![\"Juan](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2019\/04\/Juan_Diaz_2008.jpg\")
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I was amused a few weeks ago \u2014 perhaps bemused<\/em> would be the more appropriate word \u2014 to read a pronouncement from a nonmember of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a> about the gross weakness of Latter-day Saint apologetics.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n He has, he says right off, never read much apologetic writing apart from C. S. Lewis and G. K. Chesterton.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I note, for the record, that neither C. S. Lewis nor G. K. Chesterton was a Latter-day Saint. \u00a0So, if you take them out of consideration, what he\u2019s saying is that he hasn\u2019t read much Latter-day Saint apologetic work at all<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n But he had just read the article by the late Davis Bitton that was recently republished in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship \u2014 <\/em>\u201cI Don\u2019t Have a Testimony of the History of the Church\u201d<\/a> \u2014\u00a0and he didn\u2019t like it.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Unlike Lewis and Chesterton, he says, who offered affirmative reasons for their beliefs, Latter-day Saint apologists seem merely defensive.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n This reminds me of the old witticism, \u201cAll Indians walk in single file lines. \u00a0At least, the one I<\/em> saw did.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n After all, it seems that he\u2019s basing his judgment on a reading of a single essay by Davis Bitton. \u00a0He himself freely volunteers that he\u2019s read very little Latter-day Saint apologetic writing.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Davis Bitton\u2019s essay is, admittedly, devoted to offering a defense. \u00a0But to draw from that fact the sweeping conclusion that Latter-day Saint apologetic writing is wholly or even largely defensive is, quite obviously, to generalize from far too small a sample, and from one that is arguably quite unrepresentative.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s as if, based on watching only two minutes of the 2019 Super Bowl, someone were imagine himself an expert on football strategy. \u00a0\u201cI don\u2019t watch much football, but I noticed that the New England Patriots played only defense, while the Los Angeles Rams were always \u2014 without exception! \u2014 on the offense. \u00a0This was plainly an error on the part of the Patriots. \u00a0Unless they change their game plan, they\u2019re far less likely to score than the Rams are and they\u2019re almost certainly going to lose. \u00a0Plainly, they lack the confidence that the Rams have.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Or imagine the same person who, based solely on his observation of the bottom half of the third inning of Game 3 in the 2018 World Series, concludes that the strategy of the Boston Red Sox (based on pitching and trying to catch baseballs and thus prevent scores) is far inferior to that of the Los Angeles Dodgers (based on hitting and seeking to score points). \u00a0Plainly, the Red Sox lack confidence and will not win.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Remember, this critic himself cheerfully volunteers the fact that he knows very little about Latter-day Saint apologetics and has read almost none.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n But neither the works published in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship<\/em><\/a>, nor the Interpreter Foundation\u2019s books<\/a>, nor its films (e.g., this<\/a> and this<\/a>), nor its other productions<\/a> can reasonably be described as wholly or even predominantly \u201cdefensive.\u201d \u00a0Nor can the efforts of classic FARMS and its successor organization, the pre-2012 Maxwell Institute. \u00a0Nor can my \u201cMormon Scholars Testify\u201d website<\/a>. \u00a0Nor can the Journey of Faith<\/em> films (e.g., this<\/a> and this<\/a>). \u00a0Nor can my columns for the Deseret News<\/a><\/em> and LDS Living<\/em><\/a>. \u00a0Nor can the work of Hugh Nibley.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Heck, just recently I\u2019ve called specific attention to two Interpreter articles \u2014 \u201cRevisiting \u2018Sariah\u2019 at Elephantine\u201d<\/a>\u00a0and \u201cLet There Be a Famine in the Land\u201d<\/a> \u2014 that offer positive reasons, small but not insignificant, for confidence in the historicity of the Book of Mormon. \u00a0And there are many, many more.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 \u00a0 I was amused a few weeks ago \u2014 perhaps bemused would be the more appropriate word \u2014 to read a pronouncement from a nonmember of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints about the gross weakness of Latter-day Saint apologetics. \u00a0 He has, he says right off, never read much apologetic writing […]<\/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-72652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n