A New Director is Appointed at the Maxwell Institute

[TapirDangerDan]

Does that mean they will all have to abandon their Book of Mormon tapir fantasies after losing the Hill Cumorah somewhere south of the Rio Grande in a narrow neck called Tehuantepec?

[Doctor Scratch]

The staff at Sic et Non must be quivering in fear over this announcement, given that they have yet to mention anything. Total silence. Normally we'd have got something like, "incidentally, although I don't follow these things closely anymore..."

But nothing. I don't know why Brother Haws would strike fear into the hearts of the apologists but apparently, this is what we're dealing with. A "Chapel" guy you'd think they could get behind, at least in hopes to get the liberals at new MI in trouble. There must be some history or deeper fears. I'm curious how this will play out.

I agree--the silence is very curious. You'd think that, at minimum, Midgley would have shown up in the comments in order to "opine up a storm." I wonder if they were perhaps blindsided by this appointment? Regardless, you would expect either disappointment or gloating from the Mopologists, and yet, as you point out: total silence.

The fact that his research has been in "public perception" of Mormonism is certainly interesting. I bet that this is something that the *Brethren* care about quite a bit, but the Mopologists generally have not really cared much about that. They have, historically, been willing to dirty themselves in the mud so long as doing so makes their enemies look bad.

It will be interesting to see how this shakes out, in any case.

[Canadiandude2]

What’s the significance of the Maxwell Institute anymore?

It seems like a vanity project these day To be honest. The church has manufactured both its supply and the demand, but if it’s just another stack of CES guest speakers for BYU and institutes- what’s the point?

Even in the small Canadian city I grew up in, it seemed as if the church was getting more and more insular during a period of of my life where I was expected and expecting to network profusely for a future career or advanced education.

[Philo Sofee]

What’s the significance of the Maxwell Institute anymore?

It seems like a vanity project these day To be honest. The church has manufactured both its supply and the demand, but if it’s just another stack of CES guest speakers for BYU and institutes- what’s the point?

Even in the small Canadian city I grew up in, it seemed as if the church was getting more and more insular during a period of of my life where I was expected and expecting to network profusely for a future career or advanced education.

An astute observation.

[Dr Moore]

What is the MI anymore?

I scanned the website. It looks like the MI produces devotional resources for seminary teachers and Sunday school instructors. Makes me think the consequence of Holland’s scolding has been, predictably, more “testimony” and far less “scholarship”.

[Kishkumen]

I noted a few things in his BYU bio:

J.B. Haws is an associate professor of Church History and Doctrine at BYU. He is the author of The Mormon Image in the American Mind: Fifty Years of Public Perception (Oxford, 2013). His PhD from the University of Utah is in American History. He is also interested in interfaith dialogue; he served as the coordinator of BYU's Office of Religious Outreach from 2016-2018.. Before coming to BYU, J.B. taught seminary in northern Utah, in Salt Lake and Weber Counties. His research interests center on the place of Mormonism in twentieth- and twenty-first century America. As for his interest in history generally, he asks how could you not be interested in history when you come from a place that in pioneer-times Utah was known as “Muskrat Springs” (now Hooper)?
….

He served a Spanish-speaking mission in Raleigh, North Carolina, so he speaks Spanish with a slight Southern accent (and English with a heavy Hooper, Utah accent).

Areas of research: Twentieth- and twenty-first-century Latter-day Saint history, public perception of Latter-day Saints, trends in recent Mormon historical work, contemporary American religions and interfaith dialogue.

Muskrat Springs is a lovely spot to visit, especially during prickly horsefly season (February through November).

That portends good things, in my opinion. He is well equipped to defend his faith in a diplomatic way.

[Doctor Scratch]

What’s the significance of the Maxwell Institute anymore?

It seems like a vanity project these day To be honest. The church has manufactured both its supply and the demand, but if it’s just another stack of CES guest speakers for BYU and institutes- what’s the point?

You're right--on the one hand, this is very much a "Your Mileage May Vary" type of thing. In the grand scheme of things--no, the MI isn't "significant," and it never really was, though its public reputation has shifted over time. As Phillip Jenkins noted in his debate with Bill Hamblin, as soon as the FARMS Mopologists were ejected from the MI, it became "highly respectable." From the perspective of Mopologetics, though, the Maxwell Institute, and what it represents, continue to have enormous historical significance. For many years it was sort of like the Bat Signal: it communicated in a somewhat oblique way that the institutional Church supported aggressive apologetics. It was, for the Mopologists, and "official" endorsement of the things they were doing, and of course I'm sure we all remember the quotes they were fond of citing: "No uncontested slam-dunks." "There was FARMS, guns blazing away." Etc.

So when the FARMS apologists were effectively kicked out of the Maxwell Institute in 2012, it was essentially a "rebuke" of all their work--everything from the (at least somewhat legitimate) scholarly articles, to the more problematic material, such as "Metcalfe is Butthead," or the feud with Signature Books, or the various smear pieces, and so on. You see: the Mopologists thought that they had been given a divine/apostolic mandate to do "aggressive" apologetics, and then the rug was pulled out from under their feet. They continued to insist on the importance of doing "negative" Mopologetics, and that is also why they attempted to publicly pin the whole thing more or less solely on Gerald Bradford. If this was merely the doing of an administrator, then the "apostolic mandate" still applies, and the MI was basically taken over by a borderline apostate university administrator. *That* is a key reason why Hamblin, Gee, Peterson, Midgley, etc. kept bashing the "new", Mormon Studies-focused MI.

Lately, though, it scarcely seems like Interpreter is doing "aggressive" Mopologetics anymore. So, have they abandoned what Elder Maxwell allegedly ordered them to do? And do they believe that the MI, under this new Director, will once again publish material that's in the same vein as all those attacks on (e.g.) Grant Palmer? Or is the MI going to be more like what you described: "another stack of CES guest-speakers for BYU and institutes"?

We'll have to wait and see.

[Moksha]

For many years it was sort of like the Bat Signal: it communicated in a somewhat oblique way that the institutional Church supported aggressive apologetics.

For many years when you saw a Tapir projected into the night skies over Provo, you knew a hit piece would be forthcoming.

That all changed when the Maxwell Institute went legit.

[Everybody Wang Chung]

For many years when you saw a Tapir projected into the night skies over Provo, you knew a hit piece would be forthcoming.

That all changed when the Maxwell Institute went legit.

DCP pictured here in happier times as Captain Moroni with his trusty tapir in 2011, at the Maxwell Institute's annual Book of Mormon battle reenactment: