Tuesday, Jan 8, 2013, at 10:39 AM
Louis C. Midgley's Deeply Fragmented Review Essay
Original Author(s):
Tom
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LOUIS C. MIDGLEY
Louis Midgley's latest review essay, "Evangelical Controversy: A Deeply Fragmented Movement," Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 3 (2013):63-84, which offers a review of Kevin T. Bauder, R. Albert Mohler Jr., John G. Stackhouse Jr., and Roger E. Olsen, Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), may be more revealing for what it does not say as for what it does say.
See: http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/wp-c...
Continuing a pattern found in previous IJMS articles (http://mormondiscussions.com/phpBB3/v...), Midgley's essay contains numerous errors. Spelling errors include: "rapproachement" (p. 65 n. 7; read: "rapprochement"); "isists" (p. 67 n. 9; read "insists"); and "Transdenominaltional" (p. 70 n. 15; read: "Transdenominational"). Midgley makes reference to the "Southern Baptism Convention" (p. 63 n. 3; read "Southern Baptist Convention"); Midgley mangles the title of D.G. Hart's Deconstructing Evangelicalism, calling it Deconstruction Evangelicalism (p. 65 n. 8); Midgley says that the "P" in the acronym TULIP associated with five-point Calvinism stands for "Predestination," rather than Perseverance (or Preservation) of the Saints (p. 68 n. 10); and Midgley twice cites John Stackhouse's statement that "certain Mormons" share five basic convictions that Stackhouse considers to define evangelical faith (70 and 71). In referencing R.G. McNiece's essay "Mormonism: Its Origin, Characteristics, and Doctrine," Midgley says that McNiece "claims to have been for twenty-four years the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Salt Lake City" (pp. 81-82 n. 26). In fact, the sources cited by Midgley state that McNiece was pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Salt Lake City for twenty years (http://www.fpcslc.org/content/view/11...). Finally, the correct title of Richard Mouw's most recent book is Talking with Mormons, rather than Talking with Mormon (p. 83 n. 27).
The numerous errors aside, the essay's biggest weakness is Midgley's failure to explore several implications of the book for Latter-day Saints or for members of other faith traditions associated with Joseph Smith. For example, Midgley characterizes the book's contributors' dismissal of the LDS faith as non-Christian or heretical as "part of conservative Protestant boundary maintenance." (He also writes, "Is it [sic], instead, an indication of evangelical boundary maintenance.") Midgley does not, however, address the issue of "boundary maintenance" as it is practiced by LDS leaders or in his own writings (http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/wp-c...).
Midgley takes pains to distinguish between what he characterizes as "the dominant Protestant understanding of the Atonement-which is the theory that Jesus of Nazareth somehow became objectively guilty of every sin, past, present, and future-or his death would not have redeemed totally depraved humans by the imposition of an alien righteousness on sinners" with the understanding of the Atonement he sees taught in the Book of Mormon. He writes:
In the typical Protestant theory of the Atonement, Jesus Christ was both sinless and also the ultimate sinner. If his bloody death was to be efficacious either (1) for those pictured in Calvinist theology as predestined at the moment of creation out of nothing to salvation, or (2) potentially for all of mankind who may decide to confess Jesus as Lord and Savior (in other competing Protestant dogmas), Jesus had to be fully guilty of all human sins. This, of course, flies in the face of what is taught in the Book of Mormon, where Jesus is pictured as having made a wholly sinless sacrifice for all of humanity, which is something they could not possibly have done for themselves. He managed this with a glorious victory over all the demonic powers that beset human beings during their mortal probation by (1) defeating mortal death and thereby opening the door for an eventual universal resurrection, and (2) by also making available merciful forgiveness of sin for all those who choose to follow him, seek and accept sanctification as genuine Saints, and endure faithfully to the end.
He continues:
The Book of Mormon, I believe, sets out an account of the story of that Atonement that differs in crucial ways from the sophisticated Protestant speculation on this all-important matter. Latter-day Saints, I believe, may find the penal substitution theory of the Atonement especially odd, since the Book of Mormon makes it clear that the Holy One of Israel-the one known before His incarnation as Yahweh (YHWH)-was sinless and hence also an innocent victim of demonic powers over which He gained a final victory over both the death of our bodies and, on condition of our faithfulness, of our souls-the two deaths that all humans face. All of this is set out clearly in the Book of Mormon.
In drawing these lines of comparison, Midgley seems quite unaware of competent scholarship on the Atonement by Latter-day Saints.
Blake Ostler, for example, argues (http://www.blakeostler.com/docs/Atone...) that "it is safe to say that most Mormons accept a form of penal substitution theory of atonement," citing writings by Hyrum Andrus (God, Man and the Universe [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1968], chs. 15 and 16; Boyd K. Packer ("The Mediator," Ensign [May 1977]), and Ronald Heiner ("The Necessity of a Sinless Messiah," BYU Studies 22/1 [1982]: 5-30). Similarly, Jacob Morgan writes:
The theory I grew up with is often referred to as the penal-substitution theory, and it is the most prevalent theory of the atonement in modern Christianity. The central idea of this theory is that Christ suffered vicariously for our sins--that he stood in our place to suffer the punishment we deserved.
Morgan claims that "[t]his theory is accepted by the vast majority of Latter-day Saints, despite a passage in the Book of Mormon that seems to explicitly reject vicarious suffering for sin" (Alma 34:11-12).
Those readers who might wonder how the penal-substitution theory that Ostler and Morgan says is accepted by most Latter-day Saints differs from the Protestant penal-substitution theory described by Midgley will look in vain for an explanation in Midgley's article.
Ostler identifies several other Mormon theories regarding the atonement, including the demand of eternal intelligences for justice theory (advanced by Cleon Skousen), the self-rejection moral theory of atonement (http://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-con... Eugene England), the empathy theory of atonement (http://dialoguejournal.com/wp-content... Dennis Potter), the divine-infusion theory (http://dialoguejournal.com/wp-content... Jacob Morgan), and Ostler's own compassion theory. (See also Lorin K. Hansen's "The 'Moral' Atonement as a Mormon Interpretation," (http://dialoguejournal.com/wp-content...) Dialogue 27/1 [Spring 1994]: 195-227, which cites other treatments by LDS scholars.)
Midgley's article fails to acknowledge any of these writings.
Midgley makes much of the diversity of belief within Protestantism. He argues that
Beyond mere slogans, there is no agreement on what, if anything, constitutes the central core of belief. The center simply does not hold. One reason is that Protestantism has no magisterium, being an anarchy from the start; it is, instead, among other things a diverse and shifting theological movement and hence has a broad spectrum of diverse beliefs. The fact is that those who self-identify as evangelicals are free to expand or contract the movement's assortment of competing beliefs in whatever way suits their fancy.
Midgley admits that "Latter-day Saints are familiar with defections within their own community," but he fails to note the implications of such defections as they pertain to diversity of belief within the Latter Day Saint movement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latter_D...). He also does not address diversity of belief within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Could a book titled Four Views on the Spectrum of Mormonism be written? If so, what perspectives would or could be represented? Midgley's fragmented review essay makes no attempt to answer such questions.