Does Apologetics Drive People Away From The Church?

[Sister Gemma]

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.

My point was not that there should have been a "control group". The problem with the survey is that his sample was biased in favor of those who have left, rather than those who stayed in and those people would be more likely to be critical of apologetics. Also, since he recruited for his sample through sites that were critical of the Church, the people who left who responded might not be representative of all those who left the Church. There are many people who have left or become inactive who know nothing about what's on the internet and never looked at those sites, especially people who left before the 1990s. The idea here is to get a more representative sample of people who left and if he couldn't, then he needs to clearly state this as a limitation of his study.

[Questing Beast]

Richard Bushman is no more a "questioning" member of the Church than I am. He's a friend of mine, and a former bishop and stake president, and a patriarch. He's a believer.

But the idea that Grant Palmer's Insider's View of Mormon Origins is an "apologetic" book has to be, by far, the funniest thing I've read in weeks and weeks.

You don't get much humor in your life do you? Palmer is/was not trying to make trouble with his book. His motive is/was to increase a needed discussion of the things that exist in the history, yet are denied or ignored by the Church's approach to its own history. So "apologia" is where his book falls, imho, simply because there is MUCH that needs apologizing for, and yet the outcome desired is a better church/religion in the future. His call to emphasize Christ over the BoM and asserted metaphysical visions as literal, empirical events, etc., is a genuine one as far as I can tell. (Does anyone here know of Palmer's current status vis-a-vis standing in the Church? Or what he's up to these days? Just curious....)

Edited February 19, 2013 by Questing Beast

[Sister Gemma]

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)?

The problem is that the "feedback" about apologetics is coming from a highly selected group of people. Not even all 3000 who responded. Surely, not all of them responded to the open-ended question about apologetics that he asked. As with any survey, many people probably left it blank. The question I would like to ask John Dehlin is how many people of the 3000 actually responded to the question?

When he has a sample that was not obtained randomly, there is already a problem with the 3000 and when even fewer people responded to his open ended questions, there is even a greater question about how representative those people are of all people who have considered apologetic material.

A "customer satisfaction" survey of apologetic organizations would not only in include those who left the Church. They would have to include a representative sample of people who contacted these organizations or read their websites. And by the way, these apologetic organizations are not part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Let's say we were doing a customer satisfaction survey of a cable company and the only people surveyed were those who switched to a different cable provider. What kind of results would we expect to get? How about the ones who stayed?

[Calm]

simply because there is MUCH that needs apologizing for

You do know that apologetics is not about apologizing, don't you?

[Sister Gemma]

Well this is not correct. I know of at least one person who took the survery who is not disaffected from the Church and that would be me. I may not view the Church in the same light I did once before but I am still an active participant.

Sure, people who are not disaffected can take the survey, but how could those people respond to questions about why they left when they haven't? Those sets of questions would obviously be not applicable. His main research question, as indicated by the title of his survey is why people leave. That is why I would like to know the actual numbers who responded to specific questions, of the 3000 who responded to the survey as a whole, minus the non-responses and the non-applicables.

As for people who have changed their views towards the church but are still going and active, that is still a biased sample, in that he is not getting input from those who are active and have not had such a change in views.

[Atomic Punk]

You don't get much humor in your life do you? Palmer is/was not trying to make trouble with his book. His motive is/was to increase a needed discussion of the things that exist in the history, yet are denied or ignored by the Church's approach to its own history. So "apologia" is where his book falls, imho, simply because there is MUCH that needs apologizing for, and yet the outcome desired is a better church/religion in the future. His call to emphasize Christ over the BoM and asserted metaphysical visions as literal, empirical events, etc., is a genuine one as far as I can tell. (Does anyone here know of Palmer's current status vis-a-vis standing in the Church? Or what he's up to these days? Just curious....)

How magnanimous of Palmer to write his book. The idea that Palmer's book falls into apologetics is ridiculous. Indeed, it's hilarious to even suggest such a notion. Most of what he mentions in his book is nothing new and had been addressed. He stretches credulity beyone its limit with many of his conclusions. He was either ignorant of made a delibrate choice to ignore the research of noted historians like Richard Bushman. He's resigned his membership from the church. But he's showing little interest in moving on. We can all thank Palmer for helping know the true history of the church.

[Tacenda]

You don't get much humor in your life do you? Palmer is/was not trying to make trouble with his book. His motive is/was to increase a needed discussion of the things that exist in the history, yet are denied or ignored by the Church's approach to its own history. So "apologia" is where his book falls, imho, simply because there is MUCH that needs apologizing for, and yet the outcome desired is a better church/religion in the future. His call to emphasize Christ over the BoM and asserted metaphysical visions as literal, empirical events, etc., is a genuine one as far as I can tell. (Does anyone here know of Palmer's current status vis-a-vis standing in the Church? Or what he's up to these days? Just curious....)

He has resigned from the church. His main beef was the lack of Jesus worship on Sunday. Watch his latest MS with John Dehlin, he explains there.

[wenglund]

Let's see...on the one hand, Dr. Peterson finds it hilarious that Palmer's book would be considered apologetic, and on the other hand, many church antagonist take Dr. Peterson's witticisms to be mean and repelling, and yet some people view Dr. Peterson as the one lacking a sense of humor and needing to get out. Well...there is certainly nothing funny about that. LOL

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited February 19, 2013 by wenglund

[Questing Beast]

You do know that apologetics is not about apologizing, don't you?

Don't play semantics. The word "apologist" got coined because the need was felt to defend the tenets of faith against criticism. So, "apologizing" for what the faith was being criticized for is accurate. The LDS leadership is constantly, increasingly, being criticized for ignoring or "hiding" the truth about its history. Apologists are saying there is good cause for taking the history on offer, and denouncing the direction that the fulsome history takes the Church, so they are apologizing for the direction of the Brethren/Church....

(edit to add: And the original motive of Palmer, I think, was to both criticize and apologize; he was critical of the obfuscation of history, yet apologizing for it by suggesting that the Church could be other than it is. And he suggested how it could be better. Too bad that he couldn't make it work, but not surprising....)

Edited February 19, 2013 by Questing Beast

[volgadon]

Don't play semantics. The word "apologist" got coined because the need was felt to defend the tenets of faith against criticism. So, "apologizing" for what the faith was being criticized for is accurate. The LDS leadership is constantly, increasingly, being criticized for ignoring or "hiding" the truth about its history. Apologists are saying there is good cause for taking the history on offer, and denouncing the direction that the fulsome history takes the Church, so they are apologizing for the direction of the Brethren/Church....

(edit to add: And the original motive of Palmer, I think, was to both criticize and apologize; he was critical of the obfuscation of history, yet apologizing for it by suggesting that the Church could be other than it is. And he suggested how it could be better. Too bad that he couldn't make it work, but not surprising....)

She isn't playing semantics. Your definition has nothing to do with the actual etymology and usage of the word.

[bluebell]

Don't play semantics. The word "apologist" got coined because the need was felt to defend the tenets of faith against criticism. So, "apologizing" for what the faith was being criticized for is accurate.

It's not an issue of semantics, but accuracy.

The word apologetics comes from the Greek word apologia, which meant to make a reasoned defense of something. It's what greek lawyers used to do when defending a client in ancient times and was not 'coined' because of a need to defend against critisism of a religious system.

It has absolutely nothing to do with the modern definition of apology or apologizing, which means being sorry or taking blame for something.

[Daniel Peterson]

You don't get much humor in your life do you?

Quite a bit, actually. But your description of Palmer's book was hilarious.

His call to emphasize Christ over the BoM and asserted metaphysical visions as literal, empirical events, etc., is a genuine one as far as I can tell.

Its genuineness or lack of genuineness is not relevant to whether it's "apologetic" or not.

Incidentally, your explanation of the "coining" of the term "apologetics" is completely wrong. Plato's famous "Apology" absolutely doesn't feature Socrates telling the "men of Athens" that he was "sorry." It's a forthright defense of his behavior. That's the original meaning of the word: "Defense." Even in English, the sense of "apology" as saying "I'm sorry" is a later and derivative one.

[Scott Lloyd]

Don't play semantics. The word "apologist" got coined because the need was felt to defend the tenets of faith against criticism. So, "apologizing" for what the faith was being criticized for is accurate. The LDS leadership is constantly, increasingly, being criticized for ignoring or "hiding" the truth about its history. Apologists are saying there is good cause for taking the history on offer, and denouncing the direction that the fulsome history takes the Church, so they are apologizing for the direction of the Brethren/Church....

(edit to add: And the original motive of Palmer, I think, was to both criticize and apologize; he was critical of the obfuscation of history, yet apologizing for it by suggesting that the Church could be other than it is. And he suggested how it could be better. Too bad that he couldn't make it work, but not surprising....)

I echo calmoriah and Dan Peterson: You don't understand what apologetics is.

[go_utes01]

You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.

[Benjamin McGuire]

Questing Beast writes:

Palmer is/was not trying to make trouble with his book. His motive is/was to increase a needed discussion of the things that exist in the history, yet are denied or ignored by the Church's approach to its own history.

You aren't familiar with much of Palmer's history are you?

Grant Palmer originally began writing on this subject shortly after the "discovery" in 1983 of the Salamander Letter - a forgery created by Mark Hofmann. Palmer's foray into the entire parallel stuff with the Gold Pot came primarily because of the salamander in the novel written by E.T.A. Hoffmann (no relation to Mark Hofmann, note the extra 'f'). While the letter ended up being a forgery, Palmer decided that even if the letter was not true, the things the forgery potentially revealed about the church probably were, and he never did reconcile his loss faith in the LDS Church. His discussion about Hoffmann's book in Insider's View wasn't substantially different from his views in the early 80s. We know this because Grant Palmer began circulating copies of his first manuscript drafts as "New York Mormonism" in 1985, under the pseudonym Paul Pry, Jr. (the use of this pseudonym, btw, is itself a bit of an indicator of the role that Grant Palmer saw himself in - the name is a reference to an early 19th literary figure, and to a set of early anti-mormon Literature). In 1987, these views caused Palmer to be censured by the CES department. He subsequently stopped publicly passing out his material and waited until his retirement from employment by the church before publishing his work. This is pretty widely known history here. And it doesn't agree with your rather favorable assessment.

(Does anyone here know of Palmer's current status vis-a-vis standing in the Church? Or what he's up to these days? Just curious....)

Grant Palmer was disfellowshipped in 2004 as a result of his book. In 2010, he published an article in a Baptist Journal that got him scheduled for another disciplinary court. In response to that, he resigned his membership from the church (rather than go through the process again) before the disciplinary court could be held. He explains this in a 2012 interview with Dehlin I believe.

Grant Palmer's book was intended as an expose of the church (hence its title, its contents, and pretty much everything about it).

Ben M.

[Scott Lloyd]

Questing Beast writes:

You aren't familiar with much of Palmer's history are you?

Grant Palmer originally began writing on this subject shortly after the "discovery" in 1983 of the Salamander Letter - a forgery created by Mark Hofmann. Palmer's foray into the entire parallel stuff with the Gold Pot came primarily because of the salamander in the novel written by E.T.A. Hoffmann (no relation to Mark Hofmann, note the extra 'f'). While the letter ended up being a forgery, Palmer decided that even if the letter was not true, the things the forgery potentially revealed about the church probably were, and he never did reconcile his loss faith in the LDS Church. His discussion about Hoffmann's book in Insider's View wasn't substantially different from his views in the early 80s. We know this because Grant Palmer began circulating copies of his first manuscript drafts as "New York Mormonism" in 1985, under the pseudonym Paul Pry, Jr. (the use of this pseudonym, btw, is itself a bit of an indicator of the role that Grant Palmer saw himself in - the name is a reference to an early 19th literary figure, and to a set of early anti-mormon Literature). In 1987, these views caused Palmer to be censured by the CES department. He subsequently stopped publicly passing out his material and waited until his retirement from employment by the church before publishing his work. This is pretty widely known history here. And it doesn't agree with your rather favorable assessment.

Grant Palmer was disfellowshipped in 2004 as a result of his book. In 2010, he published an article in a Baptist Journal that got him scheduled for another disciplinary court. In response to that, he resigned his membership from the church (rather than go through the process again) before the disciplinary court could be held. He explains this in a 2012 interview with Dehlin I believe.

Grant Palmer's book was intended as an expose of the church (hence its title, its contents, and pretty much everything about it).

Ben M.

I hadn't heard about the second disciplinary council or of his resigning his membership. Apparently the 2004 action was just postponing the inevitable.

[rockpond]

Questing Beast writes:

You aren't familiar with much of Palmer's history are you?

Grant Palmer originally began writing on this subject shortly after the "discovery" in 1983 of the Salamander Letter - a forgery created by Mark Hofmann. Palmer's foray into the entire parallel stuff with the Gold Pot came primarily because of the salamander in the novel written by E.T.A. Hoffmann (no relation to Mark Hofmann, note the extra 'f'). While the letter ended up being a forgery, Palmer decided that even if the letter was not true, the things the forgery potentially revealed about the church probably were, and he never did reconcile his loss faith in the LDS Church. His discussion about Hoffmann's book in Insider's View wasn't substantially different from his views in the early 80s. We know this because Grant Palmer began circulating copies of his first manuscript drafts as "New York Mormonism" in 1985, under the pseudonym Paul Pry, Jr. (the use of this pseudonym, btw, is itself a bit of an indicator of the role that Grant Palmer saw himself in - the name is a reference to an early 19th literary figure, and to a set of early anti-mormon Literature). In 1987, these views caused Palmer to be censured by the CES department. He subsequently stopped publicly passing out his material and waited until his retirement from employment by the church before publishing his work. This is pretty widely known history here. And it doesn't agree with your rather favorable assessment.

Grant Palmer was disfellowshipped in 2004 as a result of his book. In 2010, he published an article in a Baptist Journal that got him scheduled for another disciplinary court. In response to that, he resigned his membership from the church (rather than go through the process again) before the disciplinary court could be held. He explains this in a 2012 interview with Dehlin I believe.

Grant Palmer's book was intended as an expose of the church (hence its title, its contents, and pretty much everything about it).

Ben M.

It looks like Dehlin is recording a podcast with Brian Hales to respond to some of Palmer's accusations.

From Mormon Stories (posted today): "I am scheduled to interview Mormon polygamy historian/expert Brian Hales tomorrow. He is a devout, believing LDS church member and is probably among the top 5 historians alive in terms of 1830/40 LDS polygamy knowledge."

[Libs]

That interview should be interesting.

I was looking through the questions from people in the comments section, and it seems the top question is, "why did Joseph marry other men's wives?". That and "why 14 year olds?" Those were the two things that bothered me the most, as well.

[wenglund]

That interview should be interesting.

I was looking through the questions from people in the comments section, and it seems the top question is, "why did Joseph marry other men's wives?". That and "why 14 year olds?" Those were the two things that bothered me the most, as well.

Is anyone asking whether Joseph's polygamist practices should factor into determining the verity of the restored gospel of Christ?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[bluebell]

Is anyone asking whether Joseph's polygamist practices should factor into determining the verity of the restored gospel of Christ?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

It's kind of a good point.

I don't want to pretend i know more about people's spiritual struggles than they do, but most of the people that i've heard say they have significant issues with JS's polygamy, have no issues at all with Abraham's polygamy, or Jacob's (through whose polygamy the Lord created His chosen people, the 12 tribes of Israel).

They don't stop to try to reconcile old world plural marriage before they can know for sure whether or not Christianity is of God, so it is interesting that so many do see the need to reconcile JS's polygamy before they can know whether or not the gospel as taught by the LDS religion is of God.

To me, it seems like the question is, if Abraham can be a prophet of God and also a polygamous under somewhat shady circumstances, then why can't JS?

However, like I said before, just because this seems obvious to me doesn't mean it's obvious to everyone. I don't doubt the sincerity of such struggles of faith, or that they are probably more complex than they appear from the outside.

[cinepro]

You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.

"Would you say I have a plethora of pinatas?"

[Hamba Tuhan]

From Mormon Stories (posted today): "I am scheduled to interview Mormon polygamy historian/expert Brian Hales tomorrow. He is a devout, believing LDS church member and is probably among the top 5 historians alive in terms of 1830/40 LDS polygamy knowledge."

Who prepares for what should be a well-grounded interview by soliciting suggestions for questions? From anonymous posters? One day before the interview?

Edited February 20, 2013 by Hamba Tuhan

[cinepro]

The problem is that the "feedback" about apologetics is coming from a highly selected group of people. Not even all 3000 who responded. Surely, not all of them responded to the open-ended question about apologetics that he asked. As with any survey, many people probably left it blank. The question I would like to ask John Dehlin is how many people of the 3000 actually responded to the question?

When he has a sample that was not obtained randomly, there is already a problem with the 3000 and when even fewer people responded to his open ended questions, there is even a greater question about how representative those people are of all people who have considered apologetic material.

A "customer satisfaction" survey of apologetic organizations would not only in include those who left the Church. They would have to include a representative sample of people who contacted these organizations or read their websites. And by the way, these apologetic organizations are not part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Let's say we were doing a customer satisfaction survey of a cable company and the only people surveyed were those who switched to a different cable provider. What kind of results would we expect to get? How about the ones who stayed?

Your points would be valid if they were referring to a different survey. Have you even read Dehlin's report?

http://www.whymormonsquestion.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Survey-Results_Understanding-Mormon-Disbelief-Mar20121.pdf

An analogous survey would be if a cable company wanted to find out why people were cancelling their subscriptions. If that was the purpose of the survey, how many people should they talk to that are current customers?

The survey wasn't a "customer satisfaction survey of apologetic organizations" (how would Dehlin even be in a position to conduct such a survey? Only FAIR themselves would know who was using their resources.) Interestingly, the survey itself never appears to mention "FAIR" or "apologetics" (or Dan Peterson), so Dehlin must have been introducing comments that weren't included in the PDF.

As far as I can tell, the survey is a pretty good window into the reasons people leave the Church in the internet age, and if that is something I were intent on preventing, I would pay very close attention to it instead of trying to find reasons (and bad analogies) to dismiss it.

[wenglund]

It's kind of a good point.

I don't want to pretend i know more about people's spiritual struggles than they do, but most of the people that i've heard say they have significant issues with JS's polygamy, have no issues at all with Abraham's polygamy, or Jacob's (through whose polygamy the Lord created His chosen people, the 12 tribes of Israel).

They don't stop to try to reconcile old world plural marriage before they can know for sure whether or not Christianity is of God, so it is interesting that so many do see the need to reconcile JS's polygamy before they can know whether or not the gospel as taught by the LDS religion is of God.

To me, it seems like the question is, if Abraham can be a prophet of God and also a polygamous under somewhat shady circumstances, then why can't JS?

However, like I said before, just because this seems obvious to me doesn't mean it's obvious to everyone. I don't doubt the sincerity of such struggles of faith, or that they are probably more complex than they appear from the outside.

That is a good way of looking at it.

However, I view my question as striking even closer to the core. To me, if people have an issue with Joseph's polygamy, or even Abraham's and Brigham Young's polygamy, then it is likely that they have lost sight of the real intent of the gospel and how it is divinely designed to work. It goes beyond not seeing the forest for the trees, to not seeing the forest because of looking off into space or somewhere else. But, that may just be me.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[cinepro]

Who prepares for what should be a well-grounded interview by soliciting suggestions for questions? From anonymous posters? One day before the interview?

Some of the most interesting blog "interviews" I've read are the "12 Questions" series at Times and Seasons. Like this one:

http://timesandseasons.org/index.php/2005/12/12q-on-rsr/

So there is something to be said for crowd-sourced questions. But obviously it shouldn't be a substitute for an interviewer doing their homework and being prepared for the interview as well.