Excerpts from a recent Mormon Times article:
There are many wondrous components of the gospel for Mormons to focus their study on rather than unsubstantiated details and rumors, said Elder Bruce C. Hafen at a fireside for young adults Sunday, Jan 24.
“Look at the restoration’s content, don’t get lost in the sometimes unclear details and footnotes,” he said.
Elder Hafen related his remarks specifically to anti-Mormon literature found on the Internet, and stated that too many people of faith let initial curiosity give way to feelings of dismay and betrayal when they come across unfamiliar arguments against the church.
“Don’t take your faith on whether or not God is blessing you or giving you all the answers you expect or want. Just trust him.”
Translation: “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!”
Hafen’s remarks are reminiscent of Apostle Boyd K. Packer’s 1981 address to BYU educators entitled “The Mantle is Far, Far Greater than the Intellect.” “There is a temptation,” Packer said, “for the writer or the teacher of Church history to want to tell everything, whether it is worthy or faith promoting or not. Some things that are true are not very useful.”
Reading Hafen’s talk and revisiting Packer’s sparked a couple of questions that I want field to you for discussion.
What does more undermine Mormons’ faith: “anti-Mormon” literature, or church leaders’ dismissive response to it? For me, it was the latter. As a young Mormon, I was fascinated by and familiar with many arguments against Mormonism. I read “anti-Mormon” literature and even corresponded with a ex-Mormon author, hoping to rekindle his testimony. All the while, I shelved whatever doubts my research and correspondence produced, because I was told to “just trust God.” I assumed that even though some answers alluded me, they must exist.
I consulted my bishop about some of the critical arguments I had come across, thinking he might have thoughtful rebuttals at-the-ready. Instead, he gave me a copy of Packer’s “The Mantle is Far, Far Greater than the Intellect.” I was upset by its anti-intellectual tone, and the talk ironically proved more fatal to my faith than any “anti-Mormon” argument up to that point.
Second question: Anti-intellectualism, of which the above talks are but two examples, is rife within Mormonism. Why do you think this is so? To be sure, Mormonism isn’t wholly anti-intellectual. Mormons put a great deal of emphasis on education, for example. But on balance, I think the anti-intellectual strain in Mormonism has been more salient than competing strains.
The anti-intellectualism is real. We’ve been pounding this talk to pieces over at exmormon.org. I suspect it’s because a fair and balanced academic approach to virtually any subject is always going to dig up what doesn’t cast something in a positive light.
What gets me is that much of the church’s “official” claims are based on heresay or things that people recalled decades after the fact. One of the most damning of these (there are many, many others) is JS’s purported “most correct book on earth” quotation they throw around. It’s quite possible he never said that (although I don’t think it’s outside his idiom to say something so obdurate).
So yeah, they want intellectualism, just not when it applies to them.
Anti-intellectualism is really there only option. It is so easy to disprove the truth of the Mormon church (as compared to older religions). The only option left is to pretend that truth doesn’t exist.
When you try to analyze the supernatural in an intellectual fashion, you come up short. I believe that is because the supernatural does not exist. But many religious people believe that it is because there is another “spiritual” way to best approach the supernatural. In fact, I think many mormons would recognize the lack of historical or scientific evidence to support their claims. In the first presidency message in the 2004 Ensign, president Hinckley said:
“The evidence for [the Book of Mormon's] truth, for its validity in a world that is prone to demand evidence, lies not in archaeology or anthropology, though these may be helpful to some. It lies not in word research or historical analysis, though these may be confirmatory. The evidence for its truth and validity lies within the covers of the book itself. The test of its truth lies in reading it. It is a book of God. Reasonable people may sincerely question its origin; but those who have read it prayerfully have come to know by a power beyond their natural senses that it is true, that it contains the word of God, that it outlines saving truths of the everlasting gospel, that it came forth by the gift and power of God . . . to the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ”
“Reasonable people may sincerely question its origin.” I like that honesty. Mormons need to stop looking for historical or scientific proof of their supernatural claims. What other religion has this kind of proof? None. Groups like FARMS that do archeological research to prove the book of mormon historicity, etc., are on a fool’s errand.
Well, when you look at how incredibly brain-dead and stupid the majority of the critical literature written about us is, it isn’t surprising that one or two LDS leaders would counsel against wasting our time with it.
That said, I’m one of those who has read a lot of the critical literature about Mormons. And I can say quite confidently – it hasn’t “refuted” anything.
Thanks for commenting, Seth. I follow your blog and I’m not surprised you found ours—you follow the bloggernacle like a hawk lol.
And by your blog, I mean Nine Moons (to which you contribute, no?).
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I drew cartoons for the Deseret News for 12 years. There’s teddy bear truth and grizzly bear truth. One comforts you the other challenges you. The Mormon Times is soft, cuddly and safe as it should be. The hard truth has teeth and claws that will tear apart your ego. You choose.
Thanks for the comment, Mr. Grondahl. I love your cartoons, by the way.