Telford Work, an Assistant Professor of theology at Westmont College, posted an interesting article entitled I Belong to the One True Church. In this short essay, he recounts how he and many young Evangelical scholars training for the ministry at Fuller Seminary had a belief that "theological differences . . . between denominations necessitate a search for the One True Church and emigration to it (after all, God must have provided one for the diligent seekers to find)." Sound familiar? This article relates how Professor Work developed an alternative and broader view of the Christian Church. Sample:
The most popular opinions of denominationalism in American Christianity, both evangelical and liberal, are theologically poor, and getting poorer. Denominational partisanship is losing its appeal, as ecumenists had hoped. Sadly, so is the theological confidence that produced the hard-won strengths of the denominations in the first place. They are being replaced not by Christocentric, evangelical, ecumenical ecclesiology, but by pragmatism, consumerism, pluralism, relativism, and theological apathy. . . . In their own ways, all such ecumenical heresies accept a divine household divided against itself. They settle either for ecclesiological anarchy, or for a "reconciled diversity" which is institutionalized ecclesiological incoherence and denominational pride.
How many of Work's "five deadly heresies" afflict contemporary Mormonism? Shooting from the hip, I'd say certainly not pluralism or relativism, but arguably consumerism and pragmatism, and definitely theological apathy. Of course, I'd also argue that pragmatism is not at all a bad thing and that a measure of consumerism is likewise defensible if not overemphasized.
12:02:53 AM 
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