Anyways, on to the article. Prof. P. begins, quite bluntly, with his statement of purpose:
Daniel Peterson wrote:Certain critics of the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS), which is now a division of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship at Brigham Young University, deny its intellectual or academic legitimacy on the basis of the "fact," as they see it, that it is nothing more than an "apologetic" organization.
A bit later, he offers up some qualification:
(emphasis added)Daniel Peterson wrote:The spirit of much of the work done by FARMS, or by the Maxwell Institute as a whole, is in keeping with the famous slogan coined by St. Anselm of Canterbury (d. 1109): Fides quaerens intellectum, "faith seeking understanding."3 This sets FARMS apart, obviously, from the approach of the secular academy as a whole, but it does not, in and of itself, delegitimize FARMS scholarship—any more than it has marginalized St. Anselm himself, who remains an important figure in the history of Western thought.
Immediately, we are seeing one of the long standing issues with Professor Peterson's apologetics for his apologetic organ: he wants to have it both ways. FARMS is not part of the secular academy, and yet it wants to partake of the respect and credibility that go hand-in-hand with participation in that academy.
The real problem, Prof. P. intimates, is not really FARMS at all, but, more specifically, the FARMS Review. It turns out that the Review is a kind of lightning rod for criticism (for reasons which will be explained later). Prof. P. elaborates further:
A number of vocal critics claim to have read FARMS materials and to have been deeply disappointed (or actually, as some maintain, driven by what they found into leaving the church). I suspect, though, that they have sampled only a relatively small portion of what FARMS produces and that they entertain a skewed view of what FARMS does. Typically, they are, at least marginally, aware of the FARMS Review, which devotes substantial attention (though by no means all of its attention) to responding to critics and so-called "difficult issues." But they mistakenly conclude that the FARMS Review is representative of, or actually is, the totality of FARMS.
Why belabor this point? What is the Good Professor trying to defend? Is he inadvertently slandering the Review in an effort to preserve the reputation and integrity of FARMS/the Maxwell Institute? In any case, it seems awfully strange that he would be trying to cordon off the Review from the organization which produces it.
Next, DCP tries to explain that FARMS engages not only in apologetics, and dealing with criticism, but also with "faith promotion":
However, both FARMS and the Maxwell Institute publish many, many things that are neither principally nor even secondarily devoted to responding to "difficult issues" but are, rather, entirely positive and affirmative in character.
In other words, the totality of FARMS is defending the Church at all costs. Another way of putting it: FARMS aids in the mission of whitewashing negative aspects of the Church both with faith-promoting materials, and with attacks aimed at critics. Thanks for clarifying that for us, Prof. P.
What follows is a rather lengthy and tedious explanation regarding the definition of the word "apologetics," and Prof. P.'s claim that, simply because FARMS Review engages in apologetics, doesn't mean that it's not scholarly. (Even though, you will recall, he has already informed us that FARMS's way of dealing with scholarship "sets FARMS apart...from the approach of the secular academy as a whole".) He goes on to attack what he sees as another frequent criticism:
Daniel Peterson wrote:There is also little merit to the allegation that, since it is expressly dedicated, on the whole, to publishing essays from essentially believing Latter-day Saints, the FARMS Review cannot be considered truly "scholarly." By this standard, an evangelical journal of biblical studies could not be considered scholarly, no matter how superb its contributors and how high its standards, unless it abandoned its raison d'être and failed to prefer evangelical perspectives over atheistic and other nonevangelical perspectives—or perhaps, indeed, unless it banished faithful perspectives from its pages altogether.
To be sure, there is a difference between a "faithful perspective," and a prescribed perspective. As well all know, FARMS Review must be completely orthodox and in line with the Brethren's preferences on the whole. Let's face it: this is a journal that is meant to reinforce whatever the Brethren say.
Later he provides us with this lengthy and silly bit of nonsense:
Daniel Peterson wrote:Nobody who picks up the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, or Studia Theologica: Nordic Journal of Theology, or Ephemerides Theologicae Loveniensis: Louvain Journal of Theology and Canon Law, or Kerygma und Dogma: Zeitschrift für Theologische Forschung und Kirchliche Lehre, or the Evangelical Quarterly: An International Review of Bible and Theology, or the Calvin Theological Journal, or Dallas Theological Seminary's Bibliotheca Sacra, or the Anglican Theological Review, or Evangelische Theologie, or the Japan Christian Review, or Gregorianum (published by the Pontificia Università Gregoriana in Rome), or the Greek Orthodox Theological Review, or New Blackfriars: A Review ("edited by the Dominicans of the English Province"), or the American Baptist Quarterly, or the Zeitschrift für Katholische Theologie, or the American Benedictine Review, or the Revue Bénédictine, or the Mennonite Quarterly Review will be surprised to discover that the journal in question favors a certain general perspective. Nobody will be shocked to learn that it doesn't open its pages equally and indiscriminately to all positions.
This misses the key criticism entirely. My criticism of FARMS Review (and by extension its peer review process), is not that it "favors a certain general perspective." Rather, I see the Review as being academically dubious because it favors an ideologically orthodox and limited perspective. There is nothing "general" about it at all.
A sidenote: a bit further on, somewhat amusingly---or disturbingly---DCP cites the scripture from D&C which was used to justify the SCMC, and links it up to the purpose of FARMS:
Furthermore, those of us who edit the FARMS Review take very seriously the counsel given by Joseph Smith in the jail at Liberty, Missouri, in March 1839,
to gather up the libelous publications that are afloat;
And all that are in the magazines, and in the encyclopedias, and all the libelous histories that are published, and are writing, and by whom, and present the whole concatenation of diabolical rascality and nefarious and murderous impositions that have been practised upon this people—
So is FARMS Review part of that "very small clipping service"?
Next, DCP segues into the real meat of the article, where he gets into a more specific defense of the Review, rather than of FARMS, or of apologetics as a whole. Interestingly, he admits rather frankly that the Review is atypical insofar as it is largely unconcerned with "original research":
principal function, unlike that of most academic journals, is not to "establish new research and scholarship," although it has rather consistently done so. It is, as its title has always indicated, even throughout its various permutations over the years, a review.
This next bit is staggering:
(emphasis added)Moreover, it is a review that very deliberately and quite consciously exists to provide a publication venue for a certain broadly homogenous perspective—one that, while it allows for considerable disagreement over details, is fundamentally united by its belief in the claims of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Wouldn't it be more accurate to say, "Almost totally homogenous"? The next part of the essay involves DCP ticking off the basic criticisms directed at the Review, followed by his apologetics. He does this be means of all the usual questions, e.g., "Is the Review Peer-Reviewed" (he says, "Yes," which is only partly true), or "Does the peer review occur in-house?" (i.e., within the confines of BYU/FARMS), to which he says, "No," with the following qualification:
It must be kept in mind, by the way, that FARMS employs only minimal staff, and most of those are administrative, secretarial, or editorial workers. By far the majority of the academic work of FARMS is done by people who work for neither FARMS nor its parent organization, the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, nor at BYU.
We're always looking for ways to benefit and improve our work. If we can think of a non-BYU or even non-LDS scholar who is competent to evaluate a manuscript submitted to us, we have absolutely no objection to soliciting peer review from him or her. If we think it advisable, we will do so. We've done it in the past. I have no reason to doubt that we'll do it in the future.
He seems to be admitting a couple of things here. On the one hand, he says that FARMS utilizes "only minimal staff," meaning, I suppose, that there are very few qualified peer-reviewers in-house. Second, he appears to be saying that finding out-of-house reviewers who are also "competent" require him and his fellow, very small pool of qualified readers to do some thinking. His second paragraph, unless I am misreading him, sets up an odd juxtaposition with the first paragraph, and the result is that it sounds very much like he is saying that the bulk of articles appearing in the Review are peer-reviewed by a very small number of in-house people. Otherwise, why include the second paragraph? If outsider review was SOP, why wouldn't he say that? Once again, the Good Professor's own words lend creedence to my theory that the FARMS Review is the work of a closely-knit "cabal" of Church "yes men"---words which he quoted, but failed to properly cite.
Next, Prof P. seeks to de-fang the criticism that the Review is edited and reviewed totally by LDS:
(emphasis added, because this becomes a stock repetition throughout the essay, a kind of argumentum ad nauseum, as if not knowing every little specific about the Review's process somehow renders one incapable of criticizing it.)One objection that is commonly (but misguidedly) leveled against the FARMS review process as outlined above is that that process typically, if not inevitably, involves only scholars who are believing Latter-day Saints. Why, it is demanded, do the benighted pseudoscholars affiliated with FARMS not send their materials out to non-LDS archaeologists, geneticists, Semitists, historians, and the like? As one Internet critic who seems never to have been even remotely involved in the private FARMS peer-review process in any way has revealed, "they want to stack the deck entirely in their favor." (For reasons that remain unclear, this individual appears to imagine that positive reports submitted privately in a confidential peer-review process would score public points in some sort of game.)
What's funny is that immediately after that, DCP admits that, yes, in fact, virtually all of the Review's peer reviewers are, in fact, LDS:
FARMS will continue to use, as it has in the past, non-Mormon peer reviewers whenever it deems that advisable. Still, it is true that FARMS peer reviewers are most often Latter-day Saints.
What is so interesting about his defense is that he never just says, "We use non-Mormon peer reviewers often." Instead, they are used only when "it deems that advisable." Do you want to guess what this means? Could it mean, perhaps, when the Review is guaranteed a kind of slam-dunk review that will offer up the de rigueur support of whatever pro-LDS point they're trying to make?
The next paragraph is interesting indeed, for a number of reasons:
(emphasis added)Apart from resting on a factual error, however, this complaint also appears to me to arise out of a fundamental misconception of what FARMS is doing. FARMS is not generally engaged, as such, in cutting-edge archaeology, genetics, Semitics, ancient history, or similar enterprises—although those who write for FARMS very often are, in their other work. (And, in such cases, their archaeological, genetic, Semitist, historiographical, or other scholarly work is published in mainstream non-LDS venues and is subjected to whatever peer review those venues require. John Clark, Donald Parry, Stephen Ricks, William Hamblin, John Butler, [Q: Did DCP inadvertently supply us with a list of the main people who do the reviewing?] and others who have had essays published in the FARMS Review have substantial records of publication in non-LDS journals and books.)22 Rather, FARMS is engaged in the application of already-existing perspectives in fields such as archaeology, genetics, Semitics, and ancient history, to the Book of Mormon and related Mormon-specific topics. Those already-existing perspectives have previously received and passed standard peer review. The question for FARMS is whether they are being competently and cogently applied to Latter-day Saint topics. And, to answer that question, FARMS turns to peer reviewers competent both on LDS topics and on the subject matter being applied to those topics. Unsurprisingly, the pool of such reviewers is overwhelmingly LDS.
I cannot help but feel this is a bit of spin. "[C]ompetently and cogently applied to Latter-Day Saint topics"? I think what he really means is, "The question for FARMS is whether can be used to reinforce orthodox LDS views."
Here is yet another instance of DCP saying that they very, very carefully select their peer reviewers (he intimates this throughout the essay, actually):
(emphasis added)f we were aware of a substantial pool of non-LDS geneticists who had close familiarity with the Book of Mormon and the literature and scholarship pertaining to it, or of non-LDS biblical scholars or patrologists who had devoted serious study to Mormon claims and doctrines, we would be delighted to hear of them and would be more than willing to use them from time to time to referee essays submitted to us.
Again, why not use them as much as possible, so as to lend more credibility to the Review? The reason: because they can only be used when their approval will provide a rubber-stamp for orthodox, Brethren-sanctioned views. Sadly, DCP's own language betrays him at every turn. The peer-review process is, in essence, a "stacked deck," by Professor Peterson's own admission (which increasingly seems less and less "tacit").
Next is more damaging news:
(bold emphasis ibid)4. Aren't FARMS referees hand picked by FARMS Review editors?
Yes. They are chosen neither via random telephone calls nor a lottery. We editors choose them because we think them qualified and likely to be helpful in our work. We didn't invent this procedure. We borrowed it from mainstream academia.
Yes---"borrowed" it and tweaked it to fit the Brethren's goals and interpretations. A bit further on, DCP gets to my criticism (which I have been reiterating in this very post):
(emphasis added, to highlight another example of DCP's argumentum ad nauseum)So why don't we just publish the names of our reviewers and share what they have to say? Wouldn't that be an easy way to improve our image? When I referred to the confidentiality of the FARMS peer-review process during a recent Internet discussion, my comment provoked the following fascinating response from a vocal critic of FARMS and of the church (who, ironically, posts under a pseudonym):
I take this . . . as tacit admission on DCP's part that FARMS peer review consists of a bunch of Church "yes men" giving the rubber stamp of approval. Here is also further confirmation of DCP's desire to keep the FARMS peer review process a big secret, probably because he knows that "exposure" would reveal the small, cabal-like group that does the reviewing.
Like other vocal critics of the FARMS peer-review process, this person, so far as I can tell, has absolutely no personal experience with or knowledge of the workings of FARMS and appears to lack any personal experience with or knowledge of academic peer reviewing of essays and books.
Actually, I think that publishing the names of the peer reviewers would only prove how right the critics have been. I would not be surprised in the least to learn that the few (by his own admission the pool is largely limited to FARMS employees) reviewers are the same people he named above. In most academic journals, peer reviewers are selected on the basis of their expertise, rather than on the basis of what sort of articles they're likely to sign off on. Certainly any number of critics would be glad to offer peer review for FARMS Review. Have they ever asked Uncle Dale? Mike Quinn? The Tanners? These are all people who know a good deal about Mormonism, but do you think their expertise is (or was) ever solicited? DCP has said, multiple times, that the pool of reviewers is very limited---limited even, as he admitted in this very essay, almost solely to FARMS employees, and that even when they go outside that pool, they are quite selective in who they ask. How very interesting indeed. FARMS Review's credibility continues to crumble.
This next bit is bizarre, almost nonsensical:
Some critics seem to imagine that, unless one or two anonymous non-Mormons are recruited to provide a few lines of confidential feedback to a FARMS editor about a manuscript prior to its publication, FARMS is hiding from real engagement with non-Mormon scholars out of fear that its arguments can't pass muster. They also seem to believe that no distribution of the published product, no matter how wide, will ever count because it can never overcome that initial flaw. I confess that I cannot understand why anyone would believe that sending an article out for a brief, anonymous, and confidential prepublication review from some non-Mormon reader is more important, for overall academic dialogue, than seeking to distribute our arguments and evidence to large audiences of non-Mormons.
Wait a second... Now he is disparaging the peer review process? The reason why it's important is to establish credibility in the first place! If the entire project is polluted by orthodox tendentiousness, then how can one expect "large audiences of non-Mormons" to ever take FARMS Review seriously? Come, now, Prof. Peterson! Surely you can do better than this!
There is no requirement that FARMS must first have anonymous and confidential reports from a couple of non-LDS peer reviewers in order to have a dialogue with the broader scholarly community in any case. Peer review is no more than a relatively effective quality-control method for ensuring that minimum standards are met prior to publication.
Yep. Those "minimum standards" being, of course, the pre-fabricated positions laid out by the Brethren.
Anyways, the rest of the essay is basically more of the same: DCP poses a typical (and often somewhat caricatured) version of the criticisms, and then offers up his apologetic reply. I especially loved this howler, written in response to the charge that, since FARMS receives (relatively speaking) little or not attention, it has therefore "failed":
a failure to attract interest or attention means that, by and large, FARMS arguments have not been seriously examined by non-LDS scholars.
Not necessarily. It could simply mean that whatever arguments have been examined have been dismissed as being tendentious and/or unbelievable. The rest of the essay winds down with him comparing the naysayers to a bunch of tribal Africans, who don't understand germs, hence the article's title. (An odd analogy, when you think about it.) The conclusion is given over to his promotion of other articles in the journal, and a somewhat blithe and glib dismissal of Dan Vogel's scholarship.
Professor Peterson did not something, near the end, which struck a plangent chord:
But let us be frank. To most of those (particularly in the very secularized world of contemporary academia) who have even a nodding acquaintance with Mormonism, our claims simply don't merit serious consideration or engagement.
Sad words indeed, and I shall carry them in my heart.