New Mormon Challenge, The [Paperback]

Francis Beckwith (Editor), Carl Mosser (Editor), Paul Owen (Editor), Richard J. Mouw (Foreword)

Book Description

Release date: February 19, 2002

Current facts about Mormonism *Over 11 million members. *Over 60,000 full-time missionaries---more than any other single missionary-sending organization in the world. *More than 310,000 converts annually. *As many as eighty percent of converts come from Protestant backgrounds. (In Mormon circles, the saying is, 'We baptize a Baptist church every week.') *Within fifteen years, the numbers of missionaries and converts will roughly double. *Within eighty years, with adherents exceeding 267 million, Mormonism could become the first world-religion to arise since Islam. You may know the statistics. What you probably don't know are the advances the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) is making in apologetics and academic respectability. With superb training, Mormon scholars outclass many of their opponents. Arguments against Mormon claims are increasingly refuted as outdated, misinformed, or poorly argued. The New Mormon Challenge is a response to the burgeoning challenge of scholarly Mormon apologetics. Written by a team of respected Christian scholars, it is free of caricature, sensationalism, and diatribe. The respectful tone and responsible, rigorous, yet readable scholarship set this book in a class of its own. The New Mormon Challenge recycles no previous material and duplicates no one's efforts. Instead, responding to the best LDS scholarship, it offers freshly researched and well-documented rebuttals of Mormon truth claims. Most of the chapter topics have never been addressed, and the criticisms and arguments are almost entirely new. But The New Mormon Challenge does not merely challenge Mormon beliefs; it offers the LDS Church and her members ways to move forward. The New Mormon Challenge will help you understand the intellectual appeal of Mormonism, and it will reveal many of the fundamental weaknesses of the Mormon worldview. Whether you are sharing the gospel with Mormons or are investigating Mormonism for yourself, this book will help you accurately understand Mormonism and see the superiority of the historic Christian faith. Outstanding scholarship and sound methodology make this an ideal textbook. The biblical, historical, scientific, philosophical, and theological discussions are fascinating and will appeal to Christians and Mormons alike. Exemplifying Christian scholarship at its best, The New Mormon Challenge pioneers a new genre of literature on Mormonism. The Editors Francis J. Beckwith (Ph.D., Fordham University), Carl Mosser (Ph.D. candidate, University of St. Andrews), and Paul Owen (Ph.D., University of Edinburgh) are respected authorities on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the authors of various books and significant articles on Mormonism. Their individual biographies as well as information on the book's contributors appear inside. With contributors including such respected scholars as Craig L. Blomberg, William Lane Craig, J. P. Moreland, and others, The New Mormon Challenge is, as Richard Mouw states in his foreword, 'an important event for both Protestant evangelicals and Mormons' that models 'to the evangelical community what it is like to engage in respectful and meaningful exploration of a viewpoint with which we disagree on key points.' 'In recent years, Mormon scholars have produced a body of literature that has been largely ignored by evangelicals. This current volume takes a giant step forward in correcting this oversight in a way that is both intellectually vigorous, yet respectful.' ---Ken Mulholland, President, Salt Lake Theological Seminary 'Intellectually serious evangelical responses to the faith of the Latter-day Saints have been depressingly rare. This book represents a significant contribution to a conversation that, really, has just begun.' ---Daniel Peterson, Brigham Young University; Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS) 'Finally we have a book from evangelicals in which the authors have made

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Current facts about Mormonism • Over 11 million members. • Over 60,000 full-time missionaries—more than any other single missionary-sending organization in the world. • More than 310,000 converts annually. • As many as eighty percent of converts come from Protestant backgrounds. (In Mormon circles, the saying is, "We baptize a Baptist church every week.") • Within fifteen years, the numbers of missionaries and converts will roughly double. • Within eighty years, with adherents exceeding 267 million, Mormonism could become the first world-religion to arise since Islam.

You may know the statistics. What you probably don’t know are the advances the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) is making in apologetics and academic respectability.

With superb training, Mormon scholars outclass many of their opponents. Arguments against Mormon claims are increasingly refuted as outdated, misinformed, or poorly argued.

The New Mormon Challenge is a response to the burgeoning challenge of scholarly Mormon apologetics. Written by a team of respected Christian scholars, it is free of caricature, sensationalism, and diatribe. The respectful tone and responsible, rigorous, yet readable scholarship set this book in a class of its own.

The New Mormon Challenge recycles no previous material and duplicates no one’s efforts. Instead, responding to the best LDS scholarship, it offers freshly researched and well-documented rebuttals of Mormon truth claims. Most of the chapter topics have never been addressed, and the criticisms and arguments are almost entirely new. But The New Mormon Challenge does not merely challenge Mormon beliefs; it offers the LDS Church and her members ways to move forward.

The New Mormon Challenge will help you understand the intellectual appeal of Mormonism, and it will reveal many of the fundamental weaknesses of the Mormon worldview. Whether you are sharing the gospel with Mormons or are investigating Mormonism for yourself, this book will help you accurately understand Mormonism and see the superiority of the historic Christian faith. Outstanding scholarship and sound methodology make this an ideal textbook. The biblical, historical, scientific, philosophical, and theological discussions are fascinating and will appeal to Christians and Mormons alike. Exemplifying Christian scholarship at its best, The New Mormon Challenge pioneers a new genre of literature on Mormonism.

The Editors Francis J. Beckwith (Ph.D., Fordham University), Carl Mosser (Ph.D. candidate, University of St. Andrews), and Paul Owen (Ph.D., University of Edinburgh) are respected authorities on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the authors of various books and significant articles on Mormonism. Their individual biographies as well as information on the book’s contributors appear inside.

With contributors including such respected scholars as Craig L. Blomberg, William Lane Craig, J. P. Moreland, and others, The New Mormon Challenge is, as Richard Mouw states in his foreword, "an important event for both Protestant evangelicals and Mormons" that models "to the evangelical community what it is like to engage in respectful and meaningful exploration of a viewpoint with which we disagree on key points."

"In recent years, Mormon scholars have produced a body of literature that has been largely ignored by evangelicals. This current volume takes a giant step forward in correcting this oversight in a way that is both intellectually vigorous, yet respectful." —Ken Mulholland, President, Salt Lake Theological Seminary

"Intellectually serious evangelical responses to the faith of the Latter-day Saints have been depressingly rare. This book represents a significant contribution to a conversation that, really, has just begun." —Daniel Peterson, Brigham Young University; Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS)

"Finally we have a book from evangelicals in which the authors have made a good-faith effort to accurately represent the range of Mormon beliefs. I believe this book is the best effort to date by evangelicals to assess and critique Mormon worldviews." —Blake Ostler, LDS philosopher, author of Exploring Mormon Thought: The Attributes of God

"I applaud the sensitivity and understanding invested in this enormous work." —Ravi Zacharias "This impressive new book makes every earlier evaluation of Mormonism outdated. The book sets a new standard in evangelical discussions of Mormon beliefs." —Dr. Ronald Nash, Reformed Theological Seminary (Orlando) and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville)

". . . displays an admirable grasp of primary sources and a commitment to genuine courtesy, combined with an unflinching desire to remain faithful to Scripture." —D. A. Carson, Research Professor of New Testament, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

"What an important book! Evangelical scholars have joined together to pay Mormonism the high compliment of a serious, contemporary evaluation. This is not a volume of ‘Anti-Mormon’ rhetoric, but rather a thoughtful, scholarly interaction in the tradition of How Wide the Divide? While theologically sophisticated, this is nonetheless an accessible book that will assist readers of all kinds to respond effectively to the new Mormon challenge. It is a book that demands a response." —Rev. Gregory Johnson, President, Standing Together Ministries, Orem, Utah

See additional endorsements inside.

About the Author

Francis J. Beckwith is Professor of Philosophy and Church-State Studies, and Resident Scholar in the Institute for Studies of Religion, at Baylor University. He is a former president of the Evangelical Theological Society, resigning his post in May 2007 a week after returning to the Catholic Church of his youth. He has published in the areas of political philosophy, jurisprudence, applied ethics, philosophy of religion, and Christian apologetics.

Carl Mosser (PhD candidate, University of St. Andrews) has published significant articles on Mormonism in both evangelical and Mormon journals.

Paul Owen (PhD, University of Edinburgh) is assistant professor of Bible and religion at Montreat College. He has published significant articles on Mormonism in both evangelical and Mormon journals. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 544 pages
• Publisher: Zondervan; 1st edition (February 19, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0310231949
• ISBN-13: 978-0310231943
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 1.7 x 9.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #600,722 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

75 of 82 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Improvement in Evangelical Depiction of LDS Belief June 12, 2002

By Kevin K. Winters

Format:Paperback

I will start by stating that I am LDS, a student at BYU (Philosophy under-grad) and have been active in Apologetics for nearly four years now. I was privileged to be in the audience in Salt Lake City when, earlier this year, five of the contributors (including the 3 editors) spoke on this book, their contributions/papers and their hopes for it. I was pleasantly surprised by what I found in these presentations and the tone with which the presenters approached their topics. I say "pleasantly surprised" because I was not necessarily expecting the high degree of civility and integrity with which these presenters approached Mormonism (I was hoping for it but was not fully expecting it; I was, in all honesty, expecting the worst and was relieved to find it different than I had previously conceived). I was particularly impressed with Francis Beckwith and was delighted with the chance to meet him (I was reading through his and Stephen Parrish's _The Mormon Concept of God: A Philosophical Analysis_ at the time and was, and currently am, preparing a critique of that said work).

This book stands as a vast improvement of LDS-critical literature and, overall, I would be hard pressed to place it in the category of "anti-Mormon" due to its general tone and approach. The term "anti," in LDS Apologetics, quite often holds a negative connotation, not inherent in the words general meaning, including, among other things, uninformed, illogical, poor scholarship, overly-antagonistic, incredibly biased, etc., none of which I can fully attribute to this work. Its academic tone is refreshing and its allowances for further dialogue on the issues (rather than dogmatic pronouncements of the complete error of our ways and the desolate nature of our attempts to answer their critiques) is encouraging. The writers speak their minds in a respectful manner and by-and-large are open for further dialogue, something often lacking in much LDS-critical literature.

With that said, this work is not perfect. Despite the author's best intentions, there are occasional misrepresentations of LDS beliefs, utilization of weak arguments that most LDS philosophers/scholars would not hold, etc. This is to be expected, though, as the dialogue between LDS scholars and Evangelical scholars is still in its infancy. This is being remedied as the Society of Biblical Literature will now set apart a special section within their annual meetings for Evangelical-LDS discussion on various topics. Likewise, the increase of conferences in relation to things-LDS (such as Yale's upcoming conference on LDS Philosophy in 2003) will only help further dialogue and increase understanding between the two groups (something that is still sorely needed). Further, this work, and the responses currently being made towards it, should stand as a good impetus for further dialogue.

I am thankful for the three editors (Beckwith, Owen and Mosser) for their desire to create such a work to bring genuine, and heart-felt, scholarship to the fore in Evangelical-LDS discussion. I am also thankful for the contributors, for the time and energy that they put into their individual chapters. I just hope that LDS responses will be given in the same charitable spirit as this book is given and that dialogue will continue to increase in quantity and quality.

91 of 110 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Has its good parts but is philosophically deep October 20, 2002

By E. Johnson

Format:Paperback

If anything can be said about The New Mormon Challenge (henceforth TNMC), it has to be that it is sure to create controversy. After all, never before have so many different Christian scholars attempted to respond-in one volume, even-to Brigham Young University professors as well as LDS apologists.

The position taken by the editors assumes that the words of LDS scholars or even the personal beliefs of the laity may supercede that of the First Presidency and Council of the Twelve. For the average Mormon, truth is contained in the four standard works and the current words of the leaders. When one of the editors, Carl Mosser, says that "evangelical apologists" are "jealously" guarding a type of Mormonism that is not believed by Mormons, I ask if Mosser believes the majority of Mormons would hold to the following beliefs: 1) The idea that "As man is, God once was; as God is, man may become; 2) The idea that temple work is essential to reaching the highest level of the celestial kingdom; 3) The idea that ultimate truth is to be found in the Standard Works as well as the LDS prophet and apostles; 4) The idea that a person must be baptized in the Mormon Church to have an authentic baptismal experience; 5) The idea that Joseph Smith and succeeding church leaders were given complete authority on earth; 6) The idea that the Mormon Church is the most trustworthy church in the world.

The list could go on. The point is that I have no doubt that no less than 80 percent of all Latter-day Saints would immediately agree with me that the above six points as fully being Mormon doctrine. I am not sure why Mosser makes a blanket statement to make it appear that Christians involved with LDS outreaches are making up their own brand of Mormonism-a straw man, so to speak-so they can more easily tear the religion down. This, I believe, is just not accurate.

While the editors would like the Christian community to direct more effort to respond to the scholarly LDS community while paying less attention to the teachings of LDS leaders, they forget one very important point. That is, the Mormon Church is considered to be a restoration of the Christianity that is said to have died soon after the time of the apostles. When Joseph Smith was supposedly given the keys of this authority by Peter, James, John, and even by God the Father and Jesus, it is believed by most Mormons that he was personally given the authority the church lost more than a millennium ago.

Indeed, Smith's own history records that the Christian churches "were all wrong" (Joseph Smith-History 1:19). Succeeding leaders have made it a point to declare that there is no true church on the face of the earth except for the Mormon Church itself. Currently Mormons hold that all authority rests with current LDS President Gordon B. Hinckley, his First Presidency, and the apostles. For a vast majority of Latter-day Saints, what a certain BYU professor or FARMS scholar says does not mean half as much as what President Hinckley says, especially at the general conference.

So my question is why focus on the scholars when most LDS members direct their attention of the Standard Works and LDS leadership? (Strange, but I wonder why the Mormon high school seminary students merely study the Bible, D&C, and Book of Mormon during their four years of study. I don't see them studying "Church Scholars.")

Who is this book intended to reach? Perhaps it was meant as a discussion for the scholars. No doubt it will be a great resource for seminary professors and some pastors. It will probably also be a great asset to Christian apologists.

Yet I just don't see how TNMC-though attracting LDS intellectuals to the table of discussion-will have a wide impact on the general LDS community. I doubt most Mormons will ever even hear of this book, let alone pick it up in their lifetime. It can be safely said that the majority of Mormons are too busy with families, church-related activities, donating their time in church ministry, etc. to even care what the scholars, either Mormon or Christian, declare is truth. The Mormon has a burning in his bosom, and no scholar could ever alter this "fact" regardless of the available evidence.

Its depth will probably confuse many readers who do not have a considerable grasp of the book's technical language related to philosophy, logic, and science. Those Christians who buy TNMC thinking it is a witnessing-tip manual will be sorely disappointed as the arguments will be unintelligible to the average Mormon.

With this being said, I need to temper my criticism by saying there are many important arguments raised in TNMC that will be beneficial for many Christians. The best chapters were 3 (Kalam Argument), 8 (Monotheism and the New Testament), and 10 (Book of Mormon and Ancient Near Eastern Background). As far as recommending this book, I would certainly do so for those who are more learned in the fields of philosophy, theology, and the background of the Mormon Church. However, this is not meant to be a popular book or one that can be easily digested by the majority of Christian and Mormon laity. Thus, for such people, I would think that TNMC will have very little impact since much of the material will sail over their heads. Based on this, each reader needs to make a personal choice...

50 of 59 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Academic essays which take Mormonism seriously! February 16, 2002

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

I highly recommend this book to intellectual Christians and Mormons, whether involved professionally and/or personally with their faiths. No longer can Christian academia be accused of publicly ignoring Mormon apologetic efforts. This book offers a serious, massively end-noted response by impeccable Christian scholars to important issues raised by the Latter-day Saints' academic community. Several indices and a glossary of terms are included for referencing. What follows is a brief summary of the book's topics:

Paul Copan and William Craig relay a brilliant defense of Christianity's view of God's creation ex nihilo in contrast to the Mormon belief of the world's organization from eternally existing matter.

Jim Adams examines the evidence for Mormon belief in pre-existence and eternality of human souls, and of the gods in general, in light of the teachings of the Old Testament.

Stephan Parrish and Francis Beckwith deal with moral law, the human/divine freedom of choice, and how they relate to the Mormon and Christian concepts of God.

J.P. Moreland dissects Orson Pratt's view of humanity and its dependence on material existence.

Paul Owens looks at monotheism from the perspective of the New Testament and how it contradicts the published views of several prominent Mormon scholars.

Craig Blomberg takes up the question of whether or not Mormonism is Christian.

The final section of the book focuses on the Book of Mormon, evalutating it on the basis of linguistics in the ancient Near East (Thomas Finley) and by contrasting principles of translation with possibilities of pseudotranslation (David Shepherd).

For those who crave detailed and cogent arguments, intellectual stimulation, and thoughtful interaction in Christian and Mormon apologetics, look no further than this book and ENJOY!