Evangelicals and Mormons in dialogue
Salt Lake City Tabernacle, photo courtesy of utahhdr.com
Civil Religion is an attempt—a successful one, in my short experience—to foster mutual understanding among members of disparate religious (and nonreligious!) traditions. The advantages of the blog format are its convenience and its transparency: readers can easily access posts, participate in the comments, and readily search, recover and distribute the content. These are good things, mostly. But because blogs expose participants to a potentially hostile public gaze, there can be a reluctance on the part of bloggers to engage in the kind of mutually self-disclosing dialogue that leads to real understanding. If one fears that reflective self-criticism will be exploited by bad-faith opportunists, one is less likely to engage in open discussion. I know I’ve felt a bit of that in my short tenure as a participant here, though, happily, that fear has been largely unrealized.
That’s why I was interested to read about an interreligious initiative that has taken a very different form. Christianity Today reports on a series of private meetings between Mormon and Evangelical representatives working toward a shared understanding and relationship of good will:
Not many years ago, evangelicals would have deemed substantive contact with Mormonism … improbable. Yet since 2000, small scholarly teams of Mormons led by Millet and evangelical teams led by Fuller Theological Seminary president Richard Mouw have managed to hold 17 intense, closed-door dialogue sessions.
I would imagine that the intimacy and privacy enjoyed in these conferences allows the discussants to develop genuine trust, which in turn encourages the openness necessary for fruitful interchange on the most difficult topics. The article goes on to describe a variety of other initiatives jointly undertaken by Evangelical and Mormon groups, including an Evangelical revival meeting held in the Salt Lake Tabernacle, many of which seem to be fostering a more positive relationship between the two traditions. It makes an interesting read, and I recommend you take a look.
I don’t think that Civil Religion will ever be an entirely safe discursive space; there’s a genuine and inescapable tension between freedom and security, and blogs definitely skew toward freedom. But we’ll do our own good work here in this small corner of the universe, and we’ll learn from the work done in different ways and in different places.
This is just what a world already reeling from the actions of religous fanatics neeeds, a meeting of the minds of two severe right wing religous groups who will stop at nothing to legislate their morality on the masses.
I have lived in Utah and in the south. Utah is controlled by the LDS Church. If this group had its way everyne in Utah would live according to the Book of Mormon.
Religion has its place but it does NOT belong in government nor should laws be enacted that force even one person to abide by the beliefs of a small group of right wing extremists.
The world already has The Taliban and the extreme right wing of the dying, hopefully, Republican party. We do not need more religous extremists.
Aside from “trust” and “understanding,” is a primary objective of the dialogue the continuation of the concentrated effort to portray Mormons as more reflective of mainstream Christianity? To a perspicacious observer there are seen both subtle and not so subtle steps taken demonstrating this intent. One tactic has been a conspicuous increase in font size in church building marquees, letterhead, and related signs/banners for the words “Jesus Christ” within the title “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” Another is the strategic removal from the LDS temple drama of the character of the Christian minister, who was devoted to serving Satan. One cannot overlook that the ubiquitous internet advertising is persistent to say the least. Regarding Millet, his repeated invoking of the thought of C.S. Lewis as somehow in support of Mormons as Christians is a stretch by any measure when quotes are considered in their whole and proper context. On another matter, one notable quote of Millet was given just after he saw a screening of M. Gibson’s masterpiece. He awkwardly admitted that Mormon’s tend to “whitewash” the sufferings, passion and death of Our Blessed Lord. Just curious, have Millet and company pursued dialogue only with a select group of evangelicals and no other Christians?
I don’t really know how much dialogue is actually taking place. It’s more along the lines of the religious with their fingers in their ears. I am more than willing to listen to any opposing argument, but ultimately it always comes down to religious belief being a subjective opinion which cannot hold it’s weight against objective reasoning. So in comparison to scientific thought, religion will always be found wanting. Most religious folks I have talked to resist acknowledging this, but a few do admit that their beliefs rely only on “Faith” rather than real evidence of Truth.
But this is where the problem makes it’s appearence. Once admiting that their Faith isn’t based on real evidence of Truth, those few religious who admit this much are still dominated by those who feel their subjective based Faith is stronger and better than anothers subjective based Faith. Example the Christian here still feels that their Faith is the Truth and that the Islamic Faith is not the Truth. So even if a few admit that Religious Faith relies on believing “just because” (no actual evidence of Truth) they still refuse to acknowledge that their Faith is every bit as equal as another Faith.
I know that an extremely few religious folk will admit that their Faith is as plausible as an opposing Faith, because doing to is basically suggesting their own beliefs are every bit as shakey and unlikely as the beliefs of those of another religion. If that is the case then they know that there isn’t really a strong reason for them to believe what they believe.
So I really do question how much open dialogue there really is here. Ultimately it will just be people who give more credit to their own personal choice in what to believe… in absense of facts or evidence.
Rosalynde -
One of this sites most prolific trolls tracked me down on a different blog and asked me to defend the Latter Day Saints and Joseph Smith. I responded that it wasn’t my fight and that reconciling Christianity to the Mormon Church was topic for another thread. (It was pointed out my response could be construed as a knock on Mormons. That wasn’t my intent. In fact, I have tremendous respect for the moral code Mormons - at least every one I’ve ever known - embraces. Now, there is certainly a disconnect between traditional Christian churches and the Mormons regarding the person of Jesus Christ, the Trinity and other issues. But that’s not a fighting issue for me.) You are certainly correct about the potential for hostility on these blogs. There are a dozen or so commenters (mostly leftists, some conservatives) who are complete strangers to civility, and they turn every blog into their personal mud hole.
DJB, it’s a good question, and one I’ve asked myself as I’ve participated here. What exactly is the point of inter-religious dialogue? A deeper understanding of others is valuable for its own sake, of course, but is there a greater institutional aim?
I can’t speak for Millet or for the church leaders, of course, and I don’t know what their specific objectives might be. Here are some of my thoughts. Mormon teachings—which, I have no problem acknowledging, differ on key points from traditional Christian orthodoxy—have been persistently distorted by antagonists, with the result that Mormon voices can be excluded from public discourse on the grounds that they don’t fall within the “overlapping consensus” of American civil society. As moral issues like abortion and gay marriage have become so prominent in the last forty years, Mormon leaders may want to ensure that their voices will be included in the public debate. Inasmuch as inter-religious dialogue can correct and demystify perceptions of Mormon teachings, then Mormon voices may be admitted into that overlapping consensus and thus regarded as a legitimate participant in the debate. There is also, of course, the desire to make the cultural environment more open to our young missionaries.
As far as your specific suggestion that Mormons want to join mainstream Christianity, well, it’s a complex issue. Indeed, as you suggest, the image and name of Jesus Christ have become much more prominent in the public face of the church over the last several decades. That has been criticized as pandering by some observers, but they generally don’t understand that the increased prominence of Christ-imagery has been accompanied by a major emphasis on the Book of Mormon within the church itself since the 1980s. Because the Book of Mormon narrative centers around Christ, the prominence of Christ is a rather natural effect of that emphasis. So on the one hand, the emphasis on Christ looks like assimilation to mainstream Christianity, but on the other hand, the emphasis on the Book of Mormon looks like retrenchment. There has always been a kind of pendulum effect between assimilation and retrenchment in the church; the book to read on this is Armand Mauss’s “The Angel and the Beehive.” Recommended.
There is outreach in other directions, as well: recently with mainline liberal Protestantism in the scholarly volume “Mormonism in Dialogue with Contemporary Christian Theologies,” for example. My parents recently attended a dialogue between Millet and a Catholic priest (I’m sorry I don’t know the name) on the significance of the sacraments, hosted at the Claremont theological graduate school. And there are other efforts as well, I’m sure, that I’m not aware of.
Joe L. I question how you can know these “dozen or so” commentator’s political leanings from a religious discussion. Seems to me that you are bringing your own personal bias into these discussions and making assumptions about people.
Maybe this mudhole claim is nothing more than projection, where you externalize your own demons and cast it onto others?
To the larger question of interfaith dialogue, and it’s value AND it’s limitations.
This is a long, historical struggle, and one that well intentioned folks of all faith communities have wrestled with for centuries. To me, the key ideas and purposes of this form of dialogue is to start by acknowledging the huge social overlaps. Additionally, I have found my faith strengthened by interactions with those of different faith traditions.
On matters of doctrine, orthodoxy, and other things, we have to agree to disagree. As a Christian raised in the mission environment, I don’t find anything to be afraid of in engaging those of different belief.
Hey, if we get on the Mormon’s good side, maybe they will show us where in Jackson County Missouri that the Garden of Eden is at?
I see two important reasons for interfaith dialogue:
1. Dispel misconceptions. In some ways, religion is like politics. Spreading misconceptions to dissuade someone from changing their faith is a common tactic. Dialogue can help clarify those misconceptions.
2. Put all the ideas on the table and let people make an educated decision. It seems to me that the selection of the right religion by and for an individual is best done in the context of all, or most, of the ideas out there. Dialogue helps put those ideas on the table.
I am a Latter-day Saint who grew up in Utah but has lived in Texas most of my adult life. Without question there are differences between LDS or Mormon beliefs and the beliefs of other Christian denominations. Most of those differences arise due to ideas laid out in post-New Testament creeds to which Latter-day Saints do not subscribe. However, Latter-day Saints and other Christians have far more in common than we have differences. We revere and hold sacred the Bible as the word of God; we believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Redeemer of mankind, and the only name under heaven whereby salvation may come; and we believe that all people are children of God. In a time when atheism and immorality are rampant in society, and particularly in a time when traditional marriage is under attack, I am grateful to stand in solidarity in defense of marriage and the Christian faith with our friends and neighbors of other Christian denominations. Politics are less important than saving the fabric of society, of which traditional families are the foundation.