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Apologia Report 18:8 (1,144)
February 21, 2013
Subject: Talking with Mormons/Mouw: "overrun with false analogies"
In this issue:
MORMONISM - a JETS review of Richard Mouw's Talking to Mormons
NEW APOSTOLIC REFORMATION - essay by C. Peter Wagner heightens concerns about accountability within the Neo-Pentecostal movement
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MORMONISM
Talking with Mormons: An Invitation to Evangelicals, by Richard J. Mouw, President of Fuller Seminary [1] -- reviewer Bryan Hurlbutt of Lifeline Community in West Jordan, Utah begins by noting the influence of Mouw's participation in the "Ravi Zacharias 2004 lecture at 'An Evening of Friendship' in the Mormon Tabernacle at Temple Square in Salt Lake City. This event is central to the book's occasion and content because it affords much of the impetus for Mouw's role in Mormon/Evangelical dialogues and established him as both a respected and controversial figure in this arena. ...
"The general content of the book seems twofold. On the one hand, it serves as an opportunity for Mouw to explain and possibly vindicate his approach to interfaith dialogue with Mormons. On the other hand, it is, in accord with the book's subtitle, an invitation for evangelicals to dialogue with Mormons, maintaining the tenor and optimism characteristic of his own approach. ...
"Citing, among other, personal experiences, his observation of Walter Martin's factual but insensitive engagement with a Mormon, Mouw sets out to articulate a different kind of engagement; one less driven by polemical debate and more directed to mutual awareness of each other's theological convictions.
"In the third chapter, he gets to the heart of his modus operandi in evangelical/Mormon interaction by criticizing the traditional 'counter-cult' approaches to reaching Latter-day Saints. Mouw is mainly critical of the ethos of those vested in this approach typified by the aforementioned Walter Martin. Here Mouw overgeneralizes and egregiously lacks the nuance to proffer an adequate criticism of a label that encompasses a wide variety of philosophies for missional engagement. ...
"For example, he avers that 'the problem with the typical evangelical historical effort to find a smoking gun in Mormon teaching is that it hasn't been very successful.' In fact, the guns of Mesoamerican archaeology, the existence of reformed Egyptian writing, DNA evidence for the Semitic origins for Native Americans, and the location of Cumorah, among others, are still smoking furiously. ...
"[O. Kendall] White wrote in 1987 [] out of concern for where he saw his church's theology heading. Mouw finds encouragement in what White was concerned about and wonders if it typifies that broader trend in the movement of LDS theology to which he attests. But perhaps it is here that Mouw's detractors find their most significant fodder for disagreement with him. ... Mouw's affirmation of [Glen Pearson, a BYU faculty member's] orthodoxy misses the heart of the chasm between evangelical and LDS soteriology.... This lack of savvy regarding how Latter-day Saints historically and presently speak of atonement in synergistic terms is what alarms Mouw's critics. ...
"Mouw tries to show that we can disagree significantly about theology without asserting that the one we disagree with is eternally lost. ... However, his assessment concerning Mormonism suffers from a weakness in both his sample size and his sample diversity. ... A handful of BYU scholars and a couple of church officials do not give us the *sensu lato* of Mormon doctrine. But Mouw seems to assume that they do. ...
"[W]hile Mouw's personal engagement with LDS scholars may indeed be moving the meter at the scholarly level, his book is a broader invitation that is intended to extend beyond academia. And it is in this larger and more pedestrian realm that his experience and example fall flat. ... "In the first of [the] chapters dealing with Jesus, Mouw's generous spirit pervades so much that it feels like its intent is to minimize disparities between evangelical and Mormon perspectives about Jesus' identity ..., to smooth over past statements of creedal rejection on the part of Mormons, and to reframe LDS soteriology. ...
"Throughout [the] more doctrinal chapters, Mouw's generous and well-meaning efforts utilize a range of false analogies and eisegetical interpretations. ...
"In the book's final two chapters, Mouw makes a final appeal that he is not being duped in his discussions with Mormons and that we need to 'cut some slack' in these dialogues to allow for some of the misunderstood messiness that is part of two traditions trying to understand each other. Additionally, he closes with an illustration about the differences between propositional knowledge and experiential knowledge. He leaves the reader with the idea that he wants us to be open to people (presumably Mormons) having wrong propositional knowledge of Jesus but real experiential knowledge of Jesus via a genuine relationship. ...
"The book will serve as a helpful summary of Mouw's approach and his legacy in interfaith dialogue and as a helpful representation to an important perspective in evangelical engagement with Mormonism. At the same time, it is not particularly helpful or balanced if one wants an assessment of how to engage Latter-day Saint thinking. The book is overrun with false analogies and over-generalizations, and it lacks both the breadth and the nuance to be much help in practice of scholarly engagement with Mormonism. Its appeal is to a limited number of people engaged in or aware of the issues at play in this sector of interfaith discussion." Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 55:3 - 2102, pp657-660.
NEW APOSTOLIC REFORMATION
"Where Are the Apostles and Prophets?" by C. Peter Wagner,<www.ow.ly/hU2GU> -- "Most Christians know the Bible teaches that the church is 'built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone' (Eph. 2:20). ... It is true that the annals of church history over the past 1,800 years or so have had little to say about apostles and prophets. ...
"The best I can personally calculate, the Second Apostolic Age began in 2001." (This teaser is never fully explained, in that the significance of that year does not come up again. He does give some history.)
"In the early 1900s, not only did we see the beginning of the Pentecostal movement, but we also saw the first component of what I like to call the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) fall into place. That was the emergence of the African Independent Churches that had split from the previous generation of churches established by western missionaries. ...
"The second NAR component was the Chinese house church movement that began in 1976. ...
"In the 1970s, the Latin-American grass-roots churches began multiplying like mushrooms throughout Central and South America. Add the independent charismatic churches that became the fastest-growing segment of Christianity in America, and you have the main ingredients of the NAR."
Wagner cites missions researcher David Barrett, who "divides world Christianity into six 'megablocks,' [sic] equally proportioned between one Catholic megablock and five non-Catholic megablocks. Of the five non-Catholic megablocks, the NAR is the largest. Barrett's terminology for this megablock is 'Independent / Postdenominational/Neo-Apostolic.' It is the only one of all six megablocks growing faster than the world population and faster than Islam. ...
"In the sweep of history, the New Apostolic Reformation represents the most radical change in the way of doing church since the Protestant Reformation. ...
"Unless I'm mistaken, the most radical of all the changes from the old wineskin to the new wineskin is this: the amount of spiritual authority delegated by the Holy Spirit to individuals. ... "The old wineskin final authority in the Protestant churches never was entrusted to an individual, but always to a group. ...
"On the local church level, the new wineskin pastor is the leader of the church, not an employee of the church as he or she was in the old wineskin. ...
"In apostolic churches, pastoral tenure is much longer—frequently for life—because the pastor does not report to the elders; rather the elders are appointed by and report to the pastor.
"So to whom does the pastor report? He reports to the apostle. ...
"I lead a closed group of 25 apostles who are voluntarily aligned with me and who contribute toward my salary and benefits. I call it Eagles Vision Apostolic Team, and it is relational, not legal." No apostle is actually named by Wagner. No other idea for the number of existing NAR apostles is offered, but he concludes: "With the biblical government in place again, the church is poised for the greatest advance of God's kingdom ever." Charisma, Nov '12, pp44-50. <www.ow.ly/hNulr>
The web site of Holly Pivec (formerly editor of Biola Magazine) tracks and responds to the "New Apostolic Reformation" - see
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SOURCES: Monographs
1 - Talking with Mormons: An Invitation to Evangelicals, by Richard J. Mouw (Eerdmans, 2012, paperback, 107 pages) <www.ow.ly/hNjzG> (Note: We found the Amazon customer review by Fred W. Anson to be quite interesting as well.)
2 -Mormon Neo-Orthodoxy: A Crisis Theology, by O. Kendall White (Signature, 1987, paperback, 196 pages) <www.ow.ly/hU2WQ>
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