Joanna Brooks article on CNN.com

[DrumNFeather]

Hancock represents most of the reasons I want to leave the church. Joanna represents the reasons I stayed. I sincerely hope he reads this somehow.

Seems like you're putting an a lot of weight on the actions and attitudes of people in the church and not so much the church itself. Am I misreading?

[Moliere]

Hancock is at it again... This time giving a review of Professor Brook's book in Meridian Magazine.



If Joanna's youthful LDS teachings were anything like mine I would say that source of the distortion is from the crap members like Randy Bott put out.

Interesting way to open the review:

Professor Brooks is thus an increasingly influential writer with a flair for publicity whom many in the media – and, she hopes, many Latter-day Saints – are looking to as an attractively liberal and “open-minded” alternative to the conservatism of ordinary Mormons. She thus proposes a beguiling vision of Mormonism as reconciled to a liberal secular culture, an increasingly prominent vision that readers of Meridian Magazine should be aware of.

And an interesting way to close it down:

(Coming soon, Joanna’s participation in conflict over radical feminism and other controversies at BYU, her complete alienation from the Church over Proposition 8 in California, and her recent return – on her own terms – and ascent as a national representative of a new “Reform” Mormonism.)

Those two paragraphs really seem to frame the whole review well.

[Pheidippides]

Seems like you're putting an a lot of weight on the actions and attitudes of people in the church and not so much the church itself. Am I misreading?

I am talking about doctrinal approaches and not people per se. I openly reject the Hancock approach to the church and want no part of it. It is not something I am prepared to believe anymore.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Hancock represents most of the reasons I want to leave the church. Joanna represents the reasons I stayed. I sincerely hope he reads this somehow.

Go ahead and drop him an e-mail. Or give him a call.

http://fhssfaculty.byu.edu/Pages/rch8.aspx

[Uncle Ted]

Wow. That review was brutal. What an angry, bitter little man.

The comment section is interesting. I have never been a fan of the Meridian Magazine crowd.

And this is only part 1. Part 2 coming soon.

[Pheidippides]

Go ahead and drop him an e-mail. Or give him a call.

http://fhssfaculty.byu.edu/Pages/rch8.aspx

Thanks. I think I will. I expect better from a Harvard guy.

[Jeff Lebowski]

It almost sounds like he is jealous of her celebrity status in the mormon moment. I think the reason JB is so sought-after as a commentator on LDS issues is that she is extremely intelligent, an excellent communicator, personable, and she comes across as genuine. When she talks you don't feel like you are getting the party line. You are getting an honest and fair evaluation.

[DU Ute]

Hancock represents most of the reasons I want to leave the church. Joanna represents the reasons I stayed. I sincerely hope he reads this somehow.

This is how I feel, and it is irrespective of their theological positions. The tone and delivery of one feels much more like what you would expect from a follower of Christ.

[Shaka]

Geez, that guy's worse than DEP.

[NorthwestUteFan]

He seems to dislike her because she is, in his mind, so darned insubordinate. If only she would accept the 'Lord's view of the role of women'*, abandon her career to go home and raise her kids like a righteous woman (per the YW manuals)...

Conversely, perhaps he detests her for being a liberal (saying that word with a sneering Hannitization).

Also I am tired of the 'milk before the meat' argument. The church has force-fed us so much milk that it is hard to recognize that deeper, richer doctrine even exists. The 'thin, even charicatural understanding of doctrine' is all we are teaching our kids today.

SeattleUte was right. The Randy Bott kerfuffle was merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to oppression of a group of people over a biological difference (race, sex, sexual preference,...).


*YW manual 1, lesson 8 (If I had a daughter I would have a very hard time letting her attend some of the YW lessons.)

Spoiler for SWK quotes from that lesson:

"We committed ourselves to our Heavenly Father, that if He would send us to the earth and give us bodies and give to us the priceless opportunities that eartl life afforded, we would keep our lives clean and would marry in the holy temple and would rear a family and teach them righteousness. This was a solemn oath, a solemn promise." ("Be Ye Therefore Perfect", address given at the Salt Lake Institute of Religion, 10 Jan. 1975, p. 2).

manual talking point: What roles did we promise to Heavenly Father that we would accept before we came to earth? (We would marry and have a family.)

SWK continued "Do not...make the mistake of being drawn off into secondary tasks which will cause the neglect of your eternal assignments such as giving birth to and rearing the spirit children of our Father in Heaven." (Ensign, Nov. 1979, pp. 102-3)

[jay santos]

Also I am tired of the 'milk before the meat' argument.

This might be my biggest pet peeve when it comes to LDS apologetics.

Milk before meat is understanding faith and repentance before you understand the Fall and the atonement. It's understanding tithing before you understand consecration. The law of obedience before the law of sacrifice.

It's not an excuse to fail to cover up church history.

Milk before meat is NOT failing to teach members that Joseph translated the BOM with a peepstone in his hat while the gold plates were hidden in the woods. There is nothing meaty about that. It is NOT failing to teach that Joseph had sex with wives and they weren't just sealings that had nothing to do with early marriage. It is NOT hiding the fact that the Book of Abraham scrolls were found and translated and have nothing to do with the Book of Abraham.

This milk before meat thing is the biggest cop-out bullshit argument ever.

[SuperGabers]

I nominate grapevine.

That made me LOL, JLeb.

[DrumNFeather]

This might be my biggest pet peeve when it comes to LDS apologetics.

Milk before meat is understanding faith and repentance before you understand the Fall and the atonement. It's understanding tithing before you understand consecration. The law of obedience before the law of sacrifice.

It's not an excuse to fail to cover up church history.

Milk before meat is NOT failing to teach members that Joseph translated the BOM with a peepstone in his hat while the gold plates were hidden in the woods. There is nothing meaty about that. It is NOT failing to teach that Joseph had sex with wives and they weren't just sealings that had nothing to do with early marriage. It is NOT hiding the fact that the Book of Abraham scrolls were found and translated and have nothing to do with the Book of Abraham.

This milk before meat thing is the biggest cop-out bullshit argument ever.

Alright Jay, but you get to pen the primary songs.

[Moliere]

*YW manual 1, lesson 8 (If I had a daughter I would have a very hard time letting her attend some of the YW lessons.)

Spoiler for SWK quotes from that lesson:

"We committed ourselves to our Heavenly Father, that if He would send us to the earth and give us bodies and give to us the priceless opportunities that eartl life afforded, we would keep our lives clean and would marry in the holy temple and would rear a family and teach them righteousness. This was a solemn oath, a solemn promise." ("Be Ye Therefore Perfect", address given at the Salt Lake Institute of Religion, 10 Jan. 1975, p. 2).

manual talking point: What roles did we promise to Heavenly Father that we would accept before we came to earth? (We would marry and have a family.)

SWK continued "Do not...make the mistake of being drawn off into secondary tasks which will cause the neglect of your eternal assignments such as giving birth to and rearing the spirit children of our Father in Heaven." (Ensign, Nov. 1979, pp. 102-3)

Those quotes scare me because they make me wonder about all the things I covenanted to do on earth that I no longer remember because of the veil. I thought I only liked Christ's plan and that is why I'm here. I wonder if someone can be held accountable for violating covenants they have no idea they made.

[Northwestcoug]

Hancock knows exactly what type of crowd reads the Meridian. It's his crowd. We shouldn't be surprised as his scoffing towards Brooks.