Some of you may remember a while ago we had Ned Scharisbrick from the FairMormon Podcast do an episode responding to some articles on this blog. This was a great chance to have some online communication with Ned. In the process of this he very kindly offered to have me go on his podcast and have some dialogue with him. Ned runs an episode called the 4th watch, looking out for challenges and criticisms of the Mormon faith.
For those who dont know Fair is the Foundation for Apologetics information and Research and is one of the main organizations defending Mormonism from a faithful LDS perspective.
Well this week that episode went online on the Fairblog Podcast. You can find the episode here, or listen on the audio file below.
I very much appreciated Ned having me on, and I think this was a good example of respectful dialogue. I will let the episode speak for itself rather than offering some commentary on it myself, but we discussed the issue of what does it mean to be saved.
One thing I would say is in the introduction to the episode text it says this:
Mr. Gilpen comes from the evangelical Calvinist tradition of Christianity and the term ‘anti’ may come across as disrespectful to those who are actually kind to members of the LDS Church. The term anti in this discussion is used to represent those who are against or openly opposed to the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, much as the term “pro” could be used for those who agree with or openly promote the teachings of the LDS Church.
I appreciate the explanation of what Anti-Mormon means here but I am still sad to see this used, I think it would be much more helpful if those engaged in LDS Apologetics start to publically state the difference between those that are LDS Critics and Anti-Mormons. As many Mormons maybe even to this episode will switch off when they see this term. Anti-Mormons in the mind of many Mormons refers to people who are opposed to them as people and are to be avoided, this is by no means what I am, and I think Ned does appreciate this.
However again all of that said I very much appreciate Ned having me on and I look forward to any comments that may come.
