Mormon Times Rebukes Glenn Beck?

It would be difficult for me to convince you exactly just how boring I find politics nowadays, but when it overlaps with Mormonism I try to force myself to follow along -- and the current popular interest in and newsworthiness of Glenn Beck, Mitt Romney, and Harry Reid - Mormons, all - has me following along much more than I'd particularly care to.

So when Glenn Beck made the news earlier this month for bagging on "social justice," I noticed. If the whole dust-up escaped your attention, it basically boiled down to Beck somehow tying the concept hidden behind the "code words" social justice to Nazism and communism and encouraging his viewers to leave their church if they should discover the phrase on their church's website. His actual words were, "I beg you, look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!"

Fine. Not that I agree with him -- truthfully, I can't be bothered to muster interest enough to think about it for a time sufficient to form an opinion. But I did notice with some amusement that while Beck may not currently find "social justice" on his church's website, he can now find it on the Mormon Times website. (For those of you who don't know what the Mormon Times is, it's a religious supplement to the LDS Church-owned Deseret News. It's not an official publication of the Church technically, but you would search in vain for anything published there out of harmony with the Church's position, mission, and message.)

Yesterday's Mormon Times had an article that I just can't help but think is a veiled rebuke of Glenn Beck, though it never actually mentions him at all. It's title? "Social justice in the Book of Mormon" LOL

Edited to add: Oh, geez. It turns out that both "social justice" and "economic justice" DO appear on the LDS Church's official website after all. What was it Glenn said? Oh yeah, "I beg you, look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can." Strap them New Balances on tight, folks.

For a compilation of the taboo phrases' occurrences on LDS.org, see "Glenn Beck urges Mormons to leave the Church." 

"Adam-God" Nuggets

I was going through some old emails this evening, and I happened across one I wrote long ago to a family member, who I'll call Ben, concerning the so-called "Adam-God" teachings attributed to Brigham Young. I know this is a topic critics like to use to beat Mormons about the head with, but that was not the purpose of that email, nor is it the purpose of this post.

The email was actually just a follow-up to a telephone conversation in which Ben had expressed some unfamiliarity with the Brigham Young quotes at the center of the controversy. I can't recall if he came right out and said it or if it is simply my (possibly faulty) recollection of the conversation, but, at any rate, I hung up the phone under the impression that Ben felt that the "Adam-God" teachings were something maliciously attributed to Brigham Young by his detractors and not, in truth, an idea he ever actually taught.

I didn't want to refer Ben to a site critical of Mormonism, and since I couldn't find a pro-LDS site that included all the relevant Brigham Young quotes, I set about snipping them from wherever I could find them to compile into a single list for Ben. Because he was skeptical that Brigham Young could have meant what the critics say he meant, I also supplied Ben with some comments made here and there by LDS leaders, scholars, and apologists seeming to verify that Young did indeed teach some of the "Adam-God" ideas ascribed to him.

The email was free of commentary -- quotes only. I reproduce it here because I think it was instructive for Ben, who generally steers clear of the debates had by critic and defender, and because I believe many of my LDS friends are probably much like Ben in this regard -- which I can totally dig, please believe. Because there are few, if any, places on the internet where these quotes appear outside of a critical context, I reproduce them here to allow them to speak for themselves.

Let me state that I understand the sensitivity many LDS have to this sort of thing, so please bear in mind that what follows are quotes by Mormons only. Following the quotes are some links to pro-LDS sites with thoughts on the "Adam-God" teaching.

Brigham Young:

"When our father Adam came into the garden of Eden, he came into it with a celestial body, and brought Eve, one of his wives, with him. He helped to make and organize this world. He is MICHAEL, the Archangel, the ANCIENT OF DAYS! about whom holy men have written and spoken -- He is our FATHER and our GOD, and the only God with whom WE have to do." (Journal of Discourses, 1:50; emphasis in original)

"How much unbelief exists in the minds of the Latter-day Saints in regard to one particular doctrine which I revealed to them, and which God revealed to me—namely that Adam is our Father and God." (Deseret News, June 18, 1873)

"Some have grumbled because I believe our God to be so near to us as Father Adam. There are many who know that doctrine to be true." (Journal of Discourses, vol. 5, p.331)

"When the Virgin Mary conceived the child Jesus, the Father had begotten him in his own likeness. He was not begotten by the Holy Ghost. And who is the Father? He is the first of the human family." (Journal of Discourses by Brigham Young, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, His Two Counsellors, the Twelve Apostles, and Others, 1854, pp. 46–53)

"What a learned idea! Jesus, our elder brother, was begotten in the flesh by the same character that was in the garden of Eden, and who is our Father in Heaven." (Journal of Discourses, 1:51)

"Some years ago, I advanced a doctrine with regard to Adam being our father and God, that will be a curse to many of the Elders of Israel because of their folly. With regard to it they yet grovel in darkness and will. It is one of the most glorious revealments of the economy of heaven, yet the world hold derision. Had I revealed the doctrine of baptism for the dead instead of Joseph Smith there are men around me who would have ridiculed the idea until dooms day. But they are ignorant and stupid like the dumb ass." (Manuscript Addresses of Brigham Young, Watt, G.D., transcriber, Oct 8, 1861)

Bruce R. McConkie, LDS Apostle: "Yes, President Young did teach that Adam was the father of our spirits, and all the related things that the cultists ascribe to him. This [i.e., Brigham Young's teaching on Adam], however, is not true. He expressed views that are out of harmony with the gospel." (letter to Eugene England, p. 6)

Gordon B. Hinckley, LDS Prophet: "Brigham Young said if you went to Heaven and saw God it would be Adam and Eve. I don't know what he meant by that... I'm not going to worry about what he said about those things." (Interview in "Lives of the Saints", New Yorker, January 2002)

Spencer W. Kimball, LDS Prophet: "We warn you against the dissemination of doctrines which are not according to the Scriptures and which are alleged to have been taught by some of the General Authorities of past generations. Such, for instance, is the Adam-God theory. We denounce that theory and hope that everyone will be cautioned against this and other kinds of false doctrine." (Spencer W. Kimball, "Our Own Liahona," Ensign, November 1976: 77)

Nathan Oman, LDS Apologist: "As I see it Brigham Young makes basically four claims that modern Latter-day Saints might find shocking. First, he says Adam is God. Second, he says Adam is the only God with whom we have to do. Third, he says that God literally had sex with Mary in order to produce Jesus. Fourth, he says that Adam is the father of Jesus." (Adam-God: Thoughts and Reconciliations, online paper)

Robert L. Millet, LDS Scholar, Apologist: "To be sure, Brigham Young and a few others taught that [Adam is God] for a period of years.... It has been formally addressed by Spencer W. Kimball in general conference as not being a doctrine that is sound and true. Now the immediate response I'll get from someone is 'wait a minute, Brigham Young was the president of the church at the time.' That's right. And he preached it in general conference. That is correct." (From a dialog between Robert Millet and Greg Johnson held at Mt. Olympus Presbyterian, April 23, 2006.)

Van Hale, LDS Apologist: "At the age of twenty, as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I first came in contact with the so-called Adam-God theory in an anti-Mormon tract. I had read such literature before and knew that it frequently twisted and misinterpreted LDS sources. I therefore felt certain that the purported quotation from Brigham Young's April 9, 1852 discourse--that Adam is our father and our God--either was taken from context or was an outright fabrication. After examining the evidence, however, I soon became convinced that on at least two occasions Brigham Young had taught a concept which generally has not been accepted by Mormons--namely, that God the Father, the Father of our spirits and the Father of Jesus (of both his body and his spirit), came to this earth, took upon himself mortality, and was known as Adam, the progenitor of the human family. Simply stated, according to President Young, God the Father became Adam. (Journal of Discourses [JD] 1:50; Deseret News, June 18, 1873). Later I found several other references in which President Young hinted at this belief. (JD 4:216-218, 271; 5:331; 6:274; 7:290; 11:41,42). Over the past fifteen years I have found many additional sources which confirm that this idea was taught for a period of time in the past century." ("WHAT ABOUT THE ADAM-GOD THEORY?" Sandy, Utah: Mormon Miscellaneous, July 1983.)

Stephen E. Robinson, LDS Scholar, Apologist: "A classic example of an anomaly in the LDS tradition is the so-called 'Adam-God theory.'.... The reported statements conflict with LDS teachings before and after Brigham Young... So how do Latter-day Saints deal with the phenomenon? We don't; we simply set it aside. It is an anomaly." (Are Mormons Christians? 1993, 18-21)

Stephen R. Gibson, LDS Apologist: "From a number of sermon reports, diary entries, minutes, letters, articles and statements, it appears that Brigham Young held the view, at least for part of his life, that as God the Son came to earth and went through mortality to redeem mankind, God the Father also went through mortality to become the great progenitor of mankind.

"It also appears that Brigham Young taught more than once that God the Father was known in this role as Adam, who came to this earth and brought one of his wives, Eve, with him. Simply stated, he once believed that God the Father became Adam to begin the human family[.]" ("Is God Adam?" One-Minute Answers to Anti-Mormon Questions, Horizon Publishers 2005)

Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research (FAIR), LDS Apologists: Based on these remarks, and others he made in public and in private, it is apparent that Brigham Young believed that:

• Adam was the father of the spirits of mankind, as well as being the first parent of our physical bodies.
• Adam and Eve came to this earth as resurrected, exalted personages.
• Adam and Eve fell and became mortal in order to create physical bodies for their spirit children.
• Adam was the spiritual and physical father of Jesus Christ.                                                     (http://en.fairmormon.org/Church_doctrine/Repudiated_concepts/Adam-God)

Pro-LDS links for further reading:

"Adam-God," FAIR Wiki
"Is God Adam?," Stephen R. Gibson, One Minute Answers to Anti-Mormon Questions
"What About the Adam-God Theory?," Van Hale, Mormon Miscellaneous
"Do Mormons Worship Adam? Have They Ever Worshiped Adam?," Jeff Lindsay, LDS FAQ
"Adam God: Thoughts and Reconciliations," Nathan Oman
"Adam-God's Last Stand," W. John Walsh
"Adam-God," Elden Watson, Different Thoughts

Book of Mormon Geography Debate Makes Headlines...

...in Utah.

But, still.

I think it's rad that a debate between two different groups of believers in the BoM has generated so much interest as to be deemed newsworthy... ok, in Utah.

But, still!

Book of Mormon geography stirring controversy: Dueling theories - Faithful at odds over where events may have taken place. (Salt Lake Tribune, 25 March)

(Does it bother anyone else that not all the words in a news article's title are capitalized? No? Just me? Aight then.)

On the one side you have those LDS who believe most of the events in the BoM were limited to a relatively small area in Mesoamerica (FARMS & FAIR), and on the other you have those who believe the BoM peoples inhabited a much larger area covering considerable portions of present day U.S. Each side claims different chains of evidence, and, for my money, the Mesoamerican blokes have the more plausible arguments, but the other fellas claim the support of authoritative prophetic utterances, which appears to be resonating with many Latter-day Saints.

Since, personally, I struggle in accepting that the events described in the BoM actually occurred at all, I don't really have a dog in this fight.

And after taking in the Trib article linked above, a fight is exactly what it is fast becoming.

That the back and forth between the two camps has gone beyond disagreements over evidence and spilled over into accusations that the other side's methods "undermine" the Church, a simple scholarly difference of opinion between believers could plausibly escalate into the sort of spectacle in which critics of the Church would undoubtedly take delight.



Edited to add: This news story, due, in part, to the growing influence of Mormon Droppings, has now made headlines outside the Mormon Corridor. See the Houston Chronicle's Debate on Mormons' geographic origins heats up.

Before taking Hugh Nibley's word for it, best pump them brakes, kid!

Before I get to it, I'd like to let my LDS buds know right off the bat that I don't have a single negative thing to say about the Church in this post - not a one. And since I have known some (not many, but a few) Mormons to be sensitive to criticisms of anything LDS, let me preface all this with some advice from the fine folks at FAIR for perspective, "Nibley's articles and arguments are not gospel, and we do not always have to follow them or defend them."

I know I've burned some bridges in the past with my carrying on about the Church on Facebook, and I regret that. So, for those of you Mormons who continue to endure to the end in your friendship with me, let me assure you that the sun has risen on a kinder, gentler, respectfuller, cuddlier Butchy boy - and those who have seen me since I've started hitting the gym might even go so far to say a svelter and years-younger-looking Butchy boy, too. But enough about how kind and good looking I am. There'll be plenty of time for that in a bit.

I'm going to add to my promise that I won't have anything negative to say about the Church in this post and say that I don't have much negative to say about Hugh Nibley, that pioneering and inspiring LDS scholar and apologist, either. I will, however, be looking at what some of Nibley's fellow Mormons and peers in academia have had to say, and, truth be told, it ain't all positive.

But that in itself isn't necessarily a negative thing. Mormons do not ascribe absolute infallibility to their own canon of scriptures, ancient or modern, or to their Church leaders, local or global, so the statement that Hugh Nibley, or more specifically his academic and apologetic output, is not without error should not be a controversial declaration. But I'm going to go just a tad further and suggest that the errors found in Brother Nibley's work, especially with respect to his treatment of sources, are problematic enough that accepting as a general rule that his translations and/or interpretations of sources are always sound is perhaps unwarranted. Despite the volumes of sound scholarship he produced during his lifetime, I submit that the confidence with which some LDS approach Nibley's work should be replaced with a careful attention to his sources and a cautious pause before accepting the conclusions he draws from them. Of course, this is wise counsel when encountering any scholarly work, but due to some exchanges I have had with enthusiastic fans of his writing, I believe this point is worth emphasizing in Hugh Nibley's case.

A brief article in today's Mormon Times got me to thinking about Brother Nibley, and before I pile on him, let me do the obligatory he-was-brilliant-and-everyone-says-so thing: Hugh Nibley was brilliant. Everyone says so. And they're right. So with that out of the way, let me draw your attention to a critique of Hugh Nibley's footnotes written by Ron Huggins a couple years ago. If you can't be bothered to read it all (and I don't blame you, it's a Friday, after all), the long and short of it is:

• Hugh Nibley's daughter describes an encounter she had with a feller who used to work as "one of the flunkies who checked his [Nibley's] footnotes," and that while doing so discovered:
  

  "Sometimes what he [Nibley] said was exactly the opposite of what the author meant. Sometimes a quotation he'd footnote just wasn't there. My team leader told me your dad's gift was that he could see anything on any page that needed to be there."

• Some suspect Nibley's daughter of inventing this dude and fabricating her exchange with him - just like she's probably lying about her father molesting her when she was a child. 
• Well, forget all that, then - When we actually look at Nibley's footnotes, what do we find?
• What follows is a detailed and, frankly, devastating look at a handful of Nibley's footnotes that lead Huggins - and, in the interest of full disclosure, me - to conclude:
  

  

  "Quite often Nibley will multiply misrepresentations by piling them up one upon the other all in a very short space.... Nibley is a very untrustworthy guide for Mormons wanting to follow in his footsteps by becoming scholars. His information is simply too often inaccurate and his way of using it too often dubious to serve as any sort of credible model."

This is quite an assertion, I realize, and since I won't be sharing any specific instances of Nibley's misrepresentations (such as this) myself, I recommend a close read of the Huggins piece to those of you from Missouri (the "show me" state - get it? Hardy har).

Interestingly enough, a response to Ron Huggins's article and defense of Nibley's work recently appeared in the pages of the FARMS Review (available online here). What's remarkable about the FARMS response is that in its loyal defense of Hugh Nibley, it conspicuously neglects to counter a single example of misrepresentation offered by Huggins. This isn't the only problem with the FARMS article, but I will let it alone and direct the interested reader to a critique of it offered by Chris Smith in his "A Footnote to the Debate Over Nibley's Footnotes," and the conversation from MormonDiscussions.com that ostensibly inspired his entry, "Spirit of Nibley's Sloppiness lives on."

For all the good said about Hugh Nibley's scholarship in the FARMS piece, there are a few instances of candor that should give pause to those who would place too much confidence in his published work. For example:

• "[I]n some of Nibley's works, few or no references were given. Source checkers, if they were unable to find the quotations, would sometimes take off the quotation marks and supply a reference that seemed to cover the same territory. These manufactured notes may have been inadequate compared to what Nibley himself might have provided...."
• "Nibley did not feel bound by some of the rules that some translators use that often result in stilted translations." (offered as a plausible explanation for the flaws found in his translations)
• "[O]ccasionally he would read a source in an idiosyncratic way, but that's the scholar's prerogative."
• "You translate with the book closed. You decide exactly what the original writer had in mind. Unless you know, don't leave his text; stay with him until you decide you know what he means. Then close the book—never translate with it open—and put down in your own words what you think the author had in mind, what you have gotten from the text. No two people are going to get the same thing." (Hugh Nibley describing his own approach to translating)

In a jaw-droppingly stunning attempt to defend the, shall we say, creativity sometimes found in Nibley's translations, Shirley Ricks, the author of the FARMS article, takes the word translation as it is applied when referencing Joseph Smith's "translation" of the King James Bible (where Smith claimed divine inspiration, not the ability to translate in the scholarly sense the original biblical languages), and declares that, "it does not seem impossible or implausible that [Nibley] could have relied on the Spirit to aid in his 'translation' efforts." Is she serious? Is she serious?! Yes, apparently, she is. (I'd love to see a college student use that line in defending a term paper to an incredulous professor.)

In her FARMS paper, Ricks refers her readers to an article on the FAIR website addressing the issue of Hugh Nibley and his footnotes. The bulk of that article makes it a point to stress that Nibley did not make up his sources. However, the point of Ron Huggins's critique and, indeed, the concern of this blog entry is not that Nibley made up sources, but that he misrepresented them. This being said, the below excerpts from the FAIR article are telling in what they allow. Keep in mind these are Nibley's fellow Saints weighing in:

• "We never found anything that Nibley made up or intentionally misquoted. I would characterize his use of sources as sloppy but certainly not dishonest."
• "I have contacted many of the note checkers and editors of the Collected Works of Hugh Nibley...and they all confirm that, while Hugh has been sloppy—at times mistranslating a text or overstating his case—he does not make up his sources."
• "Among my critiques was that Nibley often generalized excessively, saw 'things in the sources that simply don't seem to be there,' let his 'predetermined conclusions set the agenda for the evidence,' and misinterpreted authors he cited. Others, including some of Nibley's greatest admirers, have found the same problems in his scholarship. But the academic transgressions committed by Nibley (hardly unique to him) were the products of carelessness and wishful thinking, not of fraud and deception."

Let me be clear: There is much one can gain from a study of Nibley's work. I do not believe his misrepresentations were intentional (err... not necessarily). He has made brilliant contributions to what has become quite a fascinating discussion, and, heck, in many important ways, he initiated the discussion. However, I must echo Chris Smith's sentiment that the writings of Hugh Nibley should "be used very critically and with careful attention to his sources. It cannot generally be taken for granted that he accurately represented what they say."

Hi.

Hello readers of Mormon-related blogs! My name is Butch, and this here blog you see before you is Mormon Droppings. One day it will be full of entries with my thoughts on Mormon doctrine, history, culture, etc., but right now it's just a place holder because I thought the name Mormon Droppings was just the cat's meow, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that the phrase didn't pop up in a Google search - and since I figured it would only be a matter of time before it did, here we are....

I suppose that, for now, I could go about briefly introducing myself, so here's what I bet you're just dying to know:

My name is Butch, and I'm a dude. (Such clarification is probably unnecessary, as Butch isn't typically a bisexual name, but you never know....)

I was born in the Church, in the covenant.

I served a mission in the Nevada Las Vegas West mission, serving in Reno, Fallon, and Vegas.

For the most part, I have been inactive in church since returning home from my mission.

My current attitude toward the Church's truth claims tends to be one of confused skepticism, but my journey has only just begun; so I reserve the right to contradict myself, waffle, flip flop, defect, renege, change sides, bear my testimony, deny my testimony, and otherwise disappoint everyone eventually.

Hope you enjoy the spectacle.