The Other Council of Nicaea

What 'The Chosen,' Latter-day Saints, and an 8th-Century Debate Teach Us About Seeing Jesus

Jonathan Roumie playing his role as Jesus Christ. (Courtesy of The Chosen)

Confession time: I hadn’t ever planned on watching The Chosen.

Truth is, I’d never heard of the show until an Latter-day Saint (or ‘Mormon’) acquaintance mentioned it in passing. “Oh, you’d love it,” he insisted. I nodded politely and promptly forgot about it. I don’t watch much television, and I was vaguely aware there were controversies swirling around some Jesus series.

That was enough to keep it off my radar.

Then came that one time I met the show’s director, Dallas Jenkins, at an event in Utah. Still, that didn’t change my mind. I’d seen the first episode of the first season and a few snippets out of polite obligation before meeting Dallas. He seemed like a nice enough guy, passionate about his work, but I had books to read, papers and sermons to write. TV Jesus could wait.

But the recommendations multiplied. A close friend. A family member. Each conversation carried the earnest, “You really need to watch this.”

It was actually a pastoral counseling session that finally broke through my resistance. A congregant, eyes reddened, confided something I never thought I’d hear: “I don’t think I really believed in Jesus until I watched The Chosen.”

What?

That’s when I knew I had to watch it.

I’m all caught up now.

My conclusion? I can see exactly why this show has attracted both the admiration and the angst it has.

The Return of the Icon Wars

The Chosen has drawn praise from across denominational lines, but it hasn’t escaped controversy, especially among evangelicals. Some raise concerns about its behind-the-scenes ties, such as its production relationship with Angel Studios, a company with deep roots in Latter-day Saint circles. Others point to a pride flag spotted on set and worry about doctrinal drift. But underneath all these debates lies a deeper unease, one that has stirred Christians for centuries: Should anyone portray Jesus Christ at all?

That’s the real fault line. The concern isn’t just about the show’s dialogue or artistic choices. It’s about mere human embodiment of the divine incarnation. Can any actor—no matter how sincere, no matter how skillful—play the Son of God without bending the viewer’s imagination away from the Word made flesh and toward a particular face, voice, and gesture?

The more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve realized we’ve been here before.

In 787 AD, another controversy was tearing through the church, and it centered in Nicaea. No, not the Nicaean council of Trinitarian fame—the other Council of Nicaea. This one wasn’t debating Christ’s divinity, but whether Christians could make images of Christ at all.

The iconoclasts, as they were called, believed that any visual representation of the divine was inherently blasphemous, a violation of the second commandment against graven images. Because Jesus is truly God, to paint Christ’s face is to reduced the infinite to the finite. Carve his likeness, and you’ve committed idolatry.

But the iconodules (literally, “image-venerators”) disagreed. Since Christ became visible, he could be visibly represented. More than that, images actually helped believers connect with God, especially those who couldn’t read. Icons weren’t barriers to worship; rather, they were doorways.

“Christ Pantocrator,” 6th c. icon from Saint Catherine’s Monastery (Sinai). A preserved example of the type of Christ image that Byzantine Emperor Leo III condemned during the iconoclast controversy, which led to the Second Council of Nicaea (787).

Here’s what both sides agreed on: the danger was real. Even the iconodules insisted that images must serve Scripture, not compete with it. They weren’t advocating artistic free-for-all, but measured use of visual aids that pointed beyond themselves to the truth of the Gospels.

So, essentially, Nicaea II asked: Does an image of Christ draw the heart toward Him or away from Him? Does it clarify or confuse? Serve or supplement?

This debate has since raged for generations, despite being ‘officially’ settled in the seventh ecumenical council (the iconodules won). Still, later rulers destroyed countless works of art. Monks died defending their painted prayers. Families split over painted wood and colored glass. Iconoclasts hurled bricks through British cathedral stained glass. Yankee Puritan chapels were built as painfully plain as possible.

Sound familiar? It should.

The debates surrounding The Chosen echo that same tension. Can the sacred be made visible without being diminished? Can portrayal serve reverence or will it always risk replacing it?

I’m convinced the questions raised at Nicaea II haven’t gone away; rather, they’ve just migrated from paintings and sculptures to digital screens.

Seeing Christ: Then and Now

I’ve been particularly fascinated watching this play out especially because of the Latter-day Saint element. Here’s a faith tradition that has rarely shied away from visual theology, e.g., angel Moroni weathervane for the Nauvoo temple, astronomical symbols on the Salt Lake temple, and C.C.A. Christensen’s religious artwork. Today, you’ll find religious murals in meetinghouses, logos featuring the Christus statue, and church magazines that regularly feature artistic depictions of biblical scenes. Yet, to be frank, from my perspective it seems The Chosen, an evangelical-produced series, has stirred many Latter-day Saints in ways that even their own static art has not.

The logo of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints featuring the Danish Lutheran artist Bertel Thorvaldsen’s Christus statue (1833).

The difference, I think, is movement. And dialogue. And the terrifying intimacy of watching someone be Jesus rather than simply depict him. The Chosen makes Jesus approachable in ways centuries of religious art never quite managed, at least not to us moderns.

So, it’s a bit surreal to see how strikingly stark the reception is between Latter-day Saints and evangelicals. Many of my fellow evangelicals—especially those concerned with biblical fidelity—reject the show outright. Meanwhile, many Latter-day Saints I know have embraced it, not just as good television but as something spiritually meaningful. They talk about Jesus like they’ve read Gentle and Lowly.

Some evangelicals see this and leap to conspiracy, as if The Chosen is some crypto-Mormon plot to infiltrate evangelical circles (or, at least, it’s proof-positive that something’s afoul with BigEva). “I am the Law” was, supposedly, the smoking gun. (Hint: It’s not.)

Admittedly, as a pastor, here’s what I find actually troubling: the number of people—whether evangelical or Latter-day Saint or Roman Catholic or whatever—who seem to encounter Jesus for the first time through a television show rather than through the Gospels themselves. That’s not The Chosen’s fault. No, that’s an indictment of how we’ve been teaching the Bible. If people need Jonathan Roumie to make Jesus real to them, then perhaps we should ask why our exposition of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John has left Jesus feeling distant and abstract.

But that’s not the concern I’m hearing from most evangelicals, not the self-reflective kind we should be having. Rather, it’s the “The Chosen is a Trojan horse” argument because ‘Mormons’ like it. I think this is foolish. To assume that shared appreciation of The Chosen between evangelicals and Latter-day Saints equals theological alignment is a category error. The Gospels stand on their own, and they often portray outsiders—women, centurions, Samaritans—recognizing Christ. We shouldn’t be surprised if others resonate with this portrayal of Jesus, even if their own Christology diverts from traditional orthodoxy, e.g., Mormonism’s aversion to things like Trinitarianism, Christ’s homoousion nature, and theotokos. Let’s not confuse doctrinal purity with evangelistic sterility.

What I see is perhaps much simpler and far more powerful. I see the Lord using this show to introduce all viewers to a Jesus who is “gentle and lowly in heart” (Matthew 11:29). Not as a caricature, but as a living, moving, speaking presence who heals and touches and weeps and loves.

Yes, people can and should encounter that Jesus in the Gospels first and foremost. That’s where He’s revealed most clearly, not to mention most inspiredly, infallibly, and inerrantly. I’ll triple-down here, just to avoid being misunderstood: I believe only the Bible is God-breathed (see 2 Timothy 3:16), and only in the Bible do we have Christ’s words without error (see John 17:17). So, to be crystal clear, I’m not arguing that Scripture is the only place someone can begin to encounter Jesus; rather, it’s the only place we can be confident we are encountering Him as He truly is.

But if merely reading the Gospels were always sufficient, we wouldn’t need to exegete them. We wouldn’t gather weekly to sit under exposition. We wouldn’t write commentaries, lead small groups, or train pastors to teach the Word with clarity and conviction.

The concern that The Chosen might “replace” the Gospels misunderstands how evangelical Christianity has always operated. We’ve never claimed that Scripture needs no explanation, no illustration, no imagination, only that it needs no addition (i.e., sola Scriptura). There’s a difference. Good presentations of the Gospel don’t add to the Word of God in an authoritative sense. Every evangelical preacher risks “adding” to the Gospel the moment they provide context. But “adding” and “illuminating” are not the same thing. Rather, good portrayals of the Gospels open their message to the hearer. The best preaching, for example, gives the Gospels shape, tone, and application.

So does good art, when rightly ordered under the authority of God’s Word. And this is where The Chosen fits—not above Scripture, not beside it, but beneath it, as a subordinate work of Christian imagination. It’s also where The Chosen gives its audience the responsibility to be a Berean and ‘see if these things are not so’ in the show by searching the Scriptures.

As Nicaea II shows us, if God is invisible (see 1 Timothy 1:17), and no one has seen the Father (see John 1:18), then Christ is the visible image of the invisible God (see Colossians 1:15), the Word made flesh who dwelt among us (see John 1:14). His incarnation invites us to imagine—not invent, but imagine—the Son of God not only as transcendent but immanent. Not just as glory in heaven but as a man with dirt on his feet.

In that sense, a physical depiction of Jesus is not an attempt to limit the divine, but to acknowledge that the divine willingly limited Himself for our sake. The Chosen, then, is not a new gospel or even a supplement to the old. To his great credit, Dallas has been extremely clear on this point. Rather, it’s an imagination-stirring reflection on what it might have felt like when “Jesus wept,” when He touched the leper, when He let the little children come to Him (my favorite episode).

That reflection, however, must remain subordinate to the Bible and never function as a theological lens in its own right. Its value lies not in what it reveals, but in how it stirs us to return to what has already been revealed.

So, the question is whether those imaginative portrayals of Christ help anyone hear the Word more clearly.

Word and Image in Reformation Thought

The Reformers, too, understood this tension. Martin Luther strongly warned against idolatry, but he believed it was primarily a matter of the heart, not the eyes. “When they [images] are no longer in the heart,” he wrote, “they can do no harm when seen with the eyes” (LW 40:84). He permitted crucifixes and paintings of Christ as long as they were not adored. For him, images could instruct, comfort, and help the faithful (especially for the illiterate) so long as they did not become objects of misplaced trust.

John Calvin, by contrast, was more cautious. He argued that any depiction of Christ violated the Second Commandment. Even the Incarnation, he believed, did not legitimize human representations of Jesus because to represent Christ’s glorified body was to confine the divine. For Calvin, even sincere attempts to picture Christ risked distorting Him.

In my opinion, this places Calvin out-of-step with Nicaea II, and is, perhaps, why the most vehement criticism from The Chosen comes from Calvinistic evangelicals, especially Reformed Baptists. I’m not trying to throw shade. I’m a huge fan of Calvin and consult him often, but it’s ok to disagree with him every once in a while.

Anyway, here’s where both men agreed—idolatry is not ultimately about visible things; rather, it’s about invisible desires. A painting is not an idol until a heart makes it one (see Ezekiel 14:3). Even in Exodus 32, the golden calf wasn’t an idol because it was gold; it was an idol because Israel trusted it. As Paul puts it, “we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7), but that’s not a ban on seeing. No, it’s a warning against replacing faith with sight.

So, Should We Watch?

For me, then, the question isn’t whether it’s right or not for The Chosen to depict Jesus. The question is whether it replaces Him, distorts Him, or draws hearts toward or away from the Jesus of the Bible. That’s the Lutheran logic worth retrieving.

We should be cautious, absolutely. But we should also be consistent. If we reject every dramatized or imaginative engagement with the Gospels on the grounds that ‘the text should be enough,’ we’ll need to carry that logic a lot further than we probably want. So long, C.S. Lewis and The Jesus Storybook Bible. Goodbye, commentaries. Farewell, expository sermons. While we’re at it, toss out missionary storytelling and Sunday School flannelgraphs, too. What’s left is a kind of bare-bones hermeneutic dressed up as faithfulness, but it’s not how the church has historically treated the Word. The standard isn’t “Did this dramatize?” The standard is: “Does this clarify Christ, or obscure Him?”

We should, of course, prefer the page to the screen 100% of the time. The Chosen is no substitute for the Gospels. And you should be cautious about creative portrayals. That’s wise. But let’s not pretend that caution is the same thing as maturity, or that reverence for the text demands rejection of every effort to help others feel what that text reveals. Because at some point, this skepticism starts sounding less like discernment and more like a retreat into a kind of 19th-century common-sense rationalist Biblicism that fears anything outside black ink and white paper.

And besides, if the goal is to get people into the Gospels, The Chosen has shown to be a pretty effective on-ramp. There’s something compelling about the visual and audio portrayal of a messiah-carpenter with a Galilean accent saying, “Follow me.”

The Chosen isn’t perfect, but neither were the icons that survived the iconoclastic destruction. What matters is whether they serve their purpose: helping us see more clearly, love more deeply, and follow more faithfully.

No image can ever fully capture the Lord Jesus Christ, but some may cause us to look again at the One who truly saves.

From where I sit, The Chosen is doing exactly that. I don’t particularly love the show, to be honest, but I don’t hate it either. And Dallas has been clear that his show isn’t the main act, but rather a creative finger pointing.

If it’s pointing to Jesus—and pointing clearly—then I say, let it point.

Sneak Peek: 40 Questions About Mormonism Cover Reveal! 👀

Hey friends!

I’ve been busy wrapping up edits on 40 Questions About Mormonism. The manuscript is in its final rounds now, and typesetting is expected to begin later this summer.

Meantime, I wanted to give you a first look at the cover. 👀

(Scroll below for the tl;dr)

Thank you for following me on this long journey. Whether you’re evangelical, Latter-day Saint, or something else altogether, you’ve supported me along the way, and for that, I’m very grateful.

Thank you. Seriously.

A bit of ‘insider info’ about the cover:

I wanted to avoid the typical imagery—Salt Lake Temple shots or clean-cut missionaries with name tags—without settling for something abstract or forgettable.

I really admired the work of Jorge Cocco, an Argentine Latter-day Saint artist known for painting both LDS and biblical scenes in his unique “sacrocubist” style.

My book will feature his “I Saw Another Angel Fly.”

For those familiar with Mormonism, the image will instantly feel recognizable: a heralding Moroni, trumpet raised, holding the Book of Mormon. For those unfamiliar, I think the painting is peculiar and arresting enough to stir curiosity.

What do you think of the cover?

Thanks again for all your support over the years, especially those who’ve read early drafts and offered such thoughtful feedback.

I’m deeply grateful.

Blessings!

"Victims Of Their Religious Beliefs"

Why 'The God Makers' Has Endured In the Evangelical Imagination

It had to have been 6th grade—maybe 7th?—when I first watched it. Someone rolled in a TV cart to the church youth room, popped in the VHS, and dimmed the lights like they were a substitute teacher about to Bill Nye the Science Guy their way through the day.

After a brief splash of static, the title screen appeared:

I was familiar with Mormonism, though only in the way evangelicals kids were in the ‘90s and early ‘00s: vaguely, suspiciously. My only real connection was a souvenir copy of the Book of Mormon I’d found years earlier on my grandfather’s bookshelf, wedged in between mechanical engineering textbooks and copies of National Geographic.

I was the member of a typical early-2000s youth group: half doctrine, half dodgeball, all End Times anxiety. Audio Adrenaline in the background when parents were around; P.O.D. when they weren’t. We were warned about secular music, Ouija boards, and cults.

Especially cults.

So, The God Makers hit like a horror film wrapped in a sermon. Animated demons. Secret rituals. Claims that Mormons believe God lived on a planet near the star Kolob, that Jesus was a polygamist, and good Mormon men get to become gods of their own worlds and have lots of spirit babies with all their wives.

It felt scandalous, urgent… like we’d just been shown the Top Secret schemes of spiritual deception.

Looking back, I don’t remember the finer theological points. But I certainly remember how I felt. I was as much shocked as I was empowered. And, if I’m honest, I felt justified above all. I didn’t even really believe what I was suppose to as an evangelical, but at least I didn’t believe that. (“God, I thank You that I am not like the Mormons.”)

Fast-forward twenty-five years. An evangelical friend who knows I study Latter-day Saint history sent me the old animated clip from The God Makers on YouTube.

“Have you seen this?” they asked.

A thousand times, I thought.

That got me wondering: Why did The God Makers, a low-budget, sensationalistic exposé, find such a lasting place among evangelical churches from the 80s through today?

The God What-ers?

Ok, let’s back up.

If you’ve never had the pleasure—or the spiritual whiplash—of watching The God Makers, I don’t blame you. But in 80s and 90s evangelicalism, it was everywhere.

The original 1982 film, The God Makers, opens with a tone of emergency. (Fun fact: it premiered at John MacArthur’s church.) Narrated by Ed Decker—a former Latter-day Saint-turned-zealous-counter-cult-crusader—the film is part documentary, part docu-drama, part cartoon theology lesson. It claims to reveal what Mormon missionaries won’t tell you until it’s too late. The real story behind the white shirts, bright smiles, and family values.

There’s a live-action framing device—an earnest young man questioning his Mormon faith—and then, infamously, the cartoon. That animated segment did all the theological heavy lifting: Kolob, Elohim, spirit wives, secret handshakes, Jesus and his kid brother Lucifer. Watching it as an evangelical teen, I didn’t understand how any of that fit together. I just knew it was weird, and weird meant wrong.

That’s what captured my attention. Not the logic, nor the doctrine… not even the danger. It was the strangeness. Mormonism wasn’t just a little off. According to The God Makers, it was something else entirely. A cult.

Maybe the cult.

If The God Makers was trying to steer evangelical kids like me away from Mormonism, it had done its job. For a season, anyway. Years later, I got curious. I read more, especially the Book of Mormon. I spent time with LDS missionaries (and even a bishop) who tried hard. But to their deep frustration, the more I listened, the more I leaned into historic Christian orthodoxy instead. Still, The God Makers gave me more than nuance. It gave me VHS certainty.

Back to the original question: What’s the reason behind The God Makers staying power in evangelicalism? I think there’s at least four reasons why.

From The God Makers, Joseph Smith delicately handles 40–60 lbs of gold like its a stack of pancakes.

1. Exposés Make Viewers Feel Like an Insider

Christian exposés of Mormonism aren’t novel. They’ve been around since practically the beginning, e.g., Eber D. Howe’s Mormonism Unvailed (1834). Barely a generation has passed without a new one. What set The God Makers apart wasn’t that it was an exposé. It was how it exposed, and when.

The film was framed masterfully as VIP sneak behind the curtain, promising to unmask a secretive organization. The structure—former Mormons revealing shocking truths—made viewers feel like insiders. Promotional materials promised to penetrate a ‘veil of secrecy’ and reveal a ‘hidden worldwide agenda.’

And the content delivered: temple garments (“holy Mormon underwear”), secret rituals reenacted, doctrines of godhood, celestial marriage, and eternal sex. It wasn’t just the strangeness. It was the suggestion that Latter-day Saints were hiding it all. For evangelicals already hardwired to value truth and reject deception (see 2 Timothy 4:3–4), that made it feel spiritually urgent. The film didn’t just inform. It gave us permission to be suspicious.

Granted, back then, the LDS Church was much more coy about its unique history and beliefs—it was ‘anti-Mormon’ to talk about seer stones and temple rituals. The God Makes didn’t fabricate those ideas wholesale. But the framing is deliberately lurid, exaggerated, and orphaned from context in a way that the filmmakers knew would shape evangelical perception less around understand and more around fear. They froze our impressions of Mormonism at the most sensational level, which is why the film comes across so cringy, even by 80s standards. And even as the LDS Church has shifted in recent years—“I am a Mormon” campaign, more transparency, changes to the endowment, etc—many evangelicals stayed frozen in their God Makers framework, not because their concerns about Mormonism are baseless, but because they hadn’t been challenged to revisit them with generosity, curiosity, or attention to change.

2. It Surfaced During Peak Satanic Panic

Second, think about the air The God Makers was breathing. The early 1980s were thick with fear, not just of cults like Jonestown, but of something closer to home. This was the dawn of the Satanic Panic.

Books like Michelle Remembers (1980) raised the alarm on purported Satanic ritual abuse, and prime-time specials ran with it. Talk shows warned of evil rituals in daycare basements. Suddenly, exorcism movies looked more like documentaries than horror fiction. The Dungeons & Dragons manual was lowkey a spell book, or at least that’s what I was told. And who didn’t play Pink Floyd backward to hear devilish whispers?

Layer onto that the surge of End Times fervor, sparked by Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth and edged into overdrive by books like 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988. (He was wrong, btw.) A wave of apocalyptic preaching swept through the 80s and 90s. For many evangelicals, the clock was ticking down. Deception wasn’t just a spiritual danger; rather, it was a sign that the world was hurtling toward the rise of Antichrist. And if Christ was coming soon, you’d better not be caught following a cult when he showed up.

Into this atmosphere stepped The God Makers. Ed Decker linked Mormonism to the Satanic Panic by suggesting the name “Mormon” was linked to a demon called Mormo from Anton LaVey’s The Satanic Bible. And the temple rituals portrayed in the film were framed as occultic. So, for evangelicals already on edge about End Times deception, The God Makers didn’t just resonate with the moment—it amplified it.

3. For Many, It Was the First and Last Words on Mormonism

Third, and maybe most consequentially, The God Makers was the first introduction many evangelicals had to Mormonism.

There were other books, to be sure. Jerald and Sandra Tanner were busy researching and writing. Walter Martin was on the radio, and his Kingdom of the Cults was the gold standard. But The God Makers had something different: accessibility. It was visual and dramatic. And it circulated through trusted evangelical networks, screened in churches, stocked in Christian bookstores, backed by counter-cult ministries.

For many, it was the first time they learned that Mormonism taught a different view of God, that Joseph Smith had a controversial past, that temple rituals existed. The information was real—some of it exaggerated, some of it distorted—but the impact was undeniable. It gave people categories and language to understand Mormonism, and that left a massive imprint.

For those who never revisited the topic again, that first word was also the final one. So, when loved ones later asked about Mormonism, The God Makers became a trusted, go-to resource.

4. It Cemented the “Cult” Category for Mormonism

Finally, the film did what exposés are often designed to do: draw a line. And it did so with a single word… cult.

After Jonestown (1978), that word carried more than theological weight. It meant manipulation, control, and danger. The God Makers leaned into that. Not just doctrinal differences, but deception.

For evangelicals wrestling with the seeming wholesomeness of Mormon neighbors—their kindness, their morality, their family values—the film provided a framework. They may look Christian, but they’re not. They sound biblical, but they’re not. They’re the nicest cult on earth—a sentiment that echoes to this day.

And for evangelicals, who hold to a faith that defines itself by fidelity to the gospel of grace, that line clarified everything. The God Makers didn’t just inform; rather, it reinforced boundaries. It told evangelicals it wasn’t merely okay to keep their distance, it was righteous to do so.

From The God Makers, a very inaccurate depiction of Joseph Smith because we have the daguerreotype now.

Victims of Belief

The sequel, The God Makers II, came out in 1983. It’s lesser known, but even more sensational. The final minutes, though, are surprisingly subdued. After all the conspiracy, all the fear, the narrator offers a quiet appeal.

He calls Mormons “victims of their religious beliefs.” That line has stuck with me.

Because beneath all the panic and polemic, that was the core message: not that Mormons were the enemy, but that they were deceived. Trapped, and in need of rescue.

If The God Makers warned evangelicals away from Mormonism, The God Makers II encouraged us toward it, however awkwardly. And maybe that’s why The God Makers still lingers in the evangelical imagination. It wasn’t just about exposing error; rather, it was about protecting people. It played to our love of truth, yes, but also, at its best moments, to our love of neighbor, in the way evangelicals were trained how.

But here’s the turn I didn’t expect: watching that old cartoon again, I realized that in some ways, we evangelicals became what we accused. Not victims of Mormon belief, but victims of our own. Of our need to know we’re right. Of our suspicion dressed up as discernment. Of our preference for distance over dialogue.

The more I’ve come to know Latter-day Saints—their stories, their practices, their hopes—the less room there’s been in me for the kind of fear that once animated my faith. What’s left is not a loss of conviction, but the quiet realization that people are always more than their labels, and that love, if it’s real, can hold the weight of real disagreement.

And that, I think, is where the caricatures finally fall away.

I often tell evangelicals that there’s no wrong questions to ask a Latter-day Saint; there’s just wrong ways to ask.

The God Makers asked the wrong way. Not because the questions were unfounded, but because fear makes a poor teacher, and an even worse neighbor.

📘 Coming Soon: 40 Questions About Mormonism

If you’ve appreciated this essay, you’ll love my forthcoming book, 40 Questions About Mormonism (Kregel Academic, this coming winter). It’s written for traditional Christians who want clear, charitable, and biblically faithful answers to the most common questions about the Latter-day Saint faith and tradition.

Not Closed, but Fixed

Rethinking How We Talk About the Biblical Canon

“So, you don’t believe God speaks to us anymore?”

I was confused how we jumped to that conclusion from sola Scriptura, but we did.

“No,” I assured him, “God still speaks in things like His creation, the conviction of the Spirit, and the gathered wisdom of the church. And ‘the word of God is living and active,’ but the canon of scripture is closed.”

That’s when the look came, not angry or anything. Just puzzled. As if to say, Why would you shut heaven like that?

To him—as to other Latter-day Saints—a closed canon sounds like closed heavens. As if God’s voice is sealed behind old, unreliable manuscripts and the best we can do is re-read what might be His last words.

But maybe the problem isn’t so much the idea of a closed canon.

Maybe it’s how we talk about it.

And maybe the solution is tucked in the word canon itself.

Let’s Take a Step Back

The biblical canon refers to the recognized collection of writings through which God has revealed Himself definitively to the church. The question isn’t whether God still speaks today, but how He speaks and with what authority.

It seems to be a common concern among Latter-day Saints that traditional Christians believe the biblical canon is closed. If God spoke in the past, they reason, why wouldn’t He continue speaking today?

To many Latter-day Saints, a set list of scriptures—complete and untouchable—feels like an artificial limitation on God’s voice. They point to the ongoing revelation in their own tradition, especially through living prophets and modern scripture like the Book of Mormon, as evidence that God still speaks in expansive and authoritative ways.

Part of the Latter-day Saint concern stems from Mormonism’s theology of restoration. If the universal church fell into apostasy and divine authority was lost, then God’s voice must return, not only through inward illumination, but through new revelation. In this paradigm, a closed canon seems to imply that heaven is closed, as if God stopped speaking, stopped guiding, or even stopped caring altogether.

This theme finds one of its clearest expressions in 2 Nephi 29, where the Lord chastises those who say, “A Bible, a Bible, we have got a Bible, and there cannot be any more Bible.” According to this LDS scripture, God continues to speak across nations and peoples, and to deny further revelation is to deny His global work and ongoing voice.

But that’s not how most traditional Christians understand it. In fact, it’s a misunderstanding to equate a “closed” canon with the closed mouth of God. A better image is not a locked vault, but a fixed compass, one that always points true north because God has provided an enduring guide.

This isn’t to dismiss the desire to hear God’s voice in fresh ways. After Christ’s ascension, the early church remained alive to the reality of the Spirit’s ongoing work and the possibility of new guidance. But they also recognized the need for careful discernment, to guard the faith once delivered to the saints while remaining attentive to the Spirit’s leading.

Early Christians recognized that the voice of God had been decisively revealed in Christ, providing a completed foundation for the church’s faith and life. When new prophetic movements arose, such as Montanism in the second century, the church wrestled carefully with whether such claims preserved or distorted the apostolic testimony. Ultimately, they concluded that Montanism, despite its zeal, departed from the gospel-centered foundation entrusted to the apostles as seen in the Holy Bible.

But which writings belong in the Bible? And why?

The answer leads us to the concept of canon, a term derived from the Greek kanōn, which means “measuring stick” or, metaphorically, “ruler.” To speak of the biblical canon, then, is to speak of the rule or standard by which Christian doctrine, life, and worship are measured.

One Canon, Three Lists

Across different Christian traditions, there has always been remarkable unity about the heart of the canon, i.e., the saving work of the Triune God in Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit. Debates about canonicity have taken place at the margins, but never the core.

There are three broad approaches:

• The Protestant canon, shaped by the Reformation, recognizes 66 books: 39 Old Testament, 27 New Testament, aligned with the content of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh.

• The Roman Catholic canon includes these books but adds others known as the Deuterocanonicals, like Tobit and 1–2 Maccabees, affirmed at the Council of Trent in the 1500s.

• The Eastern Orthodox churches often accept even more books, like 1 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh, mainly for liturgical rather than dogmatic use.

Yes, there are variations, but the core remains stable: the four Gospels, no more, no less, no other testimonies of Jesus Christ.

Some Latter-day Saints might see this diversity as proof that early Christians lacked certainty and needed ongoing revelation. But notice: even where debates existed, the testimony to Christ’s incarnation, death, and resurrection—the center of the gospel—was never in doubt. The canon wasn’t invented to limit God’s voice; rather, it was recognized to preserve what God had already completed. In this view, Christ’s incarnation, death, and resurrection aren’t open to addendums. As Hebrews puts it, God has “spoken to us by his Son” (Heb. 1:2), in a decisive, climactic revelation that surpasses all previous ones and leaves no need for a new gospel.

Some might respond that Hebrews 1 doesn’t say revelation has ceased, only that a new mode has begun. And that’s true, as far as it goes. But the mode is the point. God’s full self-disclosure came not through many partial voices, but through one Son; not through an endless chain of prophets, but through the Prophet, Priest, and King Himself.

Thus, for traditional Christianity, the canon is closed not because God has ceased to speak, but because He has already spoken fully in His Son. And the Bible bears unfading witness to that final Word.

Not Closed, but Fixed

Back to the conversation.

What my Latter-day Saint friend heard in the word closed was something final in the worst way—rigid, obsolete, lifeless.

And honestly, that got me thinking. Maybe the problem isn’t the conviction behind a closed canon; rather, it’s the way we talk about it. Maybe we need a better word, one that holds the strength of the idea without losing its warmth.

I’ve landed on fixed canon. Not in the sense that it was broken and needed repair, but fixed as in anchored, i.e., secure, steady, unchanging. Like a measuring stick, the canon provides a standard: it’s the rule by which all doctrines, spirits, and experiences are tested (see 1 Thess. 5:21; 1 John 4:1).

A canon that expands and contracts would be like the most unreliable ruler, useless for measuring anything at all. Remember, that’s essentially what kanōn means: “measuring stick,” or “ruler.” A ruler isn’t ‘closed,’ but it is reliably set. So it is with the canon: not dead, but dependable, faithfully preserving the living Word of God.

Even in the early church, this idea was taking shape. Irenaeus, writing in the second century, affirmed the Spirit-ordained ‘length’ of the fourfold Gospel witness by declaring the impossibility for them to “be either more or fewer in number than they are” (Against Heresies 3.11.8). His words reflect not mere preference but conviction: that the Spirit had spoken through these four and no others.

Augustine likewise described the sacra Scriptura canonica as being “contained within its own fixed boundaries” (certis suis terminis contineri) and distinguished it from later ecclesiastical writings. His point was not that God stopped speaking, but that the measuring rod of revelation had been graciously given.

In other words, a fixed canon does not mean a silent God. It means a faithful God, one who continues to speak not by adding new words to the foundation, but by bringing His once-for-all “living and active” Word to life in every generation (Heb. 4:12).

But how?

The same Holy Spirit who inspired the Bible illuminates them anew to believers. The Spirit works in individual hearts and through the gathered wisdom of the church across the ages. As John Calvin wrote, scripture “seriously affects us only when it is sealed upon our hearts through the Spirit,” said Calvin (Inst. 1.7.5). Teachers, preachers, and scholars can help open the treasures of the Bible, but they never rise above it.

So, it’s not that God is done speaking; rather, He now speaks through a fixed canon, by the inward illumination of the Spirit and the outward testimony of the Bible. His voice is living, not because the text expands, but because the Spirit is active.

📘 Coming Soon: 40 Questions About Mormonism

If you’ve appreciated this essay, you’ll love my forthcoming book, 40 Questions About Mormonism (Kregel Academic, this coming winter). It’s written for traditional Christians who want clear, charitable, and biblically faithful answers to the most common questions about the Latter-day Saint faith and tradition.

Loving Rightly in Interfaith Dialogue

Why Orthogapy Should Lead the Dialogue

Note: this essay’s written specifically for evangelicals, but Latter-day Saints are welcomed to read over our shoulders.

When I tell people I spend time in interfaith dialogue with Latter-day Saints, I get puzzled looks.

“Why dialogue?” they ask. “Aren’t there better ways to engage Mormonism?”

Perhaps.

But dialogue does something unique.

It forces me to slow down, to listen well, and to love my neighbor as myself. It makes me “quick to hear, slow to speak,” and if I’m honest, “slow to anger” (Jas 1:19).

After all, not only is it ‘hard to hate up close’ (as a friend likes to remind me) it’s also really hard to love someone well from a distance, without really knowing them. Harder still to love someone rightly.

That’s where a concept I’ve been working on—orthogapy—comes in.

Let me explain.

What Is Orthogapy?

If orthodoxy is ‘right belief,’ and orthopraxy is ‘right practice,’ then orthogapy is right and rightly ordered love. From the Greek orthos (right) and agape (love), orthogapy refers to the Spirit-empowered shaping of the heart to prize what God prizes—to love as God loves.

Not just to believe or do what is right—but to love what is right, because it is supremely lovely.

If that sounds a little poetic, good. It should.

But orthogapy is more than a sentiment. It’s a way of seeing. A lens for life and a ground for dialogue.

It doesn’t soften doctrine. It roots doctrine in desire.

Traherne’s Key: Prizing What God Prizes

I was recently attuned to Thomas Traherne, the 17th century Anglican poet and theologian for whom C.S. Lewis held great admiration. He called Traherene’s Centuries of Meditations “almost the most beautiful book [in] English,” a work that challenges the reader to joyfully consider what the world looks like according to God.

Traherne wrote that we are most like God when we “prize all things according to their value,” for “God doth prize all things rightly, which is a Key that opens into the very thoughts of His bosom.”

In other words, we reflect God most clearly when we learn to love what He loves, in the right way and for the right reasons, because valuing things as God does is like holding a key that unlocks His very heart.

So, Traherne roots spirituality in value alignment: we know God by valuing what He values.

But that got me thinking: Does love stop at value? Or does it delight in loveliness?

We love not just because something is worthy, but because it’s beautiful in God’s eyes.

That’s why I believe interfaith dialogue must begin not with doctrine, or practice, or systems, but with love.

Because love reveals what we prize.

What Do You Love?

Now, I know how that sounds—squishy.

For some, starting with love feels too soft, too ecumenical. Like I’m dodging doctrine or flattening differences in the name of Kumbaya.

But that’s not it.

The moment we start talking about what we love, we’re already talking about what we believe and how we live. It’s nearly impossible to name our deepest loves without also naming the truths that shape them and the habits that express them.

It’s interesting to me that Jesus liked to ask, “What do you want?” (see Matt. 20:21, 31; Mark 10:36, 51; Luke 18:41). That question cuts straight to our loves. To ask about someone’s wants is to ask about what they love, because what we want is what we treasure. “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt. 6:21).

Wants unveil the loves that drive us.

So, for example, when a Latter-day Saint tells me they love the temple, they’re also revealing what they believe about religious space, priesthood, and eternity. When I say I love sola fide, I’m not just being emotional. I’m confessing something about sin, atonement, and grace.

Now, clarity is charity in the interfaith space. Let me be clear: I believe the gospel is the good news that the triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—created us to love, know, and glorify Him. Though we sin and deserve judgment, the Father sent His Son to save the world, Jesus Christ—truly God and truly man—who lived without sin, died for us on the cross, and rose in victory. He now reigns as Lord, our final Prophet, our true High Priest, offering eternal life by grace alone through faith alone in Him alone. This gospel is revealed in the inspired and fixed canon of the Holy Bible. All who are saved pursue holiness and faithful obedience to and for and by God as His saints in advance of dwelling forever with the Father, Son, and Spirit to the glory of God alone.

That message isn’t sidelined by love. It’s embodied in it.

So no, doctrine and practice don’t disappear when we begin with love. They show up honestly. And not as talking points, but as treasured convictions.

Orthogapy doesn’t replace orthodoxy or orthopraxy. It holds them together. It reminds us that belief and behavior matter most when they grow from love rightly ordered—love aimed at the glory of God and the good of our neighbor.

Ironically, the cliché “singing Kumbaya” comes from an African American spiritual that means “come by here, Lord.” A prayer for God’s nearness.

And that’s exactly what orthogapy is doing.

It’s not sentimental fluff. It’s a Spirit-shaped desire for God to come near, to dwell among hearts reordered by love.

A prayer to ask God to ‘get in the middle’ of the conversation and do what He does best: heart renewal.

What It Looks Like

So, what does orthogapy in dialogue look like exactly?

It looks like listening without angling. You’re not waiting to correct, but to understand and then speak with care.

“If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame” (Proverbs 18:13). Orthogapy resists that folly. It insists that understanding must come before speaking. Not because truth doesn’t matter, but because people do. It requires me to sit in the discomfort of not being in control.

It’s the humility of holding our convictions in open hands, not clenched fists.

So, orthogapy in dialogue sounds like this:

• “What do you love most about God?”

• “What do you love about your family?”

• “Are there specific Bible verses you love to return to?”

• “Why do you think God’s love is expressed through the cross?”

• “What does your Church teach you about loving your neighbors?”

Sometimes you hear something you deeply disagree with. That’s okay. You don’t abandon truth to make room for love. But love disarms truth from being weaponized. “Walk in wisdom toward outsiders,” says Paul, and “let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt” (Colossians 4:5–6). Grace and truth are not rivals. They’re traveling companions.

Orthogapy is the discipline of speaking truth in love (see Eph. 4:15)—not just speaking lovingly, but loving truly.

It also means you’re willing to be moved. Not persuaded out of your convictions, but touched by someone else’s sincerity. I’ve sat with Latter-day Saints who’ve told me about their loves with a quiver in their voice. In that moment, my job wasn’t to shift the conversation toward critique, but to cherish what I could and grieve what I couldn’t.

Challenge has its place, but it isn’t the starting point. Rather than aiming to win a point, the goal is to prompt contemplation—gentle, honest reflection that, by God’s grace, draws hearts toward the beauty and sufficiency of Christ.

And if that doesn’t happen? That’s okay, too. Faithfulness is measured less by persuasion than by presence.

Orthogapy gives us a framework for honesty and compassion. It keeps us from caricatures and clichés. It reminds us that the Latter-day Saint across the table is not an ideology to deconstruct, but a person to love.

And if we believe what we say we believe—that God is love, that Jesus died for all sinners, that the Spirit can renew hearts—then we can sit down at the table confident, not anxious.

Gracious, not guarded.

Orthogapy doesn’t dilute theological clarity. It deepens it. Because what you love ultimately shapes what you believe and do.

📘 Coming Soon: 40 Questions About Mormonism

If you’ve appreciated this reflection, you’ll love my forthcoming book, 40 Questions About Mormonism (Kregel Academic, this coming winter). It’s written for everyday Christians who want clear, charitable, and biblically faithful answers to the most common questions about the Latter-day Saint faith.