1372: FAIRMormon and Mormon Apologetics in 2020 - Anthony D. Miller
Mormon Stories Podcast
Dr. John Dehlin
4.5 • 5.7K Ratings
🗓️ 19 December 2020
⏱️ 157 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Recently, the Mormon apologetic organization FAIRMormon has released several aggressive new videos via their YouTube Channel starring the actors Kwaku El, Cardon Ellis, and Brad Witbeck. These videos are intended to appeal to younger Latter-day saints, but also launch aggressive attacks against me (John Dehlin) and Jeremy Runnells (author of the CES Letter). The historical accuracy/honesty of these videos has also been called into question by many.
Today we interview Anthony D. Miller - a wise and thoughtful post-Mormon - about these latest events. Some of the topics we hope to cover are listed below. We would also welcome your questions/comments.
Topics for today:
- Motivations behind Mormon apologetics.
- Differences between Mormon apologetics and critical scholarship
- Contrast traditional apologetics and more progressive, nuanced apologetics
- Examples of people who have shifted from apologetics towards critical scholarship, and their explanations as to “the why.”
- Examples of people who engage with critical scholarship, but operate within Mormonism with a mostly a metaphorical paradigm with an apologetic bent.
- Contrast how GenZ, Millennials, GenX, and Baby Boomers engage with information.
- How GenZ at times experiences fragility, catastrophizing, call-out culture, and perception of violence in speech, and how these things affect engagement with apologetics and scholarship. (Jonathan Haidt’s book, The Coddling of the American Mind).
- Current spectrum of apologetics
- Approaches and methods for distribution
- Firesides and conferences
- Radical Orthodoxy proclamation, Deznat, etc.
- Adaptations to respond to social media, YouTube, TikTok
- What we might expect going forward
- Will this approach work? Will it backfire? Is it ethical?
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon stories podcast. I'm your host John DeLin. It is October 11th, 2020 and we are |
| 0:09.2 | We are I am excited about today's |
| 0:12.7 | Interview it's not going to be a three or five or a ten-hour epic interview |
| 0:17.0 | But as far as I'm concerned it's an important interview with an important topic |
| 0:22.5 | For those of you who didn't catch my my last |
| 0:25.9 | Mormon stories podcast episode from Sunday or |
| 0:28.6 | Who just have been a little bit out of the loop? |
| 0:32.2 | Recently one of the Mormon apologetic organizations called Fair Mormon |
| 0:37.8 | released a YouTube video campaign and in the YouTube video campaign |
| 0:43.5 | they have several actors |
| 0:46.5 | Quake who L from Saints unscripted or three Mormons YouTube channel |
| 0:50.5 | Carden Ellis a podcaster and Brad Whitbeck and others |
| 0:59.3 | creating these hip-new young |
| 1:02.6 | apologetic |
| 1:05.2 | Mormon YouTube videos and it's kind of in a Saturday night live |
| 1:10.3 | Stick or theme they've got |
| 1:13.2 | Usually Quakeoo and Brad up there as kind of news |
| 1:17.0 | News anchors with a city skyline behind them. They're holding pieces of paper like Chevy Chase |
| 1:24.1 | You know back in the Saturday night live days and then they've got graphics and animation and sometimes actors come in and |
| 1:32.2 | They're definitely more they're they're they're attempting to be more humorous and funny |
| 1:37.7 | They're attempting to appeal to younger audiences. They make lots of jokes sometimes they even |
| 1:43.8 | Swear or make sexual references oftentimes those swear words are bleaped out and |
... |
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