I wanted to bring to your attention a very important talk on “Mormon gnostics” at the FAIR conference last week. The talk was given by Cassandra Hedelius, one of those young, smart FAIRMormon volunteers who are helping the organization grow.

We should address the term “gnostic.” Hedelius is using this term the following way:

Mormon Gnostics emphasize personal spiritual effort and de-emphasize the role of the church in spiritual progression. This can lead them to conclude that they have learned a new scriptural interpretation, contrary to what church leaders have taught, or that they have discerned that church leaders and members have strayed, and God has called new leaders or revealed a new means of spiritual progress without prophets. Gnostics try to get at a supposed hidden, deeper truth that most members don’t find due to supposed faithlessness or lack of passion for spiritual things. Gnostics seek for what the scriptures “really” mean, or what prophets are “really” saying, or for teachings that were known a long time ago but aren’t part of modern mainstream belief, perhaps because they were unofficial and hence abandoned, or prophets revealed better understanding.

In real life, a Mormon gnostic might be that guy in High Priests or Elders Quorum who loves to quote some apostle from 1850 revealing some deep secret that is not emphasized today. Or it might be somebody like Denver Snuffer, a dangerous apostate who is leading people away from the Church. The former is relatively harmless; the latter is very harmful.

If you have been around the Mormon blog world long enough, you may have seen liberal Mormons claim that if you are “too conservative” you will end up parroting Denver Snuffer. The claim is of course ridiculous because a conservative Mormon is, by definition, somebody who follows the prophets, i.e., the current prophets speaking at general conference every six months.

However, the Mormons liberals may have a point that *some* Church critics start out from the perspective of trying to be “more Catholic than the Pope” or, in our case, “more Mormon than the prophet.” And this is a tendency that can take you down the wrong path.

Hedelius points out that a Mormon gnostic might start out innocently enough trying to study new things that support the Church. She notices the following pattern:

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Historians define the years when the Western World started to take seriously critical observations the Enlightenment or Age of Reason. From this time came advances in science and more democratic political systems, such as the United State of America. Despite those positives, it also brought the social upheaval of the French and Industrial Revolutions. The mixed impact continues up to present times including the exaggerated idea that only what can be observed by the senses can be true. For a society that elevates reason above the emotions of belief, it doesn’t take much to get an irrational reaction. Push back against the “received wisdom” and see the sparks fly. If there is any proposals that cannot be duplicated or more likely attested to by special authorities, those who believe are considered imbeciles or even mental cases. No one is more derided than a person of religious faith, although certain groups are hated more than others.

Having to accept the new orthodoxy of science and what is defended as facts can becoming suffocating. There needs to be a healthy amount of critical thinking, but the modern version has transformed into hubris and rigidity. Curiosity is now skepticism and neutral observation turned into arrogant triumphalism over supposed ignorance and superstition. Now that the iconoclastic promises of the Enlightenment have more or less been delivered, all that remains is an intellectual uniformity.

Modern thought is an insufferable bore. Skeptics cannot see beyond their own noses, always coming up with unimaginative explanations for things they don’t understand. If rational reason doesn’t work to their advantage then ad hominem “crazy” or “delusional”is used as a mock those who don’t give in to persuasion. Atheists are the quickest to use these tactics by calling any religious person a mental case. Despite popular opinion, religious people in the West are currently much more open minded than others. They have to be in order to survive. Continue reading →

Kofford Books has “Discourses on Mormon Theology” on Kindle, and so am beginning to read its papers.  So far, it is an excellent book on the philosophy, history and theology of Mormonism.

I wanted to share my thoughts on one article by James McLachlan, professor of philosophy and religion at Western Carolina University.

. I was very impressed with McLachlan’s article on LDS scholar William Chamberlin’s Personalism Theory (I’ll give some details below)  I’ve emailed McLachlan and a few other LDS philosophers, and we’ve talked a little about it. According to McLachlan, The concept of Personalism is getting a lot of renewed interest right now by those in the philosophy field outside LDS church.

For Day 2 of the 2015 Fair Mormon Conference, the following presentations were scheduled. Those that are hyperlinked and marked with a star are covered today. Others may be covered in a few days when the streaming video is made available after the conference.

* Michael R. Otterson – Correcting The Record: Brother Otterson is with the LDS Church Public Affairs office.

* Stephen Webb – Why Mormon Materialism Matters: Steven Webb is a Catholic theologian and author of Mormon Christianity.

* Laura Hales – Joseph Smith’s Polygamy: Toward a Better Understanding: Laura Hales become immersed in the matter of polygamy when she recently married Brian C. Hales.

Lynne Wilson – Christ’s Emancipation of Women in the New Testament from their Cultural Background and Baggage

* Cassandra Hedelius – A house of order, a house of God: Recycled challenges to the legitimacy of the church: Cassandra Hedelius is part of the Fair Mormon team and reacts to the gnostics who claim they’ve learned secret truths that indicate the Church has gone off the rails.

* Paul Reeve – From Not White Enough, to Too White: Rethinking the Mormon Racial Story: Paul gives a fascinating description of why early Mormons might have wanted to counteract the image that they were a new and dangerously multi-cultural and degenerate race.

* Dan Peterson – The Reasonable Leap into Light: A Barebones Secular Argument for the Gospel: Dan Peterson shares an outline for the argument that we are not merely random bits of cosmic goo, indicating that it is completely rational to belief in the divine.
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I will only have time to cover the first talk today on M*. There may be other posts that discuss the FAIRMormon conference.

The first talk is by Michael Otterson.

The title is On the Record.

Michael R. Otterson has been serving as the Managing Director of the Public Affairs Department since 2008, with responsibility for public affairs issues of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints worldwide.

Summary: This presentation will cover the role of Church Public Affairs and how it interacts with the Church and the press. Brother Otterson will also discuss many of the issues and misconceptions he deals with, as well as respond to questions from the audience.

Here is a live summary of his talk:

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