MORMON PUBLIC RELATIONS EFFORT VIA FULLER SEMINARY
President Dick Mouw of Fuller Theological Seminary is determined to patronize false religions and cults for money!
Fuller Seminary president stirs Mormon controversy
Florida Baptist Witness
Dec 7, 2004
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (BP)—Evangelical Christian leaders and experts on
Mormonism have expressed dismay at recent comments made by Fuller
Theological Seminary President Richard Mouw at the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints’ “signature pulpit” in Salt Lake City.
Mouw spoke briefly Nov. 14 during the second night of a three-part
series titled “Evening of Friendship,” which was sponsored by Standing
Together Ministries, an evangelical Christian group headquartered in
Lehi, Utah. The main speaker for the nightly lecture series was noted
Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias.
According to articles published in the Deseret News and Salt Lake
Tribune as well as transcript of the speech provided by Mouw, he
apologized at the event for evangelical Christians’ misrepresentation
of the Mormon beliefs.
“Let me state it clearly. We evangelicals have sinned against you,” he said, according to the Deseret News.
“We’ve often seriously misrepresented the beliefs and practices of
members of the LDS faith,” the Salt Lake Tribune quoted Mouw as saying.
“It’s a terrible thing to bear false witness ... We’ve told you what
you believe without first asking you.”
Some evangelical pastors at the event were disturbed by Mouw’s comments.
“Some of my people were there and they were turned off by the whole
event because of him,” said Mike Gray, pastor of Southeast Baptist
Church in Salt Lake City, and one of the sponsoring evangelical
Christian churches for the event.
“I chose to be a part of it simply because I knew Ravi would present
the Gospel,” Gray said of the rare occasion for an evangelical
Christian leader to speak at the Salt Lake Tabernacle. “Everything Ravi
did was well done.”
The last evangelical to speak at the Tabernacle, according to reports, was 19th-century preacher D.L. Moody.
“[Mouw] was wrong. He had no business. And it will hurt,” said Gray,
who branded Mouw’s generalized comments as “insensitive,” “inaccurate,”
and “ignorant” of activities by many evangelical Christian churches in
the Salt Lake City area. “He doesn’t live here and he doesn’t know what
we do,” Gray said. “We haven’t been ugly to our Mormon neighbors. We
love them and care about them.”
According to Gray, comments like Mouw’s present Christians yet another
obstacle in their work to evangelize and minister to Mormons throughout
the world. The comments blur the lines between Mormon and evangelical
Christian teaching, Gray said.
Tim Clark, executive director of the Utah-Idaho Baptist Convention,
said that a statement from an evangelical leader like Mouw’s can cause
weak believers to stumble and give credence to the Mormon message by
muddying the waters.
“[Mouw is] sending a message to Mormons that they are a part of mainstream Christianity,” Clark said.
“The Mormons will take that and use that kind of language. It’s a half
truth, but that’s how they report it,” he added, noting the targeted
evangelistic efforts of Mormons to convert evangelical Christians, like
Baptists and Methodists.
Both Gray and Clark mentioned full-length movies being funded and/or
produced by Mormons, such as “Baptists At Our Barbecue,” which depicts
a Baptist preacher and his church pitted against Mormons in a small
town, as evidences of efforts to reach out and convert evangelicals.
“The evidence is tangible. Why are the Mormons building temples in New
York City, Dallas and Atlanta? It’s because they’re targeting Baptists
who don’t know what they believe,” Clark said.
Mouw, in an e-mail response to Baptist Press, acknowledged not all
evangelical Christians have sinned against Mormons by “bearing false
witness.”
“I certainly did not mean to imply that every evangelical has sinned in
this regard,” Mouw wrote. “Suppose I were to address an
African-American gathering and say that we whites have sinned against
you blacks. Who would deny that this is a correct assessment? But who
would think that I was speaking about and on behalf of all white
people?”
From the transcript provided to BP and comments attributed to him by
the Salt Lake Tribune, Mouw stated that there are “very real issues of
disagreement” between Mormon and Christian doctrine “of eternal
significance.”
Then he added, “But now we can discuss them as friends.”
“In none of this am I saying that Mormons are ‘orthodox Christians.’
But I do believe that there are elements in Mormon thought that if
emphasized, while de-emphasizing other element[s], could constitute a
message within Mormonism of salvation by grace alone through the blood
of Jesus Christ,” Mouw wrote. “I will work to promote that cause.”
Although Mouw noted that many will inevitably disagree with that
approach, he wrote, “at the very least admit that we have not always
been fair in our wholesale condemnation of Mormonism as simply a false
religion.”
Clark said Mouw’s comments at the Tabernacle will be felt throughout the Utah-Idaho Baptist Convention.
“It sets back our work as Christian witnesses in Utah and Idaho,” Clark
said. “I can’t speak to what it does outside of Utah and Idaho, but I
can tell you it does not communicate a clear Gospel presentation.”
Clark suggested a better message for an evangelical leader like Mouw
speaking at such an historic occasion: “If I had been Dr. Mouw, I would
have talked about the life, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
Roger Russell, pastor of Holladay Baptist Church in Salt Lake City, was
present at the event with his Mormon neighbor and was shocked at Mouw’s
comments.
“I did not appreciate his comments at all,” said Russell, who has
served as a pastor in Utah for more than 16 years. Afterward, Russell
said the conversation between him and his Mormon neighbor of more than
four years centered more on Zacharias’ comments.“Fortunately, after it
was over, we did not talk about that,” Russell said referring to Mouw’s
comments.
“I had absolutely no problems with what Dr. Ravi Zacharias had to say.
He was on the mark and to the point and he didn’t pull any punches. But
it was the comments before and after he spoke that were kind of off the
mark,” said Russell, who was in the audience all three nights of the
series.
According to Russell, although he was “red-faced” at Mouw’s comments,
he suggested there is some truth to his comments, because most Mormons
don’t know what the LDS doctrines are.
“The average Mormon in the pew, he doesn’t care,” Russell said. “It
doesn’t make any difference to him. To them it works. They have
friends. They’re big on family. And not only that, they can spend
eternity with their family. They don’t stop to think about how it
works. So they’re happy with it.”
In his e-mail response Mouw mentioned a “discernible pattern of sinning
against LDS” members by evangelicals, pointing to authors like Walter
Martin who has “oversimplified Mormon teaching” and Dave Hunt who
represented Mormonism as “Satanic in its inspiration and practice.”
“I think this is bearing false witness,” Mouw wrote. Mouw also
clarified comments he made about upcoming celebrations of the 200th
anniversary of Mormon founder Joseph Smith’s birth, which caused
rumblings among many in the evangelical community.
“I can see how people heard me say that we evangelicals should join in
‘celebrating’ Joseph Smith’s birthday, but that is not what I intended
to say,” Mouw wrote. “Instead I said that I hoped many evangelicals
would participate in those events that would allow us all to ‘pay
special attention to Joseph’s life and teachings’ during this year.”
Mouw said that his statement caused “unnecessary confusion,” but that
events like Smith’s birthday allow “critical give and take” when “we
evangelicals can try to sort out the good from the bad in Joseph’s
thought.”
Instead of arguing about Mormon beliefs that are “offensive,” Mouw
wrote that upcoming dialogue opportunities could be spent “reflecting”
on salvation through Jesus Christ alone and His atoning work on the
cross.
In clarifying his own beliefs, Mouw wrote, “For the record: I do not
believe Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God; I do not accept the
Book of Mormon as a legitimate revelation; I do not believe that temple
baptism saves; I do not believe that all people will be saved....
“I am deeply sorry for causing distress in the evangelical community,”
Mouw wrote. “[But] I make no apology for wanting to foster gentle and
reverent dialogue with Mormon friends.”
LDS should talk more about doctrine, evangelical leader advises
By Peggy Fletcher Stack
The Salt Lake Tribune
07/04/2008
Mormon leaders should take to heart the bruising lessons Mitt Romney's
presidential campaign taught them about their faith's image and open a public
dialogue about LDS theology, the president of Fuller Theological Seminary says.
Now that Romney is out of the race, LDS leaders can comment on the "distorted
characterizations of Mormon thought," Richard Mouw wrote in Beliefnet, a
national online magazine about religion. They could also give their "official
blessings" to the ongoing discussions between evangelical theologians and Mormon
scholars that could help clarify "those elements of Mormon thought that are most
susceptible to criticism from the perspective of traditional Christianity."
Such an endorsement would help Evangelicals, too, Mouw argues.
"The LDS leadership has a marvelous opportunity right now to invite Evangelicals
and Mormons to learn together how to be better neighbors," he says.
Mormon officials responded to Mouw's suggestion with a broad, but vague
statement.
Leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints "welcome those
efforts. . .and look forward to continued friendly association and dialogue with
Dr. Mouw and with others of goodwill," LDS spokesman Scott Trotter said. "The
church embraces as an article of faith the concept of respect for other
religions and the freedom to choose, and urges its own members to avoid
misrepresentation or mischaracterizations of the beliefs of others."
Not all Mormons think Mouw's proposal is feasible.
The differences between Evangelicals and Mormons is more than theological, says
Kathleen Flake, who teaches American religious history at Vanderbilt University.
It's also organizational and systematic.
Evangelicals are only loosely organized around a set of principles; not least
emphasizing the primacy of the Bible over theology, Flake says. Latter-day
Saints, on the other hand, "are tightly organized around an enlarged canon of
Bible-based narratives. These are loosely employed to express personal
conviction of God's contemporary and revelatory immediacy."
Mouw's invitation for official, Vatican II-like negotiation makes sense, she
says, "only if you think that Evangelicals and Latter-day Saints have a theology
sufficiently systematized to speak definitively. It seems to me that neither
does."
Talking is good, Flake says, "but it's never going to be official, only
academic."
That may be likely given that the first conversations began in a university
setting.
About a decade ago, Mouw and some colleagues visited Brigham Young University to
discuss questions of authority, revelation, becoming gods, faith and works,
grace and Jesus' atoning sacrifice for humanity with BYU religion professor Bob
Millet. Millet later went to Mouw's turf at Fuller in Pasadena, Calif. These
conversations continue to this day and now involve dozens of others. Last year,
an expanded group met in Nauvoo, Ill., a historic location dear to the LDS
faithful.
"They've been good discussions," Mouw said in a phone interview. "We really
disagree about things but at the same time, we have gotten to a place where
there's trust between us."
In a 2004 speech before a packed audience in the Mormon Tabernacle on Temple
Square, Mouw chastised his fellow Evangelicals for sinning against Latter-day
Saints by misrepresenting their views to others in order to debunk Mormonism.
"It's a terrible thing to bear false witness," Mouw said. "We've told you what
you believe without first asking you. . .I remain convinced there are serious
issues of difference that are of eternal consequence, but now we can discuss
them as friends."
Though some people on both sides of the divide took his advice to heart, Mouw
saw the same kind of misrepresentation emerge during Romney's run for the
presidency.
The problem, as he sees it, is that few people know much about what Mormons
believe and Mormons often don't explain their deep doctrine to outsiders.
"The element of mystery generates a feeling of suspicion," he said.