Mormon Stories # 054: Nate Oman — On Messiness, Harvard, the Bloggernacle, and Thoughtful Faith
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Chances are, you’ve never heard of Nate Oman. Nevertheless — Nate is a Mormon worth knowing. Born to Sunstone and Dialogue – style parents, Nate was raised to expect “messiness” within both the world, and his Church. After serving an LDS mission in Korea and graduating from BYU, Nate attended Harvard Law School. During law school, Nate became one of the very first Mormon bloggers on the Internet, and is one of the founders of the juggernaut blog “timesandseasons.org” — you might even call Nate Oman the godfather of the Mormon bloggernacle (or the network of Mormon-themed blogs on the Internet).
Finally, and perhaps most importantly — Nate is one of those remarkable types of Mormons who knows all (or at least most) of the tough historical and doctrinal issues with Mormonism — and yet retains a somewhat simple faith in the divinity of the church. He is also a gentleman.
So without any further ado — This is Nate Oman’s story …. the Mormon bloggernacle’s story … and your story …. today on Mormon Stories.
To access this interview, subscribe via iTunes, or click here to listen to the audio directly.
Hi Nate,
Thanks for putting yourself out there. I am about to finally listen to your interview. Let me respond to your written statements.
I agree with you that the LDS Church should not be at the forefront of the historical research. It’s a lot better to leave that to particular scholars.
Unfortunately, I don’t see much evidence of such self-restraint.
The problem is rather a pattern of suppression and intimidation. It’s not just Michael Quinn and Grant Palmer but Lavina Anderson uncovered over one hundred cases of ecclesiastical interference with scholarship. Her publication remains unchallenged to this day.
Ironically, the LDS hierarchy did its best to confirm Anderson’s hypothesis by responding to her article with excommunication.
In light of the published research on Mormon studies and ecclesiastical interference, one cannot rationally deny that LDS leaders went to great lenghts to suppress independent historiography.
Fortunately, there have been some encouraging signs lately, especially when Tom Murphy’s stake president stepped back from excommunicating the anthropologist. On the other hand, we have also had to witness the disfellowshipping of Grant Palmer for his book and the excommunication of Simon Southerton on trumped up charges.
It would be wonderful if the LDS Church were to withdraw from the research business. As it is, we are continuing to reenact Galileo Galilei in the 21st century and that’s much more embarrassing than anything that historians may learn about our origin myth.
Jason #47: “As I said above, I am ok with messiness resulting from human action, but I seize up when the messiness is attributed to God”
For what its worth, my own faith is in a place where I accept the human messiness, and when messiness is attributed to God… well, that is just another example of human messiness. After all, it IS humans that are presenting the idea that God is responsible for the imperfection. If a human could still deliver something inspirational in spite of issues like polyandry or the BofA and so forth, then why should we expect more from a modern GA? Isn’t the same paradox ever-present? The ability to simultaneuous be a vehicle for incredible good and because that potential exists it means that mistakes in judgement (including the very mistake of proclaiming that God doesn’t allow them to make mistakes in judgement) have the potential for incredible harm.
Also, I agree with Nate on the human infection of scripture, and of course its not just Mormon scripture. Many stories in the Old Testament seem remarkably more like fables that have become fantasticized and embellished over generations of oral transferrence than an equivalent of a news report of actual events. We often talk about scriptural stories as if they are newspaper stories. But some things just seem so completely bizarre, yet you can see the power and effectiveness in that ol’ ancient Jewish tradition to inspire faith with the elements of stories that are most appealing. Drama, underdogs, impossible victories, walking in fire unburned, talking animals. Yet, even though they seem like fables to me, I still enjoy trying to find the wisdom that was originally intended to convey.
People rarely follow my tangents…but:
I’d predict more, not less, of an approaching falling out between a certain stripe of Mormon Liberals and the Orthodox – with those on the extremes being made to feel uncomfortable.
When the Church has gone through its poraxisms(?sp) of self-purification/shedding of refiner’s dross, what determines who’s shed and who’s not…but faith? Which simply can’t be something intellectual.
So, if I were a faithful Bloggernacle-er, I’d stay ahead of the curve and attend to my Internet pees and kews before participation in free-form Intenet forums become taboo. How? Well, when I was thinking about that, I noticed certain things I thought when I observed brother Mitt’s responding to interviewers’ questions about his beliefs, where he’d offered disclaimers about strange things all religions believe…
And I thought, Sure that communicates well to people like me who doubt. But to make the case for one’s being somebody who informs his decisions from out of his faith, one needs to
communicate this to believers. How? Well, how about saying: “I don’t like labels! – don’t even like the term ‘Mormon’, in fact! I may happen to find myself born into a certain faith tradition that formally calls itself “Latter-day Saint” but I don’t truly believe myself to actually be a latter-day saint – however my faith tradition leads him to aspire to be; and therefore I spend one day a week performing communal functions with this faith community and serving others. And, yes, I make certain decisions as informed by faith, but in such a way as I try to be informed by high ethical and moral ideals. And this is how I’ve sorted these questions out as applied to policy questions and whatnot.”
So if I try and transpose this from politicking to blogging…say I was somebody discussing historical questions concerning my tradition’s foundational scriptures, how would I communicate the language of faith to believers while I also remain respectful of facts/ questions as may be raised by even doubters? Well, by staying within certain bounds, I guess…that circumscribed by faith – and make what that is understandable and communicable.
May all the faithful folk on-line who display such
wonderful performances receive much applause (it being what I come here for…my way of “attending church”!) And may my worldly applause be taken in some kind of positive way, despite it’s not being what’s most essentially appropriate…which is, rather, communal affirmation from your fellow faitful of “So be it!/So may it be!” :^)
Matt Thurston: Why should I want my particular beliefs to become the Mormon mainstream? (Incidentally, I don’t regard myself as outside of the Mormon mainstream on all that many things.) I am not upset by the fact that I worship in pews with folks who have a different approach to scriptural or historical interpretation than I do. I don’t feel alienated from those in my ward who think about things differently, and as for intellectual discussions of Mormonism, I find that my problem is not finding them but rather extricating myself from them so they don’t take up too much of my time!
In terms of persuading people, to the extent that it is something I want to do I think we do best by emphasizing continuity of beliefs, a commitment to the unique divinity of the Restoration, and recognition of human frailty couched in scriptural terms, e.g. acknowledgment of the errors of men in the Book of Mormon, fallible prophets in the scriptures, etc.
Hellmut: We’ve been around the barn a number of times on this, and I doubt there is much point in doing so again. FWIW, I think that the most important bit of scholarship to come out recently on Mormonism is not _An Insiders View_, but Bushman’s RSR. I think that if you are interested in understanding the sorts of intellectual and political issues involved in the study of Mormonism, you do best to look at the reception of RSR. Rough patches to be sure. Rampant hostility to intellectual inquiry? Hogwash.
Nate, there is a double blind peer reviewed paper that documents over one hundred cases of intimidation.
I don’t know why the relative quality of RSR would be relevant to the question. Bushman reviews the historical research and creates his narrative about the Mormon origin myth. He does not discuss Lavina Anderson’s paper.
Of course, LDS leaders will not punish Bushman. He is the guy who does damage control after the horse is out of the barn. Nothing he says is more unwelcome than what others have not said before him. RSR is old news with a positive spin.
It serves its function because it validates the identity of believers such as yourself. That benefits LDS leaders. It’s not spectacular that Bushman is not yet excommunicated.
Lets assume for the matter of argument that Bushman enjoys the freedom to say whatever without interference of LDS leaders, even if that were true it would still be irrelevant for it does not undo the censoring that Anderson reports in her paper and that we continue to witness since.
The fact is that LDS officers are using their power to punish scholars and discredit them in the eyes of believers. That is sufficient to establish “hostility to intellectual inquiry,” and when it happens a hundred times then it’s also “rampant.”
I want to get back to the gender issue raised by Charlene.
I understand Nate’s response within the framework of the overall discussion of ‘messiness’ in intellectual matters, but I think that the appeal to gender actually broadens the terms of the initial discussion. It would be easy to assume that feminism is either wholly emotional and irrational or rational but unrealistic, but the response of some Mormon feminist women to the LDS Church is a complex mixture of intellect, emotion, and spirit. Feminism may demand that we look at the same picture through much different eyes, and the results can be quite affecting.
Whether we want to accept it or not, some Mormon women have had very powerful experiences of their Mother in Heaven, yet they have been asked or compelled to be silent about them. Some Mormon women have, in looking at the history of the early Church, seen some possibilities for a different, more enriching (to them) faith and practice.
I am not a woman, but I recall taking the time to focus on the role of Eve in the temple drama a couple of times. Although I am a man, and this may mean I’ll never get it completely right, I have to say that I found the whole experience a lot less uplifting. Indeed, I found it kind of depressing. I was most struck by the silence of Eve after a certain point. Her voice all but disappears completely.
There is a whole lot going on in the heart, souls, and minds of Mormon women on the margins. I think it is fair to say that when they look at the Church today with some sadness, there is something to be sad about. Correlation *has* diminished the power of women in the Church. It is not at all self evident that only men should have the priesthood. It is not at all clear that in the temple they were not given some kind of priesthood that they nevertheless are not acknowledged to possess.
What makes some of these women on the margins sad is that they do have faith and spiritual yearnings, and they see possibilities in Mormon tradition for so much more than they experience in the Church today. It becomes difficult for some to hang on when they feel impeded by the current state of the Church.
They feel something much greater in their souls, but they are not given the opportunity to exercise it publicly and legitimately. At every step the organization of their external Church experience, which does affect the inner soul, is engineered by people who will never completely understand them, and who are no more inherently capable of excercising faith, intellect, or leadership than they are. Women holding visible and equal power in the organization might actually bring something beneficial to it. Seeing that possibility and suffering in the absence of its realization has to be painful to those whose spirits are so inclined.
Hellmut: If what you were saying were true, I would have been intimidated about my views of the Book of Mormon on which I openly published. That hasn’t happened. I suspect that what you call intimidation regarding scholarship has much more to do with sheer judgmentalness and slant (which I believe underlies a lot of Lavina’s case studies) than with scholarship. What we get are a lof of angry people who are venting and blaming the Church for matters on which they refuse to take personal accountability. At least that is how I see it (and I knew personally of a few of the incidents reported and my view was verrryyy different that reported and I deemed the reports vastly one-sided and slanted).
If a person explores an issue without attacking, they will be fine. If their stated goal is to destroy faith or inhibit its work in the world, how else would you expect it to respond? I don’t like excomminication except where a person is so blind that only a loving slap in the face will get their attention.
On the other hand, Hellmut, your comments always seem to be challenging and in good faith. I appreciate them.
BTW Nate: Good job! Will there be a follow up?
“…there is a double blind peer reviewed paper that documents over one hundred cases of intimidation.”
Could you please provide a reference? I’m curious to see how a series of case documentations can be “double blinded.”
“What we get are a lof of angry people who are venting and blaming the Church for matters on which they refuse to take personal accountability. At least that is how I see it (and I knew personally of a few of the incidents reported and my view was verrryyy different that reported and I deemed the reports vastly one-sided and slanted).”
I don’t know any of these cases personally, but I think this comment comes close to suggesting that everyone who has had a problem with the LDS Church is just another angry person who is venting. In other words, they can’t possibly have a legitimate issue with the LDS Church. I prefer J. Bonner Ritchie’s view–organizations do cause harm, but to a certain degree this is inevitable. What we should strive to do is learn to protect ourselves from this abuse, and do what we can to protect others from it. Demonizing the LDS Church or its victims will not achieve either goal.
Trevor: As it turns out you have hit on one of the primary reasons why I see the reports as one sided and slanted. The refusal to take accountability and to blame others is also prominent. That doesn’t imply that there cannot be unrighteous dominion; just that it is incumbent on one who calls foul to take accountability for their accountiablity in the situation and to do so expressly. It is unjust to call another to accountability without accepting one’s own.
Blake, I am happy for you that you did not get into trouble but that does not disprove other events. Your reference to your own experience expresses faulty logic. It’s like saying:
Todd was hit by a car.
Sue was not hit by a car.
Therefore cars don’t hit people.
Your experience does not cancel anyone else’s. Anderson has documented over one hundred cases by 1993. One would be sufficient to prove my point.
If you are confident that Anderson’s work is biased then it should be easy for you to prove her wrong. Your judgement of her is pretty strong. Why don’t you put your opinion to the test and publish a rejoinder?
That’s what rational people do. They subject their opinions to logic and evidence.
As it is, Anderson’s work remains unchallenged in the peer reviewed literature for almost fourteen years. That’s no small feat. If you want to challenge that, go ahead and collect the data that proves her wrong.
Until then, it is not reasonable to assert bias in the absence of evidence. It’s also bad form, especially since you seem to say that you have not read Anderson’s paper.
Here is the citation:
The LDS Intellectual Community and Church Leadership:
A Contemporary Chronology
Lavina Fielding Anderson*
Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Vol.26, No.1, (Spring 1993)
With respect to taking responsibility for one’s own actions, notice that Dallin Oaks disagrees with you, Blake, he thinks that one is supposed to be an advocate.
Be that as it may, in the case of Anderson that is a mute point because she published the article before she herself was disciplined. As I said before, LDS leaders couldn’t have validated Anderson’s work better than by excommunicating her for documenting ecclesiastical abuse.
Nietzsche was right about one thing. Power makes stupid.
Trevor, you are, of course, correct that every organization abuses people. However, if one studies institutions comparatively, which happens to be my research area, then the perspective reveals that the design of the LDS Church enables abuse to an extraordinary degree.
Notice, not even the Catholic Church excommunicates scholars any longer.
Catholicism makes for a good baseline, for authority plays a similar role Mormon and Catholic theology. In the Catholic Church, the accused can rely on canon law, has the right to representation and any decision can be appealed. During the appeal, the accused remains involved party to the process and retains legal council.
In other words, the Catholic Church has the rule of law. Catholic leaders have created institutions that constrains their ability to abuse power. In the LDS Church, leaders are just as human as in the Catholic Church but there is little to no capacity to deal with the abuse of power.
During the pedophilia scandals that continue to threaten the financial assets of multiple dioceses, not one activist was ecclesiastically disciplined. Even if somebody like Cardinal Law or Mahony would have wanted to exercise power in that way, they could not have because they were institutionally constrained.
In the LDS Church that’s not the case. Hence it cannot surprise anybody that we have excommunicated mothers who would not shut up when their children were abused by their bishop.
Lets take a look at how the institutional differences play out in scholarship. When Hans Küng concluded from his analysis of the gospels that the contradictions undermine the central tenets of the Catholic faith including the immaculate conception, the divinity of Christ, and the atonement, the Vatican withdrew his approbation.
That means that Küng’s courses did not qualify for the training of priests any longer. Küng was not defrogged or excommunicated. From an orthodox Catholic point of view, the authorities did nothing to threaten Küng’s salvation.
By contrast, we require historians to deny their research, which would be lying, to preserve their membership. Since neither liars nor non-members can obtain salvation, our leaders have created a population to which the atonement no longer applies.
That’s a greater sacrilege than anything that any historian can possibly commit.
Why do Mormon leaders do that? Trevor has the answer: because they can; and when one can then many people will. It’s the easy way out and humans like easy.
Because they make it harder for leaders to abuse their power, Catholicism and many other organizations are superior institutions to the LDS Church .
Lets remember that the problem of abusive power has been well studied. I assume that everyone is familiar with the Federalist Papers of 1789, for example. While we have not been able to find a perfect solution, there is a lot that we can do about it.
And yet here we are in 2006 and the LDS Church has almost zero capacity to deal with matters of ecclesiastical abuse. We do not even have the capacity to shield the mother of a raped child against institutional retribution.
In the sense of institutional capacity, the LDS Church is an extreme case. It’s an outlier unless we want to compare ourselves to authoritarian and totalitarian institutions. In that case, we perform better because we benefit from the public goods that the United States government generates.
Therefore, it is incorrect to claim that the shortcomings of our institution are typical. There are a lot of institutions that are better designed to deal with human imperfection than the LDS Church.
The reports on that site of which I have some first hand knowledge seem fair and on the money. As far as being one sided, that’s the nature of any account. There is a Nazi wing of Mormonism. It was more prevalent when I was young. Fortunetly it has died out in many areas, but with no thanks to GAs as far as I can tell. It seems alive and well in the heart of Mormondom.
Jake, thanks for your question. For the reference, see post 63.
Double blind peer review refers to a technique, which constitutes the gold standard in research publishing. It means that authors and referrees (who evaluate the research) are supposed to remain anonymous during the review process. The review process determines whether a submission is of sufficient quality to deserve publication.
Like I said Hellmut, I have personal knowledge of a few of these cases and I don’t view them at all like Lavina presents them. With all due respect, I was much closer to the players than you at this distance. I really don’t believe that you are in a position to judge. So why won’t I comment in a published source? Getting into privileged or confidential information is precisely one of the areas that is abusive so I won’t do it. However, all of those on the councils also had the same restraint. In fact, this is an area I’m an expert in, having been the chair of the Law for Clergy Committee of the Utah State Bar Association. No one who has such confidential information can comment. That makes whipping on the councils a very easy target. Do you have a proposal for evening out the playing field. So ironically the issue is mute, but not moot.
I of course didn’t assert that abuse couldn’t occur, just that we must be careful to take accountability when it does occur.
The Dialogue process is not a peer review. The article was not for example peer-reviewed by persons having expertise in organizations. It as not reviewed by someone with the organization that could check the accuracy of the assertions. Only one side of the process could be commented on at all.
Further, Lavina is a very good personal friend of mine. I like her a great deal. In fact, she edited both of my books! I just disagree with her take on these incidents.
However, I am open to suggestions about how to leel the playing field when it comes to commenting on discipline where those involved in the decision are effectively muzzled by priest-penitent privilege issues. I am also interested in any suggestions about procedural safeguards and how the Church could better safeguard members from abuse of authority and power.
Finally, your assertion that the Catholic church no longer disciplines scholars after it sanctioned Kung still has me scratching my head. He wasn’t excommunicated, but he was neutralized. Are you suggesting that the LDS Church ought to adopt a similar procedure? How does an institution deal with those who insist on taking actions to thwart its purposes or state false doctrines against which members must be warned?
Hellmut,
I have absolutely no personal knowledge on any of these scholars excommunication, so I will offer a few thoughts based on my limited understanding of how the church conducts itself (and unconstrained by a need to protect confidential info).
First, it is certainly true that there will only be one-side to these discussions reported. Those who are excommunicated are free to speak from their point of view, but nobody with first hand knowledge can speak from the point of view of the church.
Second, at some point in time a scholar or non-scholar who has embraced as truth views that are antithetical the church should not be a member of the church. It is not organizational abuse for the church to remove from membership those who undermine the authority of the church. I would suggest that this is precisely why Blake’s work on the BOM while quite contrary to many of the views from authorities, does not place in jeopardy his membership. Elder Maxwell commented on Nibley that while he on occasion offered some different ideas (and even sharp criticism), nobody could question his commitment to the gospel. I would guess that this is the difference between scholar who is disciplined and scholar who is not.
All organizations do this. When ones views develop into a position that is antithetical to the organization to which they belong, the organization should and usually does sever ties. Would anyone call Anthony Flew an atheist? Will he be given the pulpit to offer his views on infidels.org? I doubt it. Must be that those atheist wish to squash honest informed scholarship.
Now, concerning Catholicism I think your comparison is not solid. First, one is a Catholic based upon orthodoxy anyway. If you fail to believe Catholic dogmas, you are not Catholic. The severing of membership within the CoJCoLDS is much more formal.
Second, Catholicism protects itself with various stamps of official doctrine. Hans Kung does not receive an imprimatur on his books and the faithful Catholic may know that he is not expressing official doctrine.
Finally, I am not a fan of judging organizations based upon scandals and I am sure the CoJCoLDS has many a scandal present, but are you really suggesting that as an organization the Catholic Church has done a better job preventing sexual abuse by their clergy than the CoJCoLDS? This is largely intended to be rhetorical, but if you want to answer yes or no that would be fine. I would not be particularly interested in you parading every sexual scandal you can find before everyone, but it is a generally free board so do as you must.
Charity, TOm
Blake,
Where can I find your publications on the Book of Mormon?
Jake: You can find my article on the Expansion Theory of the Book of Mormon in Dialogue Summer 1987 (am I that old?). You can find my article on the Form Critical Analysis of the vision of Lehi in Blake T. Ostler, “The Throne-Theophany and Prophetic Commission in 1 Nephi:
A Form-Critical Analysis,” BYU Studies (Fall 1986): 67-87. You can find my assessment of the Covenant Renewal Form in Rediscovering The Book of Mormon 1991. You can find my articles on DNA and the Book of Mormon in the Dec. 2004 and May 2005 issues of Sunstone.
Thanks, Blake. As they say, getting older is better than the alternative.
Nate thank you for your letter in the September Ensign titled “Integrity in Reporting”. I agree with you, Kudos.