“A Lengthening Shadow: Is Quality of Thought Deteriorating in LDS Scholarly Discourse Regarding Prophets and Revelation? Part Two”

This article was late going up today because the person who posts our articles has just moved across the country and was busy unloading his moving van this afternoon and evening.  And I’m late posting an alert to the article because, by the time it went up, I was busy with something else and away from the computer.

In any case, late or not, today is still Friday.  And this marks the 262nd consecutive Friday on which Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture has published a new article:

A Lengthening Shadow: Is Quality of Thought Deteriorating in LDS Scholarly Discourse Regarding Prophets and Revelation? Part Two

Some have wondered whether Dr. Boyce’s article-series marks a declaration of war on the part of the Interpreter Foundation against the scholars named in it.

It most definitely does not.

No article published in Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Thought necessarily represents the views of Interpreter‘s editors or of the Interpreter Foundation’s officers.  These aren’t collective statements.  Interpreter articles represent the positions of their authors.

Some have even sought to portray this series as some sort of attack by me, personally, upon the authors whose work is examined in it.

Again, this is untrue.  And it must be understood that the Interpreter Foundation is neither a unitary mind nor the pure expression of my thinking.  It is a peer-reviewed journal in which authors set forth evidence and arguments to support conclusions of their own.

As evidence of the high esteem in which I have held and continue to hold these scholars, I offer two items:

“Terryl Givens making his mark in Mormon writing”

“Books that can help to build or reinforce testimonies”

(I also think highly of Patrick Mason, and, in many important ways, I like and admire his book Planted: Belief and Belonging in an Age of Doubt.)

I do, though, believe that open and civil discussion can be helpful to all participants, even when they disagree, and even if, in the end, it serves only to clarify issues or to resolve misunderstandings.  I favor such conversations.  Moreover, I think that Duane Boyce’s three-part article is an important contribution to a civil conversation.  (For the record, I hold Dr. Boyce in high esteem, as well.)

There is no “war” here.  Interpreter isn’t making a “statement.”  Dr. Duane Boyce has raised some issues.  They can and should and, I’m confident, will be discussed by faithful Latter-day Saints of whatever stripe in an atmosphere of mutual respect and friendship.