Does Apologetics Drive People Away From The Church?

[Tacenda]

I've got to hand it to apologetics once more. They are underappreciated. Yes, I was shocked and bewildered when I came across it and couldn't believe they would put that stuff on there (fairlds.com), even thinking they were secretly anti or under a guise. Now I believe what they are doing is trying to save a few of us from jumping off a cliff or from leaving entirely until we can once again believe but this time believe on real facts, not a fairy tale. They know or believe there is a truth in this church that is unexplainable possibly, but it's there.

Edited February 18, 2013 by Tacenda

[SeekingUnderstanding]

Take for example "lying" about Polygamy. Joseph didn't lie at all. He was accused of practicing polygamy, he wasn't practicing polygamy, he was practicing the Sealing Ordinance. He only had one actual wife. He wasn't living or practicing polygamy. Whether he had relations with others, that's another question for which the evidence is vastly contradictory and any reasonable person shouldn't say ya or nay one way or the other. But, that's a different issue.

Again, what I find ugly is the misrepresentation of truth. Joseph didn't lie. He nor the Church was practicing polygamy, which was the claim. He was honest. Yes, he wasn't forthright in telling all the facts of what was actually occurring (the complicated spiritual sealing ordinance that normal men not schooled would understand), but that again is a different issue. And the other issue, I'll let someone else address.

So you support Bill Clinton's statement (i.e. don't think that Bill Clinton was lying when he said) "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" because based on his definition of those words they were true? "It depends on what the meaning of the words 'is' is."

[webbles]

The topic is whether or not apologetics hurts testimonies. My very strong belief, that I think the church is really missing the boat on, is that people come here because it appears church friendly and are genuinely shocked at what they find. Denying this is neither helpful to the church not to those struggling. Calling anyone who takes these things at face value anti-Mormons is equally detrimental.

I'm confused by this statement. By discussing these "skeletons in the closet", you are saying that apologetics are hurting the church. So what do you want them to do? Not discuss them?

[Questing Beast]

Indeed, perfect examples of you accepting the perverted anti-mormon versions of those events to the actual facts of the history, for which Apologists promote debunking the anti-mormon versions.

Take for example "lying" about Polygamy. Joseph didn't lie at all. He was accused of practicing polygamy, he wasn't practicing polygamy, he was practicing the Sealing Ordinance. He only had one actual wife. He wasn't living or practicing polygamy. Whether he had relations with others, that's another question for which the evidence is vastly contradictory and any reasonable person shouldn't say ya or nay one way or the other. But, that's a different issue.

"What a thing it is for a man to be accused of committing adultery, and having seven wives, when I can only find one.", his response on the streets of Nauvoo, c. a month before his death. This, after Emma threatened him with divorce a half year before if he didn't send the other women out of their house, which he did with great sorrow (read the accounts by the Lawrence sisters). If "sealing" was all that was going on then Emma would not have become incensed and threatened divorce, there would have been no cause.

Again, what I find ugly is the misrepresentation of truth. Joseph didn't lie. He nor the Church was practicing polygamy, which was the claim. He was honest. Yes, he wasn't forthright in telling all the facts of what was actually occurring (the complicated spiritual sealing ordinance that normal men not schooled would understand), but that again is a different issue. And the other issue, I'll let someone else address.

What I find ugly is the misrepresentation of truth, too. He did lie, repeatedly. The "elite" of the Church were practicing polygamy in the physical sense, and JS did not condemn it except when individuals entered into it by going around him, e.g. Bennett. Nauvoo polygamy was sexual. Strong evidence that it was also with JS is the fact that he taught it to be full marriage, not just sealing, and children of other marriages resulted in Nauvoo. It is moot if JS had any children by others than Emma, when his followers had plenty of them by polygamous unions that JS encouraged....

Edited February 18, 2013 by Questing Beast

[ControlFreak]

I'm confused by this statement. By discussing these "skeletons in the closet", you are saying that apologetics are hurting the church. So what do you want them to do? Not discuss them?

Face them head on (the church, not just a small group of apologists) and reasonably early. The vast majority of members are totally ignorant of major historical details such as polyandry, using rocks instead of urim and thummim and book of Abraham papyri. Yet, when we find them late in life, the church has no comment. No help. Stake presidents, bishops, nobody will talk about them.

[wenglund]

Huh? So holding the church accountable for its immoral and well hidden past is blaming the church for my choices? Quite to the contrary, I'm taking personal responsibility for my moral actions and not accepting immoral actions deemed moral by the church, whether in the past or the present.

Actually, my comment had in mind mean apologists like my self, who refuse to take responsibility for driving people out of the church, and instead blame apostates for the consequences of our actions.

But, you make a good point. To your way of thinking, we mean apologist are actually taking personal responsibility by holding the apostates accountable for their faith-busting banality and deleterious thinking.

I appreciate you clearing that up.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[webbles]

Face them head on (the church, not just a small group of apologists) and reasonably early. The vast majority of members are totally ignorant of major historical details such as polyandry, using rocks instead of urim and thummim and book of Abraham papyri. Yet, when we find them late in life, the church has no comment. No help. Stake presidents, bishops, nobody will talk about them.

The Book of Abraham was pretty much faced as early as it could be. We had Ensign articles from Hugh Nibley that talked about what the papyri really was.

The church dealt with polyandry in the late 1800s. Andrew Jensen (I think) documented the wives of Joseph Smith and included polyandrous wives. They are now doing the Joseph Smith papers which is making the documents even more accessible.

Seer stones were talked about in the Ensign. Also, the Urim and Thummim are rocks/seer stones.

The church does have a comment, just some of the comments are pretty old (when they actively dealt with the issue). Also, I think a lot of these historical tidbits are still unclear. For some reason, the early saints didn't have a problem with any of these things and yet we are. Why do we have to second guess them?

[Kevin Christensen]

Face them head on (the church, not just a small group of apologists) and reasonably early. The vast majority of members are totally ignorant of major historical details such as polyandry, using rocks instead of urim and thummim and book of Abraham papyri. Yet, when we find them late in life, the church has no comment. No help. Stake presidents, bishops, nobody will talk about them.

The issue here is who or what exactly is "the church." The definition a person selects makes a huge difference in whether "nobody will talk about them" makes sense. Clearly, I think, some very well informed members do talk about things. And personally, I see them as much "the church" as anyone with an official calling. It's appropriate to repost something from a few days ago on a related thread:

If you read the lists of spiritual gifts in the scriptures, you may observe that "administration" is one gift, and "knowledge" is another.

And with that mind, look to John Boyd's influential theories about the OODA loop, and the most efficient kinds of organizations:

Boyd hypothesized that all intelligent organisms and organizations undergo a continuous cycle of interaction with their environment. Boyd breaks this cycle down to four interrelated and overlapping processes through which one cycles continuously:

• Observation: the collection of data by means of the senses
  
• Orientation: the analysis and synthesis of data to form one's current mental perspective
  
• Decision: the determination of a course of action based on one's current mental perspective
  
• Action: the physical playing-out of decisions
  

Of course, while this is taking place, the situation may be changing. It is sometimes necessary to cancel a planned action in order to meet the changes. This decision cycle is thus known as the OODA loop. Boyd emphasized that this decision cycle is the central mechanism enabling adaptation (apart from natural selection) and is therefore critical to survival.

Boyd theorized that large organizations such as corporations, governments, or militaries possessed a hierarchy of OODA loops at tactical, grand-tactical (operational art), and strategic levels. In addition, he stated that most effective organizations have a highly decentralized chain of command that utilizes objective-driven orders, or directive control, rather than method-driven orders in order to harness the mental capacity and creative abilities of individual commanders at each level. In 2003, this power to the edge concept took the form of a DOD publication "Power to the Edge: Command ... Control ... in the Information Age" by Dr. David S. Alberts and Richard E. Hayes. Boyd argued that such a structure creates a flexible "organic whole" that is quicker to adapt to rapidly changing situations. He noted, however, that any such highly decentralized organization would necessitate a high degree of mutual trust and a common outlook that came from prior shared experiences. Headquarters needs to know that the troops are perfectly capable of forming a good plan for taking a specific objective, and the troops need to know that Headquarters does not direct them to achieve certain objectives without good reason.

Apologetics in the LDS community seems to me to work best based on the practice of the power to the edge concept. And that is because the LDS faith is not based on a static, on the shelf orthodoxy and unchanging creeds, but based on the idea of continuing revelation, which carries an explicit admission that we do not know everything, that some of what we think we know is wrong, that others possess truths we do not and can and should embrace, and that that does not matter all that much if the most important things, those administered by the church structure, the ordinances and covenants, and those experienced by the individual members, the presence of the Holy Spirit and experience of at-onement, are real.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

[Tacenda]

Face them head on (the church, not just a small group of apologists) and reasonably early. The vast majority of members are totally ignorant of major historical details such as polyandry, using rocks instead of urim and thummim and book of Abraham papyri. Yet, when we find them late in life, the church has no comment. No help. Stake presidents, bishops, nobody will talk about them.

True and I'm an example of this. When I emailed my bishop an answer as to whether I was willing to teach primary (his counselor had dropped by my house to extend the calling and I'd expressed to him my findings of early church history and he kept telling me to think about it and not quit attending church and that he had at one time had doubts too but no longer). I decided to let the bishop know by email the reasons I didn't feel qualified to teach since my findings of JS polygamy and a few other things. Well, he has never responded to these things just shows he cares about me in the hallways of church etc. Of course he's my stake president now.

[Daniel Peterson]

A parenthetical observation:

using rocks instead of urim and thummim

This objection has always puzzled me. What is the Urim and Thummim if not rocks?

I've never understood why it's unobjectionable to use these rocks in the translation process, but utterly absurd to use those rocks.

[volgadon]

Other books that I consider friendly and even apologetic

Thanks, I needed a good laugh.

[ControlFreak]

Thanks, I needed a good laugh.

Glad you find it humorous, but why is your brand of apologetics any better than another members? As Kevin points out, "the church" is its members and the first presidency hasn't endorsed any books that I'm aware of.

[volgadon]

Glad you find it humorous, but why is your brand of apologetics any better than another members? As Kevin points out, "the church" is its members and the first presidency hasn't endorsed any books that I'm aware of.

Did I mention my brand of apologetics? Don't recall doing so.

Perhaps I'm odd, but the idea of books like "Mormon Enigma" and "An Insider's View" being considered apologia for the church is impossible to take seriously.

[Darren10]

Some of you might be more than astonished to learn that someone has actually left the church without being negatively influenced by my unchristlike thuggishness.

That's more shocking than Luke Skywalker finding out who his father was.

[cinepro]

John Dehlin's survey wasn't designed in such a way that this question could be answered in the scientific way he seems to be implying that it was. Here's why.

I haven't really looked at the survey, but it was my impression that the survey was done to gather information about why people leave the Church. If that is the case, I'm not sure what purpose a "control group" would serve. Asking 3000 people who have left the Church why they left seems like a perfectly good way to find out why people are leaving the Church. When the Church conducted it's survey in the late 1980s to gather data on how members felt about the Temple, they didn't require a control group of people who hadn't been through the temple.

If the survey had been focused on the value of apologetics, then I can see the importance of surveying all different kinds of people who had studied apologetic material, including people who had stayed in the Church and those who had left. But I don't think that was the purpose of the survey.

Certainly, it could be argued that those 3000 people aren't a good sample of all the people that are leaving the Church (how many is it, exactly?) Ultimately, I suspect Church leaders and others in the Church Office Building wouldn't consider Dehlin's survey the last word on the subject, but I suspect they consider it at least somewhat useful.

I can understand why the negative comments made by the respondents makes so many people in this thread bristle. After all, if Church leaders are paying attention to the survey, it's the apologetic equivalent of having your boss do a customer satisfaction survey and getting a bunch of negative feedback. And as with all such feedback, a choice has to be made whether to use it to change (and hopefully improve), or justify the present course and forge full speed ahead. It's obvious which choice the apologists have made, but to the degree that Church leaders are calling the shots, I wonder which choice they will make (or have made)?

Anyhow, the survey is here:

http://www.whymormon...s-and-analysis/

From the introduction:

However, our goal with this survey, “Understanding Mormon Disbelief,” is to increase understanding of issues relating to Mormons who, having once held firm

belief in the Church, subsequently lose that belief in part or whole.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

• The survey generated 3388 respondents. 302 respondents were removed due to incomplete data or because they answered “yes” to still believing that the Church was “the only true and living church.” A total of 3086 respondents were included in the final analysis.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As the survey sample was not random, we make no claim of representativeness or statistical significance in the sample. This survey reflects the views of these self-selected respondents only, although we feel that many points of this analysis reflect the experiences of many people in the Church who pass through a crisis of faith and adjust their beliefs.

Edited February 18, 2013 by cinepro

[cinepro]

That's more shocking than Luke Skywalker finding out who his father was.

Darth Vader: Luke... I am your father!

Luke Skywalker: Noooo! That's impossible!

Darth Vader: It's true! And Princess Leia is your sister!

Luke Skywalker: That's... improbable.

Darth Vader: And the Empire will be defeated by Ewoks!

Luke Skywalker: That's... highly unlikely...

Darth Vader: And as a kid, I built C-3PO!

Luke Skywalker: ...wha?

Darth Vader: And you know that all-powerful Force? That's really just microscopic bacteria called Midichlorians!

Luke Skywalker: Look, if you're not gonna take this seriously, I'm outta here!

Robot Chicken

Edit to add: Really people? 12,000+ posts and my highest rating comes from quoting "Robot Chicken"?!

Edited February 20, 2013 by cinepro

[expressionist]

Many of the apologetic arguments I have read have been flimsy, and many of them have been strong, but I have not been persuaded by the tone that is often used on the boards. MormonThink addresses a lot of problematic ideas associated with the Church. Fair addresses a lot of problematic ideas associated with the Church. My guess is that MormonThink has persuaded more people to take a critical look at the Church than Fair has persuaded to keep sweet.

Perhaps one of the apologetic scholars will conduct a study to prove the point and justify their keep.

[Darren10]

Increasingly, these days, people are following the fad of blaming others for the consequences of their own personal choices. The notion of personal responsibility/accountability is fast dying.

And it's all *your* fault.

[Kevin Christensen]

I haven't really looked at the survey, but it was my impression that the survey was done to gather information about why people leave the Church. If that is the case, I'm not sure what purpose a "control group" would serve. Asking 3000 people who have left the Church why they left seems like a perfectly good way to find out why people are leaving the Church. When the Church conducted it's survey in the late 1980s to gather data on how members felt about the Temple, they didn't require a control group of people who hadn't been through the temple.

In the famous email, John was taking a few hand picked samples from his self selected survey from members of a self-selected community of a survey whose questions were designed to elicited responses to fit a limited number of predefined categories, and to show how all of that re-enforces a specific narrative of disillusion. The survey does tell us something, but not about how a randomly selected group of lapsed LDS would explain their views. Do lapsed LDS typically join the Mormon Stories community? Just how typical is that community? They have a right to a voice certainly, but should not elect themselves as the sole voice, and only relevant experience. And the survey certainly does nothing to explore the overall effectiveness of FAIR, FARMS, LDS Apologetics, or provide any kind of clear window into Daniel Peterson's inner thoughts or even, the nature, range and extent of his very public actions.

We could take a survey of a self selected community who loves the recent LDS instructional manuals, and ask how satisfied they are with the manuals. We could find a community of people who think that all teachers should stick to the manuals, and not bring in any outside sources (such as the Joseph Smith Papers Project, BYU Studies articles, various books etc), and ask them how they feel about the manuals, or what they think about outside sources.

There is a problem in using the survey to answer questions that it was not designed to answer. Try using a rototiller to flip a pancake or pluck an eyebrow. Design matters.

If the survey had been focused on the value of apologetics, then I can see the importance of surveying all different kinds of people who had studied apologetic material, including people who had stayed in the Church and those who had left. But I don't think that was the purpose of the survey.

True. So the survey should not be used to answer questions that go beyond its designed purpose. For example, to get someone fired.

Certainly, it could be argued that those 3000 people aren't a good sample of all the people that are leaving the Church (how many is it, exactly?) Ultimately, I suspect Church leaders and others in the Church Office Building wouldn't consider Dehlin's survey the last word on the subject, but I suspect they consider it at least somewhat useful.

If the survey's limitations are admitted, and the open questions addressed, then, sure, "somewhat useful." I personally found my readings of Brodie, the Changing World of Mormonism, The Godmakers, Wife No. 19. New Approaches to Book of Mormon Study, An Insider's View of Mormon Origins, and American Apocrypha "somewhat useful." But not for providing any useful insights into the best LDS scholarship.

I can understand why the negative comments made by the respondents makes so many people in this thread bristle. After all, if Church leaders are paying attention to the survey, it's the apologetic equivalent of having your boss do a customer satisfaction survey and getting a bunch of negative feedback.

It's more the equivalent of having an embittered rival do a dissatisfied customer complaint survey, and getting exactly the feedback you'd expect, and then asking your boss to use that to appraise the overall quality of your work. And then your boss not bothering to actually look at your work, or consider who has been helped. Or even the fact that the number of subscribers, apparently happy with the work, is much larger than the disgruntled pool from which the survey was drawn.

And as with all such feedback, a choice has to be made whether to use it to change (and hopefully improve), or justify the present course and forge full speed ahead. It's obvious which choice the apologists have made, but to the degree that Church leaders are calling the shots, I wonder which choice they will make (or have made)?

From the introduction:

Apologetic writing by its very nature involves constant interaction with dissatisfied and critical views. Much of the trouble comes, as Owen and Mosser argued, and all too much experience demonstrates, that the critics don't bother to return the favor. John is a nice guy, but for all the talking he does, he's not among the best informed on many issues. Well connected, yes. Well intended in most respects, I believe. But not particularly well read.

Some of us are sitting on a bountiful harvest, and John comes by with a survey of self-selected people who say they got nothing but weeds. Can his survey even begin to explain why?

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

Edited February 19, 2013 by Kevin Christensen

[Calm]

Perhaps one of the apologetic scholars will conduct a study to prove the point and justify their keep.

What do you mean by "justify their keep"?

[Daniel Peterson]

What do you mean by "justify their keep"?

I think he may mean the lavish mopologetic salary that I'm told by some I receive.

[expressionist]

What do you mean by "justify their keep"?

I mean that I would like to see a study that clearly supports the effectiveness of current apologetics. Evidently these organizations pay their people from sources other than Sacred Funds, and if I am wrong, I would like to know my donations to the Church are being spent wisely.

[Calm]

I mean that I would like to see a study that clearly supports the effectiveness of current apologetics. Evidently these organizations pay their people from sources other than Sacred Funds, and if I am wrong, I would like to know my donations to the Church are being spent wisely.

What apologists are being paid in your understanding for apologetic work?

[expressionist]

What apologists are being paid in your understanding for apologetic work?

I do not know. Are apologists being paid to do the work? Are Sacred Funds used to support current apologetics?

[wenglund]

And it's all *your* fault.

...that and/or George Bush's fault--at least that is what I am told on the Huffington Post.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-