Back in March, Diane Winston reviewed two new Mormon history books for The Washington Post. Diane, the Knight Chair for Media and Religion at the Annenberg School at USC, is a journalist of great renown as well as a Princeton-trained historian. (And, since this is a post about self-disclosure and the ways autobiography affects our writing, I should point out that she's a much-admired personal acquaintance of mine. In short, she is awesome.)
The books in question are Matthew Bowman's The Mormon People (Random House, 2012) and LDS in the USA by Lee Trepanier and Lynita K. Newswander (Baylor University Press, 2012). Diane expresses frustration at the fact that in neither book do the scholars reveal their LDS affiliations:
In “The Mormon People,” Matthew Bowman synthesizes previous scholarship to create a church history that is neither truly secular nor wholly sacred. Bowman is himself a Mormon, a fact that he does not mention in the book, yet which can be discerned through an online search, and which inevitably shapes his work and his judgments. The issue is not whether he can write more or less objectively than a non-Mormon, but rather how his commitments inform his approach to the material. Knowing an author’s point of view, especially on sensitive religious subjects, helps readers evaluate the intellectual and emotional arguments threading through a given text. In this case, I spent a lot of the time looking for clues.
Reading her whole review essay, however, it seems like her issue is whether an LDS author can write more or less objectively about Mormonism. I found this odd at the time, but since I hadn't read both of the books in question, I didn't feel qualified to weigh in. Now I have, and here is my answer:
Lee Trepanier and Lynita K. Newswander should have come clean. Matthew Bowman does not have to.
Bowman's book is far more sophisticated and balanced than she gives it credit for. He is able to see both secular and sacred forces at work in the early Mormon movement. He is far-ranging in his source material, including both faithful LDS accounts and more critical ones with equal weight. And the second half of the book, which traces the development of the LDS Church as a bureaucracy in the twentieth century, is truly groundbreaking.
In contrast, LDS in the USA is underresearched and far less nuanced. It too often uncritically adopts the Church’s official explanations and history at face value. For example, the authors assert that Joseph Smith got his "first vision" in 1820 at the age of 14, which is now the official party line of the LDS Church. But you will be hard pressed to find any professional historian presenting this as the only POV, since there are at least eight conflicting versions of the story, with varying details about Smith's age at the time and the contents of his vision.
Smith is presented uncritically as a "Jacksonian hero" who "pulled himself up by the bootstraps" to become a self-made man. The bootstraps analogy also comes up a bit later, but this time as a hyperbolic reference to the entire Mormon religion. The footnotes for the theology chapter are revealing in that most of them are from Joseph Smith’s own history or from church-produced curriculum. And in a brief chapter on popular culture, the authors promise to discuss Big Love, which I was pleased to see. However, they then proceed to discuss two of the Church’s official pronouncements about the series without taking into consideration the show’s actual content, historical and political context, etc. The book does not make it sound as though the authors have even watched the series they are criticizing.
My conclusion from all this is that not all Mormon authors need to reveal their religious biases, because some are already well aware of them and take pains to offer balance and divergent perspectives. But some authors do need to be more transparent to benefit their readers -- and it's probably the case that it's precisely the authors who don't think they need to do this who actually do.
The larger question, of course, is whether scholars of all religious traditions need to reveal their biases, not just those representing traditions that are considered controversial. I once took a graduate course in Eastern religions with Robert Thurman. Was he biased when it came to Buddhism? Heck yes. To hear him tell it, Tibetan Buddhism was the most advanced strand of the planet's most advanced religion. I counted it a privilege to study with someone who was best buds with the Dalai Lama, but always with the knowledge that there was probably a lot more to the story. Such knowledge can be a helpful thing.
But it's unfair to a religious minority to assume a default position that says its scholars must reveal their affiliations. It depends on the scholars themselves and the quality of their work.
John W. Morehead | Jun 12, 2012 | 11:26am
“The larger question, of course, is whether scholars of all religious traditions need to reveal their biases, not just those representing traditions that are considered controversial.” This is the key to the whole issue for me. I think scholars of all religious or irreligious traditions should practice full disclosure. This shouldn’t be about whether one is a part of a minority religion, and a disliked one at that.
Samuel Brown | Jun 12, 2012 | 11:49am
Great questions. I personally think these are complex issues, relating to outsider distrust of the way Mormons have constructed their history coupled with an outsider sense that no credible academic could be part of such a high-tension religious movement. The problem is exacerbated I think when Mormon academics write for an outside audience in a confessional mode (I haven’t read the Baylor UP book but it sounds like it is susceptible to this criticism), which furthers the stereotype. In my book, one of the peer reviewers wanted me to disclose my personal affiliation (s/he couldn’t tell), but the editors said it was up to me. I ultimately decided not to disclose in the book because I wanted to write in a balanced way, and I felt that talking about my own religious beliefs would distract people from the scholarship. Had I been writing in a more confessional vein, I would have felt obligated to identify myself as practicing LDS. I think people like Bob Orsi can be explicit about their personal religious experience and belief because identifying oneself as basically Catholic does not make readers distrust what you write. Closer to home, the new Evangelical historians (roughly, the Fides et Historia/Noll/Marsden group) can be explicit about their commitment without seeming quite as partisan as a Mormon writer would. I think that Matt’s book strikes the right tone and would not have benefited from self-identification as a practicing Mormon. I think Jana’s spiritual memoir displays such broad respect for other religious traditions that she was not obligated to disclose her membership.
I think the criticism from Winston should be a reminder to practicing Mormons writing for outsider audiences that we owe that audience full respect. If we are making significant assumptions that modify our treatment of the topic based primarily on our religious affiliation, we should disclose our membership. If we are careful in our writing, though, I do not believe that we are obligated to disclose our religious practice. I think this also applies for former/disaffiliated LDS, who operate under a similar temptation to allow one’s personal beliefs to mold one’s writing.
I think with time, and with practice treating outside audiences with respect, Mormon writers will find a space more like that occupied by Orsi and Noll/Marsden/et al, but for now that is not the case.
Christian K. Anderson | Jun 12, 2012 | 1:57pm
When I direct dissertations and theses I always require my students to include a “positionality statement” that explains, if even briefly, their personal relationship to the subject matter. Their interest didn’t come out of nowhere. In some cases, the tie is very close and personal and the reader has a right to know how that might inform and influence the author’s work. (In other cases, it really was a case that the student stumbled on an interesting topic and only a sentence is warranted for this positionality statement.)
If you grew up as a poor African-American male in the rural South and you are writing about how poor, African-American males from the rural South succeed as college students, the reader deserves to know about your background. Your experiences obviously give you a certain bias, but also provide you with keen insights not available to outsiders.
The same is true of a Mormon (whether active, Jack, Formon, etc.) writing about Mormonism.
coltakashi | Jun 12, 2012 | 3:58pm
Describing one’s own relationship to a religious organization one is writing about raises questions about how to describe that relationship accurately. While it is one thing to say “I am a stake president in the LDS Church”, there are degrees of involvement, commitment, and feelings of loyalty in all churches, and it might require a preface just to explain where the author currently sees herself on the spectrum of membership. If the book is autobiographical, that may be appropriate. But if the topic is a balanced and well sourced study of objective facts, such a preface could get in the way of reading and weighing the study itself.
Obviously for the LDS book buyer market, the typical practice is to announce on the dust jacket no only the author’s membership in the Church, but also a list of major Church callings held, such as bishop, stake president, mission president, etc. In the anti-Mormon expose market, authors love to beef up their Mormon credentials in order to show how much they are an insider revealing the hidden secrets of the nefarious Mormons, e.g. “I was a bishop”, or “my Dad was a bishop”, or “I was married in a Mormon temple.”
But for readers who are looking for writing that meets standards of scholarship and balanced consideration of viewpoints, the biography of the author is not as important as the work itself. If we are given the tools so we can evaluate the accuracy of the work, it is not as important to establish a personal relationship with the author.
I guess what Jana is saying is that books that speak in a more personal voice, that ask you to trust the author for the completeness of information, rather than speak in a balanced voice that nurtures trust in the author, are ones where who the author is in relation to the topic is more important to inform the reader.
coltakashi | Jun 12, 2012 | 4:28pm
By the way, while a thorough examination of the historical roots of Mormonism would of course review the various accounts of Joseph Smith’s initial vision, I don’t see any significant contradiction among them that contradicts the official account written in 1838. The variation is well within the amount that is common when witnesses recount a less controversial event restrospectively, under different circumstances, and to different audiences. For example, how many different ways have you told the story of how you met and married your spouse? How did that account vary in the early days, when you did not know you would be married, and you had not had years of intimate life together to color the experience? How much does a small feature of the event gain importance in light of later events growing out of it?
As another example: During the first semester after I returned to college after my missionary service, I took three seminars: one in American Legal Issues, taught by a visiting professor at the law school who was Dean at University of Pennsylvania, one in Pollution Control taught by the College of Mines, and one in computer program design taught in the physics department, for which I wrote a simulation of an anti-aircraft missile targeting system. Within a few years, I had joined the Air Force and programmed computers tracking spy satellites, then attended law school, and then earned a Master of Laws degree specializing in environmental law, which I have practiced for nearly 30 years. All of these major developments in my career path were presaged by that one semester’s classes, which at the time I was taking just because I could not start any of the year long math and science sequences that filled the rest of my transcript. When I tell about it now, the significance of the coursework, and the skills I developed, are clearly there, but they were not part of the story when I was enrolled and talking to Professors Fordham, Kadesh, and Olsen.
We don’t have Smith here to answer questions to clarify the account, and it is unfair to indict him because he had not memorized a version that he could repeat verbatim whenever asked about it. And the experience had a clear historical setting, one that Mormons still visit every day of the year, that ties it to reality. The restoration of the Smith family farm as it appeared during the first visionary experiences of Smith affirms the character of Smith and his family as hard working, honest farmers. I don’t, therefore, think it is something that a Mormon has an obligation to discuss whenever referring to Smith’s First Vision, such as during an initial presentation to someone investigating the LDS Church with the missionaries.
The important thing about that vision is that it imbued Smith with a sense of certainty about God and his expectations of Smith that made Smith the least self-doubting prophet in the historical record. Just as there are variations in the New Testament accounts of the last days of Christ and the first days of his resurrection, the key fact is that the reality of that miracle was the engine that drove the apostles to recruit new Christians throughout the Roman Empire and points east.
Mark S | Jun 12, 2012 | 6:17pm
First, coltakashi, excellent comments as usual. I wish you were still blogging.
Richard L Bushman did a good job of explaining up front where he stood in relation to the topic when he wrote his biography of Joseph Smith. Maybe that’s a model where ‘full disclosure’ is needed.
Eva | Jun 13, 2012 | 10:30am
Excellent points (and comments).
Lance | Jun 13, 2012 | 11:44am
A couple of things.
No one asks Jewish authors to make sure and reveal they are Jewish, Catholic authors to “practice full disclosure,” gay authors to make sure and mention their life partner or black authors to always include a dust jacket photo. This would be considered crude and discriminatory. There is no reason to have a special standard for Mormons, judge the work, not the author.
Secondly, do not use the words “nuanced” and “sophisticated” as a synonym for “critical.” Simply criticizing a position taken by the leadership of a church on a given issue does not make the work either nuanced or sophisticated.
Daniel Burke | Jun 13, 2012 | 12:56pm
I studied under Robert Thurman at Columbia as well, and I sometimes wondered whether his admiration for Tibetan society and Buddhism undermined his scholarship.
That said, he is one entertaining lecturer. It’s clear where Uma gets her dramatic flair.
Tom | Jun 13, 2012 | 2:27pm
I disagree that an author should disclose religious affiliation in connection with a book, or an article or a speech. A scholarly work on religion (or on any subject for that matter) will be credible based on its cited sources and its own analysis.
Knowing one’s religious affiliation is more likely to create bias in the reader’s mind, not create a greater objectivity on the part of the reader in reading the book.
It is illegal when hiring to ask about a person’s religious affiliation, for good reason. That is because we should not judge someone based on religious affilation, only on their own personal merits.
Pepektheassassin | Jun 13, 2012 | 3:32pm
coltakashi, nice post. Also Tom. Interesting discussion. Thanks,
deerjerkydave | Jun 14, 2012 | 12:26pm
I think also journalists should disclose who they voted for.
novamom | Jun 15, 2012 | 8:14pm
It’s an interesting discussion, but hardly a fair one. The recent criticisms of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in print and on news shows have been beyond bigoted and would be considered extremely politically incorrect with virtually every other religion. I do not know the religious beliefs of every author I read—in fact, I know very few of them. Should news anchors and pundits reveal their religious beliefs before they offer any “news” on religion? People will read the books and either agree or disagree with their contents. And, for full disclosure, I am a Mormon.
Jinxsj | Jun 15, 2012 | 11:58pm
Nearly every essay ever written comes with a certain bias. Do they all need to be explained at length? How about science journals such as “Nature” and others who profess to be absolutely objective but are in reality driving an agenda like none other?
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