{"id":99693,"date":"2023-04-25T21:13:54","date_gmt":"2023-04-26T03:13:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=99693"},"modified":"2023-04-26T18:19:23","modified_gmt":"2023-04-27T00:19:23","slug":"standing-with-mike-parker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2023\/04\/standing-with-mike-parker.html","title":{"rendered":"Standing with Mike Parker"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"This<\/a>
I was in an unusually genial mood that day. (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

It hasn\u2019t been an especially pleasant week or two for Mike Parker, a friend of mine and a really good guy who, under the pseudonym of Peter Pan<\/em>, has run a sadly necessary blog called Neville-Neville Land<\/em> for the past several years.\u00a0 Mike has been taking quite undeserved hostile fire from a curiously symbiotic alliance of aggressive critics of the Restoration (most if not all of them atheists) and one or possibly two vocal believers\u00a0 in the \u201cHeartland\u201d model of Book of Mormon geography.\u00a0 It is an exceedingly odd partnership, though they must see it as a mutually beneficial one.<\/p>\n

But not to worry<\/em>!\u00a0 These folks wouldn\u2019t be who they are<\/em> if there weren\u2019t also a number of accusations against me<\/em> in the mix.\u00a0 To their revision of Amos 3:6 (\u201cShall there be evil in a city, and Daniel Peterson hath not done it?\u201d), the supplementary rule \u201cShall Daniel Peterson so much as breathe<\/em> and the city not be thoroughly filled<\/em> with evil<\/em>?\u201d needs to be added.<\/p>\n

Anyway, in this particular saga, I\u2019m supposedly abandoning Mike Parker in his time of need and leaving him alone to twist in the wind.\u00a0 This is, apparently, what I do: I exploit people and then I abandon them.\u00a0 An illustrative example:\u00a0 I\u2019ve had all mention of Mike Parker<\/em> scrubbed from the Interpreter Foundation website.\u00a0 Except that this simply isn\u2019t true<\/em>.<\/a>\u00a0 (It\u2019s the same pesky little problem of fact that virtually all of these accusations \u2014 if not, indeed, all<\/em> of them \u2014 run into:\u00a0 They\u2019re false.)<\/p>\n

Mike Parker remains a friend.\u00a0 I hope that he can eventually find his way back into the line-up for our Interpreter Radio Show<\/a>, from which he felt that he needed to withdraw several months ago.\u00a0 In the meantime, I hope and trust that he will continue to maintain the invaluable Neville-Neville Land<\/em> blog.\u00a0 Here are links to four of his recent entries there:<\/p>\n

\u201cJonathan Neville tried to blackmail me\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cTaking a bit of a break\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cExamining Bill Reel\u2019s false accusations against me\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cJonathan Neville thinks I\u2019m being \u201cpurged\u201d from Interpreter\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, there\u2019s more than a trace of \u201cinside baseball\u201d about these.\u00a0 I look forward to the time in the not-too-distant future when \u201cPeter Pan\u201d can, if it continues to be necessary, return to his important work of chronicling Mr. Jonathan Neville\u2019s unseemly accusations against prominent Latter-day Saint scholars, Church employees, Church publications, apologists, and even, it sometimes seems, Church leaders.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a weird and unnecessary war that was initiated, so far as I\u2019m aware, on the \u201cHeartlander\u201d side \u2014 though not, certainly, by all<\/em> \u201cHeartlanders\u201d and probably not even by Mr. Jonathan Neville himself.\u00a0 I can still remember my astonishment, many years ago, back in the days of the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS), when a friend showed some of us a portion of a video featuring Rod Meldrum, one of the founders and principal figures of the \u201cHeartland\u201d movement.\u00a0 It included a clip from President Gordon B. Hinckley in which President Hinckley noted that some people have rejected the Book of Mormon and the blessings to be received through it.\u00a0 Thereupon, Mr. Meldrum helpfully identified the rejecters of the Book of Mormon to whom President Hinckley was referring:\u00a0 They were none other than those of us who were associated with FARMS.\u00a0 We were, I think I can fairly say, somewhat surprised<\/em> at that.<\/p>\n

I think that I recall hearing that, after receiving complaints about his accusation, Mr. Meldrum eventually (and to his credit) modified the video to remove that identification.\u00a0 But I can\u2019t confirm that with any certainty; other than the portion shown that day, I\u2019ve never watched that nor any other \u201cHeartland\u201d video.\u00a0 (For some information that seems to be consistent with such an attitude on Mr. Meldrum\u2019s part, however, see this<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

I hope that it won\u2019t irritate folks here if I reiterate, yet again, my attitude toward \u201cHeartlanderism.\u201d\u00a0 I want it to be clear beyond any reasonable doubt.\u00a0 (I can do nothing about unreasonable<\/em> people.)<\/p>\n

To me, the question of exactly where the events of the Book of Mormon took place is an interesting one, but of secondary or even tertiary importance.\u00a0 I have long leaned strongly toward a Mesoamerican setting, but I haven\u2019t written very much on the subject and I have no particular problem with non-Mesoamerican models.\u00a0 I\u2019m open to being persuaded but, thus far, I haven\u2019t been.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m fine with partaking of the sacrament and praying with people who don\u2019t share my view of Book of Mormon geography \u2014 as well as those who disagree with me on politics and economics and the greatness of Groundhog Day<\/em>.\u00a0 I would happily sustain them as leaders in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a> and, for all I know, I may well be doing so\u00a0right now<\/em>.\u00a0 I have friends and relatives who accept the \u201cHeartlander\u201d model.\u00a0 I love and value them; they are, in more than a few cases, distinctly better people than I am.\u00a0 On this point, though, I do candidly disagree with their view.\u00a0 But I\u2019m happy not to argue with them about it, or even, if it seems wise to avoid the subject, not to talk with them about it at all<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I surely don\u2019t believe in breaking fellowship with other members of the Church, let alone with members of my family, simply on the grounds that we differ as to the location of the city of Zarahemla or the site of the final Nephite battle.<\/p>\n

Yet I have seen a few<\/em> committed \u201cHeartlanders\u201d \u2014 not even, I hope and believe, a significant minority<\/em> of them \u2014 who seem effectively willing to do just that<\/em>.\u00a0 And that disheartens, depresses, and disappoints me.\u00a0 It brings in a spirit of division and contention that I sincerely feel comes from a distinctly non-divine source, and that does not serve the purposes of God or help with the growth of the Kingdom.<\/p>\n

That<\/em> is what I have objected to in the work of Mr. Jonathan Neville.\u00a0 He has repeatedly insinuated that I and my friends are attempting to guide the leadership of the Church astray.\u00a0 He has even borrowed language from the ritual of the temple, on at least two distinct occasions, to compare me and my associates at the Interpreter Foundation with Lucifer and the hosts of Hell.\u00a0 Do I think that uncharitable and inappropriate?\u00a0 You better believe<\/em> that I do.\u00a0 I had hoped that he would stop.\u00a0 I still<\/em> hope that he will stop.\u00a0 But the signs right now are not promising.\u00a0 And baselessly assassinating the character of Mike Parker isn\u2019t exactly a step toward the Kingdom of Heaven.\u00a0 For one part of the current defamatory alliance, that\u2019s probably just fine.\u00a0 I hope, though, that it will give the other side at least a moment\u2019s pause.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 It hasn\u2019t been an especially pleasant week or two for Mike Parker, a friend of mine and a really good guy who, under the pseudonym of Peter Pan, has run a sadly necessary blog called Neville-Neville Land for the past several years.\u00a0 Mike has been taking quite undeserved hostile fire from a curiously […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":36582,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[56,939,2863,35037,2058,5183,21866,35880,22147,3454,23606,35403,6117,6783,23600,23603],"class_list":["post-99693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-book-of-mormon","tag-farms","tag-foundation-for-ancient-research-and-mormon-studies","tag-geographical-model","tag-geography","tag-heartland","tag-heartlander","tag-heartlanderism","tag-heartlanders","tag-jonathan-neville","tag-meldrum","tag-mike-parker","tag-neville","tag-neville-neville-land","tag-rod-meldrum","tag-rodney-meldrum"],"yoast_head":"\nStanding with Mike Parker<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    It hasn't been an especially pleasant week or two for Mike Parker, a friend of mine and a really good guy who, under the pseudonym 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