FAIR Podcast, Episode 8: Brian M. Hauglid p.2

Comments

1. smb says

   March 12, 2011 at 12:15 pm

   Well done. Brian Hauglid is great.
   PS, investigators should be both principled and principal, but not generally principle.

2. bhodges says

   March 12, 2011 at 12:43 pm

   oops, thanks for the correction. fixed!

3. JT says

   March 12, 2011 at 10:08 pm

   Blair and Brian,

   Thanks for the program. I’m left with many thoughts and questions. I am going to attempt to express just a few.

   First, Brian said (twice):

   “Most Latter Day Saints know that this book here [the Book of Abraham] doesn’t make or break our testimonies … I mean it’s not… really … you know … it’s not really a problem with that.”

   Would it be possible for Brian to elaborate on this? I ask because Book of Abraham problems have played a role in breaking many members’ testimonies and, if he means to exclude such people by his use of the personal pronoun “our,” then he is merely stating a tautology – so it seems to me.

   Second, a significant portion of these two episodes seemed to be making a case for moving away from the traditional church teaching concerning the Book of Abraham. As an example of the traditional teaching I can refer to the LDS Institute Manual (http://institute.lds.org/manual/pearl-of-great-price-student-manual/pgp-3-a.asp).

   “In a statement dated 5 July 1835, Joseph Smith, declaring the importance of these ancient Egyptian writings, recorded: “I commenced the translation of some of the characters or hieroglyphics, and much to our joy found that one of the rolls contained the writings of Abraham. Truly we can say, the Lord is beginning to reveal the abundance of peace and truth” (History of the Church, 2:236)”

   For example, Brian described an “analogizing” approach to the text and of finding his own way of “working through” the facsimiles in light of them not depicting actual scenes from Abraham’s life. Blair took this further by suggesting that engaging in parallelisms (quests for empirical evidence) represents an “end-run” to faith. My point is that many church members and leaders would consider this anti-literal position heretical. Can you comment on the apparent heretical nature of your positions? Is this at odds with the teachings of the General Authorities?

   Finally, I appreciate Brian zeroing in on the major point of difficulty with the Book of Abraham – the juxtaposition of Egyptian characters with specific Book of Abraham passages in the manuscript. In this regard, Brian states:

   “Again, they are just looking at it at face value … [They are saying:] “look its obvious to me what he’s doing” [meaning Joseph Smith was performing a character-by-character translation]. Of course if a person got his mind made up you can’t change him anyway, but I just try to help him see…’”

   When I heard this the person who came to my mind was the typical faithful church member who has been taught and encouraged to take the Book of Abraham on face value. Indeed, it is such a person whose uncompromising face-value belief has counted as a virtue for well over 100 years. Perhaps this includes most of the Apostles.

   Of course, Brian may have had an apostate in mind. But I don’t think such an characterization is fairly placed on an apostate because such persons are those wo HAVE change their minds. It’s just that they have found no compelling reason to change their minds back. Indeed, after listening very carefully, I did not find that Brian offered any. He mostly testified to confusion and ignorance as to how the facts fit any construal of divine provenance. Only unsubstantiated speculations about catalytic revelation, missing papyri, and charges of end-runs for seeking empirical support at all. Please correct me if I am off base here.

   I do suppose that Brian underwent a change in mind – a change that led to his embrace of “complication” over the traditional faith narrative. If so, I do not begrudge him his nuanced faith. But I do think it is unfair of him to engage in private non-mainstream re-interpretations while suggesting that those who hold rational expectations for empirical support are making end-runs to a testimony. In this I am not talking so much about those scholars engaged in the research. I am talking about those who simply look to the Nibleys, Sorensons, and Petersons for encouragement as well as to Apostles like Jeffrey Holland who refer to Hebraisms and complexity in suport of the Book of Mormon.

   I’ll close with the following observation/interpretation. LDS church leaders seem to want it both ways. They want to preach literal history (going right back through Abrahamic writings, to the flood to the Garden of Eden) but they do not want to submit to the weight of empirical evidence (e.g. they take no official position on evolution, the flood, etc). This strikes me as a “mess of pottage” that is going to catch up with the Church in the long run. Indeed think I heard rumblings of it “between the lines” of this podcast interview.

   I welcome your responses.

4. bhodges says

   March 13, 2011 at 9:27 am

   Hi JT.

   I ask because Book of Abraham problems have played a role in breaking many members’ testimonies and, if he means to exclude such people by his use of the personal pronoun “our,” then he is merely stating a tautology – so it seems to me.

   I tend to agree with Brian on this one. On the whole I think more people leave the church for reasons unrelated to the BoA than because of the BoA.

   My point is that many church members and leaders would consider this anti-literal position heretical. Can you comment on the apparent heretical nature of your positions? Is this at odds with the teachings of the General Authorities?

   I don’t really find what Brian or I said “heretical,” so I don’t have much to say in the way of response to that question.

   You also mentioned wanting more reasons to believe in the divine provenance of the book. Brian talked a bit about aspects of the text that had the ring of being ancient (and there are several books he referred to where you can read more about those), but he also spoke in terms of how the text has inspired him personally (the devotional aspects of the text). I think he values those elements above simply trying to prove the text is ancient, distinguishing between proof and evidence.

   As far as wanting it both ways in terms of the literal and the figurative, those are questions I personally try to work through myself without simply relying on everything various General Authorities have said, or simply rejecting it all. In fact it seems to me various GA’s have not always been in agreement over these matters, which is another reason members of the Church should feel comfortable with the latitude they have. Working through such questions is basically an ongoing process for me, one that I’m satisfied with. I can’t speak for Brian, though.

   Hope this helps, take care.

5. bhodges says

   March 13, 2011 at 5:12 pm

   Another quick thought, JT, before I’m on other projects for the present. My impression of Brian’s approach was one that tried to leave possibilities open for people whereas your continuous invoking of what General Authorities say (as though they have always been agreed) seems to be seeking more specific closure than what Hauglid offers in this podcast. Keep in mind that the interview is between me and one other person. Granted, the other person has spent considerable time working with the materials being discussed, but he has no more right than you, me, or anyone else to declare a normative position to bind other people to, and he doesn’t intend to, either. I hoped the podcast could help set the stage for further thinking about the BoA on the part of listeners, an invitation into the investigation rather than the pronouncement of one single position. Many LDS scholars have different perspectives when it comes to things like evolution, biblical criticism, the BoA, and countless other issues, and I’m personally comfortable with that.

   Best wishes!

6. JT says

   March 14, 2011 at 12:50 pm

   Blair,

   Thanks for your reply.

   With regard to your “quick thought” above: Fair enough. As I said, “I don’t begrudge” Brian’s (or your) approach. Indeed, I respect religions that broaden their tents – that accept a diversity of beliefs as they arise from individuals striving to maintain both intellectual and spiritual integrity within their faith traditions.

   And you can certainly find good support for this position. I’m reading the David O. McKay’s biography by Prince and Wright. Early on he relates “vignettes’ about Joseph Fielding Smith, Bruce R. McConkie, Juanita Brooks, Sterling McMurrin, and Fawn Brodie. Most apropos was McKay’s generous and loving personal support of McMurrin.

   But I also see a downside in Mckay’s unwillingness to “seek more specific closure,” particularly in the case of McConkie’s book Mormon Doctrine. That downside is the “legacy” of “doctrinal fundamentalism” (according to the authors) in the church. I see this as an example of a “mess of pottage” trade.

   And, In the case of Brodie, her deviations from the “normative” church history proved to be mostly correct and they now force “complications” for many thoughtful members. But, perhaps, in the long run, Mckay was wise in recognizing that the church was not ready for either a public rebuke of an Apostle or the gritty details of Joseph Smith’s life. Perhaps in the long run, these decisions produce a more viable religion.

   The extent to which a religion should commit (or not commit) to normative doctrine (or scientific and historical facts) is a tough question. But I hope you would agree that tension is created when facts of the world push hard against empirical faith claims. This is what I meant by “they want it both ways.” Practically speaking, tangible claims are more powerful and motivating than abstract or metaphysical principles alone. It’s about “making it real.” But they are also susceptible to new evidence.

   As I said in an earlier comment (Episode 5),

   “Even if Joseph Smith didn’t need to have the gold plates in front of him to translate, the church needed their existence to convert people. In a sense the gold plates invited people to use their reason to move to an edge where faith could take over.”

   The JS papyri take people one-step further than the Book of Mormon. The papyri exist for everyone to see with the translated text appearing side-by-side with identifiable (and translatable) characters. This creates more tension than the Book of Mormon ever did.

   But yes – it need not break a testimony. But the tension does create the need for “working through” and, for many (even if not most) it at least “plays a role” in generating doubt that, along with other issues, can lead to disaffection. There is some point along the spectrum of divers belief where the Church will draw a line, at least if the person does not keep it to themselves. You and Brian evidently are not there and so, by definition, are not heretical.

   I asked for clarification of Brian’s statement about the BoA not “making or breaking” testimonies because it struck me as him “hedging his bets” in the face of the difficulties with the evidence. I took the nervous affect of his speech patterns (chuckles and qualifying phrases at tough junctures) as evidence of this tension. While I will leave it to other listeners to make their own psychological assessments, my sense is that the interview pointed to the emotional tension that arises from dissonance between the facts and the orthodox narrative which is still held, either tacitly or explicitly, by prophets, seers, and revelators.

   Heretical may indeed be too strong a word for your position, but I know what it feels like to be out of step with ecclesiastical authority and scrambling to reconstitute a sustainable faith on the margins. But maybe I’m just projecting.

   Cheers

   JT

7. BHodges says

   March 14, 2011 at 1:52 pm

   And, In the case of Brodie, her deviations from the “normative” church history proved to be mostly correct and they now force “complications” for many thoughtful members.

   I may be reading you wrong but it seems to me you privilege Brodie’s account as “mostly correct,” when in my view her account doesn’t qualify as “mostly correct” any more so than several other historical narratives that have been advanced since her time. I’m particularly unimpressed with Brodie’s attempt to account for the Book of Mormon, for instance. You take Brodie as granted whereas I don’t. As for BRM’s Mormon Doctrine it was a wildly popular book for a time, but I’m not really a fan of it myself anymore for several reasons.

   Practically speaking, tangible claims are more powerful and motivating than abstract or metaphysical principles alone. It’s about “making it real.” But they are also susceptible to new evidence.

   Not only “practically speaking,” but “presently speaking” as well, speaking in terms of post-Enlightenment modes of epistemology which differ from past modes. Relying on empirical evidence has given us a lot of fruit to examine (and by their fruit ye shall know them). We can see the advances in technology and medicine, etc. and directly benefit from them. We can also see some of the ways such advancement can hurt as much as it can help. Tangible claims can be important, then, but it seems to me a good thing if religion calls into question the privileging of any one approach to truth or goodness over another and promotes instead multiple possibilities. With Mormonism we seem to have a mix in which witness testimony of empirical observations is latched to spiritual witnessing, for example.

   While I will leave it to other listeners to make their own psychological assessments, my sense is that the interview pointed to the emotional tension that arises from dissonance between the facts and the orthodox narrative…

   That wasn’t the impression I got being in the room with him conversing before, during and after the interview. Brian seems like a rather happy, non-combative and optimistic guy from everything I could tell. I didn’t get the impression that the occasional chuckling evinced some deep-seated anxiety on his part. Of course, I’m no psychiatrist! At any rate, I appreciate your response. Best!

8. JT says

   March 14, 2011 at 8:24 pm

   Blair,

   Blair,

   With regard to Brodie, I just meant the basic facts of Smith’s life as corroborated by later biographies (including Bushman’s Rough Stone Rolling) but not mentioned in Sunday school and seminary manuals.  I don’t find her theory of how the Book of Mormon came to be compelling either.  I’m agnostic with regard to specific theories but still find the Joseph Smith’s account implausible in light of the evidence. But no need to get into that debate.

   With regard to McConkie’s Mormon Doctrine, I am not surprised you are not a fan of the book.  I was not presuming to include you in that “legacy of doctrinal fundamentalism.” It just seems if David O. McKay was also not a fan, the rank-and-file could have benefitted from knowing that.  I’m not sure that its wild popularity was such a good thing given the 1600+ errors that turned up in McKay’s commissioned study.  I’ll try to be clearer about when I am referring to your position versus what may or may not be the majority, or significant minority, LDS view, and I will not expect you to answer for them.

   With regard to privileging one approach to truth … I’m just not sure I understand the substantiveness of these other approaches.  First, I don’t see a compartmentalization of things like technology and medicine on one side and human experience on the other.  For example, psychology is flourishing as an empirical science and is beginning to link to neuroscience.  Science has much to tell us about human subjective experience, including the ability to have transcendent experiences and to find meaning and comfort in social groups with shared metaphysical world views.  The empirical evidence for a naturalistic accounting of “spirituality” is compelling, and it does not privilege one human brain, or one belief system, over another. It reveals how readily people can misattribute experiences that only seem to have no proximate natural cause using chronically accessible ideas derived from their particular culture.  In a nutshell I ‘m talking about imaginative inventions derived on some form of “argument from incredulity” in the face of incomplete information and supported by various innate “frailties” of mind (e.g., biases, perceptual limitations, failure of introspection, automatic heuristic-based  unconscious cognition, the salience of supernatural concepts, etc.)

   So, if feelings/intuitions/still small voices arising from prayer, prayerful study, communal worship, etc. are examples of what you mean by other approaches to truth, I must, speaking for myself, profess skepticism.  But I don’t expect others to accept my word.

   I can add that I spent a lot of time in the Mormon church trying to develop a testimony (another avenue to truth), earnestly sticking to every Temple worthy practice, doing my best to withstand the buffetings of the standard problems as I encountered them, second guessing myself, etc.. Eventually I came to terms with a growing conviction that I was the only one hearing my voice as I knelt in the darkness.

   So that’s my experience with trying not to privilege methodological naturalism (science).  Science is not perfect, and it’s subject to refinement and change, but it’s progress is wide ranging, impressive, and reliable whether or not it suits me personally.  And, it doesn’t rob life of the meaning derived from simply living responsibility with love for others experiencing all the same joys, sorrows, and challenges as anyone else.  I just don’t feel the need for more than one life or a god to validate it.  But I remain interested in exploring the issue because I am acutely aware that I am the oddity, so to speak.

   The difficulty I have in saying this is that it carries the implication that you are wrong, which feels offensive (even though I claim no “proof”).  But, perhaps I shouldn’t worry about that considering the forum.  Indeed, I am counting on you not feeling disrespected as a person because you represent FAIR.  In fact, this is the basis of my appreciation for you offering these interviews and inviting comments.  You see, I am the only non-believer in a family of active Mormons whose faith I have never overtly challenged (20+ years and counting) for fear of doing more harm than good. I still drive my youngest to early morning seminary.

   So, it’s through this forum that I can still probe what I may be inclined to too easily dismiss if left to ruminate alone. And though I might come across as sure of myself, or provocative, my engagement represents a significant degree of respect, which I hope will come across, as well as thoughtful consideration of your and your guests’ ideas, which I also hope comes across.

   Thanks again and best wishes,

   JT

9. BHodges says

   March 15, 2011 at 6:58 am

   First, I don’t see a compartmentalization of things like technology and medicine on one side and human experience on the other.

   Good, we’re certainly agreed there. As far as neuroscience (we’re getting a bit far afield here) I’m comfortable with the possibilities open to Mormonism in regards to the necessity of physical embodiment and the nature of matter, etc. If it can be shown that my brain reacts in certain ways during what I interpret as a “spiritual experience” I’m not bothered any more than seeing brain patterns that occur during my experience of seeing or hearing something. I can be fooled there, too. A true skeptic (imo) would have a lot more to worry about than religious experience.

   At any rate, I appreciate the conversation. Take care JT.

10. JT says

    March 21, 2011 at 10:18 am

    Blair,

    I’m now trying to figure out what I should be worrying about and how much distance that puts between me and a “true skeptic.” Is the opposite of true skeptic a selective skeptic? That seems both oxymoronic and necessary for survival! There’s a paradox we can live with 🙂

    Here’s an audio illusion that’s just cool in its own right.

    http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=auditory-illusions-10-04-25

    Have a nice day,

    JT

11. BHodges says

    March 21, 2011 at 10:26 am

    A true skeptic, in my view, would scarcely be capable of communicating with other people, making decisions, advancing opinions, or forming firm beliefs on anything at all. The very attempt to do so would be called into question. Then the calling into question would be. And so forth. 😉