Overheard while eavesdropping in the Deseret Diner:<\/p>\n
First speaker<\/em> (let\u2019s call him Adam): I\u2019m not a member of your church, as you know, but I\u2019ve lived among Mormons for most of my life, talked with missionaries, attended lots of meetings with friends. Done a lot of reading. There\u2019s so much I admire about your church– its moral teachings, its family life, its community. And its genuine faith in Jesus Christ. (I\u2019m an Evangelical, and this is important to me.) I don\u2019t know of a church these days that does as much to spread the basic Gospel message\u2013 through your missionaries and on-line videos and all.<\/p>\n But there\u2019s one thing about Mormons that really bothers me\u2013 that is, your insistence that yours is \u201cthe only true church,\u201d as I\u2019ve often heard it put. Why do you have to say that? Mormons are annoyed when some Evangelicals say that you\u2019re aren\u2019t Christians. And understandably so. But don\u2019t you see that you provoke this, and that you\u2019re basically doing the same thing, when you say that yours is the only true church\u2013 or at least the only church with \u201cthe fullness of the Gospel\u201d– and that in order to achieve exaltation everyone will have to join your church, in the next world if not in this one?\u00a0 This tenet actually undermines your efforts to spread the basic Christian message, I think, because people see your Christian videos or whatever and think, “That’s good, but they’re just using it to try to get people to join their church.”\u00a0 I’m not saying the suspicion is fair, but some people do think that.<\/p>\n Second speaker<\/em> (call her Eve): You know, I agree. I am<\/em> a member\u2013 an active member\u2013 and there\u2019s so much about this church that I love. But I don\u2019t see why it isn\u2019t enough to believe that the church\u2019s doctrines and moral teachings come from God, and that the church is guided by God, through leaders who are called of God. It makes me uncomfortable when members stand up in Testimony Meeting or Gospel Doctrine class and say they know this is the only true church, or when they make disparaging comments or snide jokes about other churches. This doesn\u2019t happen as often as it used to, fortunately, and usually I think these are good-hearted people who mean no offense. But I really wish we could just get over the competitive, exclusivist thing, and join in full communion with the Christian community.<\/p>\n Third speaker<\/em> (let\u2019s call him, oh, . . .Nephi): I understand what you\u2019re both saying. And I appreciate the sentiment. But I think you\u2019re falling into a characteristic modern confusion. People these days don\u2019t want to offend\u2013 that\u2019s to their credit, mostly– and so they want to say, \u201cWell, I think my belief is good and true, but your contrary belief may be equally good and true.\u201d But that just isn\u2019t logical. If X is true, then a contrary idea Y is necessarily false\u2013 or at least not as completely true.<\/p>\n And this logic holds for Gospel truths just as it does for mathematical or scientific or other truths. It\u2019s been that way from the beginning. Polytheistic pagans in the Greek and Roman worlds would have been happy enough to accept Jesus Christ as a divinity\u2013 as one god in the pantheon. One emperor even put up a statue of Jesus in his private chapel, alongside statues of Abraham, Orpheus, and Apollonius. That seemed to the pagans to be open-minded and tolerant. But Christians couldn\u2019t accept that kind of acceptance. Because they understood that to say that Jesus was one god along with Zeus and Apollo and company would be in essence to deny Jesus\u2013 to deny him as the God they believed him to be.<\/p>\n Adam<\/em>: Hmm. . . Interesting, but I\u2019m not sure this is the same thing. As I mentioned, I\u2019m an Evangelical. A Baptist, as it happens. I have friends who are devout Methodists, and Presbyterians, and Lutherans. We all believe that we are being taught the Gospel in our churches. But we don\u2019t feel we have to say that the others don\u2019t<\/em> have the Gospel. I might prefer the style of worship in my own church; my Lutheran friends probably prefer the Lutheran liturgy. We might even think that the teachings of our denominations\u2013 about baptism, say, or the ordination of women\u2013 are preferable, or more faithful to the Bible, than the teachings of other denominations. But we don\u2019t have to claim that ours is \u201cthe only true church.\u201d And we don\u2019t have to deny that salvation can be found\u2013 through faith, and God\u2019s grace– in any of these churches.<\/p>\n Even my Catholic friends wouldn\u2019t claim that kind of exclusivity for their church–<\/p>\n Nephi<\/em>: Are you sure about that?<\/p>\n Adam<\/em>: Well, . . .no, actually. Maybe the conservative Catholics would. I\u2019m not sure. But they do accept the baptisms of most other Christian faiths. (Not yours, I\u2019m afraid.) And they have doctrines\u2013 about degrees of communion, and so forth\u2013 that let them extend fellowship to other Christians.<\/p>\n It may be that at one time most Christian denominations claimed to be \u201cthe true church.\u201d That\u2019s the way it was when your church was getting started; at least, your founder Joseph Smith surely perceived things that way. So it\u2019s understandable that back then, Mormons would have claimed to be \u201cthe true church,\u201d just as other sects did. But by now yours seems to be one of the few churches that still insists on that. At a time when Christians here and around the world need to strive for greater solidarity, this seems unfortunate.<\/p>\n Eve<\/em>: Amen. And for me, I\u2019d have to say that the \u201conly true church\u201d idea creates a sort of gulf between me and my Christian friends, even though we treat each other respectfully. In my mind anyway.\u00a0 And it creates a kind of barrier that makes it more difficult to appreciate and draw on the richness of the whole Christian tradition\u2013 and especially difficult to share aspects of that Christian tradition with my Mormon brothers and sisters. I can read and learn from Mother Theresa or Julian of Norwich. But start quoting them in Gospel Doctrine class and people would immediately be suspicious.<\/p>\n Nephi<\/em>: I appreciate what you\u2019re saying. But I think that for some things\u2013 some institutions, some ideas\u2013 the inclusivity you want is possible. For other things, it just isn\u2019t; it would be contradictory\u2013 self-dissolving, in a sense\u2013 to embrace that kind of inclusivity. So you can say that your university is wonderful\u2013 or your state, . . . or your spouse\u2013 without denying that other universities or states or spouses may be equally wonderful. But you can\u2019t say to someone \u201cI accept your claim to be the Queen of England, but I also accept other people\u2019s claim to be the Queen of England.\u201d Because there can only be one Queen of England. So to accept someone else\u2019s claim is to deny the first person\u2019s claim.<\/p>\n Eve<\/em>: Okay, but why is a church necessarily in the exclusivist class?<\/p>\n Nephi<\/em>: I don\u2019t think a church is necessarily<\/em> in that class. It depends on the church. If your church says, \u201cOur central mission is to faithfully teach the Bible,\u201d then there\u2019s no reason why you can\u2019t allow that other churches are doing that as well. As well as or maybe even better than you are.<\/p>\n But the Mormon church\u2013 the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints\u2013 claims a lot more than that. Our self-understanding is based on a particular narrative. You both know the story. Jesus founded a church. It fell away into apostasy\u2013 disappeared from the earth. (Although vestiges and fragments remained\u2013 and you know that we always acknowledge lots of truth in other churches). Then Joseph Smith was called to restore the true church in its fullness.<\/p>\n If that\u2019s our self-understanding\u2013 and I think it is\u2013 then we can\u2019t just say, \u201cOh, and by the way, all the other Christian churches are true too,\u201d because to say that would be to contradict and dissolve our own story. To cut the ground out from under our feet. And we would thereby lose our reason for being. We might as well just take down our tent and go home. So, like it or not, we pretty much have to<\/em> say that we\u2019re the only true church in the fullest sense.<\/p>\n And, incidentally, it\u2019s not as if I have some psychological need for superiority– some need to say \u201cMy church is better than yours.\u201d As a matter of fact, I\u2019m as uncomfortable with that as you are; I\u2019d be happy enough to join peaceably in full Christian communion, as you put it. But given our self-understanding, our church is basically an all-or-nothing proposition. So I think that this exclusive truth claim is something we\u2019re stuck with, like it or not.<\/p>\n Adam and Eve (in unison<\/em>): Okay, but here\u2019s the question: is there any reason why this particular story\u2013 the apostasy-restoration story\u2013 has to be<\/em> the Mormon story? That this story has to define what you (Adam<\/em> speaking)\/we (Eve<\/em> speaking) are as a church? Couldn\u2019t there be some other story or self-understanding that would still provide the church with a reason for being, as you put it, but that could be more inclusive?<\/p>\n Nephi<\/em>: Well, the apostasy-restoration narrative is<\/em> the story, or at least has been. Could we just replace it with some other story? I\u2019m skeptical. Do you have some proposal?<\/p>\n The conversation continued, but at this point the eavesdropper had to leave to meet his companion for a ministering visit. So he never learned whether Adam, Eve, and Nephi came up with another viable story or not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Overheard while eavesdropping in the Deseret Diner: First speaker (let\u2019s call him Adam): I\u2019m not a member of your church, as you know, but I\u2019ve lived among Mormons for most of my life, talked with missionaries, attended lots of meetings with friends. Done a lot of reading. There\u2019s so much I admire about your church– its moral teachings, its family life, its community. And its genuine faith in Jesus Christ. (I\u2019m an Evangelical, and this is important to me.) I don\u2019t know of a church these days that does as much to spread the basic Gospel message\u2013 through your missionaries and on-line videos and all. But there\u2019s one thing about Mormons that really bothers me\u2013 that is, your insistence that yours is \u201cthe only true church,\u201d as I\u2019ve often heard it put. Why do you have to say that? Mormons are annoyed when some Evangelicals say that you\u2019re aren\u2019t Christians. And understandably so. But don\u2019t you see that you provoke this, and that you\u2019re basically doing the same thing, when you say that yours is the only true church\u2013 or at least the only church with \u201cthe fullness of the Gospel\u201d– and that in order to achieve exaltation everyone will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-politics"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39684"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39684\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39704,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39684\/revisions\/39704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}