Jump to content
Seriously No Politics ×

Another Faith Crisis Letter


Recommended Posts

10 hours ago, Anakin7 said:

        I recently came across this letter on LDS Apologia Facebook page which they have been commenting/responding  -   http://www.letterformywife.com  .Any comments/responses are welcome in your observation. Note to moderators, delete if this thread is not allowed or inappropriate. I apologize in advance. 

..........................................

Aside from the elegant cut-and-paste job, along with plenty of photos, the major problem I see with Zachary's Letter is failure to acknowledge the sources from which he got all those items.  In addition to that, he naively misinterprets a great many items, and takes others out of context (so as to make the author say the opposite of what he in fact said, as in the case of John E. Clark).  Of course he takes the same approach so characteristic of non-scholars in simply gathering as many quotations as possible and then presenting them uncritically.  Slap-dash and slip-shod stuff.

The thing that ought to give his wife pause, is his tendency to reject anything presenting unexpected or unforeseen fallibilities.  No faults or apparent faults allowed.

Link to comment
42 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

I think that says he was chair of the BYU History Department, not the Church History Department. However if you read his BYU page he was the assistant to Arrington as assistant Church Historian during that crucial period when the Church History Department was being modernized.  So I agree calling him a church historian is correct even if it was Arrington who was the Church Historian. That's at best a minor error. Especially compared to the myriad of major errors on nearly every page.

Thanks for the info.

Link to comment
14 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Aside from the elegant cut-and-paste job, along with plenty of photos, the major problem I see with Zachary's Letter is failure to acknowledge the sources from which he got all those items. 

That was bugging me big time.  I may not agree with what a lot of critics come up with, but if you are going to use someone's work, they deserve the credit.

Link to comment
3 hours ago, smac97 said:

I'm a bit skeptical.  There isn't really a good faith basis for publishing a letter "to my wife" online, to the entire world.  To the "to my wife" bit (coupled with it being formally published online, anonymously, under a unique URL) comes across as a rhetorical gimmick.  A pretextual excuse to pluck at the ol' heartstrings.  An attempt to evade scrutiny or criticism by hiding behind sentimentality (as in "How dare you critique the heart-felt writings of this man to his wife!  Have you no decency, sir?").  

The letter comes across as a mediocre retread of Runnell's CES letter, which itself was not exactly the pinnacle of critical thought and analysis.  In both instances, the authors pretend (yes, I'm suggesting bad faith here) that there are no substantive responses to the laundry list of cut n' paste complaints.  FAIR.  Jeff Lindsay.  Mormon Interpreter.  Various published books.  These things have been addressed over and over and over.  It is one thing to disagree with those responses, but it is manifestly bad faith to pretend as if they don't exist, and to refuse to interact with them at all.  Runnells' attempt at ignoring these materials was weak.  This fellow really has no excuse at all (in fact, this letter comes across as nearly wholesale plagiarism of Runnell's stuff).

So there is no good faith here.  The "concerns" and "questions" here are not fairly posed, and are instead presented in a "death by a thousand paper cuts"-type of compendium.

Many are short, facile ("appearing neat and comprehensive only by ignoring the true complexities of an issue; superficial") questions/concerns designed to elicit long, complex answers and are presented with the intent to ensnare rather than to elicit information.

They are intellectually dishonest in that they are cobbled-together complaints and criticisms from people hostile to the Restored Gospel being presented under the guise of "questions" or "concerns."

There is no evidence of a previous good faith effort to "study it out" and pray and ponder about these "questions" as we are commanded in D&C 9, or of a good faith effort to "seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom, seek learning even by study and also by faith."

These "questions" and "concerns" are intellectually dishonest in that they do not engage or address the meaningful information that is already readily available and responsive.  These "questions" instead disregard such resources, or pretend they don't exist, or that they do not provide real and meaningful insights into the "questions" posed.

Again, the letter is a ploy.  It is not presented it good faith.  Sincerity matters.  Good faith matters.  None of these things are present.  The letter is not a genuine effort by the author to convey information to his wife.  He could have done that in any number of ways privately.  His intended audience is . . . struggling Latter-day Saints.  The purpose is to tear down faith.  To sow seeds of doubt and discord.  

Thanks,

-Smac

 

 

 

Presumption of dishonesty?

Link to comment
11 hours ago, Anakin7 said:

        I recently came across this letter on LDS Apologia Facebook page which they have been commenting/responding  -   http://www.letterformywife.com  .Any comments/responses are welcome in your observation.

My first comment is simply that this is a 151 page document.  This is not a "letter" but almost a book.   Who writes a "letter" this big?

Edited by carbon dioxide
Link to comment
8 hours ago, Anakin7 said:

     Yes that would be helpful, in case any member/investigator/critic brings up this letter in conversation with me. I could share it on the Facebook LDS Apologia Board as well. Thank you. 

The Atonement, It Is The Central Doctrine

Washing My Garment In His Blood

In His Eternal Debt/Grace

Anakin7    

If someone were to bring up this letter or the CES letter to me, my response would be something like:  I can’t possibly answer the questions in here to your satisfaction.  Nobody can.  So what are you looking for?

Link to comment
28 minutes ago, rockpond said:

If someone were to bring up this letter or the CES letter to me, my response would be something like:  I can’t possibly answer the questions in here to your satisfaction.  Nobody can.  So what are you looking for?

I don't think anyone who approaches someone with something this big should be taken seriously.   They really don't care about any answers.  A serious person would just give maybe 5 questions or issues and desire those answered first rather than dumping a truckload of stuff on people.  It is kid of like a student going to his math professor and saying "I need help.  I have some questions about the stuff you are teaching."  The teacher responses "What questions" Then the student throws the whole math textbook on the desk and says "All of it".

Edited by carbon dioxide
Link to comment
2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

With all apologies to the FAIR author, I'm not sure I agree. It's worth also reading the full Bauder account. Note that he explicitly mentions the angel. The question then becomes what "no christian experience" means (and for that matter why Bauder would say that and them immediately mention an angelic visit).  We should note it's a very pejorative account - he considers Joseph blasphemous.  I'd say that "christan experience" would consist of something Bauder would accept as orthodox.

My guess, looking at uses of the term in the early 19th century, is that he's thinking of a charismatic experience. So Rev. John Humphrey wrote, "Men sometimes make light of what is called experimental religion and Christian experience. They call us enthusiasts, when we insist on an individual experience as necessary for understanding the affections of the Christian and the deep things of God." (A Selection from the sermons of Rev. John Humphrey, 315) That this is not what Mormons understand by experience is clear later. "We say of them they are founded upon an individual, incommunicable experience. And as the sinner is to seek for that experience, by supplicating God's grace and obeying the Gospel, so the Christian must rise to the higher and higher joys, by an immediate communion with God." (316) 

I think by Christian experience Bauder meant an ecstatic conversion experience.  Bauder even gives a description of the Christian experience “…a reformation wrought in the hearts of their members, by a godly sorrow for sin, and a compunction of soul, and pungent conviction, which precedes a joy which is unspeakable and full of glory…because the love of God is shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto them…”

Bauder was antagonistic against Mormonism when this account was written in 1834, but we have no reason to believe felt that way in 1830 when he visited and spent so much time with Joseph.  In fact, the rest of the account is quite reliable when you look at the descriptions of the angel visit and the translation process, so this gives greater reason to trust that Joseph “could give me no Christian experience”  It doesn’t say that he refused to give one, but that he couldn’t give one.

Richard Van Wagoner sites other statements in his book Natural Born Seer that support this idea.  One from Josiah Stowel Jr. who said “at that time [I.e., 1825] [Joseph] did not Profess religion”.  Also from a brother-in-law named Michael Morse who said something similar that Joseph made no profession of religion.  And lastly from the 1826 glass looker trial where Joseph Sr. says “trusted that the Son of righteousness would some day illumine the heart of the boy, and enable him to see His will concerning him.”  

One other thing, the 1834/35 history of the church penned by Cowdery and approved by Joseph, describes Joseph as having never before believed in God prior to praying and having the visit by the angel.  “To profess godliness without its benign influence upon the heart, was a thing so foreign from his feelings, that his spirit was not at rest day nor night.”  This would backup these other statements that the angel visit was the first religious experience that Joseph encountered.  

2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Now where I'll agree with the FAIR post is that it seems clear that Joseph didn't tell Bauder of the First Vision or he'd have mentioned it along with the angel. I'm not sure what sect Bauder was associated with. (I couldn't find a good biographical sketch on him) However just because Joseph didn't tell Bauder anything doesn't imply much.

The challenge that I see is that there isn’t any evidence for an early first vision narrative of an encounter with deity, and there were plenty of opportunities for this kind of story to be shared prior to late 1832 when the first vision was penned.  I recently just read these newspaper accounts from early missionaries in 1832.  They are amazingly detailed, and all three accounts give a description of Mormonism to different newspapers, and all of them use the angel visit as the founding event for Mormonism.  It’s pretty clear to me that the first vision narrative was a later crafted narrative.  Again, I’m not ruling out the possibility that Joseph had some kind of experience, however, I think that based on evidence its plausible to believe that the angel experience was the primary experience, and that later it was developed into two separate experiences.  

Here’s a link to those 1832 newspaper accounts.  

http://user.xmission.com/~research/central/resth1b.htm

Link to comment
2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Clearly they care. Like E. D. Howe or the afore mentioned Peter Bauder clearly cared about Mormons. However attributing this to the internet age seems questionable.

 

I would agree that similar experiences have happened all the way back, but I think the internet has exacerbated the problem by democratizing history and making it more accessible to average members.  

Link to comment
1 hour ago, smac97 said:

No. Conclusion of dishonesty.

Hmm.  It seems you've pre-classified all similar documents as "bad faith" and created to "tear down faith."  I'm not sure that indicates giving each such document it's own due consideration.  But, your mileage may vary.

Edited by ttribe
Link to comment
7 hours ago, Nevo said:

James B. Allen is not a General Authority and has never held the position of Church Historian. The First Vision was referred to (obliquely) in what is now D&C 20—which was published in the 1830s—and was "hand-recorded" in the 1832 History.

Does assistant count?

Quote

Two new assistant Church historians have been named to serve in the Historical Department, the new name of the former Church Historian’s Office.

The new appointees are Dr. James B. Allen, professor of history at Brigham Young University...

June 1972 Ensign

 

Edited by Thinking
Link to comment

This may be an opportunity to post something I've been thinking about for a while. My interest in Mormon discussions is mainly just to understand how intelligent people can hold radically different views, and one of the conclusions I've reached is that there's a catastrophe involved. I'd be very surprised if the substance of this conclusion of mine is anything new to other people who have been studying conversion or perception, but it's expressed in my kind of language, so I'm glad to have formulated it.

In arguing about religious matters, people on both sides often seem to have expectations that we could call "the apologetic model", indicated in the graph on the left. According to this model, a person's degree of faith or belief grows steadily with their perception of favorable evidence. This model allows that when each person looks at the evidence, they may find a few decisive issues which will affect their faith more dramatically than other issues. On this model it makes sense to identify the decisive issues and argue through them, one way or the other.

What I think really happens for most people, though, is that the curve of faith-versus-perception of evidence is not steadily rising. Instead it sways back at some point, then sways forward again, as in the right-hand graph. The bent-back part of the curve is greyed out because it represents psychologically untenable states of mind in which seeing the evidence as more supportive of faith actually decreases one's degree of belief. It's not clear to me how or why anyone would ever think this way—this is a part of the model that needs more development—but the point is that nobody ever stays in the grey zone for long, if it all.

Instead, if someone approaches the grey zone, they jump vertically to the other black section of the curve. This abrupt transition is known mathematically as a "catastrophe". It's a mathematical term, not a pejorative one. Nothing is implied about whether the jump is good or bad. This S-shaped curve provides the simplest kind of catastrophe; mathematicians have found more complex ones but the simple "fold catastrophe" shown here has probably had the most application to practical questions. I know for example that it has been used to describe human perception of bistable images, like the young-woman/old-woman picture, or the faces-and-vase pattern. You see it one way, and for a while you can't unsee it, until suddenly you see it the other way. That transition is one of these vertical jumps. I think that conversion and deconversion are also like this.

 5a2a36f281112_FaithModels.thumb.png.f7e0aff4c07c3e041865c30123bf417a.png

If the catastrophic model is more accurate than the apologetic one, then we should have different expectations about how people will react to evidence and argument on religious topics. There is a range of perceptions of the evidence within which two people can have the same understanding of the evidence and arguments, yet hold very different degrees of belief. As long as each person's perception of the evidence remains within this range, nobody is going to be convinced, either way. People only change their minds, on this model, when their perception of the evidence shifts so far that it hits one of the swayback points on the curve.

When that happens, everything changes—but it isn't that one decisive issue made the big difference. After the change has occurred, there is suddenly quite a lot of evidence that now seems to support the opposite conclusion. When the person was on the upper part of the curve, all the evidence between the two swaybacks seemed perfectly consistent with a high degree of faith, but once the person has jumped down to the lower part of the curve, the evidence between the two swaybacks now seems instead to be consistent with a low degree of faith. Or the opposite can be true, after a conversion experience in which one jumps up from the lower part of the curve to the upper part. So after a vertical transition has been made there is suddenly a whole bunch of evidence to support the new view, not just one crucial point.

This may explain somebody writing a 150-page letter. To them, it's all a big weight of convincing evidence that they have suddenly recognized; to people on the other part of the curve, it's all familiar stuff that isn't disturbing at all. This cuts both ways. The lists of problems with Mormonism that get aired in long ex-Mormon letters may be banal to Mormons, but by the same token a lot of things that seem to Mormons like excellent reasons for believing seem very weak to non-Mormons. One can apply the Catastrophic Model to upward jumps in faith as well as to downward jumps. Either way there are implications for how people think.

If one is thinking in terms of the Apologetic Model, then long lists are unimpressive and even annoying. Why can't they just focus on the few decisive issues, so we can have a fair stand-up fight about them and settle the matter? The Catastrophic Model implies, however, that in a sense it is precisely the length of the long lists that is decisive, because the length is the width of the zone between swaybacks, and absorbing it moves a person toward a point on the curve where there is a sudden jump. Some little thing can be the last straw that pushes the person right onto that point, but once the jump is made, it is no longer all about that little last straw. Instead it's suddenly all about a whole long list of things, that never used to be problems at all.

Link to comment
12 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

I really respect your opinion, and I haven't read this new letter to my wife, but isn't he correct about James B. Allen, just pulled the Wikipedia article on him and it sounds like he worked for the church history department in the 1980s. 

Not to me. It sounds more like he was chair of the history department at BYU.

12 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

Also, the D&C 20 reference to the FV, I know Greg Prince and a couple others who have sited this as evidence of the FV.  I think its less clear myself.  Here is the 1830 version, 

Now, this could be reference to the FV, the source note in the JSP refers to the 1832 account, but I'm not convinced it is.  I think its possible that Joseph hadn't conceived of an idea of a visionary experience when this April 1830 version of D&C 20.

Let's see: Joseph's direct personal testimony: The Father and the Son appeared to him in 1820.

Your opinion: Joseph lied about that. Every.single.time.

Now I wonder which of those points rises to the level of evidence? Joseph's direct personal testimony, or your unsupported opinion?

Note also that the very brief Doctrine and Covenants excerpt follows the timeline of Joseph's subsequent history: First he receives a manifestation (the exact nature of which is not specified) then he subsequently fell into various sins, felt concern about that, prayed again and then Moroni appeared.

Funny, that.

Of course, there's nothing remotely anti-Mormon about your baseless accusation.

12 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

  An important event that I think influenced Joseph wanting to create a more foundational narrative for the beginnings of Mormonism happened in Oct 1830 with the visit of Peter Bauder.  From a FAIR article written by Ron Barney, he states: 

Now Barney draws different conclusions about this event than I do, but I think the event is evidence that Joseph hadn't yet considered the importance of developing a compelling narrative for the beginnings of the church.

Of course it is evidence of no such thing. The notion that Joseph would tell all his most intimate and closely held experiences to a total stranger when he hadn't even told his closest associates about it is nothing less than risible; but it's all you've got, so I suppose you pretty much have to use it.

12 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

  I believe he began experimenting with narratives with his 1832 account and this continued for the next few years with different versions including the assignment to Cowdery in 1834 to craft an official narrative which uses the Moroni visit as the founding moment of the movement and doesn't anywhere mention a first vision with deity,

Which, given the unquestioned existence of the 1832 account (which remains far more pesky for you than it is for us) merely shows that Joseph thought of that as a personal experience to him rather than as part of the history of the Church.

12 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

and then lastly the 1838/39 narrative was crafted very meticulously by a committee to tell a story of persecution and God's explicit blessing of this movement which was in part a push back against all the dissenters from Missouri.

Really? And who was on this "committee?"

12 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

All my comments are not to prove that Joseph didn't have a visionary experience of some kind, I personally believe he had some experience but perhaps it wasn't a vision of deity in the way it was later crafted.  I just want to recognize the historical events that influenced everything, and to me this version of events makes the most sense based on the history that I've read.  Any thoughts? 

Yes.

Link to comment
9 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

I think by Christian experience Bauder meant an ecstatic conversion experience.  Bauder even gives a description of the Christian experience “…a reformation wrought in the hearts of their members, by a godly sorrow for sin, and a compunction of soul, and pungent conviction, which precedes a joy which is unspeakable and full of glory…because the love of God is shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto them…”

Bauder was antagonistic against Mormonism when this account was written in 1834, but we have no reason to believe felt that way in 1830 when he visited and spent so much time with Joseph.  In fact, the rest of the account is quite reliable when you look at the descriptions of the angel visit and the translation process, so this gives greater reason to trust that Joseph “could give me no Christian experience”  It doesn’t say that he refused to give one, but that he couldn’t give one.

Huh?

And how was he supposed to know the difference? If Joseph had an experience that he didn't tell Bauder, how would Bauder know? By reading Joseph's mind?

9 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

Richard Van Wagoner sites other statements in his book Natural Born Seer that support this idea.  One from Josiah Stowel Jr. who said “at that time [I.e., 1825] [Joseph] did not Profess religion”.  Also from a brother-in-law named Michael Morse who said something similar that Joseph made no profession of religion.  And lastly from the 1826 glass looker trial where Joseph Sr. says “trusted that the Son of righteousness would some day illumine the heart of the boy, and enable him to see His will concerning him.”

Which version of the 1826 "trial" is that? The one in which Joseph was acquitted, or the one in which he was allegedly "convicted?"

9 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

One other thing, the 1834/35 history of the church penned by Cowdery and approved by Joseph, describes Joseph as having never before believed in God prior to praying and having the visit by the angel.  “To profess godliness without its benign influence upon the heart, was a thing so foreign from his feelings, that his spirit was not at rest day nor night.”  This would backup these other statements that the angel visit was the first religious experience that Joseph encountered.

And this is dated, is it?

9 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

The challenge that I see is that there isn’t any evidence for an early first vision narrative of an encounter with deity, and there were plenty of opportunities for this kind of story to be shared prior to late 1832 when the first vision was penned.  I recently just read these newspaper accounts from early missionaries in 1832.  They are amazingly detailed, and all three accounts give a description of Mormonism to different newspapers, and all of them use the angel visit as the founding event for Mormonism.  It’s pretty clear to me that the first vision narrative was a later crafted narrative.  Again, I’m not ruling out the possibility that Joseph had some kind of experience, however, I think that based on evidence its plausible to believe that the angel experience was the primary experience, and that later it was developed into two separate experiences.  

Here’s a link to those 1832 newspaper accounts.  

http://user.xmission.com/~research/central/resth1b.htm

Thank you for linking them, but they don't actually support your interpretation. The missionaries are focusing on the Book of Mormon, so it's not at all surprising that they would start with that. If they even knew about the First Vision.

Lack of knowledge on the part of non-participants in an event is not evidence one way or the other about the reality of that event.

Link to comment
8 hours ago, cinepro said:

Sorry to interrupt the faith-promoting disdain

I don't see much "faith-promoting disdain" in the critique of the website under discussion.

8 hours ago, cinepro said:

and chorus of back-patting over the Church's solid position on all the issues mentioned in the "letter",

I don't see "back-patting", either.

8 hours ago, cinepro said:

but I recently learned of a friend's family leaving the Church, largely because of issues like those raised in the letter and their disappointment in the proposed responses to these issues in the very publications you mention.

I am saddened to hear that.  But this doesn't change the problematic aspects of the website under discussion.

8 hours ago, cinepro said:

For those of us who have been endlessly hashing about these arguments (and watching the Church's acknowledgment and willingness to deal with them evolve) over the last 15+ years, it's all too easy to forget that for many, these issues are new, shocking, disturbing, and inadequately responded to.  And they result in very real pain for those who leave, and the families and friends who watch them leave (especially the parents who now fear their children and grandchildren won't be with them in the eternities).

Haven't forgotten.  But nor am I going to give a pass to facially dubious "letters" which are intended to at once appear sincere and also immunize the author from criticism.

8 hours ago, cinepro said:

If the "Letter to my Wife" gains even a portion of the traction that the "CES Letter" does (and the softer, less strident tone may allow it to do just that), then it's promulgation will not be a good thing for the Church, no matter how much we make fun of his misclassification of James B. Allen.

You are only proving my point.  Nobody has "ma{d}e fun of his misclassification of James B. Allen."  It has been pointed out, that's all.  But critiquing such things is out of bounds because this is a "letter" being written by a "husband" to his "wife?"

Well, no.  I'm not buying into that.  The letter is not a genuine effort by the author to convey information to his wife.  He could have done that in any number of ways privately.  His intended audience is . . . struggling Latter-day Saints.  The purpose is to tear down faith.  To sow seeds of doubt and discord.  That the author is using a letter to his wife as a pretext for such an exercise is execrable.

-Smac

Link to comment
7 hours ago, Thinking said:

Your aggressive search for his identity justifies his aggressive protection.

My "aggressive search" amounted to spending two minutes on a website and copying and pasting the results here.

You are only proving my point.  If the subtext here is that the author should be treated with kid gloves, that his faux "letter" to his "wife" (which is plainly a diatribe against the Church intended to sow doubt amongst the members of the Church) is immune from critique because golly! - a guy writing to his wife has absolute moral authority to say anything he wants!, well, I'm not buying that.

Thanks,

-Smac

Link to comment
8 hours ago, ttribe said:

Hmm.  It seems you've pre-classified all similar documents as "bad faith" and created to "tear down faith." 

I have "pre-classified" nothing.  My critique of the letter came after I read it and evaluated its attendant circumstances (anonymous, published to the world, derivative of Runnell's letter, comprised of a copied/pasted pastiche of complaints rather, no acknowledgment of the extensive previous treatments of most of those issues, etc.).

Thanks,

-Smac

Link to comment

Hmm.  So regarding my skepticism about the good faith and legitimacy of this "letter"...

There is a Reddit thread from October under "r/exmormon" that was started by the author:

Quote

Current web guy completely disappeared. Need help converting the letter from PDF to HTML and a couple other small things.

Also looking for a male to narrate the letter and a female to read the few female quotes. Morgan Freeman preferred, will take Professor Snape.

And from a few days ago:

Quote
JeffreyArrrHolland2
 
4d

The new website is almost done!

The audiobook is going very slow. All readers have their parts. Some are almost done, some are busy, some are unresponsive. It's going to take a lot longer than I expected.

Some of the interactions on that thread:

Quote
filledupfan
62d

Can hardly wait for audio of the letter. TBM DW is too adhd to read it all, but might be able to listen.

____________

JeffreyArrrHolland2
 
61d

Thanks. I'm getting a ton of PMs. Let me get through everything and I'll get back to you. Thanks so much.

____________

followedthemoney
61d

JebusGob (can't keep them/him/council of gods straight any more) knew I would be reading your letter today and inspired me to see this post.

FIL coming into town and was thinking of giving him a copy, so I was reading through the letter. I noticed a few spelling and grammar issues (the kind that tend to get overlooked after writing and reading through something a thousand times).

Example: Boy Packer instead of Boyd.

Anyway, I'm happy to edit it if you'd like. Let me know.

____________

Cheetosftw
61d

Wow I missed this whole thing. So glad you're doing this!

Going online to an ex-mormon community to solicit help for for a dramatic audio narration of this "letter" makes it seem fairly contrived.

And from other "r/ex-mormon" Reddit thread:

Quote

Who wrote letterformywife?

u/[deleted]Oct 9, 2017, 2:30 PM

Asking because I want to share it with people I know and they care about who a source is as a part of what they read. Do we have background information on this person? Is this doxxing the individual if it’s shared?

____________

u/JeffreyArrrHolland2
Oct 9, 2017, 3:25 PM

Hello. Author here. I'm not ready to be identified publicly yet, but everyone I know in real life know I am out and I've shared my letter with almost everyone I meet.

I've put a brief background on the website to let people know that I'm a normal person. My favorite food is teriyaki chicken.

____________

u/DonCarlosSmith
Oct 9, 2017, 3:27 PM

Well, /u/jeffreyarrholland2 isn't the source of the information contained in the letter, he just compiled it for his wife (who still hasn't read it). The sources of the information are all listed clearly in the letter. Mormons love ad hominem attacks so I think it's better they not know who he is. How many people discredit CES Letter because Jeremy's tone? As if it changes any of the facts!

Also, I've had both coffee and alcohol with him so he's definitely not a reliable source, haha!

____________

u/SUPinitup
Oct 9, 2017, 4:33 PM

I tell people it was written by a member who wanted to address the historical issues and discuss with his wife. Seems to work.

I understand and accept and empathize with members of the Church who are struggling with doctrinal questions and concerns.

But this isn't such a "struggle."  It's not an expression of concern or doubt.  It's a public declaration of disbelief, and is being published to the world with the calculated intent to persuade other members of the Church to join the author in his disbelief.

To me, sincerity matters.  Good faith matters.  Motive matters.  I don't see much of any of that that in this "letter."

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited by smac97
Link to comment
17 hours ago, bluebell said:

I didn't think the written letter part was too weird, but I would definitely think it was very odd if my husband wrote me a letter than then published it on the internet.  :huh:

According to a purported friend of the author (see the above Reddit comments), the author's wife hadn't read the letter as of October.  It was apparently published online to the world first.

So it looks like getting the "letter" to the author's wife is more of an afterthought.  The intended audience is other members of the Church and anyone else interested enough to read a public declaration of disbelief from a nominal member of the Church.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited by smac97
Link to comment
14 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Aside from the elegant cut-and-paste job, along with plenty of photos, the major problem I see with Zachary's Letter is failure to acknowledge the sources from which he got all those items.  In addition to that, he naively misinterprets a great many items, and takes others out of context (so as to make the author say the opposite of what he in fact said, as in the case of John E. Clark).  Of course he takes the same approach so characteristic of non-scholars in simply gathering as many quotations as possible and then presenting them uncritically.  Slap-dash and slip-shod stuff.

I agree.  I think he is pretty much doing the same thing Jeremy Runnells did.  My previous critique of Mr. Runnells seems apt:

Quote

 I think the proposition that "critics of the LDS Church endlessly repeat 'same old claims'" is, in the main, very true.  It is quite rare for me to come across a criticism or argument that I have not seen dozens upon dozens of times before.  Jeremy Runnells is a textbook example of a critic who indulges in nothing but lazy thinking.  His CES letter is nothing more than a protracted exercise involving

  • A) googling websites critical of the Church;
  • B) exercising tremendous skill in the use of CTRL+C and CTRL+V;
  • C) compiling complaints and criticisms (the "same old claims") into an incredibly longwinded diatribe dishonestly presented as a sincere request for information; and
  • D) studiously ignoring (as in acting as if they do not exist) the many, many treatments of these claims from various resources (FAIR, Jeff Lindsay, Daniel Peterson, and oh so many more).

The problem here is that Mr. Runnells was provided answers to the questions he asked.  Extensively.  Take a look at FAIR's responses to the letter.  And Mr. Runnells knew about and extensively responded to FAIR's treatment of his letter well before his disciplinary council.  Kevin Christensen also responded extensively to the letter (at least twice, in fact), and Mr. Runnells responded to that as well (well, sorta - he had a fellow critic write the response for him).  Daniel Peterson has also addressed the letter (not in a point-by-point kind of way, but rather from a "let's take a step back and look at the broader picture" kind of way), and Mr. Runnells responded to that as well.  

In other words, here is where I think we can detect some bad faith in Mr. Runnells.  He is plainly not looking for answers.  He is looking for argument.  He is not looking for information.  He is looking for validation.  If Mr. Runnells was really interested in a good faith discussion about his letter, he would not have written the letter in such a deliberately offensive, risible, and profane manner.  He would not have written it in such a mishmash, throw-it-all-against-the-wall-and-see-how-much-of-it-sticks, death-by-a-thousand-paper-cuts kind of way.  He would not have been so demonstrably hostile and angry to the responses he claims to have wanted to receive.  

Mr. Runnells is not alone this repeating-ad-nauseam-the-same-old-claims-and-not-engaging-LDS-scholarship-and-responses schtick.

Thanks,

-Smac

Link to comment
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...