June 18
The painful clash of evangelicalism and Mormonism
By Tom AireyPage:
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Growing up in the world of Orange County (Calif.) fundamentalist-evangelicalism, I quickly learned that “cult” was synonymous with “Mormon.” Virtually every evangelical Christian I have ever met believes that Mormonism is not a legitimate brand of Christianity. Of course, much of this is understandable considering that Mormons have added sacred texts to the Bible and have divergent views on Christology, the Trinity and the “requirements” of salvation. But this evangelical brand of hostility toward Mormonism has always had a unique quality that is, today, more relevant than ever.
The New York Times has published a significant piece from J. Spencer Fluhman, an assistant professor of history at Brigham Young University. Fluhman exposes the hypocrisy of historic anti-Mormon sentiment coming from evangelical circles:
“In the 19th century, antagonists charged that Mormon men were tyrannical patriarchs, that Mormon women were virtual slaves and that Mormons diabolically blurred church and state. These accusations all contained some truth, though the selfsame accusers denied women the vote, bolstered racist patriarchy and enthroned mainstream Protestantism as something of a state religion.”
Communicating a simple-yet-vital religious history lesson, Fluhman posits that evangelicalism’s anti-Mormonism has only gotten more intense in the past few decades:
“Embarrassed after their fight with modernists in the mid-1920s, evangelical Protestants withdrew from public engagement, built their own impressive church and educational networks, and re-emerged in the 1970s as a formidable force on the political right. The subsequent “countercult” movement within evangelicalism targeted Mormonism with gusto.”
But Fluhman is hopeful for a kinder, gentler evangelical-Mormon relationship, mostly because evangelicals “seem more concerned with Mr. Obama’s political heresies than with Mr. Romney’s religious ones.” Fluhman concludes with a hopeful-yet-realistic prediction:
“This election, regardless of outcome, unquestionably pushes the United States onto new political terrain because neither candidate represents the religious old guard. But until U.S. Americans work through our contradictory impulses regarding faith, diversity and freedom, there is no reason to believe anti-Mormonism will go away anytime soon.”
Evangelical Christianity’s historic obsession with hating on Mormonism needs to end. Not because we necessarily need to be critically “tolerant” of each and every religious option (“relativism”), but because the criticism of Mormonism coming from the powerful evangelical wing of the Body of Christ is saturated in hypocrisy.
Oh, the audacity of evangelicals to criticize Mormonism’s patriarchy while white males dominate pulpits, committees and non-profit evangelical hierarchies. And the conspicuous intertwining of racial baggage and the-lack-of-separation-of-church-and-state has haunted evangelical circles since Martin Luther King Jr. This is how Princeton University Professor Cornel West describes the evangelical political significance of the late 20th century in his book Democracy Matters (2004):
“Ironically, the powerful political presence of imperial Christians today is inspired by the success of the democratic Christian-led movement of Martin Luther King Jr. The worldly engagement of King’s civil rights movement encouraged Constantinian Christians to become more organized and to partner with the power elites of the American empire. The politicization of Christian fundamentals was a direct response to King’s prophetic Christian legacy. It began as a white backlash against King’s heritage in American public life, and it has always had a racist undercurrent — as with Bob Jones University, which until recently barred interracial dating.”
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Comments
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Tom, this has to be one of the most poorly reasoned essays I have ever read. Evangelical engagement with mormonism, labelled with the pejorative of being "anti-mormon" as a way to shut down conversation, doesn't focus on "patriarchy" or racism. To brush over the radical differences between Christianity and mormonism is either ignorant or dishonest. A mormon is not a "follower of Jesus" and having been one I can state that unequivocally. Your criticism of evangelicalism as not being sufficiently concerned with enemy love has some merit but it is lost in your cavalier attitude towards a religious movement that is called a cult because it is a cult.
The issue with mormonism is not at its core political, it is theological. Even a cursory understanding of mormonism shows that it is more than "divergent views on Christology, the Trinity and the “requirements” of salvation" but an entirely different "gospel" that denies Christ, denies the Father and denies the very Gospel itself. Getting mormons to volunteer in soup kitchens and carry placards decrying American imperialism is missing the big picture entirely.
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Arthur, Thanks for sharing your comments on the "most poorly reasoned" essay you've ever read. Let me attempt to clarify a couple key points. First of all, who decides whether is a religious movement is a "cult" or not? And related to this, who decides what is "orthodox" theologically? Stephen Colbert once said, "Here's an easy way to figure out if you're in a cult:If you're wondering whether you're in a cult, the answer is yes." But seriously, these decisions, in the end, are made (and have always been made historically) by powerful leaders of groups within the larger Body of Christ that have majority status. Unfortunately, we Anabaptists know all about how this works. And more and more within North American religious dialogues, the concept of what a "cult" is has become highly subjective. Basically, someone is part of a cult because YOU say they are.
With that said, I am part of a growing movement of younger Christians (many of us are post-Evangelicals) who believe that a religious movement can only really be measured by the way they actually live, not what they profess to believe. Although dogmatic analyses of the Trinity, the incarnation and soteriology have their place, these have all been heavily contested within Christianity for the past two millenia. Instead of focusing on what Mormons and Evangelicals (or Anabaptists and Catholics) believe, we ought to highlight the lived witness of these individuals and communities: are they, in fact, living the way Jesus called us to live ("they will know you are my disciples by your love"). I have been highly influenced by the Anabaptist theologian James McClendon who subversively started his trilogy of systematic theology with Ethics (then Doctrine and Witness). Our starting point as Christians, McClendon urged, has to be the way we actually live.
In conclusion, the point I was attempting to get at in this blog post was that Mormons and Evangelicals (with the risk of overgeneralizing) have very similiar social, economic and political lifestyles. It would be quite difficult to deny the patriarchal and racial baggage of both groups (both historic and contemporary). And quite frankly, these should matter more than whether one is "orthodox" in regards to the Trinity or who gets into heaven after they die.
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Tom
So your basis of orthodoxy is external works, apparently defined by a cultural understanding of which economic policies are or are not appropriate, something else that has been contested over the years. In other words a mormon who believes that Jesus is a created being and the brother of Satan, a Muslim who thinks that Jesus was a mere prophet, a Hindu who doesn't believe in Christ at all might be considered orthodox followers of Christ based on their works, as you define them. In your attempt to be all things to all people you have emasculated the Gospel and turned it into little more than a moralistic charity.
The church, not merely some shadowy cabal of "powerful leaders", has long understood some things to be non-negotiable. Jesus said that anyone who denies Him denies the Father who sent Him. Denying the divinity of Christ and His work on the cross sets one outside of Christian orthodoxy. We are unified not by our definition of "good works" but by our common salvation in Christ. That salvation wrought by being born-again results in good works, not the other way around. These are basic tenets of the Christian faith which Anabaptists long understood, at least until recently. You have the order backward. We should be exhorting fellow regenerate believers to good works, not focusing on good works in the hope that the doer will come to faith in a Christ that he doesn't know.
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The Apostle Paul speaks into this discussion, agreeing at various points with both Tom and Art, in Romans 2:6-16.
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I think that this is a perceptive article. Some of it can be encapsulated using the old phrase “politics makes strange bedfellows” and also “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.“ Mr. Sido misses the point, and seems to have gotten side tracked onto the issue of which religion is orthodox and which one is not. That is not the point of the article, which instead is focusing on the dramatic changes in perception and accommodation now that there is a Mormon running for office.
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I have some questions for Mr. Sido, or anyone who cares to answer them.. My understanding of the definition of the word Christian is Christ-like. Meaning we should live our lives as Jesus did. Did he not show us the way, the truth, and the life? I am not at all convinced soteriology is the cornerstone of Christianity. I believe it's in Matthew chapter 6 or 7 where it states, that in order to get to Heaven we must follow the will of God, which kind of flies in the face of the born again concept. Additionally, I find remarkably few Christians who can give a cogent explanation as to what born again is, and how it takes place. I have heard some describe it in a way that sounds suspiciously like a psychological reaction to a traumatic situation. Others have said it is a gradual process. We also have the issue of the crucifixion and resurrection. Is our salvation based on the first crucifixion in Revelation 11:8, or the second one as related in the Gospel? The Book of Mormon, as I read it, simply fills in some years of missing Jewish history, and doesn’t materially add to or detract from commonly accepted biblical theology. No I am not Mormon, but I have read the Book of Mormon. The Mormons use the same Bible other denominations use. They are also like all the other denominations in as much as the commandments of manmade dogma have become more important than God’s commandments. Even if Mormon dogma differs from your dogma, it doesn’t mean they are not Christians. We should all remember that when Christianity began it was considered a radical cult. From that one could deduce if your cult has a sufficiently large number of members to influence the socio-political environment, you are no longer a cult. I have become over the years a non-denominational Christian, because the denominational manmade dogma is a satanic like vexation to my soul. Perhaps I too am a member of an as yet unnamed cult which eschews manmade dogma. I don’t know.
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Well, whites like Evangelicalism in the oc not hispanics or asians as much. It was the late Walter Martin that set a lot of Evangelicals against Mormonism. Also, Orange County is losing a lot of Evangelicals to the Reform tradtion, eastern orthodoxy or Luthersiams. Rick Warren and Chuck Smith have lost about 200 to 300 people to other groups mention above. Father Wayne Wilson is the first pastor in Oc to changed to Eastern Orthodoxy.
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