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All right, so I think we've all, I think we all just agreed that there was, there's some old style of Mormon apologetics that has to do with that hominim that has to do with giving bad evidences like tapers for horses and

you know redefining terms and and sort of maybe shoddy scholarship or improvement scholarship. I mean I think I think that point has been sort of directly made in this podcast what I started noticing as I saw Dan Peterson and Ralph Hancock and Lumichly and Greg Smith sort of sort of as I watched their decline what I noticed is an ascent of a different form of apologetic.

And for me that that would be sort of best characterized by what Richard Bushman does, what Terrell and Fiona Gibbons do, what Patrick, what I've heard you do, which is, which is definitely not about ad hominim attacks. It's definitely not so much about trying to prove the church is true.

It's definitely not based in you know focuses on anthropology or archaeology or Mesoamerican digs, but instead it's it's a softer it's more pastoral it is it's willing to say maybe mistakes have been made in a passive sense it's it's going around to sort of these private

really held seminars or firesides or people's homes to reach out to those who are doubting and questioning and to provide some sort of support.

Oftentimes based more on the humanities or based more in in soft and thoughtful and kind ways trying to still encourage faith in the church encourage devotion and active membership.

But in just a new way and so I I was trying to search for a way to describe it and the term that came to my mind was neo new new apologetics and it I've you know I've gotten a lot of feedback that people hate the term.

And so I totally want to hear why you or others may or may not like the term, but I just wanted to first set up the idea that there's definitely a new era of Mormon apologetics characterized by you the givens the Bushmans and others it's happening it's different and so how would you label it or describe it Patrick.

How would you describe it as different versus the same and then if you do or don't like the term neo apologetic what's a way we can name it or label it to set it apart from what's been done in the past.

Sure now that's that's a great setup john and and i'm grateful for your generous appraisal and description of the kind of work that that I've been doing and you know for for me it's it's kind of interesting because I six years ago as we set it the outset I assumed the the how are W 100 chair in Mormon studies at Karmak graduate university and when I did that.

I had no intention of doing this kind of thing I was very committed to Mormon studies as a scholarly discipline that was in conversation primarily with other scholars in the academy as much as members of the church or others wanted to listen in on the conversations that was great but I was very committed to establishing the kind of traditional academic bonafidais of Mormon studies.

It was a couple of years into that and that's where I would say that that's my day job I mean I my day job is is to do traditional academic scholarship i'm a historian by training and so and I continue to do that kind of work that I would say lies far outside the realm of anything resembling apologetics I continue to publish things for the academy.

But but a couple years into my tenure as a hunter chair I was approached to participate with the bushmans in as you said going to private homes or fire sides or other things to address some of these issues of what we now you know call faith crisis whether or not that's a great term but that's that's the term that stuck.

And so I got sort of involved in it out of my own personal commitments i'm a I'm a believing an active member of the church it's something that I find extremely meaningful in my life and so I was I was happy to participate in that less in some ways as the hunter chair and more as as a member of the church although I know that these professional and personal identities get mixed up together.

And so out of those visits and travels and conversations with people my book planted came out of that and I think you're exactly right I mean that the word you used was pastoral and that's the word i used for myself and and for that book

that book. I see it very much as a kind of conversational pastoral in the sense of a kind of one-on-one

conversation. What would I say to somebody if I sat down with them over hot chocolate? And what

would we talk about? I personally, whether by temperament or training, I have basically zero

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