Are Mormons Becoming Protestants?

Are Mormons becoming Protestants?  Of course not.  Even if they would accept us as one of them, we would betray the gospel of Jesus Christ and his prophets if we became Protestant.  Yet I have heard some online who feel there is a spirit among some Latter-day Saints to become more Protestant-like.  Whereas in past generations Latter-day Saints have celebrated our differences from the traditional Christian world, today it seems more common to dwell upon the common ground we both share.  Is this a good thing?  Is this a change in our doctrine?  Is this trend from the rank and file membership, or is it being taught our prophet-leaders?

Thoughts on Interfaith Relations
President Gordon B. Hinckley has consistently advocated dialogue and mutual respect in interfaith relations. He has admonished members of the Church to cultivate “a spirit of affirmative” for those of differing religious, political, and philosophical persuasions, adding that “we do not in any way have to compromise our theology” in the process. He gave this counsel: “Be respectful of the opinions and feelings of other people. Recognize their virtues; don’t look for their faults. Look for their strengths and their virtues, and you will find strength and virtues that will be helpful in your own life.”

When members are not well grounded in the teachings of their own faith, how are they to resist being taught rather than teaching?  I ask this question in the light of this passage from the Doctrine and Covenants:

Doctrine and Covenants 43:15

Again I say, hearken ye elders of my church, whom I have appointed: Ye are not sent forth to be taught, but to teach the children of men the things which I have put into your hands by the power of my Spirit;

When all about me are trying to find common ground with the Protestants, Catholics, Muslims, etc. I get an uneasy feeling.  Can one always teach respect for another’s faith without putting himself into temptation?  If we spend much time in highlighting the good in the faiths and beliefs of others, is there a chance we will imply to the unsophisticated that one faith is about as good as another?  If the Methodist faith is so wonderful, why not be a Methodist? Surely God wouldn’t mind.  He loves all of his children.  And if I am a Methodist, I won’t have to quit smoking and keep the Law of Chastity.  Suppose I wanted to marry.  Suppose my future spouse is a Methodist.  What is going to best persuade me to marry a Latter-day Saint instead?  Will I do best by learning all the good things about Methodists and their teachings, or by learning what is false about their teachings?

This has puzzled me as long as I have been a Church member.  If I accentuate the false teachings of the sects of apostate Christendom, I am encouraged to cling to the gospel as a drowning man clings to a life raft.  If I do the opposite and look constantly for the good in their denominations and teachings, I will minimize the importance of the differences between us.  In which case, I might as well be a Protestant.

Joseph Smith had almost nothing good to say about the Protestant denominations of his day.  Just read his writings and sermons to confirm this.  The gospel was restored because traditional Christianity had become rank with apostasy and false doctrine.  Brigham Young and the other successors to Joseph Smith had this same negative and almost militant view of “the sectarians.”  Yes, there is a lot of truth in all religions.  Yes, there are good people in other churches and bad ones in the LDS faith.  Are these wonderful people in other faiths wonderful because of their churches or in spite of their churches?  I’ve also met wonderful atheists, agnostics, humanists, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Muslims.

Whenever I hear someone complain that I express negative thoughts about this or that false teaching in another church, I am told that such negativity will cause us to lose new converts.  Maybe so.  But is there any danger that failing to emphasize the falseness of their teachings will cause some of our members to misunderstand and become confused about our own teachings? Many of our members are not particularly interested in doctrine and might decide various teachings of other denominations are superior.  Why should we worry more about bringing others into the Church than we do about keeping those we already have?

For a number of reasons, the Church is true.  The other churches are not.  There is more to it than that, but that is most basic.  The whole idea of a true church implies that the others are false.  Baptists don’t ever talk about this or that denomination being “true.”  I never heard that until I became a Latter-day Saint.

I think we need to love and respect people of other faiths.  That does not mean that we need to love and respect their false churches.  If we forget this, our ability to retain the members we already have will go down as the number of new members goes up.

Can we love the sinner and hate the sin?  Yes, of course.  Can we love the Baptist or Methodist without loving his false church?  I think so. Is this distinction too fine for some to understand? I hope not.

When I became a Mormon it was because I knew the Baptist faith of my childhood was teaching nonsense about the Jesus Christ.  Had the Church made an effort to underline the things we had in common, I would have seen no reason to become a Mormon.  If just being a good person is all God requires, I can do that anywhere.  I do not need to be a Mormon to do that.

Is the faith of the Latter-day Saints part of the ecumenical movement?  I left the Protestants behind because I knew that philosophizing, voting, participating in conclaves and conventions, and learning about other faiths has no bearing upon what is true and what is false.  Truth and falsehood need no excuses or explanations.  If a thing is true, it is true regardless of what the “ecumenical” opinion is.

I think it is wrong to think well of the false doctrines promoted by the other churches.   It is wrong and it is also spiritually dangerous. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Did McConkie Lead The Church Astray?

I wonder how many people realize that some of the entries in our Bible Dictionary, the one bound with our LDS Scriptures, are lifted verbatim from Mormon Doctrine by Bruce R. McConkie? I wonder how many of them know the Chapter Headings in our standard works were written by him and to what extent they constitute a brief commentary on each chapter? In 1968 I was personally told by Hartman Rector, Jr. who was then one of the seven Presidents of Seventy, that whenever Church headquarters received inquiries on doctrinal matters, they were referred to the office of Bruce R. McConkie, and I’m not even sure he was a member of the Twelve at the time.

Apparently with the full approval of the First Presidency and the Twelve, Bruce R. McConkie probably did more to advance our understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ during the 20th century than any other prophet in Church history with the possible exception of James E. Talmage. True, some of Mormon Doctrine is personal opinion and not “official Church doctrine,” but if Bruce R. McConkie’s personal opinions about doctrine were not true, then it might be accurate to say that he led the Church astray because many of the prophets and apostles seem to have believed his personal opinions including some who have since become President of the Church. Yet I have met a number of active, temple attending online saints who believe he did exactly that, and that as a result the Church is now “astray.” I do not agree. Such saints need to receive some personal revelation and get a testimony from the Holy Ghost.

Technorati Tags: religion, christianity, mormonism, bruce r. mcconkie

Midgley’s Response To An Attack On “Prying Into Palmer”

by Louis Midgley, guest contributor

When it was called to my attention that Roasted Tomatoes had posted on a blog an item entitled “Reviewing the FARMS Review: Midgley on Palmer,” I decided that I would respond. My first stab at doing this was reads as follows:

I rather like what has fashioned. He has spunk and has done some research and discovered a few things. I would enjoy having a conversation with him and others on my “Prying into Palmer” [FARMS Review 15/2 (2003): 365-410]. I will, if you will permit, fashion something responding to “Reviewing the FARMS Review: Midgley on Palmer” by Roasted Tomatoes (aka JNS). But I have to finish some editorial details on the editor’s introduction to the FARMS Review 18/1 (2006). This must be done this morning, and then I must attend a meeting of the Maxwell Institute people with Richard Bushman. Immediately after this meeting, my wife and I are leaving town for a couple of days–I am going fishing. When we return, I will draft something for you. I will have it to you on Monday. [This was obviously not possible.]

But I can say now that I agree with Roasted’s comments about Anne [Newport] Royall’s probably not being the editor of Paul Pry’s Weekly Bulletin. I was too confident that she had been the editor of that thing. I have been unable to figure out who it was. But, as Roasted indicates, it really does not matter. Probably Roasted does not know this, but I have already tried to address the problem of determining who the editor of that tabloid was. Who the editor was, as Roasted grants, is really not an important issue. And neither is the question of whether Grant Palmer knew that “Paul Pry” had anti-Mormon connections. He may or may not have known. However, his current effort to explain how he came up with that name is not all that plausible. And Roasted needs to ask himself if he has accurately represented the explanation that Palmer recently provided on that [Dehlin] Podcast. He needs to make and then post a transcript of the relevant portions of that interview. Why? My understanding is that Palmer indicated that on a holiday in London he visited the West End (the theatre district) and noticed the name Paul Pry on a leaflet giving tips on plays and musicals. I am confident that Palmer mentioned that he loves to travel and on one of his trips to London, which had to be prior to 1985, he found that name in the theatre district. Palmer will have to demonstrate that he was in London prior to his having adopted the name “Paul Pry” to hide his identify from CES.

His current explanation is not what he told me when I had a long phone conversation with him. Back then, what he said is that someone had suggested the name to him. He could not recall who it was. At that time he was very close to Brent Metcalfe and Ron Walker, who were then busy looking for anything they could find that would cast light on what turned out to be Mark Hoffman’s forged Salamander Letter. For example, it was Ron Walker who introduced Palmer to E. T. A. Hoffmann’s The Golden Pot. And it was that tale that got Palmer partly fueled his writing “New York Mormonism” under the name “Paul Pry Jr.” So who might have mentioned Paul Pry to Palmer? I do not know and he probably cannot recall. But it is likely that it was someone who was right then working on the very earliest published literature on Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. Paul Pry’s Weekly Bulletin was one of the very first such publications. Palmer’s most recent account of how he just happened to come up with Paul Pry as a handle, however, is much more plausible than his efforts to see the Moroni story in The Golden Pot.

[Note: I have silently corrected a few infelicities and added a few things in brackets.]

SOME ADDITIONAL, PRELIMINARY REMARKS ABOUT ROASTED’S RECENT ATTACK ON ME AND ON THE FARMS REVIEW

I very much appreciate the opportunity to respond to Roasted Tomatoes (hereafter Roasted) who insists that he has identified “important errors” in my essay entitled “Prying into Palmer,” FARMS Review 15/2 (2003): 365-410, and hence that my essay is flawed by important errors of fact. He insists that these errors demonstrate that my essay is unreliable, and then he suggests that he has thereby demonstrated a weakness in what is published in the FARMS Review. In making this leap, and it is a huge leap, he seems to have followed a talk given by John Hatch at a Sunstone conference, a version of which was immediately posted on the Signature Books webpage. That deeply flawed diatribe, entitled “Why I No Longer Trust FARMS,” is no longer posted on the Signature Book webpage. (No reason has been given for its removal.) Roasted does not seem to know that John Hatch is embarrassed by what he has admitted to me (in an email message that I am prepared, if challenged, to quote) was an immature rant.