Recently, Brother Micheal Otterson, who is the media relations director for the LDS Church, wrote a wonderful essay on whether or not Mormons are Christians.
I recognize that Creedal Christians have a specialized definition of “Christian,” and Later-day Saints are not “Christians” by that definition.
Latter-day Saints, they say, are not Christians because they reject the Trinitarian doctrine of the Nicaean Creed, and instead believe in a Godhead of three separate beings (Father, Son, and Holy Ghost) who are one in purpose.
Aside from the question of how Protestants square Creedal Cristianity with their doctrine of Sola Scriptura, we should examine whether they apply their creedal definition consistently?
I remember the first time that I read John Milton’s Paradise Lost discovering that Milton presented God the Father and Jesus as two distinct beings. In particular this passage where the Father asks the equivalent of the famous Whom shall I send? query in LDS scripture:
To prayer, repentance, and obedience due,
Though but endeavour’d with sincere intent,
Mine ear shall not be slow, mine eye not shut.
And I will place within them as a guide,
My umpire Conscience; whom if they will hear,
Light after light, well us’d, they shall attain,
And to the end, persisting, safe arrive.
This my long sufferance, and my day of grace,
They who neglect and scorn, shall never taste;
But hard be harden’d, blind be blinded more,
That they may stumble on, and deeper fall;
And none but such from mercy I exclude.
But yet all is not done; Man disobeying,
Disloyal, breaks his fealty, and sins
Against the high supremacy of Heaven,
Affecting God-head, and, so losing all,
To expiate his treason hath nought left,
But to destruction sacred and devote,
He, with his whole posterity, must die,
Die he or justice must; unless for him
Some other able, and as willing, pay
The rigid satisfaction, death for death.
Say, heavenly Powers, where shall we find such love?
Which of you will be mortal, to redeem
Man’s mortal crime, and just the unjust to save?
Dwells in all Heaven charity so dear?
He ask’d, but all the heavenly quire stood mute,
And silence was in Heaven: on Man’s behalf
Patron or intercessour none appear’d,
Much less that durst upon his own head draw
The deadly forfeiture, and ransom set.
In Milton’s story, the question is asked after Lucifer has been ejected from Heaven, whereas in LDS doctrine it was, in part, his response to a similar question that lead to the expulsion of Lucifer along with those that agreed with him. But the similarity is striking.
Milton continues with the response from a pre-mortal Jesus, distinct from the Father:
And now without redemption all mankind
Must have been lost, adjudg’d to Death and Hell
By doom severe, had not the Son of God,
In whom the fulness dwells of love divine,
His dearest mediation thus renew’d.
Father, thy word is past, Man shall find grace;
And shall grace not find means, that finds her way,
The speediest of thy winged messengers,
To visit all thy creatures, and to all
Comes unprevented, unimplor’d, unsought?
Happy for Man, so coming; he her aid
Can never seek, once dead in sins, and lost;
Atonement for himself, or offering meet,
Indebted and undone, hath none to bring;
Behold me then: me for him, life for life
I offer: on me let thine anger fall;
Account me Man; I for his sake will leave
Thy bosom, and this glory next to thee
Freely put off, and for him lastly die
Well pleased; on me let Death wreak all his rage.
For Milton, even in a heavenly, pre-incarnation state, Jesus is a distinct being, subordinate to the Father. In fact, one might argue that Milton presented Jesus as the brother of the Devil more than anything that Latter-day Saints espouse.
Milton’s description of God’s “Umpire Conscience,” quoted in the first passage above, is very similar to LDS doctrine of The Light of Christ (compare Moroni 7:12-19 ) and Personal Revelation (compare Alma 12:10-11 ).
In an unpublished work attributed to Milton, discovered many years after his death, called De doctrina christiana, he even went as far as to express support for polygamy.
(Just to be clear, by pointing out some similarities between John Milton’s Christian beliefs and those of Mormons, I am not trying to imply that there aren’t plenty of doctrines we disagree about.)
So, despite the fact that John Milton held many views deemed heretical and in particular rejected creedal Trinitarianism, Christianity Today still lists him among the 131 Christians Everyone Should Know and few would say that Paradise Lost is not a Christian work.
It is my impression that most Creedal Christians consider John Milton one of the “great Christian writers” as he is explicitly labeled in this essay on the Christian website Crosswalk.com .
So, to Creedal Christians, Milton was a great Christian with perhaps some heretical views, but similar views of Latter-day Saints disqualify them from being Christians at all. Huh?
This inconsistency between the application of their definition of “Christian” to John Milton and Joseph Smith underscores the fact that their desire isn’t for doctrinal purity so much as it is for bigoted exclusion.
To prove otherwise, let Creedal Christians demonstrate a consistent application of their definition of Christianity by ejecting Milton and his “Non-Christian” works from the fold. We Mormons will gladly welcome him into ours.
If they are unwilling to revoke Milton’s Christianity, then they should accept Latter-day Saints for what they are: Christians.
To observe the five year anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001, I want to post two extensive quotes that I find applicable and inspiring.
First, John Donne’s beautiful Meditation XVII. Even if you have read it before, please reread in the context of the September 11th tragedy.
On this Christmas Eve, I quote from J. R. R. Tolkien’s marvelous essay on Faerie Stories:
…I would say that Tragedy is the true form of Drama, its highest function; but the opposite is true of Fairy-story. Since we do not appear to possess a word that expresses this opposite—I will call it Eucatastrophe.
The Gospels contain a fairy-story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories. They contain many marvels—peculiarly artistic1, beautiful, and moving: “mythical” in their perfect, self contained significance; and among the marvels is the greatest and most complete conceivable eucatastrophe. But this story has entered History and the primary world; the desire and aspiration of sub-creation has been raised to the fulfillment of Creation. The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man’s history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. This story begins and ends with joy. It has pre-eminently the inner consistency of reality. There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true, and none which so many skeptical men have accepted as true on its own merits. For the Art of it has the supremely convincing tone of Primary Art, that is, of Creation. To reject it leads either to sadness or to wrath….
But this story is supreme; and it is true. Art has been verified. God is the Lord, of angels, and of men—and of elves. Legend and History have met and fused
__
1. The Art is here in the story itself rather than in the telling; for the Author of the story was not the evangelists.
Also, please read my previous entry on The Christmas Tree .
I have posted this previously elsewhere, but seeing as it is Christmas once again, and I have this new blog, I thought I would post it anew.
The ancient Scandinavians envisioned the Universe as a giant ash tree they called Yggdrasil or Mimameidr, the World Tree. Yggdrasil was described in the poems of the Poetic Edda1 as “ever-green” (Voluspá2 19).
A few years ago, I stepped back from our just-decorated Christmas tree to admire it in the dimly-lit room and suddenly this Scandinavian universe-as-tree imagery came pouring into my mind. I found myself looking at a small model of the cosmos, full of stars, and worlds, and beings, and sap; of chaos as well as order—each branch a fractal image of the whole.
This impression remained with me for many days afterward and I sat frequently gazing at the tree and thinking about the new symbolism that the tree could be given. At the time I had been reading a lot of poetry by John Milton3 , John Donne4 , and Gerard Manley Hopkins5 and I was inspired by them to try to capture my impressions in verse. While the resulting poem is far from perfect, it endows the Christmas tree with a new symbolism that still moves me, regardless of my imperfect attempts to communicate it.
Merry Christmas everyone! May the Lord bless you and your loved ones as we celebrate His Holy birth.
The Christmas Tree
Miniature universe, great world-tree,
Whose lofty branches the firmament form
Adornéd with lights as through God’s own decree
All hung from celestial bows, stelliform.
Here are the heavenly hosts signified:
Thrones, Principalities, Powers, all set;
Reflecting in glorious spheres, simplified,
The cosmos in symbolic rev’rence here met.
Lo! Here’s a seraph! And there, cherubim!
Who sing the glad tidings in a worshipful song,
As they fly through the sap-smelling, heavenly scheme;
_‘Mid the twinkling lights and celestial throng._
And affix’d at the top a new star shines forth laud;
Announcing salvation: the Condescension of God.
I am disturbed and angered by an article today in the National Review Online by Kathryn Lopez entitled Defining Life Down . The article discusses improvements in the ability to detect Down Syndrome in unborn babies during the first trimester of pregnancy and how parents are increasingly using that information to justify killing their unborn children with Down Syndrome.
As a child I was a stubborn learner and spent my second grade year of elementary school in a resource reading group. There were only three of us in the class. One was a sweet, innocent girl with Down Syndrome. I appreciate having been able to interact with this wonderful person as a peer.
I also had a cousin who, though she did not have Down Syndrome, was born with severe mental disabilities. Her problems were, in many ways, more severe than Down Syndrome. Some of my fondest Christmas-time memories are of arriving at my uncle’s home to visit with my cousins, uncles, aunts and grandparents. This special cousin was always seated in her favorite rocking chair in the front room, holding her Barbie doll, rocking back and forth, often singing and laughing, and greeting visitors. She passed away some years later, but she left an important mark and a treasured memory.
To think that people are destroying special people like my classmate and my cousin is sickening!
In the Poetic Edda1 there is a section entitled Hávamál2 (Sayings of the High One). Hávamál is a collection of guidelines for wise living attributed to the Norse God Odin. I am reminded of the following verses:
70.
Betra er lifðum
og sællifðum.
Ey getur kvikur kú.
Eld sá eg upp brenna
auðgum manni fyrir,
en úti var dauður fyr durum.
71.
Haltur ríður hrossi,
hjörð rekur handarvanur,
daufur vegur og dugir.
Blindur er betri
en brenndur sé:
Nýtur manngi nás.
—————————————————
70.
It is better to live,
even to live miserably;
a living man
can always get a cow.
I saw fire consume
the rich man’s property,
and death stood without his door.
71.
The halt can ride on horseback,
the one-handed drive cattle;
the deaf fight and be useful:
to be blind is better
than to be burnt:
no ones gets good from a corpse.
I know that I am an insufferable lover of the archaic and ancient, but I can’t help but feel that their understanding about life was superior to our own muddled, post-modern mess. I pray that we will repent as a society.
