Mormon Neo-Orthodoxy, Chs. 3-5

I used to avoid weekend blogging, but as weekdays have gotten busier, I find myself doing meatier posts on the weekend and sliding by with quickie "link and comment" posts during the week. So here I am on Saturday afternoon writing a post on (1) why I think the second half of Mormon Neo-Orthodoxy misses the mark rather badly; and (2) why any book trying to address LDS doctrine faces similar difficulties. My two earlier posts on the book are here and here; the book is available online here.

What Exactly Does "Neo-Orthodox" Mean?

It means the general view of and approach to Christian doctrine and theology exemplified by Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, and Reinhold Niebuhr. And what does Neo-Orthodoxy have to do with Mormon doctrine? That's the big problem with the second half of the book — it doesn't really establish any direct connection between the mid-20th century brand of Christian theology developed by the above-named theologians (discussed in Chapter Two) and the more conservative approach to LDS doctrine that emerged in the last third of the 20th century.

A direct influence could be demonstrated if one or more leading LDS thinkers had, for example, studied under a (Christian) Neo-Orthodox scholar, or if there were numerous quotes and citations in LDS books or articles that were used to support or illustrate more conservative LDS doctrines. There is nothing like this. The book really doesn't even show an indirect influence, say if Neo-Orthodoxy had such a pervasive influence on American theology that LDS thinkers just picked it up without realizing it.

All the book did, I think, was note the role of Neo-Orthodoxy in emphasizing a more conservative (or traditional or orthodox) approach to Christian theology (rejecting both liberal and fundamentalist approaches); then note how LDS doctrine moved from the mildly liberal flavor one finds in some LDS thinkers in the early 20th century (Widtsoe and Roberts, for example) to a more conservative approach taken in the last third of the 20th century. There really isn't anything particularly "Neo-Orthodox" about the shift in LDS doctrine. And it's hard to find any crisis in the 20th-century LDS experience that matches the First World War and its effect on Europe and on Barth that was held to be the crisis that gave rise to "crisis theology" (another term for Neo-Orthodoxy). But if influence by Christian Neo-Orthodoxy doesn't explain the conservative trend in LDS doctrine, what does?

Explaining Mormon Doctrine

Let's assume that just as a more conservative Evangelical Protestantism has largely displaced the more liberal mainline Protestant denominations, so in Mormonism has the general doctrinal and social trend become more conservative. There is some basis for that idea: Armand Mauss, looking at the sociology rather than the theology of Mormonism, came to the same general conclusion. But how exactly do we explain a shift in LDS doctrine? What sort of model does one use for which the output is labeled "Mormon doctrine"?

A "revelation model" would seem like the straightforward orthodox response. But why would God direct LDS leaders to follow a liberal slant in the early 20th century, then follow a conservative direction in the late 20th century? God doesn't go with the cultural or theological flow in quite that fashion. So the orthodox explanation, I think, doesn't appeal to revelation to explain shifts in LDS doctrine. Instead, it denies there is any change in LDS doctrine that needs explaining, except for explicit revelatory pronouncements of the Official Declaration variety. The revelation model isn't really interested in documenting and explaining doctrinal change.

A softer but still orthodox approach would be an "interpretation model," explaining that the true doctrines have been there all along in the modern revelations (the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and other LDS scriptural texts) but early LDS leaders didn't fully grasp or appreciate them. As LDS thinkers and leaders became more sophisticated students and scholars of Mormon scripture, this approach notes, their understanding and interpretation of LDS doctrine changed from what they were in the 19th century and early 20th century to what we have today. That's pretty much the approach Lou Midgley takes in his lengthy FARMS review of Mormon Neo-Orthodoxy.

White's approach in Mormon Neo-Orthodoxy is really a third sort or model, a social-scientific approach holding that religious doctrines are a function of beliefs in the general culture or that they are a function of more basic and fundamental economic and social factors. Except that he doesn't then accumulate independent economic and social data to explain a shift in LDS doctrine — he just quotes a bunch of articles, books, and talks by an odd assortment of LDS thinkers. The approach he took in the last three chapters doesn't seem to connect with the model he sketched out in the first two chapters. Maybe he tried to do this (a much larger task) in later books or articles; it just doesn't come through in the book.

Concluding, I'll leave two open questions for further discussion. First, which authors have done a better job with the social-scientific approach to doctrine formation in the LDS context? O'Dea leaps to mind, but I haven't read The Mormons in a long time. In any case, I think the approach deserves a better treatment than it got in this book. Second, how exactly does one nail down Mormon doctrine (absent an official LDS catechism) to do any sort of comparison between Mormon doctrine a hundred years ago versus what it is today? That's the more general problem I alluded to in the opening paragraph. That question deserves a post of its own at some point (and I recognize that it has been discussed at various blogs many times before — links appreciated).

[Note: Minor style edits and a couple of expansions added 4-22.]

Comments

[Mark D.]

I think there are weaknesses in the book, but I do not think the nomenclature issue is a particularly serious one. It is not necessary for the author's argument that he establish any direct relationship between what he terms "Mormon Neo-orthodoxy" and Protestant Neo-orthodoxy. His fundamental thesis only requires that the mainstream of Mormon theology moved in roughly the same direction as in the Protestant world during the period concerned.

I think that is unmistakable, and that it is particularly unmistakable if you consider that the Mormon "crisis" actually started a few decades earlier with the federal assault on the very existence of the institutional Church over the practice of polygamy.

That is enough of a similarity that the idea of a crisis reaction can be sustained even without the hypothesis that Mormon and Protestant communities in America were similarly affected by two world wars and the Great Depression.

[Mark D.]

I might add that Blake Ostler's Exploring Mormon Thought: The Attributes of God has an excellent summary of the Mormon theological tension in chapter 3, "The Restoration and Systematic Theologies".

He calls the more contemporary variety "Neo-absolutist Mormonism", which I believe is a much more accurate title than "Neo-orthodox Mormonism", which can easily be construed about three different ways depending on what the standard of orthodoxy is believed to be.

[Clark Goble]

While "neo-absolutism" is perhaps nicer, the be problem with the neo-orthodoxy book was how McConkie and Nibley ended up in the same boat with their, to me, radically different theologies.

The problem with neo-absolutism is that while it deals with the theology in terms of ontology, it tends to not deal with the epistemological or hermeneutic issues. If the "death" of neo-absolutism is FARMS and FAIR then I'd argue that what is more significant is less the ontological issues in theology than the hermeneutic approach to texts.

[Dave]

It would be nice if you could fill that in a bit, Clark. I am not sure what set of concepts fall under the category "neo-absolutism," much less "Mormon neo-absolutism." That's part of a more general problem, I think, that theological and doctrinal terms and labels developed in the practice of Christian theology don't necessarily translate well when looking at Mormon doctrine, which has essentially followed its own independent path with little reference to Christian thinking.

But I agree that White's odd grouping of LDS thinkers is problematic. A more recent and nuanced look at classifying views of Mormon doctrine is John-Charles Duffy's Defending the Kingdom, Rethinking the Faith: How Apologetics is Reshaping Mormon Orthodoxy.

[Clark Goble]

Neo-absolutism, in Blake's book, is roughly that God has true logical omnis. That is he knows right now all truths and there will never be a truth he doesn't know. To a more limited degree he has all power and can do anything even if he chooses not to. (I think there are degrees on that one - I'm not convinced McConkie accepts that one) God can't progress except by having more kingdoms but in his character and abilities he is complete.

Now that does describe the theology of most people put in the neo-orthodox camp, but not everyone. Nibley's theological beliefs are definitely different from McConkie. Some folks put in the neo-orthodox camp like Chauncey Riddle also have much more nuanced views.

My point though is simply that what is often most at issue is less their metaphysical commitments than the way they read scripture. So if we're turning to a principle it probably should be a categories based upon hermeneutics: i.e. the way they read scripture. Now once again there will be problem. Nibley is, all things considered, actually closer hermeneutically to McConkie than I think most are willing to recognize. Although clearly, because of his education if nothing else, the way he reads scriptures is different. But there's a lot of similarity. Ditto with Chauncey Riddle.

So I think if attempts to take's Blake's category (which wasn't intended for this use) to "fix" the neo-orthodoxy category then one is probably not going to end up with a fruitful analysis. Probably if you want to do something it will be focused on hermeneutics. Simply put while there is a lot of common ground between FARMS and McConkie (surprisingly so when you stop to think about it) there is also a fairly significant difference in how scripture is read. Even though there's an obvious connection between FARMS and Nibley, I think most FARMS folks read scripture much more loosely and allow a lot more fallibilism than Nibley typically did. Although I think Nibley fits into a middle ground between a more literalistic hermeneutic ala JFS/BRM and the more scientific focused FARMS contributors.

[Mark D.]

Dave,

I think it would be a serious mistake to underestimate the influence of classical theism and conventional Christian theology on the development of LDS theology, especially over the past century or so.

I believe the most significant event in LDS theology since the death of Joseph Smith was the apostolic rejection of the Adam-God theory in the early twentieth century. Splinter groups talk about it as part and parcel of the Mormon Apostasy, but the rejection was ultimately based on giving greater priority to the scriptures than to a prophet who was still in living memory.

Many of the twentieth century apostles certainly read and studied the prominent Protestant biblical commentaries. James Talmage certainly did - and he was charged with writing the official clarification on the whole issue.

If anything the history of twentieth century LDS theology is a drift from radical theological progressivism into a neo-orthodoxy based not so much on Protestant theology per se, but rather by applying the rather naive hermeneutical approach of conservative Protestant scholars to the expanded LDS canon.

Some doctrines are described so well in latter-day scripture that they could stand any conventional theological assault. However, there are many others that are not so clear - and in particular Mormon theological progressivism regarding the key issue of the similarity between God and man withered over the period in favor of an approach that like Protestantism (and Augustinianism before that) emphasized the differences.

And rather than clarifying matters it made the LDS theological muddle worse - it makes the KFD / Snow couplet sense of exaltation virtually a logical impossibility.