I suspect we largely agree on a lot of this, except for some details, and I think both of us have made our case well enough.

But I should correct one impression. I mentioned the US Council of Bishops simply as an example of an organization in a religion (its a Catholic group) that is somewhat independent of the hierarchy. As far as I know, you have to be a Catholic Bishop to join. I did NOT suggest that we could join it.

As I said, I believe that we already do pretty well on an informal, community level. But you and I probably have different standards for this. And I know that you’re focused on strictly ecumenical efforts. Given that bar, we do poorly, sure. (But so do a lot of other churches in North Texas.). I’m more interested in local community service and welfare projects, which is where I think the church shines.

I’ll say that 12 of the 13 wards in our stake are involved with community organizations at an informal level that actually require interaction with others (I don’t know about the singles ward). I know that every ward in our stake has regular service initiatives, both formal and informal. The stake itself has a couple of community-wide service efforts with shelters and whatnot (and I don’t count the Christmas season creche exhibit). Regionally throughout North Texas, the Church enjoys a stellar reputation for providing service when there are disasters. More important in today’s economy, the LDS Regional Employment Center is well-known and sponsors a popular interfaith networking group for job seekers. I know that when I was a stake employment specialist, LDSEC-sponsored employment training brought out nearly as many non-members and leaders from other churches as members.

There are plenty of cases I know of of stake presidents and bishops serving on local community efforts. Elder Christofferson is well-known for his efforts prior to his call to be a Seventy. We’ve got plenty of scouters in the church who are well-known across BSA Councils (despite the Church’s best efforts, it seems, to disengage from Scouting at a local level). Locally in North Texas, I know dozens and dozens of bishops and stake leaders in our area who have been involved in community organizations (sitting on boards of shelters, scouting boards, community outreach groups). None of these required a formal SLC push. All were local initiatives. Some of our local bishops (across different stakes) have very good relationships with religious leaders from other faiths — in many cases, deep personal friendships.

But, it doesn’t feel like we are doing very much. We do have relief efforts and make charitable contributions around the world, and get a certain about of publicity for that. But beyond that, if ecumenical efforts are happening, we don’t hear about it.

It’s either a job of very bad PR work, or a case where if we honestly reported all of the good we do, it’d come off as bragging, because we’re doing so much.

Anyway, I suspect that this is where the church does the most good — charity and relief and service. I honestly don’t know what good Mormon involvement in the US Council on Bishops (to cite one of your examples) would do. Coordinate on national projects? Coordinate on interfaith dialogue at a Church-wide level? Agree on doctrine? To do any of that, you *have* to go with a general authority at some point.

And when it comes to relief efforts on a global scale, aren’t we already a model that other groups should aspire to emulate?

I could care less about whether the Church is involved in this particular program. I do care about whether or not we are involved enough both nationally and locally.

And queuno (20), I disagree. I’m not sure we’ve given national and international ecumenical efforts much of a shot, to be honest. As for local efforts, I’m not very impressed with what I’ve seen in most wards. The feeling I have is that many wards’ efforts are limited either to efforts that mainly benefit Church members, or don’t really involve any interaction with others (such as working in parks or preparing “kits” for disaster victims — useful projects, but not ecumenical in any real way).

How many wards in your stake do more than this?

Absolutely. Although, I’d rephrase this as “our church demands a lot of our time”. Because, of course, our religion is helping the needy and afflicted, serving others, preaching the gospel, redeeming the dead.

We are still very much a separatist church, bent on protecting our own interests and taking care of our membership. I don’t see that as necessarily a bad thing — just where we are in our evolutionary ste

Think of it from the point of view of the organizers of these programs. They put a lot of time and effort into organizing the program, they send invitations to everyone they can think of, and when it comes to the LDS Church, they either send the invitation letter to LDS Church headquarters in Salt Lake, or to local Bishops and Stake Presidents. If the latter, I’ll bet they usually get no response whatsoever.

That’s because the average bishop and stake president has a pretty well-defined set of priorities, and they need to focus on that. While an ecumenical effort is a valid thing, it ranks with “stake PR affairs” on that list of priorities.

My guess is that the real target for this kind of thing should be the area authority seventies. Not every ward or stake is in a position to devote someone’s volunteer time to an ecumenical activity (unless you made it a calling, and you can’t just call *anyone*).

Dan does have a point in that there are some natural conflicts between the aims of other faith-based organizations and ours, not the least of which is funding.

Anyway, I think the Church is more effective when it gets involved in small-scale local community efforts, not national efforts, and I think the Church already does pretty well on an informal, community effort.

BUT, I don’t think we should look at this as simply a local issue. There are national programs and international ecumenical organizations and programs that deserve support and that do not conflict with our doctrine.

Think of it from the point of view of the organizers of these programs. They put a lot of time and effort into organizing the program, they send invitations to everyone they can think of, and when it comes to the LDS Church, they either send the invitation letter to LDS Church headquarters in Salt Lake, or to local Bishops and Stake Presidents. If the latter, I’ll bet they usually get no response whatsoever.

If you went through something like that, what would your attitude be toward the religions that didn’t bother to even respond?

On the other hand, there are some other churches that don;t want to have any association with Mormons, because we have “cooties”: they think we are theologically unclean, and they don’t want to be seen as “legitimizing” us to the point that one of their church’s members might think it is OK to actually talk to Mormon missionaries. Of course, this policy of censorship, along with misrepresentation, is not very effective, since we still baptize (according to Baptist sources) some 40,000 Southern Baptists every year. I assume they keep up their hostility on the assumption that if they acted nicer to us they would lose 80,000 a year to the Mormons. I think the truth is that the publicity and prominence they give to us by constant criticism actually leads Baptists and others to investigate the Church, even as it persuades others that Baptists are kind of disagreeable folks (this was cited in the Atlanta Journal by an SBC leader to explain why the SBC membership had fallen by a net 40,000 in 2007).

We should also note that, in our capacity as members of our professions and citizens of our communities, Mormons get lots of interfaith face time with others.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t in any way imply that I’m talking about politically removing other denominations. I’m saying that our theology leaves no room for other Christian denominations as a path to salvation. Let alone non-Christian religions.