Establishment Bias | Truman G. Madsen and Charles D. Tates, Jr., eds., To the Glory of God: Mormon Essays on Great Issues

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These twelve essays are dedicated to the memory of the late B. West Belnap of Brigham Young University. Most of the writers have been or are associated with the College of Religious Instruction at Brigham Young University. 

There are five essays this reviewer rates as well done: Brigham Young’s attitude toward the environment is impressively summarized in Hugh Nibley’s “Brigham Young on the Environment”; C. Terry Warner has an interesting discussion of two paradigms: the “natural man” and the “spiritual man”; Leonard Arrington’s “Centrifugal Tendencies in Mormon History” does what is needed: he analyzes the careers of people who defect from the Church, without being judgmental; Richard L. Anderson’s account of Oliver Cowdery’s non-Church decade is in formative; and Martin B. Hickman’s defense of the system of sustaining officers in the Church is well-written, even though this reviewer cannot accept the merits of the system he defends. (Where is the check on bad leaders if the members are taught to remain loyal to a leader long after the leader ceases to merit support?) 

One essay that requires comment is “Mormonism and the Nature of Man,” by Chauncey C. Riddle. Riddle contrasts what he calls the monistic view of man and the dualistic conception. His monistic view is one which few Christians would accept, as it is basically agnostic and naturalistic. It is a “straw man” which is easy to shoot down from a theistic perspective. Riddle contrasts this monistic concept with the “correct,” dualistic view, where the real man is spirit, which must contend against the flesh. Compare Riddle’s analysis with the view of the eminent theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, who is Christian Realism and Political Problems states that St. Augustine broke with the dualism of the classical philosophers in favor of a biblical conception of man as an integral unity of mind and body. The Augustinian view is “monistic,” and is held by many thoughtful Christians. It would have been more responsible for Riddle to have matched his dualism with a Chris tian monism of the Augustinian-Niebuhrian variety. 

The collection has several general weaknesses. One is the lack of a central theme. Although billed as “essays on great issues,” the issues dealt with are not the great issues, and some of them seem hardly to be issues at all. 

The treatment of some of the issues is disappointing. For example, David Yarn’s “Peace—Whither?” turns out to be about the need for inner peace rather than world peace. He should have explained his view that “many so-called peace advocates” actually “love Satan more than God” (p. 116). Neal A. Maxwell should have explained his statement: “The scriptures give us a balanced approach to poverty through the gospel of work, which provides the ultimate parameters for the solution of poverty” (p. 98). Does he mean that the solution to poverty is to instruct the unemployed to get busy and work? 

The strong “establishment” bias running through the essays was a particular disappointment for a book dedicated to the memory of a great scholar and teacher. Great scholars are not generally known as expounders of orthodoxies. Maxwell even goes so far as to glibly state that “the scriptures tell us about the thrill of orthodoxy” and that “orthodoxy takes great courage” (p. 99). While there may be situations where orthodoxy takes courage, it is more often the case that orthodoxy is the safe way out. 

Another example of this establishment bias is Nibley’s statement that after Joseph Smith’s death, “only the faithful remnant of the Church went West” (p. 26). It would be more accurate to acknowledge that not all of the faithful nor only the faithful went West. Some scoundrels went West and some good, faithful Mormons chose not to follow Brigham, for many reasons, including concern about polygamy and the political directions in which the Church was moving. 

A noticeable evidence of the uncritical acceptance of established orthodoxy is the recurring tendency to accept unquestioningly the teachings of Joseph Smith. This is particularly evident when dealing with issues that relate to biblical scholar ship. The literalistic, pre-2oth century view of the Bible is reflected in the citations of biblical passages. There are passages cited as “Paul to the Hebrews,” even though the vast majority of scholars are convinced that “Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews” was not written by Paul, was not an epistle, and was not addressed to the Hebrews. Warner labels a passage from the book of Revelation as “The Lord to the Churches at Laodicea and Sardis” (p. 37) and Maxwell does the same (p. 97). 

The Book of Mormon is also approached uncritically. Robert K. Thomas cites several Book of Mormon stories as “clearly in Hebraic tradition” (p. 135), but he has not demonstrated such to be the case. He refers to strange Book of Mormon words such as “neas and sheum” and “cureloms and cumons” as “persuasive in ternal evidence” of the book’s claims because the existence of hapax legomena is regarded as evidence of the authenticity of ancient records (p. 155). He fails to consider the fact that here we have an English “translation” from an unknown language, so there is no way to examine the entire Book of Mormon in “reformed Egyptian.” Therefore, we have no way to authenticate these as hapax legomena. Thomas’ view that Nephi’s slaying of Laban was a sign “he has started to grow up” (p. 153) is difficult to accept, since the rationale for the slaying seems essentially the same as the rationale for the Inquisition: “Behold the Lord slayeth the wicked to bring forth his righteous purposes. It is better that one man should perish, than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief.” 

So while these essays are generally stimulating and worthwhile, they fail to demonstrate the kind of independent analysis that men with such credentials ought to be producing.

To the Glory of Cod: Mormon Essays on Great Issues. Edited by Truman G. Madsen and Charles D. Tate, Jr. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1972. 234 pp. $4.95.