Sorting Out Mormon Theology | O. Kendall White, Jr., Mormon Neo-Orthodoxy: A Crisis Theology

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Is Mormon theology a radically novel theology or is it akin to Catholic-Protestant, orthodox theology? White’s new book on Mormon theology asks this question. White lays out two distinct ways of looking at Mormon theology. First, he describes what I call traditional Mormon theology, which emphasizes the themes that Joseph Smith articulated toward the end of his life and that Brigham Young, Parley P. Pratt, Orson Pratt, Orson F. Whitney, and B. H. Roberts promulgated in Utah. Second, it can develop into what White calls neo-orthodox theology similar to Catholic-Protestant, orthodox theology. To do this it must reject the latter ideas of Joseph Smith expressed most conspicuously in his famous King Follett Address. 

According to the Joseph Smith tradition, God is an organizer, not a creator ex nihilo (out of nothing). God is powerful, has great knowledge, and is the very embodiment of goodness; but God cannot prevent all evils and human travails. People are eternally necessary beings with inherent freedom that is a part of their eternal intelligences and not “given” them by God. Souls are created by God, but intelligences can be neither created nor destroyed.

In the orthodox, Christian tradition, God is the omnipotent, omniscient creator of everything ex nihilo. White characterizes this tradition as defending (1) the sovereignty of God, (2) the depravity of man, and (3) salvation only by grace. In this latter tradition, because an omnipotent God created everything, God, not human weakness, causes evil. 

In this very important new book White presents the orthodox view within Mormon theology and labels it “neo-orthodoxy.” Many of White’s collected statements will surprise many Latter-day Saint readers. Few realized that Pearson, Riddle, Yarn, Andrus, McKinlay, Bankhead, and other Mormon writers represent a theological tradition so close to Catholic-Protestant theology and so absolutistic in its concept of God. Readers will be surprised at this tradition’s emphasis on unavoidable sin, on grace as opposed to works, and on the total dependence of humankind on God. 

In order to develop these ideas, White borrows the “neo-orthodoxy” label from Protestantism and attempts to compare this Mormon tradition with Protestant neo orthodoxy. The comparison is not completely felicitous. What counts as Protestant neo-orthodoxy differs substantially from what might be called Mormon neo orthodoxy. For one thing, the Protestant tradition has none of the Bible literalism and fundamentalism found in the Mormon tradition. But the label “neo-orthodoxy” works as well as any other label to characterize the difference in theology between Christian orthodoxy and Joseph Smith’s distinctively Mormon view. It is Christian orthodoxy that White labels as “neo orthodox” when it occurs in the Mormon tradition. 

White’s book also discusses the sociology of religion. While White claims that a crisis occurred in Mormon theology giving rise to this new tradition, his argument leaves me unconvinced. Examining the cultural and sociological components of theological development through the sociology of religion inadequately explains the views of Pearson, Yarn, Riddle, Andrus, Turner, and others. Still, White accurately identifies their views and legitimately asks what brought them about. Rather than view them as products of a sociological crisis, White should examine individual personal development and one person’s influence on another. 

In calling Mormon Neo-orthodoxy a crisis theology, White asserts that it is “the cultural crisis, which is my concern here.” He then adds, “in his 1967 essay, ‘The Crisis in American Religious Conscious ness,’ O’Dea compellingly argued that this century, including the 1950s and 1960s which constitute the formative period for development for Mormon neo-orthodoxy” (p. 15) constitutes the formative crisis period. 

But in defining the crisis, White discusses the traditions of intellectualism and anti-communism among Latter-day Saints and ascribes both to the same crisis. This makes the attempt to pinpoint a crisis more difficult. The dates of a so-called crisis can vary from 1933 to the present. The characteristics of the crisis are vague and not precisely denned. The questions remain of when an identifiable crisis occurred, what caused it, when it was over, and what its results were. 

White brings his discussion up to the present in the fascinating penultimate chapter entitled “Recent Developments.” In this chapter he discusses the work of Paul Toscano on human depravity, of Janice Allred on original sin, and of Donald P. Olsen and Frederic Voros who have developed views on grace and other simi lar views that are sympathetic to the neo orthodox concept of Mormon theology. The fundamental question confronting these writers and the neo-orthodox theologians is the role of human freedom. Do we have any freedom, and if we do, is it only given to us by God and exercised according to God’s will, or is it independent of God and an intrinsic part of our makeup? Unfortunately, these views of sin, depravity, original sin, and grace are only consistent with an absence of freedom and with an absolutistic nature of God. The serious problems concerning freedom are the same as those of the Catholic-Protestant theologians who originally advanced these ideas. 

Questions concerning how we are to understand evil and human suffering are also raised. Are they to be blamed on humans or ascribed to God? If the latter, there is no way to escape the conclusion that we are not responsible, that an absolutistic God has predestined our lives. 

In short, Mormon Neo-Orthodoxy: A Crisis Theology is an excellent and important new study of trends and tendencies in Mormon theology. The current challenge that Mormons are not Christians makes this issue especially germane to Latter-day Saints. In order to establish that we are Christians, we tend to accommodate our theological views to those of orthodox Christianity. Thus, we abandon the ingenious insights of the Prophet Joseph Smith and fail to realize that orthodox Christian theology was largely borrowed from Greek philosophy and from the New Testament. White’s book enables us to see in stark contrast what the different theological tendencies are and how we should understand them. In doing so, it is an excellent and rare addition to our understanding of Mormon theology. 

Mormon Neo-Orthodoxy: A Crisis Theology by O. Kendall White, Jr. (Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, 1987), 196 pp., $11.95.