Something funny happened a while ago. I got a check from the Maxwell Institute returning some money because I was not going to be getting a volume of the new "Mormon Studies Review". They'd just renamed it from FARMs Reviews. I didn't think much of it. Then I heard that Dan Peterson had been fired, and that was upsetting to me, and apparently it was upsetting to him. Then I received a volume of "Mormon Studies Review".
It seems like it's laying out the philosophy of the Review going forward. The editor wrote an introduction and he said that the guiding principle of the Review was going to be friendship. There was also an article by Brian D. Birch called "In Defense of Methodological Pluralism: Theology, Apologetics, and the Criticle Study of Mormonism." That's a mouthful. In the article he talked about the different methods of Mormon Studies, and he talks about how aplogetics would fit in. He says that one filed is called "negative aplologetics" and that is where critics are answered. He said that one of the main proponants of that field was Daniel Peterson and went on to say some good things about him. Also, Dr. Peterson had an article included as well. I was hoping that there wasn't going to be an enduring rift and it seems like there is not going to be one.
After getting the latest Review I did a search on google to see if I could find any more information on the firing. I did find that Dr. Peterson had supposedly written 100 page article on someone named John Dehlin who runs a web site called Mormon Stories where people who have left the Church can write their stories. Obviously it's an anti-Mormon site, and I haven't even visited it. It probably says that it's out to present all views, but it won't. Any way John apparently didn't like what was going to be said about him and called a General Authority and was able to get the article pulled, which threw off the publishing because now there was a 100 page hole. Then they stopped publishing and fired Dr. Peterson. After all of that I decided that I would really like to see that article.
I'll admit that Dr. Dan Peterson is a hero of mine. Mainly because of one article he wrote called "Nephi and his Asherah." I'd always wondered about the how Nephi goes from not know what the tree in his father's vision meant to knowing that it was the love of God after seeing the Saviour's birth. A vision of "A virgin, most beautiful and fair above all other virgins" that later has a baby. There had always been a disconnect there for me, and Dan made the connection powerfully. I once got to meet Dr. Peterson at a FAIR Conferance, and told him how much I liked that article. I asked him if many people have told him they liked it and he said I'm one of the few, and then I asked if it was controversial at all and he said it was a little. Any way I loved it, and after that I look for things that he's written and always enjoy them. I don't always agree with him, but I always enjoy his writing.
Anyway I liked what Dr. Peterson did in the old Review however I was sometimes surprised at the polemical tone that the book sometimes took. I don't think it's as bad as what is written in books about the LDS Church so I always took it with a grain of salt, but I could see how it might not be something that a scholarly journal produced by BYU would want to be associated with. Now I just hope that the Maxwell Institute doesn't kill the spirit of FARMS. I loved FARMS, for me it was a breath of fresh air, just the kind of stuff I loved and needed. I would wait for their books and publications and pounce on them when they came out. Pretty much anything they produced I bought and read. I don't know if I'm going to continue doing that anymore. I mean do I really want to read about Mormon Gender Studies? Maybe not, although the article I did read was not as bad as I thought. Maybe I'll have to take a wait and see attitude.
However, I do know that I want to support Dr. Peterson's new Journal, well over a year old now, "The Interpreter." When people have questions about the Church, and they've read some anti-Mormon liturature I'm pretty sure that the information I'm going to get from the Review might not help so much. It might help if it a professor that has a question, but I don't know many people like that. I'm pretty sure I will get some good information from the Interpreter though, just like I used to get good information from the old Review.
With all that being said I guess that I'm going to have to step up and read Dr. Peterson's "Muhommad: Prophet of God." I'm just aftaid that I'll find that I disagree with what he says and that he's an apologist for Islam. After all that is Dr. Peterson's main field of study. But then again I'll probably get a lot of good things from it. I should just read it and see what he says. Don't be a chicken.
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