Comparing DSS, KJV and BOM

[Kevin Christensen]

"I'm an advocate of Book of Mormon historicity and divine inspiration, among other things."

"I've been advocating the 3rd way in print since 1991"

Sincerely, I may have missed something. Are you saying, in a nutshell, that you used to advocate for the objective perspective (acting as impartially towards the two theories as possible) but then decided to advocate for the BOM's historicity based on these values "accuracy of key predictions, comprehensiveness and coherence, fruitfulness, simplicity and aesthetics, and future promise"?

There is no objective perspective. Nor impartial. On that topic, see Peter Novick's That Noble Dream, or Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Or listen to Novick's talk at Sunstone from several years back. He was talking about historians, but the principles apply:

For historians, even more than scientists, a fetishism of â??the factâ? is one of the hallmarks of the objectivist consciousness. While, early on, historians were confident that they could achieve historical objectivity, later, more chastened generations regarded it as perhaps unattainable but continued to hold it out as an approachable ideal. The conception remained the same: to approximate, if not reach, a neutral, undistorting mirror of the past. An objective account would at least attempt to account for all of the evidence. The goal of the objective historian, even if one could not quite achieve it, was to tell it like it wasâ??if not without preconceptions, with as few as possible, minimizing as much as possible any ulterior didactic motives. Even if one could not completely eliminate partisanship or bias, one could try to keep what remained under as tight a control as possible. If one could not eliminate outside influences, one would struggle against them with all oneâ??s strength. But above allâ??and if I repeat myself, it is because it bears repetitionâ??the objective historian was to cleave to one goal and one goal only, mirroring to the best of her powers the past as it really was.

Though radically compressed, this is a fair statement of the mainstream position on historical objectivity. Now I have not the time, and you have not the patience, to go through the ups and downs of this program over the past hundred years. I will only report that to an ever-increasing number of historians in recent decades it has not just seemed unapproachable, but an incoherent ideal; not impossible, in the sense of unachievable (that would not make it a less worthy goal than many other goals that we reasonably pursue), but meaningless. This is not because of human frailty on the part of the historian (that, after all, we can struggle against), not because of irresistible outside pressures (these too we can resist with some success, if not complete success). No, the principal problem is different, and it is laughably simple. It is the problem of selecting from among the zillions and zillions of bits of historical data out there the handful that we can fit in even the largest book, and the associated problem of how we arrange those bits that we choose. The criterion of selection and the way we arrange the bits we choose are not given out there in the historical record. Neutrality, value-freedom, and absence of preconceptions on the part of the historian would not result in a neutral account, it would result in no account at all, because any historian, precisely to the extent that she was neutral, without values, free of preconceptions, would be paralyzed, would not have the foggiest notion of how to go about choosing from the vast, unbelievably messy chaos of stuff out there.

So, if I cannot be objective, what can I do? I read Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions many years ago, and he reports there that in choosing between competing paradigms, scientific communities as a matter of pragmatic practice make value-based (rather than a rule-based) decisions, weighing accuracy of key predictions, comprehensiveness and coherence, fruitfulness, simplicity and aesthetics, and future promise. Other values do enter in (prestige of teachers, nationalism, religious beliefs, etc.) but these have less to do with what is real. So I emphasize the others. (I discuss all of this at length in "Paradigms Crossed" in RBBM 7:2, and elsewhere.)

I compare different theories about the Book of Mormon. That I'm an advocate of historicity does not mean that I ignore other views, but that I recognize that I have to compete with them when I offer my own views. So I make comparisons. I look at different sides, but I don't pretend that doing so makes me objective. I do consider the implications of my own perspective, just as I consider the implications of the perspectives adopted by others. I look at other arguments not to be "objective" or "impartial" but so that I can make my own arguments better.

Claims to be impartial and objective, such as offered up by John Charles Duffy's long essay on Mapping Mormon Issues, turn out in practice to be attempts to diffuse criticism. The partiality is obvious, and has clear implications for what he notices and values throughout. (I posted at length on that topic here a few months ago.) Why not admit it up front?

Kevin Christensen

Bethel Park, PA

[Ray Agostini]

There is no objective perspective. Nor impartial. On that topic, see Peter Novick's That Noble Dream, or Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Or listen to Novick's talk at Sunstone from several years back. He was talking about historians, but the principles apply:

Perhaps total objectivity is some sort of pipe dream, and we've heard along these lines from Kuhn and Novick for quite some time. However, I offer another historian's perspective, G.R. Elton, who wrote The Practice of History in reply to E.H. Carr's What is History?. Both offer interesting but different perspectives, and I think this is necessary. From Elton:

And here the first demand of sound historical scholarship must be stressed: it must rest upon a broad-fronted attack upon all the relevant material. Historical research does not consist, as beginners in particular often suppose, in pursuit of some particular evidence which will answer a particular question; it consists of an exhaustive, and exhausting, review of everything that may conceivably be germane to a given investigation. . Properly observed, this principle provides a manifest and efficient safeguard against the dangers of personal selection of evidence. (G.R. Elton, The Practice of History , [sydney University Press, 1967], p. 88.

According to Wiki:

Elton was a strong defender of the traditional methods of history and was appalled by postmodernism, which he termed the "intellectual equivalent of crack". Although ex-pupils of his such as John Guy claim he did embody a "revisionist streak", Elton saw the duty of historians as empirically gathering evidence and objectively analyzing what the evidence has to say. As a traditionalist, he placed great emphasis on the role of individuals in history instead of abstract, impersonal forces. For instance, his 1963 book Reformation Europe is in large part concerned with the duel between Martin Luther and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Elton objected to cross-disciplinary efforts such as efforts to combine history with anthropology or sociology. He saw political history as the best and most important kind of history. Elton had no use for those who seek history to make myths, create laws to explain the past and produce theories such as Marxism.

Regardless, I think Elton's aim (quoted above from Practice) is in fact a "noble one". Having said that, I did have a lecturer/tutor at university (with a Ph.D in history), once remark to me that "all history is style". I thought "have historians become this narcissistic?" Historians are like doctors, mechanics, dentists, etc., some are better at their profession than others. Some are more objective and thorough than others.

I think what we are "supposed to do" is try to be as objective as possible. Some will get closer to the mark than others.

[Kevin Christensen]

It's easy to say "Be as objective as possible." It's much harder objectively define what that means.

However, if you look at the first quote from Professor Elton, I think you'll see that he's comparing "accuracy of key predictions" (evidence that resolves a particular question) and "comprehensiveness and coherence" (exhaustive...) as values for history. Different words, but the same ideas.

I think the important thing is to be perceptive, given one's perspective. Kuhn's report on the important values for paradigm choice help me improve my perspective.

Back in 1987, Blake Ostler published an important essay in which he surveyed all the literature on the Book of Mormon up to that point, and offered his synthesis and interpretation. I don't think it was objective, but it was perceptive for the time. One of the most obvious limitations on the essay is that he was not able to survey any of the Book of Mormon scholarship that has emerged since 1987, and that happens to include some of the most important things. So a number of his important conclusions and statements are no longer valid. He agrees with this, and let me quote him to that effect.

And of course Duffy exhaustively surveyed Book of Mormon scholarship more recently in his long Sunstone essay, but I see how stays at a high level of abstraction, leaving out all of the telling details, and more crucially, adopts an overall metaphor that devalues everything as "inventing evidence." That is not objectivity, but a particular perspective, not unexpected from one who already wrote that he dismissed the work of FARMS as "a matter of course."

Professor Quinn has said that he thinks it's important to make room for anomalous accounts. Fine. He wants to be comprehensive. But he periodically gets caught up in not being coherent because of the way he values certain anomalous accounts. For instance, he famously wrote that Joseph Smith sent for the Nauvoo legion from Carthage, and cited a work that had already been exposed as a Hoffman forgery. Well, abashed, he quickly wrote an apology and justification, citing two other historical sources that Brodie had used. Following her, Quinn cites Alan J. Stout, who was in Nauvoo, not Carthage, and T.B.H. Stenhouse, who was in England, not yet a convert, and who tells the story without offering a pedigree. Richard L. Anderson shows that early eye-witness accounts by John Taylor insist that Joseph pointedly refused to send for the Legion, and that Dan Jones reported that when he left the jail with a letter to an attorney that rumors immediately circulated in Carthage about the contents of that letter, including suspicions that it was call for the legion. And further, Anderson demonstrates that "Nauvoo sources continue to show that Dunham was highly trusted after the martyrdom." (Richard L. Anderson in Expressions of Faith, Susan Black, ed. (FARMS and Deseret Book, Provo, 167). Quinn would claim that his willingness to credit and emphasize the unsourced rumors about Joseph Smith and Dunham makes his version more objective, but after reading Anderson's response, I came away convinced that Quinn in this instance was not particularly perceptive. Indeed the misreporting by Quinn seems to me to be a direct consequence of his determination to prove his objectivity, to show he could face problematic issues without flinching. It led him to uncritically accept a forgery, and then second and third hand, unsourced gossip that contradicted first hand eye-witness acounts, as well as the general circumstances described by a host of people in Nauvoo and Carthage.

That is why I continue to be skeptical of calls for objectivity. I'm more impressed by insight and perception.

Kevin Christensen

Bethel Park, PA

[Ray Agostini]

It led him to uncritically accept a forgery,

He wasn't the only one to uncritically accept the forgery. I presume you were following BYU Studies post the Hofmann debacle.

That is why I continue to be skeptical of calls for objectivity. I'm more impressed by insight and perception.

I am not skeptical of those aiming to be as objective as possible. And I do happen to think that some historians are more objective than others. I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "insight and perception", but if you mean by that looking at historical complexities with a million and one possible interpretations, then yes, I can see where's there's a place for "insight and perception".

Let me give an example. Was the US invasion of Grenada imperialist American doing her dirty work? Or was it an attempt to stop a communist take-over? What is/was the aftermath of the invasion? One commentator argued that Grenada is still in poverty. Would communism have averted this? Adding to the complexity is that people sometimes express negative opinions about events they actually desire. "Uncle Sam shoulda never invaded us", but how about asking the protestors to move to Cuba if they're so unhappy with "Operation Urgent Fury"? (I'm not relating this willy-nilly; I originally come from that part of the world and have relatives who've related to me what happened).

Now I don't want to turn this political. But an "objective" historian would thoroughly examine what happened, and here I would disagree with Elton that sociology should be left out assessments.

To your previous post:

Professor Wright is a brilliant man, but I find his explanations of the Book of Mormon focuses on textual issues that don't bother me, since I don't make the same assumptions he does about what an inspired translation should be, and I find that neither his talent, nor his honesty, nor his sincerity make him omniscient and infallible, and beyond criticism. Nor do his discussions of the Book of Mormon address the things that I find most interesting and telling about the Book of Mormon.

Do you know that Professor Wright doesn't share your view in regard to "what an inspired translation should be"? Has he ever said that the BoM is a fraud? Has he ever said that it is "not inspired"?

That is, the little quacking and waddling text that he describes does not include any meaningful discussion of the features that I find most significant in upholding my own view of the Book of Mormon text.

And what features of the Book of Mormon text do you think Professor Wright finds "significant"? Do you expect his approach to be the same as yours? And if it isn't, it's invalid?

That includes things like the NDE accounts and affereffects....

You know as well as I do that this is a complex subject. The BoM does gives some insights, but none which haven't been previously recorded. I may have to do some searching, but I recall reading a 12th or 13th century account and thinking at the time, "this is Alma verbatim". NDEs go back to Plato.

NDEs Have Been Reported Since Ancient Times .

Maybe I've failed to convey my thoughts, but hopefully you'll see what I mean by trying to be objective. Because the BoM reports certain phenomena which seem "unique" - is it really so? Could there be other explanations?

[Kevin Christensen]

He wasn't the only one to uncritically accept the forgery. I presume you were following BYU Studies post the Hofmann debacle.

I followed the whole Hofmann thing with high interest while it was happening. The problem with Quinn's citation in Origins of Power was that the text in question had already been exposed as a forgery. Quinn was much abashed that he had missed this. He knew better.

I am not skeptical of those aiming to be as objective as possible. And I do happen to think that some historians are more objective than others.

But what does it even mean to be "as objective as possible?" Novick suggests in the Sunstone talk (I have a transcript) that at best it means you follow a group-defined set of assumptions and methods. By that standard, Novick argued, much to the chagrin of those who invited him to speak, the old Mormon historians were more objective than the new.

I look at the reviews of Bushman's Rough Stone Rolling. We get admiring LDS readers praising its objectivity, and critics howling that Bushman's faith colors every page. Which reviewers are objective? I don't think Bushman is objective. I think he is perceptive and insightful.

I notice in Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions, in the chapter on how scientists decide on a paradigm, that he never offers up "objectivity" as one of the reasons. I think I understand why that is.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "insight and perception", but if you mean by that looking at historical complexities with a million and one possible interpretations, then yes, I can see where's there's a place for "insight and perception".

In 1957, Hugh Nibley noticed that King Benjamin's discourse was a coronation. That is an insight, a new perception. In 1967, John Welch noticed chiasmus. More recently, Alan Goff, Ben McGuire, Dan Peterson, Brant Gardner, John Sorenson, Matt Roper, John Tvedtnes, and even yours truely now and then, have noticed things which had not been noticed before. I appreciate such fresh insight and perception.

On the other hand, when noted critic Harold Bloom refers to that "The Book of Mormon's very American Link between the Indians and the lost Ten tribes" (The American Religion, 84), it's bogus insight, a false perception, a misreading generated from one who claimed without bothering to read it, that the book isn't worth a close reading.

Let me give an example. Was the US invasion of Grenada imperialist American doing her dirty work? ...SNIP

Now I don't want to turn this political. But an "objective" historian would thoroughly examine what happened, and here I would disagree with Elton that sociology should be left out assessments.

This is exactly the kind of situation that Peter Novick discusses and why he demonstrates to me that a call for objectivity is meaningless.

To your previous post:

Do you know that Professor Wright doesn't share your view in regard to "what an inspired translation should be"? Has he ever said that the BoM is a fraud? Has he ever said that it is "not inspired"?

I quoted Professor Wright's expectation of what an inspired translation would be like. I disagree on grounds that no such text exists anywhere. That is, however appealing the logic, he offers no examples that such a translation ever existed anywhere. Whereas the texts and translations that do claim inspiration all demonstrate the similar issues.

And yes, Professor Wright has published at least three essays arguing against the historicity of the Book of Mormon. In his New Approaches essay, he offers some space for religious value despite that. In his 1992 Sunstone essay, he sees the choice as between Fundamentalism and critical thinking, a perception that I find far too polarized. I responded in JBMS 3/1.

And what features of the Book of Mormon text do you think Professor Wright finds "significant"? Do you expect his approach to be the same as yours? And if it isn't, it's invalid?

He's most interested in what strikes him as anachronism, and dismissive of everything else. His approach falls from what strike me as overly narrow and rigid expectations in contrast with his formal scholarly training. I don't object to his training nearly as much as I do object to his characterizations of the LDS faith.

Is his approach not valid compared to mine? That depends on which point. But here is one example.

David Wright argues that the Melchizedek material in Alma 13 is anachronistically derived from Hebrews:

Scholarship recognizes that Hebrews does not create all of its argument by itself but relies on tradition and perhaps even on some unknown written sources (in addition to the Bible) in some of the places where we have seen the epistle parallel elements in Alma 12â??13. But these traditions and sources are in general relatively recent developments for the author of Hebrews, not traditions going back 700 years. Moreover, the traditions and sources found or supposed by scholars for the passages in Hebrews relevant to Alma 12â??13 are diverse; . . . They are not likely to be found in one traditional source. (Wright in New Approaches, 205)

In 1987, Margaret Barker wrote The Older Testament, which has this:

Melchizedek was central to the old royal cult. We do not know what the name means, but it is quite clear that this priesthood operated within the mythology of the sons of Elyon, and the triumph of the royal son of God in Jerusalem. We should expect later references to Melchizedek to retain some memory of the cult of Elyon. . . . The role of the ancient kings was that of the Melchizedek figure in 11QMelch. This accounts for the Melchizedek material in Hebrews, and the early Church's association of Melchizedek and the Messiah. The arguments of Hebrews presuppose a knowledge of the angel mythology which we no longer have.

She not only moves the Melchizedek tradition back seven hundred years from Hebrews, but she argues that the single source is the First Temple.

You know as well as I do that this is a complex subject. The BoM does gives some insights, but none which haven't been previously recorded. I may have to do some searching, but I recall reading a 12th or 13th century account and thinking at the time, "this is Alma verbatim". NDEs go back to Plato.

NDEs Have Been Reported Since Ancient Times .

Have your read my essay in JBMS v2 n2? Do you have a source older than the Book of Mormon that discusses not only the NDE experience, but that also describes in detail the after-effects, as studied by Raymond Moody and Kenneth Ring?

http://mi.byu.edu/publications/jbms/?vol=2&num=1&id=16

Maybe I've failed to convey my thoughts, but hopefully you'll see what I mean by trying to be objective. Because the BoM reports certain phenomena which seem "unique" - is it really so? Could there be other explanations?

After reading Novick, and a lot of scholarship over the past 35 years, I have a very clear picture what it means to "try" to be objective. To Quinn it means including anything and everything that goes against the traditional view, especially if it goes against the traditional view. To Wright, it means to fully absorb the indoctrination of scholarly tools he has been trained to use, to use them and no others, and to uncritically follow them where ever they lead. He even shifts to passive voice to emphasize that he is truth machine, impassively cranking out truth.

There are always other explanations for the Book of Mormon. It's easy to say Joseph Smith managed whatever he did "somehow." But consider "somehow" in relation to accuracy of key predictions, comprehensiveness and coherence, fruitfulness, simplicity and aesthetics, and future promise.

In comparing paradigms, Kuhn says, the issue is which paradigm should guide future research, and which paradigm is better?

Kevin Christensen

Bethel Park, PA

[Ray Agostini]

There's a lot to respond to here, Kevin. Unfortunately I won't have the time to do it properly over the next day or two as I'm back at work. However, for now, I'll take this statement:

I look at the reviews of Bushman's Rough Stone Rolling. We get admiring LDS readers praising its objectivity, and critics howling that Bushman's faith colors every page. Which reviewers are objective? I don't think Bushman is objective. I think he is perceptive and insightful.

Well it's funny how when I first read Bushman's Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism I marked him as "more objective" than any other Mormon historian I'd read to that time. He was a breath of fresh air, to me.

Now I'll give you a clue. The more you try to defend your faith with what I consider, in some cases, "facile arguments" clearly motivated by nothing other than a desire to "defend your faith", I will outright reject it!. Be honest with me, and don't underestimate my capacity to understand basic English. Don't "preach to me"! So to speak. Acknowledge your weaknesses, and what you don't have evidence for, and your need to rely on faith in many cases. But don't BS me with crap that "all the evidence" points to Mormonism, and "who in their right mind could reject this?". That's your perspective. The more you try to denigrate your critics, the less respect I'll have for you. That's not to say that valid criticism is null and void. But don't try to "demonise" critics like Quinn to me, because I'll only view you as a rank and file apologist. I can do my own thinking, thank you.

[Kevin Christensen]

There's a lot to respond to here, Kevin. Unfortunately I won't have the time to do it properly over the next day or two as I'm back at work. However, for now, I'll take this statement:

Well it's funny how when I first read Bushman's Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism I marked him as "more objective" than any other Mormon historian I'd read to that time. He was a breath of fresh air, to me.

I read Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism when it first appeared, and also loved it. He reminded me how exicting our founding stories are. What's interesting is that when Bushman describes the peer review process at the University of Illinois Press, he talks about how one reviewer bristled that Bushman's faith informed every page, and then stopped and thought, we publish things from Marxist and Feminist perspectives. Why not Mormon?

Up to now, you've not defined what "objectivity" means to, but now you do. And despite the use of second person here, I do read it as your working definition, as objective, as general values, and not as a personal attack on me.

Now I'll give you a clue. The more you try to defend your faith with what I consider, in some cases, "facile arguments" clearly motivated by nothing other than a desire to "defend your faith", I will outright reject it!. Be honest with me, and don't underestimate my capacity to understand basic English. Don't "preach to me"! So to speak. Acknowledge your weaknesses, and what you don't have evidence for, and your need to rely on faith in many cases. But don't BS me with crap that "all the evidence" points to Mormonism, and "who in their right mind could reject this?". That's your perspective. The more you try to denigrate your critics, the less respect I'll have for you. That's not to say that valid criticism is null and void. But don't try to "demonise" critics like Quinn to me, because I'll only view you as a rank and file apologist. I can do my own thinking, thank you.

Okay. I can see values that you are talking about. Personally, I think most of the writing at FARMS and FAIR acknowledges weakness, does not demonize critics, is honest, and acknowledges that anyone can dismiss our best arguments by simply shrugging and saying "So what?" A lot of this is about balance and tone. I agree with it. Back in 1998, Quinn referred to my "Paradigms Crossed" as "One of the finest examples of that moderate approach while doing incisive analysis of the debate over the Book of Mormon." (Magic World View, 2nd ed, 355,note 114.) I think he evaluated me, in that instance, based on a similar set of values.

As an English major myself, I can also look through this definition of objectivity, and point out instances emotionally loaded language and unapologetically subjective judgements. There's nothing wrong with it. Just one of the inescapable ironies of our being human. The passion with which you define objectivity also reveals how subjective some judgments always are. I'm also willing to be polite and respectful as a matter of protocol, but I think part of honesty calls for me to acknowledge where I am passionate, and not at all dispassionate, not objective. And that, I think is also something Quinn liked in "Paradigms Crossed."

One of the reasons that I'm not as concerned (not unconcerned) on these issues is based on my reaction to authors who manage to get the academic tone, the pose of moderation, of unflinching honesty, tolerance, and respect, and use that pose itself as a self-authenticating rhetorical ploy not at all justified by the content they offer. Grant Palmer comes to mind. Honest and polite, yes. Competent, no. And I've found that my resort to the values for paradigm choice that Kuhn lays out always provides me with helpful insights on different arguments that I see, regardless of the tone and balance that an author manages.

A while back, Daniel Peterson and David P. Honey wrote a helpful essay on Advocacy and Inquiry in LDS scholarship as different modes, assuming different audiences and different purposes. I very much like the essay. Depending on the situation, I may write in either mode, advocacy, or inquiry. But I still like to use first person and active voice as a way of acknowledging that all I write is my perspective.

Kevin Christensen

Bethel Park, PA

[Ray Agostini]

I agree with it. Back in 1998, Quinn referred to my "Paradigms Crossed" as "One of the finest examples of that moderate approach while doing incisive analysis of the debate over the Book of Mormon." (Magic World View, 2nd ed, 355,note 114.) I think he evaluated me, in that instance, based on a similar set of values.

I did read your essay when it was first published, but I'll have to do it more justice since that was a long time ago. I'll try to re-read it over the next few days as I skirt around night shift and trying to get at least four hours sleep during the daytime. I think I can see some very fruitful discussions ahead of us.

[ruski_canuk]

I don't have some flamboyant post-modernist vision of objectivity - just a simple, practical one. I would say objectivity contains two very achievable traits:

(1) Rigorous study of the available facts / claims / evidence

(2) Not allowing the potential conclusions of the study affect the study itself

If objectivity was impossible (cheer post-modernists!) then you are saying that the lawyer is as objective as the judge. The reality, at least as I see it, is that objectivity is a scale, not a dichotomy. I agree that achieving absolute objectivity is difficult to impossible but admitting that it is a scale and striving to maximize your objectivity on that scale seems to be practical, possible and moral.

There is no objective perspective. Nor impartial. On that topic, see Peter Novick's That Noble Dream, or Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Or listen to Novick's talk at Sunstone from several years back. He was talking about historians, but the principles apply:

So, if I cannot be objective, what can I do? I read Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions many years ago, and he reports there that in choosing between competing paradigms, scientific communities as a matter of pragmatic practice make value-based (rather than a rule-based) decisions, weighing accuracy of key predictions, comprehensiveness and coherence, fruitfulness, simplicity and aesthetics, and future promise. Other values do enter in (prestige of teachers, nationalism, religious beliefs, etc.) but these have less to do with what is real. So I emphasize the others. (I discuss all of this at length in "Paradigms Crossed" in RBBM 7:2, and elsewhere.)

I compare different theories about the Book of Mormon. That I'm an advocate of historicity does not mean that I ignore other views, but that I recognize that I have to compete with them when I offer my own views. So I make comparisons. I look at different sides, but I don't pretend that doing so makes me objective. I do consider the implications of my own perspective, just as I consider the implications of the perspectives adopted by others. I look at other arguments not to be "objective" or "impartial" but so that I can make my own arguments better.

Claims to be impartial and objective, such as offered up by John Charles Duffy's long essay on Mapping Mormon Issues, turn out in practice to be attempts to diffuse criticism. The partiality is obvious, and has clear implications for what he notices and values throughout. (I posted at length on that topic here a few months ago.) Why not admit it up front?

Kevin Christensen

Bethel Park, PA