“The most difficult aspect of this process was also the most satisfying in the end. I found myself taking on a defensive or apologetic mode that felt counterproductive to the goal of the dialogue. It required me to sit with some difficult realities and seek for greater humility and understanding beyond what I thought I knew.”

“Dialogue is always worthwhile and helpful when it’s genuine. When authentically curious and informed people come together in a safe environment, rich and meaningful learning happens. . . . The dialogue enriched my own theological knowledge and thinking, as well as self-understanding.”

“Often we are divided by a common language!”

“We immediately connected as mothers and were talking a lot about our own children and how they were viewed and seen as persons.”

“Now I feel holy respect . . .”

These are a few of the statements made by authors when we met to discuss our experiences of dialogue with one another in the writing of this book. It has not been easy. For example, sometimes it felt frustrating for some when old stereotypes of each other surfaced. At the same time there was always kindness, civility, and patience as we quested to understand each other. Difficulties in our conversations are opportunities to go deeper and to understand better each other’s sensitivities.

It is perhaps helpful to ask if our work together has been an “ecumenical dialogue” or an “interfaith dialogue.” Christian churches often come together ecumenically to find common ground, enrich their understanding of the gospel, and partner with each in facing the issues of our time. The World Council of Churches is the largest umbrella ecumenical Protestant body. The National Council of Churches USA is a partner body of the World Council of Churches.

Interfaith dialogue is wider—it includes, for example, conversations between Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians. The goal of interfaith dialogue is to create respect and mutual understanding. Sometimes partners come together in solidarity to address issues of mutual concern such as human rights, violence, racism, and so on.

Brigham Young University academics in conversation with Jewish academics is an example of interfaith dialogue. Community of Christ’s membership in the USA of the National Council of Churches is an example of an ecumenical relationship.

Our dialogue in this book has been within the Latter Day Saint family of churches that go back to the movement that began in the 1830s on the American frontier. Community of Christ and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have perhaps fourteen years in common and nearly two hundred years apart. Our conversation has not been to bring our respective churches together into a close working relationship. We are not representatives of our churches seeking unity or merger. We have simply been people of goodwill seeking to understand each other accurately and fairly. Thus, this has been more of an interfaith dialogue than an ecumenical one but still a significant step of peacemaking and perhaps one day of even reconciliation. We share this book to draw you into the dialogue also.

Perhaps what we have experienced together in writing this book can be further illustrated in our shared history of early Latter Day Saint mission in the British Isles. The Ribble Valley in Lancashire, England, is sacred geography for all Restoration faiths and is important is more familiar locations such as Palmyra, New York, or Kirtland, Ohio.[1] In the River Ribble at Preston, the first baptisms in the British Isles occurred in 1837. In December 2018, two members of our dialogue group and coeditors of this volume, Casey Paul Griffiths from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Andrew Bolton from Community of Christ, traveled together to the Ribble Valley, exploring this sacred place together. We stood in the spaces where the first Latter Day Saint missionaries proclaimed their message. We walked along the banks of the River Ribble where the first converts raced each other to the waters in their enthusiasm to be baptized first. We walked many of the same paths where the early Saints in this land shared their homes, their livelihood, and their hope for a restoration of the ancient faith of the apostles. As we walked through this special land, our differences melted away, and we felt only a shared heritage. We also help each other on our journeys. Casey and Andrew, for instance, were exploring the early Latter Day Saint history of Preston, Lancashire, and Casey helped Andrew discover the hospital Andrew was born in—a place Andrew had been searching for years to find.

The geography of the River Ribble is also a parable that illustrates our Latter-day Saint and Community of Christ dialogue since 2016. The estuary of the River Ribble, as it flows into the Irish Sea, is ten miles wide, but in its upper reaches in Yorkshire it is less than a yard in breadth and easy to step over from bank to bank. In our twelve dialogues in this book and earlier, we have found, unsurprisingly, that today the two churches are distinctly very different. In many ways they are as far apart as Lytham St Annes and Southport, towns north and south on the Ribble estuary. Understandings of divinity, Jesus Christ, Joseph Smith, Nauvoo, gender, sexual orientation, scripture, and common consent can seriously divide us. However, if we go “upstream” in our shared history, it is easier to cross over and find common stories that shape positively both our movements. For example, this includes the reality of spiritual experience exemplified by the First Vision, many sections of the Doctrine and Covenants, the Book of Mormon, the Kirtland Temple, concepts of revelation, sacred space, and the cause of Zion.

The story of the Ribble Valley in Lancashire adds also another dimension. The mountain Saints of the Great Basin and the prairie Saints[2] of the American Midwest are today both vigorous international churches. The arrival of the first missionaries in Canada (1833) and the British Isles (1837) served as only the beginning of a shared impulse to obey the command of Jesus to go into all the world and baptize (see Matthew 28:18–28). We are each deeply rooted in history and geography, but both churches also have a global consciousness that perhaps makes us more open and nuanced. Scholars contributing to this volume came from Canada, Iceland, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Germany, as well as Provo, Utah; Independence, Missouri; and elsewhere in the United States.

Discovering each other’s understanding of sacred space has also become common ground and enriching conversation. This has also been a metaphor for our dialogue. As John Hull, professor emeritus of religious education at the University of Birmingham, once said, “I may not be particularly holy and you may not be very holy, but the space between us, as we talk, is holy ground.” Dialogue is holy ground.

Respectful and sincere conversations break down stereotypes and simplistic and sometimes inaccurate understandings of “the other.” Our dialogue has been characterized by candid exchanges and forthright thoughtful expressions but also delightful humor, mutual courtesy, and good fellowship. We have eaten, teased, and laughed together. When things have been the most difficult and annoying, this is when dialogue has had to go deeper.

Our dialogue is far from over. Following are some other topics before us:

• Policy and implementing policy
• Joseph Smith Jr.
• Inner canon of scripture—what do we actually use?
• Hymnody
• Doctrine and theology
• Climate and stewardship
• Religion and science
• Globalization and becoming international movements
• Indigenous peoples / Native Americans
• Poverty

Authentic friendships have grown. We can be critical at times, but we have also enjoyed holy envy of each other’s traditions. Holy respect has also grown for each other.

The Saints from both faiths find joy, meaning, and inspiration for discipleship in our temples. Today our temple traditions are symbolized by the Community of Christ Temple in Independence and the nearby Latter-day Saint temple in Kansas City. These temples are in or near Jackson County—a place of historical and future significance for both churches. These sacred spaces also connect with the great purpose of the Latter Day Saint movement: “Seek to bring forth and establish the cause of Zion” (LDS Doctrine and Covenants 6:6; CofChrist Doctrine and Covenants 6:3a). The cause of Zion means that all of the earth is to become redeemed sacred space. Zion is sacred space because of the presence of justice and the end of poverty and all violence and divisions between peoples (see Moses 7:18; CofChrist Doctrine and Covenants 36:2h–i). The triumph of Zion is the end of all “-ites” through conversion to the love of God in our hearts, modeled by the Redeemer of the world (see LDS 4 Nephi 1:15–17; CofChrist IV Nephi 1:17–20).

Through dialogue we seek that day when “oldest enemies” become trusting friends. Each of us has peace traditions, at times marginal or ignored, but then gloriously bubbling up into the light. The call to Zion and peace is clear for all of us in this inspired passage: “Blessed are they who shall seek to bring forth my Zion, . . . for they shall have the gift and power of the Holy Ghost. . . . And whoso shall publish peace, yea, tidings of great joy, how beautiful upon the mountains shall they be.” (LDS 1 Nephi 13:37; CofChrist I Nephi 3:187, 189). Our dialogue and this book of conversations are a small but significant step on this journey.

Notes

[1] See, for example, Matthew Lyman Rasmussen, Mormonism and the Making of a British Zion (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2016), 4–6.

[2] “Mountain” and “prairie” Saints are terms used by Jan Shipps for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Community of Christ. See Jan Shipps, “New History of the Prairie and Mountain Saints; Race and Gender,” Mormon Studies Podcast, November 25, 2014, https://radiopublic.com/mormon-studies-podcast-Gm2Kya/s1!7a7cf.