Apologists vs. Apostates

Let’s talk about apologists and apostates for a few minutes.

Everybody knows what an apostate is.  They’re going to hell.  They’re ok with that.  And they presume that the company there will be better than the company of the Saints in the big CK.

Almost no one in the Church knows who the apologists are, except the apostates… It’s crazy.  It’s not until you are on your way out of the Church that you realize that Mormonism is much more interesting than you ever thought!  Maybe that’s why we can’t leave it alone.  The view from the outside is fascinating (while the view from the pews is as lackluster as anything you can think of).

On the outskirts you discover the Church your mother never told you about (because she doesn’t know about it either).  The apologists, the cafeteria Mormons, the liberal and feminist Mormons, the September 6, Sunstone, Dialogue, Richard Poll, Richard Packham, Richard Bushman, all the other Richards… Quinn, Mormon Expression, Mormon Stories, Joanna Brooks, John Dehlin, John Larsen… Who knew the Church could be so incredibly interesting?

There is a world of Mormonism to explore outside the chapel doors, and it’s all kind of a secret. 

Most of that world is not what your bishop would call totally faithful.  But one group is consumed with faithfulness:  the apologists. 

Their name is not helpful for understanding their business.  They are NOT here to apologize for all the damage the Church did to your developing sexuality.  Sorry.

They are the defenders of the faith.  Hugh Nibley was the team captain.  Apologists unabashedly take on the accusations of apostates and the assertions of intellectuals (a.k.a. apostates if you are President Packer).  They provide the difficult defense. 

I have been enjoying a series of online conversations with a guy who I stumbled up against on the Millennial Star blog.  I would like to pay him the compliment of saying that he is far and away the most intellectually honest apologist I have encountered yet.   One could reasonably infer that I have all sorts of nasty things to say about the multitude of other apologists I have been hanging out with, so I will nip that in the bud and just say my encounters with the defenders of the faith have not been numerous enough to be generally disparaging.  Time will tell.

My new friend seems like he wants to approach things honestly, he even wrote a blog post about how to tell the good apologists from the bad ones.  He wrote a fantastic post as well about why having an invested stake in the outcome of a debate makes it extremely difficult for humans to think rationally.    

There was another post recently (by another contributer) about why apostates are comparable to conspiracy theorists.  The logic was bad.  The analogy was inept.  It was a clever way to marginalize people that are inconvenient.  To be fair, apostates spill a fair amount of ink marginalizing apologists, too. 

Why marginalize each other?  WHY CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG????

This isn’t entirely accurate, but let’s hypothesize that each side has a tangible objective.

If they got their druthers, apologists would prove the Church true.

Likewise, apostates would prove it false.

What does that mean?  And how would you achieve such a goal?  And why does it matter?

What does it mean for the Church to be TRUE?  The crux is this: the Mormon Church is the possessor of God’s exclusive path back to His presence, and there is no other way.

It’s all about exclusivity.  The Mormon Church is THE ONE TRUE CHURCH, THE ONLY WAY, THE ONLY PATH.  The Mormon Church holds GOD’S EXCLUSIVE AUTHORITY, without it, you are… damned.

Exclusive authority.  Exclusive truth.  Exclusive path back to God.

Parenthetically, an apologetic response to this could be taking exception with some aspect of my description, but c’mon, we all know this is exactly what the members believe and what the leaders teach.

So, here’s the quandary for these truth claims.  The whole thing is a logical theorem.  All the pieces must be true in order for the total to be true.  And that’s not just me making the claim, it’s the way the Church presents itself.

There is no room for metaphorical belief in the Church’s teachings. 

Ironically, this paints the Church into a corner and also provides believers with added ammunition.  There is a thought like, “the Church wouldn’t make all these claims if they weren’t confident in them being true.”  La la la la la…

You know you used to think that… you did.  Just admit it.

So, while the apologist has a terribly complicated task of keeping all the balls up in the air in order for the integrity of the truth claims to be valid, the apostate really only has to knock one down.

Apostates don’t have to prove that the Church doesn’t do any good in the world.  They don’t have to claim that the leaders are evil, or even that they are aware of the impossibility of the exclusive truth claims.  They don’t have to provide an alternative Church that is the true Church.  They don’t have to prove anything about God or Jesus at all. 

They just have to demonstrate in some way that the truth claims can’t be entirely supported. 

Why does that matter?

Proving the Church false means one really, really, REALLY important thing in the end:  the Q15 in SLC do not have the exclusive stranglehold on divine truth and authority. 

The implications of THAT can be huge.