March 13th, 2012
President of the John Adams Center, Ralph C. Hancock, has a review of Joanna Brooks’ the book of mormon girl featured at Meridian Magazine. He writes:
Like St. Augustine and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the great models of the intimate personal confession as a genre for communicating an understanding of life’s meaning, Joanna Brooks seeks to indicate a path towards illumination and authenticity through a narration of her own life. This life is a decidedly, distinctly Mormon life, beginning with a thoroughly, almost archetypal Mormon childhood; but, it is finally, to be sure, a Mormon life with a difference.
This is no ordinary Mormon life – not your mother’s (nor indeed Joanna’s mother’s) Mormon life, but what is proposed as a new and exciting way of being Mormon. Since Ms. Brooks appeals to our sensibilities and seeks to open up new practical possibilities through the form of a personal narrative that is often quite intimate, we are obliged to address her ideas or her vision by addressing her personal story.
Just as Rousseau employed a creative presentation of his own intimate and checkered life to convert hearts and minds to his idea of humanity’s natural goodness, so Joanna Brooks uses what appears to be a quite unguarded autobiography to make the case for a new Mormonism, a faith unhindered by any orthodoxy and fully open to an ethic of liberalism. Thus the present reflection, in the form of a book review, necessarily touches on personal matters that normally would be considered irrelevant in intellectual exchange.
Read the full review at Meridian Magazine
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You guys really have to get over this Joanna Brooks thing. She is one member of the Church giving her viewpoint when asked. In my experience, she is moderate and cautious and highly accurate in her statements. I have never heard her say that she “represents” the church or anyone in it. That you all find her so threatening is very curious.
Mr. Hancock (I’ll refrain from using the title professor for obvious reasons) founded the John Adams Center. Let’s take his word that he finds inspiration from early American Boston culture. Can some say “witch hunt” please?
Meridian Magazine? Seriously? Can’t wait to read a review of Hancock’s silly review in the Student Review.
UtahMormonDemoGuy: Despite, her efforts to appear otherwise, Joanna is not simply one member of the Church passively giving her viewpoint when asked. She is someone who strategically orchestrated a PR/media campaign to become a self-proclaimed national voice of all things mormon shortly after returning to the Church in 2009 on her own terms, and shortly after returning from a gay rights activist training camp (see http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/feb/18/fighting-to-tell-her-mormon-story/). She is a woman on a mission and she knows how to work it. Hancock’s review of her self-published memoir is in context of these public efforts and her public persona. He skillfully articulates why those of us who may feel inclined to cheer her on, are left feeling skeptical of her motives and her acceptance/understanding of even the most basic gospel principles. Joanna has strived to create a unique public status for herself that allows for a level of scrutiny that would NEVER be tolerated if she were just a disaffected member who returned to the Church seeking to progress from wherever she was at on her spiritual path. I have no doubt my supposedly conservative Utah ward would warmly welcome Joanna back. Her religious/cultural viewpoints would be welcome at our RS meetings so long as did not cross the line into advocacy. Her political viewpoints (which are very much in line with my own and others (though a minority) in my ward) would also be welcomed at our book club discussions, etc. I have little doubt Hancock would likewise accept her into his ward family, regardless of where she was at on her spiritual path, without any litmus test. That being said, as someone actively campaigning to be the face of left-of-center, feminist, mormon women to the world at large, and to, by default, represent ME, I believe her motives, sincerity and the fruits of her campaign are up for review.
Memo to Joanna Brooks: Please stop speaking for Mormon women! I’ve lived in the mission field my entire life. Half of my LDS friends are democrat, liberal, and too busy to care about the things you say we care about. We are smarter and stronger than you think. If you really want to make a difference, climb down from your ivory tower and talk to ordinary Mormon women with everyday lives and legitimate concerns.
So it’s okay that she has unorthodox beliefs as long as she doesn’t, you know, talk about them. Gotta keep women like her in their place! But I’m sure the fact that she’s female is entirely incidental…
Brooks problem is that she wants Mormonism to be an ethnicity rather than a religion. I can see why a white ethnic studies professor would want this to be so but you can’t wash off your white privilege that easily. It is extremely disrespectful to the histories of people of color in this country to pretend otherwise.
Because the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is a religion (not something immutable like race or ethnic origin) it is completely fair to ask how many doctrines you can disbelieve and still claim to represent the members of that religion. I want Mormonism to be a “big tent” religion and so I’d say that if you believe in the atonement and that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet, seer and revelator then you are inside the tent.
I do not think Joanna has ever claimed to believe either of those things. That does not mean she is a bad person. It just means she is not a Mormon Girl.