Orthopraxis vs. orthodoxy in Mormonism

Editor’s note: The following post arises from small group reflections from The Rise of Global Christianity, 1910–2010, taught by Dr. Todd Johnson at Boston University in the Fall of 2010. Led by doctoral students, the small groups discussed lectures given by Christian scholars in various disciplines, including significant changes that have occurred in global Christianity over the past 100 years.

In the session for the Marginal Christianity, we had a special lecture on Mormonism by Mathew Bowman. In a succinct summary fashion, he gave us impressive information on Mormon history during the last century, which consisted of several themes, such as Mormon sacraments, priesthood and global presence of the Mormon Church. Bowman depicted 1890 as the pivotal year for the Mormon Church because they renounced polygamy officially. Six years later, Utah was regarded as the promised land for Mormonism and was admitted to the United States. Since then, Mormonism has been developed as one of world religions, thereby, one can see Mormon presence in the countries other than the United States. The interesting point he made is that Mormonism is a religion of “orthopraxis” rather than “orthodoxy” unlike traditional Christianity. Accordingly, he stated, theological discipline is not indispensable for being a priest in the Mormon tradition.

The lecture was interesting for us because most of us had little chances to hear about Marginal Christianity, especially about Mormonism. At the same time it was very strange and odd for us because we are unfamiliar with it. In this respect, the first reaction came from our discussion group was to ask the Christian identity of Mormonism. One tackled the category in the Atlas of Global Christianity because it categories the Latter Day Saints (Mormonism), Jehovah’s Witness, and Unification Church as Marginal Christianity. From his point of view, it is controversial whether they can be called Christian. Another member supported this idea that Bowman covered history of Latter Day Saints but did not talk about what they believe. Arguing that Bowman kept it to how Mormonism came about, one of our members made a point that in terms of religious freedom Mormonism is a good religion, but in terms of Trinitarian Christian beliefs they cannot be accepted under this label. As our discussion went on, we tend to think there is some difference between major denominations and marginal Christians that are based on theological concepts but Mormons focus more on the pious life (orthopraxis). Admittedly, we respect them in terms of morality and religious piety.

On the question whether diversity of marginal Christians hinders or contributes to the development of the global church, we agreed that it depends on which "marginal" it is referring to. That is because the marginal group is not the one body but the collective of several different faiths. Among them, there might be a religion that seems to never contribute to society, e.g. the Unification Church in Korean and Japanese society. On the other hand, one pointed out that regardless, their missionary focus and aggressive outreach strategy would contribute to their growth.

Gun Cheol Kim, discussion moderator