Love it.
A guy who lives outside the state of Utah, getting his info through biased sources, spent maybe a few hours doing his research, appoints himself the expert on Mormon-Evangelical relationships and history.
It’s like a guy who never left Miami Beach writing the book on how to hunt elk in the Rocky Mountains.
Waste of skin.
Paul tells us in Galatians (I think it’s Galatians) that we are not to believe any angel or man who gives us another gospel. That is exactly what happened to Joseph Smith. We are not to believe that angel or Joseph Smith. All the LDS that I know (quite a few) are awesome people, good in their nature, servers, and believers in God. But I believe they have been duped and I pray for them.
Way to go, NC...Either you succeeded in turning back the clock to 2005 in order to report this "breaking news"...or BeliefNet is just a "tad slow" in its reporting...
Now why is the date on this post Oct. 19, 2009?
As a Christian I would be ashamed if other Christians bare falsely against Mormons, but never ashamed, nor will I apoligize for believing Joseph Smith and his cohorts were nothing but charlatans and liars. Mormonism a cult which leads those away from The Truth which is Yeshua.
A couple of comments. Because of the nature of what evangelical Christianity is, I would always be a bit circumspect about anyone who purports to speak for it. Its not the kind of thing that any one person can speak for.
As for the big divide between Mormons and the Christian world, its no secret, its very simple. We accept the Bible as being the basic text of the faith; the famous scriptures telling us to accept no other will always be the dividing line. Mormons have factored that in or rationalized it somehow, we haven’t.
Does that prevent me from seeing mormons as being allies in the great culture wars, which are at heart wars of faith and civilization? Not at all. They are proving themselves to be allies again and again. You know a man by his fruit, and that applies to mormons as well as anyone else.
What does strike me, and others can feel free to comment, is that there seems to have been a shift in mormon thinking toward the Christian world. In recent years there seems to be a new desire on the part of mormons to be considered by the Christian world as brothers in the faith. I don’t remember that from years before, they were always very happy to stand apart and I never noticed any desire to be considered “one of us”. So that seems new. Maybe its precisely because of the culture wars that, finding ourselves on the same side of so many issues, some of the attitudes begin to soften.
But while we see you guys as cultural and political allies, and generally nice folks, it doesn’t change the theological issue. And what “false witness” Mouw is confessing to, I’m not sure. He should probably speak for himself. The points of disagreement aren’t a secret. They haven’t changed and probably won’t change. That shouldn’t prevent good people from standing together in the political and philosophical world when they find themselves in agreement. And it shouldn’t prevent people of good will from acknowledging one another as friends and neighbors.
Even if I think your theology is a bit crazy. If you know how to barbecue I’ll still be over.
“Dialogue” is the hobgoblin of straying minds.
Your link does not go to the article.
Anyone who claims to be a “leading evangelical” isn’t.