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The New Mormon Challenge: Responding to the Latest Defenses of a Fast-Growing Movement
Written by an international team of respected Christian scholars, this freshly researched rebuttal of Mormon truth will aid those sharing the gospel with Mormons and those investigating Mormonism on their own. It will help readers to accurately understand Mormonism through biblical, historical, scientific, philosophical, and theological discussions.
538 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 1, 2002
21 people are currently reading
99 people want to read
About the author
Francis J. Beckwith
57 books28 followersFrancis J. Beckwith is Professor of Philosophy & Church-State Studies at Baylor University, where he also serves as Associate Director of the Graduate Program in Philosophy and Co-Director of the Program on Philosophical Studies of Religion in Baylor’s Institute for Studies of Religion (ISR). With his appointment in the Department of Philosophy, he also teaches courses in the Departments of Political Science and Religion as well as the J. M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies, where he served as its Associate Director from July 2003 until January 2007.
Born in 1960 in New York City, Professor Beckwith grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada, the eldest of the four children of Harold (“Pat”) and Elizabeth Beckwith. He graduated in 1974 from St. Viator’s Elementary School and in 1978 from Bishop Gorman High School, where he was a three-sport letterman and a member of the 1978 Nevada State AAA Basketball Championship Team.
In 2008-09 he served on the faculty of the University of Notre Dame as the Mary Ann Remick Senior Visiting Fellow in Notre Dame’s Center for Ethics & Culture. A 2002-03 Research Fellow in the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions in the Department of Politics at Princeton University, Professor Beckwith currently serves as a member of Princeton’s James Madison Society. He has also held full-time faculty appointments at Trinity International University (1997-2002), Whittier College (1996-97), and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (1989-96).
A graduate of Fordham University (Ph.D. and M.A. in philosophy), he also holds the Master of Juridical Studies (M.J.S.) degree from the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, where he won a CALI Award for Academic Excellence in Reproductive Control Seminar.
He has served on the executive committees of both the Society of Christian Philosophers (1999-2002) and the Evangelical Philosophical Society (1998-2003) as well as on the national board of the University Faculty for Life (1999-present). The 57th President of the Evangelical Theological Society (November 2006-May 2007) , Professor Beckwith served from 2005 through 2008 as a member of the American Philosophical Association’s Committee on Philosophy and Law. In January 2008 he was selected as the 2007 Person of the Year by Inside the Vatican Magazine.
Born in 1960 in New York City, Professor Beckwith grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada, the eldest of the four children of Harold (“Pat”) and Elizabeth Beckwith. He graduated in 1974 from St. Viator’s Elementary School and in 1978 from Bishop Gorman High School, where he was a three-sport letterman and a member of the 1978 Nevada State AAA Basketball Championship Team.
In 2008-09 he served on the faculty of the University of Notre Dame as the Mary Ann Remick Senior Visiting Fellow in Notre Dame’s Center for Ethics & Culture. A 2002-03 Research Fellow in the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions in the Department of Politics at Princeton University, Professor Beckwith currently serves as a member of Princeton’s James Madison Society. He has also held full-time faculty appointments at Trinity International University (1997-2002), Whittier College (1996-97), and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (1989-96).
A graduate of Fordham University (Ph.D. and M.A. in philosophy), he also holds the Master of Juridical Studies (M.J.S.) degree from the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, where he won a CALI Award for Academic Excellence in Reproductive Control Seminar.
He has served on the executive committees of both the Society of Christian Philosophers (1999-2002) and the Evangelical Philosophical Society (1998-2003) as well as on the national board of the University Faculty for Life (1999-present). The 57th President of the Evangelical Theological Society (November 2006-May 2007) , Professor Beckwith served from 2005 through 2008 as a member of the American Philosophical Association’s Committee on Philosophy and Law. In January 2008 he was selected as the 2007 Person of the Year by Inside the Vatican Magazine.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
February 10, 2015
I read this book because of all the praise it received from believers and non-believers alike on the respectfulness of its tone and the intellectual and scholarly nature if its approach to Latter-Day Saint (Mormon) theology and doctrine. I was greatly disappointed to find that the tone of this book was not respectful nor was the approach very intellectual or scholarly.
This project claims to be an attempt to respond to the growing body of scholarly work from LDS academia, specifically it purports to be an attempt to address the problem of intellectual criticisms not keeping pace with the academic work being done to support LDS truth claims. Most notably, The New Mormon Challenge claims to present new intellectual challenges to fundamental LDS beliefs. Instead of achieving this, however, TNMC often misrepresents LDS beliefs or takes the teachings of a minority few within the LDS faith and wrongfully elevates them to the position of mainstream fundamental doctrine. In this way, TNMC largely constructs straw men out of long held criticisms and then refutes them with very intellectual sounding arguments.
The first few essays devote much to the LDS rejection of creation ex nihilo. The TNMC authors take LDS teachings regarding the WORLD being created (or "organized") out of existing matter and wrongfully expand that to a false LDS claim that the universe is infinite without external cause and that God is a finite being contained within it. They claim LDS support for this argument by citing a couple of 19th-century LDS authors and ignore the ubiquitous teachings by contemporary Mormons of God as an eternal being, from everlasting to everlasting, without beginning or end, etc. etc. etc.
It is true that it is held by common LDS belief today that this Earth was created out of materials that already existed in the surrounding universe (this, by the way, is in line with current scientific knowledge on the origins of the Earth), however, this is hardly a principle fundamental to our faith and cannot be justifiably expanded to include the entire rest of the universe being created in the same manner. We readily acknowledge that, as mortals, we are severely limited in our understanding of God's works and expect that we will have many of the details wrong when all is eventually revealed. Furthermore, LDS doctrine makes no requirement whatsoever that the universe in which we live be infinite in its existence or that God be contained within it. Rather, a more careful examination of LDS doctrine reveals exactly the opposite, a universe that was expressly designed and created by an omnipotent, eternal, and loving God for the benefit of mankind.
The false premise of LDS belief in an infinite universe and a finite God is established in the initial essays of TNMC and then is reused as an axiom to formulate or reinforce subsequent arguments, greatly weakening many of the "challenges" throughout the book.
The 7th essay is devoted entirely to refuting the writings of Orson Pratt. The essay's author, J.P. Moreland, admits in his introductory remarks that "Pratt's writings are not theologically normative for Mormon thought, and indeed, some of his views are considered heretical." This admission begs the question: why was it included in a work intended to challenge the fundamentals of LDS doctrine?
In the 9th essay, Craig Blomberg states that "Mormonism is clearly not Christian, nor has it ever claimed to be so" because the World Book Encyclopedia says that "Most followers of Christianity, called Christians, are members of one of three major groups - Roman Catholic, protestant, or Eastern Orthodox."
The 10th essay expends considerable effort in pointing out that possible Hebrew roots for names throughout the Book of Mormon may possibly be of an origin other than Hebrew. The Hebrew origin of names is not a fundamental LDS basis for belief in the Book of Mormon, nor is it even a principal argument presented by LDS scholars supporting its claim to be of ancient Hebrew origin. It is circumstantial at best and admittedly so by the LDS scholars who have put it forth. The refutation in TNMC is equally circumstantial and does not approach being evidence against the Book of Mormon's purported origins. This amounts to another specious refutation of a very ancillary claim that bears little to no weight in the overall LDS belief system, again very far from fundamental.
When pressed about what Latter-Day Saints believe, Joseph Smith penned what is now known by believers as the 13 Articles of Faith (http://www.mormon.org/beliefs/article...). Some of these that I would consider to be more fundamental are as follows:
1. We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.
3. We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.
LDS fundamental doctrine is as follows: Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He lived a perfect mortal life as an example for us and then, being without sin, suffered greatly and died for all of our sins in the ultimate act of love, service, and sacrifice. He resurrected and is now a real and living being. He overcame spiritual and temporal death for us. He is the only way whereby we can attain Eternal Life. It is only through following Him that we can be saved. He is the Savior of the mankind.
This fundamental doctrine is supremely Christian and I expect that many evangelicals would find little wrong in it. I see little use in creating grand disputes over the finer points of our varying doctrines. The introduction to The New Mormon Challenge is titled "A Much-needed and Challenging Book." I see the work as an unnecessary attack on a people who share the same central and fundamental beliefs as the authors. TNMC authors describe the work as being needed largely because of the perceived threat the LDS Church poses to evangelical churches. I propose and invite Mormons and Evagelicals to stop seeing each other as competitors in a sport where we seek validation of our beliefs by the number of people we can convert and instead as allies in an effort to spread the the Spirit, influence, and knowledge of Christ throughout the world.
This project claims to be an attempt to respond to the growing body of scholarly work from LDS academia, specifically it purports to be an attempt to address the problem of intellectual criticisms not keeping pace with the academic work being done to support LDS truth claims. Most notably, The New Mormon Challenge claims to present new intellectual challenges to fundamental LDS beliefs. Instead of achieving this, however, TNMC often misrepresents LDS beliefs or takes the teachings of a minority few within the LDS faith and wrongfully elevates them to the position of mainstream fundamental doctrine. In this way, TNMC largely constructs straw men out of long held criticisms and then refutes them with very intellectual sounding arguments.
The first few essays devote much to the LDS rejection of creation ex nihilo. The TNMC authors take LDS teachings regarding the WORLD being created (or "organized") out of existing matter and wrongfully expand that to a false LDS claim that the universe is infinite without external cause and that God is a finite being contained within it. They claim LDS support for this argument by citing a couple of 19th-century LDS authors and ignore the ubiquitous teachings by contemporary Mormons of God as an eternal being, from everlasting to everlasting, without beginning or end, etc. etc. etc.
It is true that it is held by common LDS belief today that this Earth was created out of materials that already existed in the surrounding universe (this, by the way, is in line with current scientific knowledge on the origins of the Earth), however, this is hardly a principle fundamental to our faith and cannot be justifiably expanded to include the entire rest of the universe being created in the same manner. We readily acknowledge that, as mortals, we are severely limited in our understanding of God's works and expect that we will have many of the details wrong when all is eventually revealed. Furthermore, LDS doctrine makes no requirement whatsoever that the universe in which we live be infinite in its existence or that God be contained within it. Rather, a more careful examination of LDS doctrine reveals exactly the opposite, a universe that was expressly designed and created by an omnipotent, eternal, and loving God for the benefit of mankind.
The false premise of LDS belief in an infinite universe and a finite God is established in the initial essays of TNMC and then is reused as an axiom to formulate or reinforce subsequent arguments, greatly weakening many of the "challenges" throughout the book.
The 7th essay is devoted entirely to refuting the writings of Orson Pratt. The essay's author, J.P. Moreland, admits in his introductory remarks that "Pratt's writings are not theologically normative for Mormon thought, and indeed, some of his views are considered heretical." This admission begs the question: why was it included in a work intended to challenge the fundamentals of LDS doctrine?
In the 9th essay, Craig Blomberg states that "Mormonism is clearly not Christian, nor has it ever claimed to be so" because the World Book Encyclopedia says that "Most followers of Christianity, called Christians, are members of one of three major groups - Roman Catholic, protestant, or Eastern Orthodox."
The 10th essay expends considerable effort in pointing out that possible Hebrew roots for names throughout the Book of Mormon may possibly be of an origin other than Hebrew. The Hebrew origin of names is not a fundamental LDS basis for belief in the Book of Mormon, nor is it even a principal argument presented by LDS scholars supporting its claim to be of ancient Hebrew origin. It is circumstantial at best and admittedly so by the LDS scholars who have put it forth. The refutation in TNMC is equally circumstantial and does not approach being evidence against the Book of Mormon's purported origins. This amounts to another specious refutation of a very ancillary claim that bears little to no weight in the overall LDS belief system, again very far from fundamental.
When pressed about what Latter-Day Saints believe, Joseph Smith penned what is now known by believers as the 13 Articles of Faith (http://www.mormon.org/beliefs/article...). Some of these that I would consider to be more fundamental are as follows:
1. We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.
3. We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.
LDS fundamental doctrine is as follows: Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He lived a perfect mortal life as an example for us and then, being without sin, suffered greatly and died for all of our sins in the ultimate act of love, service, and sacrifice. He resurrected and is now a real and living being. He overcame spiritual and temporal death for us. He is the only way whereby we can attain Eternal Life. It is only through following Him that we can be saved. He is the Savior of the mankind.
This fundamental doctrine is supremely Christian and I expect that many evangelicals would find little wrong in it. I see little use in creating grand disputes over the finer points of our varying doctrines. The introduction to The New Mormon Challenge is titled "A Much-needed and Challenging Book." I see the work as an unnecessary attack on a people who share the same central and fundamental beliefs as the authors. TNMC authors describe the work as being needed largely because of the perceived threat the LDS Church poses to evangelical churches. I propose and invite Mormons and Evagelicals to stop seeing each other as competitors in a sport where we seek validation of our beliefs by the number of people we can convert and instead as allies in an effort to spread the the Spirit, influence, and knowledge of Christ throughout the world.
June 14, 2020
This is a scholarly work, or at least if for the average reader, a work that requires much study and most likely, access to a dictionary for some of its toughest academic passages. Nevertheless, it is a volume of information that is vital to the discussion between traditional Christians, and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormons). In my opinion, it brings out many important details of both the differences and similarities between the two sides in the discussion and well worth the read-especially for the wealth of sources included in the footnotes.
March 11, 2016
As a Latter-day Saint I appreciate the effort put forth by the various non-Mormon authors contributing to this book. Certainly, there are issues I disagree with, but I believe this is probably the most fair critique of Mormonism from a mainstream Christian perspective currently available. A must-read for any person interested in interfaith discussion with Latter-day Saints, particularly scholars.
March 16, 2013
An excellent and thorough look at the claims of Mormonism and its defenders. The authors give sophisticated and well thought out arguments against Mormon apologists in a civil and respectful manner that is all too lacking in more popular critiques of Mormonism. I would recommend this book to any sincere seeker of truth whether they be Mormon, Christian, or non-believer.
January 14, 2014
This is an excellent introduction (though not introductory–level) to the current state of LDS apologetic scholarship and, by extension, the evangelical–LDS dialogue. All of the authors make compelling arguments worth a response, though not all major defenses of Mormonism are discussed due to limited space. This is a must read on par with Brodie's "No Man Know My History" if you are following or a part of the evangelical-LDS dialogue.
February 10, 2017
This book was tremendously informative regarding the subtle differences between Christianity and Mormonism. However, if you are looking for a book full of "knockdown arguments" for the Mormon that comes to your door, this is not it. The New Mormon Challenge is far more useful for the Christian scholar that is seeking to approach Mormonism with intellectual honesty.
June 26, 2008
This is a book that critiques Mormon belief but takes it seriously intellectually, in an unprecedented way. The contributors discuss Mormonism vs traditional Christianity, covering much ground and including a hefty dose of philosophy!
August 20, 2015
One of the few anti-Mormon books worth reading. Written by scholars, not born-again Billy Bob.
August 6, 2016
If you ever wondered what would happen if analytical philosophers from a Christian persuasion tackled the mormon worldview from this standpoint, you would want to read this book. Very good.
October 15, 2016
Super helpful resource for understanding the differences between biblical Christianity and the LDS church.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews