SALT LAKE CITY, UT — In a world increasingly hungry for accountability, millions waited with bated breath this week as Mormon apologists once again failed to apologize for anything at all, despite their job titles suggesting otherwise.
“We just thought maybe… at some point… they’d say sorry,” said world citizen and amateur cult enthusiast Maggie Reynolds, who described her confusion after reading several thousand-word essays by prominent LDS defenders that contained “so many words, and yet not one ‘oops.’”
Actual quote by Mormon Apologist Kerry MuhlesteinI start out with an assumption that the Book of Abraham and the Book of Mormon, and anything else that we get from the restored gospel, is true, Therefore, any evidence I find, I will try to fit into that paradigm.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known for its clean-cut missionaries, aggressively cheerful choirs, baffling cosmology with accompanying flow-chart and a suspicious number of invisible golden plates that never seemed necessary because rocks and top hats are everywhere, has long employed apologists to defend its more, shall we say, creatively licensed tall tales and “eternal” 19th-century morals.
But as years go by, a growing contingent of onlookers wonder whether the “apologist” label might be somewhat misleading.
“They do a lot of things,” said religious studies professor Daniel Hughes. “They reinterpret. They reframe. They can do an olympic-level mental floor routine with historical facts. But what they don’t do… is apologize.”
The article most recently in question, a 34-page blog post entitled Why the Book of Abraham Totally Makes Sense If You Just Squint and Ignore Egyptology, left readers with many emotions — amusement, confusion, even existential dread — but notably absent was any sense that an apology might be forthcoming.
Ruling Finds “And It Came To Pass” is Un-copyrightable, Rendering 93% of Book of Mormon Public Domain
At a press event, LDS apologist Brother Chad Whitmore addressed the criticism. “We’re not here to apologize in the, uh, traditional sense. Our job is to provide well-reasoned, faith-affirming explanations for things like how Joseph Smith didn’t even know that statutory rape could be changed retroactively to be called ‘plural marriage,’ or how the anachronistic steel, horses, chariots, etc. in the Book of Mormon are just metaphors, or how the thousands of DNA tests refuting the Book of Mormon’s ethnicity claims prove that DNA is just quack science. It’s more of a metaphysical apology. Like, an apology of existence.”
He paused. “Also, if you think about it, aren’t you the one who should be apologizing? For doubting?”
When asked if an actual apology — even a general “sorry for the decades of racism, sexism, historically dubious treasure-divining, and gaslighting you like you’re the crazy ones” — might be on the horizon, Whitmore furrowed his brow. “That sounds less like apologizing and more like giving up.”
Still, hope springs eternal. “We’re not asking for much,” said Earth human and US taxpayer Edith Malone. “Just a single ‘sorry taxpayers are supporting our hedge fund without knowing it’ or ‘sorry we called people cursed for having dark skin’ or a quick ‘oops about that whole Mountain Meadows thing.’ Honestly, even a ‘my bad’ scribbled on a Post-It would feel like progress.” With the church’s transgressions against society occurring at light speed in the form of light-polluting temples appearing in small towns around the world, critics don’t hold out hope that any professional apologizer could keep up, much less this ragtag group of so-called apologists.
Until then, scholars expect Mormon apologists to continue doing everything except apologizing — citing obscure 19th-century farming manuals, redefining words like “translation,” and delivering increasingly elaborate mental gymnastics routines that would make the members of Cirque du Soleil worry about job security.
Get our sacred insights hot off the press.
We'll never sell your information or ask for 10% of your income. Privacy Policy
