Maybe it’s because I have family members who are of another Christian faith, but I feel that it is very good to have dialogue with each other (as mormons and Christians) and learn about the things we have in common. I’ve found that it is very helpful for my faith and walk with God b/c I learn much from my friends of other faiths that I wouldn’t within the Church.

#4 shared one of my posts on this subject, but I have others as well (and more coming)

As I side note, I echo your sentiment about getting past stereotypes, especially if our goal is better understand one another. To see each other’s doctrines as silly or irrational is perhaps the easiest thing that anyone can do, and there is a long history of doing so. It is unfortunate since these ideas provide such a rich opportunity to contemplate the questions that religious systems raise. The dual nature of Christ for example, it is true, can be offered up as an example of how religious ideas seem strange to outsiders. However, the doctrine has a rationality and like most Christian doctrines needs to be understood in the context of Christian history. I think that even Latter-day Saints can appreciate the struggle of early Christian thinkers as they have reflected upon the deposit of faith.

One of Webb’s observations that I enjoyed was that Mormonism could be understood as “an alternative history of a post-Nicene development of pre-Nicene theology.” This is not only extremely insightful but extremely useful. We often only see the end product of the traditional post-Nicene development without understanding or appreciating that development itself. Understanding that development, and what can account for this outcome of development, cannot but enhance the appreciation by Latter-day Saints as they reflect upon their own doctrine.