Speaking of editing . . . FRB has editors, oui? Why don’t they just edit out the personal stuff before publishing?

This article, along with a few other experiences, has really helped me appreciate FARMS in a different light. I don’t know if anyone knows, but a few years ago, before I worked for Sunstone, I gave a rather naive presentation at the symposium called, “Why I No Longer Trust FARMS Review of Books.” It was pretty juvenile on the one hand, but on the other hand I’ve always just seen it as a personal story about my faith journey. On my mission, I was huge into FARMS – I loved it. Especially the Review, with all it’s sarcasm and “slam-dunks” on “anti-Mormons.”

I grew frustrated, however, as I read books like Todd Compton’s and then read the FARMS Review – I felt like FARMS was really off-base and so unnecessarily nasty sometimes. Since that frustration, I’ve come to realize that FARMS and Sunstone are a lot more alike than perhaps either group would care to admit. We both are helping people negotiate tough issues. I think we just appeal to different personality types. Me, the natural skeptic, is much more at home at Sunstone. Others are better off at FARMS. There’s really nothing wrong with either, and they both provide important services.

Another parallel is that we both have stereotypes that we try and fight. I hate that Sunstone is often viewed as an entity of Church-haters and disaffected members. A few bad apples have soiled our reputation, seemingly forever. The same in many ways is true of FARMS. The phenomenal work they have done on the Book of Mormon has nothing to do with, say, a nasty review by Louis Midgley. Yet they’re all lumped together.

My take on Dan Peterson is…I don’t know what to make of him. Clearly he isn’t the ogre many make him out to be. It’s not fair to anyone to portray them as either black or white, although I’ll confess I’ve been guilty of it. Actually, Dan Peterson has been most gracious to Dan Wotherspoon, the current editor of Sunstone. He participated in a great roundtable discussion for Sunstone magazine a couple of years ago. The man is obviously a genius. Yet I’ll confess, I’m absolutely baffled sometimes at how he can be SO ruthless online.

I’d also add, when it comes to Dan Peterson’s so-called “nastiness,” it is a shame that people (myself included, I’m sorry to admit) seem so unwilling to look past or forgive past grievances, when I myself expect that very thing of others. I’ve had my moments online that I wish I could take back. And of course, I just expect everyone to understand and be sympathetic – yet few seem willing to extend the same thing to FARMS.

That said, I’m still quite troubled by the tone of FARMS from time to time. Dan Peterson’s use of the word “hatch” in the Review was amusing to me. But I really don’t think some FARMers get just how painful their reviews have been to others. If they do get it, they just don’t care. It’s frankly shocking. I’ve spoken to two authors (not excommunicated anti-Mormons, but active membe

I also agree with Dave, although I’d add that those who do what he describes are limited to a handful of people. In fact, I’d argue that those people aren’t nearly as interested in “truth” or “defending the Church,” as they might claim to be. For them, it’s all about “the game.” They enjoy scoring points against their “opponents” and they get a kick out of “winning the argument.” It has nothing to do with the gospel of Christ or anything like it, and everything to do with satisfying their own insecure needs to beat up on someone. But again, I think this is a fairly small number of people at FARMS – you never see Noel Reynolds, for example, acting like that.

I recall one thread I was in where I was condemning tone in FRB and was called to task concerning the article in question. I went back and reread it and realized that a lot of the “tone” was more something I brought to the review than what it actually said. i.e. I was assuming the most negative connotation to all analogies or parallels. Read in a different way it really lacked most (but not all) of the tone I attributed to it.

I wonder if this isn’t true for how many of us read the articles.

On the other hand some of the sniping does get tedious for readers. And often repetitive as well. It also does do what Dave mentioned and detract from the points being made. For instance I thought Quinn’s MMWV was massively undermined by his asides and sniping at FARMS.

If you avoid those practices in your writing, anon, then the criticism, such as it is, doesn’t apply to you, and you have my encouragement in avoiding that style. But it still colors my evaluation of FRB. You can hardly blame me for basing my opinion of FRB on the reviews they publish. What better source would you suggest?

I’ve spoken to two authors (not excommunicated anti-Mormons, but active members) who have been reviewed by FARMS. One was near tears – I’m not kidding.

The “nastiness” and sarcasm of FARMS comes because of their personality – much like Aaron, they enjoy mixing it up. I tend to enjoy it too, though I’ve grown a bit weary of the fray lately. But there are people out there who don’t enjoy it, and who aren’t interested in the debate and the polemics. What I wish some at FARMS would understand is, that many will not listen to their reviews if the tone is off-putting. A handful at FARMS always insist that the issues are important, and that they ought to be discussed, not the “tone.” But they just don’t seem to get that some people are so offended by the tone that they never will get to the issues. And that’s a real shame when we’re talking about a group that is seen as representatives of the Church of Jesus Christ. If someone reads Davis Bitton’s review of Grant Palmer and sees him calling Palmer names like “obtuse” and asking, “what planet has this guy been living on,” why are we to wonder when they come away with a bad impression of FARMS instead of Grant Palmer? It’s so unnecessary – yet Palmer’s book is deeply flawed and needs a tough review. I hope FARMS tones it down a bit someday – then I think they’ll have more to offer. As it is, I think they deserve to be taken seriously right now and not dismissed as “pseudo-scholars.”

Once you figure that out, it’s hard to give any FRB review much credence. Their rhetoric works against them.