From: Troy Waller <>
Subject: Mormons 1.1
Date: Mon, 5 May 1997

Dear Emailers

Here is a great article on Mormons for your file.
This is the first of three parts.

Blesssings
Troy

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Copyright 1993 by the Christian Research Institute.

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‘Are Mormons Christians?’ by Stephen E. Robinson (Bookcraft, 1991) (a book review from the Christian Research Journal, Fall 1992, page 33, by Gordon R. Lewis).
The Editor-in-Chief of the Christian Research Journal is Elliot Miller.

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A Summary Critique

Although a god allegedly told Joseph Smith in his first vision that he should join none of the Christian denominations, Stephen Robinson now wants ‘to show that the arguments used to exclude Latter-day Saints from the ‘Christian’ world are flawed’ (p. vii). Robinson, chairman of the Department of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University, has taught religion at Presbyterian and Methodist-related schools. He may be the only Latter-day Saint (LDS) to earn tenure in a non-LDS college. Among a host of recent efforts by Mormons to gain acceptance for their church as Christian, Robinson’s book is surely the most important and sophisticated.

What Is a Christian?

Crucial to Robinson’s argument is his understanding of the nature of Christianity and what a Christian is. In chapter 1 he proposes a generic definition of Christianity that fits all who are usually classed as ‘Christian’: Protestants’ from liberal to evangelical, Roman Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox. With such an inclusive definition, Robinson succeeds in showing that LDS may be regarded Christian.

But this approach to legitimizing Mormonism can only succeed if a Christian does not need to believe in one personal, transcendent God, one incarnate Christ, the completed atonement, and one gospel of grace through faith alone. For mere descriptive purposes, historians may classify every group that calls itself Christian as Christian. Jesus Christ, however, did not do this. Jesus taught that ‘the way’ was narrow and that we should not assume that all who call Jesus ‘Lord’ are really Christians (Matt. 5:20; 7:13-23). In defining the one true church, would Robinson be satisfied with a generic definition that includes all churches calling themselves Christian? Not if the LDS is the one true church’ with baptism accompanied with the laying on of hands by those in authority in the ‘restored priesthood.’ Robinson’ s generic pattern of defining terms like ‘church’ or ‘Christian’ is too broad to be useful for purposes of normative Christian doctrine.

Robinson’s generic definition of a Christian from Webster’s Third New International Dictionary is: ‘One who believes or professes or is assumed to believe in Jesus Christ and the truth as taught by him; an adherent of Christianity; one who has accepted the Christian religious and moral principles of life; one who has faith in and has pledged allegiance to God thought of as revealed in Christ; one whose life is conformed to the doctrines of Christ’ (1). The second most common meaning of ‘Christian ‘ in Robinson’s book is: ‘A member of a church or group professing Christian doctrine or belief’ (1).

Having raised the issue of the nature of Christianity, Robinson fails to interact with the relevant literature. For example, he does not deal with evangelical literature such as J. Gresham Machen’s What Is Christianity? (Eerdmans, 1950), What Is Faith? (Eerdmans, 1948), and Christianity and Liberalism (Eerdmans, 1946). Nor does he consider Samuel J. Craig’s Christianity Rightly So Called (Presbyterian and Reformed, 1957). These writers show why liberalism’ as represented in Ludwig Feuerbach’s The Essence of Christianity (Harper & Brothers, 1957), Adolph Harnack’s What Is Christianity? (Harper & Brothers, 1957), and William Hamilton’s The New Essence of Christianity (Association Press, 1961) — cannot be regarded as genuine Christianity.

Robinson’s chapter on ‘The Exclusion by Name-Calling’ correctly shows the difficulty of defining a ‘cult’ on psychological and sociological criteria, and points to the need for objective doctrinal criteria for determining what a cult is. He wrongly concludes, however, that ‘there are simply no objective criteria for distinguishing religions from 91cults’ ‘ (29). Such a sweeping generalization is uncharacteristic of responsible scholarship and fails to take account of my proposal in a 1966 publication, Confronting the Cults: ‘The term cult here designates a religious group which claims authorization by Christ and the Bible but neglects or distorts the gospel, the central message of the Savior and the Scriptures.'[1] In this same book, I list seven questions drawn from explicit New Testament statements’ all dealing with what one must believe to be saved — that enable one to distinguish authentic Christian faith from inauthentic faiths. Several of these questions are concerned with the person of Christ.

continued in 1.2

Troy Waller
PO Box 1091 Box Hill 3128 Australia
+61-3-9898-5672

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