Unless Mitt Romney gets picked to be John McCain’s VP nominee, the mainstream media may completely forget about that major news story from earlier in the primary season: Mormonism. Without that news hook, most reporters have moved on to different topics — debunking Christianity and shark attacks, or something.
But the Salt Lake Tribune is always on the Mormon beat. And I really enjoyed a recent piece by Peggy Fletcher Stack, the paper’s religion reporter. Noting that the president of Fuller Theological Seminary Richard Mouw was calling for more dialogue with the Latter-day Saints, Fletcher Stack explored the possibilities and barriers to such dialogue:
Not all Mormons think Mouw’s proposal is feasible.
The difference between Evangelicals and Mormons is more than theological, says Kathleen Flake, who teaches American religious history at Vanderbilt University. It’s also organizational and systematic.
Evangelicals are only loosely organized around a set of principles; not least emphasizing the primacy of the Bible over theology, Flake says. Latter-day Saints, on the other hand, “are tightly organized around an enlarged canon of Bible-based narratives. These are loosely employed to express personal conviction of God’s contemporary and revelatory immediacy.”
Mouw’s invitation for official, Vatican II-like negotiation makes sense, she says, “only if you think that Evangelicals and Latter-day Saints have a theology sufficiently systematized to speak definitively. It seems to me that neither does.”
Talking is good, Flake says, “but it’s never going to be official, only academic.”
Rather than a boring story about the evangelical proposal and official response from the Latter-day Saints, Fletcher Stack actually takes it to the next level. She shows some of the challenges inherent to dialogue between the two non-systematic beliefs.
The rest of the piece looks at conversations between evangelicals such as Muow and Latter-day Saints over the last decade:
“They’ve been good discussions,” Mouw said in a phone interview. “We really disagree about things but at the same time, we have gotten to a place where there’s trust between us.”
In a 2004 speech before a packed audience in the Mormon Tabernacle on Temple Square, Mouw chastised his fellow Evangelicals for sinning against Latter-day Saints by misrepresenting their views to others in order to debunk Mormonism.
“It’s a terrible thing to bear false witness,” Mouw said. “We’ve told you what you believe without first asking you…I remain convinced there are serious issues of difference that are of eternal consequence, but now we can discuss them as friends.”
This bit of color is also helpful. So often we see the mainstream media work from the notion that dialogue can only happen between people who are not dogmatic. All in all, Fletcher Stack moves beyond press release journalism to an interesting story.
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Comments (6) |
July 9, 2008, at 11:11 am
Has anyone ever bothered to question the core of the issue: the “Why” of ecumenicalism?
This article tends to touch on that question, somewhat. Why are they talking? To be friendly, neighborly? Fine. But unlike ecumenical talks between Lutherans and Roman Catholics, or (Traditionalist) Anglicans and Roman Catholics, the goal doesn’t seem to be reunification and reconciliation, it’s just.. to be nice to one another and to understand one another.
A fine goal in and of itself, but one that should be questioned by reporters nonetheless (as ALL things should be.)
The reception of Mauz’s speech by Evangelicals, in which he basically apologized for misrepresenting Mormonism, was not entirely positive, if I remember right. Has he recovered from that, I wonder? Are there lingering bad feelings? Was there more fallout, or were his views seen as transformative or even simply enlightening? I wonder also how he’s been received by Mormon leaders.
July 9, 2008, at 11:25 am
This reminds me of a postcard on my wall that says something like: I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
I’ve gone on a few times about misunderstanding what someone’s intent and message were so it’s nice to read a piece where groups are trying to understand where each other really stands and to do it in friendly way.
July 9, 2008, at 1:06 pm
Sorry, I’m not quite getting it… how exactly is evangelicalism “non-systematic”? While not an expert on Mormon theology, most (perhaps all?) evangelical Bible colleges/seminaries have a core course titled “Systematic Theology”. There are certainly variations between schools, churches, and individuals, but I propose the similarities would far outweigh them.
July 9, 2008, at 1:38 pm
Flake’s statements were quite pertinent, because honestly, both the Evangelical movement and the Mormons have identity problems which raise questions about the ability of either to define themselves vis a vis the other.
The American Evangelical movement frankly, suffers from multiple personality disorder. What do Evangelicals believe? The answer is, it depends on which faction you are talking to. Are you talking to the “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” crowd? Or are you talking to the Joel Osteen crowd? Or maybe you mean the Southern Baptist Convention? Or maybe that liberal Evangelical congregation down the street? Pat Robertson? Did they sign onto the recent “Evangelical Manifesto” or not? Have they buried their problems with racism or not?
Who knows? It’s a moving target. The problem is, that whenever a practicing Evangelical doesn’t like a particular doctrinal stance, they just shop-around for a different pastor, and there is no central authority specifying what is or is not doctrinally correct. What’s the true face of Evangelicalism? That’s like asking which is the best fighting style on a Martial Arts message board. The answer will be passionate, heated, and doctrinally all over the place.
Mormons don’t have this problem, but they have an entirely different one - institutional amnesia. We, as a people, have a hard time owning our sometimes quirky doctrinal past. Most Mormons today, for example are unaware of just how central polygamy was to the faith of their forefathers. We may have a centralized authority that you can point to for the last word on doctrinal matters. The problem is that our leadership has a very hands-off approach to Mormon orthodoxy. Strange doctrines are allowed to simply fade away into quiet obscurity without ever getting a definitive and authoritative treatment. This leaves many Evangelicals scratching their heads and saying “so, is that official doctrine or not?”
It’s hard to tell other people who you are, when you’re not even sure yourself who you are. And if we don’t know who we are, reporters are certainly going to have a devil of a time figuring it out.
July 9, 2008, at 2:42 pm
Actually, Vatican II was an intra-Catholic event; there were non-Catholic observers, but there were no negotiations between Catholics and non-Catholics officially associated with Vatican II.
Perhaps she was misled by Vatican II sometimes being called an ecumenical council. Here’s the definition, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia - this is what the Catholic Church believes is an Ecumenical Council. The churches in union with Rome think that Vatican II qualifies; the Orthodox do not. But, for sure, Vatican II was not convened to negotiate with e.g. Lutherans or Anglicans.
July 9, 2008, at 8:30 pm
We are similiar in that the members have different opinions within each group. We are different in that there is a “Mormon” church which is extrememly well organized, but there is no such thing as an “Evangelical” church. May I make a suggestion to the media and both groups? Mormons do not try and run away from your past. Just admit that Mormonsism is an evolving religion. Allow divisions as long as they do not challenge the legal authority of the church and as long as members define believes as their own and not the church. Leaders of the Mormon church. Do not play games with people. With the internet that will not work anymore. Do not say things which can be verified as false. Check with your history experts before opening your mouths. Let BYU professors handle the tough questions. Just say to the media that leaders of the church today are trying to deal with the basics as we feel this will be beneficial to the membership of the church. Tough doctrinal questions can be debated by BYU experts. Now Evangelicals stop pretending you are a church or a movement. You do not exist. You are a collection of Pentecostals, Baptists and other groups. If you want to be taken seriously form a coalition group to represent you to the Mormon church. Otherwise the Mormon church laughs at your disorganized group and I do not blame them. My ideas and thoughts are open to debate and are only my own. My views do not represent the LDS church or Evangelical community and are meant as kind constructive advice for both groups. Offence is not intended.