Two years ago the United Methodist Church passed a resolution that outlined differences between historic, apostolic Christian faith and Mormonism. It recommended that Latter-day Saints seeking to become United Methodists be baptized into the faith.
Now a group of Methodists is circulating a petition to rescind that resolution, an issue that will be taken up by more than 800 delegates from Colorado, Wyoming and Utah at this week's meeting in Salt Lake City of the United Methodist Rocky Mountain Annual Conference. The theme of this year's conference, which ends Saturday, is "One in Spirit" and the topic that will probably dominate debate is homosexuality.
But the Mormon question has particular resonance in Salt Lake City.
"United Methodists historically have not believed ourselves called by God to separate the sheep from the goats," says the proposed resolution, "nor to define acceptable standards of theological or liturgical expression for those whose faith traditions and practices differ from ours, nor to declare non-Christian a church which understands itself to be Christian."
The original resolution regarding members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints "is very un-Methodist," says the Rev. Lynn Evans of First United Methodist Church in Cortez, Colo.
"We have always been a big tent church," says Evans, the petition's main sponsor. "We've never before in our nearly 225-year history divided up who is and isn't Christian. Never before in our history have we asked somebody to be rebaptized. "
Evans calls the earlier resolution "idiocy" and wonders what group will be next. "Presbyterians? Lutherans? Catholics?"
The Rev. Jennifer Hare-Diggs, pastor of Centenary United Methodist Church in Salt Lake City, said Evans is misreading the resolution on Mormonism, which she helped prepare.
The origin of the resolution came in February 1998 when the Rev. Doug Slaughter of Community United Methodist Church in Ogden discussed with other pastors how to handle Mormons who wanted to become Methodists.
There was no consistent rule governing such situations; each pastor did what he or she thought was right -- and even some prospective members had varied opinions on whether their Mormon rite was sufficient.
Slaughter arranged a round-table discussion on the matter that included other pastors, church officials and an official representative of the LDS Church.
"We wanted the dialogue to be open and respectful," said Hare-Diggs. "We were not there to decide anyone's salvation. We just wanted clarity on how we each perceived the meaning and role of baptism."
The result was a nine-page position paper, approved by all participants, including the LDS Church official, that outlined each group's beliefs about baptism, the nature of God, the mission of Jesus Christ, the scriptures each relies on and the goal of salvation.
And it noted that the two faiths have different baptismal rituals. United Methodists, like many traditional Christians, baptize infants as well as adult converts by ladling water over their foreheads.
In the LDS Church, children and converts 8 years or older are baptized by being fully immersed in water by a lay male church leader.
That paper formed the basis of the resolution passed at the 2000 United Methodist General Conference meeting in Cleveland without floor discussion, Hare-Diggs said.
The Methodist statement stopped short of saying Mormons are not Christian, unlike statements adopted by The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) and the Southern Baptist Convention.
"The LDS Church itself, while calling itself Christian, explicitly professes a distinction and separateness from the ecumenical community and is intentional about clarifying significant differences in doctrine," said the original resolution. "As United Methodists we agree with their assessment that the LDS Church is not a part of the historic, apostolic tradition of the Christian faith."
For her part, Hare-Diggs finds Evans' petition to be not even helpful to Mormons.
"To insist that someone is part of a tradition that he or she claims not to be part of seems to be a great offense and quite disrespectful," she says