“Faith, Reason, and the Critical Study of Mormon Apologetics”

A panel discussion was convened on this topic at Utah Valley University on Friday afternoon.  I wasn’t a participant and, as it turned out, I was unable to attend.

However, texts have now been posted for the various presentations:

http://ldsmag.com/faith-reason-and-the-critical-study-of-mormon-apologetics/

And here’s a summary of the discussion as seen by Dr. John Gee, who was there.

The texts make for interesting reading.  There are a few assertions to which I would take exception; for what it’s worth, and perhaps unsurprisingly, the presentation most like what I would have said at UVU is that by my friend and BYU colleague Ralph Hancock.

I think the opposition between apologetics and religious studies is too starkly drawn by some (and here I have in mind people and/or statements and/or actions well beyond the specific UVU panel).  The same person can do both religious studies scholarship and apologetics, on different occasions, for different audiences and purposes.  (I’ve done both, for example.)  So I see no reason why the same institution can’t foster both; one of my major objections — I have many — to the 2012 Maxwell Institute purge and the Institute’s subsequent evolution has been the apparent either/or vision behind them, which I regard as deeply mistaken.

Professor Hancock has invited some articles in response, and I hope to contribute at some point in the not too distant future.  It’s not going to happen over the next three weeks, though.  Too much on my plate.  And by then, perhaps, too much time will have elapsed.