Quote:
Originally Posted by il Padrino Ute
Well, I've yet to read Bushman's book, so I can't comment if he puts a positive spin on things. My understanding is that he portrays JS as being more human.
I don't know if there will never be a truly objective book about Mormonism.
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I guess that's my point. Any book from a faithful perspective, in my opinion, cannot possibly be objective. Faith is by definition not objective. On the other hand, books are a lot of work to write, so they tend not to be written by dispassionate people, so many books that evaluate it from an outside perspective tend to seem negative. Is the correct understanding of a religion always the faithful one? I would submit that this is obviously not the case.
I think Bushman is important for the church, because if the two options are the white-washed version and biased negative version, I would guess the biased negative version would be closer to the truth. Bushman seems to provide something in the middle, but I wonder if he includes some negative things only in order to appear objective while continuing in his faith-promoting agenda. It's been a while since I read his first book about the history of the church (the orange one), so I can't recall specifics.
It seems likely that the best perspective is going to come from reading a combination of viewpoints, and I think doing so is important in any topic. There are a bunch of creationists running around who actually believe that the science supports their position, because the only "science" books they read are the ones that put lipstick on their pig of a belief system. I bet you could make scientology seem like a good, upstanding set of beliefs from a faithful perspective.