\u201cGoodbye to all that\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t agree with everything he says. \u00a0(I think, for example, that it would likely be a disservice to BYU students to offer a graduate program in Book of Mormon studies, or a major, or even perhaps a minor or a large number of courses, because \u2014 given their probable membership in a church without divinity schools or professional clergy, there simply, realistically, isn\u2019t a job market for people with such specific training.)<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
And I\u2019m slightly more hopeful about the current search committee than Professor Hamblin is \u2014 particularly given the recent addition to it of Elder Bruce C. \u00a0Hafen (biographer of Neal A. Maxwell, former member of the First Quorum of the Seventy, former dean of BYU\u2019s law school, former provost of BYU, former president of BYU-Idaho, former president of the St. George Temple, and a very bright and thoughtful man).<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Though, truth be told, I don\u2019t really know what I hope for, anymore. \u00a0And I expect no miracles.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Great damage has been done, and, while others whom I respect assure me\u00a0that everything will be rectified, I\u2019m not sure that it can be undone.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I certainly harbor no ambitions to be appointed director of the Maxwell Institute myself. \u00a0I think that extraordinarily improbable, and I\u2019m frankly not sure that I would accept the appointment even in the very unlikely event that it were offered to me. \u00a0(I\u2019m not applying, though some have urged me to do so.) \u00a0I\u2019m on to other things these days, and I\u2019m at that point in my life \u2014 I\u2019ve been at that point for a long time, actually \u2014 where I would much prefer to concentrate on writing. \u00a0I\u2019m wanting to get to projects that, in several cases, I deferred because of the administrative burdens involved with leadership in the Maxwell Institute over many years, and with advocating it and representing it in countless firesides and with raising funds for its work. \u00a0(Had I known then how things would turn out, I might have chosen to spend those years very differently.)<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
But I\u2019m deeply sympathetic to Dr. Hamblin\u2019s concerns and regrets, particularly as expressed in the first of the two articles above.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I suppose that my dream for the Maxwell Institute would be for somebody to be appointed to head the organization up\u00a0who, while supportive\u00a0of secular \u201cMormon studies\u201d for an academic audience \u00a0(as I\u2019ve always expressly been), would also recognize the value of the overtly LDS work that FARMS and the Maxwell Institute were established and built to do, and that they actually did for more than three decades, and who\u00a0would support and sustain such work again. \u00a0Somebody, too, who would be willing to try to heal the ugly breach that was created by the purge of 2012.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
We shall see.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 My longtime friend and colleague Dr. William Hamblin \u2014 who recently took relatively early retirement from BYU, in part over his frustration with the University\u2019s\u00a0apparent\u00a0recent course \u2014 has just posted two provocative pieces on his blog: \u00a0 \u201cHow BYU destroyed ancient Book of Mormon studies\u201d \u00a0 \u201cGoodbye to all that\u201d \u00a0 I don\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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