NOM

I have not seen this posted here. If it is discussed elsewhere, please redirect me. Recently, the Maxwell Institute posted a video in which Jeffrey R. Holland addresses the Maxwell Institute in the 2018 Neil A. Maxwell Lecture. You can watch it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpUN29orJmM

Bill Reel noted that this is a call to repentance for the Maxwell Institute. You can find his podcast on the talk here:
https://mormondiscussionpodcast.org/201 ... institute/

The part the gets the most discussion starts at about 48:45 of the original video and goes to about 50:10. In it, Holland tells the Institute that, while the leadership of the church recognizes that they cannot publish devotional material in scholarly publications, they are expected to be faith promoting to the membership. If they have to choose between faithfulness and academic rigor, they should err on the side of building faith. He said that those who seek to build faith were never going to be told they were wrong. At another point, Holland shows that he just does not understand academia. He suggests that the Maxwell Institute should let others know about baptisms for the dead, as if the Mormon Studies (a phrase he wants changed) world is unaware of temple work.

Honest scholarship should not be feared. I am sure that the Q15 is aware of the things that have been said to doubting members. The thing is, these academics have only tried to be honest about what they knew. That's good. I thought the days of whitewashing our history were starting to be left behind.

The more things change the more the stay the same.

blazerb wrote: ↑Thu Feb 07, 2019 12:29 pm Honest scholarship should not be feared. I am sure that the Q15 is aware of the things that have been said to doubting members. The thing is, these academics have only tried to be honest about what they knew. That's good. I thought the days of whitewashing our history were starting to be left behind.

I sometimes get the feeling that some of the leaders truly believe they could release this info without harming the testimony of believing members.

And to be fair, they *had* to release some of the info because it was so readily available, but I think they figured if they had control over the release it would all be ok.

Clearly we're seeing them circle the wagons when it comes to suppressing research/questions, so that know it's not working and now are (from my perspective) flailing to steady the ship.

But to your point, yes, honest scholarship should never be feared. The church used to teach that exact sentiment when they had control over the information.

Oops, I started another thread about this in the Doctrine forum.