I’ve been reading a new book by my LDS acquaintance Robert (Bob) Millet who teaches religion at Brigham Young University. Because I know he prefers to be called a Latter Day Saint (LDS) that’s what I’ll call him here.
The book is Modern Mormonism: Myths and Realities (Greg Kofford Books).
Now, you’ll have to know a little of my own background and Bob’s to understand why I have to be open to his argument that LDSers are Christians.
Bob begins the book with autobiographical reflections on his childhood and youth in Louisiana where his life at school was made a living hell by Baptists and Catholics becuase of his LDS religion.
I didn’t experience that (school a living hell) until we moved from Iowa to South Dakota. You’d think those two states would be very much alike, but they are very different in terms of religious ecology.
I don’t recall anyone ever making fun of my religion in Iowa. When I entered school in South Dakota in 6th grade, however, things changed. The Catholics and Lutherans ridiculed me for being a “holy roller” (we were Pentecostals of a very, very mild sort). That went on through high school even though I got used to it and learned to laugh at myself along with them.
I remember picking up a book at a used book store years ago by a Lutheran theologian named Casper Nervig. The title was “Christian Truth and Religious Delusion” and, it turns out, only the Evangelical Lutheran Church (now the ALC or ELCA) was the “Church of Truth.” Pentecostals were completely misrepresented and labeled a religious movement of “some truth, much error.”
There was a time when, in spite of most Pentecostal denominations belonging to the National Association of Evangelicals, even many evangelicals considered Pentecostals less-than-fully Christian. Of course, we returned the favor. It wasn’t until I got involved in Youth for Christ in high school that I realized non-Pentecostals could be fully and completely Christian.
So, I want to be fair and open-minded with anyone of a minority religious group who claims to be Christian. I have learned from hard experiences that in spite of studying non-traditional groups (I taught a course for 17 years called “America’s Cults and New Religions”) I sometimes turn out to be wrong about what they really believe and why.
Bob is the self-appointed LDS missionary to mainstream Christians, attempting to explain LDS belief as truly Christian and not cultic or heretical. In this book, he deals with 11 common myths (as he sees them) about the LDS Church.
The first one is “A Finite God” and the last one is “No Eternal Security.” It is an eye-opening book. Everyone who has any interest in LDS religion should read it, if for no other reason, to get what LDSers really believe (or at least Bob’s version of it!).
I am not particularly concerned about the details of “Mormon underwear” and “Temple work,” etc. I go right to the heart of the matter (and did when I was at BYU twice for ecumenical dialogue events). Is Jesus God and Savior? To me, this is the crucial issue when trying to decide whether a person or group is authentically Christian. All kinds of religions and non-religious philosophies accept Jesus Christ as a prophet, a sage, a cynic, a magician, even the “Son of God” (as Jehovah’s Witnesses admit).
The World Council of Churches requires candidate denominations to confess that Jesus Christ is God and Savior. I agree.
So what does Bob say about Jesus Christ? Well, Jesus appears on almost every page of the book and he goes to great lengths to express LDS high regard for Jesus. He talks often about Jesus’ “godhood” and “divinity” and “divine powers,” etc. But what I’m looking for is a clear, unequivocal affirmation that Jesus Christ was uniquely God incarnate, eternally equal in essence with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
On page 15 Bob says “while Jesus was fully human, He was also fully God. That means–and this is vital–that we (LDSers) worship the Son of God as God the Son, as do all other Christians. … How He became the infinite and eternal God is, from my perspective, immaterial, if in fact it does not in any way detract from my love and unbounded adoration of Him.”
My response is: Hmmmmm….. I like the first part of that confession and scratch my head vigorously and wince tightly over the last part of it. How does an infinite being “become God?”
Once I asked Bob face-to-face if he believes Jesus is God and he said yes. Then I asked him if he believes Jesus was always God and he said yes. Why now, in this book, does he imply that Jesus “became” God? Does that even make sense? And can an informed, authentic Christian believe Jesus “became God?”
I have come to the conclusion that many LDSers are, from my perspective, anyway, very confused about theology. IF Bob believes Jesus always was and is and always will be God equal with the Father and the Son, then I have no problem being open to accepting him as a Christian. (I would have to know that the LDS Church as a whole believes that before accepting it as a Christian denomination.)
Of course, yes, there are other issues, but they pale in comparison with this one.
I would like to see more LDS-Christian dialogues. And one thing I would like to challenge LDSers about is the eternal divinity of Jesus Christ and his unique incarnation on which everything about being a Christian depends.
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