The Problem of Audience
Are new insights into Mormonism waiting to be uncovered if we were only to pay more attention to the religion and less to its founder? In her article “Tracking the Sincere Believer” (Sunstone: December 2005), Laurie Maffly-Kipp entices us with such a promise, but I was forced to wonder at times to whom is the promise being made? 
Maffly-Kipp introduces her thesis using the anti-Mormon work of William Linn as an example of focusing on the personal sincerity of Joseph Smith in order to “make claims about the truth of Mormonism.” She then segues neatly from Linn to more contemporary examples in the biographical work of Fawn Brodie, Dan Vogel and Richard Bushman. Although Joseph Smith biography is a subset of Mormon Studies, I believe it would have been more instructive had she given examples from the work of academics other than Joseph Smith biographers. This is a problem of audience.
To whom is Maffly-Kipp suggesting that there be less talk of Joseph’s intentions and more talk of what he wrought? I am quite certain she does not intend to limit her suggestion to Joseph Smith biographers. What established publisher would allow an author to write a biography of Joseph Smith that scrupulously avoids addressing the question of greatest importance to every reader interested in the prophet’s life: “Is he is or is he ain’t a fraud?” For that matter, what biographer would esteem his work as useful if it ignored the interior life of its subject? Examples from the broader field of Mormon Studies may be less well known that those of Brodie, Vogel and Bushman, but they would still be interesting and more to the purpose of Maffly-Kipp’s thesis.
It is in the middle section of the article, where Maffly-Kipp focuses “on sincerity as a concept and explore why it can be a problem rather than a solution,” that the problem of audience becomes more troublesome. She asks, “Mormon salvation may be dependent on what Joseph Smith did, but is it dependent on what he felt?” But of whom is she asking the question?
Mormon salvation seems to be more a matter of faith than an academic pursuit. In this, it is of more importance to believing Mormons than it is to scholars of Mormonism. Perhaps she meant to speak of Mormon theology. It is reasonable to suggest that the validity of Mormon theology stands upon what Joseph Smith accomplished and not upon the man himself. She seems to encourage this idea with the rhetorical question, “Can insincere people express correct ideas and enact religious truths?” — but even here she seems to be addressing Mormons with this question and not fellow academics. To the faithful, the affirmative is provocative, but to the academic it is a given.
Maffly-Kipp’s further involves Mormons by her expressions of concern over the inherent danger which naïve idealizations of Joseph Smith’s personal character pose to the faithful: “This equation — Smith’s sincerity equals religious legitimacy — means that any personal failing of Smith calls into question the truth of Mormonism itself.” She reiterates this concern in her podcast interview.
Of course, the discovery of Joseph’s flaws will always come as a jolt to those raised on the church correlation sugar tit, but many Mormons see no necessary, one-to-one correspondence between Joseph’s sincerity about how the gospel was restored and the fact that he had a temper, that he could be prideful, that he was bad with money, or even that he wasn’t always truthful. Many faithful Latter-day Saints have already asked themselves the question Maffly-Kipp suggests they examine: “What does it matter if Smith was a pious man, as long as God provided the Book of Mormon and restored the priesthood through him?” In fact, for the reasonable Mormon, none of Joseph’s sins matter if God was, indeed, working through him.
This mention of the priesthood being restored through Joseph introduces an unwitting difficulty when Maffly-Kipp later explores the sacramental nature of the Mormon religion. She asserts that it contradicts the religion’s demand for faith in Joseph Smith’s claims: “Sacramentalism requires an attention to ceremony and ritual that transcends individual character.” This is a serious over-simplification. For the Mormon, this statement can only be true of the priesthood holder and not to the restorer of priesthood authority.
Mormon salvation depends not just upon the religious structures Joseph built, but also (and more deeply) upon his claims to the literal restoration of priesthood authority. These experiences must, therefore, have been objectively real or salvation, that is Mormon salvation, cannot exist. If Joseph were insincere in his claims of angelic visitations wherein priesthood keys and authorities are restored, then the problem of the personal worthiness of today’s priesthood holder becomes irrelevant.
The teasing apart of Mormon theology from the intent of its expounder is one thing to ask of Mormons, but the teasing apart of Mormon salvation from the sincerity of Joseph’s claims to priesthood authority is quite another. If, in writing this article, Maffly-Kipp’s audience includes faithful latter-day saints, then real problems need to be addressed. For Mormons and anti-Mormons alike the issue of Joseph’s sincerity is paramount. If she hopes to wean them away from this obsession, a more compelling argument is required.
If, on the other hand, she see her audience as limited strictly to scholars of Mormon Studies, then I am left to wonder if Maffly-Kipp isn’t stating the obvious. Perhaps she is not. It is very likely that I am simply ignorant of the many scholars who are overly fascinated with the issue of Joseph’s sincerity.
In fairness, I should stress that Maffly-Kip’s article is merely an introduction. She speaks of a forthcoming book in her podcast interview. Perhaps there she will take on an expanded examination of the problems inherent in the request that they pay less attention to Joseph’s character and more attention the religious structures he created. Perhaps there she will present greater evidence of the dead end her colleagues are headed toward when their work focuses too much on the interior content of Joseph’s intentions.
Whatever the case, it would be unwise to approach both audiences through the same book. I think it would be more useful for her to nail down securely just who her audience is and to target her remarks more precisely for them.
April 14th, 2006 at 1:48 pm
Good to have you aboard as a blogger, Scot.
As editor of Maffly-Kipp’s piece for the magazine and also her podcast interviewer, I’m not at all a neutral party with regard to her article and theses. And though I think you make some good points here, expressing legitimate issues with regard to how setting aside the question of “sincerity” might be fine for scholars looking for new angles of inquiry but much tougher for Latter-day Saints whose sense of identity (and who worry about that toughie: “Am I saved?”) to do. Still, I don’t read Maffly-Kipp as “recommending a course” for LDS themselves to anywhere near the extent that you do. As you say, there are parts in which she adds a passing comment that might sound like she’s doing that, but to me her audience is quite clear.
IMO, Maffly-Kipp does a wonderful job of lifting up and examining the “sincerity box” and the West’s fascination with personal sincerity and having “inner states match outer states” since the Reformation, and in so doing, she creates space for us to ask different questions, see things other than just that. I found it to be pretty straightforward scholarship that I hope will shake loose some new examinations.
April 16th, 2006 at 10:01 pm
I’m reading an article by Maffly-Kipp called “Eastward Ho!: American Religion from the Perspective of the Pacific Rim” (in the book Retelling U.S. Religious History). It’s clear to me that she has a gift for looking at tired narratives and suggesting new ways of framing and telling the histories that are important to us, whether it be the story of American religion or of the rise of Mormonism. These narratives situate us in relation to other people, nations, religions, and sometimes even the universe.
As someone who is very conscious of how we create stories about ourselves as individuals and as members of larger groups, I was intrigued by Maffly-Kipp’s Smith-Pettit lecture. At the same time though, I wondered how many other people in the audience felt the same way I did. In this sense, I think I can understand where Scot is coming from in this post.
I have a different conclusion than Scot, however. I think that this lecture was premature for Mormonism–perhaps even for the Sunstone community. If I remember right, Maffly-Kipp is a member of the United Church of Christ, or some other congregational church that I identified as coming from liberal Christianity. As a liberal Christian scholar of religion, she is part of a community that is very aware of narrative creation in greater Christianity and that has moved beyond being concerned with historical claims associated with the religion’s founder.
From my perspective, I see this as a sign that some elements of Christianity have matured enough to realize that they are part of a grand story and have the power to edit it, rewrite it from different perspectives and to think about new directions to take that story. I don’t think that Mormons have reached that point. I think this ironic, considering that our religion’s founder was a master of creating fresh new narratives out of tired old ones.
August 14th, 2006 at 10:33 am
I highly recommend that you read up on the newest movement in Mormonism–and I think it’s most promising: REFORM MORMOMISM.
Reform Mormonism is nurturing some very new, exciting and very “Mormon” ideas regarding philosophy, theology, ethics and Mormon history. A lot of creative thinking is coming out of this movement.
Check it out at http://www.reformmormonism.org