Leonard Arrington Testimony

[_mikwut]

Where does one go to find these ethical principles of poor taste and decorum that would lay out the disrepute of a Mormon believer like Dr. Petersen who quotes from pages 236-237 of Leonard Arrington's Adventures of a Church Historian on his site in order to represent the mans belief? Would someone else's words be the ethical way to produce this LDS scholars perspective?

We learn from Dr. Scratch that it is hideous and horrifying. The citation isn't prominent enough and doesn't include quotation marks? As if the picture to the right and the name prominently displayed is not indication enough of whose words are quoted.

Aristotle speaks of some unwritten code not unlike that of certain unwritten rules in baseball that we all should just understand about "testimonies" and the proper publication thereof?

DrW tells us its "creepy" for the man to be quoted in this manner. Because he is deceased I suppose?

Blixa is stricken with how unethical this addition to LDS Scholars Testify is, how presumptuous it is. "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" she chastises.

I know dang well who Leonard Arrington is, and I can't find anything Dr. Petersen did objectionable.

Has it dawned on any of you - that you don't see the world the same as Dr. Petersen but that fact doesn't give license for your "unethical" theories to be superimposed on his religious beliefs and worldview?

And could someone please just state plainly in a couple sentences, without the rhetoric and drama, just what ethical principle has been breached?

regards, mikwut

[_Nevo]

The huffing and puffing here by Scratch, Blixa, and DrW is nothing short of ludicrous.

Indeed. Leonard Arrington made no secret of his commitment to and belief in the Church, as dismaying as that must be for some disaffected Mormons. He left many public testimonies.* To suggest that he would not have wanted to be affiliated with a such a project as Mormon Scholars Testify is, to my mind, "an egregious act of presumption." In fact, I believe that MST is precisely the sort of thing he would have supported.


* A brief sampling follows:

• "My own impression is that an intensive study of church history, while it will dispel certain myths or half-myths sometimes perpetuated in Sunday school (and other) classes, builds faith rather than weakens it."
  — Leonard Arrington, "The Search for Truth and Meaning in Mormon History," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 3, no. 2 (Summer 1968): 61; reprinted in D. Michael Quinn, ed., New Mormon History: Revisionist Essays on the Past (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1992), 6.
  
  
• "My long interest in Mormon history (I've been working in it for 33 years) has only served to build my testimony of the gospel and I find the same thing happening to other Latter-day Saint historians as well."
  — "An Interview with Leonard Arrington and Davis Bitton," Sunstone 4 (July-August 1979): 41.
  
  
• "Having given my professional life to the serious study of Latter-day Saint history—having examined even the most intimate documents of the Church—I am even more persuaded today than previously that a knowledge of our past offers persuasive proof that our people have been engaged, all along, in the work of the Lord."
  — Leonard Arrington, "Learning about Ourselves through Church History," Ensign 9 (September 1979): 6.
  
  
• "[As Church Historian] I was able to examine over a period of several years the most intimate records of the Church—records that are replete with faith-promoting incidents that served to strengthen my belief in the divinity of the latter-day work. Particularly meaningful to me was my private knowledge of the divine circumstances that led up to the announcement by the First Presidency that the priesthood might be conferred on all worthy males without regard to race or color. Although now released from the position of Church Historian, I am still devoted to carrying out responsibilities which I trust continue to help build the Kingdom of God on earth. Many satisfying spiritual experiences, as well as my continued study of the Saints and their leaders throughout our history, have intellectually and emotionally validated my decision to serve the faith that I committed myself to many years ago, and that I believe to be based on true principles."
  — Leonard Arrington, "Why I Am a Believer," in A Thoughtful Faith: Essays on Belief by Mormon Scholars, ed. Philip L. Barlow (Centerville, UT: Canon Press, 1986), 233.

[_Doctor Scratch]

Nevo,

My God, man---are you really this dense? The objection--well, *my* objection--is not that Arrington testified in favor of the Church. Of course he did. He was always a faithful member, as far as I know. My problem is that Dr. Peterson is rather unscrupulously using Arrington's legacy to further his vindictive Mopologetic goals.

I don't think it's very hard to understand. Can you say, with a serious face, that it was right for DCP to put the testimony up on MST in light of the fact that he got permission from the other deceased testimony-bearers?

Perhaps more significantly, can you say, w/ straight face, that Arrington would have approved of the FARMS reviews of Mike Quinn's books?

Come on, Nevo. You have a good reputation among thinking people. Don't spoil it via a raw desire to simply "claim" Arrington for the Home Team.

[_Doctor Scratch]

Dan:

You've misrepresented the notion that Leonard Arrington would want to be associated with anything you do. And at this point, this is something that you need to really check very, very carefully. There are people whose lives could be destroyed merely on account of the fact that they are in some way associated with you.

[_Doctor Scratch]

And could someone please just state plainly in a couple sentences, without the rhetoric and drama, just what ethical principle has been breached?

regards, mikwut

Sure, mikwut. It goes like this:

It's wrong to take someone's heartfelt testimony without permission and to use it for your own degenerate agenda.

Is that clear enough for you?

You know, it occurs to me that you are just out to sea. My read of you is that you don't know anything about the history of Mopologetics, and that you're just sort of flailing about in a cloud of darkness. Have you read SHIELDS? Have you read the FARMS Review? Because if you've read these things, and you are still shrugging your shoulders as if this is no big deal, then I'll have a pretty solid idea of how much attention I should pay to you here on out....

[_jon]

Perhaps a second website could be developed or an addendum to the existing one.
A sort of graveyard annex.

It could be called:
Dead Mormons Testified

Personally I think it is disingenuous to try and add credibility to an obscure website by posting the words of people who are dead, as if they contributed specifically to it.

Daniel, I'm not seeing any current Apostles' testimonies on your website. Come to think of it. I can't see any dead ones (yet) either - I might be wrong, I didn't look very hard.
Is there a reason the Leaderships testimonies aren't on the website?

Seperately, anyone know why, when Arrington was released from his calling in the Histroy department, he wasn't given the traditional vote of thanks?

[_Morley]

My two cents:

Anyone as a right to argue that any other given person, living or dead, would say, or are saying, any given thing. Living persons will possibly rebut; the dead will not; both will have some who will assume the mantle of their supposed counter-arguments. That’s what discussions and appeals to authority are all about, and as such, are both valuable and legitimate.

Daniel, for me, the problem is the way you form your presentation. A casual reader might think, until the end of the bio, that Arrington was still living and/or had written the testimony specifically for your site. That's problematic. It comes across a little manipulative and hurts your cause. This could be very easily remedied with a slight re-wording.

[_Daniel Peterson]

First of all, my thanks to Mikwut and Nevo, who have been badly needed voices of reason here.

And specific thanks to Nevo: I have no staff for Mormon Scholars Testify, and the additional quotations that you have provided would make excellent additions to Professor Arrington's entry. I think I'm going to add them.

Dr. Peterson is rather unscrupulously using Arrington's legacy to further his vindictive Mopologetic goals

There is absolutely nothing "vindictive" about Mormon Scholars Testify.

There's nothing vindictive about the rest of my life's work, either. Nor about me. I'm actually quite unusually unvindictive. (Other faults I have in plenty, as does any other mortal. But that simply isn't among them. Scratch's manufactured demonology has, curiously, managed to miss my real failings by several light years, though he has industriously cataloged an impressive list of grievous moral and psychological defects over the past half-decade that he loves to attribute to me.)

No reasonable person, looking at Mormon Scholars Testify, can honestly describe it as "vindictive."

http://mormonscholarstestify.org/

http://mormonscholarstestify.org/category/testimonies

Dan:

You've misrepresented the notion that Leonard Arrington would want to be associated with anything you do.

There is absolutely no reason to suppose that he would not.

Your conviction -- real or pretended -- of my absolutely radioactive toxicity is unique to you, though perhaps you've managed to persuade three or four pseudonymous posters on this board to some degree or another.

My relationship with Leonard Arrington was always amicable, as it has been with his principal professional associates (e.g., Drs. Allen, Bushman, Alexander, Godfrey, and Bitton) for at least two decades now. The number of entries on Mormon Scholars Testify is now approaching three hundred.

There are people whose lives could be destroyed merely on account of the fact that they are in some way associated with you.

I take this as a declaration of your intent. As a pretended statement of fact, it's simply absurd.

degenerate agenda

hideous . . . a desecration . . . smear . . . your rancid projects . . . cheap and opportunistic . . . horrifying.

pillaging . . . dumb crusades . . . sick

unscrupulous . . . vindictive

a lie

obfuscation

These are not the responses of a normal, balanced person.

There's something mysterious at work here, and it's not rational.

Personally I think it is disingenuous to try and add credibility to an obscure website by posting the words of people who are dead, as if they contributed specifically to it.

A substantial proportion of those who read the entry will already know that Leonard Arrington has been dead for a number of years.

Those who don't already know that will be able to deduce it, perhaps, from the opening words of the biography immediately appended below the entry, which read "Leonard J. Arrington (d. 1999)."

Alert readers will notice the ellipses in the entry, and the reference to "this memoir," and the publication data and page reference that are given for the book that is expressly identified as the source for the quoted entry, and they will very likely conclude that the late Professor Arrington didn't compose his entry specifically for Mormon Scholars Testify.

Daniel, I'm not seeing any current Apostles' testimonies on your website. Come to think of it. I can't see any dead ones (yet) either - I might be wrong, I didn't look very hard.
Is there a reason the Leaderships testimonies aren't on the website?

I made a policy decision at the very foundation of Mormon Scholars Testify not to solicit testimonies from currently-serving General Authorities. I doubt that they would have agreed to submit them in any case, even though I know many of them and consider a few of them friends. But I haven't asked.

That said, I've posted testimonies from released General Authorities (e.g., from Elders James O. Mason, Alexander Morrisson, and Robert Wood) who qualify as "Mormon Scholars," I have materials submitted by two others in hand, only awaiting my preparation of them for posting, and I'll certainly invite other emeritus General Authorities in the future. Moreover, I intend, eventually, to prepare and post entries for such luminaries as Elders James Talmage and John Widtsoe.

Anyone as a right to argue that any other given person, living or dead, would say, or are saying, any given thing. Living persons will possibly rebut; the dead will not; both will have some who will assume the mantle of their supposed counter-arguments. That’s what discussions and appeals to authority are all about, and as such, are both valuable and legitimate.

I'm not merely claiming that Leonard Arrington said what I quote him as saying. He did say it, and he said it in a published book.

Nobody has even attempted to present an argument here contesting that he didn't believe what I quote him as saying.

Daniel, for me, the problem is the way you form your presentation. A casual reader might think, until the end of the bio, that Arrington was still living and/or had written the testimony specifically for your site. That's problematic.

I agree. Since the bio opens with the words "Leonard J. Arrington (d. 1999)," it would have to be a very casual reader indeed who continued to assume that that Arrington is still living and wrote the testimony specifically for my site.

That's problematic.

It comes across a little manipulative and hurts your cause.

I don't see that at all.

This could be very easily remedied with a slight re-wording.

I have, to be candid, been astonished at the poor reading that seems to be behind many of the objections posted here.

I'm not surprised at Scratch, of course, whose intense hatred of me has burned passionately for at least the five years that he's been obsessively documenting it on line. But I've been greatly surprised that he's succeeded in recruiting two or three people to join him here in what I regard as one of the craziest complaint-threads I've ever encountered.

There may indeed be a slight re-wording. Not, primarily, to help poor readers understand what's going on -- though that will be a factor -- but to accommodate the new quotations that Nevo has so helpfully provided above.

[_gramps]

Dr. Peterson,

Perhaps you could also fix the bio to include the fact that Leonard Arrington was in effect booted out of his position as church historian, and the Church brethren did not seem to hold him in the same esteem as the historians in his field and that due to the acrimony between Arrington and the brethren, his picture does not stand with the rest of the church historians. You seemed to have left out some of the real conflict that had arisen between the brethren and Leonard Arrington. A nice whitewash. I just read your bio again to see if I missed something. Feel free to inform me if I did so.

In other words, your bio seems to have gone through the correlation process. Good job keeping up the tradition, though, of leaving out the other side of the story. I wouldn't have expected otherwise. Though it is still disappointing.

[_Morley]

....
Those who don't already know that will be able to deduce it, perhaps, from the opening words of the biography immediately appended below the entry, which read "Leonard J. Arrington (d. 1999)."
....

Hmm, I may indeed, be one of those poor readers to which you're referring. If this reference ["Leonard J. Arrington (d. 1999)."], was there when you first posted the bio, I missed it.