Podcast: Download (11.8MB)
This is an audio recording of the article entitled “Defending the King and His Kingdom,” by Louis C. Midgley, published in Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture, and posted here by permission.
Abstract: Some vocal cultural Mormons, busy asking themselves “why stay,” claim that it is not at all probable that there is a God, or that there even was a Jesus of Nazareth. They also ridicule the Atonement. In the language of our scriptures they are antichrists—that is, they deny that there was or is a Christ. Being thus against the King and His Kingdom, their trumpet does not give a clear sound; they are clearly against the one whom they made a solemn covenant to defend and sustain. Instead of seeking diligently to become genuine Holy Ones or Saints, they worship an idol—they have turned from the Way by fashioning an idol. They preach and practice a petty idolatry. Genuine Saints, including disciple-scholars, have a duty to defend the King and His Kingdom.
Louis Midgley (PhD, Brown University) is an emeritus professor of political science at Brigham Young University. Dr. Midgley has had an abiding interest in the history of Christian theology. He wrote his doctoral dissertation on Paul Tillich, the then-famous German-American Protestant theologian and political theorist/religious-socialist activist. Midgley also studied the writings of other influential Protestant theologians such as Karl Barth. Eventually he took an interest in contemporary Roman Catholic theology, and was also impacted by the work of important Jewish philosophers, including especially Leo Strauss and his disciples.
I appreciate much of the FAIR content, but does anyone else here view this article/podcast as very narrow minded and even offensive? I am very comfortable with my nuanced spirituality/testimony (based on a mix of my spiritual experiences and a complex church history and set of doctrinal evolution) and I love the church/ gospel… yet it seems that Dr. Midgley is calling me and others like me out as anti-Christs… and basically implying that such members are not wanted in the church. I hope others here can see why some might see this as offensive… And I think that posted/endorsing such content is an embarrassment to the good work that FAIR usually does…