Selective justice

From today's memorial service for the victims of the Ft. Hood shootings:

"It may be hard to comprehend the twisted logic that led to this tragedy. But this much we do know -- no faith justifies these murderous and craven acts, no just and loving God looks upon them with favor. And for what he has done, we know that the killer will be met with justice -- in this world, and the next," Obama said.

What about justice for those killed in the womb? What sort of justice does he thinks awaits those who perpetuate and support abortion? Is the jihadist who shot and killed 13 people in Texas worse than the "doctor" who snuffs out the lives of unborn children on a daily basis? 13 innocent people killed at Ft. Hood. Tens of millions killed by abortion. One is called a tragedy, one is called a choice. I am afraid you won't see such signs of sorrow or brave words of confidence in judgment when the issue becomes politically inexpedient. The victims of abortion die in silence and not many people seem to care.

This should outrage me

Really though it just makes me shrug. What next?

Gone to the dogs: LA church starts pet service

LOS ANGELES – When the Rev. Tom Eggebeen took over as interim pastor at Covenant Presbyterian Church three years ago, he looked around and knew it needed a jump start.

Most of his worshippers, though devoted, were in their 60s, attendance had bottomed out and the once-vibrant church was fading as a community touchstone in its bustling neighborhood.

So Eggebeen came up with a hair-raising idea: He would turn God's house into a doghouse by offering a 30-minute service complete with individual doggie beds, canine prayers and an offering of dog treats. He hopes it will reinvigorate the church's connection with the community, provide solace to elderly members and, possibly, attract new worshippers who are as crazy about God as they are about their four-legged friends.

Before the first Canines at Covenant service last Sunday, Eggebeen said many Christians love their pets as much as human family members and grieve just as deeply when they suffer — but churches have been slow to recognize that love as the work of God.

"The Bible says of God only two things in terms of an 'is': That God is light and God is love. And wherever there's love, there's God in some fashion," said Eggebeen, himself a dog lover. "And when we love a dog and a dog loves us, that's a part of God and God is a part of that. So we honor that."

I do think it is appropriate that this is going on in a Presbyterian church. After all, there is equal Biblical evidence for both infant baptism and doggie prayers.

Zing!

Carrying the burden alone

USA Today has a very troubling article on depression, frustration and even suicide among vocational ministers that it ran last week. Here are a few quotes from the article:

What kind of personal pain would cause a 42-year-old pastor to abandon his family, his calling and even life itself? Members of a Baptist church here are asking that question after their pastor committed suicide in his parked car in September.

Those who counsel pastors say Christian culture, especially Southern evangelicalism, creates the perfect environment for depression. Pastors suffer in silence, unwilling or unable to seek help or even talk about it. Sometimes they leave the ministry. Occasionally the result is the unthinkable.

Experts say clergy suicide is a rare outcome to a common problem.

But Baptists in the Carolinas are soul searching after a spate of suicides and suicide attempts by pastors. In addition to the September suicide of David Treadway, two others in North Carolina attempted suicide, and three in South Carolina succeeded, all in the last four years.

Being a pastor — a high-profile, high-stress job with nearly impossible expectations for success — can send one down the road to depression, according to pastoral counselors.

"We set the bar so high that most pastors can't achieve that," said H.B. London, vice president for pastoral ministries at Focus on the Family, based in Colorado Springs, Colo. "And because most pastors are people-pleasers, they get frustrated and feel they can't live up to that."

When pastors fail to live up to demands imposed by themselves or others they often "turn their frustration back on themselves," leading to self-doubt and to feelings of failure and hopelessness, said Fred Smoot, executive director of Emory Clergy Care in Duluth, Ga., which provides pastoral care to 1,200 United Methodist ministers in Georgia.

A pastor is like "a 24-hour ER" who is supposed to be available to any congregant at any time, said Steve Scoggin, president of CareNet, a network of 21 pastoral counseling centers in North Carolina. "We create an environment that makes it hard to admit our humanity."

It's a job that breeds isolation and loneliness — the pastorate's "greatest occupational hazards," said Scoggin, who counsels many Baptist and other ministers. "These suicides are born out of a lack of those social supports that can intervene in times of personal crisis."

What causes this is pretty simple. Pastors are exalted in evangelicalism and are simultaneously asked to shoulder the burden of ministry for an entire congregation. They are expected to be there for every other member of the church while at the same time being a perfect father and husband.

It is little wonder that pastors are depressed, frustrated, quitting "the ministry" or even in some extreme cases committing suicide. We have created an impossible culture combining impossibly high expectations for pastors and simultaneously isolating them. The numbers are all over the place, showing huge numbers of frustrated, burned out, depressed pastors. The number of men who leave vocational ministry or are pushed out of their position is staggering and yet no one is willing to address the issue head on. It isn't a matter of paying them more or having more pastor appreciation events. The problem as I see it, and this is no surprise, is the entire system itself of subcontracted ministry. No one seems to want to ask the hard questions of what causes this and why it is seemingly so prevalent. Few people seem willing to raise their hand and ask if this whole system is contra-Biblical, if the reason there are so many unhappy men in vocational ministry and so many apathetic Christians in the laity is that we have abandoned in all but passing reference the idea of the priesthood of all believers.

This is not primarily a monetary issue or even a stress issue. It is first and foremost a spiritual issue. We are called as the Body of Christ to bear one another's burdens and it is the height of arrogance and foolishness to expect that one man can take that upon himself and "minister" to an entire congregation. I hate to sound groovy or emergent or something, but ministry is not a "top down" thing, it is a horizontal thing. If we continue to isolate one or a few men from the rest of the Body, we will continue to see this cycle of burned out pastors. It doesn't have to be this way, it was never intended to be this way and it cannot continue on this way.

If you don't find this convicting, you aren't paying attention

A sobering and convicting post from Dave Black, Making a mockery of the Great Commission, reproduced in its entirety.

Our business as Christians is to make disciples of all nations. That’s what we’re here for. By life or by death, by what we do and do not do, in body and in spirit, our business is to work for the expansion of God’s kingdom on earth.

It is easily possible for us to so focus on our own little communities of faith that we come dangerously close to making a mockery of the Great Commission. Such an attitude is a serious symptom. It reveals a growing disease of the spirit that could become an incurable malignancy. Churches that are in this in-grown state are not concerned about it. There is no doubt about the crisis but our conduct is not rising to the occasion.

Theoretically and theologically we may believe in the Great Commission, but our belief does not motivate much activity. The situation around the world is desperate, but we are not. We drug and dope our consciences and allow things to go on as things have always gone. A sense of urgency for world evangelization is fast disappearing from us.

Demas had to choose between Paul and this world (2 Tim. 4:10), and he chose the world. This is a choice that every Christian, and every church, has to make. In Matthew 9:35-38 we see that Jesus went and went and went to all the cities and villages, teaching, preaching, and healing. Wherever He went He left a trail of blessing. This same Jesus lives in all of us who know Him. This ought to make a difference.

I encourage all of us to go “all out” for Jesus. He deserves it. Let the dead bury the dead. It’s time to plow a straight furrow looking straight ahead.

Ouch. I see myself in too much of that.

Book Review: Deep Church

I have mentioned before that one of my personal yardsticks for measuring a book, for good or for ill, is the number of dogeared pages, underlined or highlighted passages. If I read a book and find nothing noteworthy to agree or disagree with, then I have wasted my time and my money. After finishing Jim Belcher’s Deep Church, my copy is replete with dogears and underlining, most for positive reasons and as such meets my test for a solid, worthwhile book.

Jim takes on a difficult and frankly thankless job. He is not going to make many friends, especially in the traditional corners of the church (as evidenced by a hit piece “review” from 9 Marks, a ministry that ought to be more gracious). I am not expecting to find Deep Church on my seat next year at Together for the Gospel. It is however an absolutely vital conversation to have and one that is overdue. I just hope it is not too late.

First and foremost, I commend Jim for being gracious to those that the traditional and Reformed communities have been anything but gracious to for far too long. I appreciate that Jim is willing to use words that get you in trouble (missional, community), to read books written by Christians and talk to Christians who are given the stink eye from much of the church, to ask questions and come to conclusions that are not in line with the most rigid segments of the traditional church. Jim gives these concerns and questions a real hearing, not a passing dismissal and again for that I thank him. I have plenty of books from Reformed authors that hammer the emergent/emerging crowd with nary a thought as to whether their criticisms are valid.

Much of the book is structured around the concerns of the emergent church, the response of the traditional church and the proposed “third way”, the “deep church” way. What I found to be unfortunate is that often the emergent argument was actually the one based more in Scripture and less in knee-jerk reactions and empty traditions. That tended to be a hallmark of the traditional camp, a camp that I find a great deal of common ground with. In far too many instances, the conservative traditionalists even among the Reformed are as reactionary as the most ardent fundamentalists railing against dancing and Pokémon cards.

I of course have some qualms. I found that a lot of the retained “Great Tradition” and other traditions that are based more in religion than Scripture to be misguided. He also favors the “ancient” rituals of the church: Reciting set prayers, liturgy, church officers, hierarchies. These traditions that stem from antiquity are not my cup of tea and I think until we unleash ourselves from these extra-Biblical traditions and the institution of the church we are going to struggle.

Another troubling aspect is how much of the book is about Jim, his church, his way. Over and over we get anecdotal stories from Jim’s life and ministry (some of which are helpful) as well as “this is how we do it at Redeemer”. In some places the book sounds more like a pitch to come join as members of Redeemer than it does an academic work about the “deep church” or it smacks of having discovered something heretofore unknown among the church which always rubs people the wrong way. I understand what he is saying and why he uses “real life” examples but I also think it opens him up, fairly or not, to charges of self-promotion. I am sure that was not the intent but it certainly comes across that way more than once.

I think the biggest fault of Deep Church is that it doesn’t go far enough. It looks for a middle ground in-between two traditions and misses the best source of what the church should look like: the New Testament. Much of what the deep church model is based on is creeds, confessions, schools of thought and philosophy. All very valuable but instead of being primarily concerned with conformation to the Scriptures, Deep Church seeks consensus among two streams of Christian theology and philosophy. It doesn’t strike me that Jim asks the obvious question: what if neither the traditional or emerging church is right? What if the third way is not a blend of traditional/emergent but instead is something completely different?

Overall, Deep Church falls short. That is not criticism but an observation. But it does so while taking a number of steps in the right direction. By opening this dialogue and asking these questions, Jim Belcher is going to pay a price among many of my fellow Reformed believers and he already has. In spite of that, he has courageously started a conversation that will hopefully spread. There are always going to be those who are looking for the next bogeyman, the next fight on both sides but for those who are in either camp and recognize that something is wrong with the way we “do church” (and something is grievously wrong) Deep Church might just be the spark to get conversation going. I hope that my fellow Reformed brothers will take the time to read this book and seriously consider the questions it raises and the concerns of our brothers who are emerging/emergent. They are not right about everything and their solutions are often off-base or even make things worse but at least they are willing to look beyond tradition and ask the hard, uncomfortable questions. Thanks to Jim Belcher for giving us a glimpse into this world that stays true to the Gospel without being snarky to those with whom we may disagree. This review sounds very negative but there is a great deal worthwhile in Deep Church and it is a book that needs to be read in the church. I would heartily recommend this book to anyone who loves the Body of Christ and wants to see the visible expression of it be more faithful.

How is First Baptist Dallas different?

There is a lot of outrage building in the blogosphere about First Baptist Dallas and their new idol, um, church campus. Let’s set aside the specific outrage for a second and ask the deeper question:

What is the difference between First Baptist Dallas and many local churches?

The number of decimal places is different but how many millions do local churches spend to upgrade perfectly serviceable buildings for purely aesthetic reasons? Our neighbors are losing their jobs and their homes, Christians around the world are starving for the Word of God, missionaries are stuck in place for a lack of funding, orphans languish without homes and we spend untold sums of money to build, maintain and upgrade our buildings that we use for a couple of hours a week. Whenever a church spends unnecessary money on their building (and lets be honest, much of the spending in the local church is unnecessary) they are invoking the same spirit of worldliness, covetousness and pride as FBD. So what if the carpet is ugly or the lighting is not perfect? Ought we not focus on what is the true focus, our Lord, and not on what is merely a convenience, the meeting place? The local church meeting house is not a temple, not the “house of the Lord”. It is a place where we gather and that building is not the church. Our buildings should be about the last place we spend a bunch of money. It might do us some good to sacrifice a bit instead of demanding every creature comfort before we will deign to spend a few hours in "worship".

Form versus function

There seems to be a great deal of confusion over where I come down on the issue of human leaders, authority, ministry. I think some of the confusion stems from the point of emphasis. Is the emphasis of the Scriptures on the form of pastoral ministry or on the function of pastoral ministry? I would argue that the Biblical focus is firmly on the function of the pastoral ministry and as such the form is far less important. Historically, it strikes me that we have repeated the same error as Rome in emphasizing the form over the function of ministry. This has been one of the greatest impediments to a more complete Reformation.

Looking primarily at the form, we focus on things like offices, authority, titles. Pastors become men to respect and submit to; based in large part on the office they hold. Someone with the title of pastor is to be respected and deferred to unless proven otherwise precisely because of the office they hold. A great deal of emphasis is spent on defining the role, the qualifications, the credentials. Ministry becomes whatever the minister does because ministry flows from the office of minister rather than as an “every Christian” focus of the church. In most churches I have been involved in the ministry of the church and in many respects the very character of that local church revolves around the pastoral office holder. In turn, the pastors themselves are rarely ministered to and by virtue of the isolated position their office creates, there is little opportunity or urgency felt to minister to the minister. We are left with the form focused church that is filled with mostly apathetic “members” and frustrated and overburdened pastors. In Galatians 6:2 Paul admonishes us to “Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” If only that were the case.

If we shift our focus to the function of ministry, we emphasize attributes like servant-hood, humility, sacrifice. Ministry is something we all do and being a “minister” is less an official status than it is an absolute reality of the life of Christians. The “why” supersedes the “who” in ministry. We should be less concerned with who the minister is and more concerned with who we can minister to. Our focus ought to turn from the minister to the ministered. That may sound groovy and pie in the sky but I think it compliments the Biblical example far more closely than the form focused view of human leadership we so often assume in the church.

That is not to suggest that men who hold the office of pastor and hold to a high view of the form of pastoral ministry don’t believe in humility and self-sacrifice. Many of them do (and many unfortunately do not, in spite of lip-service to the contrary). It is to suggest that we have spent a lot of time and effort thinking about church government, about ministry, about pastoral duties, about preaching and teaching and have given little thought to the function and purpose that drives these. Ultimately we end up with the form being an end unto itself.

We always need to come back to the question of purpose. Why does God have and use human ministers? While it is clear that there are men who are recognized as elders, men who are leaders in the church it is equally true that these men are intended to lead the church through service, not to exercise authority as a select few over the rest of the Body of Christ. This goes way beyond ancillary issues like paying pastors or requiring a seminary education. That is where I have been focused and while I of course believe I am mostly correct in those areas, I also think I have been missing the bigger question of form versus function. When we rightly emphasize the function of ministry over the form of ministry, many of these other question settle themselves.

Does God need a $130 million edifice to be glorified?

I ran across a link tonight and nearly had a meltdown. I am naming names and pointing fingers and I do not apologize for it. First Baptist Dallas has decided to "honor" God by building a $130,000,000 "state of the art" church campus in Dallas.

As I look around downtown Dallas, I see spectacular temples of commerce, of culture and of government – many new, some restored to former glory, and all intended to stand for generations. The Kingdom of God needs a home to equal them – a spiritual oasis in the middle of downtown. - Dr. Robert Jeffress

Seriously. My God is glorious beyond all measure and His Kingdom is magnificent in such a way as to set all the wonders of the this world to shame.

From the press release:

In two special services this morning, Dr. Jeffress informed the congregation that already more than $62 million has been committed to this campaign. Mark Lovvorn, chair of the church’s Planning and Development Committee, further noted that the economic downturn has led to unprecedented potential savings in construction costs, citing research showing that for every dollar spent the church will receive up to $1.30 in value.

Oh that makes it OK. We are getting a good value because the economy is in the toilet. Some more:

“For more than 140 years, God has put First Baptist Church at the center of Dallas, the nation’s fastest-growing city in the heart of America,” Dr. Jeffress continued. “Jerry Jones recently unveiled a new $1.2 billion ‘temple to sport.’ In these tough economic times, why can’t we use our gifts to build a church building that provides a spiritual oasis and matches the splendor and majesty of God?”

A church building that matches the splendor and majesty of God? What sort of blasphemous statement is that? The thought that a building can even begin to match the splendor and majesty of God is a damnable heresy.

Is this what the Gospel ministry is about, building $130,000,000 church buildings in the midst of a time of economic crisis? Jesus didn't call us to try to outdo Jerry Jones, He called us to humility and servanthood. Do you think the hurting people of Dallas will read about "Christians" building this temple to wealth and see God glorified?

I am sure I am going to get aggrieved comments about "not judging". Before you do, here is my response:

Bull

Anyone who can defend this perversion of stewardship has a serious and sinful misunderstanding of the Kingdom of God and Christian ministry. Christ my King did not need or desire earthly riches because He has the cattle on a thousand hills and will reign over streets of gold. This building is an idol, pure and simple, an idol to greed and covetousness and worldliness and is unfit to wear the name of the King of Kings. This is a modern day Tower of Babel and the folly and pride of mankind is on full display.

Money in the life of the church

Alan Knox has a great post on one of my favorite church subjects: money. His post, Church Life # 9 - Money, examines the very different way that the gathering of the church where he fellowships deals with money.

We’ve found that by freeing people’s money from the constraints of an organizational budget, we are actually able to provide for more immediate needs as well as for larger and more long-term needs.

I completely agree. Budgets lead to constraints. In business we have budgets to make sure we don't overspend and that we make a profit. In the church, the budget by and large dictates how we can minister to each other and to the community. Budgeting and spending lead so often to contention and division and too often become the focus of the church. We give to meet the budget, not to minister to others.

What was really interesting is that we went to our first business meeting tonight at Carriage Hill Bible Chapel. There was zero contentiousness about spending and budget because we don't really have one. We take up offerings for different stuff and almost all of the giving is earmarked. If you don't feel led to support a particular evangelist or ministry, don't give to him/it. If you feel strongly about a different one, give to that one. About the only general funding we have maintains our building (utilities, insurance, etc.) It was the most pleasant business meeting we have ever been to and we finished with no one harboring ill will toward anyone else. The less money we spend on the operations of the local church means the less need for budgets and more freedom to minister.

On human authority

NE Michigan Reformation Society: In Defense of Pastoral Leadership

I came across a posting recently from the Northeast Michigan Reformation Society, our sister Reformation Society to the north. Since it specifically referenced me, and in a way that I think misunderstands what I have said, I felt it warranted a response.

Recently, a friend, Arthur Sido at "A Voice Crying in the Wilderness", has posted on his blog his own views and the links to others supporting the view that there is to be no human authority within the local church. The NEMRS affirms the view of church leadership expressed in the Westminster and London Baptist Confessions concerning the leadership of the local church. While these confessions differ in the details concerning church leadership, they both agree that the elders of a church are its leaders appointed by Christ to govern the local church.

Huh?!

Certainly I believe in having human leaders in the church. That is perfectly Biblical and if I may go so far as to say that a local gathering that persists without elders is absolutely unbiblical. We are accountable to one another, need leadership in love from one another and benefit greatly from others with greater maturity in Christ in the Body. If I rejected all human authority and leadership, I wouldn't gather with the church where elders lead the local assembly and I wouldn't go to conferences like Together for the Gospel to sit at the feet of men I look to as leaders and mature brothers in Christ. I would also say confidently that the men that I often link to, men like Alan Knox and Dave Black, likewise affirm the value and Biblical necessity of human leaders in the church. So I am not sure where the notion that I or those I link to reject human authority comes from. Actually, maybe I am sure.

Having said that....I also reject the absolute linkage that says that human leadership inexorably leads us to the traditional model of pastors as if there are only two options: the traditional pastoral model we adopted and adapted from Rome or utter chaos in the church. I reject the deferring of spiritual and ecclesiastical leadership in total to one or a few men which leads to the subcontracting of ministry. As I have said repeatedly, my biggest beef is with the "laity", not the pastors. Pastors are trying to do what the rest of the body is too lazy or too religious to do for themselves, whether in the family or in the gathering of the church. The life of the Christian is one of ministry, for all Christians and not for a select few by virtue of "ordination" by human organizations or by the assuming titles. I recognize that this flies in the face of some traditional Reformed thinking (or at least practice) and I make no apology for that. I specifically do not link back to my blog from the Mid-Michigan Reformation Society blog so as not to cause a stumbling block to anyone for that very reason.

I return again and again to this. Why did God give the church pastors, evangelists, apostles, etc.? To rule perpetually over the church or to use their gifts to bring all members to a maturity in Christ so that we may all minister and be ministered to by one another? The Bible tells us quite clearly:

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (Eph 4:11-16, emphasis added)

Note what Paul says the purpose of pastors/shepherds is. Not to DO the work of ministry to the exclusion of others, but instead to EQUIP the saints. That is an enormous distinction and one that is missed so often in these discussions, which is puzzling especially since this is the one place in most English translations where we see the word "pastor" or "shepherd" describing humans. I challenge anyone to search the Scripures and show me the clergy-laity distinction, the hierarchical church, the authoritarian pastor or the passive "member". These divisions do just that, divide the church. Titles, offices, denominations, education, all are often used not to edify and equip the church but to divide. The true Biblical leader is not the one who claims titles and honors and authority, it is the one who serves the Body lovingly and joyfully and sacrificially, who labors among the Body as a fellow laborer (1 Cor 16: 15-16), not as a ruler. The true Christian leader is not the one who has the ordination certificate, or the most education, or the smoothest speech or who wears the title "pastor" like a badge of honor. It is the one who serves others the most and that is hard to do in your study or behind your pulpit.

But Jesus called them to him and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Mat 20:25-28)

Our Lord said to His disciples: It shall not be so among you. Unfortunately it all too often is.

What hath the Reformation wrought?

492 years ago by my reckoning, Martin Luther nailed his famous 95 Theses to a church door in Wittenberg and in doing so is credited with launching the Protestant Reformation. This movement would change Europe and the world in ways unimaginable to Luther. Make no mistake. The pernicious errors of Rome demanded a Reformation and I truly believe that in however an imperfect vessel Luther was, God used him mightily to bring reform to the Church.

So what sort of grade does the almost five century history of the Reformation receive? I give it an "I" for incomplete.

Much was accomplished, don't get me wrong. The tyranny of Rome was broken, giving people at least an opportunity to gather in a place that was preaching the unadulterated Gospel. The Scriptures were returned to their rightful place of authority in the Church. The gospel message of justification by faith alone was recovered and without that message there is no Gospel, there is no "Good News" to be declared. The choke-hold Rome held over European nations began to crumble.

On the other hand, we find ourselves in a world where much has not changed all that radically. Modern evangelicalism espouses a deicisonal regeneration model and a "moralistic, therapeutic deism" that smacks of Rome. Even in those corners of evangelicalism where that is not what is preached, we still find ourselves horrible disfigured by our splintering and our endless arguments. We replaced the Roman priesthood with one of our own and adopted the basic structure of Roman worship, replete with liturgies and rituals. Many of the leading Reformers embraced a "magisterial" Reformation that linked the state and the church and left a legacy of wars and a landscape littered with the bodies of Protestants, Catholics and Anabaptists.

So in short, Martin Luther started a great movement but that movement to restore and reform t he Church has been stalled for centuries. We need more bold men like Luther, men who will stand up and call for the Church to be reformed by being conformed to the Scriptures.

A disturbing statistic

I read an article about the effort by some in the evangelical movement to "dialogue" with mormons. The article in Christianity Today presented a very disturbing and sobering statistics in response to the question "Are Mormons Christian?" :

Evangelical Protestants

No 45%
Don't know 15%
Yes 40%

Mainline Protestants

No 23%
Don't know 15%
Yes 62%

Black Protestants

No 30%
Don't know 27%
Yes 43%

I found the 43% yes from black Protestants troubling given mormonism teaching that their black skin is a curse and that until the late seventies when political pressure became too great, blacks were unable to become full members of the mormon church (in that they were unable to hold "the priesthood" and not permitted to do temple work). What these stats tells us is two fold. First, many Christians are completely unequipped and undiscerning to the point that they don't realize that a religion that teaches that God the Father is an "exalted man" that has a body of flesh and bones and that Jesus Christ is a created being and the brother of Satan cannot by nature be a "Christian" religion. Second, it shows us that in the effort to win the culture war, we are allowing ourselves to be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For example, check this very honest quote:

One undoubted factor in the search for better relations is that evangelicals and Mormons today unite on various moral issues and feel on the defensive, especially in shared opposition to same-sex marriage. Whatever differences they may have about the nature of God, "when you've been in the trenches together, it often generates new respect," said evangelical attorney David French, who leads the Alliance Defense Fund's (ADF) campus religious freedom project. "The LDS commitment to core values is one that betters our country, without question."

The Gospel is not a political tool. Better to lose the culture war than to put the cross of Christ to shame and deny the Gospel.