The Presbyterian Example

Key Theological Issues

Conclusions and Recommendations

1. Scriptural and Doctrinal Authorities
The most readily identifiable difference between the two traditions is that of sacred and authoritative Scriptures. Of course, for United Methodists and other Protestant churches, there is only one collection of authoritative ScripturesÑthe thirty-nine books of the Old Testament and the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, which together constitute our Holy Bible. While the LDS honors these texts as authoritative, it does not uphold them as the exclusive canon of the church. The scriptural canon within the LDS church officially includes three other documents: The Pearl of Great Price, The Doctrine and Covenants of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and The Book of Mormon.

The issue of canon is foundational to establishing the differences between the two traditions, since church doctrine develops from the understanding and interpretation of Scripture. In the LDS tradition the three other sacred texts influence the interpretation of the Bible and therefore the formation of doctrine. Within The United Methodist Church, church doctrine stems from Scripture as interpreted by tradition, experience, and reason, subject to the basic boundaries already established by the churchÕs historic and ecumenical creeds. Section 1 of "Doctrinal Standards and Our Theological Task," ¶ 60 in The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church-1996, begins:

United Methodists profess the historic Christian faith in God, incarnate in Jesus Christ for our salvation and ever at work in human history in the Holy Spirit. . . .

Our forebears in the faith reaffirmed the ancient Christian message as found in the apostolic witness even as they applied it anew in their own circumstances.

Their preaching and teaching were grounded in Scripture, informed by Christian tradition, enlivened in experience, and tested by reason. . . .

United Methodists share a common heritage with Christians of every age and nation. This heritage is grounded in the apostolic witness to Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, which is the source and measure of all valid Christian teaching.

Faced with diverse interpretations of the apostolic message, leaders of the early church sought to specify the core of Christian belief in order to ensure the soundness of Christian teaching.

The determination of the canon of Christian Scripture and the adoption of ecumenical creeds such as the formulations of Nicaea and Chalcedon were of central importance to this consensual process. Such creeds helped preserve the integrity of the church's witness, set boundaries for acceptable Christian doctrine, and proclaimed the basic elements of the enduring Christian message. These statements of faith, along with the Apostles' Creed, contain the most prominent features of our ecumenical heritage. . . .

The basic measure of authenticity in doctrinal standards, whether formally established or received by tradition, has been their fidelity to the apostolic faith grounded in Scripture and evidenced in the life of the church through the centuries.²

The LDS church clearly rejects the creeds that The United Methodist Church uses to interpret the Bible. This rejection of the historic creeds of the church is actually foundational to the establishment of the LDS religion. According to LDS Scripture, when the religion's founder Joseph Smith struggled in his day with the differences among the many Christian denominations he encountered (including the Methodist tradition), he prayed to God for guidance in this matter. Immediately, Smith received what he understood to be a vision:

When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other — This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!

My object in going to inquire of the Lord was to know which of all the sects was right, that I might know which to join. No sooner, therefore, did I get possession of myself, so as to be able to speak, than I asked the Personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects was right (for at this time it had never entered into my heart that all were wrong) — and which I should join.

I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight.³

These radically differing foundations result in some radically differing doctrine on such matters of belief as the nature and being of God; the nature, origin, and purpose of Jesus Christ; and the nature and way of salvation. The statements of faith in Nicaea and Chalcedon, along with the ApostlesÕ Creed, are held by The United Methodist Church to "contain the most prominent features of our ecumenical heritage."⁴ They will function as standards for reflection on the possibility of ecumenical relationship with the LDS church.

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2. The Nature of God
The first article of "The Articles of Religion of The Methodist Church" states:

There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body or parts, of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness; the maker and preserver of all things, both visible and invisible. And in unity of this Godhead there are three persons, of one substance, power, and eternity — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.⁵

The Nicene Creed states:

We believe in one God,
    the Father, the Almighty,
    maker of heaven and earth,
    of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
    the only Son of God,
    eternally begotten of the Father,
    God from God, Light from Light,
    true God from true God,
    begotten, not made,
    of one Being with the Father;
    through him all things were made. . . .
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
    who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
    who with the Father and the Son
    is worshiped and glorified.⁶

In quite clear contrast, The Doctrine and Covenants of the LDS church states, "The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of Spirit."⁷ Joseph Smith himself wrote in more detail on this matter:

God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret. If the veil were rent today, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by his power, was to make himself visible, — I say, if you were to see him today, you would see him like a man in form — like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man. . . . It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the Character of God, and to know that we may converse with him as one man converses with another, and that he was once a man like us; yea, that God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did; and I will show it from the Bible.⁸

Not only was God the Father once a human being, but he was and still is clearly male gendered and married to a heavenly mother of clear female gender. The Encyclopedia of Mormonism states:

Latter-day Saints infer from authoritative sources of scripture and modern prophecy that there is a Heavenly Mother as well as a Heavenly Father. . . . A Heavenly Mother shares parenthood with the Heavenly Father. This concept leads Latter-day Saints to believe that she is like him in glory, perfection, compassion, wisdom, and holiness.⁹

At another point, this encyclopedia reads:

The Father, Elohim, is called the Father because he is the literal father of the spirits of mortals (Heb. 12:9). This paternity is not allegorical. All individual human spirits were begotten (not created from nothing or made) by the Father in a premortal state, where they lived and were nurtured by Heavenly Parents. These spirit children of the Father come to earth to receive mortal bodies; there is a literal family relationship among humankind.¹⁰

Such belief regarding a gendered, married, and procreating god is at the core of LDS doctrine of God and makes claims about the essential nature of God that are in sharp contrast to the doctrinal statements of United Methodism.

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3. The Nature, Origin, and Work of Jesus Christ
Basic Christological differences exist between the two traditions. Article II of "The Articles of Religion of The Methodist Church" states:

The Son, who is the Word of the Father, the very and eternal God, of one substance with the Father, took man&339;s nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin; so that two whole and perfect natures, that is to say, the Godhead and Manhood, were joined together in one person, never to be divided; whereof is one Christ, very God and very Man, who truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for actual sins of men.¹¹

Article II of "The Confession of Faith of The Evangelical United Brethren Church" states:

We believe in Jesus Christ, truly God and truly man, in whom the divine and human natures are perfectly and inseparably united. He is the eternal Word made flesh, the only begotten Son of the Father, born of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit.¹²

Both doctrinal statements echo the Nicene Creed, which asserts that Jesus Christ is

the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.

It goes on to state

For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary
and became truly human.¹³

These statements of faith differ significantly from LDS doctrine on several important points. Most notably, the Jesus of the LDS tradition is not co-eternal with the Father and "of one substance with the Father." On the contrary, he is thought to be begotten of the Father (and Heavenly Mother) as are all pre-mortal spirits:

Fundamental to the teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the concept that all human beings were born as spirit sons and daughters of heavenly parents before any were born as mortals to earthly parents.¹⁴

What makes Jesus unique as regards his pre-mortal existence is not that he was begotten of the Father (though not eternally begotten), but that he was the first begotten:

Latter-day Saints believe that the eldest and firstborn spirit child of God is Jehovah and that it was he who was later born with a physical body to Mary as Jesus Christ. That is, Jehovah of the Old Testament became Jesus Christ of the New Testament when he was born into mortality.¹⁵

Begotten of two heavenly parents, as were all subsequent spirit children, this Jehovah of the LDS tradition constitutes an entirely separate and distinct being from the Father. He is neither eternal (in the sense of having no beginning and no end) nor "of one substance with the Father." He was not even "true God" at this point in time, for he was as we all were in our pre-mortal existence. Jehovah, then, was first a spirit child and later became a mortal as he, like all spirit children, was born in bodily form. Here again, however, Jesus was unique. While all other spirits were born to two mortal parents, Jesus was born to Mary and the Heavenly Father, who quite literally fathered Jehovah again, this time in the flesh, enabling him to be born as Jesus Christ. Recent Prophet and President of the LDS church Ezra Taft Benson stated:

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints proclaims that Jesus Christ is the Son of God in the most literal sense. The body in which He performed His mission in the flesh was sired by that same Holy Being we worship as God, our Eternal Father. Jesus was not the son of Joseph, nor was He begotten by the Holy Ghost. He is the Son of the Eternal Father!¹⁶

Of course, these convictions stand in clear opposition to the creeds of the apostolic Christian tradition and to the doctrinal standards of The United Methodist Church. The Jesus of Nazareth whom we worship was and is the preexistent Word of God and was "conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary."¹⁷ And while there appears in LDS theology to be a closer relationship between the Father and Jesus Christ than between the Father and other spirit children, these convictions regarding the origin of the Son and his relationship to the Father clearly call into question the nature of the unity of the Godhead as it has been understood by The United Methodist Church and the historic, apostolic Christian tradition. The LDS church even suggests the existence of three separate deities sharing a unity in will, authority, and sentiment only:

Latter-day Saints believe in God the Father; his Son, Jesus Christ; and the Holy Ghost (A of F 1). These three Gods form the Godhead, which holds the keys of power over the universe. Each member of the Godhead is an independent personage, separate and distinct from the other two, the three being in perfect unity and harmony with each other (AF, chap. 2).¹⁸

Elder Jay Jensen has offered further clarity on the LDS position regarding the unity of the three personages; he states that they are "not united in substance" (as in the traditional homoousious) but instead are united only in "love, will, focus, and effort."¹⁹ Such belief cannot be said to constitute a monotheistic theology; it more closely resembles a tritheistic or possibly a polytheistic faith.

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4. Creation and the Way of Salvation
The Nicene Creed proclaims that one God is the "maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen." The creeds contain not only our faith regarding the nature of God but also our faith regarding the natures of things eternal and things created. According to this faith, God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) is eternal, having no beginning and no end. The second person of the Trinity, the Son, shares these elements with the Father and with the Holy Spirit. The Son is the only Son of God and is begotten, not made. Everything else is created — made. Human beings are not understood to be children of God as the Son of God is (the Son is Son by virtue of his begottenness). In other words, human beings are not begotten of the Father but are, rather, created by the eternal and triune God. Human beings are not of the same order as God or as the Son who is God. There is a very clear distinction between the human and the divine.

The good news of Christ is that, "For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became truly human." One who is eternally God cannot cease being God. The second person of the Trinity, however, at one point also became truly human. It is only in this Jesus Christ of Nazareth that God shares the same nature as do human beings; this human nature was assumed by God and not eternally essential to God.

According to the historic, apostolic Christian faith, humanity is in need of this good news as they, who were created good by God, have fallen from grace by their own free will and are in need of the redemption that only God through Jesus Christ can offer. "The Confession of Faith of the Evangelical United Brethren Church" states, "We believe man is fallen from righteousness and, apart from the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, is destitute of holiness and inclined to evil."²⁰ According to "The Articles of Religion of The Methodist Church," we are granted salvation only by the grace of Christ who "suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for actual sins of men."²¹ Our salvation is initiated by Christ and extended to humanity for acceptance and participation.

Through this process of salvation, in which we are made to be partakers of the divine nature, we ultimately share eternal life with Christ. This eternal life depends upon our relationship with Christ, who makes it possible for and allows us to share in the divine life. We ourselves do not become independently eternal or divine.

The LDS understanding of the nature of salvation diverges radically. According to the LDS, human beings are literally the children of the Heavenly Father (and Mother) in their pre-mortal, spiritual form, as was Jesus. Their spirits are begotten of the Father, not created. This makes them of the same order of existence as God:

Gods and humans represent a single divine lineage, the same species of being, although they and he are at different stages of progress. This doctrine is stated concisely in a well-known couplet by President Lorenzo Snow: "As man now is, God once was: as God now is, man may be." . . . Thus, the Father became the Father at some time before "the beginning" as humans know it, by experiencing a mortality similar to that experienced on earth. . . . The important points of the doctrine for Latter-day Saints are that Gods and humans are the same species of being, but at different stages of development in a divine continuum, and that the Heavenly Father and Mother are the heavenly pattern, model, and example of what mortals can become through obedience to the gospel.²²

These theological claims identify the end or goal of salvation as the achievement of godhood. The way of salvation is following the model set by those who have already attained that status. They leave ambiguous the precise salvific role, if any, of the already existing gods.²³ They do, however, make it clear that according to LDS theology, there are already in existence the three gods of the Godhead and a god who presumably presided over the mortality of the Father. There will be more gods to come, as at least some of those at an earlier stage of the "divine continuum" will become gods, as did the Father. Thus by traditional Christian definition, the LDS faith is polytheistic, and the role of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior is decidedly compromised.

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5. The Meaning and Role of Baptism
Not surprisingly, the understandings of baptism in the two churches differ as well. United Methodists recognize that baptism is, first and foremost, about God's action, what God does for us. Baptism is a sacrament and means of God's grace. The 1996 General Conference adopted as an official interpretive statement By Water and the Spirit: A United Methodist Understanding of Baptism, which states:

Sacraments are effective means of God's presence mediated through the created world. God becoming incarnate in Jesus Christ is the supreme instance of this kind of divine action. Wesley viewed the sacraments as crucial means of grace and affirmed the Anglican teaching "that a sacrament is 'an outward sign of inward grace, and a means whereby we receive the same.'" Combining words, actions, and physical elements, sacraments are sign-acts which both express and convey God's grace and love.²⁴

By Water and the Spirit explains the benefits of baptism. Regarding entrance into the household of faith, the document reads, "Wesley identified baptism as the initiatory sacrament by which we enter into the covenant with God and are admitted as members of Christ's Church."²⁵ This covenant is one that God initiates with us, announced in the Baptismal Covenant with the words, "The Holy Spirit work within you, that being born through water and the Spirit, you may be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ."²⁶ Our entrance into this household of faith through the covenant of baptism is often likened to adoption. "While Jesus' relation to God as Son is unique, for Christians, baptism means that God has also chosen us as daughters and sons, and knows us intimately as a parent."²⁷ The liturgy acknowledges that this covenant initiated by God and made between God and the person baptized also extends, by God's grace, to the whole people of God, who receive their new brother or sister by vowing to nurture and uphold him or her in the faith.²⁸

Regarding baptism as an act of repentance and inner cleansing from sin, By Water and the Spirit reads:

In baptism God offers and we accept the forgiveness of our sin (Acts 2:38). With the pardoning of sin which has separated us from God, we are justified — freed from the guilt and penalty of sin and restored to right relationship with God. This reconciliation is made possible through the atonement of Christ and made real in our lives by the work of the Holy Spirit. We respond by confessing and repenting of our sin, and affirming our faith that Jesus Christ has accomplished all that is necessary for our salvation.²⁹

This document upholds the historic Christian belief that the pardoning of sin in baptism is a pardoning both of our actual sins and of our original sin, the "inherent inclination toward evil"³⁰ with which we are born.

By Water and the Spirit addresses baptism as a new birth and a mark of Christian discipleship by stating:

Baptism is the sacramental sign of new life through and in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Variously identified as regeneration, new birth, and being born again, this work of grace makes us into new spiritual creatures (2 Corinthians 5:17). We die to our old nature which was dominated by sin and enter into the very life of Christ who transforms us. Baptism is the means of entry into new life in Christ (John 3:5; Titus 3:5). . . . New birth into life in Christ, which is signified by baptism, is the beginning of that process of growth in grace and holiness through which God brings us into closer relationship with Jesus Christ, and shapes our lives increasingly into conformity with the divine will.³¹

Here again is a heavy emphasis on God's action in baptism, on grace that elicits our response. We can die to the old self to begin a new life with Christ because Christ died for us. Baptism is the mark of our calling to holy living, and our holy living is a response to the work that God has initiated and made possible in our lives.

Because of the emphasis in our United Methodist theology on the primacy of God's action in the sacrament of baptism and on the need of all human beings to be cleansed and saved by the grace of God, By Water and the Spirit declares that people of all ages may be baptized:

The sacrament is a powerful expression of the reality that all persons come before God as no more than helpless infants, unable to do anything to save ourselves, dependent upon the grace of our loving God. The faithful covenant community of the church serves as a means of grace for those whose lives are impacted by its ministry. Through the church, God claims infants as well as adults to be participants in the gracious covenant of which baptism is the sign. . . .

The church affirms that children being born into the brokenness of the world should receive the cleansing and renewing forgiveness of God no less than adults. The saving grace made available through Christ's atonement is the only hope of salvation for persons of any age. In baptism infants enter into a new life in Christ as children of God and members of the body of Christ.³²

Out of this same understanding of the primacy of God's action in baptism, the document insists that "the sacrament is to be received by an individual only once. . . . The claim that baptism is unrepeatable rests on the steadfast faithfulness of God."³³

Whereas in the United Methodist tradition and the broader Christian tradition, baptism as a sacrament is, first and foremost, about what God does for us, in the LDS tradition, baptism as an ordinance is, first and foremost, about human acceptance of God's plan. God is understood to act in an LDS baptism, but God acts to forgive sins in response to human worthiness.

Elder Jay Jensen outlined five purposes of LDS baptism; a discussion of the first two will be helpful here. The first purpose he cited as "Our commitment '. . . to take upon [us] the name of Jesus Christ, having a determination to serve him to the end' (Doctrine and Covenants, 20:37); . . . Baptism is an outward act showing our inward commitment to Jesus Christ."³⁴ This reads in sharp contrast to Wesley's view of the sacraments as crucial means of grace and to the church's teaching that "a sacrament is 'an outward sign of inward grace, and a means whereby we receive the same.'"³⁵ The second purpose of LDS baptism as stated by Jensen is, "For a remission of sins."³⁶ While this remission of sins, according to the LDS elder, certainly stems from Christ's atoning sacrifice, it seems to come only as a response to human worthiness prior to baptism. Jensen relates that, prior to the baptism of his children, they were "interviewed by a local leader, who verified their readiness, willingness, and worthiness"³⁷ for the ordinance.

The LDS church rejects the historic Christian belief in original sin and, therefore, the belief that baptism serves to cleanse one of it. This is seen in Jensen's discussion of infant baptism. He states, "Little children and the mentally impaired are not accountable and do not need to be baptized. . . . 'No one having faith in the word of God can look upon the child as culpably wicked; such an innocent being needs no initiation into the fold, for he has never strayed therefrom; he needs no remission of sins for he has committed no sin.'"³⁸ In the LDS tradition, children begin to need the remission of sins at age eight, when they are understood to become accountable for their conduct.

While not as integral to the differences between LDS and United Methodist understandings of baptism, the next three purposes as outlined by Elder Jensen are of interest:

3. As a prerequisite to receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. 4. To qualify for entrance into the kingdom of God. 5. To become a member of the Church.³⁹

The actual reception of the gift of the Holy Ghost is referred to as confirmation and is considered a separate ordinance. LDS baptism is not considered a baptism by water and the Spirit but by water alone, with the work of the Holy Ghost occurring in confirmation. The fourth and fifth purposes of baptism are telling. One may not enter the kingdom of God without receiving an LDS baptism, that is, without being a member of the LDS church. LDS baptism is understood to admit one to membership not in any universal church but into the one true church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While such an exclusive understanding of baptism within the LDS tradition may be objectionable, The United Methodist Church does accept baptisms from other traditions that hold their own baptism to be the only true and valid form of the sacrament (for example, some Orthodox communions and some Baptist and Pentecostal fellowships). Such exclusiveness alone is not sufficient grounds to draw a definitive conclusion of the broader question at hand.

Crucial to the issue of whether or not The United Methodist Church should accept LDS baptism as valid Christian baptism is the issue of necessary rites and due administration. United Methodist baptisms are performed in accordance with the historic, apostolic Christian tradition:

Water is administered in the name of the triune God (specified in the ritual as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) by an authorized person, and the Holy Spirit is invoked with the laying on of hands in the presence of the congregation. Water provides the central symbolism for baptism.⁴⁰

Baptism within the LDS church appears to meet these qualifications: a member of the ordained, Aaronic priesthood enters a body of water with the candidate and states, before immersing the individual in the presence of the congregation, "Having been commissioned of Jesus Christ, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."⁴¹ Complicating the question of validity, however, are two fundamental issues. The first is that of baptism in the name of the triune God. It is true that the LDS uses the historic Trinitarian formula, but the intent or meaning of those words varies greatly from traditional use. Are those words simply a legalistic formula, or do they, for the historic church, contain a profession of faith in and a reliance upon the specific (nature of) God whom these words signify and name?

The second issue complicating the question of the validity of LDS baptism is that of the "authorized person" described as administrator of the sacrament within our own tradition. What is meant by "authorized person"? Certainly the denomination does not mean ordained or appointed within United Methodism, as we accept baptisms by other Christian denominations and churches. Does it, then, mean authorized by other Christian churches in whatever way they may officially authorize those who are commissioned to administer baptism? If this is what is meant, the question recurs: Is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints a Christian church? However, even if The United Methodist Church were to claim a clear answer to this latter question, as do the Presbyterians and the Southern Baptists, the question of the recognition of LDS baptism still might not be solved. A deeper and more extensive discussion of issues of sacramentality is needed.

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