Author Archives: Bruce Nielson

Grace, Obedience, Salvation

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I used to get very frustrated with my companions on my mission. Every time a Born Again Christian would announce that “Mormons believe they have to work their way to heaven” my companion would inevitably argue back “Well you believe that after you accept Christ you can commit any sin you want and still go to heaven.” Trying to separate the combatants and send them to their corners proved impossible. 

But Protestant Christians do not believe a person can accept Christ and then go out and commit unrepentant sin and still go to heaven [1] any more than Mormons believe they have to work their way to heaven. [2] But what is the difference between the Protestant Christian view of grace and works and the Mormon one?

Pat answers do not help here. Mormons claiming that that they are saved by grace “after all we can do” (2 Nephi 25:23) implies that Protestant Christians think one doesn’t really have to be serious about their commitment to Christ by putting in effort. But my direct experience with them contradicts this belief. Protestants usually do believe one must accept Jesus as Lord and begin to follow His commandments with sincerity. I believe Protestants and Evangelicals, while perhaps rejecting the language, in principle and practice accept the teachings of 2 Nephi 25:23. [3] Continue reading →

The Relations Between Evangelicals and Mormons

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Ms. Jack is someone I think I could get along with because she is obviously full of integrity. She is an Evangelical that married a Mormon and is now an active part of the bloggernacle. I certainly don’t agree with her on many things. In fact, this post will be a series of (partial) disagreements with one of her comments.

But from what I’ve seen of her comments online, she is making an honest attempt to understand Mormons. Though I feel she often fails in her quest — I would ask all to remember how incredibly difficult it is to get past our own intrenched meaning-memes for the sake of understanding someone else’s. Ms Jack rocks when it comes to making the sincere attempt to communicate and understand.

Consider, for example, this post from T&S a while back.

It led to a discussion about why Evangelicals call Mormons ‘not Christian.’ Ms. Jack said the following on this subject:

I would say that Mormons consider themselves the only true Christians and Protestants return fire by arguing that Mormons aren’t really Christians in the first place.

Please note that I am not endorsing the “Mormons aren’t Christians” argument. That’s not my position by a long shot. I’m just saying it isn’t a one-way thing. Giving lip service to my Christianity whilst insisting that my faith is corrupt and incomplete, my baptism into Jesus Christ is invalid, and I’m not indwelt by the Holy Spirit (i. e. I don’t have the gift of the Holy Ghost) isn’t exactly a flattering assessment of my faith.

 

 

The very fact that Ms. Jack is willing to not call Mormons “non-Christians” should make it clear that Ms Jack is sincerely trying to understand Mormonism and is unwilling to settle for lame platitudes and pat answers. Continue reading →

What Alternative Is There to Discomfort?

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Back in my Mormon Matters days, Stephen Marsh an excellent post on helping people be comfortable in Church. Amongst other examples, he used the example of homosexuality. He also recommended John Dehlin’s (at the time recent) post that asked “what can we do to reduce suicide amongst people with a natural same sex attraction who grow up in the LDS culture?”

These are important questions. I agree with Stephen’s sentiment that the first round of answers aren’t likely to be what we end up with. Despite protests to the contrary, I think it’s obvious the LDS Church is trying their best here within their doctrinal framework and that with time better solutions will be found. 

One poster who has a homosexual son made an interesting comment that sparked a question in my mind. They said:

My wife and I have felt increasingly uncomfortable at church the past two months. It is not unexpected because of we live in California with our gay son and we listen to weekly admonitions re: prop 8. An anti-prop 8 TV ad has been running the last few weeks. It references a woman unsuccessfully trying to marry her fiance. Various things at the wedding ceremony make it so the wedding does not happen. It closes with a comment something like “What if you could not marry the one you love?

With that, a sister in our ward stood up in gospel doctrine (the class I teach) during the weekly prop 8 request for action and talked about the “subtle, deceitful people” doing “that TV ad”. She added that “we need to remember what they are really all about.” Continue reading →

Get Used to Gingrich, He’s The Next Republican Candidate

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Has there ever been a primary election like this? I don’t recall there ever having been a single person in second place the entire primary election with, so far, three (or is it four? Do I count Bauchman or not?) first place front runners having risen and fallen. And now it’s Gingrich’s turn to be the Evangelical darling. I call this one for Gingrich if for no other reason than he’s not a Mormon.

Apparently the news media is out of tune with the Republican party (well, we knew that…). For they were unable to guess that the “I hate Mormons” factor of the Republican party would have caused the single least likely candidate to end up getting the nomination. Even just a few weeks ago, the idea that the Republicans running Gingrich seemed literally unthinkable to anyone that didn’t understand just how bigoted 1/3 of Evangelicals are towards Mormons.

Even now, the news just doesn’t seem to get it. Even just a few days ago they were still saying things like “Is Mitt Inevitable?” or even “Mitt is inevitable.” It just doesn’t make rational sense to run Gingrich, so no one (expect the 1/3 of Evangelicals that is bigoted) rationally expects it. Even now the media still thinks Gingrich is going to ‘flare out’ like the other anti-Romney candidates have. They still don’t ‘get it.’ It’s his religion, stupid. Continue reading →

Word Policing: The Difficulty of Words and Meaning

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Touching (from dictionary.com)

  1. affecting; moving; pathetic: a touching scene of farewell.
  2. that touches.

Last night my wife made a comment to my daughter about “touching her teeth to her tongue.” My son quickly corrected my wife and said “should you have said that you touched your tongue to your teeth?”

 A child’s naïve comment, right?

 Or is it? Continue reading →