Description

Writers, speakers, presenters, commentators, content creators, meme makers, and their critics—whether Mormon, former Mormon, non-Mormon, LDS, or non-LDS—must heighten their awareness of their rhetorical stance, that is, the limitations of their own worldviews and those of their audiences and the inherent limitations of their subject matters and methodologies. Failure to do so with care and evenhandedness has contributed, I fear, to the unexamined dogmatic premises, polarized dualist thinking, and crippling conclusions that now pepper the spectrum of Mormon-related historical and theological work products from those produced by respected professionals to those presented by less-tutored amateurs.

Paul Toscano, BA, MA, JD is a retired lawyer, Mormon scholar, social critic, and the last living but still excommunicated member of those six scholars disciplined in September 1993.