LDS, evangelical experts talk
Robert L. Millet, professor of ancient scriptures and of religious understanding at BYU, and the Rev. Gregory Johnson, ordained Conservative Baptist minister, shared a stage at Christ United Methodist Church, 2375 E. 3300 South. Several hundred attended the event, which was the 46th in a series of such public discourses the men have presented over the years.
Johnson said he was raised in the LDS faith until he was in his 14th year, when he had "a born-again experience" and became an Evangelical.
He asked Millet about LDS beliefs concerning grace and work; that is, whether a person is saved by grace or if good works are necessary. The Evangelicals believe in the former, he noted.
"I think there is a tendency among Latter-day Saints ... we're into doing and we're into accomplishment," he said. "The question isn't how much you do. ... The question really becomes for me, in whom do I trust and on whom do I rely?"
But with accepting the gift, he said, he can serve. Jesus said in the Gospels, Come with me, deny yourself, Millet added. He asked followers to take up the cross and follow, and said to follow the commandments. It's not sufficient to say one believes and then act any way one wishes.
But works themselves won't save a person, he said. He could not save himself without God's grace. "I don't think I can deliver enough doughnuts or candy or bread to ever pull that off," he added.
Johnson asked why LDS people are talking so much about Jesus nowadays, when he did not think they used to.
Millet replied that in the 1970s, then-Church President Spencer W. Kimball initiated a scriptural study program. The four-year cycle has borne fruits, he indicated. "Our young people know the New Testament so much better than they did" about a quarter-century ago.
He asked Johnson about surveys that have indicated "born-again Christians" aren't so different in their personal lives.
"Grace is the unearned, undeserved favor of God," said Johnson, and one has to receive it. But then, he said, "There is a call to following Jesus."
According to Johnson, "Christianity is not a path to ease. ... Living for Jesus Christ is going to require we offer ourselves to him as a living sacrifice."
Millet said Mormons are prone to point to the quote from the Apostle Paul that says people should work out their own salvation "with fear and trembling."
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