Abrahamic Faith
Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and Russell Moore, Dean of the School of Theology and Senior Vice-President for Academic Administration of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, are living demonstrations of the theological diversity of the SBC. The former is an example of cultural captivity, the latter of biblical fidelity.
On Sunday, Moore posted on his blog a thoughtful and provocative piece on professing Mormon Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally on the National Mall the previous day. In it, he decried American evangelicals’ dearth of discernment that has led them to embrace Beck’s potpourri of religio-nationalistic rhetoric at the expense of the gospel.
On Monday, Land was interviewed on NPR’s All Things Considered explaining why he spoke at the rally. He admitted that most evangelicals would not consider Mormonism a Christian faith and noted that he probably has more in common theologically with Barack Obama than with Glenn Beck.
But his most interesting statement came later in the interview when he noted, “I think perhaps the most charitable way for an evangelical Christian to look at Mormonism is to look at Mormonism as the fourth Abrahamic faith.”
This was Land’s way of connecting the historical roots of Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Mormonism, but it’s worth noting that neither Jesus nor the Apostle Paul share his view. According to them, there is one Abrahamic faith, unified under one common denominator (see Matthew 3:9, John 8:38-40, Romans 9:6-8, Galatians 3:7-9, Galatians 3:16-17).
