Evangelicals and Mormons Together?
by M. J. Bardon,
Baptist Mid-Missions Utah, 3/4/05
On November 14, 2004 a historic event took place in the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City. A capacity crowd of 7,000 Mormons and Evangelicals came to hear both Mormon and Evangelical apologists speak. What benefit did the Mormon Church hope to receive by this gathering? What benefit did the Evangelicals hope to receive by this gathering?
In order to answer those two questions, we need to go back a few years to a book written by the Chairman of the Department of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University and one of the chief Mormon apologists, Dr. Stephen E. Robinson. The title of that book is, "Are Mormons Christians?" published in 1991 by Bookcraft in Salt Lake City. Robinson skillfully redefines some unique Mormon doctrines and minimizes others to declare that Mormons are
Christians.
In simplest terms an organization cannot rightly call itself Christian if they are not following the Christ of the Bible. No matter how Robinson redefines and minimizes the LDS Church's doctrine of Christ, the Mormon Christ is still not the biblical Christ. But sad to say as the result of the impact of this book many Mormons and Evangelicals have accepted the LDS Church as a Christian Church.
Another book written by Craig L. Blomberg and Stephen E. Robinson and published in 1997 by Intervarsity Press is "How Wide the Divide?" Blomberg is a New Testament professor at Denver (Conservative Baptist) Seminary. Blomberg and Robinson each write half a chapter on four doctrinal issues (Scripture, God and Deification, Christ and the Trinity, and Salvation).
As an illustration of Robinson's ability to convince Blomberg that Mormons hold an orthodox view of salvation, this joint statement is given at the conclusion of the section on salvation: "Both Mormons and Evangelicals trust that they will be brought into a right relationship with God by Jesus Christ who is both the Son of God and God the Son. Both believe in the substitutionary atonement of Christ, justification by faith in Christ, and salvation by grace."
How could Robinson (a Mormon) agree with such a statement? How could Blomberg (an evangelical Bible professor) be duped into thinking they agree? They could agree because Robinson picks and chooses the Mormon authorities he quotes, redefines words and refuses to affirm what the Mormons have taught publicly for 150 years. Most Mormons would disagree with him, including the General Authorities of the LDS Church. He also gives a disclaimer by saying he does not speak for the church, but only for himself.
Now a young Pastor by the name of Greg Johnson of a Conservative Baptist Church in Ogden (who got his training at Denver Seminary) comes into the picture. In 1997, he started a dialogue with Dr. Robert Millet, the Dean of the School of Religion at BYU. As a former Mormon himself, Johnson felt that many evangelicals misrepresented what Mormons believed and were too confrontational in their approach of evangelizing them. He also wanted to build bridges of friendship with Mormons in hopes of understanding one another better and fostering a climate of respect in order to win them to Christ.
His dialogue and friendship with Bob Millet has continued now for 8 years and has progressed to the point where they frequently speak together in Mormon settings as well as some Evangelical churches to emphasize their common beliefs in the midst of some definite differences. Johnson says, "We are trying to show the upcoming generation that truth does not always have to be confrontational. There is a lot of room for us to build on our common values and to respectfully share with each other our perspectives on the scriptures."
In February of 2003, Campus Crusade for Christ and the LDS Institute of Religion at Utah State University in Logan jointly sponsored the seminar, An Evangelical and a Mormon in Conversation." Johnson's defense for being involved is that we should love our enemies, truly listen to what they believe, and gain their respect if we want them to listen to our message.
In the dialogue of "An Evangelical and a Mormon in Conversation" Millet carefully uses words to describe his faith that sound evangelical. Johnson accepts them at face value and doesn't probe much deeper. Millet affirms and denies (with tongue in cheek) several doctrines of the Mormon Church. Although he is one of the leading theologians of the LDS Church, he admits he doesn't speak for his Church.
So, who does speak for his Church? Most Mormons would agree that their Prophet speaks for their Church authoritatively. The current Prophet, Gordon B. Hinckley was interviewed by the San Francisco Chronicle in April 1997. He was asked, "Don't Mormons believe that God was once a man? His answer was "I wouldn't say that... it gets into pretty deep theology that we don't know very much about." However, the first Prophet of the Mormon Church, Joseph Smith clearly taught, "God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man." When he got up before the Mormon people in the next semi-annual conference he referred to that newspaper interview and said, "I have been... in a few instances misquoted and misunderstood. You need not worry that I do not understand some matters of doctrine." So the Mormon people smiled and admired the clever way their prophet was able to answer difficult questions.
In an interview with David Ransom of the Australian Broadcasting Association aired November 9, 1997 Hinckley was asked, "Does God have a physical body?" In response Hinckley replied, "He's an individual as is His Son, Jesus Christ." Again Hinckley is evasive and tried to hide the true teaching of the Church. His own scripture plainly states, "God... is a personage of flesh and bones" (D & C 130:22).
In another interview with Larry King on December 26, 2004, Hinckley was asked, "What happens when you die?" He answered evasively, "Well, I'm not fully conversant with that." So Robinson and Millet, among the chief theologians of the Mormon Church today, follow the example of their Prophet and cleverly couch their responses to questions by non-Mormons about their doctrines in ways that are evasive and sound evangelical.
In answer to the criticism that Christian s are not to be unequally yoked together with unbelievers, Johnson (Evangelical) and Millet (Mormon) say that 2 Corinthians 6:14 doesn't apply to them because it is a reference to the marriage relationship. However, most conservative Bible commentators over the years have interpreted this command not only to include the marriage relationship, but to mean that believers and unbelievers are not to be yoked together in any religious or ministry endeavor. Herein lies one of the differences between fundamental Bible believers and evangelicals today.
Different than evangelicals, fundamental Bible believing Christians would not have a Mormon religion professor come and dialogue in their churches. Besides this passage in 2 Corinthians, there are several others that command separation from false teachers and allowing them a platform to speak in church such as Romans 16:17 and 2 John 9-11.
In 2001, Greg Johnson established a group called Standing Together Ministries. It includes at least 50 churches (many in Utah) including Southern Baptist, Calvary Chapel, Assembly of God, Foursquare, Lutheran, Nazarene, Conservative Baptist and Evangelical Free. Some of those who have publicly endorsed and recommend Standing Together are V. Eric Nachtrieb (Pocket Testament League), David Neff (Christianity Today), Craig Blomberg (Denver Seminary), Craig Hazen (Biola), Richard Mouw (Fuller Seminary), Ronald Enroth (Westmont College), and Francis Beckwith (Baylor University).
According to the ministry goals posted on their web site, one of them is to facilitate LDS/Evangelical scholarly dialogue. Robert Millet (LDS Professor) and Greg Johnson travel around the country speaking to Evangelical and LDS groups.
In 2003, Johnson approached Ravi Zacharias, an internationally known apologist about coming to Utah and speaking to a group of Mormons and Evangelicals. He also approached the LDS Church about using the Salt Lake Tabernacle to hold a meeting in which Mormons and Evangelicals would speak. The Church surprisingly agreed. The event entitled "An Evening of Friendship was co-sponsored by Standing Together Ministries and the Richard L. Evans Chair for Religious Understanding at Brigham Young University and held on Sunday evening November 14, 2004.
The building was packed to overflowing with Mormons and Evangelicals. The order of the speakers that night included Greg Johnson (Standing Together), Robert Millet (BYU), Richard Mouw (Fuller), Ravi Zacharias and Craig Hazen (Biola). The music was led by Michael Card. Craig Hazen, the director of Biola University's Apologetics program reported afterwards, "Michael Card led us all in some amazing worship songs. It was surreal to see Evangelicals worshiping in Spirit and Truth at the center of Mormon power and influence."
Hazen also said that even though Ravi Zacharias gave a dazzling message on the person and work of Christ, "In my view the rank-and-file Mormons would not have found anything controversial about it." Ravi also admitted afterwards in response to some of his critics that he soft-pedaled some of the main issues in his message by saying, "Is it really necessary at the early stages of such openness to dump the whole truckload of goods rather than first gaining a hearing?"
Richard Mouw, President of Fuller Seminary, who spoke before Ravi said, From the very beginning, when Joseph Smith organized his church in 1830, my evangelical forebears hurled angry accusations and vehement denunciations at the Mormon community—a practice that continues... into this present day." He also said as a result of recent dialogue between Evangelicals and Mormons, " .I am now convinced that we evangelicals have often seriously misrepresented the beliefs and practices of the Mormon community. Indeed, let me state it bluntly to the LDS folks here this evening: we have sinned against you."
At the end of his message, he made two startling statements. First in regards to the year 2005 marking the 200th anniversary of the birth of Joseph Smith and the many national celebrations concerning it, he said, "…I hope many in the evangelical community will take part in those events." Second, he said, "What a wonderful thing it is that we can meet together to talk about the Lord Jesus and about who he is and what he has done on our behalf. ...I personally take great encouragement from words that Joseph Smith uttered on the occasion of the founding of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints... 'that all men must repent and believe on the name of Jesus Christ, and worship the Father in his name, and endure in faith on his name to the end, or they cannot be saved in the kingdom of God.'"
In the early days of Mormonism many Evangelicals did respond to the attack by Joseph Smith against them. He told his followers (as recorded in the Mormon Scripture, the Pearl of Great Price, JS 2:19 which Mormons still believe today), that God told him they (Evangelicals) "...were ALL WRONG; and the Personage who addressed me said that ALL their creeds were an ABOMINATION in his sight; that those professors were ALL CORRUPT;..."
From the record of the Evangelical responses back then to Joseph Smith's attack it does not appear that they replied angrily. They certainly gave a denunciation of his false doctrine and warned their people about it. Most Evangelicals in Utah today try to lovingly share the truth with their Mormon friends. The truth of the Bible sets men free from the doctrinal errors of false religion. It is also just not true that most Evangelicals have "often seriously misrepresented the beliefs and practices of the Mormon community." Perhaps a few have been guilty of that, but very few.
It is obvious that Richard Mouw has not only been deceived by the continuing "dialogue" between Evangelicals and Mormons but has also falsely accused his brethren of misrepresenting Mormon doctrine versus the Bible.
CONCLUSION
Now what is the answer to the original questions about what Mormons and Evangelicals hoped to gain by this meeting at the Salt Lake Tabernacle of the Mormon Church? It's obvious that the Mormons hoped to gain credibility in the Evangelical community as a "Christian" group even though they have a few strange doctrines. Through continuing dialogue they have been successful in redefining biblical words, couching their responses carefully in evangelical sounding terms" and deceiving many Evangelicals into thinking they are a Christian Church.
On the other hand, many sincere (though naive) Evangelicals have continued this dialogue in hopes of winning Mormons to Christ and helping them correct some of their doctrines. They have continued this fellowship regardless of the commands in the Bible to separate from such practice. They have also confused many people into thinking maybe the Mormons aren't so bad after all Just as Evangelicals and Catholics Together is an abomination, so is this.