"New Mormon History"?
 

The FARMS article reviewing Palmer's An Insider's View of Mormon Origins talks about something called "New Mormon History," apparently a movement within the LDS church among active Mormons (seemingly populated by former members of the CES) attempting to give an empirical perspective of Mormon origins, ineluctably debunking stories about gold plates, angels and visitations from Christ, yet purporting to retain a seed of belief in Joseph experiencing "an [ambiguous] encounter with God" (as Palmer puts it), and purporting to avoid polemics pro- or anti-Mormon. Is this true? FARMS says The New Mormon History is just anti-Mormonism by a new name, like creationism dressed up as "intelligent design" (my analogy not theirs). Comments?

an empirical perspective on Mormonism, means a rationale one, not a spiritual one.

Hence believers will reject an empirical basis as the sole way to look at Mormonism, since they believe that God's truth is primarily approached through the Spirit.

SU, if you have no idea what I'm talking about, then what I have said is probably true.

SU, New Mormon history isn't that new. It started in the 1970's (although it should probably be traced to Brodie and Brooks). It really refers just refers to the generation of historians that wrote non-hagiographic history (or maybe revisionist is a better description). Quinn is probably the best example of a "New Mormon Historian" but Bushman fits as well.

Also, New Mormon history doesn't necessarily reject foundational truth claims. As I mentioned Quinn is the poster by for New Mormon history and even today (after being excommunicated) he doesn't rejected the foundational truth claims of Mormonism.

Palmer says this is just a lot of emotion, and the experience is described similarly across religions. I smiled at how the non-apologetic review (apparently written by Evangelicals) remonstrated that in contrast to Mormonism, which now is reduced to finding truth through that burning in the bosom experience,

"the position held by the vast majority of evangelicals employs various objective epistemological methods in identifying and verifying biblical truth, which is quite contrary to what Palmer asserts. It is the Mormon position, particularly the epistemological method advocated for determining the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, which is overtly subjective to emotional feeling. The challenge of Moroni 10:4-5 evidences this subjective illusion foundational to Mormonism."

This irony is as delicious as tooblue claiming to be a postmodernist. I love irony. There's no better means to truth.

But that's the thing. You can't convince a believer that it is just "emotionalism."

The believer has tasted of the fruit of the Tree of Life and knows the difference between that and heartburn.

Just to be clear. What MW and SU are discussing in this thread in my view has very little to what I would call "New Mormon History." It appears "New Mormon History" has been reduced to Palmer (a non-Historian).

When I read this statement, I really wonder if he's had a spiritual experience in his life or not.

I have experienced innumerable emotional experiences over the years. The feelings, emotions, physical manifestations of emotional experiences are distinctly and undeniably different than the powerful manifestations of the Spirit.

It's not even close. To claim otherwise simply is to be completely ignorant or to completely intellectually disingenuous.

I confessed to not knowing what New Mormon History is, and, as I noted, I have only read reviews of Palmer's book, not the real artifact. So yes, I am not purporting to make any representations about what is New Mormon History other than what I gleaned from the FARMS article, which, as I have noted, is inherently suspect.

I am not necessarily addressing this to you Indy, your post just made me think of this.

Why do we seem to worry about whether someone else had an emotional or spiritual experience. It neither validates nor invalidates my experiences.

If some guy tells about his spiritual experience I do not then go back and recount my spiritual experiences and analyze if they were emotional or spiritual.

If guy has a spiritual experience and from it determines diet coke is against the WOW, good for him. As long as he doesn't try to then say it is against the WOW for me. The spirit testifies to him for him, not me.

Fair enough. SU, you're a good man.