Controversy over "The Chosen" line Supposedly Taken from the Book of Mormon

[Okrahomer]

34 minutes ago, Navidad said:

Fine, now what makes you think "that group of people" are Evangelicals?They sound like fringe Fundamentalists to me. If it helps, they don't like Evangelicals either.

Some of these folks would surely be considered Evangelicals?

This article from the NYT may also provide some historical perspective.

Some of the negative experiences we have had with Evangelicals may also be geographically-intensified.  For example, where I grew up (in Evangelical-heavy Oklahoma) there were not-infrequent seminars about the “Menace of Mormonism” at Evangelical and even mainline churches.  

I can’t say that I experienced the same level of negativity that Smiley describes, but it was still there in the community.  The good news is that perhaps the white hot intensity I sensed in my youth seems to have cooled in recent years.  The bad news is that this may only reflect a general decline in overall religiosity.

 

[Smiley McGee]

1 hour ago, Navidad said:

what makes you think "that group of people" are Evangelicals?

These were all things done by people I was personally acquainted with, or someone they knew. Welcome to Southern California in the late 90s / early 2000s.
 

I understand I made a generalization, but are you really not aware of the prevalence of belligerent behavior towards Mormons by your tribe? Is this really surprising to you?

[Navidad]

52 minutes ago, Smiley McGee said:

These were all things done by people I was personally acquainted with, or someone they knew. Welcome to Southern California in the late 90s / early 2000s.
 

I understand I made a generalization, but are you really not aware of the prevalence of belligerent behavior towards Mormons by your tribe? Is this really surprising to you?

My tribes are Evangelicals and Mennonites. So no, I am "not aware of the prevalence of belligerent behavior towards Mormons by my tribes. Mennonites do not proselytize except by service ministries. That is not for the purpose of conversion.  Mennonites are only belligerent among themselves! I know many Evangelical churches and pastors across the US and in SOCAL, in fact at one time I was the English Pastor in a Chinese Baptist Church in Glendale. In all the five years I worked there I don't remember a single conversation, sermon, lesson, or discussion about members of the LDS church.

I am very aware of belligerent behavior towards a number of groups by hard-shell Fundamentalists. They are not my tribe. They are a declining population, but are very vocal, strident, and confident that they are the only ones who wield "The Sword of the Lord," (The name of their newspaper for many years).  Is it possible you are not aware of the many differences between these two non-LDS Christian groups (Fundamentalists and Evangelicals)? Probably the only group excoriated more than the LDS by the Fundamentalists are the Evangelicals!

I am very familiar with SOCAL and the various Christian groups there from the seventies until 2015 or so. I was a senior leader in two of the largest public school districts in SOCAL. Only once in all those years did I know of any negativity towards members of the LDS church from anyone in any group I was familiar with. That really was anger with the district displaced onto an LDS connection. All our fourth graders in a district of 133,000 students went each year to the Mormon Battalion Museum in Old Town, San Diego. In order to save money one year, we cancelled the separate fifth grade annual trip up into the mountains. Parents of fifth graders who lost out were mad, so they found an excuse to demand we cancel the fourth grade trip to the Battalion Museum using the excuse that the LDS church was proselytizing the children who went. The superintendent asked me (the deputy superintendent) to get to the bottom of it. To make a long story short, I had a great time with the elderly full-time missionaries who toured the kids through the museum and examined the literature the children were given. I reported back to the board that there was no proselytizing going on, that the children were safe, and that it was a cheap trip by school buses to Old Town that the kids all enjoyed! That was the end of that.

The fact of the matter is that there is too much generalizing and normalizing that goes on between people of many groups, tribes, and affiliations. We check each other for tribal markings and sometimes make broad sweeping statements about the other. I believe there are indeed manifestations of this between religious groups as well. I believe it is time to put all that into the dustbin of history because I believe it grieves the heart of God. That is why I am an Evangelical and a Mennonite. That is also why I spent forty years working in, with, and for public school districts. It is why at 74, I still go to them, as well as to various religious conferences and groups, pleading for peacemakers to rise up from their midst. Sorry - too much said again. I appreciate your dialogue. Best wishes.

Edited April 23, 2023 by Navidad

[Navidad]

1 hour ago, Okrahomer said:

Some of these folks would surely be considered Evangelicals?

This article from the NYT may also provide some historical perspective.

Some of the negative experiences we have had with Evangelicals may also be geographically-intensified.  For example, where I grew up (in Evangelical-heavy Oklahoma) there were not-infrequent seminars about the “Menace of Mormonism” at Evangelical and even mainline churches.  

I can’t say that I experienced the same level of negativity that Smiley describes, but it was still there in the community.  The good news is that perhaps the white hot intensity I sensed in my youth seems to have cooled in recent years.  The bad news is that this may only reflect a general decline in overall religiosity.

 

No my friend, the men quoted in the first article and those talked about in the second are indeed Fundamentalists. They led the charge to "take back" colleges, and especially seminaries from the liberal Evangelicals and put them safely back into the Fundamentalist camp in their denomination (the one in which I was ordained). I am an alumni of one of them as well. I know the turmoil and hard feelings of and from all of that. My first home after marriage was in Oklahoma. I often spoke and ministered in music at churches there in the late sixties and early seventies. Certainly there were Evangelicals in Oklahoma in those years, but they were far outnumbered by Fundamentalists and a rapidly growing Pentecostal movement. I am not sure I have ever met a "white hot intense" Evangelical. There may be some, but I have never met any of them. I knew many white hot intense Fundamentalists especially in the early 70s, including Walter Martin. At any rate, I believe in speaking accurately of my LDS friends and I am right in the middle of the spectrum of Evangelicals. My commitment to that is why I am here, why I have attended an LDS ward for six years now and why I try and learn so much about other marginalized groups like the Pentecostals and Mormon fundamentalist groups here in Mexico.

[Hamilton Porter]

On 4/21/2023 at 8:46 AM, Saint Bonaventure said:

I believe I understand where this person is coming from, but I want to revise and clarify those ideas.

First, Catholic teaching would see a typological relationship between the Ark of the Covenant and Mary, which is more than saying that the Ark typifies Mary. The relationship between the Ark and Mary is more than representational and symbolic; it's that the Ark in a fragmentary, Old Testament way anticipates, gestures to, and foreshadows Mary. The Ark carried the Old Covenant and Mary carried the New Covenant, so to speak.

I find the "Torah typifies Jesus" too watered down for similar reasons. In Catholic teaching, Jesus is the Word made flesh and, from a mortal perspective, He was accomplishing our redemption from the very moment of His Incarnation. It's much more than what was written about Him, even in Sacred Scripture. What He did and did not do, His silences, His Pilgrimages, His movement, and His stillness--everything about Him is redemptive because He is redemption. There's too much sola scriptura in the "Torah typifies Jesus" because the Incarnation goes beyond language, let alone the written or spoken word, as valuable as those are.  What I'm describing is central to what Catholics and Orthodox are getting at when they reject sola scriptura and talk about Sacred Tradition alongside Sacred Scripture. 

 

Do you have any Catholic sources on Jesus being the Torah? Maybe s paper, book chapter, or book?

[Okrahomer]

4 hours ago, Navidad said:

No my friend, the men quoted in the first article and those talked about in the second are indeed Fundamentalists.

Thanks for the correction.  I’ll try to be less judging in the future.  I will say that I have had several very lively but also spiritually uplifting conversations with folks affiliated with Oral Roberts University over the years — I grew up not far from there.  I did not get the same sort of negative intensity from them; although, they clearly were not fans of my faith.

[Saint Bonaventure]

13 hours ago, Hamilton Porter said:

Do you have any Catholic sources on Jesus being the Torah? Maybe s paper, book chapter, or book?

I don't have anything on Jesus being the Torah, but there are endless volumes on Jesus being the Word, and the relationship between the Word and Scripture, including the Torah.

St. Thomas Aquinas had interests in this area, and I do have Matt Levering's Christ's Fulfillment of Temple and Torah: Salvation according to Thomas Aquinas. Levering's a theologian at the University of Dayton. Here's an excerpt:

Quote

What significance does the Mosaic Law have for Christians? Is the Old Law (Torah) merely a preparation for the New Law in Christ Jesus, whose passion, death, and resurrection revoke the Old Law? Christian theologians today often try to answer such questions. The medieval period, however, is generally not the place where contemporary theologians look for answers. A challenging exception is the work of the Jewish theologian Michael Wyschogrod. Because of his interest in Aquinas’s work and his nuanced rendering of a paramount question for any contemporary Christian theology of salvation—namely the question of supersessionism—I will begin this study of how Christ fulfills Israel’s Torah by seeking to enter into dialogue with the concerns posed by Wyschogrod.

The April 1995 issue of Modern Theology presents a symposium centered on a “letter” written by Wyschogrod and addressed to an unnamed Jewish convert to Roman Catholicism. The symposium includes the responses of seven theologians, Jewish and Christian. In the letter, Wyschogrod proposes that from both a Jewish and a Christian perspective, Jewish Christians should continue to observe the Mosaic Law. Wyschogrod first makes the claim from the side of Judaism: “Because you are a Jew, you are obligated, like all Jews, to obey the mitzvoth (e.g., tefilin [phylacteries] in the morning, kashrut, sabbath, etc.).” He then seeks to explore the status of a Jewish convert from the side of Christian theology. He begins by pointing out that the Catholic Church, in the Second Vatican Council, has affirmed that God’s covenant with Israel “has never been revoked.” Jewish converts, however, are not allowed to continue practicing the mitzvoth, so they are generally assimilated within a generation. How then can the Church claim to recognize God’s continuing covenant with Israel, which would quickly disappear as a visible reality if all Jews heeded the Church’s evangelical call? The covenant remains a reality today, in Wyschogrod’s view, only because there are still Jews who obey the Mosaic Law.

Having identified this apparent tension in the Church’s teaching, Wyschogrod briefly describes the theological grounds on which converted Jews have been prevented from obeying the Mosaic Law. He selects Aquinas as a notable representative of the traditional view. Following Gal 5:2 (“If you receive circumcision Christ will do you no good at all”), Aquinas concludes that obeying the “ceremonial” precepts of the Mosaic Law after Christ would be a mortal sin for Jewish Christians, although the “moral” precepts have permanent validity. Wyschogrod challenges this position on two grounds. First, he argues that Aquinas’s distinction between “ceremonial” and “moral” precepts ignores the unity of the Mosaic Law, which God gave to Israel as a single entity to be obeyed. Second, he points out that the original Jewish Christians, as depicted in the book of Acts, either continued to follow the entire Mosaic Law or at least did not consider doing so to be a mortal sin. Along the same lines, he notes that many of the original Jewish Christians held that the Gentiles, too, were obligated to follow the entire law. He concludes by suggesting that observant Jewish Christians should once more find a place in the Church. Were this to happen, “a profound clarification of the Church’s attitude to the Hebrew bible and its Jewish roots will have taken place.” The Church, in short, would be recognizing in practice what it affirmed theoretically at Vatican II: the existence of a perpetual covenant between God and the Jews that is not superseded by the new covenant in Christ.

Although many of the responses to Wyschogrod’s letter were insightful, none of the theologians selected by Modern Theology took the occasion to explore in depth the view that Wyschogrod attributes to Aquinas. This oversight is unfortunate because Wyschogrod’s “letter” has its roots in an essay he wrote a few years earlier entitled “A Jewish Reading of St. Thomas Aquinas on the Old Law.” The essay reveals Wyschogrod as a perceptive reader of Aquinas, and it also presents in detail the concerns, noted briefly in the later “letter,” that Wyschogrod has about the “traditional Christian view.” Wyschogrod specifically seeks to bring Aquinas into the contemporary Jewish-Christian dialogue.

Matthew Levering, Christ’s Fulfillment of Torah and Temple: Salvation according to Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002), 15–17.

 

I can also recommend two books that, while still scholarly and accurate, are intended for less specialized readers. These books are centered in Jesus and His Passover, and might be of particular interest for Latter-day Saints looking to grow in their understanding of early Christianity. They are:

The Fourth Cup: Unveiling the Mystery of the Last Supper and the Cross by Scott Hahn (Professor of Biblical Theology at the Franciscan University of Steubenville)

and

Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist by Brant Pitre (a Professor of Sacred Scripture at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans).

 

Edited April 23, 2023 by Saint Bonaventure

[Smiley McGee]

12 hours ago, Navidad said:

My tribes are Evangelicals and Mennonites. So no, I am "not aware of the prevalence of belligerent behavior towards Mormons by my tribes. Mennonites do not proselytize except by service ministries. That is not for the purpose of conversion.  Mennonites are only belligerent among themselves! I know many Evangelical churches and pastors across the US and in SOCAL, in fact at one time I was the English Pastor in a Chinese Baptist Church in Glendale. In all the five years I worked there I don't remember a single conversation, sermon, lesson, or discussion about members of the LDS church.

I am very aware of belligerent behavior towards a number of groups by hard-shell Fundamentalists. They are not my tribe. They are a declining population, but are very vocal, strident, and confident that they are the only ones who wield "The Sword of the Lord," (The name of their newspaper for many years).  Is it possible you are not aware of the many differences between these two non-LDS Christian groups (Fundamentalists and Evangelicals)? Probably the only group excoriated more than the LDS by the Fundamentalists are the Evangelicals!

I am very familiar with SOCAL and the various Christian groups there from the seventies until 2015 or so. I was a senior leader in two of the largest public school districts in SOCAL. Only once in all those years did I know of any negativity towards members of the LDS church from anyone in any group I was familiar with. That really was anger with the district displaced onto an LDS connection. All our fourth graders in a district of 133,000 students went each year to the Mormon Battalion Museum in Old Town, San Diego. In order to save money one year, we cancelled the separate fifth grade annual trip up into the mountains. Parents of fifth graders who lost out were mad, so they found an excuse to demand we cancel the fourth grade trip to the Battalion Museum using the excuse that the LDS church was proselytizing the children who went. The superintendent asked me (the deputy superintendent) to get to the bottom of it. To make a long story short, I had a great time with the elderly full-time missionaries who toured the kids through the museum and examined the literature the children were given. I reported back to the board that there was no proselytizing going on, that the children were safe, and that it was a cheap trip by school buses to Old Town that the kids all enjoyed! That was the end of that.

The fact of the matter is that there is too much generalizing and normalizing that goes on between people of many groups, tribes, and affiliations. We check each other for tribal markings and sometimes make broad sweeping statements about the other. I believe there are indeed manifestations of this between religious groups as well. I believe it is time to put all that into the dustbin of history because I believe it grieves the heart of God. That is why I am an Evangelical and a Mennonite. That is also why I spent forty years working in, with, and for public school districts. It is why at 74, I still go to them, as well as to various religious conferences and groups, pleading for peacemakers to rise up from their midst. Sorry - too much said again. I appreciate your dialogue. Best wishes.

I would invite to review any reputable public opinion survey of religious groups and see how evangelicals stack up, Pew’s survey for example. You’ll see that evangelicals are viewed most unfavorably of any major religious group. (incidentally, Mormons didn’t fare much better). You can look at these results and say, “it’s just a generalization,” which by definition it is, and you can argue that it’s not valid because you’re different. You could look at it and say “well, the people of God are never popular,” which is what most Mormons I know would say. You could also look at it and think “maybe we have a bigger problem than I’m willing to admit; maybe the experience of this random dude on an obscure message board is more common than I think and indicative of a larger problem.”
 

You are different (in a very good way), but I think you’re a little blind to the crappy behavior of many in your group, and I think it’s inaccurate to blame the fringe elements.

[Navidad]

9 hours ago, Okrahomer said:

Thanks for the correction.  I’ll try to be less judging in the future.  I will say that I have had several very lively but also spiritually uplifting conversations with folks affiliated with Oral Roberts University over the years — I grew up not far from there.  I did not get the same sort of negative intensity from them; although, they clearly were not fans of my faith.

Interesting place. I lectured there some years ago. It almost went bankrupt, but appears to be doing well now. The Pentecostals, especially the Assembly of God are seeking to produce more academic work based on their theological points of view.

[Navidad]

1 hour ago, Smiley McGee said:

I would invite to review any reputable public opinion survey of religious groups and see how evangelicals stack up, Pew’s survey for example. You’ll see that evangelicals are viewed most unfavorably of any major religious group. (incidentally, Mormons didn’t fare much better). You can look at these results and say, “it’s just a generalization,” which by definition it is, and you can argue that it’s not valid because you’re different. You could look at it and say “well, the people of God are never popular,” which is what most Mormons I know would say. You could also look at it and think “maybe we have a bigger problem than I’m willing to admit; maybe the experience of this random dude on an obscure message board is more common than I think and indicative of a larger problem.”
 

You are different (in a very good way), but I think you’re a little blind to the crappy behavior of many in your group, and I think it’s inaccurate to blame the fringe elements.

OK. Thanks for straightening me out on my own group. Any time you need some advice on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, just feel free to ask. I am being sarcastic . . . sorry! Just think of the Evangelical community as large, extremely diverse, and morphing in an increasingly positive direction. Unfortunately the perspective that most people form their opinions about Evangelicals deal with a subject that can't be discussed on this forum. That which cannot be discussed deals with a non-theological perspective in which I have no interest. There are lots of Evangelicals with which I do not sympathize or identify, but it has nothing to do with their attitudes towards the LDS church. You seem to still be insisting that your negative encounters were with Evangelicals. I would simply ask you to ask those folks several basic questions that I have mentioned on this forum over the years. That will let you know pretty quickly that they are Fundamentalists. And just one more time . . . Evangelicals and Fundamentalists are two separate groups; not two ends of the same continuum. Oh, and just to add to the confusion, but both have Evangelists, but very different in their strategies and aims. Take care and best wishes.

[CV75]

On 4/19/2023 at 10:34 AM, Hamilton Porter said:

"The Chosen" creator Dallas Jenkins was already suspect because a few LDS helped him make the movie, and he shot part of it in Utah, I believe.

Five months ago, he got into hot water when the Twitterverse erupted over the "I am the law of Moses" line from The Chosen supposedly having been taken from 3 Nephi 15:9, which Jenkins denied.

Kinda cool seeing the Book of Mormon get air time like that.

This morning I woke up and saw this:

 

I'm curious to see the relationship between the author's thesis and our church's beliefs. Based on the summary, it appears he meant it more literally than the Book of Mormon does.

The context for the Book of Mormon passage is in verse 5:

 

No, you have it mixed up. That was the movie, "Judge Dredd":

[Smiley McGee]

1 hour ago, Navidad said:

Any time you need some advice on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, just feel free to ask.

If I’m wanting to understand an evangelical/Mennonite’s experience with Mormons I certainly would ask you, and I probably would not persist in telling you that you didn’t in fact interact with who you thought you did. We’re often poor judges of others’ perceptions of us and our own group.

[Hamilton Porter]

8 hours ago, Saint Bonaventure said:

I don't have anything on Jesus being the Torah, but there are endless volumes on Jesus being the Word, and the relationship between the Word and Scripture, including the Torah.

St. Thomas Aquinas had interests in this area, and I do have Matt Levering's Christ's Fulfillment of Temple and Torah: Salvation according to Thomas Aquinas. Levering's a theologian at the University of Dayton. Here's an excerpt:

I can also recommend two books that, while still scholarly and accurate, are intended for less specialized readers. These books are centered in Jesus and His Passover, and might be of particular interest for Latter-day Saints looking to grow in their understanding of early Christianity. They are:

The Fourth Cup: Unveiling the Mystery of the Last Supper and the Cross by Scott Hahn (Professor of Biblical Theology at the Franciscan University of Steubenville)

and

Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist by Brant Pitre (a Professor of Sacred Scripture at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans).

 

Thanks

[Hamilton Porter]

1 hour ago, CV75 said:

No, you have it mixed up. That was the movie, "Judge Dredd":

Actually, the director said he got his inspiration from Breaking Bad.

[Hamilton Porter]

I'm twisted. I get a kick out of these people all nitpicky about saying anything positive about LDS, saying anything remotely close to what the Book of Mormon says.

https://youtu.be/xD_84jg8Efs

[Hamilton Porter]

5 hours ago, CV75 said:

No, you have it mixed up. That was the movie, "Judge Dredd":

Breaking bad.

 

[CV75]

4 hours ago, Hamilton Porter said:

Actually, the director said he got his inspiration from Breaking Bad.

But Judge Dredd is an earlier text concerning the Vehm judge-jury-executioners of the Middle Ages ("Uh-am-da -luh" -- actor Stallone repeated this mystic code word perfectly), so I bet Vince Gilligan (of Breaking Bad) got his inspiration from that.

[InCognitus]

6 minutes ago, Hamilton Porter said:

I'm twisted. I get a kick out of these people all nitpicky about saying anything positive about LDS, saying anything remotely close to what the Book of Mormon says.

https://youtu.be/xD_84jg8Efs

That's just plain sad (the video, I mean.  Not your post).

[Hamilton Porter]

2 hours ago, InCognitus said:

That's just plain sad (the video, I mean.  Not your post).

It's great the the Book of Mormon is getting airtime for its christology though, and not the stuff people think are silly (like Hebraic Indian theory). How frequent does that happen?

[Hamilton Porter]

On 4/22/2023 at 11:23 PM, Navidad said:

My tribes are Evangelicals and Mennonites. So no, I am "not aware of the prevalence of belligerent behavior towards Mormons by my tribes. Mennonites do not proselytize except by service ministries. That is not for the purpose of conversion.  Mennonites are only belligerent among themselves! I know many Evangelical churches and pastors across the US and in SOCAL, in fact at one time I was the English Pastor in a Chinese Baptist Church in Glendale. In all the five years I worked there I don't remember a single conversation, sermon, lesson, or discussion about members of the LDS church.

I am very aware of belligerent behavior towards a number of groups by hard-shell Fundamentalists. They are not my tribe. They are a declining population, but are very vocal, strident, and confident that they are the only ones who wield "The Sword of the Lord," (The name of their newspaper for many years).  Is it possible you are not aware of the many differences between these two non-LDS Christian groups (Fundamentalists and Evangelicals)? Probably the only group excoriated more than the LDS by the Fundamentalists are the Evangelicals!

I am very familiar with SOCAL and the various Christian groups there from the seventies until 2015 or so. I was a senior leader in two of the largest public school districts in SOCAL. Only once in all those years did I know of any negativity towards members of the LDS church from anyone in any group I was familiar with. That really was anger with the district displaced onto an LDS connection. All our fourth graders in a district of 133,000 students went each year to the Mormon Battalion Museum in Old Town, San Diego. In order to save money one year, we cancelled the separate fifth grade annual trip up into the mountains. Parents of fifth graders who lost out were mad, so they found an excuse to demand we cancel the fourth grade trip to the Battalion Museum using the excuse that the LDS church was proselytizing the children who went. The superintendent asked me (the deputy superintendent) to get to the bottom of it. To make a long story short, I had a great time with the elderly full-time missionaries who toured the kids through the museum and examined the literature the children were given. I reported back to the board that there was no proselytizing going on, that the children were safe, and that it was a cheap trip by school buses to Old Town that the kids all enjoyed! That was the end of that.

The fact of the matter is that there is too much generalizing and normalizing that goes on between people of many groups, tribes, and affiliations. We check each other for tribal markings and sometimes make broad sweeping statements about the other. I believe there are indeed manifestations of this between religious groups as well. I believe it is time to put all that into the dustbin of history because I believe it grieves the heart of God. That is why I am an Evangelical and a Mennonite. That is also why I spent forty years working in, with, and for public school districts. It is why at 74, I still go to them, as well as to various religious conferences and groups, pleading for peacemakers to rise up from their midst. Sorry - too much said again. I appreciate your dialogue. Best wishes.

Evangelicals are the only faith group that has an entire industry criticizing our faith, and picket our meetings. TBH my interaction with them has been overwhelmingly negative.

I've met some people (you included) who don't fit that description.

Mennonites, on the other hand, I've had limited, very positive exposure to, which I've posted about before.

[Navidad]

2 hours ago, Hamilton Porter said:

Evangelicals are the only faith group that has an entire industry criticizing our faith, and picket our meetings. TBH my interaction with them has been overwhelmingly negative.

I've met some people (you included) who don't fit that description.

Mennonites, on the other hand, I've had limited, very positive exposure to, which I've posted about before.

[Navidad]

2 hours ago, Hamilton Porter said:

Evangelicals are the only faith group that has an entire industry criticizing our faith, and picket our meetings. TBH my interaction with them has been overwhelmingly negative.

I've met some people (you included) who don't fit that description.

Mennonites, on the other hand, I've had limited, very positive exposure to, which I've posted about before.

You guys may not want to continue this conversation within the thread with me and that is fine. I guess I am simply curious about one thing. . . . how would you, Smiley, or anyone else discern or determine whether or not someone was a Fundamentalist or an Evangelical, or something else if you met them on a street corner, or in front of the stake center?

You have distinguished between Evangelicals and Mennonites in this response. That confuses me, so I would like to continue the dialogue. Evangelicals are a subgroup within Mennonitism; they are not two different groups. There are several forms of Fundamentalists, less every year within the Mennonites, as there are Evangelicals, Mainline Christians, and Pentecostals within the Mennonites. Many, if not most non-LDS Christian groups (Methodists, Baptists, Lutherans, etc.) have Fundamentalists, Evangelicals, Mainliners, and Pentecostals within their group or subgroups.  They also have Evangelical Pentecostal subgroups, and Fundamentalist Pentecostal subgroups. The only thing that would be extraordinarily rare would be to be a Fundamentalist-Evangelical Mennonite. I am not sure that is possible. You seem so very sure you have interacted specifically with Evangelicals in your negative encounters and that Evangelicals have an "entire industry" criticizing your faith and picketing your meetings. How would you discern whether or not someone picketing your faith is an Evangelical or a Fundamentalist? There have been interesting controversies between Fundamentalists and Evangelicals for years over a variety of issues regarding mainline Mormonism, from soteriology to politics. Are Fundamentalists and Evangelicals simply all the same to you? Do you even discern a difference?

For instance, lets talk about Baptists. There are many different Baptist groups. Some, like the General Association of Regular Baptists (GARB) are by and large Fundamentalists. They have their own colleges. Now lets look at the American Baptist Church USA (ABCUSA) - they are, by and large mainline - more liberal than Fundamentalists or Evangelicals. There are some Evangelical American Baptists, but I can't imagine any Fundamentalists within that group. They approved my  ordination back in the early 80s. Then there are the Southern Baptists. Over the last forty years, they  have been all over the barn (a Mennonite term). There are fundamentalist Southern Baptists - very vocal, powerful, and today in charge, having taken over some SBC seminaries by taking over the board of trustees. There are many Evangelical Southern Baptists, who have over the last twenty years established their own subgroups and seminaries within the SBC. There are also, especially in the southeast USA, some mainline Southern Baptists, gathered around Wake Forest and Southeastern Baptist Seminary. They are the most liberal or progressive Southern Baptists. I have friends and acquaintances in all of the SBC subgroups. I could go on with the Lutherans, Methodists, and so on. There are also some specifically Pentecostal groups with subgroups of Fundamentalists and Evangelicals in their adherents. I could go on and on, but won't.

These differences are all very important to understand because they are  . . . . . well, all very important. If you meet someone on your corner who attends a Bible Church, they are most likely Fundamentalist and non-denominational, although not necessarily. There are several questions to ask to discern their identity. The very fact they are on a corner protesting you would indicate they are 80% likely to be Fundamentalists. Many non-LDS Christian groups are evangelistic . . . . that is not the same as Evangelical. There is a huge difference. My LDS friends are evangelistic (very), but are not Evangelicals per se. . . . although I have met members of the LDS church who I discern as Evangelicals. Most Mennonites are not evangelistic. Many Mennonites are Evangelical.

I got tickled the other day when there was a parade to celebrate the 100th anniversary of one of our local municipalities. I served on the organizing committee for the day's events. The Mormons (LDS, that is), Mennonites, and Chinese communities were each specifically invited to march as a distinct group in the parade. The Mormons (Lebaron) were not. Folks here don't distinguish between the two Mormon entities. I didn't see any Lebarons marching with the Mormons, even though there are some familial ties. I didn't march with anyone because I was busy organizing!

I am on the local LDS chat group and between requests for pastries to sell, and handcarts to pull (the LDS pioneers here did not bring handcarts, but that wasn't worth the discussion), my LDS friends were thrilled for the "missionary" opportunity. As a municipal event in a country with very very very strict church/state separation like Mexico, there was not supposed to be proselytizing, but my LDS friends are "evangelistic" so they had the missionaries raring to go. The Mennonites did not. Just a point to clarify the difference between Evangelical and evangelistic. Oh, and the Mennonites here in Chihuahua by and large are not Evangelical either. They are Fundamentalist in both a doctrinal and a cultural manner. My wife and I have attended some Mennonite churches here and been greeted with curiosity, rejection, and warm welcomes. . . . . kind of like at the wards! Ha!

Had I walked with the Mennonite groups, some would have criticized their bishop for allowing me to walk with them since I am not Mennonite (in their minds) by culture. If I had walked with the LDS group, some would have criticized our bishop for allowing me to walk with them since I am not a member of the Church. Others of both groups would have been very pleased that I walked with them. I chose the path of wisdom and didn't walk with anyone! I just organized! Oh, and I might have walked with the Chinese because I love Chinese food and was the English pastor at a Chinese Southern Baptist Evangelical Home-Mission board church in SOCAL! That is where I learned to love ping pong.

So, how do you discern what affiliation a guy belongs to on the street corner with a tract and a sign? Or has that just never been important to you or entered your minds? Are they simply all Evangelicals because, well because they Evangelize? Are you then Evangelicals too? Sometimes I think that to the faithful LDS church member, everyone who isn't, is just not LDS - differentiating beyond that isn't important! 

I like telling stories. Sorry for the length of the post. No I'm not. Yes I am. 

[Saint Bonaventure]

My experience is that, outside of areas where there are large numbers of Latter-day Saints, most Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, Evangelicals, Fundamentalists, etc. don't know much about Latter-day Saints and don't spend much time thinking about them.

Sure, some churches have evangelization teams that know more, or think they know more, and maybe it's this tiny minority that is the source of the majority of the rude/belligerent/bellicose interactions. 

 

[Smiley McGee]

1 hour ago, Navidad said:

You guys may not want to continue this conversation within the thread with me and that is fine. I guess I am simply curious about one thing. . . . how would you, Smiley, or anyone else discern or determine whether or not someone was a Fundamentalist or an Evangelical, or something else if you met them on a street corner, or in front of the stake center?

You have distinguished between Evangelicals and Mennonites in this response. That confuses me, so I would like to continue the dialogue. Evangelicals are a subgroup within Mennonitism; they are not two different groups. There are several forms of Fundamentalists, less every year within the Mennonites, as there are Evangelicals, Mainline Christians, and Pentecostals within the Mennonites. Many, if not most non-LDS Christian groups (Methodists, Baptists, Lutherans, etc.) have Fundamentalists, Evangelicals, Mainliners, and Pentecostals within their group or subgroups.  They also have Evangelical Pentecostal subgroups, and Fundamentalist Pentecostal subgroups. The only thing that would be extraordinarily rare would be to be a Fundamentalist-Evangelical Mennonite. I am not sure that is possible. You seem so very sure you have interacted specifically with Evangelicals in your negative encounters and that Evangelicals have an "entire industry" criticizing your faith and picketing your meetings. How would you discern whether or not someone picketing your faith is an Evangelical or a Fundamentalist? There have been interesting controversies between Fundamentalists and Evangelicals for years over a variety of issues regarding mainline Mormonism, from soteriology to politics. Are Fundamentalists and Evangelicals simply all the same to you? Do you even discern a difference?

For instance, lets talk about Baptists. There are many different Baptist groups. Some, like the General Association of Regular Baptists (GARB) are by and large Fundamentalists. They have their own colleges. Now lets look at the American Baptist Church USA (ABCUSA) - they are, by and large mainline - more liberal than Fundamentalists or Evangelicals. There are some Evangelical American Baptists, but I can't imagine any Fundamentalists within that group. They approved my  ordination back in the early 80s. Then there are the Southern Baptists. Over the last forty years, they  have been all over the barn (a Mennonite term). There are fundamentalist Southern Baptists - very vocal, powerful, and today in charge, having taken over some SBC seminaries by taking over the board of trustees. There are many Evangelical Southern Baptists, who have over the last twenty years established their own subgroups and seminaries within the SBC. There are also, especially in the southeast USA, some mainline Southern Baptists, gathered around Wake Forest and Southeastern Baptist Seminary. They are the most liberal or progressive Southern Baptists. I have friends and acquaintances in all of the SBC subgroups. I could go on with the Lutherans, Methodists, and so on. There are also some specifically Pentecostal groups with subgroups of Fundamentalists and Evangelicals in their adherents. I could go on and on, but won't.

These differences are all very important to understand because they are  . . . . . well, all very important. If you meet someone on your corner who attends a Bible Church, they are most likely Fundamentalist and non-denominational, although not necessarily. There are several questions to ask to discern their identity. The very fact they are on a corner protesting you would indicate they are 80% likely to be Fundamentalists. Many non-LDS Christian groups are evangelistic . . . . that is not the same as Evangelical. There is a huge difference. My LDS friends are evangelistic (very), but are not Evangelicals per se. . . . although I have met members of the LDS church who I discern as Evangelicals. Most Mennonites are not evangelistic. Many Mennonites are Evangelical.

I got tickled the other day when there was a parade to celebrate the 100th anniversary of one of our local municipalities. I served on the organizing committee for the day's events. The Mormons (LDS, that is), Mennonites, and Chinese communities were each specifically invited to march as a distinct group in the parade. The Mormons (Lebaron) were not. Folks here don't distinguish between the two Mormon entities. I didn't see any Lebarons marching with the Mormons, even though there are some familial ties. I didn't march with anyone because I was busy organizing!

I am on the local LDS chat group and between requests for pastries to sell, and handcarts to pull (the LDS pioneers here did not bring handcarts, but that wasn't worth the discussion), my LDS friends were thrilled for the "missionary" opportunity. As a municipal event in a country with very very very strict church/state separation like Mexico, there was not supposed to be proselytizing, but my LDS friends are "evangelistic" so they had the missionaries raring to go. The Mennonites did not. Just a point to clarify the difference between Evangelical and evangelistic. Oh, and the Mennonites here in Chihuahua by and large are not Evangelical either. They are Fundamentalist in both a doctrinal and a cultural manner. My wife and I have attended some Mennonite churches here and been greeted with curiosity, rejection, and warm welcomes. . . . . kind of like at the wards! Ha!

Had I walked with the Mennonite groups, some would have criticized their bishop for allowing me to walk with them since I am not Mennonite (in their minds) by culture. If I had walked with the LDS group, some would have criticized our bishop for allowing me to walk with them since I am not a member of the Church. Others of both groups would have been very pleased that I walked with them. I chose the path of wisdom and didn't walk with anyone! I just organized! Oh, and I might have walked with the Chinese because I love Chinese food and was the English pastor at a Chinese Southern Baptist Evangelical Home-Mission board church in SOCAL! That is where I learned to love ping pong.

So, how do you discern what affiliation a guy belongs to on the street corner with a tract and a sign? Or has that just never been important to you or entered your minds? Are they simply all Evangelicals because, well because they Evangelize? Are you then Evangelicals too? Sometimes I think that to the faithful LDS church member, everyone who isn't, is just not LDS - differentiating beyond that isn't important! 

I like telling stories. Sorry for the length of the post. No I'm not. Yes I am. 

How would we discern, Navidad? Because up to this point your criteria boils down to “if bad behavior then fundamentalist, not evangelical.” And you refuse to accept that people I knew personally and who identified as evangelical were overtly hostile to my faith. 

Edited April 24, 2023 by Smiley McGee

[Navidad]

23 minutes ago, Saint Bonaventure said:

My experience is that, outside of areas where there are large numbers of Latter-day Saints, most Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, Evangelicals, Fundamentalists, etc. don't know much about Latter-day Saints and don't spend much time thinking about them.

Sure, some churches have evangelization teams that know more, or think they know more, and maybe it's this tiny minority that is the source of the majority of the rude/belligerent/bellicose interactions. 

 

You nailed it. In far fewer words than me! 😄 Whoever they are, they are a tiny minority of the overall world of non-LDS Christians.