George Cobabe? I haven’t heard of this guy. I will check him out.

You won’t have to go far: his post is here on the FAIR blog.

Greg

But then I read these little comments in books and hear all the little comments in neighborhoods.

And then I think of the next lady that had this very book on reserve to read it after I returned it to the Idaho Falls library.

George Cobabe? I haven’t heard of this guy. I will check him out.

Good question in #18. My take? All of the things this sister mentions are good, but none are essential to salvation.

Life is full of choices, and we all need to actively choose what to fill our time with. Sometimes the choice is not just between good and bad/evil but between good and good. This sister just needs to choose what she wants to do with her time–and it should be good–and do it. Leave the rest to the Lord.

I know that Evangelical Christians have a different take on this, but the commandment is to be perfect as our Father in Heaven is perfect, or as Jesus is perfect. Did Jesus do genealogy or temple work (as we do it now) or Enrichment Meeting or missionary meals? Nope.

I don’t have the full context of what the sister stated in the surrounding text, but when she counts these things as items she has to “do,” in some quantity in order to get into the Celestial Kingdom, she doesn’t understand the good news of the gospel.

Pity, really. We try to teach people correct principles and then let them govern themselves. Some do, some don’t. I’ll wager that there are, among the Evangelical Christian rank and file, those who don’t “get it all right” either.

-Allen

Heaven Bound: Speed Bumps on the Way to Perfection (Covenant Communications, Inc., 2007).

“I’ve been trying to figure out whether I should put a little more effort into genealogy, whether I should make more trips to the temple, how to get the family fed before I zip off to Enrichment Meeting or to Sister So-and-So’s for visiting teaching, how many more times I must put my name on the sign-up list for missionary meals to get into the celestial kingdom, and how I can fit that all somewhere in my load” (11).

What do you guys think about this comment in light of Allen’s post?

[I can't relate to Lynn about the great harvest for the celestial kingdom, but on a note all of us Idahoans can relate to, she made me feel right at home concerning Idaho potato harvests.

"When I was growing up my family raised potatoes on our farm. I had a love/hate relationship with the potato harvest. I loved the homemade French fries; I loved the smell of the dirt as the potatoes were dug out of the ground. I loved autumn and the long, slightly cool days with cobwebs drifting through the fields. I loved the crackle of dead weeds on the ditch bank. It takes a little long to detail the things I hated." (37)

Definitely, "Potato harvesting is tricky business" (38).]

I suppose that makes me just as devious as Huckabee when he “innocently” asked whether Mormons believe that Satan and Jesus are brothers.

I haven’t taken a position on whether or not imputation is a legal fiction or not, but you can imagine that Ostler’s arguments have gotten me leaning towards his view. In my mind I try to construct the best version Christianity outside of Mormonism to compare with. Using the cafeteria metaphor, the NPP’s TULIP is more appealing to me than Calvin’s TULIP.

But we should be fair to Huckabee as well. We should not take one simple sound bite by a politition, and assume a complete theology from it. Better to let him express his views in a more complete way, or find out the complete story.

If we expect others to not pick and choose short sound bites about our beliefs, we should not do the smae to theirs.

I do, however, still believe that most of us Christians (including Mormons of course) are often not as far apart as we think. Other times we are.

And thanks for making some distinctions, Allen, in #13. That is fair.

We plan on building a new educational/fellowship wing in Ammon, Idaho.

An 80% LDS community will not hold up signs about what they despise privately in me about doctrinal matters when the dedication of a building arrives. But the continually private grumblings are real.

One thing about Aaron, he smiles and he is upfront about his heart conviction on scripture.

Many are not so honest and transparent in any given ward boundaries.

In my blog post I mentioned hanging out with the street preachers every six months. There have been many conferences when I have also seen Aaron there, proudly waving a placard for his web site and calling the Saints to repentance. (Yes, Aaron does this sort of thing.)

Amazing thing is, the street preachers–almost without exception–are King-James-Only believers. They don’t like Calvinists. In fact, they chased James White away from General Conference a few years back. They (the street preachers) think that Aaron is going to hell in company with the Mormons.

Aaron hasn’t indicated whether he thinks the Mormons are going to hell, but he is happy to “protest” with the street preachers against those non-Christian Mormons every six months.

It’s almost comical.

-Allen

I wasn’t engaging Aaron’s or Allen’s responses to Mike Huckabee’s statements. I was engaging Keller’s presumption that Aaron (and the types of individuals and groups he represents) would actually read and seriously engage Blake Ostler (or writers like him) or real biblical scholarship. Simply, they don’t, and the reasons why are rather clear. Sorry if I confused you.

Also, Allen, we sang a hymn, entitled “Rock of Ages”. There is a phrase in the song that shares the hymn writer’s only hope . . . nothing but the cross do I cling. Would LDS friends embrace fully the soteriology expressed in that hymn?

I have no problem with the soteriology expressed in the hymn, with the exception that verse 3 (the one from which you quote) implies that it is the cross that gives hope. The wording of the verse is:

Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to the cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress;
Helpless look to Thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly;
Wash me, Savior, or I die

I do not believe it is the cross that saves. It is the Atonement–which, of course, was culminated on the cross–that saves. Only Christ saves. Period.

I would also disagree with the line in the third verse that says “Helpless look to Thee for grace.” If it said “Helpless I look to Thee for grace,” I would have no problem with that–but it doesn’t and is ambiguous, as worded.

Please don’t take this as any indication that by agreeing with the words of three of the four verses of the hymn that I somehow agree with the soteriology of Calvinism; I don’t. (The hymn’s author, Reverend Augustus Montague Toplady, was a Calvinist.)

You may be interested in knowing that Rock of Ages is in the LDS Hymnal, without the third verse with which I cited problems.

-Allen

The Dart knows that I am solidly of the persuasion that scripture teaches the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. In the Idaho Falls jailhouse yesterday afternoon, we had a big talk with all the fellows over the very title of this post.

Courtroom imagery in the Bible is no joke or no fiction. We worked through Romans 3. I and the guys hang on every word of the apostles’ doctrine.

Also, Allen, we sang a hymn, entitled “Rock of Ages”. There is a phrase in the song that shares the hymn writer’s only hope . . . nothing but the cross do I cling. Would LDS friends embrace fully the soteriology expressed in that hymn?

Although your comments weren’t directed towards me, I’ll respond since I agreed with Aaron.

First, I am LDS. Second, I’m not a religous scholar. I didn’t realize that was a requirement for commenting here. I like the FAIR blog, and one of the reasons I do is that it gives ordinary members like me a chance to weight in on the arguments that FAIR is constructing.

I might be wrong to agree with Aaron, for reasons that would be obvious to me if I understood all of the research you talk about. But that doesn’t mean squat if when I’m debating my evangelical friend, he doesn’t understand the research either. All that matters in that instance is whether I can construct an argument that he understands. And in my opinion, this argument isn’t, because what Huckabee said is not the same as what evangelicals acuse us of believing (whether we really believe it or not). Huckabee is saying perfection is required but that’s why Jesus came to suffer for us to pay the price of our sins. That’s not the same as what they accuse us of believing–that we have to be perfect ourselves before entering Heaven.

No offense taken. Seriously.

However, you say that “it’s unimpressive that you sloppily compare it to the idea of becoming perfect through Christ.”

Sloppy? Sounds a bit like the pot calling the kettle black since my post said nothing about becoming perfect through Christ, as you are implying. What I said (if you read it again) was:

Mormons have always believed that perfection is only possible through the free grace of Jesus Christ, mediator for our sins and redeemer of the world.

We become perfect because Christ gives us the free gift of His grace. Does that mean we become perfect through Him, or does it mean He imputes His perfection to us, thereby making it possible for us to enter heaven? Say it as you want, but we still can’t get there without Him. Period.

Do you feel the need to tell me what I really believe? After all, my words can’t mean what I really said, can they? And yet Pastor Huckabee’s words must have meant something different–something that is different from what everyone knows the Mormons really believe.

Interesting. Do you, Aaron, think that Mormons are going to hell? Or are you willing to agree with Pastor Huckabee?

“I have deep convictions about who goes [to heaven] and who doesn’t, but as far as who makes that decision, it isn’t me, it’s God. I’m going to leave that up to him.”

The street preachers aren’t afraid to consign Mormons to hell. The sweet Baptist ladies who stood on my Indianapolis doorstep in 1978 weren’t afraid to consign me to hell. How about you? Do you stand with Huck and leave it to God, or do you profess to speak for God and relieve Him of the duty of judgment?

Huck says we need to be perfect to get to heaven. What say ye?

-Allen

I also really enjoyed reading Blake’s second volume of his serious “Exploring Mormon Thought” where he analyzes and discusses Paul’s concepts of “justification”, “righteousness”, as well as the problems of “imputation” of Christ’s righteousness and “justification by faith” from the Lutheran/Reformed perspectives. I also enjoyed thoroughly his take on LDS thought on grace and love, etc. It is a superb book, and merits careful consideration by anyone trying to understand the breadth and depth of Mormon Thought (something I think that doesn’t appear to be the case for groups and persons such as Aaron though).

However, I would add, it isn’t *just* Blake’s opinion and argument that “imputation” of Christ’s righteousness and the Lutheran understanding of “justification by faith” is wrong. Most serious biblical scholars follow Blake’s general reading and argument. The Lutheran reading of imputation of Christ’s righteousness and justification by faith have serious theological and philosophical defects, and at important points substantially miss, misconstrue, and harm Paul’s teachings and writings (besides being historically anachronistic to boot). I am currently doing some posts on such issues at my blog-site (and Paul’s views on righteousness is my next intended post actually), but I don’t have time to write as frequently as I would like. You can click on my name to check them out if you’d like. I’ll add this brief quote on “justification” and “righteousness”, however, from one important NT scholar:

“Once it is recognized that “the righteousness of God” in Romans is deliberately explicated in terms of…covenant conceptuality, it becomes apparent that the term refers neither to an abstract ideal of divine distributive justice nor to a legal status or moral character imputed or conveyed by God to human beings. It refers rather to God’s own unshakable faithfulness…Insofar as “righteousness” may be ascribed to human beneficiaries of God’s grace…this righteousness should be interpreted primarily in terms of the covenant relationship to God and membership within the covenant community…”Righteousness” refers to God’s covenant-faithfulness which declares persons full participants in the community of God’s people. This declaration has a quasi-legal dimension, but there is no question here of a legal fiction whereby God juggles his heavenly account books and pretends not to notice human sin. The legal language points rather to the formal inclusion of those who once were “not my people” in a concrete historical community of the “sons of the living God” (Rom. 9.25-26)”

–Richard Hays (ABD)

Moreover, it simply seems the case that the majority of fundamentalist Evangelicals, such as Aaron and the types of groups he represents, do not only lack the knowledge and/or skills to interact responsibly with such scholarly literature, most that I have interacted with aren’t even aware it exists. Nor would I expect groups such as Aaron represents to have seriously read and considered Blake’s engagements with such positions and his serious treatments of Mormon thought. They simply do not seem to be in the business of allowing LDS Christians in any sort of favorable light. That is why it seems they (1) neither mention views like Blake’s (or other LDS authorities who have given similar views while discussing such issues) within LDS thought nor (2) mention that LDS thought on grace, etc. agrees far more with current biblical scholarships take on Paul and his writings than their readings do. Both facts are rather painfully glaring and quite telling.

What do you make of Blake Ostler’s opinion that imputation is a legal fiction?

If you’ll allow me to leave some late stocking-stuffers:

“Each of us has been sent to earth by our Heavenly Father to merit eternal life” – Robert D. Hales, “Personal Revelation: The Teachings and Examples of the Prophets”, October 2007 General Conference

“The demands of justice for broken law can be satisfied through mercy, earned by your continual repentance and obedience to the laws of God… Through the Atonement you can live in a world where justice assures that you will retain what you earn by obedience.” – Richard G. Scott, “The Atonement Can Secure Your Peace and Happiness,” Ensign, Nov 2006, 40–42. From General Conference, October 2006.

“Thus, brothers and sisters, along with the great and free gift of the universal and personal resurrection there is also the personal possibility of meriting eternal life.” – Neal A. Maxwell, “Apply the Atoning Blood of Christ” Ensign, Nov 1997, 22; message from October 1997 General Conference

“They taught us the importance of being kind to one another, obeying the commandments, and how to receive a fulness of joy and merit eternal life. They have pleaded with us to live more Christlike lives, to emulate the Savior in all we do, and to qualify ourselves to be worthy of the saving and exalting blessings available only in the holy temples of the Lord.” – Robert D. Hales, Hear the Prophet’s Voice and Obey, Ensign, May 1995, p.15

“The truth is that we are saved by grace only after all we ourselves can do. (See 2 Ne. 25:23.) There will be no government dole which can get us through the pearly gates. Nor will anybody go into the celestial kingdom who wants to go there on the works of someone else. Every man must go through on his own merits. We might just as well learn this here and now.” – Marion G. Romney, “In Mine Own Way,” Ensign, Nov. 1976, 123

It’d be great if you did a blog post review of a chapter by John Widtsoe:

http://www.mrm.org/topics/documents-speeches/facing-judgment-john-widtsoe