DiscussMormonism.com

Richard Mouw, Evangelical Leader, Says Engaging Mormons Isn't Just About Being Nice

Richard Mouw never intended to start a riot within the evangelical community by saying his fellow believers had "sinned against Mormonism." But that's exactly what happened.

Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., had been meeting regularly with Latter-day Saint scholars before he gave a seven-minute introduction of Ravi Zacharias, an evangelical speaker who addressed a packed audience in the Mormon Tabernacle in November 2004.

"We've often seriously misrepresented the beliefs and practices of members of the LDS faith," Mouw said that night. "It's a terrible thing to bear false witness."

The impact was immediate.

Some of Mouw's colleagues and fellow believers were outraged. They accused him of selling out, of not standing for the Christian truth or adequately denouncing evil, of being duped.

Undeterred, Mouw continued this line of preaching to evangelicals for the next seven years and maintained regular conversations with Mormons. He has now expanded it into a just-released book, "Talking with Mormons: An Invitation to Evangelicals."

In the book, Mouw argues that understanding Mormonism isn't just about being nice, it's a Christian mandate.

Too often, evangelicals pick up little-taught LDS beliefs -- such as humans becoming gods or having their own planets -- and put them at the center of Mormon theology, rather than at the periphery.

"If in our attempts to defeat them we play fast and loose with the truth by attributing to them things they don't in fact teach," Mouw writes, "then we have become false teachers: teachers of untruths."

Mouw spells out the doctrinal differences between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and historical Christian faiths: the nature of God and Jesus, the nature of the Trinity, nonbiblical Mormon scriptures and the rejection of the creeds.

Mouw disagrees with Mormon theology, but the Fuller president also grapples with what to think about Mormon founder Joseph Smith.

Evangelicals generally view Smith as either a lunatic or a liar, but neither category adequately explains to Mouw how Smith could launch a movement that produced so many good people who share his values. The same argument could be applied to Muhammad and Islam.

Mouw arrives at what could be seen by many evangelicals as a radical idea: He recognizes "the positive workings of God beyond the borders of orthodox Christianity."

Kevin Graham wrote:Today's Mormonism is a corporate entity designed to present a pleasant public face, even if it means lying. So yes, today's Mormonism is almost always going to go out of its way to be politically correct. Hence, no more polygamy, no more priesthood ban, no more claims about Indians being Lamanites, no more Prophets providing prophesies, etc. Joseph Smith just helped develop a social system whose integrity would be established through guaranteed funding (tithes) and loyalty (self-delusion).

Daniel Peterson wrote:Sorry. I know that this irritates some of you. Still, I feel that, since Xander/Kevin continues (along, occasionally, with some others) to post flat untruths about me, I need to respond. And since I won't post on the Xander/Kevin/Stalker board -- been there, done that; it's reminiscent of Uncle Remus's tar baby (the more you try to fight it, the more entangled you become), and posting there even once threatens to drag one down into an endless round of perpetually hostile nonsense -- I think it appropriate to do so here. I just want the truth to be on public record, on line, somewhere. You don't have to read it.

1.

Xander/Kevin has started a new thread entitled "Richard Mouw -- DCP's New Target?" Richard Mouw is a distinguished Evangelical theologian of Calvinist leanings who serves as president of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California.

I read through Xander/Kevin's quotation from an article about Mouw, and couldn't see anything in it that would make Mouw a target of mine. But, then, Xander/Kevin added this:

"Incidentally, Dan Peterson used to be one of those Mormon scholars who met up with Mouw at Fuller for whatever inter-faith dialogue activity they had going on at the time, but later Dan expressed his strong disappointment in Mouw, calling him an anti-Mormon, when he made an appearance in a Book of Abraham video produced by IIR."

To which, some comments:

(1) I've participated only once in those still on-going Mormon/Evangelical talks, but never at Fuller. (I think it was at a conference in Boston.)

(2) Richard Mouw once told me that he thought I should participate regularly in those talks, but I haven't.

(3) I participated in a Mormon/Evangelical debate once, in Denver, that Richard moderated. (He was a genial and even-handed moderator.)

(4) He and I had a pleasant chat the following day, during which he apologized for some rather slight incivility on the part of a member of the Evangelical side in that debate.

(5) I can't remember Richard appearing in a Book of Abraham video. Maybe he did, but I don't recall it.

(6) I can't believe that I've ever called Richard an "anti-Mormon." Anything's possible, I suppose, but I don't remember it and I don't regard him as one. In fact, I've praised him publicly and privately for his fair-mindedness. I like him very much, and respect him.

Xander/Kevin continues:

"Little does Mouw know, that those people who have this 'war' mentality are the very same people he is trying to reach out to. It isn't just the Evangelicals who enjoy such arrogance. Dan is clearly the old guard "choose ye this day" type apologist who goes out of his way to generalize about anti-Mormons and frequently, and knowingly misrepresents them."

It's amusing, in a sad sort of way, to be accused by Xander/Kevin (!!!!!!!) of "misrepresenting" people and of having a "war mentality." But it's not amusing at all to watch him try to poison my good relationship with a good and admirable man.

2.

Xander/Kevin is claiming that I derived my notion that taxes are, ultimately, collected at gunpoint (which I expressed on my blog) from a radio talk show host named "Neal Boortz." I had never heard of Neal Boortz until Xander/Kevin mentioned him, at which point I looked Mr. Boortz up on Google.

I didn't get the idea from Neal Boortz, to whom I have never listened and from whom I've never read a line. I derived it from Mao's famous and insightful dictum that "political power flows from the barrel of a gun," which I happen to think is true. What distinguishes governments from non-governmental authorities is that governments have a legal monopoly on the use of force. And behind every government decree, at least in principle, is, ultimately, the power to coerce.

This seems to me so obvious, so self-evident, as to be beyond reasonable dispute.

***

Xander/Kevin is telling other falsehoods about me as well, some of which I don't recall off hand, and he's probably telling still others that I haven't seen. But these are two pretty clear untruths that are easy to correct and beyond reasonable dispute.

Kevin Graham wrote:So Dan doesn't know about Richard Mouw participating in IRR's "The Lost Book of Abraham" video? That's rather odd, since it was a subject of much debate when it was first released. If the archives for the old FAIR boards were still available, I could look up the reference. Why would I lie about this? I remember Dan very specifically expressing his disappointment with Mouw for that, because he had met Mouw and considered him a friend to Latter-Day Saints.

But can you think of any critic of the faith who hasn't been referred to as anti-Mormon? I can't.

I would never term Richard Mouw an anti-Mormon. Nor Douglas Davies. Nor Craig Blomberg. Nor Larry Foster. Nor Jan Shipps. Nor David Trobisch. Nor Kenneth Winn. Nor would I have called Thomas O'Dea an anti-Mormon. Nor Wallace Stegner. There, off the top of my head, are nine -- all of whom have written critically of Mormonism and/or of the Church, but none of whom I've ever heard referred to as an anti-Mormon.

I was there. It was a pretty good talk. Not great, but pretty good. Certainly there was little or nothing that was objectionable in it. I think Mr. Zacharias may have imagined, and that the Evangelicals who brought him there may have imagined, that, in preaching about Christ as redeeming and atoning Lord, he was bringing something new to the benighted Mormons. But he wasn't.

The real news that evening was Richard Mouw, who issued an apology to Mormons for the false witness that, he said, Evangelicals had often borne against us.

Do I think that friendly conversations ought to continue? Yes. Of course.

Richard Mouw, a leading Calvinist theologian and the president of the Evangelical Fuller Theological Seminary in California, surely had such extravagant allegations in mind when, using potent biblical terms like “sin” and “false witness,” he apologized to a 2004 audience gathered at the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City. “We Evangelicals,” he said, “have often seriously misrepresented the beliefs and practices of the Mormon community.” (Not surprisingly, Professor Mouw has been roundly criticized for his remarks by those to whose excesses he referred.)

The New Mormon Challenge

Fast forward to 2002, Messrs. Owens, Mosser together with noted conservative author Francis J. Beckwith publish a lengthy volume, The New Mormon Challenge to address the growing movement of Mormonism.

It was within the first paragraphs of the forward that Richard J. Mouw first made the admission of being "ashamed of our record in relating to the Mormon community." As Mormon apologist Dan Peterson noted, the tone is "light years" from the usual garb.

A Dialogue Begins

In 1996 a very unlikely pair of scholars attempted an unprecedented feat: a book on Evangelical and Mormon beliefs. The "unprecedented" and "unlikely" part is this: one scholar is Evangelical, the other Mormon.

In one corner: Craig Blomberg (Ph.D., Aberdeen), professor of New Testament at Denver Seminary. In the other corner: Stephen Robinson (Ph.D., Duke), professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University. Under the traditional rules of engagement, the gloves would come off and the rhetoric would fly long and hard.

Astoundingly, and to the chagrin of many a rhetorical boxer, the book was an attempt at "listening" to the other side, and explaining one's own beliefs. In their book, How Wide the Divide? A Mormon and an Evangelical in Conversation, Blomberg and Robinson tried to dispel common caricatures about each movement that have grown increasingly un-Christian over the previous two decades. Most importantly, the book became the first major dialogue between a recognized Evangelical scholar and his Mormon counterpart.

Soon after its publication, the prominent head of an evangelical organization declared the book to be "an abomination". Evangelical bookstores started boycott efforts. Deseret Book, the Mormon Church-owned publishing powerhouse, pulled its backing from the project which was originally intended to be a joint publication with InterVarsity Press.

Clearly, this was new ground for all the parties involved.

Kevin Graham wrote:Little does Mouw know, that those people who have this "war" mentality are the very same people he is trying to reach out to. It isn't just the Evangelicals who enjoy such arrogance. Dan is clearly the old guard "choose ye this day" type apologist who goes out of his way to generalize about anti-Mormons and frequently, and knowingly misrepresents them.

The really odd thing is that some Evangelicals are actually making ground in accomplishing dialogue with Mormons, in spite of critical differences, while the divide between Mormons and ex-Mormons grows wider and wider.

Maybe someone like Mouw on the ex-Mormon side can put his/her hand up and say: "Perhaps it's time for dialogue." But that can only start when there's a stronger desire to understand, and a spirit of goodwill on both sides.

DCP once called me an anti-Mormon, and I know he's not going to deny that. I decided that I was indeed wrong, and it was deserving, and I privately and publicly apologised to him for my severe words and actions against him in the past, mostly here on MDB.

So believe me when I say I do think dialogue is possible, without surrendering our own views and beliefs.

It just takes a little effort, and a lot of humility, but most of all not demonising and denigrating your "opposition", and always claiming to be right while they are always wrong.

DrW wrote: If their role is supposed to be corporate R&D, the Church is in deep trouble.

Kevin Graham wrote:Heck, I was even invited back to the old forum where I was unjustifiably banned. I was only recently banned because it became perfectly clear to them they had to make a choice between me or Dan. I don't fault them for that. They worship Dan almost as much as you do.

Kevin Graham wrote:But yes, on rare occasions Dan seems to make favorable comments of certain critics of Mormonism only when they apologize for something. This says plenty about their integrity, but what does it say about Mormonism when no one on the Mormon side can stand up and apologize for the way they've misrepresented other belief systems? Or for the way former members have been mistreated and demonized. A while back I apologized for the way I had in the past attacked Catholicism in ignorance. Instead of fellow LDS apologists joining me in my attempt to reach out to the Catholic participants, I was scolded by folks like Dan Peterson who was trying to accuse me of going through the "back door" to attack Islam, because part of my ignorance dealt with the crusades. No one ever agreed that there was an anti-Catholic sentiment that resonated within Mormonism. Mormons cannot apologize because that disrupts their perception as being the victims. Victims don't apologize.

Kevin Graham wrote:Mouw is to be commended because he has the courage Dan Peterson lacks. Mouw is willing to upset his flock by apologizing to a perceived enemy.

Instead, Dan Peterson spearheads a publication devoted to hit pieces against anyone who criticizes the Church, and he does so to further the war mentality that pervades in his preferred apologetic school of thought; hardly surprising that he has recently bonded with William "I read the Art of War" Schryver.

Kevin Graham wrote:Ex-Mormonism isn't a faith. It isn't an organzied Church. No one person speaks for them. People leave for all sorts of reasons.

Kevin Graham wrote:And has he apologized to you? Let me guess. No. Dan doesn't do apologizes. His ego doesn't allow it.

Kevin Graham wrote:Of course it is. I've experienced it first hand. Just not with Dan. I can't think of any ex-Mormon who gets along with Dan. Can he name one? He can throw out names of obscure critics who no one else has ever heard of, but can he name a well known ex-Mormon who he calls friend? I highly doubt it. Dehlin reached out to him in interview and Dan shows his gratitude by assigning a hit piece against him. Nice.

Kevin Graham wrote:Agreed. That is how I get along with LDS scholars like Bartholemew, Bokovoy and Hauglid. They don't treat me like they're really supposed to. You know, the way Schryver and Pahoran would have all ex-Mormons be treated. And like so many of those close friends of Dan Peterson.