If Southern Baptists gather for a seminar on what Mormons
believe, the odds are good that one of the teachers will be
a former member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints.
Then again, if Mormons gather for a seminar on what
Southern Baptists believe, the odds are good that one of the
teachers will be a former Southern Baptist.
"There's an important word that people forget when they
start talking about Southern Baptists and Mormons and that
word is 'competition,' " said the Rev. Richard Land, one of
the most outspoken leaders of America's largest non-Catholic
flock. He leads the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics
& Religious Liberty Commission.
" We are talking about the two most evangelistic churches
in North America and most of the world," he said. "There are
lots of Mormons who used to be Baptists and lots of Baptists
who used to be Mormons.
It's natural to see some tensions now and then."
Meanwhile, some Mormons and Baptists keep colliding in the
public square every four years or so -- just about the time
White House wannabes butt heads in Republican debates.
The latest storm centered on remarks by the Rev. Robert
Jeffress of the First Baptist Church of Dallas. A supporter
of Rick Perry of Texas, Jeffress told the recent Values
Voters Summit crowd that Mormon Mitt Romney is "not a real
Christian" and later insisted on calling the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints a "theological cult."
Obviously, that language offends Mormons, said Land. Truth
is, no one in today's Southern Baptist leadership believes
that modern Mormons should be described with the word "cult"
as most Americans would understand this hot-button term,
defined according to "psychological or sociological"
factors.
"Clearly the Mormons are anything but that," he said.
"They're the president of your Rotary Club and the leaders
of your local bank. No one thinks they're one of the
dangerous, separatistic cults that you read about in
headlines -- people like Jim Jones or the Branch Davidians."
However, most Baptists and members of many other Christian
churches have grown up hearing Mormonism described in
"theological or doctrinal" terms. A Southern Baptist website
on new religious movements states: "A cult ... is a group of
people polarized around someone's interpretation of the
Bible and is characterized by major deviations from orthodox
Christianity relative to the cardinal doctrines of the
Christian faith, particularly the fact that God became man
in Jesus Christ."
In recent years, Land has numbered himself among those who
describe Mormonism as a kind of fourth Abrahamic tradition,
a new faith that has reinterpreted the past under the
guidance of its own prophet and its own scriptures. In this
case, he said, "Joseph Smith is like Mohammad and The Book
of Mormon is like the Koran." Mormons believe they have
restored true Christianity, while Trinitarian churches
reject this claim that they have lost the faith.
Thus, it's not surprising that a new LifeWay Research
survey of 1,000 liberal and conservative Protestant clergy
in America found that 75 percent disagreed with this
statement: "I personally consider Mormons (Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter Day Saints) to be Christians." The surprise
was that 48 percent of mainline Protestant pastors strongly
agreed that Mormons are not Christians.
Meanwhile, the Vatican in 2001 addressed the issue of
"whether the baptism conferred by the community The Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, called Mormons in the
vernacular, is valid."
The response from the late Pope John Paul II was blunt:
"Negative."
His verdict validated that of scholar Cardinal Joseph
Ratzinger, who is now Pope Benedict XVI.
Of course, the reason these issues are being debated in the
first place is that Romney -- a prominent Mormon leader --
is a Republican frontrunner in an era in which conservative
Catholic and Protestant voters play a prominent role in
Iowa, South Carolina and numerous other primary contests.
Mormons voters and donors are crucial, as well.
Land, who urged Romney to seek the presidency in 2008, is
convinced most conservative believers will have no trouble
backing the former Massachusetts governor, when push comes
to shove.
"Most people know that they're voting for a president, not
a Bible-study leader," he said. "Actually, the problem
Romney is having in the primaries is not that he's a Mormon,
but that many GOP voters are not sure that he's Mormon
enough."
