Mormon, Baptist respect differences in faith
Lawn Griffiths, Tribune,
http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/115390
Headstrong in their two faiths, a Mormon and
a Baptist squared off recently at the Tempe Institute of Religion at
Actually, some 55 times since 2001, the Rev.
Gregory Johnson, founding pastor of Ogden Valley Baptist Church in Utah, and
Robert Millet, dean emeritus of religious education at Brigham Young University
in Provo, Utah, have held "A Conversation Between a Mormon and an
Evangelical" in the U.S., Canada and England. Between genial ribbing and
sharing their own spiritual journeys, they posed questions about problematic
parts of each other's religion.
The dialogue on April 25 was hosted by the
Greater Phoenix Latter-day Saints Interfaith Council and the Arizona Ecumenical
Council.
More than 500 people watched the two wage a spirited discussion. Most of the focus centered on
Mormon doctrines and practices.
"This has been a sweet experience - the
purpose is understanding," said Millet, now
professor of religion education, outreach and interfaith relations for BYU and
author of about 50 books. "This is a world where there is much
misunderstanding and misperception and, unfortunately, misrepresentation,"
he said. The two collaborated on a book, released in November, "Bridging
the Divide: The Continuing Conversation Between a
Mormon and an Evangelical."
At the outset of the dialogue, they promised
no winner or loser. "It is important to get along, but that is not the
thrust of our approach," Johnson said.
"Bob and I are not willing to trade off
on our doctrines," he said. "I am not conceding
the Trinity (God, son and Holy Ghost) if you give up the baptism of the
dead," a Mormon sacrament, or ordinance, in which church members by proxy
and using a range of records vicariously baptize deceased persons of other
faiths or no faith.
"Historically, Mormons and evangelicals
know how to argue well," said Johnson, who spent much of his boyhood as a
member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints until he had a
conversion experience at a summer camp in Colorado when he was a teen and
became a Baptist.
"We are not in conversation just to
make points with one another," said Johnson, founder and president of
Standing Together, a ministry "to advance biblical unity and spiritual
transformation in
"Once in a while, we need to ask
ourselves the hard question, 'Am I sometimes too proud, maybe even arrogant, to
suppose that someone of another faith can actually teach me something - that I
can learn something from him?' " asked Millet.
Often, he said, when people have contrasting
religious beliefs and disagreements, "we say, 'flight or fight,' "
Johnson said. It is manifested by family pledges to not discuss religion at
Thanksgiving meals, for example. He recounted how often families have been
"split right down the middle" when, for example, someone has left an
evangelical church or the Mormon church and joined the
other.
"It has severely tested marriages, it
has put children opposite their parents, it has broken some families up,"
Johnson said. "That breaks our hearts to think there are people, in the
context of loving family relationships," who let
religious choices break bonds among loved ones. It runs counter to Christ's
purpose on earth, he said. "Jesus died on the cross because he loved a
lost world."
Johnson offered a litany of issues commonly
raised with Mormons: whether Jesus and Lucifer were spirit brothers, the ban of
black males from the priesthood before the doctrine was changed in 1978, the
practice of polygamy until it was banned in 1890, and blood atonement whereby
it was once taught that certain sins required the blood of the sinner to be
shed to gain forgiveness.
"People are down on what they are not
up on," Millet said. "And not many people are up on what the central
teachings of the Latter-day Saints happen to be."
The BYU professor said those topics and others are "peripheral
teachings." He said there is a "tendency and the temptation on the
part of people outside my faith to define me and to define my faith for me and
tell me what I believe and what I don't believe."
Millet said the test for whether matters are
bona fide Mormon doctrine falls into four areas:
Is it found in the canons of Scripture and
taught in standard works?
Is it found in official declarations or
proclamations of the church from the First Presidency?
Is it taught regularly and consistently by
the highest authorities of the church, typically at twice annual General
Conferences?
Is it found in the general handbooks of the
church or its curricula?
Millet said the church constantly is
defending itself from 150 years of massive writings and statements by
authorities in what has been an evolving church. "We don't denounce our
past, we don't denounce our beginnings, but we believe that this happens to be
a living church, and if you are a living church, that
means there comes line upon line, precept upon precept, development upon
development. So we understand it better now than we understood in 1840."
The fundamental principles of the Mormon
faith, Millet said, "are the testimony of the apostles and prophets
concerning Jesus Christ, who died, was buried, rose again the third day and
entered into heaven." The rest, he said, are appendages, and the church
should not be judged on "anomalies."
"I can find where Southern Baptists
encouraged people to practice slavery on the basis of biblical
references," he said
Johnson said he would concede that point.
"Martin Luther himself is a hero of the faith to me, but not very pleasant
when it came to the Jews ... It is not fair to judge everything about your
faith by what anybody might have said at any one time."
The two men repeatedly implored people of
all faiths to engage in thoughtful, nonjudgmental dialogue. "Love is the
ultimate apologetic," Johnson said. "The ultimate defender of your
faith as a Christian is how you love people."
Millet said one telltale sign of neighborly
love comes when someone moves in next door to a Mormon family, which extends
traditional gifts of cookies and bread. If those new neighbors spurn all
invitations to attend the chapel in their ward, he asked, "Do I withdraw?
Do I say they aren't interested in learning about the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints, so I will just pull away? Or do I do something really
radical and strange: Do I become friends with them?"
Johnson said love transcends religious
belief.
"I believe Bob matters to Jesus Christ,
that Jesus Christ loves Bob, and he represents a whole group of people that I
was once a part of, the Mormon community," he said. "And I believe
God loves Mormons. So if God loves Mormons, then I love Mormons because I want
to love the same that God loves."