Beck, Mormonism and Evangelicalism

I served a mission in Georgia and came across many conservative southern baptists. These folks are strongly influenced by Calvinist thought and I was confronted with it nearly every day.

To me it seems that the typical issue is whether one is saved by grace alone. I feel that to miss this is to miss the point. No one denies that there is necessary grace present (why worship a God who can’t or won’t do anything for us?)

The issue to me is whether it is by grace alone, or grace with some merit to obtain a fullness of salvation. There are plenty of conservative protestants out there who claim it is by grace alone, and that anyone who does not believe it is by grace alone simply is not Christian. I do not believe this is some straw man, I saw it nearly every day.

Hello!

I am an ex-Mormon Evangelical Christian. I appreciate the spirit of your post as there are often misunderstandings between Mormons and Christians on this issue. I just want to point out a few things.

First, please keep in mind is that “Calvinism” is not a necessary position of Evangelicalism. It is possible to have more of an Arminian slant and still be Evangelical. For example, the Baptist Faith and Message affirms that God is both Sovereign and that man is Free. In addition, Calvin himself was not a 5 point Calvinist. In reality, his name is attached to a theological position that he himself did not fully hold.

Second, please also bear in mind that the 5 point Calvinist position is not a sufficient conclusion of the doctrine of “salvation by faith alone.” There are varying strains of belief on who God calls and how He calls them, e.g., foreknowing them through their free-will, all of which fall nicely in line with “salvation through faith alone.”

The real difference between Mormons and Christians on this issue centers around two points: 1) What is Heaven? and 2) Are works a component of the formula which gets you there OR are they a by-product (fruit) that is produced by a person who has been given salvation, i.e., eternal life with the fullness of God(head/Celestial Kingdom, freely through faith alone.

On these two points, Mormons and traditional Christians (whether or Arminian, Calvinist, or somewhere in-between) very much disagree.

Darrell

Creation ex-Nihilo can play into in, but only if one takes the position that God cannot create a free-creature out of nothing. However, this would be a philosophical position that most certainly does not sufficiently follow. Traditional Christianity affirms that God can create free creatures out of nothing and, thereby, does not force their actions in any sense (forced freedom is a contradiction in terms as you pointed out). In fact, the Christian view of what is meant by “created in His image” is that we have a soul, free will, aconscience, and are self-aware (among other things) unlike the rest of God’s creation.

One of the problems that most Chistians (myself included) have with Mormonism is that The Bible teaches that salvation cannot be by both grace and works, while most Mormons affirm that in order to get to the Celestial Kingdom (our view of what Heaven is), works are a necessary component.

Romans 4:4-5 Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.

Romans 11:6 And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.

Interestly enough, Romans 4:4-5 is one of the verses that Smith altered in his New Translation to bring it more into line with Mormon theology. However,none of the NT manuscripts support his alteration.

Blessings!

Darrell

The question is how works arise and how choice works with grace. Mormons are here closer to the Catholic and the Eastern faiths than most Protestantism. Once again though the real issue is that for Mormons salvation is very complex whereas for many Protestants, especially those influenced by Calvin it is simple.

The question is whether man can work their way to heaven and no Mormon thinks they can. However Mormons clearly also feel that to act on grace involves choosing to do things like be baptized. Indeed the Mormon conception of grace includes things like work for the dead precisely so everyone has the same opportunities. (That’s the whole point of Mormon baptism for the dead) But grace is always enabling of choices. It provides freedom. To be give the freedom and then to chose other than God is to reject grace. Now rhetorically the way Mormons discuss this is in terms of work. (By tending to privilege James over Paul rhetorically) However in terms of content it’s just not what you suggest given the role of grace in works. (Dalin H. Oaks gives a fairly concise version of the LDS position)

The rejoinder a Mormon will make to these critiques is to ask if it is coherent for an Arminian to reconcile a full free choice while rejecting grace since choices entail work and indeed they are the manifestation of chosing grace as even Paul acknowledges. As Oaks suggests they each are one blade of a pair of scissors. Mormon conceptions of grace demand an inherent freedom and choice such that to distinguish works from grace is misleading. Once again this is also why Mormons find Calvinism so problematic precisely because it is God rather than man who fully chooses. Can the Arminian alternative be coherently presented? I don’t read enough Arminian theology to know. I can say I’ve yet to find a coherent presentation.

The Christian position, outside of the strong 5 point Calvinist camp (which is a very, very small camp), is that God chooses us through our free-will. He does not overide our free will. Instead, His choice is worked through the free-will of His contingent creation. For example, Romans 8:28-30 says that God predestined those He foreknew would love Him. This is a perfect picture of God using His future (serious anthropomorphism here) contigent knowledge of man’s choices and predestining those who would choose Him and guaranteeing their justification and glorification.

Granted, different theologians take different stances on exactly how His sovereignty and our free-will co-mingle… but outside of the strong 5 point Calvinist, almost all affirm that His choice works in conjunction with and not in spie of our free-will.

As to the Mormon concept of salvation being more complex than the Christian concept, I can see what you are saying, but I don’t really agree. Bear in mind, the Christian concept does have rewards in it, we just don’t talk a whole lot about it.

The difference between us and Mormons is that the rewards do not involve existence in different kingdoms with different Gods. To the Christian this is a very problematic doctrine, for to the Mormon, one of these kingdoms of Heaven is like this world, i.e., the Telestial Kingdom (this is taught in the LDS Temple).

In Christianity, all those who receive salvation will be in Heaven with the fullness of God; however, some will receive greater rewards than others. It is those rewards, not savlation itself, that are determined by works. Our idea of Heaven is more in line with the Mormon concept of the Celestial Kingdom (minus the idea of acheiving godhood). In reality, to us anything OTHER THAN THIS cannot be Heaven as you will not be in the presence of the Father.

As to your idea of how grace and works mix together, I would like to get your opinion on something. To get to the Celestial Kingdom, would you agree with this formula:

Faith in Christ + sacrifice of Christ (grace) + works = salvation in the Celestial Kingdom

or this formula…

Faith in Christ + sacrifice of Christ (grace) = salvation in the Celestial Kingdom = good works

Is grace an event or a process… I would have to say neither. It is a gift from God that is strictly defined as, “Receiving the good which you do not deserve.”

Now, Salvation is an event that is effected by grace through faith, and Sanctification is a proess that is effected by grace through effort.

As to faith, grace, and works not being independent concepts, I have to say scripture disagrees with you. As I cited earlier, Paul clearly points out that in the process of salvation, works nullify grace.

Evangelicals are dualists? Would you mind expanding upon this and providing some examples for your opinion? I do not agree with this at all.

Darrell

Would you say though that in your view even if grace is a process in terms of acting on people it is guaranteed and thus complete in that sense from the beginning of the process?

That’s what Mormons disagree with. For us there is an ongoing process of both reception and choice.

As for the terms being independent, I’ll disagree with you. I certainly don’t read those scriptures the way you do if you think they entail independence. While I don’t know enough about your beliefs to say much with confidence, I suspect that you’re readings depend and presuppose the dualism I mentioned earlier.

Clark,

Would you say though that in your view even if grace is a process in terms of acting on people it is guaranteed and thus complete in that sense from the beginning of the process?

I would say that grace is not the process. Grace is the gift, and for those whom God has foreknown, He has predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His son (Romans 8). Since God’s foreknowledge is perfect, the bestowal of the gift on those who are predestined is guaranteed. That being said, they will not be completely conformed until they enter Heaven.

As for the terms being independent, I’ll disagree with you.

That being the case, how do you reconcile the fact that scripture teaches that if the salvation is by works, then it is not by grace? If these two concepts are not independent of one another in the process of salvation, why does scripture teach that it is either by one or by the other, not by both one and the other?

As to your charge of dualism… you appear to be asserting that Christians hold to a bifurcation between body and mind to the effect that thought and work are thus separated. Am I understanding this correctly? Before I respond, I want to make sure that I am completely grasping your charge.

What is interesting about this, is that the real dualists here are Mormons. Their philosophy on good and evil, i.e., you can’t have one without necessarily having the other, is a modern day resurrection of ancient Greek dualism. This fact is made even more humorous by the fact that Mormons are continually throwing the charge of Hellenization at Christians when it fact it the Mormons who in many ways are Hellenists.

…the Mormon view is that we all have one God, the Father…

Is it your position then that Jesus and the Holy Spirit are not God(s)?

Rather it seems to me you are making a semantic rather than content argument over the meaning of heaven.

My argument is that our definition of what Heaven is is very different. Mormonism teaches that Heaven is broken up into three different kingdoms: Telestial, Terrestrial, and Celestial. The is referenced specifically on LDS.org. As such, at least two of the kingdoms of Heaven are life without the fullness of God, and one of these two, the Telestial, is basically this world (as taught in the LDS Temple Ceremony). This does not line up AT ALL with the teachings of Christianity and the Bible. In addition, in order to get to the Celestial Kingdom (what is closest to the biblical Christian understanding of Heaven) works are involved, and, as I pointed out earlier, “if Salvation is by works, it is no longer by grace.” Thus, in the Mormon concept of Salvation in the Celestial Kingdom, grace cannot exist.

Blessings!

Darrell

As I said, I don’t think salvation is by works but that to receive and chose grace if we are embodied entails works.

This really is just another way of saying that works are part of the equation for receiving grace and therefore salvation. Once again, you are left violating the clear teaching of scripture that if it is by works, it is not by grace.

What Paul is talking about are our works independent of grace.

It appears that you are bringing an a priori perspective to the text, for Paul says nothing about works independent of grace. Rather, he makes the charge that in the act of salvation works are not a component period. After salvation, we are raised up to do good works, but the implication is vitally clear that the works are never a part of the salvation process.

Christians don’t get this belief from a false view of dualism, they get it from the Bible. In fact, Christians don’t adhere to a concept of dualism period. Perhaps you are thinking of some twisted version of Gnosticism, which has long been declared a Christian heresy. To a Christian, works can be done with or without a body and they don’t necessarily entail only physical acts. Mental works are possible as well – “Be still and know that I am God” comes to mind as a charge from God to cease from our mental works of worrying.

The idea of the faith versus works dichotomy is straight from the Bible… “if by works then grace is no longer grace.” Until you can sufficiently address how this scripture is not bifurcating the two concepts (without bringing a definition to the text that is not there) you are truly left violating biblical teachings.

As for heaven, as I said, this is more a rhetorical issue.

Not really… it is a concept and definitional issue. Our ideas of what Heaven specifically is are very, very different. This earth is not heaven.

As for works, as I mentioned the Mormon position isn’t unlike the Catholic position here. (In terms of say baptism)

Not really… Catholics don’t hold to the teaching that baptism is necessary for heaven… or works at all for that matter. This issue was settled quite a while ago and the Catholic church released a statement to the effect that “Luther was right.”

Darrell

You seem to have gotten away from Beck and what he is saying about religion. As a casual viewer only, it appears he is warning more about how the radical left is using religion as a tool to infiltrate the American church than proscribing any particular dogma. He uses the traditional Judeo-Christian ethic of concern for the poor and disaffected as one point. Some of the infiltrators have disavowed much of the traditional view of the Church helping the poor through tithes and offerings and placed the federal government in that role. The infiltrators he uses as examples espouse radical leftist political views from the pulpit mixed with a distorted view of what most Christians would understand as the traditional Christian view of biblical injunction. He doesn’t preach a view of the gospel so much as warn others of what to look for. For many of Beck’s detractors, the thought of Mormons and traditional Christians being so closely aligned on such a wide variety of political issues presents a danger of metaphysical proportions.

For those who hold the view of Beck as investigator-in-chief of the radical left, that is a mistake. He is more of the Thomas Payne pamphleteer-in-chief. He uses the radical’s own published words against them, often in video form. He invites others to show where he is wrong or where he has taken their words out of context. To my knowledge, no one has. What makes him so powerful is that his detractors berate him but they never correct him. Like Rush Limbaugh, he is almost always right, 99%+ of the time and it drives his detractors crazy. (The last sentence is my mine alone.) SO, in any discussion of Beck, I ask where he is wrong. What mistake has he been caught making? How do you know what he says? I have yet to find ANY detractor who watches him. They respond from a point of ignorance. They just don’t like the man because of what someone else says Beck believes but not from what they have found to be incorrect. They do not know what Glenn Beck believes because they never listen to or watch him.

Clark
Because they disagree with us they deliberately misrepresent our beliefs? Maybe. However, I think the misinformation is as much our fault as anything else. There is so much misinformation extant that the casual non-LDS observer is confused about what we believe. I think most would prefer to know what we believe in so far as it matters to them.

I say this because of what so many former Mormons say. Many non-members know more about us from ex-members than current ones. We have to confront the former members who speak incorrectly when we come across them and very often we do not. We too often dodge the confrontation and make some excuse about hoping they come back. That just doesn’t cut it. Most will proudly tell of their membership for many years and that they attended seminary and held offices. However, when you ask if they ever had the confirming testimony from the Holy Ghost they say no. How can anyone claim to know the Gospel and what we teach without having experienced the most profound and fundamental element to understanding the Gospel? They can’t, yet they are quite often paraded around by our detractors as prima facie evidence of just how false our teachings are. It is like trying to teach someone to swim without ever getting in the water.

The point is, we must tell our friends that not everything that comes out of the mouth of a prophet is prophecy. We must tell them that the Journal of Discourses was not an official Church publication but a private one. They should know Brigham Young was fond of hyperbole to drive a point home and that not everything he said was representative of the Gospel. They were in different times and for a different people. They should know that what our leaders said one hundred years ago may not apply today. We forget to tell them that the Book of Mormon was written more with an eye to the Old Testament than the new. I think the onus is on us to be consistent and clear every time we speak about our theology and I don’t think we are.

Clark, I see this as a rather typical kind of approach that Evangelical counter-cult groups take with Mormon interlocutors who make references to grace. There are similarities with how some Evangelical critics have responded to Stephen Robinson and Robert Millet.

First of all, I should point out that, surprisingly, the typical response is not to encourage Mormons to embrace or welcome grace, but rather to really be skeptical as to whether a Mormon can really embrace such ideas and still be a Mormon in good conscience. So usually the approach is as follows. First, the idea is to try to show how the Evangelical “sounding” Mormon is going against his own religious tradition. Again, the underlying rationale is that the idea of salvation by grace is alien to the native Mormon soil.

The next step is to show that the Mormon just “sounds” Evangelical but upon closer examination really is just using Evangelical terminology but means something completely different by it. At best, the idea is that Mormons still don’t understand Christianity even if they use the same terms. At worst the inference is that Mormons are deliberately deceptive. However, more to the point , the underlying rationale is that Mormons simply cannot mean the same thing as Evangelicals because that would imply that saving truth could actually be found within Mormonism, which would be a contradiction in terms and would mean that some Mormons could be saved. This point seems rather clear from the Todd Friel segment. He urges Beck to completely renounce Mormonism and be born again, since one simply cannot accept Christ as a Mormon.

I must stress that not all Evangelicals take this approach, and thanks to the efforts of many, there are more Evangelicals who react responsibly with Mormonism today, but certainly it is standard fare among counter-cult writers. When this is combined with political concerns, it becomes all the more complicated.

During Romney’s presidential campaign, for example, Gerald McDermott was criticized for writing that “Mormon beliefs are not as un-evangelical as most evangelicals think.” When Mormon and Evangelical conservatives wish to join together politically, there is a great resistance by the counter-cult, because often Mormons are depicted as being in the orbit of Christianity, and this legitimizes Mormonism in ways many Evangelicals cannot accept. Incidentally, there is also resistance by liberal Latter-day Saints as well since politically conservative co-belligerency by Mormons and Evangelicals is seen as a negative development. Eugene England, for example, made it clear in his reactions to Robinson and Blomberg’s How Wide the Divide that Mormons and Evangelicals banding together in social or moral ventures was not a positive thing, and responded largely by distinguishing Mormonism from traditional Christianity. In these sorts of environments, various parties have a lot at stake, and there are very few incentives to responsibility interact with the faith tradition of the religious other.

What makes this all the more ironic (and illustrative of the complexities involved) is that Beck’s point, to me anyway, wasn’t that Mormonism is Christian, but rather to stress that Christianity teaches of an “individual salvation” in order to counter the “collective salvation” (read by Beck to mean redistributive justice or Marxist socialism) as taught within black liberation theology as embraced by Obama, and therefore Christian Americans should be on guard.

I don’t know what the Todd Friel segment is, but it certainly sounds familiar. Friel, apparently, is concerned that one has to abide by his version of grace and by extension, be born again. It has long appeared to me that opinions really don’t matter. They are irrelevant. It is just wading around in the shallow end of man’s understanding and then being dried off by tradition. Theological debates are a waste off time. In the end, the Mormon approach suggests one can ask God directly for a definitive answer to any question and thus leave the vagueness of man’s traditions behind as just stepping stones to the real solution. Traditional Christians say their traditions are the key to understanding the bible and it is through them that one finds truth. The assumption is that God is sovereign and therefore in charge of everything that has happened in Christianity. It seems a hollow argument and so full of holes that it isn’t worth consideration.

In the end, the gulf is so wide that one can only get across to the other side by dropping out of one belief system or the other altogether. For Mormons to do so, after experiencing the confirmation by the Holy Ghost, as I write about above, then one has to do so purposefully knowing the truth and then denying it. The MINO’s, or Mormons in Name Only, never have been complete Mormons. Without the understanding that the Holy Ghost provides, merely attending seminary or going on a mission or any of the other claims ex-members make have little relevance. They never really understood what it is all about. They may be familiar with the trappings but not the substance. Others on the traditional Christian side must find a need to look elsewhere. Something must feel wrong or unfulfilling for them to consider a change. For the traditional Christian who says he too has the confirmation by the Holy Ghost I can only say if he is happy he has not found the need to look elsewhere. All the other stuff is just silly, or so it seems to me.

JL,

Your critique that all “ex-Mormons” weren’t really Mormons in the first place as they have never received the confirmation of the Holy Ghost begs the entire question. It assumes the truth of Mormonism and the fact that TBM’s have actually received their confirmation from the Holy Ghost, and that other faith traditions/those who have prayed and been told the BOM is not true have not received their confirmation from the Holy Ghost. In reality, that is the central question here and you are really begging it my friend.

Darrell

Darrell
There is no logical fantasy in what I said. Just because one has never experienced it doesn’t mean the other guy hasn’t. How you prove or disprove one way or the other is precisely my point. I can make very good and sound reasoning for why your experience is not of God as I am sure you believe you can about mine. Arguing with you about it is a waste of time for both of us. It is time we waste when it could be better spent on things we can agree to discuss – things that are import right now, like how far our nation is drifting away from traditional roles for government and the ebbing of individual rights.

Truth, it seems to me, is black and white. There are no nuances about it. We can discuss implementation and affect but its existence isn’t up to us. Our job is to discover it and it seems there is only one diffinitve source. You have your thinking and I have mine. I allow you the room to believe your way and ask the same from you. Its time to move on.

That is interesting. Any discussion ought to be enlightening to all parties. If it is not, then it may be just an uninteresting topic where there is little new information available or it could be that the discussion has devolved into gibberish or vitriol. Like you said, if the latter is the case, it is best to move on. But, as an example, if the topic is just how far government ought to intrude in our lives in order to achieve certain goals, that could be enlightening. As an old guy, I have seen creeping socialization take place. It is a frightening concern to me. The mere thought that one could be arrested for taking a video of police while they are on the street doing their job has major consequences and is worth talking about. That is neither a Republican or Democrat problem. That is a fascist-like problem and a real and present danger.

Would you think over taxation to be a concern to the average voter? I would even if my taxes remain the same. Taxation takes away from business’ ability to grow. The problem is that if the government spends too much of our money, we don’t have enough to keep the economy growing and thus government revenues decrease and inhibits our ability to provide services. There is a balance that exists which allows maximum growth coupled with the ability to provide necessary services. The discussion among good citizens ought to be about what that balance ought to be.

The term “Begging the Question”, essentially is saying my argument is illogical or unfounded based on the evidence presented in the discussion. That is how I took it.

I am glad you talked about the bible as a source of 1st century history. While it can be, it is also, without doubt, in error in many places. Essentially it is accurate in spirit and purpose but as an historically accurate representation of what Christ and apostles taught, it is not complete. There are many errors in translation. Most are inconsequential copying mistakes but others can be seen as having great importance. It is an interesting discussion.

I’ve no time to contribute to this discussion. I think the fundamental dispute between Darrel and I suspect most Mormons is over whether grace is an enabling condition or not. My sense is he doesn’t think it is to the degree Mormons do – thus the dispute over grace. Which isn’t likely to be resolved since the way each group reads scriptures like Romans is going to be different.

Regarding burden of proof and question begging, I find that’s usually not too helpful either. Quickly scanning (although not reading) all the discussion it seems like each group wants the debate cast from their starting point. Unless one can cast the argument into a form where there’s an agreed upon starting point discussion typically is futile. Burden of proof arguments don’t typical go a long way.

Begging the question or assuming ones premises is more problematic. That’s why it’s important to become clear on where the disagreement actually is, have both sides agree that is the problem, and then marshal positive and negative arguments for them.

I do think these discussions are fruitful to explain how the other group thinks. I do find that a lot of Evangelicals – especially anti-Mormons – misrepresent our beliefs. That said a lot of Mormons misunderstand Evangelical beliefs. For instance the typical Mormon confuses the doctrine of the Trinity with modalism and when the Trinity is attacked it’s actually modalism being attacked. Likewise while I think the “cheap grace” is a problem with far too many Evangelicals it hardly represents the actual formal beliefs within the movement. There are lots of other points of Mormon misunderstanding and misrepresentation of Evangelicalism as well. Places like original sin and even the Evangelical conception of grace.

That said I also find in previous discussions far too many Evangelicals assume Christian theology and belief is far more monolithic than it is. Often not recognizing the nature of Eastern orthodox or even Catholic belief. There often is an odd myopia in American Christianity towards Evangelical belief and quick dismissal of more liberal Protestant theology.