Ralph Hancock – By Common Consent, a Mormon Blog

Reason, Authority, and Ralph Hancock

May 17, 2012 by Guest

TT is a blogger at www.faithpromotingrumor.com. He recently posted “Five Questions for Ralph Hancock,” and the comment thread included a lengthy comment that we have asked his permission to re-post. Reading the thread at Faith Promoting Rumor will help provide the context for some of this, but readers who have been following the Brooks-Hancock chatter of late should be able to follow. (Related BCC posts can be found here.)

This post represents a response, of sorts, to the set of exchanges between Ralph Hancock and other LDS thinkers, most recently his apologia. My post is not a defense of Joanna Brooks (though it uses her arguments as an example, in part, of some of the issues at stake), nor a treatise on any particular idea, but rather a discussion about how reasoning about LDS teachings might occur.

Hancock appeals to both “authority” and “reason” in his attempt to depict certain ideas held by LDS intellectuals as incompatible with Mormonism, especially the equality of women and the acceptance of certain kinds of same-sex relationships. I think that both claims to authority and reason need to be investigated, and suggest that both routes to establish a univocal Mormon framework to address to these questions face serious difficulties. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Guest Post, Mormon Tagged With: Ralph Hancock

Review: Joanna Brooks, “The Book of Mormon Girl: Stories From an American Faith”

May 17, 2012 by BHodges

Title: The Book of Mormon Girl: Stories From an American Faith
Author: Joanna Brooks
Publisher: Self published (but not for long…)
Genre: Memoir
Year: 2012
Pages: 204
Binding: Paperback
ISBN13: 9780615593449
Price: $11.99

Rumor has it Joanna Brooks’s self-published memoir, The Book of Mormon Girl has been picked up by Free Press/Simon & Schuster for national publication this August with an expanded chapter-and-a-half. We’ve seen a lot of chatter about her book online recently, so I thought I’d venture a review. I hope you’ll excuse my decision to kick things off with an observation based on personal experience. (The Book of Mormon Girl is, after all, a personal memoir!) My own undergraduate years were spent writing and editing articles for a variety of small Utah newspapers. I remember how daunting it felt to be assigned an article on a subject I knew next-to-nothing about, like computer animation, mechanical engineering, or say, feminism. Oh, how comforting to a journalist is that friendly, articulate insider willing to endure the inane questions of—and likely later misrepresentation by—the stammering cub reporter! [Read more…]

Filed Under: Books & Journals, Current Events, EQ/HP, Family, Gender & Sexuality, Modern Era, Mormon, Mormon Studies, Politics, Relief Society, Theology, Doctrine & Policy, Young Women Tagged With: Ralph Hancock

Upcoming Conferences

May 14, 2012 by Kristine

It’s May! It’s May! But that need not turn us all into Lerner and Lowe-whistling ninnies. Intellectual delights abound:

May 18-19: “Economies and Humanities,” sponsored by Mormon Scholars in the Humanities at Southern Virginia University, featuring too many bloggernacle luminaries to name and the omnipresent Jim Faulconer (I’ve heard that some scholars speculate he might be the Holy Ghost)

May 23: An SMPT-sponsored conference on B.H. Roberts’s Seventy’s Course in Theology with Kent Robson, Grant Underwood, Jim Faulconer, and Blake Ostler

and, because no amount of Jim F. could ever be too much,

May 27-28: Wide-ranging discussions of religion and politics, sponsored by the John Adams Center, at Duck Beach, NC. Speakers include Nate Oman, Ben Huff, Terryl Givens, James Ceasar (UVA Professor of Politics, Senior Fellow at Hoover Institution), Jim Faulconer, Ralph Hancock and Brant Bishop [Read more…]

Filed Under: Mormon Tagged With: Ralph Hancock

I am not qualified to write this post: A response to Ralph Hancock’s response to a critique of his review of a book I’ve never read

May 11, 2012 by John C.

Ralph Hancock recently wrote a post in which his main point is that people were so interested in his obsession with Joanna Brooks that they never addressed his argument. I’ve not read Sister Brooks’s book, nor have I read Brother Hancock’s initial responses to it, primarily because I don’t care. I like Joanna’s online persona well enough; I don’t particularly like Ralph’s, but that’s not terribly important (to each their own). So why respond? Because Brother Hancock felt it was appropriate to defame me (by means of defaming this here blog) in the larger process of explaining why his response to Joanna was appropriate. He appears upset that no-one is taking him seriously enough. So, because I aim to please, I will herein attempt a response to Brother Hancock. We’ll see how it goes. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Mormon Tagged With: Ralph Hancock

Some Thoughts On the War For the Heart and Soul of Mormonism

May 11, 2012 by Jacob

In recent years there has been a significant amount of academic literature that argues, in essence, that political orientation is largely determined by social, cultural, and psychological factors, rather than the initial or continued imposition of the will upon political belief. [1] In other words, we are largely predisposed one way or another toward political belief and that any talk of free creative production with regard to political orientation, or positive or negative political assent only makes sense within that context. In still other words, I cannot simply choose to authentically train myself to think conservatively if I am more prone to liberal political thinking and vice versa. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Mormon, Navel-Gazing & Poetic Observation, Politics, Religion, Society & Culture Tagged With: Ralph Hancock

Help Me (and Ralph Hancock) Raise Money for the Feminist Mormon Housewives Scholarship Fund

April 6, 2012 by Cynthia L.

Today brings yet another piece by Ralph Hancock about Joanna Brooks, this time in the Deseret News (no, I will not support that piece by sending link traffic). I have been profoundly troubled by Hancock’s self-appointed and bitingly personal quest to defame and humiliate Brooks at every opportunity (and then some). I feel pained–as a sister, as a woman, as a Mormon, as a feminist, as someone who, like Brooks, has assumed certain risks in choosing to use my voice to speak publicly on issues that matter deeply to me. Until now, I haven’t felt the strength to really respond to Hancock. My hurt and anger has prevented me from being confident that I could speak out in a way that would be as effective in denouncing Hancock’s behavior as I felt the seriousness of the repeated offenses warranted.[1] Today, the imperative to stand firm and proud with someone I am honored to know, Joanna Brooks, has overcome. I am taking up her suggestion and embarking on a fabulous feminist fundraiser in honor of Ralph Hancock. The more he attacks, the more money goes to the Mormon feminist cause.
[Read more…]