Question For Mr. Midgley

[Bob Oliverio]

Mr. Midgley

Please accept my humble acknowledgement to your presence on this board  and request for your input (if I have not made a huge mis-recognition here!!!).

Y

I don't know if you are the same "Midgley"  that I came across prior to becoming a member when I got married, but if you are:

Do you think Mr. & Mrs. Tanner are in any way well meaning people, convinced by their own diligent research, and doing what they find in common  w their factual truths in their research and mission much the same way apologists for the church carry on their agenda and mission for the Church today and in the past?

Or do you find them in total contempt for the truth with no credibility or support for their research and facts?

I ask because your name came up in my journey into the church w my marriage.  I had been given much information from the Tannners' from family and friends to (I assume) expose me to what I was about to get involved with years ago.  There were several articles that included a "Lou Midgley" as an aggressive BYU professor and apologist.  If you were not that person - please accept my apologies in advance.

If you were, and you are open to a conversation about your knowledge, conversations, facts and claims about the Tanners - I would be most interested as I was inundated with documents from friends and family, many produced by the Tanners.  I never got to Utah to meet the Tannners and only recently discovered that the husband had passed. So I don't know the character, honesty, credibility or passion of them.

I'd be interested in you opinion of them and the opinion of their works I had read and been exposed to if you are that Midgley.0

Again, if you are not, my apologies in advance.

[sethpayne]

I can't speak for Lou but Sandra has always been perfectly pleasant to me. She has a myopic focus on all that is negative (or could be interpreted as such) within Mormon history & practice and this prevents her from adopting a more reliable historiography.

The Tanners are nothing like Decker and Schnoebelen. Now THOSE guys are either 1) truly disturbed and paranoid or 2) knowing and willful liars.

IMO, the Tanners are sincere, if sophomoric.

[sethpayne]

I should also say that whomever it was that observed how the Tanners refuse to apply their critical methods to their own faith, hit the nail on the head. They simply won't engage Christianity the same way they engage Mormonism. This blinds them to the fact that (Doh!) Mormons take things on faith just like the (Doh!) Tanners do.

Edited December 24, 2012 by sethpayne

[Robert F. Smith]

I don't know whether Lou Midgley will respond to your request, and don't know whether he inhabits this Board, but I hope you will forgive my temerity in commenting.

I consider Lou a mentor and friend, and I have tremendous respect for him (he was one of my professors at BYU long ago). He has met Sandra Tanner, and on at least one occasion she became annoyed with him and told him to leave her bookstore in SLC. LOL

Lou has been very busy as one of the editors of the now defunct FARMS Review, and is now doing editing on Interpreter.

I have also met the Tanners, and back when Jerald was still with us, I went to church with the Tanner family on one occasion. Jerald was an elder with the Christian & Missionary Alliance Church at that time. It was very nice. Sandra sang a solo during one meeting.

I have always found Sandra to be cordial and reasonable, and have always assumed that she and Jerald were very sincere and well-meaning in their constant inveighing against the LDS Church. Jerald began in about 1959 criticizing racism in the LDS Church, and the project grew from there. They were not college-educated so that their work does not have the polish or restraint which could be expected from well-educated people. They also neglected the canons of good historical criticism and of the professional study of religion, with many of the same faults which are notorious within the evangelical and fundamentalist Christian community. In the end, their tabloid approach was unsuccessful.

Both Midgley and non-Mormon history professor Larry Foster of Georgia Tech have concluded that the life's work of the Tanners actually strengthened the LDS Church by confronting the Church with reprints of many early LDS documents -- documents which are very dynamic and suggestive as to why Mormonism has been so successful as a new religion, helping the Church to recapture much of the energy and verve so important to its founding and continuing success.

Edited December 24, 2012 by Robert F. Smith

[juliann]

Seth, perhaps they can be best judged by the frivolous, if not downright malicious, lawsuit against FAIR for a website FAIR had nothing to do with. Sandra was not satisfied with the Utah judges verdict because he was "biased" in favor of Mormons. She appealed. And lost again in the 10th circuit because her ultimate aim was to silence free speech on the internet. She used it as a successful fund raiser. It was an important enough legal principle to defend that FAIR had lawyers volunteering, including Ralph Nadar's legal organization. Ironically, she will ultimately be better known as being on the wrong end of case law that has been frequently cited than anything she has done for her religion.

http://www.citmedialaw.org/blog/2008/appeals-court-rejects-trademark-claims-against-parody-website

[Scott Lloyd]

Mr. Midgley

Please accept my humble acknowledgement to your presence on this board  and request for your input (if I have not made a huge mis-recognition here!!!).

[snip]

I'm wondering about the rationale for making this a thread and not a personal message, for which it seems more appropriate. Dr. Midgley did give his email address on the thread alluded to here.

[Daniel Peterson]

For what little it's worth, I agree with everything said above.

[cdowis]

My personal observation.

I have no issue with the Tanner's historical research, but with their interpretation of history. I remember their article on the "Black Hole", or the missing 114 pages. It demonstrated a sophomoric understanding of the issues.

It is easy to say, for example, that if there were changes to the manuscript, someone could simply check out the manuscript and the changes would be obvious. As Nixon famously remarked, it only takes a accusation, and proof is unnecessary. "An investigation is still pending"

The Tanners supposed that there would have been some immediate huge investigation.

How naive. They were unwilling to entertain the possibility that there would be no such investigation -- just the publication of the doctored document would suffice the public. Or, an investigation is announced, and six months later it was still "pending".

In this case, the black hole was in their analysis.

Edited December 24, 2012 by cdowis

[Freedom]

I had one conversation with the Tanners where I tried to have them state what religion the belonged to but they would not be forthright other than to say they were true Christians I asked if this meant they were catholics, baptists, or some other denomination but they would not say. Their position what simply that they were true Christians and nothing more. This, of course, allowed them to avoid any real discussion about their own beliefs.

[cdowis]

Not surprising, since they would allow us to see the assumptions behind their arguments.

See my recent conversation with one of our critics, where he grudgingly, finally admitted that the Bible does not preclude modern revelation, that there is a possibility that Lord could call a prophet in our day. This will open up an interesting dialog, one that the Tanners were wise enough to avoid.

If they were here on this forum, I would be asking them something more substantial than what religion they belong to. What they think about the Bible -- is it inerrant. Does the Bible preclude revelation in addition to the Bible.

It takes alot of courage to be a critic on this forum, where you have a level field of discussion. You can either answer questions and make yourself vulnerable, or refuse to answer questions, and look silly.

Edited December 24, 2012 by cdowis

[Freedom]

I do not consider my self to be a great scholar, but I have yet to find any evangelical christian who can prove the three doctrines of inerrance, trinity, and salvation by grace alone. This proves to me that no religion can prove itself through the bible. This is the paradox of modern Christianity and the fundamental flaw in all arguments by other christian religions against our faith. Are they being intentionally deceitful or willfully ignorant?

I recall reading a book that slammed the musical artist Billy Joel - it found every bit of evidence that showed his incompetency Every flaw in the recordings, rhymes grammar, spelling, you name it. After reading the book I felt the same sensation when I read anti-mormon material. I felt like I just met the devil. Billy Joel is no saint, but why anybody would want to put so much energy into trashing on his music baffled me. I felt sorry for the author, almost embarrassed for him.