of BYU for protesting against Geneva Steel. It boggles my mind that a student, who did nothing to violate the school's honor code, was expelled for protesting against a business! While this kind of travesty does not happen every day at BYU, it is an interesting and troubling example of the kind of injustice that can occur when we give institutions too much power in the quest to remain safe from the world. Every institution will try to expand its powers in the quest to thrive and achieve its agenda. We cannot, however, allow these institutions to get out of control.

Go back and read the words of Jesus in the New Testament. The Sabbath was made for man. This dictum should apply to all institutions. When these institutions become harmful to human progress, let them change or die. Of course, we are the ones who must change them.

Please, learn about Correlation.

Few things have had such an impact on LDS life as the development of Correlation. Through Correlation, the auxiliaries of the LDS Church, including the women's, children's, and youth programs all lost much of their autonomy as they passed under the more direct control of the Priesthood. Follow this link to "By Common Consent," where a panel of scholars of Mormonism share their views about Correlation. This thread should not be missed.

Mormonism entering the Academy

Mormon Studies continues to be a hot issue on the Bloggernacle. Recently, at Times & Seasons, the news that Claremont has established its first chair for Mormon Studies elicited scores of responses. Understandably, many faithful Mormons are excited by the prospect that their religion has become the focus of greater academic attention. In spite of some reservations regarding placing Mormonism under a secularist microscope, Mormons are cautiously optimistic that more academic attention is a mark of increasing respect for the faith and its founder Joseph Smith.

Unfortunately, discussion of the rise of Mormon Studies is temporarily mired in the question of why D. Michael Quinn cannot land a job. As proponents of Mormon Studies observed, Quinn would arguably have some hurdles regardless of the Church's attitude toward him (although some of these issues are the result of unjustifiable Church actions). So, while we may feel justifiable sadness for his current plight, these problems should not be the predominant focus of the current discussion of Mormon Studies. Having said that, his story raises many of the issues that should cause concern for those interested in the academic study of Mormonism, because it is what his story teaches that makes some of us very uncomfortable.

Nate Oman has called out Hellmut Lotz for being paranoid with regard to the prospects for Mormon Studies in an environment where academic institutions are sensitive to the feelings of the Mormon community, many of the donors for chairs in Mormon Studies are faithful LDS people, and in at least one case the LDS Church was contacted with reassurances about the university's intentions in having a Mormon Studies chair. On the face of it, all of this seems reasonable and no cause for alarm. Add to this the fact that the academic paradise of totally unfettered inquiry and speech is a fantasy, and you begin to wonder why people are the least concerned about LDS influence on the study of its faith.

Are people like Hellmut merely indulging in unwarranted alarmism? Why be concerned about LDS influence on the academic study of Mormonism?

The reasons for concern are rooted in recent Church rhetoric and action. They include 1) the Church's record of anti-intellectualism and hostility to academic inquiry; 2) the political alignment of the Church with groups who seek to remake society on religious models; and 3) broader institutional control over the thought and expression of LDS people through the instrument of temple covenants. The last in particular is both subtle and insidious in that endowed members of the Church make expansive oaths of loyalty to the institution of the Church, thus creating a situation in which the least hint from the leadership is all that is necessary to persuade members to pursue or to avoid a particular line of thought or course of action.

Let's consider a few events in recent LDS history that have caused people like Hellmut and me concern about the Church's regard for academic inquiry into Mormonism. First, in 1981 LDS apostle Boyd Packer gave a paper tellingly entitled "Do not spread disease germs!" about the responsibility of Mormon historians to write faith-promoting history. Evidently anything but historical rhetoric designed to promote the missionary and devotional interests of the LDS Church is comparable to communicable disease. This all sounds perfectly reasonable, no? In this talk, Packer sought to define the proper writing and teaching of Mormon history and thereby dissuade Mormons from pursuing academic perspectives that might challenge a Mormon's belief in the status quo version of official Mormon history.

In 1989 LDS apostle Dallin Oaks cautioned members of the LDS Church against listening to "other voices" and "alternate views," pointing to unofficial LDS publications (Sunstone, Dialogue) that frequently took a critical perspective when dealing with the institutional LDS Church. It should be noted, for the sake of perspective, that in a Church of millions of members, Sunstone has never reached 20,000 subscriptions. One wonders why a worldwide Church with such a large membership should need to call attention to the very few people who read articles espousing critical perspectives, and the even fewer who write them. This was followed up in 1991 by an LDS First Presidency warning against attending certain "symposia," again a swipe at Sunstone.

A decent barometer of the official LDS stance toward academia would be the atmosphere at its flagship institution, BYU. Consider the following: 1) administrators have in the past planted spies in classrooms to make sure that professors were not teaching or promoting certain political views or theories like "evolution;" 2) BYU students have continued to inform on professors voluntarily in a quest to hone their own righteousness or gain the attention of Church authorities; 3) by the year 2000 BYU had seen the firing or resigning of a number of academically competent professors for their political views, research, or philosophies. One English professor was fired essentially for publically airing pro-choice views. Keep in mind that the LDS Church is not officially a pro-life institution.

Consider now the political alignment of the LDS Church. The Church committed many thousands of dollars and its members' time and efforts to the defeat of ERA. One of their sadly amusing tactics was to rile up LDS people by focusing on the horrors of uni-sex bathrooms. The LDS Church now allies itself with the Religious Right in the fight against gay marriage. To this end it has enlisted the help of BYU professors to prostitute their credentials in offering specious expert testimony in court. It has also committed millions of dollars in funds, all of which ultimately derive from tithing moneys, to the cause of seeing that 3% or so of the population do not acquire the privilege of marrying the person they love. The dirty little un-secret of Mormon politics is that they have skewed right for some time. Read "The Mormon Corporate Empire" to see how far in bed Mormons were with the fringe Right up to (and beyond) the mid eighties.

Think of it. The Religious Right is the same group of folks that want to bring their religion into the schools either directly or through the backdoor theology of Intelligent Design. On the local level they bully school administrators and teachers to keep evolution from being taught to the children we hope will one day find a cure to cancer and AIDS, build and pilot rockets to carry us to Mars, etc. Fat chance if the theocrats have their way. These folks also lead the fight in equating human conception with full-blown personhood in a quest to make abortion of any kind (including cases of rape, incest, and danger to the mother) illegal. Thanks to people of their ilk the hands of US scientific researchers have been tied in stem-cell research. If the most extreme of these groups had their way, the United States would be the Western equivalent of a medievalesque Islamic regime like Taliban Afghanistan.

The leaders of the LDS Church have certainly made their point with regard to their position on LDS intellectuals, politics, and scholarship. They have orchestrated BYU firings, and local excommunications, even going so far in the case of Simon Southerton of coming up with a highly questionable pretext to get rid of him. After writing a book about DNA and the Book of Mormon, Southerton was subjected to Church discipline for a long past affair he engaged in while separated from his wife.

Is there any question about how the Church feels when intellectual arguments lead members simply to question contemporary Church teachings? By the same token, is it at all unclear to the faithful member what the Church expects of him or her when investing in a Mormon Studies chair? After all, these folks have probably covenanted in an LDS temple to commit their entire lives to the welfare of the LDS Church.

As far as the institutions taking up Mormon Studies are concerned, given the Church's record of dealing with its ideological foes quite aggressively, is it any wonder that they seek to avoid the Church's and LDS community's ire when bringing the academic study of Mormonism into the university? Is their willingness to bend over backwards to reassure the LDS Church an unqualified positive? I rather think not. The fact that universities are so inclined is more an indicator of Mormon hypersensitivity than it is of non-LDS sympathy.

There is no question in my mind why one should scrutinize the way that Mormon Studies are conducted. Any academic pursuit should be subject to scrutiny. Indiscriminate leftist hate for the military and the Republican party within the academy should be subject to greater scrutiny. Since the LDS Church and its members have, especially in recent years, shown a proclivity to limit speech severely within their own community, to fight against the extension of human rights outside of their community, and to cooperate with groups whose stunning anti-intellectualism is not only shame-inspiring but downright dangerous, surely it is prudent to be concerned about how the LDS Church may influence, directly or indirectly, its presentation and discussion within the world of academia.

Finally, if there is paranoia about the Church's possible role in Mormon Studies, it is surely one that was born in the Church's own paranoid behavior. Any Church that would instruct its members not to take notes in meetings and not to circulate them on the internet clearly has some issues with trust. Any Church that is willing to cooperate with the Religious Right cannot cry foul when it faces the consequences of that choice to its own image. Any academician worth his or her salt would be remiss in their professional duties if he or she was not wary of the influence of such an organization on the academic study of said institution.

William Call on Mormon Testimony

The following is taken from William Call's 2000 book, "The Cultural Revolution":

A Mormon's "testimony" feigns certainty via a supposed knowledge that negates real understanding. He who knows "beyond a shadow of a doubt" has no need to comprehend, discern, or master. The "knowledge" given by the Holy Ghost both precludes and takes the place of understanding. Is anyone as ignorant as he who thinks he has God's knowledge, and is any religion as void of knowledge as one that suppresses understanding with supposed "spiritual" knowledge? A Mormon "testimony," because it has no foundational suport, is a confession of ignorance concerning that which it is supposed to affirm absolutely and without question. It is a declaration that man is completely dependent on God so far as religious questions are concerned. The claim that one can found one's religion on the "knowledge" gained from "prayer and testimony" is a denial that man in and of himself can do anything to gain knowledge concerning religious truth other than to humble himself before his God and submit himself to Church authority.

"Spiritual knowledge" received from a source that cannot be separated from one's own prejudices and which has little or nothing to do with an acquaintance with the matters in question is ignorance. Mormonism's "testimony bearing" is an ackowledgment that the believer does not need to delve into religious questions; all he needs to do is "pray with faith, nothing doubting" and "keep the commandments." The rest can be left to the "still small voice" that "whispers" in his ear and instills "burning testimony" of the truth of whatever the Church claims is true. Mormonism's religious enthusiasm as exhibited in the form of testimony bearing takes the place of doctrinal and ecclesiastical understanding and removes any responsibility one might have to master one's religion. Both rank and file Mormons and their leaders are dependent on their testimonies. They cannot question what they already "know" is true. And so it is that a Mormon testimony is more than a denial of life's uncertainties; it is a denial that a critical evaluation of any kind is effective or necessary so far as discovering religious truth is concerned.

Wanna be like Mike?

D. Michael Quinn is one of the best and most controversial scholars of Mormonism. Dr. Quinn has made discussion of treasure digging and magic an indispensible topic in scholarship of early Mormonism. He wrote a groundbreaking two-volume work on the development of the Mormon Church's hierarchy. According to a Wall Street Journal Online article written by Daniel Golden, he is also finding it impossible to find employment in the area of his expertise.

I have an interesting perspective on this story. Before I explain why Dr. Quinn, one of the foremost scholarly authorities on Mormonism is having a difficult time finding a job, I will share my perspective.

For some time I lurked or posted over at FAIR. FAIR, which is among the links on my blog here, is an online apologist resource. It has a discussion board. In one forum on the board, apologists of all stripes and critics of Mormonism gather to slug it out. I grew tired of the predictable slant in moderating the board. If criticism reached a certain level of pointedness or effectiveness, a thread would get shut down, usually right after someone like professor Daniel Peterson had the last word.

I am capable of being practical. FAIR was created for the purpose of promoting Mormonism. Arguments that call truth claims of Mormonism into question are likely to get shut down. In my last thread at FAIR I made the mistake of bringing up the employment of two men who had written an inept review of Vogel's biography of Joseph Smith. Although men like Daniel Peterson have no problem using the ad hominem when it comes to identifying the atheism of critics of Mormonism, he did have a big problem when I called into question the scholarly objectivity, such that it can exist, of two men who have to hold temple recommends to keep their jobs.

My point was not welcome, and I was put on the 'queue.' This meant that anything I wrote had to be approved by the moderators. I tried to post something through this route once, and my post never saw the thread. I am sure the moderators really are too busy to screen these things, which makes putting people in the 'queue' very similar to putting on the gag. Fair enough. I have learned my lesson.

The apologists had their own day of realization when they abandoned ZLMB, the leading board of the time, because in spite of favorable moderating policies carried out by a team of LDS and non-LDS moderators. They felt they were being victimized by the biting posting of critics. So they left for the safe harbors of FAIR where agressive moderation in their favor made their lives more comfortable and their arguments more likely to seem to prevail.

Now we get closer to the point of this exercise. One of the FAIR board's most prolific posters and moderators is a graduate student at Claremont College. She is studying religion. She likes to crow about how the days of amateur Mormon scholarship by "counter-Mormons" (a 'counter-Mormon' is a secularist amateur scholar who writes Mormon scholarship with a secularist agenda) is drawing to a close, and that people like herself are the vanguard of the future of academic Mormon Studies. Sounds to me like her triumphalism is motivated by something more than guess work.

I had no idea how true this could be until I read the Goldman article. Mr. Goldman briefly documents how it is wealthy Mormons who are funding Mormon Studies chairs, and that these donors' views ultimately influence the hiring process. You pay for the chair, and it happens to turn out that they hire someone you don't find offensive. There's no conspiracy here. We're simply talking about the money of those who are flush and motivated (wealthy Mormons) dictating, to no negligible degree, how the academic study of Mormonism will be conducted.

The Goldman article also shows how people like Mike Quinn are edged out in other ways. Quinn made the mistake of asking BYU prof. and Mormon historian Thomas Alexander for a letter of recommendation when he went up for a job at the University of Utah--a state-funded institution. Alexander cautioned the U against hiring Quinn because his controversial scholarship would cost the university donations. Now, it is clear to me that Alexander stabbed Quinn in the back, but what he said is true, and in the modern, capitalist, corporate university knowledge is controlled by money.

For this reason Mike Quinn has been turned down for at least two jobs he was eminently qualified for. When he had a visiting position at Yale, BYU threatened to withdraw funding for an academic conference on Mormonism hosted by Yale if Mike were allowed to present a paper. In the end, Quinn personally yielded and merely introduced a paper for someone else. Once again, it is the power of money that determines which information sees the light of day.

These are the realities of our world. Don't be fooled. The Academy is not the place where any well-founded argument can have a fair showing in the arena of ideas. It is not the place where any useful question can be asked. And where it concerns different fields of specialty in Religious Studies, expect that the person who teaches your child about Islam, Evangelical Christianity, Mormonism, Catholicism, or New Age spirituality, will increasingly be a person who has an agenda to spin that informaion in a panegyrical manner.

What is at stake here? Honest education. Do we want Religion Departments at major universities to become arenas for proselytizing? Is Religious Studies a valid field of academic endeavor when the people who staff it are well-educated missionaries for their personal faith? It sounds OK when you think of your faith being taught by someone who sees things in a favorable light and teaches accordingly, but what if you are an Evangelical and your child is learning Mormonism from a Mormon, or Islam from a Muslim? Does it seem just a little more like missionary work then?

Apologists argue that if you want accurate information about a religion, you should go to a believer. I say that if you want someone to try to persuade you to join a religion, go to a believer. If conversion is your goal, by all means restrict your exposure to favorable sources. If education is your goal, then consider different perspectives, not just a believer's.

If you are a well-published, Yale-trained scholar like Mike, you may forever remain unemployed in the field of your expertise and fame. If you are a relatively unknown, unproven, brassy polemicist at FAIR with a graduate degree from Claremont, you may just have an eager financial backer. Wanna be like Mike?