Mopologetic "Bridge Building"

[_Daniel Peterson]

Last I checked, Muslims and Jews didn't believe in the Trinity. What do international Muslim groups have to do with bridge building to mainstream Christians? Or are mainstream Christians not your target audience for your paper about the Trinity?

Looks to me like you do a lot of good work, but very very little of it impacts mainstream Christianity. So... maybe that's not your target audience for your paper?

Because I commonly deal with X, I can never deal with Y?

You can read the article, harmony. Or not.

[_harmony]

Last I checked, Muslims and Jews didn't believe in the Trinity. What do international Muslim groups have to do with bridge building to mainstream Christians? Or are mainstream Christians not your target audience for your paper about the Trinity?

Looks to me like you do a lot of good work, but very very little of it impacts mainstream Christianity. So... maybe that's not your target audience for your paper?

Because I commonly deal with X, I can never deal with Y?

You can read the article, harmony. Or not.

Never is a long time. You're the one who posted a long list of groups you've built bridges to. Looks like most of your bridge building has been between Muslims and Mormons, and most of those are related to your work, not your apologetics. Are any of those invitations as a result of your apologetic bridge-building to the Muslim world? How do you get around being an Infidel, or do you avoid that entirely?

I'm not sure there's anything in your bag of degrees and expertise that would build the same kind of bridge to mainstream Christianity. Do you find an expertise in Arabic or ancient Arabic texts to be helpful when addressing a national conference of the Catholic or Baptist or Methodist faith? I'm not seeing a lot of those groups on your list. Why do you suppose you don't have an equally long list of mainstream Christian groups fighting for your time?

[_Gadianton Plumber]

If I read Offenders for a Word, will I see your attempts at bridge building in practice?

No. You'll see my attempts at bridge building in practice if you accompany me to Orlando, Florida, next month, where I'll keynote the annual meeting of Central Florida's Muslim community; and/or if you accompany me to Tehran in September for a Mormon/Shi‘ite dialogue; and/or if you come with me to Jordan to hear me speak to members of the royal cabinet and selected academic figures regarding our translation projects; and/or if you travel with me to the meetings of the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Science in November and listen to what I say to them; and/or if you attend my speech to the Parliament of the World's Religions in Melbourne, Australia, in early December. You'll see my attempts at bridge-building in the Islamic Translation Series, the Library of the Christian East, the Medical Works of Moses Maimonides, and the Eastern Christian Texts series. You'll see them in my biography of Muhammad, and my book for Mormons entitled Abraham Divided. You'll see them in my article on "Mormonism and the Trinity." You'll see them in my work as a member of the board of the Foundation for Interreligious Diplomacy:

http://www.fidweb.org/

You would have seen them in my involvement with Jewish/Christian/Muslim "trialogues" in Austria and Israel, in my innumerable firesides and other presentations to Mormon and community groups in various states and foreign countries, in my radio and television interviews, in my lectures at synagogues and mosques in the United States and beyond, and the like.

In Offenders for a Word, you'll see my argument for the very broad and inclusive historical semantic range of the term Christian.

Is it just me or is anyone else getting tired of the Good Bishop's "destination" name dropping. Buy me all those trips, I will build a bridge wherever you tell me!

[_Daniel Peterson]

It's true, harmony, that I've done a lot of work with Muslims. This shouldn't be surprising. Islam is my academic speciality, and there are few Mormons who can say that. But my "trialogues" in Austria and Israel have been with Jews and other Christians, as well as with Muslims. My work with the Vatican has involved neither Jews nor Muslims. My word with FID involves potentially all faiths, as will my address in Melbourne. Moses Maimonides was a Jews. The Eastern Christians were . . . well, Christian.

Is it just me or is anyone else getting tired of the Good Bishop's "destination" name dropping.

I'm told that I can't be a bridge builder, don't have the temperament for it, haven't done it, that the idea of my being involved in interfaith dialogue is a joke, etc.

I can let that stand, or I can refute it.

If I refute it without giving specific examples that illustrate the time and effort I put into bridge building and the high levels at which I work, I'll be told to put up or shut up, that I can't be a bridge builder, don't have the temperament for it, haven't done it, am a joke, etc.

If I refute it with specific examples that illustrate the time and effort I put into bridge building and the high levels at which I work, I'm showing off and should shut up.

This is such a welcoming, reasonable place.

[_Jersey Girl]

This is such a welcoming, reasonable place.

Perhaps 98% of my interaction with you on this board has been welcoming and reasonable. Having said that...

Let's back up the truck...when I first posted that the main reason that Mormonism is not accepted by mainstream Christianity has to do with the Mormon understanding of the nature of God.

You responded with references to Offenders for a Word and your article on the Trinity, claiming that they take aim at my position.

Daniel, with all due respect, you have not demonstrated to me that you are aware of where the problem lies or what the crux of my position was to start with.

I've not brought Trinity doctrine into the discussion with you. (article)

I've not raised the issue of whether or not Mormons are Christians. (book)

The issue that I did raise with you was the nature of God.

I'm willing to try again if you are. You can start by telling me what you think the mainstream understanding of the nature of God is, and if you're so inclined, tell me where you think the point of contention is.

Reasonably yours,
Jersey Girl

[_Daniel Peterson]

Perhaps 98% of my interaction with you on this board has been welcoming and reasonable.

I realize that, and appreciate it. If only your attitude were more common here.

Let's back up the truck...when I first posted that the main reason that Mormonism is not accepted by mainstream Christianity has to do with the Mormon understanding of the nature of God.

You responded with references to Offenders for a Word and your article on the Trinity, claiming that they take aim at my position.

Your original post spoke not of "mainstream Christianity" but of "Christianity" simpliciter. That changes things drastically.

Daniel, with all due respect, you have not demonstrated to me that you are aware of where the problem lies or what the crux of my position was to start with.

I'm absolutely aware of the difference between the Mormon view of God and the view characteristic of classical theism, which is that of mainstream Christianity as well as of Judaism and Christianity.

I've not brought Trinity doctrine into the discussion with you. (article)

That is an example of one of my attempts at bridge-building. It originated as a paper delivered at Yale Divinity School.

I've not raised the issue of whether or not Mormons are Christians. (book)

On the contrary, your original post raised it big time, implicitly but screamingly.

The issue that I did raise with you was the nature of God.

I'm willing to try again if you are. You can start by telling me what you think the mainstream understanding of the nature of God is, and if you're so inclined, tell me where you think the point of contention is.

I feel as if I'm being given a school assignment.

The standard view of classical theism is that God is simple, impassible, omniscient, omnipresent, immaterial, unchangeable, atemporal, etc. Mormonism rejects or modifies all of those divine attributes.

[_karl61]

Mormons aren't taught much of anything about mainstream Trinitarianism. We devote vanishingly little of our formal instruction time to the beliefs of others. Really, in fact, none.

In fairness, though, I should point out that very few conventional Christians (if any) can explain orthodox Nicene Trinitarianism, either. Perhaps because it really is logically incoherent. (My article on "Mormonism and the Trinity" -- which, contra Scratch, is not impossible to obtain; at least two people here besides myself can testify to that -- cites two essays by professing Christian philosophers, neither of whom is LDS, arguing that there is no logically coherent way of formulating it.)

In any event, when I've invited critics to explain mainstream Trinitarianism to me, I've heard modalism more often than I've heard Nicene orthodoxy.

Which part?

The Nicene Creed

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.

Who, for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.

And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets.

And I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

[Guest]

Mormons aren't taught much of anything about mainstream Trinitarianism. We devote vanishingly little of our formal instruction time to the beliefs of others. Really, in fact, none.

In fairness, though, I should point out that very few conventional Christians (if any) can explain orthodox Nicene Trinitarianism, either. Perhaps because it really is logically incoherent. (My article on "Mormonism and the Trinity" -- which, contra Scratch, is not impossible to obtain; at least two people here besides myself can testify to that -- cites two essays by professing Christian philosophers, neither of whom is LDS, arguing that there is no logically coherent way of formulating it.)

In any event, when I've invited critics to explain mainstream Trinitarianism to me, I've heard modalism more often than I've heard Nicene orthodoxy.

Does the Church teach about a great apostasy. The Great and Abominable Church (the great whore) suggests a lot about what the LDS church thinks about the beliefs of other churches. If you read that out loud in Sunday school someone is going to be taught something. If you read Mormon doctrine by BRM then you will be taught something. OR

maybe the church does not teach about the Calvinism or Lutheranism or Methodism because some may see that Joseph Smith took the best of those an incorporated them into his restoration theology.

[_Gadianton]

Incidentally, the snorkeling near the black rock on Kaanapali Beach (on Maui) is even better than that in Hanauma Bay, on Oahu.

Sounds like a good time. I guess your life of leisure and travel stands in sharp contrast to the inability of most of us to afford much more than internet entertainment though as it is, we don't have lives such that we'd even consider such adventures anyway.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Sounds like a good time. I guess your life of leisure and travel stands in sharp contrast to the inability of most of us to afford much more than internet entertainment though as it is, we don't have lives such that we'd even consider such adventures anyway.

You're right. Nobody else can afford to go to Hawai'i. Nobody else ever takes a vacation. That's why there are no hotels here, and no tourist industry. I'm completely alone here among the Hawai'ian peasantry -- though, unlike them, I can look up from the sugar cane and the pineapple fields. That's one of the things I most appreciate about this little village of Honolulu, where I'm currently sitting: A few oppressed members of the proletariat living in thatched huts on the sand between the ocean and the marshes, and that's it. If you're a guest of King Kamehameha XII in the Iolani Palace, as I am, life here is pretty idyllic.

I realize that it's a characteristic of Scratchism to object to my travel, to seek to portray mine as a life of elitist leisure. Do you really think that Middle Eastern specialists shouldn't go to the Middle East? Or that most don't? Do you believe that chemists shouldn't enter laboratories? That geologists shouldn't go on expeditions? That archaeologists should never dig? That field botanists should never leave their offices?