Paul Owen - An Anglican!

[Apologette]

Originally Posted by alanmolstad

any details about them ?

and the name "Reformed Episcopal Church" suggests they split-off?

They did - an Evangelical bishop left the Episcopal Church, thus retaining the Apostolic Succession. The denomination is fairly evangelical, although it has had its own high church renewal. They are a central part of the ACNA - their priests are very good preachers!

[alanmolstad]

I noted that in the 70s there was a strong "pro-gay" push within the Episcopal Church that really kicked-in and took over by the 90s


EDIT:
I did a google search...and there is a lot more history to this church than i knew about....

[RealFakeHair]

Originally Posted by alanmolstad

I noted that in the 70s there was a strong "pro-gay" push within the Episcopal Church that really kicked-in and took over by the 90s


EDIT:
I did a google search...and there is a lot more history to this church than i knew about....

Look up the flying Bishop of Alaska..

[dberrie2000]

Originally Posted by Apologette

Paul Owen, who has been invovled in dialogue with Mormons, has made some statement which led me to do further research. It appears that Owen approaches beliefs from an Anglican perspective, just as I thought. After all, I am an Anglican myself, so I recognize the conclusions Owen reached.

These conclusions?

Mormon Apologetic Scholarship and Evangelical Neglect:
Losing the Battle and Not Knowing It?

Carl Mosser and Paul Owen:---http://www.cometozarahemla.org/others/mosser-owen.html

Introduction:

Spiritual warfare is a reality. Battle in the spiritual realm is not fought with guns and tanks in the manner of the world. This is the war of ideas that vie for men's minds. The Apostle Paul tells us that the weapons we fight with have divine power to demolish such intellectual strongholds. Of Christians he says that, "we demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God" (II Cor. 10:5). However, to tear down arguments entails that one must first know what the arguments are. This paper seeks to describe the scholarly and apologetic arguments of one group which we, as evangelicals, believe inhibit true knowledge of God.
The Church or Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Mormonism, has, in recent years, produced a substantial body of literature defending their beliefs. This paper does not discuss the full range of defensive and offensive scholarship by Latter-day Saints. Instead, we will focus our discussion upon those disciplines that fall under the broad categories of biblical studies and church history. We choose these two categories because of the importance they play in understanding Christian origins and the nature of early Christianity. Both Mormonism and evangelicalism claim to be the Church which Christ founded. Both claim to be the heirs of New Testament Christianity. Both cannot be correct. It is then appropriate to focus on these disciplines because knowing what the beliefs and practices of the earliest Christians were and whether or not the Church which Christ founded apostatized is the central issue of contention. We realize that what we say will not be welcomed by all, especially by some in the counter-cult movement. Some may criticize us for giving the Mormons too much credit and for being too harsh on our fellow evangelicals. However, much like testifying against a loved one in court, we cannot hide the facts of the matter. In this battle the Mormons are fighting valiantly. And the evangelicals? It appears that we may be losing the battle and not knowing it. But this is a battle we cannot afford to lose. It is our deep hope that this paper will, in some small way, serve to awaken members of the evangelical community to the important task at hand.

Section A: Mormonism

I. Evangelical Myths and Five Conclusions

There are many evangelical myths concerning Mormon scholarship. The first is that there are few, if any, traditional Mormon scholars with training in fields pertinent to evangelical Mormon debates. This is simply false. It is a myth that when Mormons receive training in historiography, biblical languages, theology and philosophy they invariably abandon traditional LDS believes in the historicity of the Book of Mormon and the prophethood of Joseph Smith. It Is a myth that liberal Mormons have so shaken the foundations of LDS believe that Mormonism is crumbling apart. It is a myth that neo-orthodox Mormons have influenced the theology of their Church to such a degree that it will soon abandon traditional emphasis and follow a path similar to the RLDS or the World-Wide Church of God.(1) These are myths based upon ignorance and selective reading. These myths must be abandoned by responsible evangelicals.

The ***le of this paper reflects five conclusions we have come to concerning Mormon-evangelical debates. The first is that there are, contrary to popular evangelical perceptions, legitimate Mormon scholars. We use the term scholar in its formal sense of "intellectual, erudite; skilled in intellectual investigation; trained in ancient languages."(2) Broadly, Mormon scholarship can be divided in to four categories: traditional, neo-orthodox, liberal and cultural. We are referring to the largest and most influential of the four categories-traditional Mormon scholars. It is a point of fact that the Latter-day Saints are not an anti-intellectual group like Jehovah's Witnesses. Mormon, in distinction to groups like JWs, produce work that has more than the mere appearance of scholarship.

The second conclusion we have come to is that Mormon scholars and apologists (not all apologists are scholars) have, with varying degrees of success, answered most of the usual evangelical criticisms. Often these answers adequately diffuse particular (minor) criticisms. When the criticism has not been diffused the issue has usually been made much more complex.
A third conclusion we have come to is that currently there are, as far as we are aware, no books from an evangelical perspective that responsibly interact with contemporary LDS scholarly and apologetic writing.(3) In a survey of twenty recent evangelical books criticizing Mormonism we found that none interact with this growing body of literature. Only a handful demonstrate any awareness of pertinent works. Many of the authors promote criticisms that have long been refuted; some are sensationalistic while others are simply ridiculous. A number of these books claim to be "the definitive" book on the matter. That they make no attempt to interact with contemporary LDS scholarship is a stain upon the authors' integrity and causes one to wonder about their credibility.
Our fourth conclusion is that at the academic level evangelicals are losing the debate with the Mormons. We are losing the battle and do not know it. In recent years the sophistication and erudition of LDS apologetics has risen considerably while evangelical responses have not.(4) Those who have the skills necessary for this task rarely demonstrate an interest in the issues. Often they do not even know that there is a need. In large part this is due entirely to ignorance of the relevant literature.
Finally, our fifth conclusion is that most involved in the counter-cult movement lack the skills and training necessary to answer Mormon scholarly apologetic. The need is great for trained evangelical biblical scholars, theologians, philosophers and historians to examine and answer the growing body of literature produced by traditional LDS scholars and apologists.