A Believer Thread

[CardiacCoug]

Gene England:

It is in the Church especially that those with the gifts of vulnerability, pain, handicap, need, ignorance, intellectual arrogance, social pride, even prejudice and sin—those Paul calls the members that “seem to be more feeble”—can be accepted, learned from, helped, and made part of the body so that together we can all be blessed. It is there that those of us with the more comely and world-honored gifts of riches and intelligence can learn what we most need—to serve and love and patiently learn from those with other gifts.

But that is very hard for the “rich” and “wise” to do. And that is why those who have one of those dangerous gifts tend to misunderstand and sometimes disparage the Church— which, after all, is made up of the common and unclean, the middle-class, middle-brow, politically unsophisticated, even prejudiced, average members. And we all know how exasperating they can be! I am convinced that in the exasperation lies our salvation, if we can let the context that most brings it out—the Church—also be our school for unconditional love.

[LA Ute]

Gene England:

He was a great man. I had the privilege of knowing him, even had an Institute class from him at the U. He taught that principle of "dangerous gifts" often. He cared a lot about it.

[Viking]

He was a great man. I had the privilege of knowing him, even had an Institute class from him at the U. He taught that principle of "dangerous gifts" often. He cared a lot about it.

Gene was a great guy. I got to know him very well while at BYU.

I always considered him more a crusader than an intellect, but that does not diminish his legacy.

[LA Ute]

Interesting, if somewhat vanilla, summary of a Bob Millett talk in Newport Beach few days ago.

Millet urges Christians to look for common beliefs

[Harry Tic]

Interesting, if somewhat vanilla, summary of a Bob Millett talk in Newport Beach few days ago.

Millet urges Christians to look for common beliefs

Thanks for the reminder of why I can't stand Bob Millet. I can't think of anyone who has worked harder to water down Mormon doctrine in an attempt to curry favor with people whose opinions are of little interest anyway.

[LA Ute]

Thanks for the reminder of why I can't stand Bob Millet. I can't think of anyone who has worked harder to water down Mormon doctrine in an attempt to curry favor with people whose opinions are of little interest anyway.

I am not a student of Bob Millet's work so am somewhat neutral about it. What has he done that has bugged you? I ask in peace, because all I know is that he's done a lot of outreach to evangelical Christians, most of whom seem pretty impervious to his good will gestures. (I've had lots of interreligious contact with such folks.)

[Harry Tic]

I am not a student of Bob Millet's work so am somewhat neutral about it. What has he done that has bugged you? I ask in peace, because all I know is that he's done a lot of outreach to evangelical Christians, most of whom seem pretty impervious to his good will gestures. (I've had lots of interreligious contact with such folks.)

I remember reading his book in "dialogue" with some evangelical scholar a few years back. I kept wanting to throw it across the room. He made some outright absurd statements ("there's no passage in the Bible that I don't personally believe and accept as the word of God") and generally his stance was apologetic, in the bad sense of the term. I understand the attraction of appealing to the Bible to show the reasonableness of Mormon belief. I went through that phase on my mission. But it seems to me his basic impulse is to pander to his crowd by playing up similarities with mainstream conservative Christian thought and downplaying our doctrinal distinctiveness. I would much rather be bold in emphasizing our differences. None of that "all their creeds are an abomination" stuff for Millet.

Then again, I'm not interested in scoring political points for Mormonism and I think there may be some of that in Millet's approach: i.e., "yes, you can vote for Mormon candidates, their positions are just like yours."

[Harry Tic]

I've never read or heard anything written by him. I just dislike him because he's a BYU professor.

There are two strikes against him right there.

The other thing I worry about is anyone that always puts "Ph.D" after their name (or, worse, "Ed.D". Run from those like the plague).

[Jeff Lebowski]

Gene England:

That's a great quote.