I received an amazing email the other day from someone who stumbled upon my essay “How to Stay in the Church After Becoming Disaffected“.
It basically describes different types of believers, and I thought CH folks would enjoy. Check it out…
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Hi John,
Greeting from a fellow blogger and religious thinker. I have no LDS background or connections. I’m a philosophy prof who specializes in philosophy of religion. I’ve long been interested in Mormonism, and realized, pretty much on my own, back in the early 1990s, that a lot of the evangelical apologetics stuff I’d been exposed to was unfair or otherwise obnoxious. Anyway, I love your podcast - I appreciate your gentle and reasonable manner, your intellectual integrity, and your evident love for your fellow troubled or conflicted Mormons. Some of it resonates with me, I think, because of my own journey.
I read your essay, because like many of your listeners, I was scratching my head about why you’re still in the LDS church. I don’t know that you’re interested in this kind of feedback - but I’m offering it out a desire to be helpful. You’re treading on some well-traveled ground when it comes to faith & reason issues, and you could save yourself a lot of work, if you take advantage of some of the many super-accessible sources on this. (I’ll mention a few below.) In other words, if you try to work out your thoughts on your own, you’re reinventing the wheel. Why do that, man?
I was curious to see if you were an anti-realist about religion. An antirealist is someone (usually, an uber-sophisticate prof) who thinks that the truth of religious doctrines is irrelevant. Religions are just helpful ways of lives, and it’s missing the point to even ask whether or not e.g. there really is a God listening to your prayers. I don’t think you’re there… yet. You do downplay truth and evidence issues quite a bit, but I don’t read you as being an antirealist.
You are a little closer to the approach of John Hick, called (his version of) religious pluralism. You seem to assume that all (major?) religions are on a par - in the practical sense that they can provide community, a context for ethical growth, etc. (your section 2.2). This is a kin to the antirealist position, but there is room for truth on Hick’s view. He thinks all the main religions’ main teachings are true (yes, literally) (e.g. Jesus loves me.) but only about the realm of appearances. The Real itself is indescribable, though it is experienced through the “filters” of people in the various faiths - equally distorted, it turns out, but it really is what is (indirectly) experienced. Hick advertises this as a new, more openminded version of Christianity, but it’s fair to say that most Christian philosophers reject this scheme as really a competing religion with Christianity. Sometimes you talk of “literal” truth, as if there were kinds of truth. Hick sometimes talks about myths (religious narratives) being “true” in the sense that they promote what he calls “reality-centeredness”. In any case, I don’t think you’re on board with Hick quite yet - you want to say that all religions can be in some sense valid, but I don’t see any metaphysical theory of the Real vs. appearances of the Real to various people. And really, I’m not sure that you even want to say that one (major?) religion is as true as and as practically useful as any other. If you believe in God, really, you can’t consistently say that - you think atheistic religions are mistaken, though you may hold (though this would be a hard sell for a theist) that they’re as spiritually as useful as yours. And you seem to be a theist. (Acually - maybe not quite - 21.2.1 - “God” in theism is a personal being.) (On Hick, by the way, in my eyes other philosophers have powerfully shown his ingenious scheme to be incoherent…)
Then I wondered if you were a fideist - someone who holds that believing without adequate reason, or against adequate reasons, is essential to religion. Again, you seem to come close (sections 9-11). On the other hand, maybe you’re just inveighing against dogmatism, being more sure than the evidence warrants.
Maybe, then, you’re advocating skepticism - religious beliefs may be true or false, and it matters which, but unfortunately, there’s never enough evidence is religious matters for us to know anything. But no, that can’t be it - you think we can know lots of things about religion, e.g. the many, um, contrroversial actions and sayings of Joseph Smith.
Or, maybe you’re a truth-relativist? (section 2.2 “follow your truth”.) i.e. No claim is true simpliciter, but there’s only true-for-me, true-for-you, etc. But I take it that’s not what you mean - you’re just saying people should believe and act on what seems, upon reflection, true to them - true in the normal, non-relative sense.
I think you’re closest to what I in class call “buffet pluralism” - someone who thinks that since all religions contain truths, and we want truths, because they’re intrinsically valuable and also helpful, the best policy is just to pick and choose whatever truths one finds, wherever one finds them. In theory, this may be successful, but in practice, it often leads to incoherent sets of beliefs (i.e. combo of the Buddhist no-self doctrine, with Christian belief in souls and the afterlife, or the Buddhist account of the origin of suffering, and the biblical one). Another practical point: this procedure provides no stable structure such as the LDS one you so valued and enjoyed growing up. A group of such buffet-ers needn’t have really anything much in common, certainly not a shared world-view to bind them into a quasi-familial society and organization. In any case, I’m not really sure you’re any kind of pluralist, for a pluralist put all religions in some sense on a level, but you think that Mormonism is indeed better than some versions of Christianity, as they are mistaken where it is correct. (21.2.3) How, then, can you recommend that dissatisfied LDS people just dip their feet in whatever other local group they can find? (12.2) Do you really think that’s a good idea, or are do you really mean them to visit more (for lack of a better word) “liberal” groups?
Re: the temple questions, you’re basically advocating keeping and affirming the language, while changing the meaning, or understanding the meaning in your own private sense. I’m sympathetic to this move, as I completely understand your motivations… but on the other hand - look how far you’re willing to go out of your affection for the LDS church. They can’t make you believe things you think are false, but they sure as heck can make you say all the orthodox things. I can’t imagine that you’re comfortable doing that, no matter how much sense your private reinterpretations make (i.e. how Jesus “saved” you). I once talked myself out of a job at ******** on just such an issue - “Sure, I’ll say that the Bible is ‘inerrant’ if you let me mean whatever I want by ‘inerrant’.” They didn’t let me do it, but they would have, if I hadn’t said that! Bro, that’s a sick system.
“I have never advised people to leave the church…” I understand the political context in which you’re saying and insisting on this, but still…According to your own views, you don’t think LDS doctrine is more true then all competitors. Then if I, an LDS brother, come as say “John - this other church - it seems to me that it may have more truth” - it seems to me that you must and in fact would say, “Brother, if you think that, then go for it. I’m sad to see you go, but you must follow your conscience.” Am I mistaken, John? If not, then perhaps its misleading for you to say that. Rather: “*In general*, I don’t advocate leaving the church.” But you would recommend it for certain folk, no?
You say “I am not at all comfortable yet with much of the substance of this essay.” Well, that makes sense - as I read it, there are several different strands of ideas that aren’t easily woven together, and would each make the best sense on a distinctive approach (which if taken, would logically rule out some of the others). It seems to me that practically, you goal is to form a contingent of folk within the church which is liberal-minded though outwardly conformist. Mainline Christianity has abundant experience with this, from which you might draw the following lessons.
This will actually necessitate a different organization - the conservatives, once sufficiently rallied, will defend the doctrinal requirements.
Though you wish people to remain in a traditional LDS lifestyle (”never let up on these practices”) you think there’s no rational basis to do so. You just don’t think that God and/or his prophet ordered such rules. You offer a thin, practical, clean-living-is-a-good-idea defense of them, but frankly, people aren’t gonna feel too “dirty” drinking beer or even shacking up, as is now fashionable. Thus,
Sociologically, this movement is unsustainable. You’re raising your kids VERY differently - they simply won’t have the emotional attachment to Mormonism that you do. Likely, they’ll end up marrying some nice Baptist or Catholic kids or something. They and their families won’t be too different from you average secularist democrat upper middle class families, most likely. On a practical level, then, I doubt that what you’re doing is sustainable. I hope you don’t think me rude for saying that.
This new organization, should there be one, will seem, like the Universalist Unitarians, to have little reason for being, nothing to hold it together, beyond the happy memories of the founding generation. Thus, it would be doomed to smallness and marginality.
Sure, it may be that “God dwells within” Mormonism, in the sense that a person in that context, may be able to experience God. But maybe God is an opportunist. It seems to me, though you don’t quite come out and say it, that you don’t think that Mormonism is a divinely revealed religion. If not, then there’s little to recommend it over its competitors, all of whom are perfectly capable of churning out a decent % of pretty decent citizens and happy families. If you agree, then just about all of what you say could apply to disaffected Baptists, Jehovah’s Witness, Catholics, etc. Do you disagree, I wonder? If so, you’re fairly far down the pluralist path, or possibly, the path to antirealism about religion.
In any case, God bless you on your journey. Keep using the mind God gave you. I can discuss or clarify any of the above if you’re interested. And, if you’re interested in some of the theories I was mentioning but was too lazy to really explain well, I commend these excellent & accessible books:
- Reason and Religious Belief: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion
- Contemporary Philosophy of Religion: An Introduction
Nothing about Mormonism in them, but plenty about “faith and reason” issues, as we say.
God bless,
(Name Witheld)
The author brings up some very thought provoking points, JD. I’ll be interested to read your response if you post it.
John,
I appreciate you sharing the letter. To all of us meandering along the Middle Way, it is good to get input from all sides. Since I am a geek, I really appreciated the academic approach.
I really wonder where I am on the continuum. However, I have another T-ball game tonight that I am coaching and I need to figure out who is going to play First Base. Maybe next week I will have time to solve this great mystery. Then again, maybe not.
The good professor is putting his or her finger dab smack into the sore spot of the middle way. How are your children going to process the contradictory messages that they are receiving from you and the LDS Church?
Lets face it. We have been socialized into it. Our children will benefit from our skepticism. Therefore those bonds are unlikely to determine their emotional needs.
No doubt this is what Jeffrey R. Holland referred to in April 2003:
“Parents simply cannot flirt with skepticism or cynicism, then be surprised when their children expand that flirtation into full-blown romance. If in matters of faith and belief children are at risk of being swept downstream by this intellectual current or that cultural rapid, we as their parents must be more certain than ever to hold to anchored, unmistakable moorings clearly recognizable to those of our own household. It won’t help anyone if we go over the edge with them, explaining through the roar of the falls all the way down that we really did know the Church was true and that the keys of the priesthood really were lodged there but we just didn’t want to stifle anyone’s freedom to think otherwise. No, we can hardly expect the children to get to shore safely if the parents don’t seem to know where to anchor their own boat.”
John, I’d love to hear a continuation of the discussion with this professor, because I have bumped into these contradictions myself. Perhaps the professor could be persuaded to join this thread.
As for the way our children respond to our skepticism, it is of course likely they won’t grow up to be a bishop if we un-indoctrinate them along the way. That’s a bit like bemoaning the idea that once my child learns the truth about Santa Claus his future as an elf is a lost cause.
I’ll check and let you know.
This fellow articulates well what I think I have been sensing for some time. Much food for thought here. He is indeed very perceptive for someone not immersed in Mo-ism. Perhaps that is what gives him the ability to cut through the haze on certain matters. I am not so pessimistic about the utility of a UU-type organization.
But I agree with his general point that if you remove the literalist dogma from Mormonism, it loses its punch. The “good stuff” that you have talked about so much (”the hymns rock!” etc.) can be found in lots of places. The unique cultural aspects of the Mormonism you grew up with have largely been correlated out of existence. Mormonism now distinguishes itself by a dogged insistence on believing literally in Joseph’s Myth. Remove that and Gordon Hinckley is right–Mormonism becomes an irrelevancy.
I think there is more to Mormonism than meets the eye. I haven’t found any websites for New Order Methodists or New Order Baptists. Mormonism is a bit different from congregationalist churches.
I think it was Max Weber (or was it Jan Shipps - and yes I know I shouldn’t confuse the two) that said that Mormonism was a ‘volk’ or a people. In a sense, the customs, community, practices and identity that all Mormons share is closer to what it means to be Jewish and less like something like a congregational church.
I don’t want to say to much to distract from this point here, but think about the Temple - it means something different to every person that goes through it, it is the shared experience - the culture and community with each other that will always make Mormonism relevant.
In the quote from Holland, we see another manifestation of the idea that any person who is honestly opening his heart to find truth must “really [...] know the Church [is] true and that the keys of the priesthood really [are] lodged there”. No validation for the middle way person who is honest and open-hearted and yet does not actually know those things. What if you are only teaching your children what you really know? What if there is no grand Korihorian confession of underlying knowledge to come? That idea is perhaps too dynamic and threatening for orthodox absolutists.
I love Holland and I don’t fault him for that statement. He takes the story of Korihor to be literally historical and has probably had plenty of personal experiences where real people in front of his eyes have made those types of confessions. He has had proof that kind of thing happens to some people, but for the person claiming to be honest and humble yet cannot confess that kind of faith, he can’t read their mind to know their honesty. If he believes God will always confirm truth if you are honestly seeking, and the person is coming to the conclusion that is not a confirming knowledge, then he is left with the possibility that its not true, not totally true in the sense he knows it, or else the person is not truly being sincere. I’m sure he has had a great many more positive and affirming experiences which formulate his evidence that it is all true so to him it might seem that the third option is the most logical.
Ung,
I loved:
That’s a bit like bemoaning the idea that once my child learns the truth about Santa Claus his future as an elf is a lost cause.
However, some of us have so been taught that becoming an elf is such a good thing–something to be sought and cherished. I know how relieved I was to be called to be AP on my mission. It wasn’t joy or elation, but relief that my service had been accepted by God.
Giving up on being an elf (at whatever level) is a hard thing to give up for yourself or your children.
This discusion is hitting right on the issues that I am facing in my home/life.
Good Luck To Us All
“In a sense, the customs, community, practices and identity that all Mormons share is closer to what it means to be Jewish and less like something like a congregational church.”
I agree. I really get this sense from all of John’s expressions of affection for the church, too. I used to be surprised by the old “you can leave the church, but you can’t leave it alone” thing. I wondered why people couldn’t just leave it behind completely. But I understand now, and it is very much like being an unorthodox Jew. It is part of your definition as much as your race.
I totally agree with the prof. My belief that the Middle Way is unsustainable in the long term is one reason why I left the LDS and joined the UU. However, I do support those in the Middle Way. Although in my view they are merely slowing their exit down, and perhaps postponing it to the next generation, it is good to go slow.
Clay, there is a little bit more to teaching your children than being honest. If you are Mormon then you need to protect your daughters from sexism. You need to teach your sons to keep their sexuality private so that it cannot be used as a cudgel against them.
You need to empower your children on how to reconcile dogma and science and for that matter obedience and love.
And this is just the minimum to equip our children so that they can protect themselves and make sure that they will not participate in bullying whatever minority happens to be the leaders’ target of the day.
HAL (#9), I definitely understand the allure of elfhood, though I understand the idea that “As Santa is, elves can become; as elves are, Santa once was” is really just a couplet.
I don’t believe parents need the crutch of religion to raise happy children, but I will admit using Santa in my parenting an awful lot each December. No one wants a lump of coal Christmas morning.
I don’t know where this would fit in among our good Professor’s categories. But I like to see religion as symbol or myth for inexpressible truths. Thus, truth really does exist, but is difficult for our minds to grasp. We can see the Mormon religion as one story that illuminates truth. It can be especially meaningful to those who grew up with its teachings, even if they no longer believe strictly in its literal claims. To such believers, it is possible for Mormonism to be better than other religions at conveying universal truth.
It is indeed an interesting question to consider the future faith of the children of such believers. I think it may be possible that they might find it even more useful than the first generation, because they would be free from the many problems which arise from the more strict “indoctrination” most Mormon children undergo.
Hi folks,
I’m the prof who sent the above letter to John. Hola!
“I like to see religion as symbol or myth for inexpressible truths. Thus, truth really does exist, but is difficult for our minds to grasp. We can see the Mormon religion as one story that illuminates truth.”
This is like John Hick’s pluralism, developed over the last 30 years or so. The ultimate, most fundamental thing is what he calls “The Real”. It is “ineffable” - such that no human concept literally applies to it. People experience the Real, although always distorted by the worldview of their own religion. All religions are equally “true” - but that just means that their claims are effective myths, effective at helping us to be what Hick calls “reality-centered”. (Really, he thinks they’re all equally false! But he doesn’t put it that way.)
Why the ineffablitiy claim? If the Real ain’t ineffable, then, say, the monotheists might be more right than the polytheists, or the Jews more right that the Buddhists, etc.
Sadly, this doctrine of ineffability is self-refuting. If something is ineffable, then a human concept does apply to it: ineffability! Also, Hick pretty clearly thinks that “the Real” is: good, the partial cause of religious experiences (the rest of it being in the minds of the folk), one, and real. (Believe it or not: he actually says it’s neither real nor unreal - but I don’t think he really thinks that!)
OK - but that’s all heady stuff. What really seems to have struck a nerve is the children issue. In most of our lives, we seek true beliefs and try to avoid false ones. Why, on the face of it, should it be different when it comes to religious belief? Why should we even expect it to “work” well, if it isn’t based on truth - on an understanding of how the world really is? Again, kids are natural-born hypocrisy detectors. They observe us, and see what really motivates us; they get behind our words and carefully crafted public stances. If you give your religion a lot of lip service, but it doesn’t govern your use of $, your speech, your sex life, how you treat your wife, etc., the kid will imitate what you’re *really* doing, not what you say or even think you’re doing. (e.g. just going with the flow, or looking out for number 1) Terrifying, huh? (It is to me - I’ve got 3 under seven.) We can’t fool ‘em. Don’t we need a religion we can wholeheartedly believe is true, with at most a few minor falsities along the edges?
Dale
Dale,
Thanks for joining in. I am enjoying your insights.
Regarding this: “Don’t we need a religion we can wholeheartedly believe is true, with at most a few minor falsities along the edges?”
Would we love that? Yes. Is it available? If yes, where is it? While being under the impression that such a religion does not exist currently, I have to wonder if we do in fact *need* that religion you describe. The whole of social life is full of major flaws and unfairness and uncertainty. Perhaps rather than demanding a religion that is easy to espouse to our children, we could focus on finding ways to teach our children (and ourselves) how to deal with the rough edges of every aspect of life, including religion.
If all people are creatures in the process of learning and progressing, thus prone to mistakes which can often hurt others, we must learn how to love each other and connect in spite of those issues. If we need to be forgiving and longsuffering with our neighbor in the sense of those not informed of “the truth”, why not apply those same principles to a human organization designed to coordinate a communion with God. In a way, having a near perfect little bubble of religion within which to raise our children could give them a false illusion that either the whole world works that way (until they go out into the world to the great shock of their lives), or else we are enemies with the world (making religion more of a divider of people than a connector, which seems antithetical to my image of God).
Dale,
I appreciate your opinion; however, I can’t find myself any further along toward resolution based on your arguments (at least as far as I understand them).
The way I see it, religion is a vehicle for seeking true beliefs. Church is not a container for truth. This is where Mormonism distinguishes itself from many other groups - or can distinguish itself from other groups. The story of the Mormon experience can carry many different meanings. For me, the story of Joseph Smith is not a question of did he or didn’t he, but a question of what can this story mean to me? could it mean that the LDS church is the only church that God smiles upon - or it could mean that spiritual inspiration is open to anyone (even a 14 year old boy).
Teaching my children that imagination / inspiration belongs to them to help them through issues not clearly resolved by logic and experience can fit into the Mormon experience.
I get many of my ideas from Richard Kearney’s “The God that May Be.” and from a talk by Joseph Fielding McConkie in December of last year.
Dale,
Thanks for joining and I loved your thoughts.
Regarding this: “Don’t we need a religion we can wholeheartedly believe is true, with at most a few minor falsities along the edges?”
I am with Clay. I would love to know where such a religon is hiding. I have considered science, maybe natural selection, Disney World is also up for consideration.
Please share what you have found and are planning for your children. I have 5 under 12. I need the help.
Count me in among the camp who would like to see Dale expound a little on his own personal belief/philosophy, and what (or if?) he teaches this to his children. He alludes to his own “journey,” so I assume he has trod a similar path to us “Middle-Wayers,” from a comparatively literalistic/conservative paradigm to a comparatively figurative/liberal paradigm, but I may be wrong.
I’ve worn most of the labels (anti-realist, skeptic, pluralist, etc.) Dale defines in his letter, many of them simultaneously. That said, many of them seem to be various shades of the same point of view; in other words, it is hard for me to tell where one ends and the other begins. (For example, a Truth-Relativist and a Buffet Pluralist seem to be saying the same thing in slightly a different way.)
So it strikes me that most people are schizophrenic and/or pluralist believers, even strict Mormons, Buddhists, Atheists, etc. My wife would probably describe her belief system first and foremost as LDS, but I can name two dozen or more areas where her beliefs are more Atheistic, Secular Humanist, or even Mainline Protestant than LDS.
So, like John D. in his equally rambling and poetic thesis, I guess I’m a little of “all of the above.” My belief system evolves organically over time, but it also vacillates from day-to-day depending on my mood. At my most skeptical I’m probably something of an anti-realist (i.e. religious truth is largely irrelevant). Otherwise, I’m something along the lines of what Bored in Vernal (and Joseph Campbell) espouse re religious truth being the myth/story that helps us define (or deal with) the ineffable. In that regard I’m something of a truth relativist or pluralist in the sense that your myth is as good as mine, within limits. (For example, if your “truth/myth” requires the ritual sacrifice of baby goats and/or the marginalization of left-handed people, then your truth is not as good as mine.)
Whether this ineffability claim is self-refuting seems a little like the pot calling the kettle black. Most belief systems, philosophies, etc. at some point, have some strand(s) that require circular logic, or lead to a dead end, or peter out in a mist of ambiguity, or end up refuting itself (though, admittedly, to varying degrees).
I’d also like to challenge the “sustainability” of the Middle Way…
As long as any organization defined by a system of beliefs exists, there will *always* be people who feel at odds with the orthodox line, which gives rise to alternative paths (i.e. the Middle Way, etc.) Therefore, as long as Mormonism exists, the Middle Way will always exist.
That said, I’d agree that it is difficult for an individual or sub-group of people to sustain a lifestyle or belief system that is tethered remotely to the core group (be that group religious, family, work, circle of friends, etc.). In reality, one is usually tethered by nostalgia and affection for past experience, not by *shared* (with the group) current experience. I still have good, current experiences in Mormonism, but they are personal, not shared group experiences. Does that make sense? My good, current experiences in Mormonism may have something to do with finding common ground with the group, and/or finding truth/strength/spirituality outside of the group. But the experiences are almost always defined by their relationship *to* the group, not *with* the group. (In comparison, my experiences here at the Cultural Hall, or Sunstone, are more often shared experiences.) In my experience, shared experiences result in ties that bind.
This, in my opinion, is one of the negative aspects of the Middle Way. Personal experiences are fulfilling, but they are not as fulfilling as shared experiences. Ever feel jealous of fellow TBM’s who are positively glowing as they walk out of General Conference? They are glowing in large part because of their shared connectedness. Hey, maybe you got something out of Conference too, but it wasn’t the same, therefore you don’t feel connected. (In fact, you may feel hollow, resentful even, that you cannot share in their experience, and they cannot share in yours.) So, by tethering ourselves on the perimeter of Mormonism, what shared experiences are we missing out on somewhere else?
Therefore, it shouldn’t surprise us that if our kids do not have shared experiences in Mormonism (which usually, not always, require the shared, not remote, participation of parents), that there may not be any nostalgia or affection to keep them tethered to the church after they leave the family group.
But this doesn’t bother me, and I wonder if (and why) it bothers other Middle Wayers? If so, please explain.
Finally, as long as we’re challenging the sustainability of the Middle Way, I’d like to also challenge the sustainability of strict orthodox belief in Mormonism (or whatever). Real growth almost always requires old, outmoded beliefs/philosophies to give way to new beliefs/philosophies.
Individually, my once-held strict/orthodox belief in Mormonism wasn’t sustainable. And I’m pretty sure my current, somewhat arms-length, relationship with Mormonism is not sustainable. What is (hopefully) sustainable is my authenticity. I was (hopefully) being authentic as an orthodox true believer, just as I’m (hopefully) being authentic as an unorthodox Middle Wayer. And I will (hopefully) be as authentic with whatever tomorrow brings. I hope the same for my kids.
Hi again folks,
Ya’ll are raising a LOT of deep issues. I’ll take a stab at few here - maybe more tomorrow or something.
To Clay’s comment (#16) - my own religion is New Testament Christianity, which is kind of like Protestantism shorn of whatever doesn’t fit with or receives at best scanty support from the NT. This turns out to be quite a lot, in terms of both doctrine and practice. As to the former, Dallas Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy was a huge, huge eye open; what Jesus actually taught is quite different than is normally thought, by both conservative and liberal Christians. As to practice, this stuff opened my eyes to the practices that were normal for the NT era and some beyond: http://www.ntrf.org/ Now I trust Christ and the apostles, but don’t believe they made provision for some Rome-like institution to now force its interpretation of various passages on me. So, I’m stuck with study, reason, consulting with others - but I have to take responsibility for what I think discipleship to Christ involves believing and doing. BUT - this comes with inherent flexibility - my understanding is different now than 10 years ago. Mormonism is different, though - more all or nothing. With mainstream Christianity, you can always say that the Catholics or Calvinists messed it up - let’s get back to how it was supposed to be. And at the beginning, with Christ and the apostles… record is amazing. You can’t pin the pursuit of money, power, or sex on any of them - they’re amazingly selfless. Mormonism, or maybe you’d say Mormonism as understood by TBMs, seems to stand or fall with Joseph Smith - at tops a complex character. I don’t trust him, so though like many people I’ve long been intrigued with Mormonism, it isn’t an option for me. Institutions are weird - and you see this in all religions, and I think all other areas of human endeavor - institutions have a life of their own, and they always evolve into something quite different than their founder envisioned. (Actually, often the founders didn’t even mean to be founding institutions… but rather furthering some movement.) Prime examples: medieval Catholicism, Mahayana Buddhism, the US Congress. In any case, the short to not too informative answer: a non-instutitional but not individualistic Christianity.
“Perhaps rather than demanding a religion that is easy to espouse to our children, we could focus on finding ways to teach our children (and ourselves) how to deal with the rough edges of every aspect of life, including religion.
If all people are creatures in the process of learning and progressing
sorry - accidentally hit submit before I was done. I was quoting Clay.
Clay, you’re right that no one can demand perfection - at least all at once. And you’re right that it’s a bad idea for parents to give their kids a religious bunker, circle-the-wagons mentality against the rest of the world. I just believe you can learn about other religions, and other people, which acknowledging the point (of logic) really, that they can’t all be right, and therefore some (most?) of us are mistaken about some important things. Do you believe that Muhammad was the last and greatest prophet of God? I don’t. I don’t think he was a prophet at all. In the details of his life, as best we can make it out, it’s all too human to be the life of God’s anointed Messenger for the ages. And the message - I don’t see the profundities about God, the world, and human nature in the Qur’an that some claim to see there. So either I or the Muslims are tragically mistaken - mistaken not just about any old thing, but about something pretty important.
Finally,
“If we need to be forgiving and longsuffering with our neighbor in the sense of those not informed of “the truth”, why not apply those same principles to a human organization designed to coordinate a communion with God.”
If I understand your point, you’re saying: why not accept the LDS organization as a humanly made institution - without divine origin but none the worse for that? It’s helpful, after all. In fact, maybe more helpful than most. Well, maybe so. But consider this: of course any decently successful religions “work” OK. The dopey ones, such as the church of Satan (Anton Lavey’s church) are just a misfit with human nature. Try raising good kids or keeping your marriage together with the foundational premise: “Do as you will” (i.e. whatever you want) A religion just won’t thrive more than a generation or two unless it “fits” our natures decently well. The thing is, though, with revealed religions, it’s part of their fabric that they’re divinely ordained, founded by the hand of God, as it were, though this or that human agent. It’s kind of hard to edit that part out. It can be done, but it fundamentally changes what the religion is about - it becomes something different than anything the founder or the early generations could have envisioned, or would ever sign on to. But back to the level of working without which a religion can’t long survive - I’ve found this to be a pretty disappointing level… they don’t do what they say they’ll do - provided Enlightenment or radical character transformation or intimacy with God. If I find that a group (and I’m thinking of various evangelical churches I’ve been in) does little more than produce “nice” people, i.e. outwardly good but inwardly and at home about as bad as the average person on the street - I lose interest. Even the scientologists can do *that* … at least sometimes.
Jesus and Paul claimed they could do a heck of a lot better.
OK - bed calls.
Dale,
Thanks again for your contributions. I love this kind of discussion, although it might be boring to many.
To be respectfully frank, your “religion” doesn’t sound much different than being New Order Mormon. We take the tradition that is most comfortable to us and then apply our own judgement and discernment to it to dertermine which doctrines we can accept.
I am not saying the LDS religion is without divine origin. Really, Mormonism IS Christianity with clarification and interpretation from Joseph Smith. It is not a religion introducing a new god, but rather a new understanding of the same God.
There is a part of John’s essay that has stuck with me. John says: “As you pondered your assumptions about an all-powerful and an all-loving God, you began to question the “one incredibly small, but exclusively true church” concept, given the overwhelming number of God’s children (think China and India) who, for all intents and purposes, are excluded from the franchise during their lifetime. Could God truly be that inefficient, or ineffective? This was His plan after all. Conversely, were so many of His children that fallen or incompetent? If we are His offspring, made in His image, what does that say about Him?”
I don’t know how New Testament Christianity can stand up to John’s query. He meant it to be a logical indictment of exclusive truth claims of Mormonism, but it indicts all religions that are limited in scope, so the more limited in scope the more it fails that measurement. So then, what works? I actually do not think that we really live in a nebulus reality where truth does not exist. As you alluded to, the simple fact that one religion has as a fundamental doctrine that the other religions are wrong, and many do that, means that to say that all are right is at the same time saying many are wrong. I see it as that most of these religions do have divine origin, but that humans have just long had a distorted idea of their relationship with God. All these people across the planet, through all human history, all flowing in some way from God… why would God let people scew the truth off in so many directions for so long? Even allowing people their free agency, if God worked as exclusively through prophets as most religions would have us believe, why would he not communicate the pure truth to prophets who could be trusted and to multiples to cover the globe? Why the gaps in history? Why the need for restorations, or for finite research to pick out the truth from the lives of 13 men during a 10-20 year period in all our history? To echo John, Could God truly be that inefficient?
Well, what if God is not actually responsible for this inefficiency? What if there exist some laws or principles that are eternal and even our God must work within? At this point in my journey, this is what I believe:
* That God is an evolved and advanced being, so far beyond our level that He is our God, although I don’t think this means that God always exists in a humanoid body. It is certainly plausible that He takes the form that is most effective to those with whom He communicates.
* That our “spirits” or intelligences are as eternal as God (no beginning, no end, alpha and omega, etc.).
* That His love and altruism is so advanced that He either devised a way for lesser intelligences to be elevated and connected with Him, or He followed a pattern that He observed or even perhaps experienced from the other side.
* That God “created” us by organizing eternal matter into the forms we now take.
* Just as a healthy parent/child relationship, sometimes pain is a necessary allowance God makes for our evlolutionary good. This accounts for part of why bad things happen to good people because when you consider an eternal law of free will some of us can choose things that lead to pain for others who had nothing to do with that choice. I don’t believe God “gives” us trials, but rather that they happen during the natural course of human interaction and He allows them… either because He cannot violate laws which prohibit Him from intervening or else because He can see the good that will eventually come from allowing it.
* There are laws of science which are set in motion that God does not manually operate every day, but rather designed in the beginning (or perhaps they are eternal laws that He has only mastered) which run their course naturally. This accounts for the other part of why bad things happen to good people, namely things like birth defects and natural disasters. AIDS is not a punishment from God for homosexuality, but a scientific phenomenon that exists as part of the guantlet that we pass through on our journey of progression.
Now, at this point it probably sounds like I am advocating a disconnected God (either by infinitely wise choice or by eternally awesome necessity). OK, I guess I am. However, I don’t feel that automatically means that my God is not the same benevolent and personal God we all want to believe in. The true expression of God’s love to me is that while I go through this necessary phase filled with pain and suffering that He does not remove, He *IS* available to comfort me and provide understanding and clarity so that I can generate strength beyond my current state and that I can find the lesson inside each experience that constituted the reason for allowing it. Also, if I assume that a major part of His advancement is reaching this state of holiness that mortal experience degrades, we receive an incredible sacrifice of another of his family, a being that is more evolved than us but not yet as evolved as God… Jesus Christ. Through the process of the atonement, eternal laws to which even God is bound are satisfied, and could only be satisfied by a being more evolved than those who need saving, because He was not just saving one, but all of us. God becomes glorified even further as we evolve and at the root, as we all connect. In that same way, we evolve ourselves as we connect by learning to love and elevate our fellow man.
These doctrines are derived from Joseph Smith’s philosophies. Modern mormons downplay it a lot because it is treated as complete blasphemy by mainstream Christianity. Yet, it makes much more sense to me than any other theology I’ve heard to date. Joseph had his problems, but I am a jerk myself and I would love to hope that God could still work through me to do great good in this world.
Quoting Dale:
“Do you believe that Muhammad was the last and greatest prophet of God? I don’t. I don’t think he was a prophet at all. In the details of his life, as best we can make it out, it’s all too human to be the life of God’s anointed Messenger for the ages. And the message - I don’t see the profundities about God, the world, and human nature in the Qur’an that some claim to see there. So either I or the Muslims are tragically mistaken - mistaken not just about any old thing, but about something pretty important.”
From a historian’s, not a theologian’s or philosopher’s, perspective, it seems to me that we know far too little about the historical details concerning Jesus or Paul to be comfortable that you have made the correct (better?) choice. What if it is the case that much what we know about both men was fabricated after the fact? Then we can’t be certain about much of anything when it comes to Christianity. Understanding you to have said you are a NT Christian, rather than a Protestant, I do not see you on much more solid ground than anyone else. You are still very far removed from the historical circumstances in which these texts were created and first used. Essentially, your acts of interpretation are bound to be as problematic as anyone else’s.
Hi Clay,
That’s interesting - the “New Order Mormon” is a new term for me. There is a danger - if you cast aside too much of the “core” doctrines of the text, then you’ll start asking yourself, why should I believe any of the rest? With the NT, despite its contradictions in numerous details, and differences of emphasis etc., I hold that it’s fundamentally accurate, and I believe the teaching of Jesus, Paul, Peter, and John, etc. - that it’s true and important. Some problems in the texts I can resolve, and others I can’t, but on the whole, I consider it reliable. What’s getting shorn off are ideas that people later loaded onto the texts. It’d be different if I starting rejecting clear and central teachings. Is that what a NOM does? If so, one worries that the picking is arbitrary.
Regarding exclusiveness, and other religions. Pluralists think that one religion is as good as another, in acheiving the goal of religion (whatever that is). Exclusivists think that you can’t get the goal of religion (i.e. salvation) without signing on to some one faith. (e.g. being a believing Catholic) Many people, upon rejecting the latter, rush into the former. But I, and a decent number of other Christian philosophers, hold this to be a mistake. For, there’s inclusivism. This denies pluralism, but also denies that it’s impossible for someone to be saved (etc.) without being in the one most true religion. For Christians, the fact of Old Testament saints, in my view, forces one towards inclusivism. King David, and Abraham didn’t believe in Christ. In any case, someone who thinks that his religion is the (most) true one, can also think that it’s possible for people outside that religion to be accepted by God. It’s just, they’ll be saved as much despite their religion as because of it. God could be gracious to them without their understand who the source of the grace is. Anyway, that book Reason and Religious Belief has a great chapter on pluralism, exclusivism, and inclusivism.
To Trevor: beware of facile skepticism about the NT; it has many over-confident salesman. On the whole, the info on Jesus there is consistent, and even believable IF you’re already a theist. Sure, of course some or much *could have* been fabricated. But it’s hard to find a *good* reason to think it was. Sometimes people assume, without a shred of argument, that anything miraculous must have been fabricated. That’s faking it. About Paul, things are different; we’ve got several undisputed letters from him, and they reveal much about him. “You are still very far removed from the historical circumstances” - big deal. We seem to do all right interpreting early Buddhist texts, and Aristotle, and those are both a good bit older and more complicated. And it’s patently false to claim that no one’s interp is better than any others. Repeated rereading, study, and knowledge of original languages bears much fruit.
Finally, to Matt (#19)
“I’ve worn most of the labels (anti-realist, skeptic, pluralist, etc.) Dale defines in his letter, many of them simultaneously. That said, many of them seem to be various shades of the same point of view; in other words, it is hard for me to tell where one ends and the other begins. (For example, a Truth-Relativist and a Buffet Pluralist seem to be saying the same thing in slightly a different way.)”
The interesting thing is that many of the options aren’t compatible. Skeptics have to be realists about religion - they think religious truth would be great if you could know it… but you can’t. Anti-realists think that the truth of religious beliefs is irrelevant. You can only be one of: exclusivist, pluralist, inclusivist. Buffet pluralism isn’t really compatible with Hick’s brand of pluralism, or with other sorts of pluralism. Truth-relativism is probably the worst of the views (we can talk about that if you want). All I can say is, beyond prayer and attempted obedience to God, you’ve got no choice but to use your common sense. Some options, I think you can decisively rule out - they get less and less attractive the more you understand them. And I do believe that God can open our eyes, as it were, to various things.
“So it strikes me that most people are schizophrenic and/or pluralist believers”… My belief system evolves organically over time, but it also vacillates from day-to-day depending on my mood.”
Herein lies the value of disciplined rational reflection, with the help of others (i.e. through *good* books and focused discussion) - you can settle out what you really think. Being tossed around by the last thing you read, or how you’re feeling, is something we all want to grow past. If we care about having true beliefs (and we do), we need to keep working until our “vision” of the world settles down. BUT the price of this is: ruling a lot of options out - “nope - that seems false - I’m moving on”. That’s a real risk, and also, it may alienate others from you. They’ll think you’re arrogant, just because you’re not adrift in a sea of shifting opinions.
“Whether this ineffability claim is self-refuting seems a little like the pot calling the kettle black. Most belief systems, philosophies, etc. at some point, have some strand(s) that require circular logic, or lead to a dead end, or peter out in a mist of ambiguity, or end up refuting itself (though, admittedly, to varying degrees).”
No, being self-refuting is bad, and few religious beliefs run into that problem (they can have a many other problems, of course). A self-refuting belief is such that, if it’s true, then it’s not true. So: we know it’s not true. It’s like this claim: “Nothing that isn’t in the Bible is true.” (Hint: that ain’t in the Bible.
Dale,
I assure you that I am aware of the problem of “facile skepticism.” I approach this problem from the point of view of an ancient historian who is able to read several ancient languages (Greek, Latin, Coptic). I admit that I am not a NT scholar, but I am fairly well read in that field, and I am an academic. I say this not to cow you into submission with credentials, which would be monumentally stupid. I only say these things because I have concluded from my own studies that the historical foundations of much of our knowledge of Jesus and Paul are, by the standards I apply to my own areas of expertise, very shaky.
I also want to be clear that I am not saying this stuff with the object of undermining your faith. The problem, as I see it, is that we are both educated and reasonable people, and we have come to vastly different conclusions about the same set of data. You seem to trust the New Testament as a document full of relatively reliable historical information. I see it as much more problematic than that. As an ancient historian, I put much less trust in Suetonius’ biography of Nero than you seem to put in the Gospels–and it is the latter that diverges further from the intention of writing a historical account.
I have no problem with you or anyone else believing in Christianity. My problem is with the notion that Christianity has solider foundations in terms of history than other religions. The fact that there are a few authentic letters of Paul is about as good as it gets–and this guy never even met Jesus. Nor did Paul seem to pay much mind to the historical details of Jesus’ life. New Testament scholarship is perhaps the most hotly contested field of scholarly expertise out there–with scholars who vastly differ with each other on the very issues we are alluding to. Simply put, I don’t share your confidence, and scholarly NT study does not bring me closer to your position.
It seems that the difference, really, is faith. You say that if you start from the position of a theist, placing confidence in the NT is reasonable. I ask you, a theist of what kind? That seems to be a pretty big leap to me. A Christian theist? Or is that technically the only kind?
Hi Trevor,
I meant simply plain vanilla theism - there’s a good and powerful supernatural being who is the creator of the cosmos. Assuming that, you’d expect this being to be interested in his creation, particularly in humans, and yet for whatever reason, this being’s existence isn’t as obvious as it could be. Miracles - functioning as signs carrying divine messages, but ones that are relatively easy to deny, even for spectators, would hardly be a surprise. They would be enough to get people’s attention, and yet as one time and unrepeatable events, still leave a person free to ignore them. That’s all too quick, but I don’t have time to put it better now.
About your professional standards as a historian. I wonder - and I mean this as an honest question & not a rhetorical one - are they neutral between the worldviews theism and naturalism? Bigger questions: can they be? Should they be?
What I’m pretty sick of is the sort of mind-reading and uncharitable dismissals of the biblical texts. (e.g. “A first century Jew never could have said THAT.” or “Clearly, this person is not to be trusted - look, he’s got religious motives.”) There’s a sort of default trust we put in texts, as we do in what people tell us verbally, and not just any reason is a good reason to discount them. It seems to me that people’s various agendas, though, wreak all sorts of havoc here. John Dominic Crossan is a great example of the kind of stuff that makes me roll my eyes.
But re: religions and historical foundations. Come on - Christianity is *obviously* better than some. Hinduism just emerges out of this mythical muck - and no one is sure where the history begins and the mythology ends. And if I remember rightly, we have few texts on the Buddha that are known to go back to within say 100 years of his death. (Still, I don’t doubt the basic picture that emerges from say, the Pali Canon.)
Dale,
I am little interested in the question of whether I should, as a scholar, believe that the statue of Athena spat blood in protest of Augustus’ approach to Athens or not, whether Alexander of Abonuteichos was the charlatan Lucian makes him out to be or not, or whether Jesus really performed miracles or not. I leave those questions to the theologians, perhaps like you. My interest is in the weight of evidence for historical events, and the problem posed by the rhetorical nature of historiography.
Neither in the literature that comprises the Bible, nor even in the history invented by Herodotus and Thucydides is there anything like plain, objective truth-telling. This assertion has been supported by reputable scholarship time and again. It makes no difference whether the literature came from those who supported faith, debunked it, or were simply uninterested. It is safest to begin with the assumption that almost every narrative of past events from antiquity is written from a certain perspective that does not in any way meet the modern aspiration for objectivity.
Therefore, I cringe when I see people stating with what I believe to be misplaced confidence about the historical reliability of documents that were not written with a historians agenda in mind, to say nothing of those that were. To me the issue is so much larger than the particulars about Christianity–as I tried to indicate by raising the example of Suetonius–that I do not see Christianity as the particular object of my caution. I see most every ancient text with which I engage in these cautious terms.
It very well may be the God is in His heaven and Jesus performed miracles. It may be that God is in His heaven and Jesus never existed, but someone else performed miracles. It may be that God does not exist and Jesus faked miracles. It may be that God does not exist and Jesus was made up. As a scholar I remain uncommited to any conclusion that touches on theology. I *am* interested in the question of whether the evidence concerning Jesus is substantial enough to come to some conclusion about whether he was or not, and whether he is represented accurately or not.
My tentative conclusions about the latter question are that we do not possess enough evidence to know whether Jesus has been represented accurately or not. It is a modest, tentative conclusion, but it is one that has far-reaching implications concerning any attempt to form a NT faith that reflects Jesus, his teachings, and his mission as they unfolded on the ground. It is in the likelihood that the narratives of the NT have been molded to suit post-hoc doctrinal interests that may place Jesus in the position of having been “mythologized,” so to speak. I think this is a reasonable conclusion regardless of one’s theism or lack thereof.
Given the tendency of many great persons of antiquity, particularly miracle workers and holy persons, to be mythologized along the lines of the great figures of the even more distant past (Herakles, Moses, Asclepius), the idea that Jesus was similarly mythologized not only possible, but indeed likely. This does not constitute a “smoking gun” against Jesus, nor is it intended to. What it does do is offer reason for much greater caution and hesitation before one leaps to lauding the solid historical foundations of the Christian faith.
To come to an understanding of what happened and what did not is ideally not a matter of simple probabilities. You may take comfort in the greater likelihood that Jesus was believed to have risen from the dead by his peers than in the tales of Krishna, but in the end it could be that neither ever happened. In that event the relative probabilities would mean very little. It is faith that causes one to say that Jesus rose from the dead, and that Jesus is God, not relative probabilities. Even that which more likely happened may not have.
To the above statement about probabilities, I forgot to include the necessity of corroborating evidence. Probabilities are important when taken in conjunction with evidence, but on their own they bear very little weight. I had intended to include that in my response, but in my haste I left it out.
Hi Trevor,
Just a few thoughts:
Right - we have to distinguish prior probabilities from probabilities once all other relevant information is thrown in.
I have to take issue with the idea that “faith” causes people to believe most of their theology. I take it that by “faith” you mean believing without adequate evidence, or contrary to the available evidence - basically, believing something just because you want it to be true. Well, that does occur, but I think slighty more reflective believers believe things because, on reflection, they seem to be true. I don’t find that all religious people shut their minds off. John Dehlin is a good example of someone who doesn’t.
“but in the end it could be that neither ever happened” Well, of course they *could* have. That’s just to admit I’m not 100% certain that either happened, and that my evidence doesn’t entail that either happened or didn’t happen. But we’re *nearly always* in that sort of situation. Science. Sensory experience. Memory. etc.
It seems to me you’re compartmentalizing - or at least trying to separate your views on history from your views on religion. Near the beginning of your post, you seem to separate out “historical events” from (alleged) miracles. Of course, in any of the latter happened, they’re part of history, hard though it may be to conclude that they actually happened. “As a scholar I remain uncommited to any conclusion that touches on theology” - err, not quite. Seems to me you’ve committed, as a scholar, to the view that theological claims and/or miracle claims can’t be known to be true or false. Doesn’t that seem a little extreme? Those claims are about the real world, after all, even if not always about empirically observable aspects of it. I suspect that like me, you don’t merely doubt a lot of them, but you actually believe they’re false.
I don’t see any conflict with thinking that the NT is basically reliable, and exercising due caution about how the writers may be framing, molding, and spinning the events.
The kind of skeptical stance you describe may be “safe” in that it’ll insulate you against false beliefs about the past. But I wonder if it’s consistent with common sense. Texts are just testimony petrified. And we *reasonably* trust what people tell us, when there’s no overriding factor that knocks that instinctive trust down. Vast amounts of human knowledge are based on testimony. So it can seem a little… over-scrupulous to approach all ancient (or just all) sources in the way you describe. Really, ancient people were humans just like us, with the same basic propensity (that can be overridden in many, many ways!) to tell the truth.
Dale,
Thanks for your response. First of all, I do not believe that “common sense” is the kind of standard I want to adopt as a historian. “Common sense” is the product of my experience within a particular time and culture, and although I cannot be utterly extricated from that baggage, it is hardly the bedrock of my methodology. My common sense may be quite different from the common sense to the people whom I am studying in some important ways.
You may feel comfortable instinctively trusting what people say. I feel comfortable being suspicious of what they say and how they say it. Obviously, if we reject everything, there is nothing left to study. But when I approach, say, Tacitus’ recounting of the reign of the Roman emperor Tiberius, I may accept everything he says as basically trustworthy, or I may wonder whether he has an agenda driving him to present Tiberius in a particular way.
It may be helpful to know that he had endured the reign of the emperor Domitian, who ended his time as emperor assassinated in part because of his oppression of the senatorial elite. Domitian happened to idolize the emperor Tiberius, and when you analyze Tacitus’ treatment of both men, startling similarities emerge, down to the choice of language and concepts Tacitus uses to describe both men.
Tacitus has a very seductive description of Tiberius’ psychology, and yet it would seem that both he was influenced by his experience of the era of Domitian in his construction of his historical account of Tiberius. This is simply one example of many problems with Tacitus’ historiography, which include tinkering with chronology in order to achieve dramatic impact.
Like Tacitus, however, I believe there is some historical value not only in the events that occur, but also in the rumors and imagination of the people who lived at a certain time. Nevertheless, I believe there is an important distinction to be made between things that happened, and things that were believed to have happened. I see am more comfortable viewing much of the Gospels in the latter category. I find them highly valuable documents for understanding post-70 views of Jerusalem before its fall to the Romans.
Whether the individual events occurred, or took place in the order they are said to have happened, I cannot say. I will say that I do believe that the actions undertaken to attempt healings are historical events, and that the fact that some who were thus treated got better, but I am not going to judge as a historian how those things occurred, because I do not see that as my job. Enter theologian. Indeed, I do not see how it is the business of history to decide whether something was a miracle or not. I find it appropriate to say that certain people did or did not believe it to have been a miracle. Period.
Naturally, when I write about events that were considered miraculous (and I happen to), I do not say “alleged miracle” all of the time. More later.
Dale,
Thanks for your response. I had crafted what I thought was a very good reply, I hit “submit” and then it disappeared into the great cyber-black hole.
First, I want to address the issue of “common sense.” I do not consider common sense to be the best method for forming scholarly judgments about history in a time and culture far removed from my own. Common sense is formed through interaction with one’s own environment, and does not necessarily constitute a universal rule of thumb. What makes intuitive sense to me may not in fact have made much sense to a person living in first century CE Palestine.
Second, I consider miracles historical events inasmuch as there are actions that take place that some consider(ed) to have been miraculous. What I do not do is decide, based on the convictions of others, whether the agency of a supernatural power did in fact make something happen in a particular instance. Much of my research concerns miracle narratives in the Greco-Roman world, and I have no problem writing about the actions and claims in question as a historian.
What this means is that I find the narratives historically useful. The beliefs are also useful in a certain way. In this regard I follow the Roman historian Tacitus, who made rumors part of his historical narratives because they pointed to what people believed at the time. Certainly this is historically valuable information too. There does, however, need to be a distinction between the two: events and beliefs/rumors, as Tacitus recognized.
When I wrote about refraining from conclusions that touch on theology, I was talking in terms of historical conclusions, not the meta-issue of conclusions about methodology that you are reaching for. Simply put, I don’t decide, as a historian, to endorse Joseph Smith’s visions, or Paul’s encounter with the Christ, as “true” in the sense that I would write as a scholar that Joseph Smith or Paul did indeed encounter the Divine. In the case of Joseph, I leave it at treating these as claims made by a historical figure about himself.
In the case of the NT literature, we are at even a greater disadvantage, as we have no way of knowing for certain who wrote many of these things or often exactly when they were written. Pseudepigrapha was practically de rigueur at the time, and it is clear that by the time the literature started to be written there were major disagreements about Christian teaching and practice. These differences are well-attested in the Acts and epistles. They may be inferred in the differences between the Gospels.
I feel very comfortable approaching the Gospels with great caution, particularly because there is a dearth of evidence to confirm the historical details therein. Even where the authors do connect to events of the outside world, as in the case of the imperial census at the time of Jesus’ birth, they get it so horribly wrong that it beggars belief why one would even begin to think of this as ‘historical.’
Enough for now.