All Churches but One Apostate

Volume Four—Chapter Two ARE ALL CHURCHES BUT ONE APOSTATE?

#The LDS View of Non-LDS Christians

Evangelical view. In 1820 Joseph Smith asked the Father and the Son in the sacred grove which church he should join. The Savior told him, “I must join none of them, for they [are] all wrong.” Further, the Lord referred to their creeds as “an abomination in his sight” and said of their professors, “[They are] all corrupt” and “‘they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof’” (JS-H 1:19). This First Vision account has resulted in some members’ of the Church becoming involved in “labeling” other churches and their members. A few LDS members have assumed that all other churches and their members are “apostate.” Dr. Blomberg has sensed this aspect of the First Vision. He writes: “The ‘Personage’ who spoke to Joseph Smith told him to join no existing Christian denomination, “for they were all wrong” and “all their creeds were an abomination in his sight,” their “professors were all corrupt,” and their religious worship all a hypocritical pretense (Joseph Smith History 2:19 [sic])” (HWD, 184).

Some Evangelicals acquainted with LDS scripture have also come to believe they belong to a church that we consider “a church which is most abominable above all other churches,” whose founder is the devil. They are concerned that they belong to a church referred to in our scripture as the “great and abominable church” and the “whore of all the earth” (1 Nephi 13:5-6; D&C 29:21). They interpret our scriptures as prophesying that their church “shall be cast down by devouring fire” (cf. D&C 1; 10:69; 88:94).

LDS view. We must be careful to acknowledge that the Lord was speaking to the young prophet Joseph of the doctrines of historical Christianity and not the members of the Protestant and Catholic churches. We must view present-day Evangelicals as devout and completely committed to their beliefs. We should not label them as “apostates.” We believe they are victims of their churches. Their doctrines have been on the earth for centuries. Contemporary Evangelicals believe what they have been taught since their childhood. Some of what they believe is untrue, but that is not their fault.

Brother Robinson responds to the Evangelicals’ concern:

The “great and abominable church” mentioned in the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants is not, as I understand it, any specific denomination or even group of denominations. It is an apocalyptic category that designates all those, both LDS and non-LDS, who fight against the Lamb. The term is roughly equivalent to the “Babylon” of the Apocalypse (see, for example, Revelation 18-19). The opposite category, “the church of the Lamb,” refers to all those, both LDS and non-LDS, who worship Christ and seek to do his will or who would if they knew him (1 Nephi 14:10; 22:23, 2 Nephi 10:16). And these are boundaries that cannot be defined denominationally.

In Joseph Smith’s first vision, the statement that all existing denominations are “wrong” is not an aspersion on the character of their members. These churches are not “depraved,” “corrupt,” or abominations.” They are just wrong—and therefore not the Lord’s one true church. Despite the impression received by Prof. Blomberg, Joseph Smith’s History says nothing to the effect that the religious worship of other Christians is “all a hypocritical pretense.” It does say that their creeds are an abomination, but this is because creeds are philosophical idols created by human minds, imposed upon the scriptures and then revered as God’s word in place of God’s Word. Those who believe such creeds are not “abominable.” They are just wrong.

However, those who offer these intellectual idols to their hearers as the word of God (in Joseph’s words, “their [the creeds’] professors”) are corrupt when “they teach for doctrines the commandments of men.” If they would just stick to the Bible without filtering it through the creeds— and many do—they still would not have all the truth, but they would not be “abominable” or “corrupt” either. There is no insult here to non-LDS Christians who believe the Bible and refrain from dragging in the philosophers and theologians as equal or higher authorities. However, those who subordinate the Bible to the creeds are on thin ice, for they make the human product the standard for interpreting God’s Word instead of vice versa, and this is, frankly, an abomination (HWD, 161-62).

#Pascal’s Wager

Evangelical view. The concept of Pascal’s wager (or Pascal’s gambit) originated when the French philosopher Blaise Pascal applied decision theory to a belief in God. This concept posits that it is better to “bet” on the fact that that God exists than that he does not. The expected value of believing (which Pascal assessed as infinite) is greater than the expected value of not believing. In other words, which has more at stake if he loses the bet the believer or the atheist? If the believer “loses his bet,” then he has little to lose in the eternities. The atheist has everything to lose.

This concept was applied to the Evangelical-LDS debate by Craig Blomberg. He wrote: “Which one of us has more at stake? What if I am wrong and my dialogue partner is right? On the other hand, what if I am right and my dialogue partner is mistaken?” Blomberg suggests that the best Pascalian “wager” is to bet on conservative Protestantism. For, he says, if the Latter-day Saints are right, sincere Evangelicals will go to the (very pleasant) terrestrial kingdom, there to enjoy the presence of Jesus Christ, the divine Son of God. On the other hand, he continues, if evangelical Protestantism is correct, the sincere but mistaken Latter-day Saints will suffer in hell for all eternity.

LDS view. Hamblin and Peterson comment:

Those who sincerely reject the fulness of the gospel as Latter-day Saints have received it will almost certainly not go the deepest abyss of hell. But they will also, it seems, have to forego the highest blessings of the Father and the Son.

There are other ways of applying Pascal’s logic here. If the Latter-

day Saints are correct, little that is crucially important to evangelicals is lost. The Bible is true, the ancient prophets and apostles were what they claimed to be, and such luminaries of Christian history as St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Francis of Assisi, Soren Kierkegaard, C. S. Lewis, and Mother Teresa remain admirable models of serious, morally engaged thinking and Christian discipleship. And there is still hope for our evangelical brothers and sisters, as well as for those of our brothers and sisters who have lived and died in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam.

By contrast, if evangelical Protestantism is correct, much that is vitally important to Latter-day Saints is lost. Our deceased families and friends are being tortured in hell. Our leaders are, at best, self-deceived fools, and very possible monstrous frauds. And, on the usual Protestant understanding, billions of our non-Christian brothers and sisters are consigned forever to the flames of the inferno. It is difficult to see how any normal person could find much in this unendurable scenario to feel cheerful about (FRB, 208-09).

#Conclusion

So what is the prognosis of the future relationship between evangelical Protestants and Mormons? I hope it is good. I hope the future holds the promise of mutual respect and peaceful co-existence. Disagreeing with someone else’s religious beliefs is no reason to lose respect for them or their beliefs. Nor should differing doctrinal opinions ever be regarded as justifiable cause for any form of adverse treatment of others. I was interested to read the definition of bigot in the Random House Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary I keep on my desk. It is “a person who is extremely intolerant of another’s creed, belief, or opinion.” I actually disagree with this definition and regard it as incomplete. I believe a bigot is a person who treats another person in an adverse way because of the other’s beliefs or opinions. As a religion, we LDS are not, in any sense, ecumenical. That is, we are not inclined to compromise in any way our doctrinal opinions for the sake of unity and harmony. We openly avow that, from our standpoint, there is no hope of coming closer to the Evangelicals in our religious beliefs by compromise. But this is no excuse for bigotry on our part. In spite of any rancor and anger we perceive others hold for us, we must continue to treat others with respect.

Further, as Latter-day Saints, we would hold out the hope that genuine efforts to communicate openly and to understand one another’s beliefs will result in some of the Evangelicals’ coming to appreciate the strength of our position and begin to investigate the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Many of us in the Church know with all our hearts that the fulness of the Lord’s gospel has been restored to the earth and that his Church has been re-established and is administered by divinely authorized individuals. For us, there is no going back on that position.