Open thread: Why interfaith dialogue?

I have the next post in my BYU series ready to go, but I’m waiting for a friend I want to talk about to approve it and get back to me before I post it.
Since I know I have a lot of lurkers and new people dropping by from T & S, I wanted to have an open thread to ask: why are you interested in Mormon-evangelical interfaith dialogue? Or any other kind of interfaith dialogue, for that matter. Don’t be shy and don’t be afraid to share any tales of woe you may have, I’ve been on both the giving and receiving end of that.
I’ve written a lot about my experience with Mormonism (see links in sidebar), but to summarize: I met an LDS guy in a chat room on the Internet when I was 16 who challenged me look at his faith. I got involved in LDS apologetics discussion boards and took the missionary discussions, then later decided to attend Brigham Young University. Mormonism became a fairly indefinite part of my life when I seduced one of your worthy priesthood holders into becoming my husband, and so now here I am. I have a BA in classics with a minor in Hebrew from BYU, and I’m applying to do an MA in Christian History at either Multnomah Biblical Seminary in Portland, the Seattle campus of Fuller Theological Seminary, or Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield. While I probably have some unconventional approaches to my beliefs, theologically, I’m an evangelical to the core.
What’s your story?

Comments

Open thread: Why interfaith dialogue? — 14 Comments

  1. I enjoy interfaith dialogue with Evangelicals, when the subject can revolve around the Bible and Jesus. When it revolves around How Mormons Are So Spectacularly Wrong, I don’t call it interfaith dialogue.
    One motivation is to clear up the mess Ed Decker has made, and conversely to make sure that my cohort in the Church understands that there are millions of people who think Jesus is Lord, are not Mormons, but yet are utterly and sincerely just as gobsmacked and awestruck as we are at what Jesus did. I watch them breathing in and out all around me. I see them acting out the parable of the Good Samaritan or incorporating the Beatitudes. I could never object to that.
    Another is that they’re literally my neighbors. (Two youth pastors live within 200 feet of my house.) Relating to them requires understanding their point of view. Explaining Mormonism to someone infected with Decker-memes requires understanding their point of view. It requires being able to phrase my own belief outside of the jargon of my faith. It requires me to understand stuff I parroted as a child, and to decide whether or not to keep it.
    Fundamentally, though, (no pun intended) interfaith dialogue is an expression of my belief in all Mormon scripture and all the Mormon articles of faith. Sections 137 and 138, along with the Gospels and 3 Nephi 11. All of it together, not just the Section 76 stuff combined with liner philosophical projections based on mortal life.
    Evangelicals worship differently than I do. Setting worship music to the same musical styles given over much more often to celebrating hedonistic romanticism puts me off. (even more so when Mormons do it…) Sitting in a crowd of 20,000 watching Joel Osteen do his thing doesn’t feel like church.
    But there they all are anyway. Nearby or across the world, there are also Muslims and Hindus and Confucians and Shinto and Catholics and Orthodox and Atheists. God made them too, and He put me in with them, and I was taught that they’re precious to Him.
    Can’t do that “love one another” thing without some good ol’ interfaith dialogue, in my opinion.
  2. My basic story is that I was raised as an evangelical but never could fully accept some key doctrines, and I could never understand where there were so many things that I was assured were in the Bible (like the doctrine of the Trinity) but that I couldn’t find there. I eventually married a Mormon, and about a dozen years later started studying her faith (having been an active evangelical during that time).
    What I found very quickly, first, was that the anti-Mormon evangelicals repeatedly had it all wrong when they described what Mormons believe. Then the more I studied, I found that at the core of Mormonism was much of what I had believed inside all along. Eventually, joining the Church became the right thing to do, and doing so was one of the better decisions I’ve made in my life.
    To use BJM’s word, I probably don’t have a conventional approach to Mormonism. I can find plenty to criticize, most of it revolving around cultural rather than theological issues. But even so, I have experienced nothing that has done as much as the Church has to make me more committed to becoming like Christ. And if that’s not a worthy goal for any Christian — evangelical, LDS or otherwise — I don’t know what is.
  3. Oh sweet, story time! (This is purely for the blogosphere, since Jack has heard this ad nauseum…)
    I was born and raised in southern Idaho, just outside the Zion Curtain, so Mormonism was just a fact of life, even though I’m Methodist. I’ve always been interested in the more “technical” aspects of religion in general, and I tend to hold very liberal theological views anyway, so interfaith dialogue with Mormons is a natural draw for me.
    Oh, and then I managed to move 3,000 miles away and still fall hard for my Mormon coworker, so my little hobby took on a whole new meaning. Not sure how that part’s going to end up, but it’s still nice to understand more about his perspective.
    Overall, I believe it’s good to push outside one’s comfort zone–especially with religion–and look for the truth. I guess I’m kind of like you in that way, Jack…I see aspects of the truth in various places, and I think we’re all better off for better understanding the things that shape each other’s lives.
  6. I’ll be honest, I’m interested in interfaith dialogue for selfish reasons. I’m LDS and my understanding of LDS worship is that we worship in 2 ways: 1) participating in ordinances (for me that mostly means taking the Sacrament and attending the Temple) and 2) in private. The only trick is that there is really no guidance on how to worship privately (and I mean truly worship and praise God, not just “living righteously”). As I learn about other faiths (Christian and non-Christian), I am able to adopt practices and forms of worship that resonate with me and thus enhance my religious experience.
  7. The issue of interfaith communication was first brought to my attention when I met Robert Millet at BYU. I’d always had a great deal of respect for Buddhism, but that was when I started to delve into the rich traditions and scholarship of Christianity. I’m particularly interested in Catholic and Reformed theology, and their historic grapple with the same problems that often beset us (and many that the LDS haven’t thought of yet, and many that couldn’t arise in LDS theology at all).
  8. I dialogue/debate on the interfaith scene for two reasons:
    1. It forces me to have a more disciplined and rigorous approach to my own faith. You can’t get away with things you used to get away with.
    2. It is an opportunity to find new religious ideas and assimilate them into my own religion.
    It’s basically a quest for a stronger and better sort of Mormonism. A rather self-interested venture I guess.
  9. Toria, it’s interesting that you bring up the worship thing. My husband and I started doing FHE lately (you’d be proud of us, Seth), and I’ll certainly do a more in-depth post on interfaith FHE when we’ve been doing it longer, but I brought my guitar and played songs for us on it. One of the things my husband said was that he was glad I played guitar, that no one in his own family had been able to play music so their FHEs were all a capella. He actually likes my guitar Protestant worship songs.
    But I had never thought of that before, that Mormons have temple ordinances where evangelicals just have long worship sessions. Truth be told, my current church home is very informal and laid back and I wouldn’t mind a little more ritual in my faith.
    Thank you everyone else for sharing your stories. If my friend hasn’t approved my next blog post by tomorrow at noon I’ll just give him a pseudonym and run it anyways.
  10. I’m interested in interfaith dialogue because I truly believe that people of all faiths need to be working together to solve some of the toughest challenges facing us in the world today. That is how I first became involved with Children of Abraham, an interfaith humanitarian aid group at the University of Michigan.
    Our mission is to set an example for the world by coordinating an interfaith team of students and community volunteers in an effort to send medical supplies to countries in need. Last year, we finally saw the fruits of our labor when we shipped a huge container of medical supplies to Arusha, Tanzania (over $1 million worth of supplies).
    If you’re interested, please visit us at http://www.united2heal.wordpress.com
  11. I like interfaith dialogue because I like talking religion, and talking religion with just Mormons is boring. Inter-faith dialogue eliminates the assumptions that intra-faith dialogue often leaves unsaid and allows me to see my religious ideas a bit clearer.
  12. Nice to see you here Jared. In case I haven’t made it clear, I like your posts over at LDS & Evangelical Conversations and the discussions we all have there.
    I do often wonder how much I owe Mormonism for the way I think as an evangelical today. 16 was a young age to get caught up so deeply in the ideas of a competing religion. Okay, that’s enough moody introspection, moving on.
  13. I found the site from facebook, and enjoy “lurking” and reading what you have to say. I grew up LDS, and am very convinced of its truthfulness, but have family members that are members of other faiths. I also knew you in college, and your conviction always amazed and inspired me. I thought and think you are a fascinating human being and love reading what you have written. It makes me think about things in a new and different way, and I love it.
    Thanks for writing…hope you don’t mind my continued occasional “lurking”.
  14. I’m going to try to keep this in a nutshell….. I was raised in a Christian Science church smack dab in the middle of the Bible Belt. My sophomore year of high school was spent at a Catholic Prep School. My Senior year I attended and graduated from Principia Upper School, a private school for Christian Science high school students. As pleasant as it was to be in fellow company, being a child raised in an environment of diverse faiths (even my parents’ marriage is interfaith) came to me naturally. Throw in a just-returned LDS missionary–with whom I found a perfect match in all things political, cultural (we are both articulate Southerners to the core), career goals, and even spiritual minus the doctrinal differences (we’re used to being pestered about “accepting Jesus” and “being true Christians” by our well-intentioned evangelical neighbors)–one year after graduating… and here we are six years into our marriage. Which is in a transitional stage right now, hence my search and discovery of this magnificent blog.
    Reading the posts have given me clarity and insight for my own marriage, helping me identify which trouble spots are interfaith related and which are your standard marital roadblocks–a great majority I believe to be result of the latter. I know who I am now and am assured of the foundation I need to stand as a Christian Scientist and the path I must follow towards my own salvation. We’ll see how things pan out. No matter what, I am at peace with whatever happens and will proceed as God directs me.
    Plus, it’s so nice to enter a mature inter-faith dialogue in which most everyone is aware of what is at stake (Truth, salvation, and relations with our fellow children of God regarding the first two), which I believe leads to fruitful ends!
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