As this "Mormon moment" continues to ratchet up public scrutiny of the LDS Church, Mormon apologists are assessing the best way to shield the faith: Play offense or stick to defense?
Last week, the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship at Brigham Young University fired Daniel Peterson, who served as editor of the Mormon Studies Review since its founding 23 years ago.
Peterson,a recognized expert on Islamic and Arabic studies and a weekly columnist for the LDS Church-owned Deseret News, remains employed at BYU and as the editor of the Middle Eastern Texts Initiative. He was part of the original team that established the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS) in 1979 to "promote and coordinate Book of Mormon research and to make the results of such research available to the general public."