Mormons & Baptists often clash, but Dr Kyle Bashears is one of those cool Baptist Pastors you don’t run across every day. It turns out that Kyle completed his masters thesis and Ph.D. dissertation on Mormon topics! Kyle will discuss his thesis on the Book of Mormon and will discuss one area he thinks the Book of Mormon lacks in emphasis. Check out our conversation….
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Why Baptist Pastor Studies Mormons?
Interview
GT 00:38 Welcome to Gospel Tangents. I’m excited to have my first Baptist preacher on the show. I didn’t think this would ever happen. But could you go ahead and tell us who you are and why you’re willing to talk to a Mormon?
Kyle 00:50 Yeah, of course. Well, my name is Kyle Beshears and I am the first Baptist pastor on Gospel Tangents. So, I’m happy to claim that title.
GT 01:01 See, most people wouldn’t be happy. They’d be like, “Oh, Mormons? Stay away from them.”
Kyle 01:05 That’s true. There is a pretty strong undercurrent in the Baptist tradition that would hold Latter-day Saints at an arm’s length. And I’m not one of those.
GT 01:14 I’m glad to hear that because I’ve met a lot of them.
Kyle 01:17 I’m sure. Yeah.
GT 01:20 So one of the first things I always like to do is find out your educational background. Where did you get your Bachelor’s and master’s and Ph.D. and all that?
Kyle 01:27 Yeah. So undergraduate comes from Moody Bible Institute.
GT 01:30 Wow, through and through.
Kyle 01:31 It’s an Evangelical institution. And then masters and Ph.D. come from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.
GT 01:40 Wow. So, masters and Ph.D., you said?
Kyle 01:44 Yes. Yeah.
GT 01:44 Okay.
Kyle 01:45 So, my Master’s in theology. And that was for preparing and credentialing for pastoral ministry, which is my full-time vocation. And then the Ph.D. was in world religions. And largely that was so that I could study Latter-day Saint history and tradition.
GT 02:04 Wow. So, what got you into study in the Latter-day Saints? Because aren’t they a cult? Isn’t that what your people say about our people?
Kyle 02:10 Yeah, that’s what I was raised to believe. My first encounter with Latter-day Saints would have come from, like the Deckers, The God Makers. The cartoon version was shown in our youth group when I was kid.
GT 02:27 Just like Steve Pynakker, I think he said he watched that.
Kyle 02:29 Yeah, he’s had similar experiences. And then the first academic introduction to Mormonism was from Walter Martin’s Kingdom and the Cults chapter on Latter-day Saints, as well. And of course, that’s pulling from a really deep tradition of the Latter-day Saints being a counterfeit of Christianity, going back to the fundamentals. Do you remember, the fundamentals are like 1920s fundamentalism, the rise of that evangelicalism in the country. There was a pamphlet that they created on Mormonism and it set the tone for Mormonism being a counterfeit of Christianity, and that’s the perspective that was given to me as a kid. But then moving on, I got ahold of Fawn Brodie’s No Man Knows My History. And then I really started to get interested in Mormonism from an actual academic perspective after reading Bushman’s Rough Stone Rolling.
GT 03:31 Okay, so did you read that in, was it Baptist Theological School?
Kyle 03:37 I was. Yeah. So I was in school when I was reading.
GT 03:40 And so, they use that as a textbook?
Kyle 03:42 They don’t, no. So it was, this was one I had to read, but it was recommended to me by a Baptist professor.
GT 03:51 Was it like reading porn or anything like that?
Kyle 03:53 No.
GT 03:56 (Chuckling)
Kyle 03:56 It was, if you really want to do this, you need to give it a fair shake. And the sources you’ve been reading so far, are polemic apologetic, and they’re not giving a fair treatment.
GT 04:08 So would you say Fawn Brodie is polemic?
Kyle 04:14 That’s a good question. Because at some point, she’s really trying to unbury history and to make it known. But she, even as an outsider, years after the book was written, I can kind of tell there’s a little bit of axe grinding. And so, what Fawn Brodie did for me, though, was humanize Joseph Smith. So, up until that point, he was just this mythological power behind a cult. And when I read Fawn Brodie, she’s confirming a lot of the things that I’ve been taught from my faith tradition. But, at the same time, the first spark that really grabbed my attention was reading Joseph’s early years about wrestling over division and contention and denominationalism, which is also something that I still, to this day wrestle with as a Protestant pastor. If we’re supposed to be one faith, one baptism, why are we so divided? And so, I found that really interesting. Like how can that guy be interested in something that I’m interested in. Clearly, I’m not in a cult. So that really is what hooked me and got me interested in pursuing Mormonism as an academic study.
GT 05:36 (Chuckling) Well, and the weirdest thing to me, is the first time I met you was Whitmer in September, I think it was. And you’re a James Strang expert.
Kyle 05:49 Uh, I don’t know about an expert, yeah.
GT 05:50 Like Mormons are little enough, and this guy dives deep into James Strang. What is going on here?
Kyle 05:56 Yeah, so anybody that’s heard of James Strang’s story, like, you could see why.
GT 06:04 I would say most people haven’t heard of him.
Kyle 06:07 Okay.
GT 06:08 How did you learn about it?
Kyle 06:09 Yeah, that’s a good question. So, when I was at the beginning of the Ph.D., you’re trying to find a dissertation topic. It’s got to be something that you’re interested in, is going to hold your attention for four or five, six years, but also something that hasn’t been done yet, right? You’re making that little, tiny contribution to human knowledge. And so, I really didn’t know where to begin. And it was at an interreligious dialogue with Evangelical and Latter-day Saints students where I met a man named Dick Bennett, who, I believe, at the time, was still teaching at BYU in the Church History department. He might have even been the Chair.
GT 06: He was my third guest on Gospel Tangents.
Kyle 06: Oh, wow, that’s great. That’s great. He might, I think maybe he was even the Chair.
GT 06:52 Yeah, he was the department chair.
Kyle 06:53 Okay. Yeah, that’s right. And so, he is an extremely kind man. And we were having the dialogue in his home. And I asked him point blank. I said, “What needs to be done in LDS history that hasn’t been done yet? And that maybe somebody like me, who’s not Latter-day Saint, doesn’t come from an LDS Restoration background, would be interested in.
Kyle 07:16 And he said, “Oh, you ought to look into Strang.”
Kyle 07:20 And I said, “What’s Strang?” Not who, what. What’s Strang?
Kyle 07:23 He said, “James Strang,” because Dick had done some work on Strang. And he said, “You need to get with a guy named Bill Shepard.” Bill Shepard is the historian, kind of archivist for the largest church that follows Strang to this day. And Bill is an extremely kind man. very warm, very inviting, very gentle. He, literally, gave me an idea for my dissertation topic, which was to look at the life of a man named Wingfield Scott Watson, who was one of the prominent leaders after James Strang died, in that movement. So it’s kind of a black hole of, like, what happens to the Strangites after James Strang dies. He’s like, “You can help us fill that gap of knowledge.”
GT 08:08 So that’s the story of how you got into James Strang.
Kyle 08:11 But now that I’ve been to James Strang, I ain’t moving. I mean, it’s a fascinating [story.] I don’t want to leave. It’s incredible, the story, I mean. It has a lot of the early Mormonism of plates and visions and angels, Urim and Thummim, new revelation. But then you have an island in Lake Michigan, where he’s setting up a theocratic commune. He names himself king of the kingdom of God on earth as a viceroy until Jesus would return and take the throne. He’s a monogamist, but then he’s a polygamist and he hides his first polygamous relationship. He’s assassinated in cooperation with the United States Navy. I mean, like, where do you want to stop? It’s not where do you want to begin? This is too much to the story. So yeah, it’s a fascinating story.
GT 08:58 Well, cool. Well, we’re definitely going there.
Kyle 09:00 Okay.
Why King David Disproves Book of Mormon
GT 09:01 This may be a little bit of a surprise. But you know, I’m on academia.edu. And you get those emails all the time, and it said, “Hey, here’s Kyle Beshear’s dissertation.”
Kyle 09:14 Yeah.
GT 09:15 And I was like, “Oh, wow, I’ve got to talk about that.”
Kyle 09:17 Delivered to your inbox.
GT 09:20 So tell us what was the topic of your dissertation? Because it deals with Mormonism.
Kyle 09:23 The dissertation itself?
GT 09:25 Yeah.
Kyle 09:25 So for Ph.D. dissertation that was Wingfield Scott Watson.
GT 09:28 Oh, then it must, then that wasn’t the one I saw.
Kyle 09:31 You’re talking about my master’s thesis. So, the master’s thesis is Evidence Against its Historicity [of the Book of Mormon] based on its use of Davidic References.
GT 09:39 Yes.
Kyle 09:40 So the long and short of the argument is, I mean, cards on the table. I don’t believe that the Book of Mormon is a historical document. I believe it functions, obviously, in the Latter-day Saint tradition as scripture, but I don’t accept it as canon, and I don’t believe that it’s historical. So, one of the reasons, not the only one, but one of the reasons is the way that the author of the Book of Mormon treats David. It’s not great. And he’s very scantly referenced. And when he is, it’s usually pretty anti-David. He’s chastised for taking on concubines, for having plural wives. Potentially some of his psalms are alluded to or referenced in the Book of Mormon. And then there’s one last reference towards the end of the book where I think Nephites are being chased by Lamanites, and they come to the land of David, and then they move on. It’s a very passing reference. So, the question is, for me, if the Book of Mormon was written by Jews, and Davidic themes of kingship and the anticipation of a messiah descending from David, who’s going to take David’s throne in Zion for eternity, why has David suddenly fallen silent, as far as this side of the Hebrew tradition is concerned? So, that’s the long and short of it. There have been Latter-day Saints that have addressed my thesis.
GT 11:16 Ah.
GT 11:17 Yes. So you need to, if you read my thesis, don’t just read what I’ve written. There’s a guy named Jeff Lindsay. Jeff Lindsay critiqued the thesis in Interpreter and published that maybe a year after the thesis was done. And I agree with some of the things he says. I disagree with other things. But, to be frank, Strang, like I got way more interested in Strang. So yeah, so that’s the long and short of it.
GT 11:52 We’ll, go into a little bit of detail. What did Jeff Lindsay get right?
Kyle 11:56 Jeff Lindsay got right some of the shortcomings. I had some blinders on in my argument, namely, that because of the time that the Book of Mormon takes place, you already have a divided kingdom. And one kingdom might not like David, because he comes from Judea, and that kingdom would happen to be the people that would come over to the New World. So shouldn’t we expect that they’re not really all that interested in maintaining David’s legacy? Granted. And I think that’s a that’s a good argument. Where I would push back, though, is that you still have Jews in what Christians would call the intertestamental period between the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, the four or so centuries running up to Christ’s earthly ministry, in communities like Qumran that still find David to be extremely important. Are they from northern or southern kingdoms? Honestly, I’m ignorant as to whether they come from a Northern or Southern Kingdom tradition. Qumran I have no clue, no clue. But David is still important in that community. And he’s still really important in the New Testament, as well. And because the Book of Mormon is very keen to amplify core elements of the Messiah’s coming work and future reign, and because David is such an important foreshadowing and that type of that, that’s where I would push back a little bit.
GT 13:33 So you think David should be more important in the Book of Mormon than he is?
Kyle 13:37 I do. I think if it was authentically written by Hebrews, that he would play a more prominent role. Now, that’s making an assumption that I know what’s in their minds. That’s making an assumption that I know the precise function of David and their messianic anticipations. But the question is, if this was a common theme that’s running through the Old Testament into the New Testament, and even in the intertestamental period, notwithstanding them being from a different kingdom, why don’t we see something? And then when we do see something in the Book of Mormon, it’s negative. He’s being chastised for being a polygamist. So, that was the argument.
GT 14:16 You’re no polygamy fan, though, are you?
Kyle 14:18 Sorry. No, no, I’m not. Yeah. I’ve got beef against it, yeah.
GT 14:25 So would you expect the Book of Mormon to be more polygamous than it is?
Kyle 14:31 No, because the Book of Mormon itself makes the caveat that God permits and stays the practice, depending on whether or not he needs to raise up seed. So, within the scheme of the Book of Mormon, itself, I don’t buy the arguments that people are like, “Well, the Book of Mormon is anti-polygamy. So therefore, anything that happened in LDS history is going against its own scripture.” That’s not a fair reading of what the book, itself, is trying to argue. The book, itself, is trying to argue, I believe, why did Abraham practice polygamy, but we don’t? And the answer is because sometimes God commands it and other times he doesn’t. Now, [as a] Protestant pastor, ethically, I don’t like that. I have a problem with it. But within the system of Mormonism, itself, to say that the Book of Mormon is an anti-polygamy book, I don’t think it’s a strong argument.
GT 15:28 Oh, wow, that’s interesting. So that’s almost a defense. I don’t want to call you a defender of the Book of Mormon, but a little bit of a defense.
Kyle 15:34 It’s a complicated book.
GT 15:35 Yeah.
Kyle 15:36 And so, admittedly, if you’re–so you found my thesis on the internet. So, if you’re typing in Book of Mormon and Kyle Beshears, it’s probably not going to look too friendly with the Book of Mormon. But at the same time, I find the book absolutely fascinating. I view it as kind of like American pseudepigrapha. It’s informing us in a way that no other writing can, about the theological, doctrinal, and practical concerns that Christians had in the late 18th and early 19th century. It’s indispensable to American religious history. Who wrote it? I don’t know. I’m not going to wade into those waters. But I find it fascinating. When I read it as a Protestant, I find myself more often to be like, “Yeah, yes! I believe that.”
Evangelical-Mormon Relations
GT 16:31 Steve Pynakker has given a Protestant defense of the Book of Mormon and he said, “All of the distinctive LDS doctrines are not in the Book of Mormon.” Would you agree with that?
Kyle 16:40 I mean, a lot of them are not [in the Book of Mormon.] So, baptism for the dead, temple ordinances, you can only make, maybe, arguments from allusions or there’s maybe like an anticipation. But, at the same time, I don’t know. A lot of the distinct LDS doctrines–so we’ll say this: a lot of the Nauvoo doctrines are absent the Book of Mormon, which means if the Book of Mormon is coming out of, kind of like a Protestant context, what else would you expect? It is going to sound a little Protestant-y. But, yeah, there’s a lot about the Book of Mormon in its doctrinal statements, that as a Protestant, I have no problem with. It’s the historicity of the book that gives me pause, and the canonicity or its authority. How does it function in some kind of authority? Obviously, I reject it from the canon. And so, to me, the Book of Mormon comes in a family of other books that I would read in similar ways, like the apocrypha. Okay, I like the Apocrypha. I think it’s fascinating. I think it helps us understand the thought of people at a specific time about a specific topic and the Book of Mormon, for me, functions in that same way.
GT 17:54 So kind of Apocrypha, I guess that’s probably the best word for it, American Apocrypha.
Kyle 17:59 American Apocrypha. There’s a book called American Apocrypha, but yeah. I’m writing right now, a book, an introduction on Mormonism. And I’ve got two chapters, I think, on the Book of Mormon. So I think when people read it, I don’t know if I’m going to make anybody happy. I’ll just say it like that.
GT 18:22 You’re going to make evangelicals mad because you’re nice to it. And you’re going to make Mormons mad, because you’re not nice enough to it.
Kyle 18:27 Maybe something along those lines. I try to be kind. I want to be kind. Kindness as a fruit of the Spirit. And yeah, it’s the Book of Mormon is not the boogey man text [that] it’s made out to be from my tribe, but at the same time, as a Protestant, it’s not scripture to me.
GT 18:54 Well, I want to talk a little bit about interfaith relations. We’re here in Florida. We’re at the Christian Retreat, Miracle [Manor], a Christian retreat. And thank you, by the way. There’s nobody here but thank you for letting us use your facilities. This is really awesome. I’m very familiar with Mormon/Evangelical confrontation. I’m a little embarrassed about this. I used to seek them out, because I used to like to Bible Bash, as we called it.
Kyle 19:32 There is a whole sport at it. It feels a bit like a sport, sometimes, yeah.
GT 19:35 It really does. And it can be a lot of fun, especially as a young 19-year-old dumb missionary who thinks you know everything because you went to the MTC for three weeks. But one of the things is, it’s strange for LDS to have a Baptist preacher who’s an expert, like a real expert, especially in James Strang, which is weird enough, and we are going to get there. But can you talk about the relationships? It seems like you’re on some interfaith [groups] for better relationships between evangelicals and [Mormons.] I shouldn’t assume, do you consider yourself an evangelical?
Kyle 20:18 Yes, theologically not politically.
GT 20:20 Oh, interesting.
Kyle 20:21 Theologically, I’m Evangelical. And I would, when I say that, I’m drawing on like the Bebbington Quadrilateral, if you’re familiar with that or your listeners are familiar with that.
GT 20:31 I’m not.
Kyle 20:31 Okay. So within Protestantism, historically, to be considered evangelical, you [need to] check four boxes. One, you must subscribe to sola scriptura, which is [that] the Bible is the highest authority for interpreting all things. It’s not to get rid of tradition, but it’s just that the Bible is the top tradition. You need to be Christocentric or cruci-centric. There’s a heavy emphasis on repentance and atonement through the cross. You must experience some kind of born again [experience.] You must be born again in your salvation. And then, finally, your missional. So, the whole point of life, once you’ve been converted, is to love God holistically. Love neighbor as yourself and to proclaim the gospel in Word and deed.
GT 21:20 Would Mormon–so the first thing, sola scriptura, Mormons fail at that.
Kyle 21:25 Yes.
GT 21:25 Okay. But the other three sound pretty similar.
Kyle 21:28 I think a Latter-day Saints listening to the Bebbington quadrilateral would be, “I feel like I’m 75% of the way there.” It’s just that the sola scriptura one is–so when historians are looking at, okay, there’s there are differences between Methodists and Baptists and Congregationalists. But there was a theme that brought them together theologically, and it was those four things and that’s how historians classified evangelicalism, until like the last few decades. And then it was, in my opinion, appropriated to be a political term. I’ll just say this, when I read about evangelicalism in the political sphere on the internet, I struggled to see myself.
GT 22:14 Oh, wow.
Kyle 22:14 But theological evangelicalism is what I mean, when I say an evangelical. There are some people in our movement that are like, why would we even keep the term? I think there’s still purchase in the term, if we could retrieve/restore the ancient order of things; if we could retrieve whatever evangelical actually means. Right? It comes from the Greek evangelion, right? The Gospel, if we could retrieve that theological definition of evangelical, I’m all about that. And then what you do in your politicking is between you and your God. I’m not going to tell you how to vote, who to vote for, or why.
GT 23:00 The politics goes in there, and I’m not normally political, but I do kind of want to get there, because, as you said, evangelicals have really [aligned] with the Moral Majority and things like that.
Kyle 23:11 They were the Moral Majority.
GT 23:12 Yeah.
Kyle 23:12 I mean, there is no moral majority without evangelicals.
GT 23:16 But I’m not going to go there. I was going to go somewhere, but I’m not going to. But the question about abortion, LGBT; and actually, maybe I should ask this first. I said [that] you’re a Baptist pastor, but you said [that] you don’t preach in a Baptist church.
Kyle 23:36 So, I’m going to a nondenominational church. And when I say Baptist, I’m talking about from the Baptistic tradition. And the Baptistic tradition upholds scripture, sola scriptura. Right? So, we’re very Protestant. We believe in the local autonomy of the church. So, we’re not a part of a synod or a session or a presbytery, like a Methodist or Presbyterian would be. The churches stand alone. And then we believe in baptism. The only proper, objective baptism would be a consenting adult who makes a profession of faith. And the only proper mode of baptism would be full immersion. And that’s probably something Latter Day Saints would be like, “What else would there be?”
GT 24:16 Oh, well, we know Catholics sprinkle.
Kyle 24:19 Right. Well, in Catholicism, Presbyterianism, Methodism, Anglicanism, Lutheranism [they sprinkle;] actually, us dunkers are the odd ducks out when it comes to baptism.
GT 24:30 Yeah, well, but in America, the Evangelicals run everything, don’t they? The Catholics and Lutherans, I mean, I’ve had Willie Grills on, but even he has been [misidentified & misunderstood.] He lives in Arkansas. And he’s like, “Oh, this is kind of weird being a Lutheran.” People get Lutherans mixed up with Mormons and I’m like, “How in the world does that happen?”
Kyle 24:51 It is a pretty–that’s an interesting–I’d love to see that mash up. (Chuckling) That would be a fun church service to go to.
GT 25:01 So, you’re an independent Christian. Could we say that?
Kyle 25:05 Sure. I think that would accurately [describe me.]
GT 25:09 Are so, the fact that you’re on a Mormon-themed podcast, does that make you a heretic?
Kyle 25:15 No. Some people might think so. And I would hope they would give me their ear to share who I am. I want to be heard. And if they didn’t want to hear me, I don’t have time for that. I’m just going to move on. But no, I mean, the authorities that I have in my church are our elders. And so, if I came on here, and I [said], “Look. One of the things I really like about Latter-day Saints is they have a living prophet that could broaden the canon,” and I meant it, and I argued for it, I’d be out of the job. And rightly so.
GT 26:00 We could edit that just a certain way. (Chuckling)
Kyle 26:02 (Chuckling) Yeah, officially, I don’t believe that. But rightly so. Because that’s not the theological covenant that our community gathers around. And neither is that what they expect out of me as being a pastor and minister to them. So, the dialogue that I’ve been doing with students is actually, mainly students know, entirely students from our church, and we take them out to Utah. And we get with institutes around the area, and we learn about our neighbor.
GT 26:48 LDS Institutes of Religion.
Kyle 26:48 Yeah, yeah, thanks for clarifying that. At the end, fundamentally Jesus was asked, “What’s at the heart of the law?” He famously gave the greatest commandment, which is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. So this vertical relationship of holistic, pure love, and to love your neighbor like yourself, this [horizontal] kind of love of neighbor–the question I have is, how can you love somebody like yourself, if you don’t know them? Or if you think you know them, but it’s a caricature of them. When you’re dating, and you’re trying to discern whether or not this person across the table from you is going to be a good spouse, you don’t just talk about the things you agree on. And you don’t just let assumptions about who they are sit. Right? But neither do you just hammer on the differences between you two, right? Because that’s not going to go anywhere. So, I feel like, in the dialogue world, there’s this kind of tension of like, “Let’s just talk about the things we agree on.” Well, if the only thing me and my wife ever talked about when we agreed on, while dating, that’s not a foundation for a good relationship, because then we’re going to find out, really quickly, when we disagree. Right? If we only ever talked about what we disagreed on, there’s no room for a relationship.
GT 28:07 You would never get married.
Kyle 28:08 If I always just assume something about her and her of me, and I expect that to be there in the relationship, that’s not good, either. So, you do need to talk about what you agree on, you need to talk about what you disagree on, and you need to have the uncomfortable conversations of, “Can you help me get rid of this caricature?” And that takes trust. And our faith communities don’t have a lot of it between each other. Because when I have a conversation with a Latter-day Saint, I know some of them are thinking, “Yeah, but he really is just trying to coax me out of my church.” And frankly, sometimes I feel the same way. Right? I’ve had conversations with missionaries that are like, “No, no, we just want to talk.” “No, you want to bag a Baptist pastor, and take me to the taxidermy when you get back to Utah and ‘Look what I got.'”
GT 28:57 Absolutely right.
Kyle 28:58 So I get it. We’re humans, right? I don’t know. I prefer a way that allows me to understand who my neighbor is, so I can love them like myself, and to let the Holy Spirit do what he does after that.
GT 29:15 Well, I want to ask two questions before we move on to James Strang. But the first question is, it does seem like sometimes Mormon-Evangelical relations can be very contentious. Do you have advice for evangelicals, when dealing with Mormons?
Kyle 29:35 Advice for Evangelicals when dealing with Mormons: first of all, they are your neighbors who you’re supposed to love like yourself. Bottom line, that’s not a suggestion. That’s a commandment from Jesus as he’s clarifying what’s at the core of the law. Right? There’s no excuse for you not to love your neighbor. If you’re not doing it, then you’re sinning. If you’re saying I’m not sinning, God told me to overthrow the money changers tables and no, you’re not Jesus. Like, stop. Stop all of that. Just stop.
GT 30:05 There are a lot of people who do quote that, like, “Well, Jesus got mad, so I can get mad.”
Kyle 30:10 Okay, he got mad. A) He’s the son of God. Okay, if he wants to do that, he can. B) To whom was he angry with? It was people in his own household. He didn’t flip tables in Samaria. He flipped tables in Jerusalem, so that’s okay. So, the anger that he was directed at was cleaning his own house, not the people that he thought were different from him, or you know, like Samaritans or these people that they didn’t consider as part of his faith tradition. Second, I would highly recommend that you learn about the Latter-day Saint tradition from multiple sources. Don’t just read evangelicals. And I’m saying this, as an Evangelical writing a book on Mormonism. Don’t just read what I write. I’ve got blinders, and I have prejudices. And anybody that says they don’t, is foolish. They’re either ignorant, or they’re lying, or they’ve got some kind of agenda. Right? So, I hope you’ll notice in my footnotes, there are very few evangelical voices that come up.
GT 31:15 And let me just mention it here really quickly. I was really impressed that, in your thesis, you quoted Noel Reynolds, who is a friend of mine. He’s a former temple president at the Mt. Timpanogos Temple. He teaches at BYU, and I was like, “Holy cow. You’ve got to really research to find somebody like that, because he’s not Terryl Givens. He’s not Richard Bushman.” But I was like, “Wow. He’s really studied to quote Noel Reynolds.”
Kyle 31:43 You have to read what they’re saying. I think there’s this hidden assumption that whatever a Latter -day Saint says is dubious, or deceptive, or they’re doing it because they’re they’re lying. I’ll just be frank. It’s in the water about how a lot of evangelicals think about Latter-day Saints. Am I saying that every single Latter-day Saint you’ll ever come across is going to tell you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but? No! Because Latter-day Saints are sinners, just like evangelicals are sinners. We’re all in this fallen world together. The project of getting to know one’s neighbor as yourself, though, requires trust and building and one of the ways you can do that is by reading sources from the other, that they lean on and they respect and they listen to. So, if I’m going up to an average Latter-day Saint, and they’ve been really informed by like James Falconer and Terryl Givens and Richard Bushman, and I’m like, “Who are those guys? Hey, this is what Walter Martin said in Kingdom of the Cults.” How far is that conversation going to go? And it should terminate quickly, because what are you going to talk about? You’re just going to butt heads the whole time.
GT 32:54 Right.
Kyle 32:55 Okay? Go read Bushman. Go read Falconer. Go read Givens. And you’re going to disagree. But that’s okay. Because you’re understanding what they’re reading and what’s influencing them and how they think. I love to read those. I’ve never met him before, I would love to meet him one day, Terryl Givens.
GT 33:17 Terryl is awesome.
Kyle 33:18 I believe it. I believe it. He’s one of the best writers I’ve ever read.
GT 33:24 He’s an English professor.
Kyle 33:26 It’s great. I’ll be like reading along, and then boom, I hit this huge bump in the road for me. I’m like, “Oh, I disagree.” In the margins of his books that I’ve read, are just littered with my own notes. I want to meet him so badly. Right? Like, it’s not like I need to see the playbook of the other side.
GT 33:53 Now, I think you’re coming to Utah. I’ll see if I can arrange a meeting.
Kyle 33:56 Oh, I would love it. I would love it. Anyway, it’s not trying to, like, raid an arsenal to find ammunition to shoot at your neighbors. [It’s] to try to understand who they are and not to shy away from differences. There are several differences between the Latter-day Saints and Protestant traditions, namely theological. But also, to capitalize on building relationships with somebody that formerly would have been so foreign to you, that your initial reaction is to reject or to think of as an enemy. That has to stop. You don’t have to join the church. You don’t have to become Mormon. You have to love them, though. You have to love them. It’s not an option. And so, you can play this out across a ton of different groups. Right? We can do this with Islam. We can do this with Hinduism. I’m only one person. Latter-day Saints are really interesting to me. That’s the wheelhouse I decided to enter into. I hope that answers the question.
GT 35:19 No, that’s very good. Very good. The other question I wanted to ask is the opposite of that. You’re probably going to be talking to a lot of Latter-day Saints here. What do we get wrong about evangelicals that we should do a better job?
Kyle 35:34 Yeah. So I think one of the things is that evangelicalism–and it’s effective because of the culture we live in. Evangelicalism is not what you see in the news in totality. Right? So, if I was to tell you, think of the average white, evangelical male. All of a sudden, what’s going to come up in the list is going to be political leanings and decisions. How are they voting? No, I hope that’s not the first thing that comes up. The first thing that should come up is…
GT 36:06 Well, in a lot of ways, we vote the same way, Mormons and evangelicals. Right?
Kyle 36:09 But what I hope for is [that] a set of theological convictions comes up. Because not all of evangelicals are the same. So, this is one of the biggest shocks of Evangelicals learning about Latter-day Saints. It looks like this monolithic, correlated structure from the outside. Then when you walk in, you’re like, what? You’ve got three Mormons and four opinions in one room, right?
GT 36:40 That doesn’t happen in church, though. There only one opinion at church. (Chuckling)
Kyle 36:42 Okay, only one opinion. I’ll leave that to you. (Chuckling) So, there is diversity within evangelicalism. And I think, secondly, we do it to ourselves. I’m not going to say that the caricatures of evangelicalism, theologically speaking, aren’t founded in reality. Probably the biggest one is the cheap grace. Evangelicals believe [that] you’ve just got to assent to the gospel, and then God covers you/gives you a ticket to heaven and you can go to the party. As long as you make it back in time before the train leaves, you can get back on and go to heaven. [That’s] absolutely not true. The term cheap grace, itself, was coined by Bonhoeffer who was an Evangelical, Protestant, Lutheran pastor under Nazi Germany. So, we do believe good works are important. And so I come–the caricature of evangelicalism–again, I’m not saying it’s not grounded in reality. As a pastor, trust me, I see it. But true evangelicalism is not going to tolerate a disciple who’s not pursuing holiness, and not actively seeking fruit of the Holy Spirit being born into their life. So, I get in those conversations, I think, with Latter-day Saints from time to time. And then another one is the doctrine of sola scriptura. That’s a big misunderstanding in Latter-day Saint traditions. Sola scriptura does not mean solo Scriptura, as in the Bible, only. It means the Bible atop.
GT 38:33 On top of what?
Kyle 38:34 [On top of] tradition, theology, creeds, confessions, those types of things. At the end of the day, it’s the Bible that has the final say. Now, I understand, “Well, how do you interpret it? How do you–who says what?” I get it. I get it, I get it, but starting at the basics, evangelicals don’t derive doctrine only from the Bible. The Bible is the primary source for doctrine, and it is the chief authority against which we check doctrine. And I find that to be a foreign concept with Latter-day Saints. And it helps to go in conversations with authority. Because, at the end of the day, frankly, the core difference between evangelicals and Latter-day Saints is issues surrounding authority. Like who is God? Who gets to say so? And we started at two different points that set us on two different trajectories. So, if we could get to understanding each other’s starting points for authority, [that] would be very helpful. I know there’s a ton there. There’s a ton there.
GT 39:42 I want to go with that authority just a little bit more. I was going to move on.
Kyle 39:44 Yeah, of course.
GT 39:46 What do you mean by authority, then? Because LDS are like, “We had Peter, James and John come and gave us authority.” But you don’t view authority in the same way.
Kyle 39:59 As in apostolic authority? So, all right. Now we’ve got to lay out the dictionaries and define terms. This is another fun thing about LDS and Evangelical dialogues. What do you mean by that word? Yeah, so Peter, James, and John have authority in the fact that they’re apostles, and the epistles that they’ve written to us survive in the New Testament. And that’s where their authority, for me today, sits. I believe Peter, James and John are a part of the Great Cloud of witnesses, like Revelation has this vision about them. Incorporated into their names, the very structure of the City of God, they have great authority. Right? So, for me as a pastor, and in our church, the Bible is the chief authority. We don’t have a pope. We don’t have a prophet or anything like that. If Peter, James and John showed up to me, and said, “Hey, we’re going to do something new.” I would freak out.
Kyle 41:05 I’d be like, “Timeout. What? Who are you? And why are you here?” And the first thing I would do is check it against what Peter, James and John had already written in the New Testament. I’m always going to bee-line to what does the Bible say about this? So for me, a Protestant/evangelical, the Bible has got the first and final say. The Bible is very much a part of the conversation in Latter-day Saint thought. It doesn’t have the final say. There’s a constellation of sources of authority that have the final say, the Prophet, the canon, which includes the Bible, and even direct revelation to the individual plays into that chorus as well. So, I don’t know if that answered the question.
GT 41:54 Well, I mean, we had a conversation earlier today. It sounded like with you, you went to the theological seminary, and you got your authority through your degree, right, to be a pastor?
Kyle 42:10 No.
GT 42:11 No?
Kyle 42:11 No. So the authority that I have to shepherd–it’s not my church. Right? It’s God’s Church. The authority I have comes on loan from God. Jesus gives the authority. It’s His church. The Gates of Hell are not going to prevail against MY church, not yours, not anybody’s, it’s mine. And this is a really big thing for Latter-day Saints. Like, “Look. We’ve got Jesus Christ’s name on the door.”
GT 42:41 Jesus Christ came. Peter, James and John [came.] We’ve got authority. That’s how we look at it.
Kyle 42:45 Right. Right. So, for us, the Holy Spirit gives authority. The Holy Spirit’s the one that chooses who’s going to shepherd churches. The authority that I have as an ordained minister comes through the body of elders at our church. So, we would view it as ultimately sourced in the will of God, communicated to us through the Holy Spirit, who also inspired scripture. The scripture is God-breathed and distributed to those that he has called to lead his church through a body of elders. And that’s part and parcel of being Baptistic. That’s like, we don’t get our authority, like I don’t have the bishop. I don’t have a presbyter. There’s nobody over our church. What we do is…
GT 43:45 You’re the head guy.
Kyle 43:46 No, Jesus is the head guy.
GT 43:49 You’re the head guy under Jesus.
Kyle 43:50 In my position, specifically at the church, no, I have one above me.
GT 43:54 Okay.
Kyle 43:54 So, you could think of me as one of the counselors of the bishop, if that makes [sense.]
GT 44:01 Who’s above you?
Kyle 44:03 The lead pastor of the church.
GT 44:05 Oh, so you’re assistant pastor.
Kyle 44:07 I’m a campus pastor. So, we have two locations. You have multiple congregations that meet in the same meeting house. I’m the pastor of one of those congregations. But we are geographically separated. I’m trying to Google Translate here, ecclesiology.
GT 44:30 The other pastor is over you?
Kyle 44:32 Yes, I report to him. And so really, it’s multi-directional, for me, to whom I report. I report to him. I report horizontally. I’ve got fellow pastors that I’m watching and they’re watching me and then I report corporately to a body of elders, as well.
GT 44:55 All right. Well, we could keep going on, and maybe when you come back, we might dive into more Bible stuff because I have a lot of questions I would love to ask.
{End of Part 1}
transcript to follow
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