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On contending for the faith

On contending for the faith

Last updated on: September 8, 2024 at 2:27 pm by Dan Peterson

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On contending for the faith 2024-09-08T14:27:17-06:00 Dan Peterson

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Jana Dahmer as Miriam Works Young, with John Donovan Wilson as Brigham Young

We were fortunate in casting a remarkable “Joseph Smith” (aka Paul Wuthrich, whom many of you will also know through his leading role in Escape from Germany) in our movie Witnesses. And we knew that we would need to be similarly fortunate in our casting of a Brigham Young for Six Days in August.

Paul Wuthrich will reprise his role as Joseph Smith in Six Days in August. However — spoiler alert! — he does not last through the remainder of the story that is told in the new film. (I wish that I could say otherwise.)

In this very short video clip, the director of Six Days in August, Mark Goodman, tells of finding our Brigham. Several of the rest of us needed to sign off on the choice as well, but the decision was very clear to everybody: “There’s Your Brigham: Speaking in Tongues”:

Brigham Young had the spiritual gift of speaking in tongues. Six Days in August Director, Mark Goodman, found it challenging to find an actor to portray young Brigham Young, at all, let alone one that could speak in tongues! See this amazing audition from John Wilson. In that moment Mark knew, “There’s Your Brigham!” See the amazing performance of John Wilson and learn about the even more amazing man and prophet called of God–Brigham Young.

And, while still on the subject: Don’t miss this event in Orem, Utah, which will be held on the evening of Wednesday, 25 September: “Unveiling History: Six Days in August Fireside.”

“The Triumph of St Thomas Aquinas over the Heretics” (detail), painted between 1489 and 1491 in the Carafa chapel of the Church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome, by Filippino Lippi (1457-1504), the son of the more famous Fra Filippo Lippi. Something of a hero of mine, St. Thomas engaged in both “positive apologetics” and “negative apologetics,” as I define them.
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

I’m quite routinely dismissed in certain circles as a mere “apologist.” I don’t mind the term, though I regret the dismissal.

I believe that apologetics, as such, is inevitable. Stripped of specifically religious elements, it’s merely the advocacy or defense of a position. Scholars advocate and defend positions all the time, as they should.

Some may also be aware that I’ve been known to distinguish between what I call positive apologetics and what I term negative apologetics. I want to be very clear about that distinction:

By negative apologetics, I don’t mean attacking other positions, let alone assaulting other people — to say nothing of mere nastiness and mean-spiritedness. I realize that my image, in certain quarters, is that I’m a vicious, hardhearted, conscienceless, polemical hack. But even if that characterization were accurate — which it isn’t — it would have nothing at all to do with what I’m saying here.

What I mean by negative apologetics is the defense of a position — whether religious or not — against attack. It can easily be compared to playing defense in football. I judge it to be essential, and I regard it as just as justifiable, both morally and intellectually, as what I’ve called positive apologetics.

So what is positive apologetics? What I mean by the term is the provision of affirmative reasons for holding a position. It is the development and exposition of reasons for accepting a proposition or adopting a belief. One might compare it to a football offense.

I see absolutely no reason to regard one as legitimate and the other as illegitimate. Both are necessary and both are perfectly fine, just as both offense and defense are fair and necessary. Of course, in football as in apologetics, both offense and defense can be well executed or poorly executed. Both can be done according to the rules (of logic, of sound scholarship, of fair play, of the NFL) and, unfortunately, both can sometimes fall afoul of the rules. But the occurrence of fouls in football doesn’t render illegitimate the idea of offense or of defense, let alone the game itself. Bad drivers don’t prove driving wrong. And mistaken or bad-faith or disingenuous or uncivil arguments don’t, as such, invalidate apologetics, whether positive or negative.

Suppose that Scientist X argues that nature is more important than nurture in the formation of human personality. He cites evidence and reasons to support his claim. In that case, he is doing something essentially like positive apologetics.

But Scientist Y disagrees and publishes an article disputing Scientist X’s evidence and reasons.

It would be rather odd if Scientist X, while still holding his view, were to chastely decline to defend his own position, declaring such defense morally illegitimate. But if he were to respond by attempting to rebut Scientist Y’s objections, he would, in that case, simply be doing a form of negative apologetics. As well he should.

It is entirely legitimate to argue that the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon are credible. Such an argument would be positive apologetics. It is every bit as legitimate to seek to rebut claims that Oliver Cowdery denied his testimony, that Martin Harris was an unstable loon, or that David Whitmer isn’t credible. Such an argument would be negative apologetics.

And that is what I mean by the terms.

To repeat: Both positive and negative apologetics are, in my judgment, entirely legitimate — just as offense and defense are entirely legitimate in football and just as both batting and fielding are entirely legitimate in baseball. A chess player is entirely within her rights to be playing both defensively and offensively. In fact, she had better do so!

The Kansas City Missouri Temple, not far from where the “KC Temple Run” begins each year.
(LDS.Media Library)

Look at what I’ve just found in the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File™! It’s from Fox 4 News in Kansas City: “KC Temple Run hosts 5K for local charities”

For the 13th year in a row, thousands participated in the annual 5K Temple Run, a free event hosted and funded by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Kansas City, Missouri. This year, the run partnered with Mother’s Refuge, a local charity aimed to provide a safe home for pregnant and parenting young moms and babies who do not have a stable place to live.

And there’s this, too: “Improving Maternal and Infant Health in Africa with an Innovative Training Approach: The Church of Jesus Christ is supporting UNICEF’s programs to train health workers in Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania to help newborns and their mothers”

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