Scott Gordon On The Meaning Of 'apologetics'

[Ahab]

The word "argument" is generally misunderstood, too, and it means about the same thing as apologia, or in English, apology. Most lawyers understand correctly what an argument is. I think I'd rather be called an arguer, or a person who argues, rather than an apologist.

Edited February 5, 2015 by Ahab

[Nevo]

To characterize apologists as a group as defensive is unfair.

 

Agree to disagree then. I don't think it's unfair.

________________________________________

 

Disaffected Mormon (aka "Critic"): I feel lied to. In all my years in Church, seminary, etc., I never heard about the rock in the hat... All of the church movies and pictures I ever saw show Joseph sitting at a table studying the plates...

 

Apologist: Well, it was mentioned in the Ensign in 1992. The Church has always been open about this. You can't expect artistic representations to be accurate. Look at the paintings of biblical scenes from the Renaissance...

 

Disaffected Mormon/Critic: I feel lied to. In all my years in Church, seminary, etc., I never heard about Joseph Smith marrying 14-year-olds or the wives of men he sent on missions... That wasn't in the movie at Temple Square.

 

Apologist 1: Where have you been? Have you never read D&C 132? The Church has never hid the fact that Joseph was a polygamist.

 

Apologist 2: Who cares? How is that relevant to my salvation?

[juliann]

Nevo, I would suggest you are responding to if not creating a stereotype. You are also confusing polemics with apologetics. And you are not distinguishing between apologetics and random individuals who defend the church. If you haven't noticed, the disagreements are just as fervent between those stereotyped as apologists as between defenders and critics.

 

You are relying on the assumption that a defender must defend all positions, something a defender never claims to be doing anymore than the critic does. The point is to counter the critics observations...or accusations. In doing so, the critics position must be acknowledged, obviously. This is something the critics are not burdened with. But the defender is going to present another position.

 

If you readily concede that the Book of Mormon contains obvious anachronisms, you're probably outside of the apologetic mainstream.

 

 

Again, there is no "apologetic mainstream." There are individuals who often disagree with one another just as "critics" do. The need to stereotype someone as an apologist as opposed to a scholar has been one of the most interesting online developments of late. (Especially when both parties have graduated from top universities in their relevant fields.)  But I digress. 

 

Here is a FairMormon wiki. We have no problem putting up competing theories, BTW.  http://en.fairmormon.org/Book_of_Mormon/Anachronisms/Basic_principles

 

It is important to note that as knowledge expands, what was once an anachronism turns out to be a legitimate feature of the ancient world. John Clark^[2] prepared the charts displayed to the right which demonstrate the trend, over time, to confirmation of the Book of Mormon account.

 

Anachronisms may be introduced into a genuine text by:

1. objects or facts not yet discovered;
2. the original authors using terms in a novel way that we do not expect;
3. the modern-day translator's choices.

All three must be ruled out before an anachronism can be used to "disprove" the Book of Mormon, or any other translated document.

 

 

 

 

 

One of your tests is "he doesn't outright deny the existence of anachronisms in the text, but he consistently minimizes and downplays the notion."

 

OK, no denial here. But is stating what has to be ruled out "minimizing and downplaying?" Is the only acceptable position for a defender of the church one that presents the oppositions' viewpoint without disagreement or a demand for more scholarly treatment?

 

That is obviously not a credible position so you clarify: "Now Givens isn't actually conceding the presence of anachronisms either (he only goes so far as to say that there are apparent anachronisms), but his treatment of the subject seems markedly less defensive than Kevin's."

 

So it is not the position or information given that is of interest since the two are essentially the same by your own admission, it is how "defensive" you judge it to be. Isn't that uncomfortably close to ad hominem?

[KevinG]

Agree to disagree then. I don't think it's unfair.

________________________________________

 

Disaffected Mormon (aka "Critic"): I feel lied to. In all my years in Church, seminary, etc., I never heard about the rock in the hat... All of the church movies and pictures I ever saw show Joseph sitting at a table studying the plates...

 

Apologist: Well, it was mentioned in the Ensign in 1992. The Church has always been open about this. You can't expect artistic representations to be accurate. Look at the paintings of biblical scenes from the Renaissance...

 

Disaffected Mormon/Critic: I feel lied to. In all my years in Church, seminary, etc., I never heard about Joseph Smith marrying 14-year-olds or the wives of men he sent on missions... That wasn't in the movie at Temple Square.

 

Apologist 1: Where have you been? Have you never read D&C 132? The Church has never hid the fact that Joseph was a polygamist.

 

Apologist 2: Who cares? How is that relevant to my salvation?

#1 I don't agree to disagree. I just disagree. (I hate that passive aggressive phrase).

#2 If your Imaginary critic learned all about the church from the Ensign and movies on temple square no wonder they are disaffected.

[theplains]

I guess the problem I have with LDS apologetics (especially the amateur variety) is the hyper-defensive, partisan nature of the enterprise. There is often an unwillingness to concede anything at all to "critics." Every inch of ground must be defended to the death. You almost never hear an apologist say to a critic, "Well, that's a good point. Maybe you're right about that." And vice versa. It's a zero-sum game.

 

I think it goes much further than that.  I heard that Grant H. Palmer (whom I doubt could be

considered as an amateur) was disfellowshipped in 2004 after his controversial work "An Insider's

View of Mormon Origins".  But then again, you have this in almost all faith systems.  You start

disagreeing with the key teachings of one and you are labelled as 'anti-'; and soon expelled on

the grounds of apostasy.

 

Some of his youtube videos on his points of disagreement make sense. I suspect that many

Mormons do not agree with all the teachings of the current and past leadership of the church (that

you find in the manuals published by the educational division) but they choose to remain there

because they have been taught that there is no other real church of Jesus Christ outside of

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

 

Regards,

Jim

[KevinG]

I think it goes much further than that.  I heard that Grant H. Palmer (whom I doubt could be

considered as an amateur) was disfellowshipped in 2004 after his controversial work "An Insider's

View of Mormon Origins".  But then again, you have this in almost all faith systems.  You start

disagreeing with the key teachings of one and you are labelled as 'anti-'; and soon expelled on

the grounds of apostasy.

 

Some of his youtube videos on his points of disagreement make sense. I suspect that many

Mormons do not agree with all the teachings of the current and past leadership of the church (that

you find in the manuals published by the educational division) but they choose to remain there

because they have been taught that there is no other real church of Jesus Christ outside of

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

 

Regards,

Jim

You heard... Really. Authoritative witnesses from the chirch counsel right.

And your characterizations are factually incorrect. learn what the Saints define as a "true" church, and what is preached about the fullness of the Gospel.

Again if the disaffected members knew no more than your characters of Mormon belief no wonder they were disaffected. I blame the family for their poor teaching.

[KevinG]

Chirch church. Bah. I hate typing on a tablet.

[juliann]

. I suspect that many

Mormons do not agree with all the teachings of the current and past leadership of the church (that

you find in the manuals published by the educational division) but they choose to remain there

because they have been taught that there is no other real church of Jesus Christ outside of

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

 

This is an example of the utter disrespect for members and their intelligence that is pushing for polemics. The good news is that most defenders have listened to the criticism and are making...or have made... changes. The bad news is that eventually those who demean Mormons are going to have to clean it up a little, too.

 

And BTW, given the amount of changes going on the manuals don't agree with the manuals either.

[KevinG]

I am amused that the fact that apologists have from time to time been defensive is being used to justify the use of apologist as a slur.

[juliann]

 

Again if the disaffected members knew no more than your characters of Mormon belief no wonder they were disaffected. I blame the family for their poor teaching.

Guess what. The apologists don't agree!!  Obviously, one of us is not an "apologist."

[KevinG]

Guess what. The apologists don't agree!!  Obviously, one of us is not an "apologist."

I apologize. Heehee.

[Nevo]

Nevo, I would suggest you are responding to if not creating a stereotype. You are also confusing polemics with apologetics. And you are not distinguishing between apologetics and random individuals who defend the church.

 

I recognize that not all LDS apologists are cut from the same cloth and that some of my criticisms are more applicable to "random individuals who defend the church" than to some of the better-known apologists affiliated with FairMormon or classic FARMS. As for confusing polemics with apologetics, in my experience the two often overlap. The common thread, as I see it, is a fundamentally defensive, "us vs. them" orientation, which I take to be characteristic of LDS apologetics, broadly speaking.

 

The point is to counter the critics observations...or accusations.

 

Right. And that is what creates the adversarial dynamic. One side argues one position and the other side argues the opposite position. There's a prosecutor and a defender. And the discussion plays out in predictable ways. No one ever changes their mind. Maybe this doesn't apply to all apologetics, but it applies to a good deal of it. Including much of what is found on FairMormon.org.

[Coreyb]

The terms "apologist" and "critic" are not sufficiently descriptive or encompassing to be positioned as the polar opposites that some tend to pretend they are. For example, B. H. Roberts can certainly be seen as an apologist, yet he wrote a work that is a favorite of those who don't see the Book of Mormon as historical, and was often at odds with his priesthood leaders. Hugh Nibley was an avid apologist, but also a critic of mormon culture and sometimes even of the hierarchy (though very passive aggressively). Leonard Arrington used his great intellect to responsibly tell mormon history in a faithful way, yet apparently some didn't appreciate his help. How about D. Micheal Quinn? He saw himself as having a life mission to defend the church and help Mormons understand their history, and yet he is seen as one of the biggest critics by some (and he certainly has some pointed criticisms). One of his books is "debunked" on fair's website. What about Bill Reel, who runs his own podcast to help people retain faith, and yet on this board he is often treated as just another critic? Richard Bushman is often heralded as one of the best apologists of Joseph Smith, yet I haven't heard him embrace that term, and he certainly diverges from the standard faithful narrative on some important points. Is Greg Prince an apologist? Ed Kimball? What on earth is Rodney Meldrum? This can go on and on, and so I say, why can't one be both critic and apologist?

[Daniel Peterson]

 

Several years ago I was entering my local temple. It was a slow day. The man working the recommend desk was reading a book by Dan Petersen. I can't remember the title, but I believe it was Offenders for a Word. I tried to offer a compliment and mentioned something along the lines of Dan being "one of my favorite apologists." To my surprise, the worker took offense and said he would never give the time of day to an apologist. He then checked my recommend and went back to reading Dan's book.

 

 

I love the story.  Thanks for sharing it.

[stemelbow]

I admit that I am not familiar with your arguments regarding Book of Mormon anachronisms. If you readily concede that the Book of Mormon contains obvious anachronisms, you're probably outside of the apologetic mainstream. I think Kevin Christensen (who I respect a great deal) may be more representative: "I've noticed that many so-called anachronisms are the product of reader misjudgment, based on a lack of information about the past combined with their assumptions about what is possible" (link). If you read Kevin C.'s post carefully, he doesn't outright deny the existence of anachronisms in the text, but he consistently minimizes and downplays the notion.

 

Compare Terryl Givens, who, though a believer in Book of Mormon historicity, candidly acknowledges "the transparent relevance of the Book of Mormon to nineteenth-century cultural and religious preoccupations" (Givens, The Book of Mormon: A Very Short Introduction, 116) and "what appear to be striking intrusions into the Book of Mormon text of anachronisms, nineteenth-century parallels, and elements that appear to many scholars to be historically implausible and inconsistent with what is known about ancient American cultures" (122). Now Givens isn't actually conceding the presence of anachronisms either (he only goes so far as to say that there are apparent anachronisms), but his treatment of the subject seems markedly less defensive than Kevin's.

This surely is confusing, Nevo. You complain LDS apologetics is wrought with people who aren't willing to concede a point and list the existence of anachronisms as an example. When confronted on your own point, you list one person who doesn't say there are no anachronisms in the text, as you claim is common among LDS apologists. Then you reference another guy (Givens) who has also defended his faith positions as admitting anachronisms. No apologist here is saying there are no anachronisms in the text. yet you maintain your positions holds water by saying you'd rather just agree to disagree.

Methinks thou hast protesteth too much.

[stemelbow]

The terms "apologist" and "critic" are not sufficiently descriptive or encompassing to be positioned as the polar opposites that some tend to pretend they are. For example, B. H. Roberts can certainly be seen as an apologist, yet he wrote a work that is a favorite of those who don't see the Book of Mormon as historical, and was often at odds with his priesthood leaders. Hugh Nibley was an avid apologist, but also a critic of mormon culture and sometimes even of the hierarchy (though very passive aggressively). Leonard Arrington used his great intellect to responsibly tell mormon history in a faithful way, yet apparently some didn't appreciate his help. How about D. Micheal Quinn? He saw himself as having a life mission to defend the church and help Mormons understand their history, and yet he is seen as one of the biggest critics by some (and he certainly has some pointed criticisms). One of his books is "debunked" on fair's website. What about Bill Reel, who runs his own podcast to help people retain faith, and yet on this board he is often treated as just another critic? Richard Bushman is often heralded as one of the best apologists of Joseph Smith, yet I haven't heard him embrace that term, and he certainly diverges from the standard faithful narrative on some important points. Is Greg Prince an apologist? Ed Kimball? What on earth is Rodney Meldrum? This can go on and on, and so I say, why can't one be both critic and apologist?

I agree. On nearly any point of discussion here any one of us can take a critical position, while simultaneously taking an apologist position on any other point.

[Nevo]

This surely is confusing, Nevo. You complain LDS apologetics is wrought with people who aren't willing to concede a point and list the existence of anachronisms as an example. When confronted on your own point, you list one person who doesn't say there are no anachronisms in the text, as you claim is common among LDS apologists. Then you reference another guy (Givens) who has also defended his faith positions as admitting anachronisms. No apologist here is saying there are no anachronisms in the text. yet you maintain your positions holds water by saying you'd rather just agree to disagree.

 

Maybe the anachronism issue wasn't the best example to bring up. The point is that many apologists resist the idea that there are anachronistic elements in the Book of Mormon, although a few concede it (e.g., Blake Ostler, Brant Gardner). I think they're being overly defensive. Others would say they're just being appropriately cautious.

 

Anyway, apologists generally don't concede points to the other side. They're in a high-stakes contest, battling for hearts and minds. For that reason, apologetics is predictably one-sided. And balance and objectivity are often nowhere to be found.

[KevinG]

Imagine that!  Answering critics in defense of the faith is generally one sided.

 

What a terrible thing to do to those open minded, even handed, neutral critics.

 

Sorry Nevo - but in over a decade of internet chatting about Mormonism, I have witnessed few people outside of investigators and curious outsiders, who approach Mormonism with the least degree of even handedness or informed critiques.  Apologetics, or defense of the faith, then becomes an exercise in debunking the criticisms, or explaining the plausibility of the faithful position.  

 

Time after time, I've seen some amateur crusader, hellbent on doing away with the scourge of Mormonism, in possession of the silver bullet that will kill the beast, charge into a discussion with no more consideration or information about our beliefs than a bull for the porcelain in the proverbial china shop.  Only to whine and cry about how they were treated unfairly when their magic argument was swatted aside with the application of rudimentary history or doctrine.

 

Then there are the guys who make it their full time study to prove the Mormons wrong.  One example I can think of, who uses the term apologist as a mark of Satan, is so expert at the bullying then crying game, it makes these amateurs look like babes in the woods.  Of course it may be projection because when he was an "apologist" he was very good at using the same polemics towards the critics of the church, as he now does in their favor.  Frankly we're better off without him as an ally.

[Kevin Christensen]

Those who posture as "balanced" and "objective" are only kidding themselves. Peter Novick pointed this out to a shocked group of LDS historians at a Sunstone many years ago, who subsequently ignored everything he said, and didn't bother to publish his address.

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.

From

Peter Novick, “Why the Old Mormon Historians Are More Objective Than the New.” A talk delivered at the 1989 Sunstone Symposium held at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.

Also from Richard Bushman, The Social Dimensions of Rationality:

Now, that perspective on belief is undergoing a fundamental shift, not because of changes in Mormon scholarship but because of the way modern thinkers are conceiving scholarship as a whole. We live at a moment in history when the Enlightenment dream of scientific scholarship has been eaten away by doubts about the possibility of scholarly objectivity. A host of thinkers, many of them French, have called into question the very possibility of dispassionate inquiry. They are arguing not merely that objectivity is an impossible achievement for human beings, who can never detach their minds from the rest of their being, but that the pretense of objectivity is an exercise in self-aggrandizement. Objectivity disguises a play for power by those who pretend to the authority of objective scholarship when they are every bit as self-interested in the outcome as any religious apologist. The scientific authorities of an era, according to current theory, claim to speak only for truth against error, when in actuality they stand to benefit by promoting their particular truth and vanquishing all others. No truth, not even the most rigorously scientific, is objective. All truth is colored by personal interest of some sort.

That is harsh criticism of the scientists whom we have all learned to admire, and I, for one, am loath to go all the way with postmodernist thinkers. It is very hard to relinquish faith in some measure of objective scholarship. We all can think of utterly biased and self-serving scholarship that we are sure would not hold up under scrutiny, or history writing that is filled with factual errors. We want to reserve the right to correct this corrupted work in the name of some kind of objective truth.

But if we cannot go all the way with the critics of the Enlightenment, we must at least acknowledge that no scholarship, no truth, exists in a social vacuum. Though it is rarely mentioned in the work itself, all scholarship is tied to a community of some kind and bears the marks of that community's influence. Scholarship is the product of people who are located in institutions—universities, research institutes, or circles of like-minded thinkers. They publish their work and want to have it read by others. Their reputations, promotions, pay raises, and appointments depend on how that work is received. When they write, they use the language, the mannerisms, the forms of their scholarly community. In taking an intellectual position, they silently, but inevitably, associate themselves with people of a similar outlook. Scholars take pleasure in hearing references to their work at scholarly meetings or seeing it mentioned in publications. They can imagine being part of a distinguished community of learned people whose intelligence and character are admired. In the scholarly work itself, a conclusion is presented as the outcome of careful scrutiny of the facts and rigorous analysis; but the assumptions, the perspective of the work, the fundamental attitude come from some community, from a society with which the scholar is implicitly and probably quite hopefully associating.

http://publications.maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1127&index=8

The best we can do, Alan Goff says, is to openly expose and admit the implications of our own ideologies, rather than pretend we are objective and that other people are tainted and unreliable apologists.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

[KevinG]

And Bushman is probably one of the more even handed LDS Historians out there.  This puts that in even better perspective.

[stemelbow]

Maybe the anachronism issue wasn't the best example to bring up. The point is that many apologists resist the idea that there are anachronistic elements in the Book of Mormon, although a few concede it (e.g., Blake Ostler, Brant Gardner). I think they're being overly defensive. Others would say they're just being appropriately cautious.

 

Anyway, apologists generally don't concede points to the other side. They're in a high-stakes contest, battling for hearts and minds. For that reason, apologetics is predictably one-sided. And balance and objectivity are often nowhere to be found.

It'd be nice to be able to see where you are coming from. It does seems like you brought up a terrible example because it seems to disprove your position rather than support it. It seems like apologists will lose either way--they will disagree too much or they will concede too much. Sometimes people get grouped into categories in such a way as to try and keep them down, treated as if they have no contributions to make.

Edited February 6, 2015 by stemelbow

[USU78]

This is an example of the utter disrespect for members and their intelligence that is pushing for polemics. The good news is that most defenders have listened to the criticism and are making...or have made... changes. The bad news is that eventually those who demean Mormons are going to have to clean it up a little, too.

 

And BTW, given the amount of changes going on the manuals don't agree with the manuals either.

 

Juliann, we were hearing nasty, stupid things from the Tanners and their Godbeite predecessors for an awfully long time before ever anyone started systematically taking the nasty, stupid things apart and looking at them, judging them on their own merits.

 

Some were true, and not deniable.

Some were simply true, but decontextualized out of all recognition.

Some were quite false.

Some were deliberately false.

 

How is one not to be defensive when 3 out of 4 can only be seen as an aggressive attack?

 

I suppose to the ill disposed there must never be any defensiveness by the oppressed.

[Ahab]

Anyway, apologists generally don't concede points to the other side. They're in a high-stakes contest, battling for hearts and minds. For that reason, apologetics is predictably one-sided. And balance and objectivity are often nowhere to be found.

The same can be said for the other side of the one-sided side you are talking about too, though. Yes, among the defenders of the faith there are some who, as you say, are overly defensive and don't give credit to those who they consider offensive. But on the other hand, among the offenders of a faith, those being the ones who ridicule or find fault in another person's faith that is contrary to what they believe, there are some who are overly offensive and don't give credit to those they consider defensive.

So the trick is to strike a good balance, an art in itself, being equally offensive and defensive on every issue and to everyone in the discussion while giving credit for both the good and the bad when it is due.

[KevinG]

A soft answer turneth away wrath.

 

But when asked "what would Jesus do?" the answer "turn over tables and scourge them" is not out of the realm of possibilities.

[Ahab]

Juliann, we were hearing nasty, stupid things from the Tanners and their Godbeite predecessors for an awfully long time before ever anyone started systematically taking the nasty, stupid things apart and looking at them, judging them on their own merits.

Some were true, and not deniable.

Some were simply true, but decontextualized out of all recognition.

Some were quite false.

Some were deliberately false.

How is one not to be defensive when 3 out of 4 can only be seen as an aggressive attack?

I suppose to the ill disposed there must never be any defensiveness by the oppressed.

I can remember back when I first joined the Church and first started reading "anti-Mormon" books how I kept seeing statements mixing truth with falsehoods. I recognized the truth in those statements, sometimes after having to do some research and study, but I also recognized what wasn't true, too.

I think that needs to be verbalize more often in some discussions. Give people the credit for saying what is true, when they say something true, while also giving them the credit for saying what isn't true, being specific about what we are talking about.

Some people have a tendency to share only or mostly one side of an issue, whether they prefer to talk about what is true or to talk about what is false.