I’ve got the biggest fish in Mormon podcasting! In this first episode, we’re going to talk to Dr. John Dehlin about his dating an Oscar-winning actress, Renee Zellweger.
Oscar Winning Girlfriend
GT: I’ve never met anybody that dated an Oscar-winning actress. So, we’ve got to go there first. Who is this person that I’m talking about, and tell that story.
John: Okay. Well, when I was a freshman in high school at Katy High School in Katy, Texas, which is a suburb of Houston, I met Renee Zellweger at a Speech and Drama tournament. She was into speech and drama and still is, I think. She was just this bubbly blonde, vivacious, talented human. We became friends from that moment on my freshman year and we were friends all through high school. We were in the same graduating class. We did date. We used to sing Beatle songs together. We went to Galveston Beach together. We did kiss. I will kiss and tell. But that’s as far as it went. But I consider her one of my closest friends. We were so close that she made my girlfriends kind of jealous.
GT: I can imagine why.
John: She was cute and a cheerleader, and she was a basketball player. She was on track. But she wasn’t the most desired girl in the whole high school, but she was up there. But she was different from maybe some of the other more popular girls. She was just, she was really classy. She was smart, but she wasn’t like an honor student, but she was smart. But again, she wasn’t the most popular of the girls. But she was–so I’m repeating myself. Anyway, I wanted her, of course, as a good Mormon boy, I wanted her to be Mormon more than anything. So, I did the big story that you probably want me to tell is that, because my junior year, I decided to invite her to a stake dance. So, I invited her to what I remember to be the New Year’s Eve stake dance.
John: I brought her. I just wore like, as I remember, like khakis and a blazer and a white shirt and tie. That was my standard outfit back then, as I recall. She wore this lovely velvet black dress that just kind of went off the shoulder, and she’s petite. She wasn’t buxom or anything. So, I didn’t think anything of it. It was certainly modest by my standards, but even back then. As soon as we entered the chapel, some of the female leaders just immediately kind of swooped in, pulled me aside and said, “Whoever this is, her dress isn’t modest. She’s either going to need to wear your jacket or go home and change.”[1] And I’m huge. I’m six [feet tall] by this point, she’s like, five, whatever, five and change. I was just shocked. I was just like, “Oh, no, wait a minute, you don’t understand. She’s not a member. Like we don’t want to create this first impression.” I just thought for sure, they would just like buckle and say, “Oh, okay, it’s a nonmember. No problem.” But when I said that the leaders said, “No, the other girls will be frustrated that someone has–we have a double standard here.”
John: So, I pulled her aside, and I explained the situation and offered to let her wear my jacket. But she’s started crying and she asked me to take her home. So, I took her home and dropped her off. She didn’t want to do anything. She just kind of cried and went home. I remember going back to the–weirdly, I went back to the dance. I remember just going into the chapel and lying down on one of the pews and just staring up at the ceiling just like wondering what had just happened and why she was treated this way.
That wasn’t his last date. They knew each other in college, and John describes his other interactions with Renee, and how he felt when Renee told him she wanted to be an actress. Check out our conversation….
[1] Renee Zellweger is 5’ 4”. John is 6’ 6”.
Unethical Baptisms in Guatemala
Dr. John Dehlin served a mission in Guatemala back in about 1990. He was distressed to discover that missionaries often baptized young children without parent’s consent, people with mental disabilities, and other unscrupulous baptisms. He details his experiences with unethical baptisms, including notifying the mission president about this and being punished for pointing it out.
John: [I went to] Guatemala City, North mission, and long story short, I went to Guatemala and immediately noticed that we were baptizing people that probably didn’t have any business getting baptized. [We were baptizing] drunk people, people with Down syndrome, people who didn’t have all the discussions, people who hadn’t been to church. There were some companionships that were starting to baptize 10, 20, 30 a month. There was one zone in particular, the La Laguna zone, where the zone leaders had over 40 baptisms in a month. The zone had like over 100 baptisms in a month, with like four or five companionships. So, several of the companionships had like 20-30 baptisms in a month. I’m like, there are only 30 days in a month. How do you have 40 baptisms in a month? And the whole zone’s doing it? So, I talked to a friend who was in that zone, and he’s like, “Oh, yeah, dude, it’s crazy. Like, we’ll goof off. All week long. We’ll swim, we’ll go to movies. It’s a party. But then on Saturdays, we’ll go to a soccer field and gather as many young, poor children as we can. We’ll go to the poorest area of town, play a soccer match with as many young kids as we can. Then, we’ll invite them all back to the chapel to cool off, and we’ll have the baptismal font filled, and we’ll baptize eight or 10 at a time, because these are just kids.” These are all like just little kids, barefoot, poor, in the worst slums of Guatemala City, zone 15, La Lagune.
John: He even told me that, like, kids were doing cannonballs in the baptismal font because there’d be no leadership at the baptism. The missionaries had the key to the chapel, and they would just baptized like 10 at a time.
GT: There was no service. There was no talk about baptism, the Holy Ghost.
John: I mean, they may have done all that, but there was certainly no ward mission leader there, no Bishop, no primary president, no parents. There were no discussions.
GT: No signed consent form.
John: No consents.
GT: These are just kids that are eight to…
John: Seven. They actually baptized seven year olds.
GT: Oh, wow.
John: From what I remember. But, then, the mission president loved it. Gordon Romney was my mission president, and he loved it. He made those zone leaders APs. Then, they would travel around the mission and teach these techniques to other missionaries. So, early in my mission, I talked to President Romney about it, because I was a Flecha, an arrow. I was an obedient missionary, and it seemed like a perversion of God’s holy ordinances. So, I talked to Gordon Romney about it. He’s like, “Elder, don’t worry.” He said that even if we just give them a Book of Mormon, that then there’ll be a Book of Mormon in their home. But once they’re baptized and have the gift of the Holy Ghost, even if they fall inactive, it will give them a spiritual leg up for the rest of their lives. If they have the gift of the Holy Ghost, that may awaken later. I’ll never forget this, he ended by saying, “And even if they are never active again, we want them to do their work for them when they’re dead.”
Was your mission like this? We’ll also talk about how he lost his faith, and how and why he started Mormon Stories.
In Part 2 of our conversation with John Dehlin of the Mormon Stories podcast, we’ll get into his criticism of the LDS Church.
What does he think of apologetics?
GT: So, after you got excommunicated, you became more harsh towards apologists. Is that a fair word? I know you use the term neo-apologists. What’s the difference between an apologist and a neo-apologist?
John 41:00 So, I think of classic Mormon apologetics as Hugh Nibley, Daniel C. Peterson, Louis Midgley style, where your number one tool is ad hominem smearing the reputation of the critic, or of the honest question or calling them gay, accusing them of adultery, calling them a wolf in sheep’s clothing and an apostate. Ever since Hugh Nibley published, No, Ma’am, That’s Not History, without ever really dealing with any of the merits of Fawn Brodie’s concerns in her book, he set the tone. Daniel C. Peterson has been super happy to pick up that baton. FAIR Mormon continued with it all the way to Kwaku and Cardon Ellis and the This is the Show videos that were taken down. [There’s] this whole rich, multi-decade tradition of smearing critics or smearing on us questioners and then offering disingenuous science, specious, invalid science and ridiculous, illogical knowingly dishonest answers to the problems with the Church’s truth claims. And that’s what Hugh Nibley did. That’s what FARMS did. That’s what FAIR Mormon does and did.
John 42:26 It’s an embarrassing blight on the Church, in my opinion. I think those people have done way more harm than good, not just to the Church, but to people doubting. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve interacted with over the past two decades who say it was FAIR Mormon, or the Maxwell Institute or FARMS that caused their faith crisis, because their answers were so horrible, or they misbehaved so badly in their apologetic ad hominem, that the Church lost additional credibility, knowing that the Church was bankrolling all of these efforts, right? So that’s classic apologists.
John 44:01 Then, once the internet really got up to speed starting in the 2000s, we started calling out Daniel Peterson and Louis Midgley and others. In fact, there was a point where I learned from an employee of the Maxwell Institute, that Daniel Peterson and Louis Midgley, and–who is the Canadian apologist doctor guy who wrote the two hit pieces on me? Greg Smith was his name.
John 44:46 Anyway, I caught wind from within the Maxwell Institute, that another part of the Maxwell Institute, that another member of the Maxwell Institute or group of them, were writing two hit pieces on me back in in 2012, while I was working with Marlin Jensen directly, to help solve the Church’s problem with its faith crisis stuff. So, here I am. I conduct a study with my friend Travis Stratford and Greg Prince, in response to Hans Mattsson, Swedish Mormon area authority, who had lost his faith. We collaborate on doing a study of why people are leaving the Church. We get like 3000 people to fill out the survey. We compile the results with a dozen Ph.D.’s, compile that into a study and then literally share that with Church headquarters, share with Marlin Jensen. Travis Stratford goes to Church headquarters to present the findings of the study, to the missionary committee, to Church PR, to the correlation committee, to the priesthood committee, curriculum, CES, all of them. [We] say, “Hey, Mormon Church. There’s a problem. People are losing their faith. And this is why. You need to start being honest with your history and stop deceiving people.” I, along with Greg Prince and Travis Stratford, we were the creators of that study, and this is the history. This has been covered a bit in Matthew Harris’s book on the Gospel Topics.
GT 45:22 Yeah, it’s the introduction.
John 45:23 Yeah. But there are other places where we’ve talked about this. But I met with Elder Holland twice, personally, to try and counsel him on how to deal with people in faith crisis. The Church is doing nothing, and with Mormon Stories, StayLDS, that’s literally how I’m spending all my time, is trying to keep people in the Church. So, that’s what I was doing. Then, you’ve got the Maxwell Institute writing a hit piece against me, a 100-page hit piece trying to smear me and call me a wolf in sheep’s clothing, while I’m helping the Church for free. It was ridiculous. So, as soon as I found out about that hit piece from a Maxwell Institute employee, I notified Marlin Jensen, and Elder Holland, and everyone that I knew. [I’m] like, “Can you help me understand why I’m helping you and you’re funding hit pieces being written about me.”
John 46:23 That was when Daniel Peterson was removed from the Maxwell Institute. He was removed from his position as the leader of the Maxwell Institute. I have it on good authority that Marlin Jensen and Elder Holland were both involved in the removal of Daniel Peterson, from the Maxwell Institute, directly for his unwillingness to back down. So, that’s my side of the story. Other people may have their sides of the story, but I was, again, I had a source from within the Maxwell Institute that was telling me what was going on behind the scenes. That was a classic instance of classic ad hominem Mormon apologetics. Once Daniel Peterson was dethroned from the Maxwell Institute, and Gerry Bradford dethroned him from direction from the BYU president and Elder Holland. Eventually, Spencer Fluhman was put in. A lot of people contributed to this. But the decision was, that was not an effective way to deal with doubters, to deal with critics, to deal with people who question.
John 48:32 So they migrated their apologetic approach was Spencer Fluhman of the Maxwell Institute towards what’s called pastoral apologetics, which is not to engage in ad hominem anymore, not to engage in specious ridiculous pseudoscience, non-peer reviewed pseudoscience with ridiculous answers like, maybe when Joseph Smith wrote horse in the Book of Mormon, he meant tapir. Maybe there’s two Hill Cumorah’s instead of one. Instead of all that garbage, we’re going to show support to people who are doubting. We’re going to love people who question and we’re going to just try and provide a more nuanced and progressive path for staying in the Church ala Terryl and Fiona Givens, ala, Patrick Mason, in his book, Planted. We’re going to show a more loving pastoral approach. [We’re going to] stop trying to address the scientific criticisms of the Church’s truth claims, because we know we have nothing there. We know that science wins, every time we try and argue with science on any of the problems with the Church’s truth claims. So, we’re going to stop trying to provide those types of answers. [We’re going to] love people and stop with the ad hominem.
John 49:49 So, I named that neo-apologetics. They hate it. None of them like that term. I don’t even know how well it’s known, but that’s what I mean when I say a neo-apologist. And that’s Richard Bushman. That’s Terryl and Fiona Givens. That’s Patrick Mason. That Spencer Fluhman. That’s Adam Miller. [These are] good people, smart people, lovely people trying to do, institutionally, within the Church, frankly, what I was trying to do with Mormon Matters with Dan Witherspoon, with StayLDS, try to create a progressive, faithful Mormonism that’s more liberal and non-literal, within Mormonism.
GT 50:33 Okay, so, apologetics are ad hominems, and neo-apologetics are nicer, but still lacking. Is that what I’m hearing?John 50:44 Well, okay. I think it’s un-Christ like to engage in ad hominem attacks. So, that’s definitely improvement. Mormon neo-apologetics, for me, is an improvement on pretty much every level. I’m not aware of any way where it’s not an improvement. So, getting rid of ad hominem: improvement.
Is his podcast neutral towards the Church?
GT 2:11:48 Do you think, especially since 2015, that Mormon Stories is a fair representation of Mormonism? Is it neutral?
John 2:12:04 No, no, not neutral. I think you and Steve Pynakker do a better job at neutrality than I do. I worked really hard to be neutral for a long time. I’ve already told you that I think the skewing of Mormon Stories is more at the hands of the Church excommunicating me and the Church with Proposition 8, harming and spiking, tripling the suicide rates of LGBT youth in Utah. And punishing the Ordain Women movement and excommunicating me and others. And, you know, refusing to be honest and open. Then excommunicating me, which then made more faithful people afraid, or unwilling to come on the podcast.
John: I lay the skewing of Mormon Stories primarily to that, and to the uncourageous neo-apologists, who stopped being willing to be courageous and stopped being willing to come on Mormon Stories out of fear, out of a desire to manage their capital or out of a fear of what might happen if they do come on Mormon Stories. I lay the skewing of Mormon Stories primarily on those two groups of people. But yeah, when you see so much divorce, so much destroyed families, so much LGBT suicide, so many people’s lives be controlled with undue influence under false pretenses, you get angry after a while and it’s hard to bite your tongue forever, unless you’re just truly unempathetic. Like, if you lack empathy, then you could just be calloused and never get angry and upset. Or if you have extraordinary character and discipline, and maybe that’s you. Or maybe you just haven’t been doing this long enough, or maybe you just haven’t talked to enough [people.] Maybe you just haven’t seen enough suffering. Maybe you, Rick Bennett, have cocooned yourself from the suffering that I’ve seen, or people don’t reach out to you like they did to me. But I don’t know how anybody can face the carnage that the Mormon Church has wreaked in the lives of its members, in addition to the good stuff, how they can face that for 10 or 20 years and not get angry. I think angry is the healthy, mature, rational response.
John: I appreciate how academics has to remain neutral and that that’s an important part of the discipline. So, I respect you and the Bushmans and Thomas Murphy, and all the academics who are able to remain neutral. I have deep respect for the discipline and the character that sometimes is required to do that. But, even them, I don’t know how they can see the deception and see the carnage and remain neutral, emotionally. So, no Mormon Stories–well, Mormon Stories, pre-2015, I think has been one of the most neutral outlets ever.
Does he want people to Stay LDS?
GT 26:44 Yeah. So, my question is, do you really want people to stay LDS anymore?
John 26:49 Oh, okay. So one thing about StayLDS that’s really important is, even though I was able to stay with the nuanced progressive testimony, I would have person after person tell me that they couldn’t do it. They would tell me, “I tried. I followed what you said. It wasn’t good for my mental health. It wasn’t good for my well-being. It became a matter of conscience.” I realized that I was propping up a set of recommendations that were only viable for a subset of people. But by putting the website up, it would allow other people to say, “Hey husband, all these other people are staying Mormon. Why can’t you?” You know, what I’m saying; a believing wife to a non-believing husband or believing husband and unbelieving wife. “Look, stay LDS.” Even bishops were starting to use it. Bishops were using my ebook, from StayLDS, to help members stay in the Church. I was excited about that. I was proud of that.
John 28:03 But, then there would be the people that said it was literally damaging their health and well-being to stay. I started to feel this conflict of like, am I setting people up for false expectations? Am I setting up a standard that people could be judged by or pushed towards that wasn’t actually healthy or sustainable for many, many people? Because I found that many, many, many people could stay for a while. But, then they couldn’t do it anymore. At some point, I lost my confidence in being able to really say [that] this is a path that I recommend. It wasn’t a path that I, even to this day, have denounced. But it’s a path I could no longer recommend as being viable for most people. So, you can go read the most recent versions of that e-doc that I created with Brian, where I had to put a disclaimer on there: John no longer advocates for this way, because it’s not sustainable for many. But I kept the website up, and I let other people manage it. I still wanted it to be there as a resource for those who found it useful. I still feel that way to this day, which is why I’ve never taken it down and why I still refer people to it, occasionally.
GT 29:28 You still do refer people to it?
John 29:30 Oh yeah for sure. I’ve had, when I used to coach, I don’t coach much these days. I’ve kind of mothballed my coaching practice for now, because Mormon Stories is way busy. But all the time when I was a coach, and people would say, “My wife or husband believe, I don’t believe anymore, but it’s going to wreck our family if I if I leave. My spouse isn’t ready for me to leave. Or my job, I’m a Church employee. I’m a seminary and institute teacher. I’m a CES director. I’m a bishop. How can I stay?” To this day, I’ll point them to StayLDS, that manual. Absolutely.
We’ll get into his tussels with both apologists and neo-apologists, and of course we can’t miss his role in the Swedish Rescue. What are your thoughts? Where do you agree or disagree with John?
Wheat & Tares 
John Dehlin’s calling card for long time now has been “informed consent”. I think it’s very hard to disagree with that objective. JD’s critics make claims about him. They can accuse him of personal misconduct. But it’s hard to believe that any rational person can state that informed consent is a bad thing. I’d also point out that he seems to be more willing to have apologists on his show than they seem willing to be on his show. So don’t blame him if they aren’t on. I’ll never agree with anyone 100% of the time. But I rarely disagree with a point JD is trying to make in the context of informed consent.
I was on my mission in C.A. the same time as John. So many parallells in the journey. When I started down the rabbit hole, listening to MS, helped me feel like someone else got it and experienced what I have.
Thanks John for sharing truth and not allowing this intergenerational spirituaL abuse to continue. .
Dehlin dated and is friends with Renee Zellweger. What a story. I had no idea that he was 6’6. I’ve never met John in person, but I’ve interacted with him. Great guy.
I don’t understand why so many professional defenders of the church and its central doctrines reject the label of neo-apologist. I remember Blair Hodges wrote me in an email that he, like many others, rejected the label and took issue with Dehlin over that. I gather that this sentiment is largely due to the fact that many defenders want to think of themselves as completely independent and that they are arriving at their views in support of the church with as little bias as possible. The problem is that their views in support of church teachings or in many cases their views in which they fall short of making criticisms against Joseph Smith and other leaders in a number of regards appear to have to do in large part to the fact that they were raised Mormon and built a reputation within a believing community that they know they would ruin if they went too far. Plus, I’ve never encountered a scholar who has defended Mormon truth claims and the character of Joseph Smith who wasn’t raised Mormon. At most, non-Mormon scholars of Mormonism try to maintain a sort of neutrality but when pressed on the issue concede that the truth claims are not real. Even Ann Taves, about whom many neo-apologists have raved about being fair-minded about Joseph Smith, concedes Dan Vogel’s point that Joseph Smith was a pious fraud, and then proceeds to try to argue somehow that Joseph Smith doesn’t fit the definition of “fraud” in spite of the fact that he made up the Book of Mormon. But alas, Religious Studies departments are full of mental gymnasts and this kumbaya spirit that dictates that it is wrong to criticize religions as untruthful, and Ann Taves, Paul Gutjahr, and others are motivated by that spirit.
I second Josh h’s comment.
After 1600 Mormon stories episodes, of course there have been some gaffes, but generally John has presented a compelling podcast to many people, apparently including a large contingent of never-Mormons.
And I borrow his phrase of informed consent frequently as it’s a great way to describe why I think facts matter.
Interesting that the terms apologist and neo-apologist discussed here are referring to specific generations of LDS apologetics. There is a longer tradition of Christian apologetics in which the term neo-apologist has no meaning that I’m aware of. I now see a bit better why Rick has labeled the term of “apologist” to be a smear in comments on other posts.
The temporary pain Dehlin causes for institutionalized leadership will die with that leadership, but the good he has done will be remembered by LDS for a considerable time. I think Time will show that some of the Church’s biggest critics are in fact our greatest allies. Dehlin’s archive of work is a cross-sample of LDS anthropology that could not have been accomplished by the narrow-minded, nepotistic, power-hungry Establishment that has infiltrated the Restored Church.
Bishops and Stake Presidents will benefit from Dehlin’s work, if they use it as a tool and not a truth-meter.
There are two Latter-Day Saint Churches: one is institutional, driven by power, and serves itself. The other consists of the common congregation, who practice covenant by faith. One is a Harlot, the Other is the Bride.
Here’s a progression some people go through in terms of their view the Church. (1) Mainstream Mormons and zealous defenders think the Church is good and true for everyone and that *everyone* should be in it. If someone stays away or formally exits, that’s because they are weak or sinful or miguided or deceived. And even if (hypothetically) it’s not true, it’s still good, so you (all the you’s) should just pretend it’s true and stay in, pay your tithing, and do church work. Classic apologists and all senior leadership are in this category, I think.
(2) Some more pragmatic mainstream Mormons and many who are at the fringe put the truthfulness questions more or less aside (generally because they’ve read some unvarnished LDS history) and acknowledge the Church is good for some people (who should stay) and maybe their children, but it’s not so good for other people or other children, who should get some degree of sympathy and support if they step away or exit. Neo-apologists might be in this category, and maybe a few bishops, and I’m guessing a lot of W&T readers.
(3) Then there are those who reject the truthfulness claims and also see the Church as harmful (or at least more harm than good) for almost everyone. Yes, there are good Mormons, but they’d be good anything-elses, too, and maybe better people overall if they were no longer Mormon and were no longer shackled to LDS beliefs, policies, and positions. I suppose most LDS critics fall in this camp and some quiet ex-LDS and probably some non-LDS. It’s surprising how many non-LDS sort of leave the whole truth question aside (because it’s rude to tell someone their religious beliefs are unfounded or simply wacky) but feel quite sincerely that the Church is good for people and have warm feelings for the Church as an institution.
So it sounds like John D. went from (1) to (2) to more or less (3) at this point. I think a lot more people go from (1 to (3) than go in the other direction.
I think John has a good heart, and I have always loved the Renee Zellweger story. This is even more than he told me about his ongoing relationship with her.
His podcasts are way too long for my taste, and not edited tightly enough (I don’t have the attention span for that, but I did make it through Peter Bleakley’s, and those are even longer, just with an outraged British accent and more swearing. What can I say? The heart wants what the heart wants. I disagreed with John about monetizing faith related content, but he was probably right(er) than I was on that front. The difference probably really stemmed from him having an IT background and understanding that content creation is an actual job, whereas I have always seen it as a hobby. I was involved in the StayLDS site, but ultimately that just feels like a one-way street to me. It is probably one of the better online spaces I’ve ever seen for people who are kind of hostages within the faith, navigating a space in a religion that feels like it’s become increasingly hostile. Ultimately, it felt like a one-way street to me. Maybe this discussion will revilatalize that community a little. It felt like a non-toxic reddit.
And I believe the Church did wrong by him. The problem with the Church’s behavior is that anyone with liberal or progressive views who puts those ideas out in the public sphere (and ultimately, that’s why I say John has a good heart–he is truly a liberal at heart with all the good and bad that entails) is going to become a target. That’s a byproduct of the Church claiming “neutrality,” but meaning status quo conservatism and religious authoritarianism (probably most Churches believe in theocratic authoritarianism at least to some extent–you come at the king, you best not miss–hence the loyalty test it puts to “dissenters” in the Church court process, a feature since Joseph Smith’s day).
I’m more of a progressive than a liberal, which might be at the heart of John’s question around “how do you see what happens to people and not have it affect you?” I do think it affects me. I imagine it affects Rick. I’m just less sure how to fix things, and more prone to do less as a result of that lack of confidence. John gets into the deeply personal stories and empathizes with them, and I find that compelling, too, but I also want to see the bigger picture and understand how to solve problems systemically. Ultimately, though, I think I end up feeling pretty hopeless in this process.
Over a decade ago, I listened to the Bushman interview, the Palmer interview, the Coe interview, the Givens interview, the William D. Russell interview (which eventually led me to publish an essay in response to one of his Sunstone essays), the Daniel Peterson interview (done by Don Wotherspoon rather than Dehlin), the personal story, and part of the Brant Gardner interview. (The “but, but but….” interuptions of Gardner, in contrast to his uncritical swallowing everything Coe said, got to be too much for me.) Media savy, but not particularly well informed on the scholarly topics he raises. Dehlin’s comment that “I think of classic Mormon apologetics as Hugh Nibley, Daniel C. Peterson, Louis Midgley style, where your number one tool is ad hominem smearing the reputation of the critic, or of the honest question or calling them gay, accusing them of adultery, calling them a wolf in sheep’s clothing and an apostate” can be easily checked for accuracy, validity and general by those who have read every article in every volume of the old Review 23 volumes and over 300 different authors), which I happen to have done, and Dehlin clearly has not done. Because I have done so, and not found that his description is at all accurate in describing the content, for me, Dehlin’s charge has all the credibility of Trump’s characterizations of Mexican immigrants as murders and rapists, or 2020 election as “stolen through fraud” that never manages to show up in courts or recounts , or Trump’s labeling mainstream reporting outlets like CNN as primarily “fake news.” In that context, I Dehlin’s comment a very good demonstration of an ad hominem argument, of applying a negative label to comprehensively smear an opponent, rather than making a genuine inquiry into what is. The charge as stated reveals far more about Dehlin than ot does of Peterson, Midgley, and Greg Smith, and the hundreds of others who have published with the Review and FAIR. It is not ad hominem to point out that Palmer, for example, when making charges that Joseph invented the angelic restoration stories in 1834, neglects to mention the first paragraph of the 1832 history, which clearly mentions angelic priesthood restoration. Nor is it ad hominem to point out that where Dehlin and Coe discussed how the lack of evidence for brass helmets and iron arrow heads constituted a serious problem Book of Mormon believers, that most readers of the Book of Mormon will have noticed that it never mentions brass helmets or iron arrowheads. Not is it ad hominem to point out that where Coe claimed to Dehlin that while the Great Mother is important in Mesoamerican religion, that there is nothing comparable in the Book of Mormon, and the well-known monotheism of the Hebrews, such claims by Coe and eagerly embraced by Dehlin, actually shows that neither had considered Dever’s Did God Have a Wife? or Patai’s The Hebrew Goddess, nor Daniel Peterson’s Nephi and His Asherah. And much else. But whereas a search for knowledge must involve being self-critical, removing the beams in one’s own eye as the start of an ongoing process, politics and the rhetorical trade runs on simply “controlling the narrative” regardless of inconvenient facts.
Along the lines of Travis, I appreciate John Dehlin’s extensive catalog of interviews that drag a lot of shadowy things about Church history into the light; things that I had not a clue existed. The combination of guests and topics John has delved into really aren’t rivaled by any other Mormon-themed podcast of which I am aware if only because John has managed to stick with it for closing in on two decades, and I continue to learn as I listen to his new podcasts. That said, in the last few years, the tone of the podcast has changed from one that is at least superficially interested in neutrality and the idea that there is some small bit of redeeming value in staying in the Church to one that is overwhelmingly critical of anything the Church and its membership do to the point of open mockery. I guess the response to that criticism is that that’s often what the Church has done its most vulnerable members for centuries and what many apologies did to critics inside the Church (including John) for nearly a century now, and that’s a fair point, but I still miss what felt like the more even handedness of earlier episodes.
I’m not sure if the negativity is driven by the feedback from the podcast’s paying audience, the unwillingness of believing or at least active Mormons to come on the show, John’s changing beliefs about what the podcast’s overall goal should be, the influence of his cohosts Gerardo Semano and (until recently) Carah Burrell or the influence of recurring guests like Radio Free Mormon and John Larsen or some combination of the above (or other factors that I’m not thinking of at the moment). Or maybe I’m just too defensive.
I agree with Angela C and the other commenters that the Mormon Stories podcasts run way too long. If handled properly, the topics could be discussed fully in an hour. I have watched a few of john’s podcasts as well as a few others out there that are in a similar vein and I find them too depressing to watch. I have been reading Gregory A. Prince’s biography of David O McKay. The leadership of the Church was dealing with the problem of the “Baseball Baptisms” in England in the early 1960’s and the mass baptisms without parental consent that John was describing in Guatemala, so his experience was definitely not new.
Thanks for the perspective, Kevin.
I forgot to answer the question about the baseball (soccer?) baptisms that was posed above. John & I talked about that experience when I had first met him (back when I was recruited to Mormon Matters, the blog that preceded this one). One of the other elders in his mission who joined in signing the letter of complaint to the Church about what their mission president was doing was coincidentally from my very small, close-knit home branch, and I was proud to see that. It also told me all I needed to know about the situation. John & this friend had very different personalities. The friend from my home ward was not scrupulous at all (John has talked about his own struggles with scrupulosity, guilt, and trying too hard to follow the rules). On the contrary, this person is someone who would usually be one of the “cool” kids in a church setting, playing pranks, cutting loose, making off-color jokes, putting people at ease, yet ultimately believing in doing what’s right as a matter of common sense. That he saw it the same way John did confirmed to me that what was going on in their mission was pretty terrible. The hidden side of these types of missions is also that those serving in missions that don’t do these things are often excoriated by their own leaders for not living up to the results of these “cheating” missions. It’s an insidious cycle.
In my mission, as I detailed in my memoir (The Legend of Hermana Plunge), our president followed the Alvin Dyer approach, which included being able to baptize people right after their first church meeting, and being able to “teach” them very rapidly. To my knowledge, nobody was doing anything on par with what they did in John’s mission (e.g. “baptizing” pool parties to cool off after a game, baptizing under the age of 8, or baptizing minors without parental knowledge or permission). Yet, we did have a lot of “converts” who worked on the ships in the dock, had no local residence, and did not attend church locally. Once they were baptized, they were often not seen again. Maybe they attended when they returned to Ghana, but likely they did not.
Basically, I suspect that anything you measure can be cheated, and the degree to which cheaters prosper is up to your mission culture, which is in large part set by the president. John was absolutely justified and right to bring those baptisms to light. The fact that his president suffered no real consequences is unsurprising, but speaks volumes, IMO. The president was clearly lapping up the praise and attention of the fake results, elevating the cheaters above the ones trying to do what’s right, and then retaliating against the narcs. And his higher ups doubtless appreciated being able to show up with these high results, too, even though they were fake.
To Kevin’s point, Dehlin isn’t a sort of counterapologist, he’s a story-teller. He isn’t a historian, nor does he have professional training as one. But he has a way of talking with and engaging people and bringing out their stories, especially Mormons, both believing and non-believing, and what he has done is clearly unprecedented and of tremendous value.
On traditional apologists, bear in mind that Bill Hamblin once published an article in which he clearly embedded an acrostic message of “Metcalfe is Butthead” referring to Brent Metcalfe. When gay marriage was made legal throughout the US, Peterson posted on his social media account about how NAMBLA (National Association for Man-Boy Love) was next to be legalized. Let’s not pretend that traditional apologists routinely bristled at critics and often resorted to name-calling. They regularly criticized questioners and doubters in the church as weak fools. I can personally attest to how much of an arrogant douchebag Dan Peterson is. The way he talks about his critics….Sheesh. Truly unbearable. But it really just seems to reflect a larger intellectual insecurity on his part. And Hugh Nibley’s “No Ma’am…,” my goodness, what a delicate, fragile, easily offended person that man was. The Trump comparison you made at John Dehlin is actually more apt for the apologists: they can dish it out, but they can’t take it.
On Coe: the man hasn’t spent his every waking hour figuring out how he can one-up Mormon apologists. No. Instead he is spent his career trying to understand life and society in the ancient Americas and has dedicated his time to make real contributions to the field of ancient Mesoamerican anthropology and history. His knowledge of every fine detail of the Book of Mormon is admittedly a bit hazy, but he knows that it makes many, many bold claims about the material culture of the ancient Americas that appear very strange and that are not based on any corroborating evidence. Its biggest claim, that pre-Columbian Christians existed in the Americas and actually saw Jesus, cannot be corroborated in any way, shape, or form in a way that is convincing to non-Mormon academics. To Coe, Mormon truth claims are nothing more than a bizarre distraction not worthy of serious scholarly attention. John Sorenson, on the other hand, has spent his whole career devoted to shilling for the church and has obsessed over anything and everything that any critic of traditional Mormon truth claims has ever said. Could he get a reputable academic publisher to publish his Mormon Codex? A resounding no. Sorenson is a nobody in the world of Mesoamerican history having hardly contributed anything of value to the field. He and other Mormon Mesoamericanists aren’t in it to discover ancient Mesoamerican culture, they’re in it to prove the Book of Mormon and write endless and rather ridiculous verbose and substanceless defense narratives of Mormonism. And when someone calls them out on that, boy do they get feisty. Sorry guys, but you’ve had decades to make your case to non-Mormon academic audiences that pre-Columbian American Christians existed and nobody is has ever bought it. And please spare me the “but Margaret Barker (a pseudohistorian with no real standing who hasn’t even said that she believes the BOM to be historical), or some unnamed non-Mormon academic I talked to at a conference” nonsense. Get someone of standing on record or it doesn’t count.
On neoapologists, there is a marked difference between Bushman, Givens, Mason and Peterson, Midgley, and Hamblin. The former group is simply more sympathetic to questioners and doubters and aren’t constantly trying to pick fights with them. Yet they still defend Mormon truth claims, but in a less direct way. They aren’t out there trying to dig up evidence in Mesoamerica, but are more devoted to reframing what the core belief aspects of Mormonism actually are. They are more willing to accommodate nuanced believers and folks on the borderlands. More willing to metaphorize the meaning of the Book of Mormon.
On ignoring inconvenient facts and who is acting more like Trump: that award goes to Mormon apologists and they win by a long shot. For again, they haven’t ever produced a shred of evidence that pre-Columbians actually practiced Christianity (let alone before the birth of Jesus) or Judaism and they routinely rely on the same rhetorical smoke and mirrors that conspiracy theorists do. They make ridiculous claims that are not grounded in evidence, place the burden of proof on the questioner, mischaracterize critical narratives, personally attack critics, and engage in webs of mental gymnastics and bad faith arguments when pressed for evidence behind their claims.
I’m a big admirer of John’s work, mission and purpose. I view what he has done as anthropology, ethnography and journalism. And I believe his podcast catalog will be a significant contributor to history decades from now, history that will be written in the future that is similar to the work Stephen Ambrose accomplished with his histories that explained world events from the bottom up as opposed to the top down.
While I enjoy many Mormon Stories episodes that feature scholars and critics, I particularly value Mormon Stories for the personal experiences individual members share. Nothing, in my mind, teases out the harm our culture is capable of causing–and blind to–than listening to the lived experiences of members. Too many members are discouraged from speaking honestly and openly about the ways in which they have been harmed and the personal costs of belonging to the church. We are told to do so is to display a lack of faith, at best, and furthers the work of Satan, at worst. And I don’t mind the length of the interviews as well. It is difficult to find the time and stay focused through hours of interviews, but I’m happy John and his production staff don’t edit the interviews. It’s raw. It’s rich. It’s real and in-depth.
I’ll share an example to make my point. I was dismayed when Elder Holland gave his “musket fire” talk to BYU faculty and administrators. It put my jaw on the ground and I was disappointed with every aspect of his message, especially the duplicity he displayed at the end by claiming to love and struggle over the plight of gay members…after he had just attacked Matt Easton and told gay members to stop signaling their sexual orientation, that doing so was selfish, that Matt was selfish. But it took listening to Matt on Mormon Stories for me truly to understand what a monster Jeff Holland chose to be by giving that talk. I didn’t fully understand until I listened to Matt’s life story, his struggles, and his triumphs at BYU, and the way in which Holland’s words hurt him. It was the Mormon Stories feature of Matt that crystalized my growing disaffection for Jeff Holland and who he really is and what he stands for. It helped me to see Holland at his core, beyond his appealing general conference prose: He doesn’t care about the one–all he cares about is protecting his idea of the institution and his own white, heteronormative traditions.
This is just one personal example. There are so many more. I wish John all the best and hope Mormon Stories continues on.
His podcasts are very popular, but I find they are difficult to listen to/watch. They have too much banter and need to be edited. His snarkiness is off putting. And frankly I could care less about his opinions. I prefer the interviews on sltrib.com.
@Kevin Christensen,
To characterize Dehlin’s work by a few apologetic interviews is myopic. Dehlin is an emotional dude, he’s a theatre-type. He is an empathizer, not an apologist. To criticize Dehlin and simultaneously drop names of scholars like Patai and Davies (original scholarship) next to Peterson’s borrowing of the Goddess motif and appropriating it to an LDS text, is exactly why Latter Day Saints are learning to distrust LDS apologetics.
Yes! to better editing.
I listened to most of the pre-2015 episodes. There used to be a rendition of “Come, Come, Ye Saints” at the beginning of the show. And I remember when my old testimony was falling apart just crying my eyes out at that music. I was never going to sing that song the same way again. But I felt in those days like John was truly saying, “Come, come!” Let’s power through and be able to once again say that all is well.
I’m pretty sure that music isn’t part of the podcast anymore. He’s straightforward in this interview about how he’s changed. And now I’m far enough away from crying in my kitchen that I can see how a person would get there.
John’s productions are way too long, his attempts at objectivity are laughably disingenuous, and his choice of co-hosts is sometimes questionable. He’s also a fly in the ointment and an outlet for many people who have legit stories to tell. And he’s earnest in what he’s doing and what he wants to accomplish. For all his flaws, John is necessary because the Mormon church’s many, many years of obfuscation and intellectual dishonesty have made him necessary. He might actually hope that he becomes unnecessary in the future, but I don’t see that happening.
“Coe claimed to Dehlin that while the Great Mother is important in Mesoamerican religion, that there is nothing comparable in the Book of Mormon, and the well-known monotheism of the Hebrews, such claims by Coe and eagerly embraced by Dehlin, actually shows that neither had considered Dever’s Did God Have a Wife? or Patai’s The Hebrew Goddess, nor Daniel Peterson’s Nephi and His Asherah.”
Granted, I haven’t yet fished around for Coe’s exact quote, although I suspect that you’re paraphrasing. A direct quote from Coe would be useful, but I’ll go ahead and critique what you wrote anyhow.
Patai’s seminal work The Hebrew Goddess published in 1967 forwards the idea that the ancient Hebrews practiced polytheism in the form of worshipping several goddesses and that their religion contained many elements of an earlier polytheistic Canaanite religion. The Israelites were Canaanites after all. Coe wasn’t an expert in the ancient Near East, but I have little doubt that he would have validated the idea that the ancient Israelites practiced polytheism and the other arguments of Patai. You know who might be reluctant to validate the arguments of Patai: the Mormon leaders. Because, you see, the Mormon leaders have long preached that there is a unity and purity of religious teaching about the nature of God in the Old Testament (and throughout the Bible) that confirms what the Mormon church currently teaches about God’s nature. I don’t think they would look too kindly upon a Sunday School teacher (let alone a bishop or stake president) all of a sudden preaching that we should worship the goddess Asherah because that was an earlier belief of the Israelites and Nephi who clearly (I mean it is just so clear and obvious to any reader) worshipped Asherah because of his tree of life sermon in 1 Nephi 8-15, and we all know that Asherah was symbolized by trees.
On Dan Peterson’s “Nephi and his Asherah,” he makes the argument that Nephi believed in and worshipped Asherah because the “tree of life” was an allusion to Asherah and that mention of the tree of life is evidence that Nephi carried over elements of not just ancient Hebrew religion to the new world, but elements that have only been found by modern archaeology (I mean, how could have Joseph Smith possibly known!). Again, I don’t doubt that pre-exilic Hebrews were polytheists who believed different gods to be governing various aspects of nature and that they eventually adopted Yahweh to be a patron god. I also don’t doubt that ancient Hebrews believed in Asherah and that she was symbolized by trees and that elements of an earlier pre-exilic polytheistic Hebrew religion show up in the OT. But Peterson is looking a bit far off field to find how the tree of life story in 1 Nephi 8-15 may have been informed. For there are ample scriptures available throughout the KJV that inform the text. For example:
Rev. 22:1-2: he shewed me a pure river of water of life…on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits
1 Nephi 8:13: I beheld a river of water; and it ran along, and it was near the tree of which I was partaking the fruit
That Nephi spoke of a goddess in 1 Nephi 8-15 isn’t at all apparent. But what is very apparent is the influence, often verbatim, of the KJV in the BOM. So much so that it is a very compelling argument to make that Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon himself and used the KJV extensively to inform himself of the BOM text.
Lastly, do me a favor and read any book on ancient Mesoamerican religion published by a reputable academic press. Then tell me what parallels you see between ancient Mesoamerican religions and the religion spoken of in the Book of Mormon. I can’t imagine anything more different.
Credit Dehlin for withstanding the desperate and at times sophomoric attempts to silence Mormon Stories. Yes, his podcasts can be improved with crisper editing and greater focus on the topics at hand. I also miss the reasonable voices of Greg Prince, Bushman, Givens et.al. That said, Dehlin (and spin-offs such as RFM) serve a growing audience comprised largely of a younger and smarter demographic seeking a broader and more truthful view of Mormonism.
The old guard of Mormon apologists (e.g., Peterson, Midgley, Gee, etc.) used their entire arsenal of dirty tricks to smear/silence Dehlin. I speak from first hand experience having been in attendance at several Maxwell Institute meetings where Dan Peterson and his cohorts obsessively spoke about how to discredit Mormon Stories. Good news is that these old guard apologists now appeal primarily to an older and rapidly diminishing audience.
I do have concerns about the future of the moderate and intellectual voices that exist on the outskirts of Mormonism. Such groups need to focus on the wealth of credible and vetted data that offsets outlandish Mormon truth claims. We need strong leadership that is issue oriented and refuses to engage in petty and personal attacks.
Just let the truth rise to the surface and stand on its own.
I do find the interviews overlong and slow going, which makes them hard work. So I only listen to those that really grab my interest. Peter Bleakley is also long, but much clearer in expression, and keeps things moving (can’t say I’ve really noticed the swearing, so perhaps we Brits have a narrower definition of what actually counts…)
@Angela C, I believe John’s account of unscrupulous baptisms in his mission, and your friend corroborates John’s account. There are reports this kind of thing happening throughout the history of twentieth century missionary work. Prince’s account in DOM and the Rise of Modern Mormonism illustrates the problem, but it’s not an isolated event, just perhaps one of the most brazen. There are reports this happened in some form or another in Chile, Brazil, the Philippines and probably in other developing countries.
While nothing like this happened in my mission (the socioeconomics of my mission would have made this approach nearly impossible), as an AP I had visibility into the utter panic my mission president experienced when the area president informed him he and his counselors would be visiting to conduct a comprehensive mission review. For weeks all I did was collect, tally, analyze, graph and write summaries of all measurable missionary activities. If a particular report was unfavorable or showed a negative trend, it was excluded. If the trend line was positive, it was highlighted. The final package made the mission look good, and in particular made my mission president look like he had improved all mission performance metrics higher than the previous president. I was also instructed to find anecdotes of mission miracles. Retention issues were not included.
At that time in my life, my priority and motivation was to be a good soldier. Being the only one in the office with some schooling in statistics and data analysis, I have to admit I made the reports glow. I was the only one in the office who knew Quattro Pro and created a professional report (laser printed at a local Kinkos) complete with graphs and some correlations on one of the two PCs the mission owned (late 1980’s). My stock shot through the roof and I was included in exclusive meetings with the area presidency. We were complimented and given strong reviews. All of the meetings were metrics centered and focused on conversion tactics. When the area presidency addressed combined zone conferences, the message changed, was gospel centered with a big, big dose of shaming and guilt tripping should missionaries violate rules or dare to live unworthily–for doing so would condemn souls who would otherwise have been brought into the fold. (Frankly, my first year in the field was really enriching. My companions and I performed community service well outside the allowed four hours per week, and I count it as the most meaningful time in my life as a disciple. Being an AP was swank and prestigious, but was otherwise pretty hollow. I longed for the first half of my mission after I returned home and struggled to process my second year as an AP as being a meaningful use of time.)
Post mission and post graduate education, I realized at the general level, full-time missionary work and the work for which mission presidents are responsible is seen through the icy cold and analytical lens of American business methods. And I learned that mission presidents who achieved unparalleled results compared to their mission president peers are often rewarded with a calling to sit in the big red chairs. I can’t help but think that the the prospects for church promotions created the unintended consequences of baseball or soccer baptisms in the late twentieth century. (As an example, look at Elder Jack Goaslind’s Arizona mission results and a story he tells about a deal he cut with Spencer Kimball to have Kimball visit his mission if he achieved 10,000 baptisms, which he did–try to tell me this didn’t put Elder Goaslind in a red chair. Incidentally, Ray Combs, comedian and host of Family Feud who would tragically take his own life, was one of Goaslind’s AP’s.)
There is the church we see and is marketed, and one as it really is. Mormon Stories brings the church as it really is into the open.
Please give more info and references with Elder Goaslind and his mission in Arizona.
There is a difference between exceptional instances and generally representative actions. We define our paradigms by the stories we tell as generally representative we ought to judge our paradigms by the accuracy of the predictions they provide, and how comprehensive and coherent a picture they provide, how fruitful and promising the model is, rather than by how politically and ideologically self-serving a use can be made of it. Making the broken Hamblin acrostic in an essay in RMMB 6:1 as paradigmatic, as generally representative, rather than a demonstrably exceptional instance, leads to the problem that it fails in predicting the actual content of arguments by the over 300 different authors who published in the review. Mountain Meadows a terrible thing, but it was not a typical thing for typical Mormons. It was not just the LDS doing what you would generally expect to find them doing. If that were the case, then we’d be doing the same thing to every tour bus and airplane that enters the state. The point of generalizing about the whole of LDS apologetic efforts from that one instance is not to provide an accurate picture but to serve a rhetorical agenda to create mistrust, to discourage people from reading and finding out for themselves, to create a negative label, and a self-justifying social boundary regarding who is in, and who is out, who is “Not us!” For all the scores of times I have seen people post their indignation over the broken acrostic, I have never seen anyone actually respond to the specific arguments Hamblin made in that essay. They mount the high horse of indignation, and ignore the responsibility of entering into a reasonable discussion. As Archimedes said, “Give me a lever and a place to stand, and I can move the world.” Too many people still the broken acrostic story for leverage and self justification, rather as a bit of the humanity that humans have a way of demonstrating from time to time.
Regarding Mesoamericanists and the Book of Mormon, Mark Wright an LDS Mesoamericanist, back in 2008, reported this: “I can name two: Alejandro Sarabia, the current site director of Teotihuacan (the largest archaeological zone in all of Mesoamerica) and his wife, Dr. Kim Goldsmith (PhD, UC Riverside Dept of Anthropology, dissertation on ceramics of Teotihuacan). They both joined the church several years ago after meeting some missionaries proselyting outside the gates of the Teo. Kim and Alejandro just got sealed last March. Both of them joined the church many, many years after earning their degrees in archaeology and both have decades of research under their belts at Teotihuacan (a site which was flourishing in Book of Mormon times, incidentally). I will serve as a primary source on this information, since I know Kim and her husband, and had lunch with them down in Teo just a few weeks ago.”
“As for the opinion of most Mesoamerican scholars, the vast majority of them have no clue what the Book of Mormon says and most will never take the time to read it. Most of what they think they know about it comes from psuedoscholars who publish their misinformed junk science that fills the shelves of Deseret Book. As a Mesoamericanist, the only books I can really recommend on the subject that contain current scholarship are Brant’s new volumes, but I don’t know any scholars would take the time to read a six-volume set. Most won’t take the time to respond to an email (I’m not kidding).”
“As for how archaeologists who happen to be Mormon are concerned, they are well respected in the field. I’m at the Maya Meetings at Texas right now (they end tomorrow). Allen Christensen from BYU spoke to a packed house last night – everybody here absolutely adores him. He was even asked to cover MCing duty today since David Stuart’s voice was going out (David Stuart is the world’s leading Maya epigrapher). John Clark is also highly respected in the field, as is Richard Hansen (though he got in some hot water for consulting on Apocalypto). I know of a couple of others who are LDS (who don’t make it public out of fear of being labeled crack-pots, which prejudice is based on the aforementioned junk science). My committee members all know I’m LDS, and they show me just as much respect as any other doctoral candidate.”
I’d posted this information in the comments for the Coe interview at the Mormon Stories site, since Dehlin can be heard pumping Coe for gossip about disillusioned LDS scholars. As if do demonstrate his committment to the ideal of open discussion and putting all of the information on the table so that people can decide for themselves, someone at Mormon Stories deleted all of my comments.
Regarding reading a book by non-LDS Mesoamericanists, I do have a few, mostly concerned with later cultures, Aztec, Maya, and Inca. But I have heard interesting things about the later editions of Coe’s book on the Maya. Should be on my to do list. Back in 2019, Bruce Dale at Interpreter reported this:
“I thought this would be an interesting experiment. So I purchased a copy of the first edition of The Maya. The first edition was published by Dr. Coe in 1966, almost 40 years prior to the most recent, or ninth edition. The ninth edition of The Maya was the basis for our recent article comparing it with the Book of Mormon.”
“I have now read the first edition of The Maya twice. Of the 131 positive correspondences between the Book of Mormon and The Maya (9th edition) that we found in our recent article, 79 of them are also mentioned in the first edition. In other words, there are 52 new/additional correspondences between the Book of Mormon and the ninth edition of The Maya that were not mentioned in the first edition of The Maya.”
“Some of these new correspondences are really remarkable. Two examples are the possible settlement of the Americas by the maritime route (which Dr. Coe strongly denies in the first edition but accepts as a very reasonable possibility in the ninth edition) and also the fact that walking in straight paths symbolized acceptable behavior among the ancient Maya (as it does in the Book of Mormon).”
“Of the 79 positive correspondences in the first edition, about 30 of these have added significant new details in the ninth edition that enrich our understanding of the world of ancient Mesoamerica. In every case, these new details line up well with the details in the Book of Mormon. Two examples are the fact that existing native Maya leaders were incorporated into the new power structure after subjugation and that monuments dedicated to prior rulers were systematically destroyed.”
A couple of years ago I watched a National Geographic Special on the Maya Snake Kings, which reported on how the recent LiDAR surveys had completely revolutionized our picture of Mesoamerica in Book of Mormon times, showing hundreds of sites and unexpected culture and evidence for war, agriculture “roads cast up” and trade and such. This involved information that neither Coe nor Dehlin had any access to during their interviews, and it must be admitted, it long after Coe retired, and therefore demonstrates that his is not the last word. I must say, for a believing LDS member such as myself, the new LiDAR picture not only did no harm to my testimony, but I still find it very exciting. One ongoing problem in comparing Mesoamerican history to the Book of Mormon involves the lack of extensive writing. It does turn out that the fairly recent discoveries of the San Bartolo Murals with the the oldest writing and the “oldest known Maya pictoral representation” happen to depict the coronation of a king on a tower.
On Alejandro Sarabia and Kim Goldsmith: Who? There is an overproduction of PhDs and many site directors at Teotihuacan. I’m a PhD myself and have done little with the degree. There are over 3 million PhD holders in the US. So you duped a couple of PhDs into thinking the Book of Mormon is historical. Big whoop. I can’t find anything they’ve published (aside from a dissertation). They seem to have little standing in academia let alone the field of Mesoamerican history. There are PhDs who believe that 9/11 was an inside job. There are PhDs who believe that COVID is a hoax and that COVID vaccines are poisonous. But the overwhelming majority of PhDs don’t. Sarabia and Goldsmith are extreme outliers.
“the vast majority of them have no clue what the Book of Mormon says and most will never take the time to read it”
And why is that? The fault of the non-believing researchers? No. It’s the fault of the believing academics. The finding that Christianity was practiced in the pre-Columbian Americas is one of the most significant findings . You guys are underselling this point to the wider non-Mormon audience. And I think that is because at the end of the day, a part of you guys senses that before the non-Mormon academic audience that this is an extraordinary claim and that your “evidence” is insufficient to back it. So you turn to already believing audiences and claim that there is all this evidence and they gullibly swallow your every word. But you’re fooling the believers, aren’t you? You don’t have evidence. And you know you don’t. Your smoke and mirrors tricks work only on the already believing. Most academics view you the same way they do 9/11 truthers. Not worth engaging because you’re a bit out there.
“My committee members all know I’m LDS, and they show me just as much respect as any other doctoral candidate”
Oh wow, doctoral candidate. Who cares. Talk about extremely low down the totem poll.
“As for how archaeologists who happen to be Mormon are concerned, they are well respected in the field”
That may be. But for secular research. For are they wowing their colleagues with their views on how Mesoamerican history confirms the Book of Mormon? They most certainly are not. In fact, they are shying away from standing up for a historical Book of Mormon in front of their non-Mormon colleagues because they know that it won’t go over well with them.
Stop pretending that studies published by believing Mormon academics has any currency or respect by non-Mormon academics. It doesn’t. Period. You know that. You’re grossly (and mendaciously) overstating the degree to which non-Mormon academics are willing to believe claims that the Book of Mormon is historical. You also know that the BOM’s historicity’s lack of currency among non-Mormon academics is a sore point among you folks, so you bunker down in denial and seize on worthless anecdotes and grasp at straws to avoid admitting an inconvenient truth.
On the so-called parallels between Mesoamerica and the Book of Mormon, these are all (and I mean all) insignificant. What’s going on is the Chiasmus phenomenon where an apologist finds some loose or insignificant parallel between the Book of Mormon and some phenomenon in the Old World and overinflates the hell out of the finding. It works well to convince the unsuspecting and those already believing Mormonism. But it falls apart very quickly under scrutiny. Just like chiasmus. For the human brain naturally thinks in chiasmatic patterns and we find chiasmus appearing in literature inadvertently across time and space. Of course, chiasmus is a simple literary device that some writers create intentionally. But its appearance in the Book of Mormon is wholly insignificant. Chiasmus appears in the The Late War Between the United States and Great Britain.
“also the fact that walking in straight paths symbolized acceptable behavior among the ancient Maya (as it does in the Book of Mormon)”
Oh wow, I’d better repent. 🙂 Extremely insignificant.
Again, zero parallels of any significance between ancient Mayan religion and the religion described in the Book of Mormon. But lots and lots of parallels between religion in upstate New York in the 1800s and the Book of Mormon. How come no apologists have ever analyzed those parallels? I know, I know. 1) Because if they work at any of the BYUs they’ll be fired if they are caught even just suggesting in a classroom that the Book of Mormon isn’t historical. 2) Because all of the apologists are deeply socialized in a church culture that will attempt to subject them to extreme shaming and impose ostracism, divorce, and estrangement on them if they are caught admitting that the Book of Mormon isn’t historical. 3) Because the apologists have worked themselves into believing unfalsifiable propositions. Show me strong evidence that pre-Columbian Americans were Christians and I’ll believe. Book of Mormon historicity to me is fully falsifiable. But amid the already existing mountain of rock solid evidence that Joseph Smith fabricated the Book of Mormon and mountain of counterevidence that the Book of Mormon is historical, you apologists will not bend, will not admit the obvious, and will keep on defending the indefensible. You’re a bunch of Sidney Powells. And a bunch of intellectually dishonest, scared fools. I feel sorry for you.
BigSky: There was an interesting scene in Barbara Kingsolver’s novel The Poisonwood Bible, and when I read it, I thought, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, what the frick did I just read?” because it’s about a Protestant missionary in another country, there to convert the “simple natives,” and at some point (I might be misremembering the specifics) he realizes (almost!) that he’s a hypocrite and semi-terrible (he runs his household like an abusive tyrant, but I think this degree of self-knowledge escapes him), and then, while the natives are gathered around him, it starts to rain, and his confidence resurges and rallies again after the briefest moment of self-reflection, and he begins to recite his own creed’s baptismal prayer as he declares all these “simple souls” around him to now be baptized (in the rain, without their consent or knowledge really), meaning that he is favored of God, his mission is valid, he is successful in converting the natives, and so on. It struck me very forcefully as I read it as both unfamiliar and immediately familiar.
Thanks to John and Kevin for hammering this out. It’s been interesting to read both perspectives.
Sorry, a couple more things. 1) Coe changed his view of maritime migration in light of new evidence. He held a falsifiable position, considered the evidence and readjusted his framework. That’s how it’s supposed to work. Was Coe shamed for changing his point of view? No. Would an apologist be shamed for changing their point of view to believe that it was in fact 19-century lore and belief in upstate New York that largely informed the BOM text? Absolutely. And we’ve seen it happen many, many times. Outcasts by an austere culture.
2) No one has ever claimed or proved that ancient maritime journeys took place from the Arabian Peninsula to the Americas. Mormonism’s claim is that people crossed TWO oceans by boat in 600 BCE, and not just Lehi’s party, but the Mulekites as well, who also journeyed from Jerusalem to the Americas at around the same time. So, not just one ocean. Very extraordinary indeed. The current widely accepted maritime theories are from East Asia and Polynesia (Lupita culture, who navigated from stars and ocean swells). Plus, the Cooper’s Ferry Idaho dig has revealed that maritime migrants may have arrived from East Asia 15,000-17,000 years ago, possibly from Japan by boat hugging the coast as they went along. If anything such an early arrival undermines Mormon truth claims, doesn’t it? This predates the alleged Jaredites by quite a bit. Also, leaders don’t like admitting the existence of human life predating 6,000 years ago. By embracing the Cooper’s Ferry finding, it puts Mormon truth claims in a weird place.
On LIDAR, I fail to see how the new evidence confirms anything in the Book of Mormon. And that’s not good. With that much additional evidence, you’d hope more might be confirmed about the BOM. That’s leads me to think that new findings will similarly yield very little to confirm such extraordinary claims.
@Kevin Christensen,
I’m fascinated by the fact that you quote Mark Wright decrying “pseudoscholars who publish their misinformed junk science that fills the shelves of Deseret Book”, and in the same post approvingly quote Bruce Dale discussing his “Greatest Guesser” work. I’m curious what Deseret Books is selling that fits the description of “junk science” better than the Dales’ work.
@Faith. This is coming late, but I heard about Ray Combs holding the assignment of AP to Elder Goaslind from Elder Goaslind himself. Elder Goaslind visited my mission and held a combined zone conference for part of the mission in the area. In his remarks, he related having had lunch with newly set apart church president Spencer Kimball after Goaslind was called to be a mission president in Arizona. (Goaslind had served in the young men’s general presidency prior to that, a calling that did not require him to be a general authority. According to Wikipedia, he had been a bishop, stake president and regional representative prior to that calling.) As they had lunch Goaslind asked Kimball to visit his mission, and that he planned to preside over 10,000 baptisms. Kimball told him if he achieved 10,000 baptisms he would visit. Evidently, as Goaslind told the story, they achieved 10,000 baptisms. His point in telling the story was to teach us how his mission focused on baptizing nuclear families, and he issued that challenge to us.
At that time of my mission service, in the late 1980’s, Ray Combs was at the peak of his popularity having restored the Family Feud to a highly rated daytime TV game show as its second host (Richard Dawson was the show’s original host). Goaslind brought up how Combs was one of his AP’s and related an anecdote about how they stopped along a state highway in route to a zone conference to help a family whose car had suffered a flat tire. He said as the two AP’s helped the family change the flat, they also taught them. Later that family was baptized. The point was to take every opportunity to teach.
Goaslind was called to be a mission president in 1974, the year Combs graduated from high school. I believe mission presidents served for three years at that time like they do today. Combs likely entered the mission field in 1975 and would have served under Goaslind for his final two years as president. I think it is highly plausible Kimball did visit their mission because Goaslind said he did, and because it’s within the Mormon belt, not a far drive from SLC and because Arizona is where Kimball grew up. I also recalled reading about Combs having served as his AP in a church publication shortly after I was released from my mission and couple of years prior to Combs’ tragic death, but I can’t recall the source. I hope this helps answer your question.