Dave's Mormon Inquiry

Bible, Church, and Mystic

On a recent trip, I took along as reading material Christianity: A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2004) by Linda Woodhead. Like all of the books in the wildly successful VSI series, the book is short but informative. I want to focus on the author's analysis of how views about divine power and earthly authority can be used to classify Christian churches and denominations, then try to place Mormonism and the LDS Church within that classification scheme.

Peterson Down Under

The week-long fifth Parlaiment of World Religions just concluded in Melbourne, Australia. BYU professor Daniel C. Peterson chaired the popular session "Islam and the West: Creating an Accord of Civilizations," as reported at the Church's Australian website and, in a briefer account, at the LDS Newsroom blog.

Finding Christian Heretics in Strange Places

A very interesting post at Mormon Matters, reviewing a 1989 book titled "Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up?" The book was written by an attorney who grew up a Jehovah's Witness, then became an Evangelical Christian. That lasted until he conducted a thorough reading the original writings of the pre-Nicene Church Fathers.

A New Mormon Gateway

A website with answers. That's what Time Magazine calls the new religion website Patheos.com in "What Do Religions Believe? A Website with Answers." The Time article describes the new site as one "that sets out to explain the differences among religions as well as illuminate the areas of common ground." Just today the site unveiled its Mormon Gateway section, a menu of resources designed to complement the more detailed information presented in the Library section of the site.

The Latest Pew Survey: Losing Your Religion

Lots of stories on the latest Pew Forum survey, "Faith in Flux: Changes in Religious Affiliation in the U.S." Here is the first paragraph from the summary prepared by Pew:

Americans change religious affiliation early and often. In total, about half of American adults have changed religious affiliation at least once during their lives. Most people who change their religion leave their childhood faith before age 24, and many of those who change religion do so more than once.

Christianity and Equality

I recently ran across this transcript of remarks by Dinesh D'Souza, author of a variety of books, most recently What's So Great About Christianity. While the New Atheists have become the darlings of the media, you have to dig around to find articulate responses. Here's a paragraph near the end of D'Souza's speech, summarizing his view that Western notions of equality and the dignity of human life are grounded in Christian morality.

The eradication of Christianity--and of organized religion in general--would also mean the gradual extinction of the principles of human dignity. Consider human equality. Why do we hold to it? The Christian idea of equality in God's eyes is undeniably largely responsible. The attempt to ground respect for equality on a purely secular basis ignores the vital contribution by Christianity to its spread. It is folly to believe that it could survive without the continuing aid of religious belief.

Originally posted with comments at Beliefnet.

Religion and Pseudoscience

In "Look Who's Irrational Now," WSJ summarizes the results of a comprehensive study conducted by Baylor University (hat tip: ASA). The big surprise: religion and various forms of superstition and pseudoscience are substitutes, not complements. In other words, the data show that those who abandon religious belief are more likely to affirm superstition and pseudoscience than believers. Apparently the facts run contrary to the widely accepted view that religion and acceptance of superstition go hand in hand. But don't expect mere facts to change many opinions.

Why the Pope Is So Smart

Because he takes science seriously. More specifically (as discussed in the post at LDS Science Review) it is because the Catholic Church appears to have institutionalized a scientific advisory role that informs and educates senior Catholic leaders about various scientific concepts. Now I know that senior LDS leaders sometimes engage in individual conversations with LDS scientists, but imagine how much more effectively this process would work if it were similarly institutionalized. It wouldn't take much, and it would help overcome the wounds inflicted on LDS thinking by decades of CES-sponsored anti-intellectualism.

Reflections on Orthodoxy

At Get Religion, "Orthodox or extremist?", a reflection on the use of the term "orthodox" in media religion stories. It quotes from a NY Times article which includes the following paragraph:

A short history of the megachurch, and why there aren't any Mormon megachurches

At Mere Orthodoxy, "Why Didn't Jesus Start a Megachurch?" Megachurches are defined as a congregation with weekly attendance over 2000. They weren't seen before the 1950s, and didn't really come into their own until the 1980s. [Pictured at right: the Crystal Cathedral in Orange County, California, which seats 2900.] The linked post provides a very interesting summary, but the author seems to miss a basic point: megachurches can only flourish as part of an organizationally weak movement like post-denominational Evangelicalism. There are no Mormon megachurches and there never will be, because, in the efficiently managed LDS Church, when demographics or (strange thought this) the popularity of a bishop cause the size of an LDS congregation to swell, the local stake president will split the congregation into two congregations or make some other boundary adjustment for the local units.

Are denominations irrelevant?

From Mark D. Roberts:

Most American Christians aren’t especially limited by or even committed to their denominations. For the most part, denominations mean something to those who are greatly involved in them (clergy, denominational officials, etc.), but relatively little to their members. Any conversation of denominations and their future must take seriously the fact that denominational brand loyalty is dying. Some would say it’s already dead.

Well, Protestant brand loyalty is dying, which isn't quite the same thing as the more general claim Roberts is making. Believers are suddenly acting as if the organizational scheme that Protestants have pursued for almost 500 years doesn't matter? There must be books out there that take a harder look at this.

Evangelical Epidemic

At Parchment and Pen — "Leaving (Christ)ianity — An Evangelical Epidemic," recounting a conversation between a minister and a young lady who lost her faith:

Defining "My Church"

It's not just Anglicans that are being torn apart by the issue of gay ordinations; Presbyterians are quietly waging their own struggle, as is evident in Mark D. Roberts' post "Is the PCUSA My Church?" [PCUSA stands for Presbyterian Church USA.] Roberts is a highly respected pastor, author, and blogger, so you know there's a problem when he says something like this:

The issue of gay ordination will continue to plague our denomination, to drag us down, to debilitate us, and to divide us until we come to some sort of institutional change that allows us to stop fighting . . . or until we kill off the PCUSA. [Ellipsis in original.]

Palmer Contra Ritual

The SL Trib has a short opinion piece titled "Jesus stressed kind behavior, not rituals, to get to heaven." I didn't think much of it until I noticed that the author was Grant Palmer.

Knowing Versus Doing: Those Ignorant Americans

I'm just starting Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know — and Doesn't, by Stephen Prothero, chair of the religion department at Boston University and author of the highly regarded book American Jesus. The book forces us to confront the question: Just how ignorant is the average American? [That's a dangerous question to ask in an election year.]

Things Evangelicals Don't Like To Talk About

One of them is the Baptist doctrine of submission. A couple of pointed posts by LDS women who certainly do not share the Baptist view of submission are "Huckabee is a Chicken Patriarch" at Feminist Mormon Housewives, and "Follow-up on Huckabee and 'Chicken Patriarchy'" at Zelophedad's Daughters. The Bloggernacle features entire blogs full of women who don't share the Baptist view of submission. In fact, I think it is fair to say that, apart from the CES and a few hundred octogenarians scattered along the Mormon Corridor, the entire LDS Church rejects the Baptist view of submission.

A New Christian Apologetics?

A website called Christian Manifesto posted an inteview with Dr. Andrew Jackson, author of the new book Mormonism Explained: What Latter-day Saints Teach and Practice. After noting that he found LDS missionaries and bishops to be a poor source of reliable information about Mormon beliefs, he gave this promising response:

I ended up leaning on Steven Robinson, Robert Millet, a few of the new Mormon scholars who have been interacting with evangelicals as of late, and the writings of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young for source material. I found that there are really two streams of Mormonism, which I explain a little in my book.

The Divide is Getting Wider

An article in today's NY Times talks about Evangelical concerns over Romney's Mormonism. It features the obligatory quote from an Evangelical minister calling the LDS Church a cult. Another brainless hypocrite -- the guy runs a website, and thinks the LDS Church isn't churchy enough to be a church? The only reason the media is sucking up to Evangelicals in the Mormon stories is because it's an easy way to slam Mormons.

Getting to Know Evangelicals

There's a nice story over at Get Religion about a Bible Belt Evangelical congregation. Their message: God hates America. Some might think that's an extreme position, but it seems like just a restatement of the general Evangelical view that God hates everyone except Evangelicals. So the Westboro Baptists at least deserve some respect for grasping what's at the heart of the Evangelical message and running with it. It's not pretty (check out the photos at the Wikipedia link), but it's instructive.

Coming Apart at the Seams

That's what many Protestant denominations seem to be doing these days. The latest story, as reported at The Religion Clause, concerns another "who owns the chapel" lawsuit. Seems half of a Presbyterian congregation in Ohio decided to disaffiliate from PCUSA and join the NWAC. That's not the Northwest Athletic Conference; NWAC stands for New Wineskins Association of Churches. The other half of the congregation was apparently happy with the old wineskin, hence the lawsuit.

An Evangelical Miracle

Yes, Evangelicals have brought to pass a modern-day miracle: by once again doing their best to loudly ridicule Mormons quietly attending the LDS Church's semi-annual General Conference in Salt Lake City last week, activist Evangelicals impelled the Salt Lake Tribune to publish an editorial defending Mormons. Print that page — you won't see it again soon.

How To Be A Good Anti-Mormon

Most people have better things to do with their life than to be an "anti" anything. But for the benefit of Evangelical Christians who think it's their calling in life to become religious stalkers to Mormons and Mormonism, it is worth taking a few minutes to talk about how to at least be a good anti-Mormon (one that can one day stand confidently before God to report on their labors) as opposed to a bad one. My thoughts here, while not responding directly to any one post, were motivated by this post -- apparently by an Evangelical who is just figuring out that the strategy of attacking another's religion and religious beliefs does that person harm rather than good. That's a great place to start.

Pictures of Athens, Words of Paul

Meridian Magazine has a nice post with some beautiful photos of Athens, mingled with a review of Paul's sermon to Athenian intellectuals in Acts 17. Interspersed with the post are ads for a ten-day Mediterranean cruise next summer with the author and his photogenic eternal companion. Normally I kind of sneer at that sort of thing (hosted cruises; self-promotion; blog ads), but a cruise sounds pretty tempting at the moment. Eat my way around Italy with my own photogenic eternal companion. Stroll through the agora followed (no-doubt) by a latter-day sermon on Mars' Hill. Stranger things have happened. Are cruise ships wired for Internet? If not ... make it a three-day cruise. Couldn't handle ten days offline. Ten days is forever.

Two Kinds of Christians

There are Iron-Rod Christians and Liahona Christians. Or so one would think reading Marcus J. Borg's The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith (1989). He's a big-time Liahona Christian scholar, previously an active participant in the Jesus Seminar. Of course, he doesn't use those labels for his two kinds of Christians. He even rejects "conservative" and "liberal," instead opting to call the two approaches to Christian practice and doctrine the "earlier paradigm" and the "emerging paradigm." I'll summarize, then disagree.

Pope on Faith and Doubt

I'm reading Introduction to Christianity by Joseph Ratzinger, better known as Pope Benedict XVI. He was a theologian before he became Pope. This book was first published in 1968 — in German. It is a surprisingly readable and enlightening book. I say surprising, as many of the Catholic blogs I stumble upon and read seem to be in their own separate world, talking about different issues using different concepts and different vocabulary. But B16 has a direct and engaging style. Take his first chapter, "Doubt and belief — Man's situation before the question of God."

Modern Theology in One Easy Lesson

There's plenty of Mormon doctrine but very little Mormon theology (although SmallAxe at FPR feels differently). That's either good or bad, depending on what you think of theology. But if you're inclined to sample what theology has to offer modern Mormonism — or if you just want to understand modern Christianity a little better — it will be Christian theology you will turn to. Here are a few comments on modern theology (post-Enlightenment) based on material in the last four chapters of Roger E. Olson's History of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition & Reform. After a whirlwind summary, I'll add a couple of Mo apps.

The Food of Truth

As I was surfing, looking for something to post (am I the only one who does this?), I ran across this GR post on the Pope's 130-page letter. Wow. It's hard to make heads or tails of it from media reports, but the super-sized letter itself isn't so opaque. It is technically an Apostolic Exhortation, which probably means something particular to informed Catholics. The subject of the letter is "the Eucharist as the source and summit of the Church's life and mission." It is directed "to the Bishops, clergy, consecrated persons, and the lay faithful." So it's not just to Catholic officials, it is (formally, at least) directed to Catholic laity. I'll offer one quote that caught my eye, calling the Eucharist (what Mormons call "the sacrament") "the food of truth."

Biblical Cosmology

One problem with trying to understand the Bible is that its writers thought about the universe in much different terms than we do. This point comes out quite clearly in a couple of passages in The Future of Christianity, a modernist religious critique of conservative Christian beliefs. Here's the author's description of what we can call the biblical cosmology, although it wasn't unique to what became the books of the Bible:

The biblical view represented most clearly in the creation story in Genesis 1:1-2:4a is that of a flat earth, covered by a dome to which the sun, the moon, and the stars are attached. The waters of heaven are above that dome or firmament. In fact, it is the opening of the windows of that dome that results in the falling of rain or snow upon the earth below.

Beneath the earth are the waters upon which the earth rests and the underworld, basically a tunnel through which the sun travels on its nightly journey from the west, where it sets, to return to the east in time for the next sunrise. The heavens are beyond the dome of the sky and serve as the permanent abode of God and his angels.

This biblical cosmology raises some interesting questions for modern believers.

The Future of Christianity

I'm reading The Future of Christianity: Can It Survive? (Prometheus, 2006) by Arthur J. Bellinzoni. The author is a retired professor of religion, and he's not very optimistic about that future: "It would be presumptuous for anyone to try to envision what Christianity might look like at the end of the third millennium in the year 3000. Frankly, I am not even sure that Christianity will survive for another thousand years. Neither am I convinced that Christianity deserves to survive ...." Of course, his suggestions for improvement amount to making all of Christianity more like the slowly dying liberal wing of Protestantism. Some solution.

Deadly Combos

Sometimes a good illustration can rescue a bad story. So it is with this forgettable GR post about a stunt by an Italian journalist. But the graphic on the index card is really clever. Seven deadly sins mapped onto twenty-one perilous pairs. Sometimes mixing familiar concepts brings out entirely new perspectives.

Democratic Religion

Earlier I posted on Republican Religion, which touched on the tenor of religion immediately following the Revolutionary War. In this post I review what happened to the American religious scene during the first third of the 19th century, right up to the founding of the LDS Church in 1830. I'm using material from Toward a New Society: American Thought and Culture, 1800-1830, particularly the second chapter, entitled "Christianizing the Republic."

Evangelical Cults of Personality

That's how megachurches are described in a recent GR post about the now-disgraced pastor of the New Life Church, an independent megachurch. Take a look at the photo with the story — looks like a sports arena, not a church. Is it worship or a show? The post points out that congregations that affiliate with established denominations have tried and tested procedures for training and supervising clergy, and for subjecting transgressing clergy to various forms of church discipline. But most megachurches "are independent from a denomination — an asset for their flexibility, but a liability when it comes to checks on power." So it's all about power — again, how cultish.

Republican Religion

I'm talking about 18th-century republicans — the Revolutionary War kind of republicanism. I just finished The American Revolution: A History (2002) by Gordon S. Wood. It includes ten pages on "Republican Religion" that speak directly to the religious background of Joseph Smith, Jr., and his parents. Seems like a topic worth sharing.

Methodists as Premillennialists

As my online essay of the week, I'm posting a link to Grant Underwood's essay "Millenarianism and Popular Methodism in Early Nineteenth Century England and Canada". It's a nice complement to his book The Millenarian World of Early Mormonism, a new entry to my Featured Books queue (at the bottom of the list — I flipped it). Underwood is a history prof at BYU.

The United Brethren, an offshoot of the Primitive Methodists and a source of many of the English converts to Mormonism in the 1840s, make an appearance in the essay. For collected links to several posts I've put up on Methodism, see here.

Echoes of Greek Religion

Just finished Ancient Greece: From Prehistoric to Hellenistic Times (Yale Univ Press, 1996) by Thomas R. Martin. The book is a nice overview of Greek history and culture. After reading A War Like No Other, I wanted to "fill in the gaps" and see how the carnage of the Peloponnesian War gave rise to Alexander and his conquest of the East. And, after reading Between the Testaments, I wanted to see how Greek religion and philosophy, as mediated by Hellenistic culture, contributed to developing Christianity. The omission of the Apocrypha from modern bibles and the modern Christian (and Mormon) consciousness works to suppress the Greek influence; it takes a little work to find it, but it's definitely there.

Early Christians

Today's scholars see amazing diversity in the first few centuries of Christianity. It lasted until the Christians obtained temporal power with the conversion of Constantine. I just finished reading through the short book The Beliefnet Guide to Gnosticism and Other Vanished Christianities (2006), which summarizes some of those early "heresies," starting with the gnosticism. Here's a short tour based on the book.

Nicene Links

Are Mormons Christian? For a new take on that timeless question, go read The Nicene Creed and Christianity at Positive Liberty (the post includes several paragraphs from an LDS correspondent). It features a link to The Nicene Creed by Clayton Cramer, another libertarian blogger, again with several paragraphs on Mormonism's view of the Creed. Honestly, I didn't know anyone else really cared. I did think Mr. Cramer, having linked to two posts from the All About Mormons responses page, should have linked to its Are Mormons Christian? page, too. It posts a half-dozen LDS variations on the "of course we're Christian" response.

Faith and Reason

Mirror of Justice posted a nice summary of a Weekly Standard article entitled "Socrates or Muhammad?" which was in turn an extended comment on the Pope's now-famous Sept. 12, 2006 speech, "Faith, Reason, and the University." So here's my comment on the summary of the commentary on the Pope's speech.

Papal Misstep?

Or bold proclamation? I've been watching with interest the developing reaction and counter-reaction to the media's mischaracterization of the Pope's address to a German university. Here are a couple of commentaries by religious pundits that bear reading:

Martin Marty: "The Pope and Islam."
Karen Armstrong: "We Cannot Afford to Maintain These Ancient Prejudices Against Islam."

Several Catholic blogs are running extensive commentary on the whole mess: Mirror of Justice (here); Amy Welborn's Open Book (here and here); First Things (here); and (my favorite) Right Coast (here, here, and here).

I plan to post on the Pope's address (which I read during Sacrament Meeting on Sunday) tonight or tomorrow. Good stuff — much better than the soundbites circulated by the media would lead one to expect. This Pope's a keeper, but he needs better media advisors.

Secret Gospel of Mark

About a week ago, M* ran a post on the Secret Gospel of Mark. I swung by my local library and checked out a copy of Crossan's Four Other Gospels: Shadows on the Contours of Canon (1985), which has a short but informative chapter on Secret Mark. Alas, I'm too late for the discussion at M*, but since my earlier post on the Gospel of Thomas was so well received, I'll go ahead and post my comments here. I'll summarize (1) what Secret Mark is; (2) why most Christians don't like it; and (3) why some Mormons do like it.

Understanding Baptists

I recently heard BYU's Robert Millet comment that Mormons don't know nearly enough about other denominations. He is the "Manager of Outreach and Interfaith Relations" for Church Public Affairs, so he speaks with some authority on that point. I'll do my part to remedy the problem, beginning with the Baptists and using the book Baptists in America (CUP, 2005). The Wikipedia entry "Baptists" is also helpful. Baptists take a rather conservative approach to religious doctrine and social issues in general, surprisingly similar to LDS positions (apart from distinctive LDS beliefs like temples and the Book of Mormon). But it takes some effort for Mormons to grasp the different conception Baptists have of religious identity, which I'll try to discuss in terms of membership, congregation, and denomination.

Victorian Doubt

"Books contain a deadly and secret poison. Many a young man has been destroyed by reading a single volume." No, that's not a quote from a recent General Conference; it was written in 1829, warning young Englishmen about the dangers of reading scholarly analyses of Christian history and doctrine. The quote is the first paragraph in a short CT essay entitled The Power of Books, highlighting the struggles of 19th-century Victorians with higher criticism and with evolution. The Victorian debate sounds surprisingly similar to the ongoing dialogue between apologists and religious liberals within the LDS Church. Will Mormonism, too, split into fundamentalist/conservative and liberal camps? If it did, which would you follow?

[Note: Busy, busy. Light blogging for another week.]

Kung on Modernity

I've just finished breezing through Hans Kung's Great Christian Thinkers (1994), which looks at seven Christian theologians: Paul, Origen, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Schleiermacher, and Barth. I confess that the discourse of 20th-century theologians is utterly baffling to me; the words and categories employed just seem to lack any objective content. So I'll write a paragraph or two on Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834), termed by Kung the first theologian who was "a modern man through and through." What does this mean?

Worship Wars

That's what Get Religion calls the Protestant debate over church services, which at first looks like "simply electric guitars against the pipe organ." But they explain there are also generational conflicts at work (the GI generation versus Boomers versus Gen X and Y) and possibly doctrinal conflict as well. The article profiles one congregation's "contemporary urban experience" service, "an alternative service staged by the church at a nearby nightclub that offers live rock music and a casual atmosphere that doesn’t frown on flip-flops and nose piercings." Chez LDS, I'd settle for a "contemporary suburban experience," but haven't run across one yet, at least on the mainland.

Same as the Old Boss?

Recent summaries of the prior positions of the new pope make him out to be a real social and moral conservative -- very similar to John Paul II or a Mormon apostle. Yet Hans Kung, a Catholic theologian who has criticized the conservative Catholic retrenchment under JPII, has issued a "let's wait and see" statement, noting that the focus, tone, and direction of the thinking of previous popes has sometimes changed after they became the Pope. He suggested that popes, like presidents, go through a "first 100 days" period when they first come to grips with real issues and define how their administration (or pontificate) will operate and what policies it will carry forward or change. Perhaps Benedict XVI will take a different line than Cardinal Ratzinger. In fact, reports I heard said that his first mass stressed an ecumenical message and reaching out in a friendly way to other faiths, not themes he emphasized in the past.

Benedict XVI

The papal election is over (white smoke rose from the Vatican chimney) and a new pope has been selected. As reported in an AP article at Yahoo: "Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany, a longtime guardian of doctrinal orthodoxy, was elected the new pope Tuesday evening in the first conclave of the new millennium. He chose the name Pope Benedict XVI." This is not good news, I suspect, for those who were looking for a change from the strongly conservative approach of John Paul II.

Church Size and Growth

From the Episcopal News Service (in a post shown on the newly installed BCC Sideblog box on my left sidebar), a story giving 2004 growth rates of major US denominations, using data from a National Council of Churches publication. The LDS Church is now listed at the fourth-largest US denomination. Here's the roll call:

• Jehovah's Witnesses (1.04 million), growth rate of 1.82 percent.
• LDS Church (5.5 million), growth at 1.71 percent.
• Assemblies of God (2.73 million), growth at 1.57 percent.
• Roman Catholic (67.3 million), growth at 1.28 percent.
• Southern Baptist Convention (16.4 million), growth at 1.18 percent.
• Episcopal Church (2.32 million), growth at 0.57 percent.
• United Methodist Church (8.25 million), growth at 0.002 percent (that's about 165 people).

Masonic Religion

Freemasonry has been getting some Bloggernacle attention lately (see here and here), so here are a few more comments on Freemasonry drawing on Religion in American Life: A Short History, by Butler, Wacker, and Balmer (see p. 178-79). Post-Revolutionary America saw not only the rise of unparalleled sectarian diversity (Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Methodists, Baptists, Quakers, Unitarians, Catholics) and the appearance of new sects like Mormonism, but also a fraternal civic religion (Freemasonry) as well as stubbornly persistent "folk religion" beliefs and practices (dowsing, amulets, astrology, etc.). But just what was Freemasonry and why did it flourish in America?

Gospel of Thomas

I just read the short book The Gospel of Thomas: Annotated & Explained by Stevan Davies. The Coptic Gospel of Thomas was discovered in 1945 as part of the Nag Hammadi finds. While considered a Gnostic text for some time, most scholars have come around to viewing it as an authentic document of the first century, a production of the same cultural and religious environment as the canonical gospels. Crossan, for instance, relies on it to the same extent as any of the canonical gospels in his studies of Jesus and the early church. Like the Dead Sea Scrolls, the 114 sayings of Jesus preserved in the Gospel of Thomas are both interesting and controversial.

A House Divided

There's an interesting Albert Mohler editorial over at Crosswalk, entitled The Church That Cannot Make Up Its Mind, discussing a recent report by a committee of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) on the charged issue of homosexuality and marriage. Look for this issue to blow up at the ELCA Churchwide Assembly in August 2005 when the report is formally presented to the assembly. Mainline denominations are split down the middle on this issue with little ground for long-term compromise, and "face the very real prospect of schism over issues of sexuality." SSM is a wedge issue, but it also signals a "far deeper divide in these churches over basic issues of doctrine, biblical authority, confession, and ecclesiology." Nice to see other denominations struggle over doctrine for a change.