For better or worse, this special was live-action, and the TMNT masks that the hapless actors were forced to wear feature perpetually gaping, round-toothed and quite disturbing grins, along with protuberant, unblinking eyes. And there is singing! Indeed, the show opens with a rather painful, reggae-influenced rendition of "Deck the Halls." The plot of the special is simple enough: the Turtles realize that they've neglected to get a gift for their human-sized-rat mentor, Master Splinter. They therefore venture through the sewers (singing a spirited variation of "Over the River and Through the Woods") in order to locate an appropriate present. I have to tell you, friends, with a sense of very grim disappointment, that there is "rapping" in this show. And it is not a pretty sight--no, not at all.
Perhaps the highlight of the special comes a third of the way through, when Michaelangelo (yes: did you know that the Turtles are all named after Renaissance painters?), the Turtle with the orange-ish scarf-mask begins singing an operatic version of "Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem." The Turtles discuss their gift-giving options, passing up yo-yos, sneakers, comic books, and neckties, before finally settling on a framed, plasticky-looking pizza, which they declare is "totally bodacious!"
They take the framed pizza back to Master Splinter, who thanks them for their kindness and proceeds to sing "The Twelve Days of Christmas," TMNT-style.
All in all, "We Wish You a Turtle Christmas" is a work of almost unrelenting awfulness. It is unimaginative; energetic in all the wrong ways; insensitive to racial issues; superficially interested in opera; and adorned with fanciful references to "high" art. It wouldn't be inaccurate to describe it as a colossal waste of time. Those who have described it as the worst Christmas special ever made would seem to have a point. Another way of putting it is that "We Wish You a Turtle Christmas" is perhaps the ideal metaphor for Mopologetics in 2016. Anthropomorphic rats as mentors? Check. Toothy, smiling, alarmingly round and bald heads? Yep, that too. Treacly music? Yup, you got it.
These are grim holiday times, my friends--both in America, and in the world of Mopologetics, but at least we can take heart in the fact that it is time, once again, to reflect on the year that slips away in our rearview mirrors. It's time to take a look back at The Top Ten Happenings in Mopologetics, 2016.
10. Censorship on MADB, Sic et Non, etc.
In a year when one of the presidential candidates made repeated threats about curtailing the press, engaging in frivolous lawsuit/censorship, and otherwise doing things in an effort to silence his opponents, the Mopologists were sadly doing some of the same things. MADB, for instance, has what may have been a record year for booting people off the board, deleting posts, and engaging in all manner of censorship. (See here and here for just two examples.)
Meanwhile, on "Sic et Non," commentators were banned at record levels: thoughtful contributors such as "The Beef Experience," "Houston, FARMS Used to Have a Problem," and "Black Jesus Loves You" were all sent packing by the blog's intolerant proprietor.
9. Steve Smoot Puts in a Bid to Become John Gee's Successor
In July, the Mopologists announced that budding attack-dog Steve Smoot was leaving to study Egyptology at the University of Toronto, thus signaling his likely place as the heir apparent to John Gee's tumultuous Book of Abraham legacy. (This tidbit was revealed in the "Comments" section of the post; the original comment has since been deleted.) Critics have long observed that Book of Abraham apologetics represent the "scorched earth" dead end of the enterprise, and attempting to defend the Book of Abraham is perhaps the worst assignment imaginable. John Gee himself has lamented of the burden placed on him as the central Egyptologist who was tasked with this onerous burden.
So, one wonders where Smoot's endeavors will lead him. Will he find a means of defending the BoA--something that eluded and so frustrated his predecessor? Will he cement his place as the main, rising young Mopologist? Or, instead, will he "succumb" to the "worldly ways" of higher education and wind up seeing through the facade of traditional, classic-FARMS apologetics in the same manner as Bokovoy, Hodges, and others?
8. The Apologists Contemplate an End to the Ruth Stephens Prize
Mopologetics has long endured criticism that it is a locker-room-esque "boys club," replete with an alleged tendency towards sexism and misogyny, with critics pointing to the skewed participation of men in their work: the membership and leaders of their organizations; their publications; their roundtables; and so on. Arguably one of the few rays of light in the midst of this was Mormon Interpreter's "Ruth Stephens Prize," which is explained on the website as follows:
MI Web Site wrote:The family of the late Ruth M. Stephens has established a prize in her honor to be given for articles submitted by women to Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture.
First Prize $500
Second Prize $300
Any manuscript written by a woman and either submitted to or published by Interpreter before 1 August 2016 will be eligible for consideration. Submissions should meet the standards of Interpreter and focus on some aspect of Latter-day Saint scripture (Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price) or some reasonably related topic (e.g., the Witnesses to the Book of Mormon, specific Latter-day Saint doctrines, early Christian thought, etc.). Those who wish to participate in this competition should see previously published Interpreter articles in order to gain an idea of the topics in which the journal is interested.
The Interpreter Foundation reserves the right of first refusal for publication of all submitted articles, as well as the right, at its discretion, of awarding no prize, or only one. The prize-winning article, assuming that there is one, will be announced on the website of The Interpreter Foundation (MormonInterpreter.com) on the birthday of Ruth M. Stephens, 23 September 2016.
Submitted manuscripts and published articles will be judged by a panel consisting of editors for Interpreter, invited scholars, and members of the extended family of Ruth M. Stephens.
As the MDB commentator Tom observed, "It is evident that the competition never attracted many entries. A first prize was awarded in 2014 and 2015, but second prize was not awarded in either year." Indeed, on "Sic et Non," Dr. Peterson announced that they were considering putting an end to this recognition of female scholarship:
Now, perhaps it’s not big enough — we’re not rich — but the fact is that our effort has had no discernible effect (so far as I can tell) on the number of manuscripts submitted to Interpreter by women. (We’re currently considering whether or not we’ll continue funding the prize and, if we do, whether we’ll change its focus; perhaps, if we do continue with it, we’ll alter it to aim at young scholars rather than at women.)
One step forward; one step back.
7. Scott Gordon "Smears" John Dehlin
In early July, longtime FAIR/FARMS/Mormon Interpreter nemesis John Dehlin launched a scathing attack on FAIRMormon president Scott Gordon in response to a talk Gordon gave in Sweden. In the talk, Gordon made statements portraying Dehlin as an atheist who has "long believed that there is no God," which Dehlin emphatically denied, citing several of his public statements in response.
Really, though, the incident reveals the continuing, simmering resentment and anger that runs through the Mopologetic enterprise. The FARMS-commisioned "hit piece" on Dehlin was published clear back in 2013--the year after FARMS was booted out of the Maxwell Institute, and Dehlin is apparently still at the center of their ire, even after his exit from official Church membership.
But the incident was also noteworthy as a case-study on the Mopologists' ongoing attacks on atheism, which was a prominent feature of their work during 2016. While their attempts to provide a compelling case for their particular brand of religiosity has perhaps left a lot to be desired, their treatment of atheism and atheists shows that they have no compunctions about returning to their old, favorite well: using stereotypes as a battering ram and trying to scare their acolytes away from the category in question.
6. Mike Ash Tries to Cash in on the CES Letter
The entrepreneurial and mole-like writer/Mopologist Mike Ash was at it again in 2016, this time authoring a book/pamphlet entitled Bamboozled By the CES Letter, available for purchase at the cost of $5.99. The description on the back cover of the book underscores some of the basic problems in Mopologetics:
Ash wrote:Sadly, most of those who have been bamboozled by the “CES Letter” are Latter-day Saints who were blind-sided by scholarly-sounding interpretations of challenging data.
Sound familiar? Ash takes a swipe at the "dumb" Mormons who didn't know any better, too--i.e., the hypothetical "sister in Parowan":
Unfortunately, the reason the “CES Letter” has enjoyed any success is that most Latter-day Saints have never been exposed to some of the more complex matters in early Mormon history. On average, the typical Latter-day Saint has never needed to think outside of the box on Mormon-related philosophical, historical, or scholarly issues.
Careful readers and students of Mopologetics will recognize that this is a blatant acknowledgment of Dr. Shades's classic "Chapel Mormon / Internet Mormon" divide. That a Mopologist like Ash is not only admitting this--in 2016!--but also attempting to profit off that admission, is startling.
5. FAIR Allegedly Spies on People
Clear back in January of this year, a very attentive Consiglieri noted a surprising admission from FAIR Mormon's Chair, John Lynch--namely, that
the LDS Church has occasionally asked FAIRMormon for internet posting information on certain unnamed persons of interest.
And that FAIRMormon happily complied with their request.
The invaluable posted named Tom took the extra step to transcribe the podcast:
Tom's Transcription wrote:John Lynch: There have been times when they have asked us specifically about movements or about individuals and what we know about their activity online, that sort of thing. And, of course, when we’re aware of it, we’ll share information, as appropriate.
We have long known about the FARMS apologists' connections to the Church's sinister spy operation, The Strengthening Church Members Committee, but this admission from Lynch (along with allegations shared by David Twede some time ago, about someone in FAIR's leadership--possibly S. Gordon--ratting him out to Salt Lake City--an allegation that Gordon rather obliquely denied) suggests that FAIR is involved in these activities as well.
4. Mysterious Payouts at Mormon Interpreter
Many people here at MDB look forward with a great deal of excitement to the thorough updates on Mormon Interpreter that are assembled by Tom. This year, he regaled the fledgling, primarily online venture with a celebration of its four-year anniversary. Among the fascinating details was the revelation that over 50% of the articles published in the blog-journal since its inception were written by members of its board, thus suggesting an incestuous cabal of like-minded people, rather than the sort of scholarly diversity that one would expect of a serious, "peer reviewed" journal.
Arguably the largest question mark hovering over Mormon Interpreter, though, has to do with its finances. As Tom observed, "Interpreter has not been transparent with its finances." Indeed, a perusal of Interpreter's publicly available tax documents show payouts in the tens of thousands of dollars, this in spite of the Director's repeated insistence that no one is profiting off of the venture. Who, then, is getting these "editing" and "publishing fees"? If Gerald Bradford were to somehow fire the current MI board, would they demand their "usual fees"? In any case, the matter of Mopologetic financing continues to perplex and confuse, and one hopes that clarity and transparency are on the horizon.
3. Royal Skousen Theorizes a Book of Mormon "Ghost Committee"
Operating in a somewhat low-key manner, the Mopologist "apparatchik" named Royal Skousen has rather quietly been at the center of more controversies than one might expect. Those with long memories will recall that he allegedly came into conflict with the Brethren over his "Mopologist Book of Mormon"--i.e., his own, scholarly attempts to supersede the Book of Mormon text that was giving to Mormondom by the Prophet Joseph Smith.
This year, though, believers and critics alike were left scratching their heads after it was revealed that Skousen has apparently discovered traces of Elizabethan English in the Book of Mormon text, leading to the hypothesis that quickly became knows as the "Ghost Committee Theory." In one variation on this theory, prominent Mopologists actually suggested that the Book of Mormon translation had been undertaken by a "spirit committee" that was under the guidance of William Tyndale.
In the wake of the FAIR Conference, where this topic came up again, the Mopologists scrambled to douse out the fire, with Dr. Peterson daring critics--to the tune of $100--to definitively prove that Skousen subscribes to the "Ghost Committee Theory."
Later, Skousen himself appeared (via email, supposedly), to clarify:
Royal Skousen wrote:Well, Dan, early on I did mention the possibility of a committee. I have never speculated on who might be on the committee, not even jokingly that it included William Tyndale (in fact, his English is too early). I definitely do NOT recall the conversation you put on your blog. But this is what I have written in ATV [Analysis of Textual Variants] on page 1052 (under Jacob 6:13, referring to “the pleading bar”):
And the actual translator of the Book of Mormon – the Lord himself or his translation committee – seems to have been familiar with the term!
I have removed this offending sentence from the second edition of ATV. I no longer refer to a translation committee, although I have said we do not know “how the Lord did it or had it done”. That is as far as I will go because it does no good to argue about this issue. Instead, let’s study the text.
Best wishes, Royal
So where did the suggestion about Tyndale originate? From a perhaps surprising source:
Daniel Peterson wrote:It’s possible that I was the one who mentioned Tyndale’s name
The whole incident marked one of the more bizarre tactics taken up by the apologists. That they ever thought the notion of a "spirit committee" would gain traction and that it would function as something so bafflingly difficult to explain that it would bowl the critics over, is hard to understand.
2. Grant Hardy Declares that Belief in a Literal Book of Mormon is Unnecessary for Exaltation
The other crucial incident at this year's FAIR Conference was truly epochal and game-changing. The likable and well-respected author Grant Hardy undid decades of Mopologetic arguments by declaring that belief in a literal, historical Book of Mormon is unnecessary for exaltation and entry into the Celestial Kingdom. Obviously, this put the classic-FARMS apologists in the lurch: so much of their work over the years has been devoted to defending the LGT, to battling critics like Philip Jenkins and his insistence that the Book of Mormon is fictional / metaphorical, and to tar-and-feathering other Latter-day Saints, like Rodney Meldrum, who dare to propose a literalist theory that competes with their own. And then here comes polite, scholarly, mild-mannered Grant Hardy, liked and respected by Mopologist and non-Mopologists alike, and he tells everyone at the marquee apologetic conference that none of it matters. So long as you live a good, devoted, kind-hearted, Christ-like life, you are all set, and questions about whether Nephi actually set foot in North America don't make a lick of difference.
The Mopologists response was fascinating, with them insisting that, in fact, they subscribed the same views as Hardy all along. I'm sure that came as news to those who've been attacked for non-orthodox views in the past, or those who were suspected of "apostate tendencies" for daring to believe that the Book of Mormon might not be literal history.
1. The Death of Mopologetics and the Rise of Post-Mopologetics
The most important event in Mopologetics in the year 2016 was not a specific, identifiable event. Instead, it was, at first, a slowly mounting feeling, and ultimately something resembling a certainty: Mopologetics as a legitimate movement was in decline, and indeed had been since before 2012, and 2016 was the year when, at last, scholars and university administrators like Dean Robbers, felt comfortable declaring that Mopologetics was dead. It went out--to quote from one of the Mopologists' favorite poems--not with a bang, but with a whimper.
There were a lot of signs that death was imminent: Bill Hamblin ceased participating after getting his butt handed to him publicly by Philip Jenkins. Will Schryver is nowhere to be found. In mid-2015, DCP published a "sea change" article that seemed like an attempt to patch up relations with the apologists' old opponents. And over the course of the past year, edifice after edifice has fallen: the uniqueness of Hebraisms in the Book of Mormon is kaput thanks to the overwhelming evidence in The Late War. Grant Hardy destroyed the old canard that non-belief in the Book of Mormon is tantamount to apostasy (that this happened at the FAIR Conference was just icing on the cake). Spencer Fluhman, the new MI director and semi-ally (like Hardy and Givens) of the apologists issued strong praise for Gerald Bradford's "vision," such that even DCP had to capitulate, calling Fluhman's posting "a gracious note." Meanwhile, Ralph "The Doink" Hancock doubled down on his goal of excluding people who don't fit with his notion of LDS orthodoxy.
The surest sign that traditional Mopologetics is dead, though, can be found in the "pages" (as it were) of Mormon Interpreter. In the wake of the classic-FARMS crew's ejection from the Maxwell Institute, they angrily pointed fingers at Bradford and the "new MI" and accused them of 'abandoning' the allegedly Brethren- and donor-sanctioned mission to do "negative apologetics": attack articles, hit pieces, smear campaigns, and flagrantly aggressive treatment of anyone critical. Indeed, the "new MI" doesn't do these things, but strangely enough, Mormon Interpreter and its attendant personnel no longer do them either. This approach--for so long at the heart and soul of what the Mopologists did--has been almost completely abandoned. Whereas Elder Neal Maxwell once supposedly praised the writers at FARMS for their "guns blazing away." In 2016, the guns have gone silent. The attack-minded attitude of yesteryear is no longer.
So, what remains? As this list demonstrates, the bread and butter of Mopologetics has not died out completely. One can still see signs of the old mentality on MADB and in the "Comments" at "Sic et Non," but it seems fair to say that, at present, we are living in a post-Mopologetics era. Some of the old wounds inflicted in the last period will never heal, it seems. And one has to ask: should the passing of an era be regarded with wistfulness, or with a shrug?
* * * * * *
Friends: the winter solstice grows ever near, and with each passing day the hours of sunlight diminish. The world grows a bit darker. Nonetheless, the holidays are upon us: Christmas draws near! Can you hear the carolers singing? Can you smell the figgy pudding? Does the cold air leave your fingertips a-tingling? Take heart in the good, honest pleasures of the season. Take in the warmth and glow of the holidays, and take comfort that, no matter how bad it gets, it least it can't get any worse than it got for the Mopologists in 2016.
And with that, I'm off to the annual Cassius holiday party! Dean Robbers, as always, will commandeer the punch bowl. I hope you'll join us!