June 2007 Archives

By Orson Scott Card

Each time a group of Christians comes up with an unfamiliar way of understanding the scriptures and our relationship with God, there are other Christians who are quick to insist that anyone who believes like that can’t really be Christian.

Much blood has been shed over these doctrinal differences; wars have been fought, boundaries have been changed, and people have gone into exile.

Whether it was the often bloody struggle between Arians and Athanasians, between Lutherans and Catholics, between the Church of England and the Puritans, people have been willing, it seems, to die, to kill, and to deprive others of their rights as citizens over differences of Christian belief.

In America, though, we long ago decided — though not easily — to put such things behind us. Many states refused to ratify the Constitution until it included provisions forbidding one religion to be given preference over others.

Besides the first amendment, there is this statement in Article 6: “No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

This didn’t mean that Americans stopped caring about doctrinal differences. Quite the contrary — America became a place where, if anything, we talked incessantly about religious differences.

I mean, what would have been the point of open religious discussion in Catholic France or Church-of-England Britain or Lutheran Sweden?

But in America, we agreed that people who had very different ideas of what it meant to be Christian could — and must — get along without violence.

Well, mostly without violence. There were many places in America where Catholics were not counted as Christians. And when we Mormons came along, well, we were clearly beyond the pale — for precisely the reasons that Dr. Mohler outlines (though for other reasons as well).

While Dr. Mohler sometimes couches his summary of our beliefs in terms we would not choose, I am happy that his explanation is generally clear and fair-minded. (His characterization of the Book of Mormon’s presentation of Christ is the exact opposite of the truth — the Book of Mormon makes every single point that he says it does not. But I don’t expect him to be an expert on the book, or even to have read it.)

I am also happy to agree with him that when one compares our understanding of the nature of God and Christ, we categorically disagree with almost every statement in the “historic creeds and doctrinal affirmations” he refers to.

The only major point on which I could criticize Dr. Mohler’s essay is that he begged the question in the first and second paragraph.

“Christianity is rightly defined in terms of ‘traditional Christian orthodoxy,” he says. “Thus, we have an objective standard by which to define what is and is not Christian.”

In other words, he began the discussion by saying, “We win. Therefore we can define anyone who is not us as ‘the losers.’”

By Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr.

Are Mormons “Christians” as defined by traditional Christian orthodoxy? The answer to that question is easy and straightforward, and it is “no.” Nevertheless, even as the question is clear, the answer requires some explanation.

The issue is clearly framed in this case. Christianity is rightly defined in terms of “traditional Christian orthodoxy.” Thus, we have an objective standard by which to define what is and is not Christianity.

We are not talking here about the postmodern conception of Christianity that minimizes truth. We are not talking about Christianity as a mood or as a sociological movement. We are not talking about liberal Christianity that minimizes doctrine nor about sectarian Christianity which defines the faith in terms of eccentric doctrines. We are talking about historic, traditional, Christian orthodoxy.

Once that is made clear, the answer is inevitable. Furthermore, the answer is made easy, not only by the structure of Christian orthodoxy (a structure Mormonism denies) but by the central argument of Mormonism itself – that the true faith was restored through Joseph Smith in the nineteenth century in America and that the entire structure of Christian orthodoxy as affirmed by the post-apostolic church is corrupt and false.

In other words, Mormonism rejects traditional Christian orthodoxy at the onset – this rejection is the very logic of Mormonism’s existence. A contemporary observer of Mormon public relations is not going to hear this logic presented directly, but it is the very logic and message of the Book of Mormon and the structure of Mormon thought. Mormonism rejects Christian orthodoxy as the very argument for its own existence, and it clearly identifies historic Christianity as a false faith.

Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, the flagship school of the Southern Baptist Convention. He is also Professor of Christian Theology at Southern Seminary. His writings include work in "Hell Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents Eternal Punishment," "Here We Stand: A Call From Confessing Evangelicals," and "The Coming Evangelical Crisis."

Best known for his science fiction novels "Ender's Game" and "Ender's Shadow," award-winning writer Orson Scott Card is also a committed Latter-day Saint. He has written screenplays for animated children's videos from the New Testament and Book of Mormon, and is active in his LDS community.