An (Un)Obvious Difference Between Evangelicals and Latter-day Saints

By badaho

“What are the most obvious differences between Latter-day Saints and evangelicals?”

I get asked this question often. My answers involve the usual suspects: Trinitarianism, ecclesiology, soteriology, scriptural canons, and so on. Mainly beliefs.

But this past summer someone asked me what I thought were the most “un-obvious” differences between Latter-day Saints and evangelicals. The question caught me off guard.

“What do you mean by ‘un-obvious’?” I asked.

“Well,” he clarified, “there are obvious differences between the two groups, but do you know of any differences that neither side readily recognize?”

I blue-screened; a complete 404 error. I had nothing.

What are some differences that are present but not seen or felt or known? It’s a great question, one that began to answer itself for me with the arrival of a package from Amazon.

History or Theology? The Emphasis On Our Source of Identity

I think that one of the most “un-obvious” differences between Latter-day Saints and evangelicals is that the former tend to situate their identity in their history while the latter tend to source their identity from their theology.

This thought occured to me after recieving a shipment of three Mormon studies books, new works on various topics, all written by Latter-day Saints, all published through a prestigious press in the past three years. None were history books.

I noticed a pattern as I thumbed through them. Nearly every chapter began with a historical vignette.

• Book One, Chapter One: “On June 6, 1865, Oliver Hyde was…”

• Book One, Chapter Two: “In 1887, Martha Ashton Pierce was…”

• Book One, Chapter Three: “On the evening of February 28, 1862, Brigham Young was…”

• Book One, Chapter Four: “In the spring of 1895, Laura Fawn Nelson was…”

• Book Two, Chapter One: “In May 1857, Elise L. Smith, the…”

• Book Two, Chapter Two: “In 1854, Orson Pratt, one of Smith’s…”

• Book Two, Chapter Five: “When the Book of Mormon was printed in 1830…”

• Book Two, Chapter Six: “In 1968, after scholars learned about…”

• Book Three, Chapter One: “On 3 May 1830, the Palmyra Reflector announced…”

• Book Three, Chapter Two: “Parley Pratt’s 1837 Voice of Warning was…”

Don’t bother searching for the exact quotes to discover which books I’m writing about. These examples were altered to protect the innocent, but you get my point. If you’ve read a Mormon studies book written in the past decade, I’ll give you 10-to-1 odds that at least one chapter opens with a little historical reference or story. It’s anecdotal, sure, but perhaps you’ve sensed a similar pattern.

Now, I’m not criticizing here. It’s not that I don’t like short stories at the beginning of chapters. I do. They transport us to episodes across time that connect us to real people, to lived traditions and embodied theologies. They help explain how we got to where we are and where we’re going. I’m presently authoring a book that makes use of these orienting vignettes. Shoot, this post technically started with one.

But for the majority of chapters in three LDS-authored, non-history books to open with history? That seems like a pattern. Even when Latter-day Saints aren’t writing about history, they’re writing from history.

But evangelicals don’t tend to write like this.

I also happened to have received a few new books written by evangelicals recently. (Yes, I’m aware it sounds like I have an addiction.) Like the other shipment, these books are non-histories; they cover topics like theology proper and soteriology.

Here are how their chapters begin (I changed these quotes a little, too):

• Book One, Chapter One, “The church of St. Jerome contains a room…”

• Book One, Chapter Two, “Once it is clear that the doctrine of…”

• Book One, Chapter Three, “It’s hard to discern the boundary between…”

• Book One, Chapter Four, “Formerly speaking, the four most important…”

• Book Two, Chapter One, “According to Revelation 21…”

• Book Two, Chapter Two, “At the conclusion of J. R. R. Tolkien’s novel…”

• Book Two, Chapter Three, “They say Aslan is…”

• Book Two, Chapter Four, “If you have ever played…”

• Book Three, Chapter Two, “This chapter is a work of remembering…”

• Book Three, Chapter Three, “As we saw earlier, the biblical model…”

• Book Three, Chapter Four, “As we read in the book of Ezekiel…”

• Book Three, Chapter Five, “Ezekiel presents God as an…”

Notice a difference? No stories to situate ourselves in an evangelical historical narrative. Instead, we parachute straight into a biblical or theological conversation.

I think these writing styles communicate an “un-obvious” difference between the Latter-day Saints and evangelicals. Latter-day Saints tend to see themselves as part of a history while evangelicals tend to see themselves as part of a theology. We might even say that the Latter-day Saints are part of a theological history, i.e., one rooted in the Restoration, while evangelicals are part of a historical theology, i.e., one rooted in the Reformation. Of course, there are exceptions to this observation, but perhaps I’m not alone in this thought?

It’s not as though Latter-day Saints disregard doctrine and neither do evangelicals think little of church history. But it’s worth noting that Joseph Smith appointed a historian to his church before he penned the very lean Articles of Faith, a doctrinal statement with a word count that would barely match the introductory article in a typical Protestant confession.

Why the Difference of Emphasis?

To me, it seems that Latter-day Saints place a greater emphasis on the LDS story while evangelicals seem to place a greater emphasis on evangelical belief.

(Case in point: you might recall how I opened this post. What are the major differences I see between Latter-day Saints and evangelicals? Look at my list. All theology. How evangelical of me.)

In fact, when it comes to evangelicals, history seems to ultimately matter only so far as it develops and delivers doctrine. Evangelicals are more concerned with how it got here, “it” being orthodoxy. But for Latter-day Saints, history matters because it advances a core element of Mormonism itself: the Restoration. They’re more concerned with how we got here, “we” being members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

And it’s deeper than that, seeping into familial histories and identities, too. I’m willing to bet that the average evangelical could name at least four important figures from their respective church’s history (e.g., Luther, Calvin, Edwards, Spurgeon) but could not name four of their great-grandparents. Latter-day Saints? They’re likely more familiar with their family history than religious history because, for many of them, family history is religious history, i.e., their family story is commonly a small part of the history of the LDS Church.

I’ve heard these explanations from Latter-day Saints:

• “Oh, my ancestors? They emigrated from England, drug a handcart across the Great Plains, and settled in Utah.”

• “Me? I’m so and so generations removed from Brigham Young.”

• “Well, I’m actually a convert to the Church, but…”

(Those last folks, the converts, feel like they need to clarify that their story has been grafted into the story of the LDS Church.)

And even though evangelicals might know names in church history better than in their own family history, they would nevertheless struggle to identify dates and events. Calvin and Wesley are more important for their theology than their story. But nearly every Latter-day Saint can recite exact dates and details of Joseph Smith’s First Vision or his discovery of golden plates. The average evangelical might remember that Martin Luther once mailed a letter to the pope by nailing it to a door.

All this to say, while both Latter-day Saints and evangelicals affirm and respect history and theology, we apparently place different emphases on both.

So, why does this matter? I’ll leave with this: knowing where emphases are placed helps us know where to place emphasis.

In other words, a Latter-day Saint who wants to get to know their evangelical neighbor should place an emphasis on studying and talking about doctrine. And an evangelical who wants to get to know their Latter-day Saint neighbor would be well-served to crack open one of the many histories of the LDS restoration movement.