Question Answered about Dr. Mouw of Fuller Seminary and his comments on the Mormon Church

I received an email question from a class member (and I love to get and answer them!) about Dr. Richard Mouw of Fuller Seminary and his blog comments on the Mormons. Following is a rather lengthy response to it. This is important because Dr. Mouw is a leader in the Christian church and his opinions influence many.

The question did not specify which blog or where his comments were located, but since this is a topic I have already read about (Dr. Mouw was one of my seminary professors and I have followed his views of the Mormon church with interest), following are excerpts and comments about his opinions from two sources, his blog and a blog by Ed Stetzer of LifeWay.

Dr. Mouws personal blog, his comments on Knowing Mormons

The following quote is from: blog: Knowing Mormons
http://www.netbloghost.com/mouw/?p=206

Not only, for example, did Elder Jeffrey Holland, one of “the Twelve” in Salt Lake City, say to me that he believes that Mormons need to put more of a central emphasis on the atoning work of Jesus Christ, completed on the Cross of Calvary—he also has been preaching that at annual General Conferences, to tens of thousands Latter-day Saints.

“You don’t really know them” and “You know them too well” are false choices. The alternative in any relationship with people with whom we disagree on eternally important matters is to listen carefully and patiently, asking questions, discerning patterns of thought—and working diligently not to bear false witness against our neighbors!

Comments on Dr. Mouw blog post:
I think the last paragraph is very reflective of Dr. Mouw. I had him as a seminary professor many years ago prior to him becoming president of Fuller. From many hours of class discussions, hearing him lecture and having lunch and discussions outside of class, my primary memory of him is that he is one of the most gracious, kind, civil and tolerant individuals I have ever met. His demeanor, his methods of interaction with those who did not agree with him provided an example that I have tried (and often failed) to follow.

Having said that, I am concerned about some of his comments in reference to Mormons. In the prior comment, that the Mormon Elder talked about putting more of a central emphasis on the atoning work of Jesus Christ, sounds quite correct. However, my great concern would about the definition of the Jesus he is talking about. Is he talking about a the Jesus who appeared as an exhaulted man, with God the father as an exhaulted man to Joseph Smith? Is he talking about the Jesus who is the spirit brother of Lucifer and who won the arguement of who was to redeem the earth? Is he the Jesus who was born in the normal physical way after God as a man had sex with Mary? These and many more statements by the Mormon church and define a Jesus who may be similiar in name, but who is not the Jesus of the Bible. In addition, Mormon doctrine states that the death of Jesus on the cross made salvation possible for all–that is nothing new for Mormon doctrine. It is what is added to it: baptism into the Mormon church, priesthood for the men, all the continuing required actions, celestial marriage and exhaulation to godhead–all of these things are added once a person accepts the belief in the cross of Jesus, according to Mormon theology.

Additional comments by Dr. Mouw on Mormons and commentary by Ed Stetzer

Dr. Mouw has written many additional things on this topic. On Ed Stetzer’s blog (vp of Lifeway Research, a solid, Bible-based group, part of Southern Baptist denomination)
at this blog: http://www.edstetzer.com/2011/10/mormonism-cults-and-christiani.html

The following summary quote by Dr. Mouw is cited:

Dr. Mouw: My Mormon friends and I disagree on enough subjects that I am not prepared to say that their theology falls within the scope of historic Christian teaching.

I think this is a definitive statement. We can engage in kind dialog, which we all should, but determining historic Christian teaching, is key. Ed Stetzer has the following comments on this:

Ed Stetzer “For Christians, calling yourself a Christian while not believing that God has always existed as the triune Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is inconceivable.”
. . . . . .

He goes on to say: It is hard for people in tolerant America to hear, “I know you SAY you are a Christian, but you are not.” Yet, basic to evangelicalism (and historic Protestantism) is that some people are Christians, some people are not, and not all people who think that they are Christians actually are.

“Christianity” is not based on what you say about yourself or your beliefs. “Christianity” must be connected to how your beliefs agree with the beliefs of biblical Christianity.

. . . . .The fundamental issue is: how divergent can your views be and still be a part of a faith group (in contrast to forming a new one). Can you believe, for instance, that Muhammad is not the prophet and still call yourself a Muslim? The vast majority of Muslims would say you cannot. For Christians, calling yourself a Christian while not believing that God has always existed as the triune Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is as inconceivable.

This is not simply a conservative evangelical Christian view. Methodists have said “the LDS Church is not a part of the historic, apostolic tradition of the Christian faith.” Even Roman Catholics (hardly conservative Protestants) don’t recognize LDS baptism.

As I said before, a cult is difficult to define. But Christianity has been defined a certain way for centuries. There is no reason to be shocked that devout Christians consider those with a different view of Christ as non-Christians. In the current cultural climate it may be uncomfortable, but it is anything but shocking.

INTERESTING COMMENTS that followed this post

By Murfdog
EXCELLENT post, Ed. Informative, thorough, and respectful. The early Church spent 300+ years defining what it did and did NOT believe — what a tragedy it would be to stand by and watch those walls crumble under the onslaught of “all beliefs are equal”.

By Mike Dunger
Personally, I find it dissapointing that so many pastors do NOT strongly disagree with the suggestion that Mormons are Christians. Like Jehovah’s Witnesses or Muslims, Mormons believe in a different God, a different Jesus, a different salvation, a different heaven and a different revelation of truth. The plain fact is evident, they are not members of the body of the church.

What they ARE is equally plain: they are people who are following the deceiver. Muhammed & Smith both said “we’ve strayed from truth & God gave me revelation in addition to Scripture”. Luther said “we’ve strayed from the Truth & need to come back to Scripture”. But they all need to be loved and witnessed TO.

By Fr. Thomas McKenzie
Cult is not a great word, as you point out, especially when the religion is over 100 years old and the founder is long dead. Hard to call it a cult at this point.

It seems difficult to decide if a group is “Christian” or not without some reference to the Creeds. Saying a group doesn’t have biblical beliefs really just opens a can of crazy. “Who is to say that Baptists have biblical beliefs but Mormons don’t?” I can imagine someone saying. Once you invoke the Bible then you get into the deep forests of interpretation.

However, if you are a credal Church, you can say “here is the Nicene Creed. If your group does not teach the tenets of the Nicene Creed, then it is by definition not Christian.” One would have to be pretty obtuse to not see that Mormons don’t teach the tenets of the Nicene Creed while typically Southern Baptists (who claim not to be credal) actually do.

This seems to be one of those moments in which we could all rally around the Creed as the interpretive tool of the Bible.

Yvon’s comment on the Creeds

The place of the Creeds is very important in the history of the church and we’ll be looking at them in class. They are a treasure, often not studied by many, but they are the result of fine, Biblical minds in the past dealing with complex, challenging issues. They continue to provide light to us today, if we look at them. Below is a copy of the Nicene Creed, which is one of the earliest and most complete of the creeds. We’ll look at it more closely in the future in class.

The Nicene Creed
We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary
and became truly human.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen