A friend’s comments in my previous blog prompted me to post this one. We all know, LDS and people like me, that not understanding each other’s words can be very, very, confusing. One word I am careful about is the term “Christian” in my blogs concerning Mormonism. I actively avoid using the term without qualifiers. I do this because I want to avoid a huge roadblock to dialogue. I feel that I have some good grounds for doing so, despite objections from Evangelicals.
When I describe my own religious group, I use the term “traditional Christians” or better “Creedal Christians. At times (though I have resolved to avoid it), I use the term “Evangelical” in an incredibly broad sense (i.e. anyone who follows Jesus but isn’t LDS). What these terms mean, for the sake of my blogs, is anyone who is agreement with the early Creeds when it comes to God. In short, if someone can identify with the God that was worshiped by the people who first agreed to Nicene, Apostle’s, and Athanasian creeds, they would be considered a traditional/creedal Christian by the stipulative definition I use.
The traditional/creedal group includes the following: mainline protestants, American Evangelicals, Catholics, most Pentecostals*, etc. These groups all accept the Trinity, the Incarnation, the death and bodily resurrection of Christ among other things. Furthermore, these groups unanimously and steadfastly reject Joseph Smith and the book of Mormon. Consequently, they also eject many important parts of LDS theology, such as the great apostasy.
Now, many non-LDS reading this may feel that this is redundant. After all, being a Christian already means accepting all of these doctrines. Some may say that I validate the insidious plans of LDS who are trying to look Christian. What I need to do is explain how much “Mormons aren’t Christians.”
The problem with this approach is that it fails to understand how the term “Christian” is understood in Mormonism. It is not just that give it a different definition, but it is defined in a different way. Evangelicals, mainline Protestants etc tend to define “Christian” as adhering to a certain set of doctrines. I think this way too. However, LDS think of “Christian” as someone who follows a certain set of moral teachings and ideals. Thus to say, “Mormons aren’t Christians” is equivalent as saying “Mormons aren’t honest, good, people.” Wrangling over the definition of “Christian” thus creates an emotional roadblock to any kind of relationship.
People may persist and say that I need to hold to a more exclusive definition of the term. After all, we should not give the LDS community the sense that they are “just like us.” Rather, we should all be aware of the significance of the divide between LDS and “creedal Christians.”
I think the significance of this divide non-LDS know already. We all understand how different things look if you accept the Book of Mormon, believe in Joseph Smith, change the definition of “Trinity,” and so on and so forth. I like to think that most LDS know this too, since the idea of a “restored gospel” is foundational to their religion. Yet even for those who don’t, asserting that only one side gets to use the term “Christian” in reference to themselves is not going to help things. The gravity of the difference can be communicated from Evangelical to LDS, but only if the Evangelical is sensitive enough to communicate it well.
So in sum, I will try to use terms for “Christian” that everyone can understand in any future blog concerning the LDS. I do this not because I don’t appreciate the divide between LDS and people like me. I do it because I want LDS to eventually appreciate it too. Fighting over the term is useless and pointless.
*I only say “most” because of the minority groups of “United Pentecostals,” who reject critical truths of the Trinity, as asserted in Athanasian creed: we worship one God in the Trinity and the Trinity in unity. Neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the substance.
Showing posts with label Standing Together. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Standing Together. Show all posts
In Defense of Relational Evangelism, Part I
Many summers ago, I went out to Utah with a team of APU missionaries. We worked with the much praised and much maligned group “Standing Together.” Standing Together is a group that values “relational evangelism” over “street preaching.” While there, we encountered another group of Christian students from another university that insisted that “street preaching” was the only Biblical model. I have always wanted to write a defense of relational evangelism as well as some prodding questions for the street preachers.
We met at park. There were scores of Christians camping out. The LDS community was having a huge festival at the local temple, and this drew all kinds of Christians to the cultural and religious event. Our team was not so much evangelizing (of any sort) yet. I myself was a bit overwhelmed and was doing my best to simply walk around and observe. My interaction with the LDS was limited to casual conversation. Most of my team seemed to be enjoying the adjustment as well.
I said, “we” met. By “we” I mean my team from Azusa Pacific and students from a rival school which will remain unnamed. Our conversation started off amicable. After all, we all knew we were part of the minority group in foreign territory. We recognized them as our kin by their Greek New Testaments. Eventually, one of the students from the unnamed rival school (“URS”) asked us what group we came from. When I mentioned Standing Together, one of the students became noticeably more passionate, and even a bit angry. He did not support our Standing Together, and was willing to drop it right there. However, I prodded him further.
His points, delivered with the characteristic flair of street evangelism, were that street preaching was the only biblical model. He appealed to the story of Paul in Athens and Mars Hill (Acts 17:16-32) as his justification and “Biblical Warrant.” In the mindset and theology of URS University, Jesus or the apostles never told us to sit down and have a conversation with the unbelievers. They stopped short of claiming the biblical warrant for their protest signs though.
I have never read this passage and thought that it was so clearly analogous to sign-waving and tract-spamming in front of an LDS temple. For instance, the context was entirely different. The book of Acts describes the market place, which was a fairly public square. This is not the outskirts of someone else’s religious center. Yet, even if we grant that the public streets next to the temple are somehow analogous to the market place, we still forget that proclamations such as these were much more common in the ancient world than in ours. The scripture itself reminds us of this in verse 21. (If one wishes to preach by proclaiming ideas, may I suggest that internet message boards are the better place to do it?)
Secondly, when Paul gives his sermon, it was at the invitation of local philosophers. It is important to know that the Stoics and the Epicureans (Acts 17:18) were not members of the same organized, monolithic, and culturally ingrained systems as the LDS Church. On the contrary, Stoics and Epicureans were both separate schools of philosophy. It is likely that these philosophers probably dealt argued with each other as much as anyone else and they wanted to bring this new school of thought into their perpetual Athenian debate.
This is so very different from street preaching to the LDS during their annual temple pageant. No, the street preachers were not invited. No, the LDS were not interested right then. In fact, it creates a communication gap with the LDS, and does so by actually affirming aspects of their theology and metanarrative. If the street preachers had stuck around and watched the theatrical telling of the life of Joseph Smith, they would see that they all look just like the confused, arrogant, and irrelevant 19th century protestant groups that the LDS feel Joseph Smith saved all the LDS from!
For these reason I do not believe that street preaching is either practical or Biblical in the “exclude all else” sense. My disagreement with the URS students and their method goes deeper because I do not share their approach to scripture and am a little bit more careful about the word “Biblical.” That of course, is another subject for another time. For now, I will explain why I prefer relational evangelism.
This will wait for the next blog though. Thanks for reading!
We met at park. There were scores of Christians camping out. The LDS community was having a huge festival at the local temple, and this drew all kinds of Christians to the cultural and religious event. Our team was not so much evangelizing (of any sort) yet. I myself was a bit overwhelmed and was doing my best to simply walk around and observe. My interaction with the LDS was limited to casual conversation. Most of my team seemed to be enjoying the adjustment as well.
I said, “we” met. By “we” I mean my team from Azusa Pacific and students from a rival school which will remain unnamed. Our conversation started off amicable. After all, we all knew we were part of the minority group in foreign territory. We recognized them as our kin by their Greek New Testaments. Eventually, one of the students from the unnamed rival school (“URS”) asked us what group we came from. When I mentioned Standing Together, one of the students became noticeably more passionate, and even a bit angry. He did not support our Standing Together, and was willing to drop it right there. However, I prodded him further.
His points, delivered with the characteristic flair of street evangelism, were that street preaching was the only biblical model. He appealed to the story of Paul in Athens and Mars Hill (Acts 17:16-32) as his justification and “Biblical Warrant.” In the mindset and theology of URS University, Jesus or the apostles never told us to sit down and have a conversation with the unbelievers. They stopped short of claiming the biblical warrant for their protest signs though.
I have never read this passage and thought that it was so clearly analogous to sign-waving and tract-spamming in front of an LDS temple. For instance, the context was entirely different. The book of Acts describes the market place, which was a fairly public square. This is not the outskirts of someone else’s religious center. Yet, even if we grant that the public streets next to the temple are somehow analogous to the market place, we still forget that proclamations such as these were much more common in the ancient world than in ours. The scripture itself reminds us of this in verse 21. (If one wishes to preach by proclaiming ideas, may I suggest that internet message boards are the better place to do it?)
Secondly, when Paul gives his sermon, it was at the invitation of local philosophers. It is important to know that the Stoics and the Epicureans (Acts 17:18) were not members of the same organized, monolithic, and culturally ingrained systems as the LDS Church. On the contrary, Stoics and Epicureans were both separate schools of philosophy. It is likely that these philosophers probably dealt argued with each other as much as anyone else and they wanted to bring this new school of thought into their perpetual Athenian debate.
This is so very different from street preaching to the LDS during their annual temple pageant. No, the street preachers were not invited. No, the LDS were not interested right then. In fact, it creates a communication gap with the LDS, and does so by actually affirming aspects of their theology and metanarrative. If the street preachers had stuck around and watched the theatrical telling of the life of Joseph Smith, they would see that they all look just like the confused, arrogant, and irrelevant 19th century protestant groups that the LDS feel Joseph Smith saved all the LDS from!
For these reason I do not believe that street preaching is either practical or Biblical in the “exclude all else” sense. My disagreement with the URS students and their method goes deeper because I do not share their approach to scripture and am a little bit more careful about the word “Biblical.” That of course, is another subject for another time. For now, I will explain why I prefer relational evangelism.
This will wait for the next blog though. Thanks for reading!
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