A Warning About A New Beginning Unheeded For Five Years?

[Pahoran]

In that case the answer is to defeat them at their own game. You have put together a technically excellent and innovative online (and in print) journal; all you need to do now is to polish it a bit more, and change its focus more towards a "Mormon Studies" slant rather than an "apologetics" slant (of the traditional kind). It doesn't mean that you can't publish the kind of things that you have been publishing before. You can still continue to do that, while gradually focusing more in the direction suggestive of "Mormon Studies" rather than the traditional kind of "apologetics". It is going to take some time anyway for LDS scholars to adapt to the new way of thinking, and start producing quality articles of that description. That is the problem that MI will be facing too. So initially you can continue to publish the same kind of material as before, while gradually changing direction along new ways of thinking. You can also solicit such papers from non-LDS academics. They don't all have to be written by LDS. In fact, the best way of getting LDS scholars to think along those lines is to publish good articles of that description by non-LDS authors.

So the "answer" is for Dan and his friends to "gradually" abandon what someone (who was it again?) recently flatly (and counterfactually) denied was even "apologetics" at all.

Because by so doing they would "defeat" the MI. I guess that would mean Dan et al had "won" something.

Sorry, but that doesn't sound much like a "win" to me. Or if it is, it would be a totally pyrrhic one.

Which, I doubt not, is about the only kind of win you'd want them to get; but I digress.

The point you and Bradford seem incapable of grasping is that there is not just one way to talk about Mormon things. The "Mormon studies" approach has the advantage of Respectability[TM] within the halls of the Great and Spacious Ivory Tower; but active apologetics has a far more impressive pedigree, going all the way back to Paul and beyond (note that Paul himself appealed to pagan thinkers to support his arguments, as also did Justin Martyr, and if what he was doing wasn't apologetics, then there's no such thing; but I digress again.) Just as it would have been entirely possible for Bradford to have engaged in academic "Mormon studies" without subverting the MI, so it is now equally possible for Dan and his friends to pursue their classic-FARMS project without either interfering with Bradford's makeover, or attempting to seize his territory.

Incidentally, if you click the link and read Bradford's article, you will find him describing "Mormon studies" in much the same way as Bill Hamblin described it not so long ago -- and got so roundly abused therefor.

Regards,

Pahoran

[ANACO]

Thank you all for the feedback and comments.

I assumed Bradford was the director then, apparently not, as was noted. Again the article seemed contrary to what it appeared to me as expressed generally here and elsewhere, that the change in direction at NAMI as coming as a big surprise. Not knowing the inner workings of said organization, I'll leave it at that.

I don't mean to resurrect anyone's feelings over this with the potential for offenses.

With that said, if the Admins want to close this thread, it's fine by me.

[zerinus]

Thank you all for the feedback and comments.

I assumed Bradford was the director then, apparently not, as was noted.

However, the fact that he soon became the director implies that somebody liked his ideas, and so do I; although I have never met the guy, and know absolutely nothing about him. I think there is a lot of merit to what he has said. Whether he is the right man to carry that vision forward or not remains to be seen.

Edited August 24, 2012 by zerinus