Mormonism’s Encounter with Other Religions James E. Faulconer Abstract I argue that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (in other words, Mormonism The official name of the church is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or “LDS Church” for short. Many members of the church prefer to be called “LDS” and the church prefers officially to be called either by its full name or by the name “LDS Church.” However, because one of its scriptures is the Book of Mormon, the church is also known as “the Mormon Church.” For sake of consistency and because “Mormon” is a more familiar term, I will use the terms “Mormon Church” and “Mormonism” throughout. ) is in principle open to encounters with other religions, first because the Church teaches that God has inspired all of the major religious leaders of the world, and second because Mormonism is a religion of practices—a specific way of being in the world—more than it is a theological religion. As I understand Mormonism, this focus on imitating Christ by one’s acts is one of the things that makes the Mormon Church open to encounter with other religions because it makes the theological questions less important. I will illustrate my claim that Mormonism is open to encounter with other religions by talking about a Mormon practice and a Mormon belief, rites for the dead and eternal progression. I will compare the first to Confucian filial piety and veneration of ancestors. I will compare the second to the Buddhist understanding of Enlightenment. Thus, the thrust of this paper has two major prongs: showing that Mormonism has a friendly face to other religions and showing that there are significant parallels between its beliefs and practices and those of other religions, including non-Christian ones. God speaks to all of his children In early 1978 the highest governing body of the Mormon Church, the First Presidency, issued a statement reaffirming Mormon ideas about God’s love for all human beings. Among other things their statement said: The great religious leaders of the world such as Mohammed, Confucius, [Buddha], and the Reformers, as well as philosophers including Socrates, Plato, and others, received a portion of God's light. Moral truths were given to them by God to enlighten whole nations and to bring a higher level of understanding to individuals. . . . [W]e believe that God has given and will give to all peoples sufficient knowledge to help them on their way to eternal salvation. (First Presidency 1978) Two things stand out in this proclamation, the inclusion of non-Christian religious leaders and the inclusion of philosophers among those to whom God has revealed his wisdom. Within this declaration, Mormon church leaders refer to two scriptures from the Book of Mormon as a basis for the belief reaffirmed in their statement. In the first, God speaks, revealing those to whom he will give his knowledge. He says: “I shall . . . speak unto all nations of the earth and they shall write it” (2 Nephi 29:12). God’s promise is not only that he will speak to the people of the Bible and to the people of the Book of Mormon, but that he will speak to “all the nations of the earth.” A later passage in the Book of Mormon reiterates this belief, saying: “the Lord doth grant unto all nations, of their own nation and tongue, to teach his word” (Alma 29:8). Jews cannot claim to have a monopoly on the word of God, Christians cannot, Mormons cannot, for he speaks to all people and inspires their religious and philosophical leaders. Thus it is canonical for Mormons that God gives revelation to all the religions of the world. But as important as that is, recall that the Mormon leaders’ message goes further. It says that all the nations of the earth will write what God gives them. Though Mormons do not accept books such as the Sutras or the writings of Confucius into their own canon, they teach that God has spoken to his children through such writings. Those books, too, are inspired by God. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is, nevertheless, the only true church I must, however, give some nuance to what I have said. It is possible to misunderstand these Mormon beliefs to mean that all religions and scriptures are the same before God. Mormons openly and strongly affirm: “All men and women are brothers and sisters, not only by blood relationship from common mortal progenitors but as literal spirit children of an Eternal Father” (First Presidency 1978). As the Christian scriptures teach, “God is no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34; Doctrine and Covenants 38:16). Yet Mormons also believe that ultimately salvation is impossible except through Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, and that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only church on the earth fully recognized by God. They understand themselves collectively, as a chosen people. The solution to the tension between these two ideas, that God speaks through all the great religious teachers and philosophers of the world and that Mormons are a chosen people, lies in understanding what it means to be chosen. It does not mean, for example, that members of the Mormon Church are superior to others. Nor does it mean that God loves Mormons more than others. Such claims would contradict the authoritative statement that all people are equally God’s children. The phrase “only true church” comes from Mormon scripture, which describes the Mormon Church as “the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth with which I, the Lord, am well pleased” (Doctrine and Covenants 1:30). It appears that the word “true” is being used in that verse as it is in the Bible, where we read “That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world” (John 1:9). The biblical passage uses the Greek word ἀληθινός (alethinos) to translate the word “true.” We cannot understand that to mean “only.” Rather, as used there it means “authentic,” in the old sense of that English word: “authorized.” The Light that God has sent into the world is the authentic, genuine, authorized Light of God. So when Mormon scripture says that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormon Church, is the only true church, the implication is that the Mormon Church is the one church with God’s recognized authority rather than the only church that has a genuine relationship with God. Consider an analogy: a father might have several children, but appoint only one as his legal representative for a particular purpose such as to execute a will. That appointment, however, would not necessarily imply any less love for the other children, and the father would continue to love, sup with, and communicate with the others. That is how Mormons understand their relationship with other churches. Similarly, when Mormons use the term “chosen,” it has the sense that it has in the Old Testament, where to it means “a tool for a work.” They claim that God has chosen the Mormon Church as a tool to do his work, his legal representative. To speak of the Mormon Church as chosen or as “the only true church,” as Mormons often do, is to speak of it as being God’s vehicle for the fullness of his work. But since God’s work is for all of humankind, Mormons also teach that God loves all of his children equally and gives his blessings to all, including inspiration. Mormonism is relatively non-theological, emphasizing practice instead When thinking about these things it is important to recognize that Mormonism is similar to Judaism and many religions of the Eastern hemisphere: it is less about theology, about believing in a particular set of teachings, than it is about living in the world in a particular way. More precisely, Mormonism has less to do with inculcating a particular theology than it does with teaching people to see the world in a particular way and to living the world in the way that follows from that vision. As the Protestant theologians Beckwith, Mosser, and Owen note, “the body of doctrinally binding LDS [in other words, Mormon] theology is surprisingly small” (Beckwith 2002, p. 2). (For more on this, see also Faulconer 2010.) Of course there are defining beliefs. In particular, Mormon scriptures say that we must have faith in Jesus Christ, that we must repent, that we must be baptized, and that we must receive the Holy Ghost. Implicit in the claim that the Mormon Church is the true church is that the authority to baptize and confirm was lost in the early Church and has been restored today in the Mormon Church. This claim to priesthood authority appears to be the primary meaning of the term “true church” in Mormonism. They also teach that we must follow Christ by obeying him, and that we must continue to do that “to the end” (2 Nephi 31:2-31). Belief is not irrelevant to Mormons. Like other Christians, Mormons believe that salvation comes only through accepting God’s grace (see, for example, Uchtdorf https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/04/the-gift-of-grace?lang=eng), but they emphasize that accepting that grace entails obeying God and living a life in harmony with his will. Members of the Mormon Church are expected to live honest and chaste lives. The emphasis on living in harmony with the will of God means that Mormons are more interested in inculcating Christian life as they understand it than they are in promulgating their distinctive beliefs. And the result of that is there is considerable variation among Mormons as to which of the distinctive beliefs they hold and, especially, how they explain them. The unity of Mormonism is defined by the authority of their prophet and other priesthood leaders and by the shared history of its adherents, but as much or more than anything else, it is defined by the shared practices, daily as well as sacred, of its members (see Faulconer 2013). Since the Church is a lay church, with almost no paid clergy, members of each congregation are expected to do their share to see to it that the congregation functions well. Lay men and women supervise and perform Mormon rituals and direct congregations in worship, with lay priesthood leaders acting as bishops, what would in other Christian churches be called “pastors.” However, much of what Mormon members do is more ordinary: they clean the building in which they meet; they must visit other members of the congregation whom they have been asked to watch over; they must take turns preaching on Sundays and saying prayers before the congregation; they are expected to accept calls to serve as leaders and teachers in the children’s, youth, and adult organizations. There they teach classes, take young people on excursions, and help congregation members with their temporal needs. Mormonism expects a high degree of participation from its members. Service is at the heart of Mormon practice That expectation and the behaviors that this service produces are not the result merely of command. Rather, they are the result of a way of seeing the world that Mormons share. Like many religions, Mormonism is a way of seeing the world—perhaps better described as a religious culture—more than it is a set of theological propositions to which its adherents assent. Participating Mormons see the things they do as what life in the world with other people requires if one is to imitate Jesus Christ and his Father. Mormon scripture explains this way of seeing, saying that those who have had faith in Jesus Christ, repented, and been baptized have—in doing so—come to be part of “the fold of God” and are willing to be called the people of God. According to the Book of Mormon, membership in God’s fold means: [Ye] are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light; yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life. (Alma 18:8-9) That understanding is consonant with Paul’s biblical teaching that “We are the children of God . . . if so be that we suffer with him” (Romans 8:16-17). Ideally, being a Mormon means seeing the world as God does and suffering as he does, with and for those who suffer, whether their suffering is great or small. This understanding explains the Mormon penchant for community service as well as the considerable service they give within their congregations. I believe that it also helps explain Mormonism’s willingness to come face-to-face with other religions, for it is not uncommon that things like disaster relief require different religions to work with one another: Catholics and Mormons, Mormons and Muslims, for example. It is difficult not to have respect for those you work with when you are doing God’s work. But working out the ways in which Mormons encounter other religions when they engage in disaster relief or other community projects is work for a sociologist, and I am a philosopher. In spite of the fact that Mormonism is mostly defined by its practices, I will look briefly at two of its beliefs and argue that the parallels between those beliefs and some beliefs in Confucianism and Buddhism helps make a Mormon-Confucian or Mormon-Buddhist encounter more fruitful. The two beliefs are what Mormons call “work for the dead” and “eternal progression.” Since I am not a scholar of either Buddhism or Confucianism, I will only be able to make comparisons of Mormon beliefs to superficial aspects of both those religions. Because of that lack of background, I am unable to do a more in-depth comparison. I will give an overview of these beliefs and practices, occasionally referring in general terms to the Confucian and Buddhist traditions. I believe that will allow those who are scholars of those religions to make the connections themselves. Work for the dead :: Confucian veneration of ancestors Mormonism’s founder, Joseph Smith, lived in early nineteenth-century, frontier America. One of the knotty theological questions of his day was “What becomes of those who die without having heard of Jesus Christ.” The logic of the standard answer of the time was: In order to enter God’s kingdom, you must be baptized. A majority of the world’s population—many infants as well as most non-Christians—has not had the chance to be baptized. Therefore they are doomed to hell. Almost ninety years after the founding of the Mormon Church The Catholic Encyclopedia—now outdated though representative of a long tradition of Christian thought—expressed a more theologically sophisticated understanding of this conclusion. It said, “Those dying unregenerate [in other words, unbaptized] are eternally excluded from the supernatural happiness of the beatific vision” (Catholic Encyclopedia; http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09256a.htm). Catholic thinking on this question has since changed. The Catholic Catechism no long takes such a definitive view, saying that infants who die unbaptized are entrusted to the mercy of God and “Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved” (Catechism; http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P3M.HTM). Presumably many other Christians today have similar views. It is important to recognize that isn’t the same as consigning them to hell, but it certainly does exclude them from heaven. Many in the early nineteenth century found the syllogism’s conclusion both logically unavoidable and unconscionable. Why would a just God exclude someone from his presence who had no chance to choose otherwise? Pre-twentieth-century theologians had answers, but few of their answers satisfied those who found the conclusion horrific. It offended their moral sensibility for it would, in their eyes, condemn millions unjustly and make God not only mysterious, but a monster. Of course during the last two hundred years a number of innovations in theological thought have responded to the problem. Few today accept the syllogism that I have described. But it was against the nineteenth-century background of that syllogism that Joseph Smith received a revelation. Preaching at a funeral sermon in 1840, Smith spoke to a widow whose son had died without being baptized. Reminding her “the Gospel of Jesus Christ brought glad tidings of great joy,” he told her that baptism for the dead had been practiced during New Testament times and “people could now act for their friends who had departed this life” (Ehat 1996, location 1075). Smith taught that we can be baptized for those who have died before us, and they have the agency either to accept or to reject that baptism on their behalf. The solution to the ancient problem of what becomes of those who were unable to receive Christian baptism was that their descendants could be baptized for them by proxy. Doing this ritual work on behalf of dead ancestors is an obligation for Latter-day Saints. Referring to baptism for the dead and associated practices, Smith said: [M]y dearly beloved brethren and sisters, let me assure you that these are principles in relation to the dead and the living that cannot be lightly passed over, as pertaining to our salvation. For their salvation is necessary and essential to our salvation, as Paul says concerning the fathers—that they without us cannot be made perfect—neither can we without our dead be made perfect. (Doctrine and Covenants 128:15) Whereas for most Christians salvation is an individual affair, something only between the person and God, for Mormons salvation cannot be achieved apart from the family. Their teaching is that we cannot be saved as individuals; we can only come before God as a human family, and when Mormons say that they are not using the word “family” metaphorically. The theoretical goal is ultimately to bind all of humanity to one another in a larger family that has God as the Father of all. Smith’s successor, Brigham Young expressed this attitude well when he said, “What a pleasing thought! We shall enjoy each other’s society in purity, in holiness, and in the power of God, and no time will ever come when we may not enjoy this” (Young 1862, p. 5). That ultimate goal is to be achieved by individuals binding themselves together as families and, then, those families binding themselves as a larger family that includes one’s ancestors. Using biblical language, Mormons call that binding of people to one another in eternal families “sealing.” The concept is frequent in the Hebrew Bible. For example, Nehemiah 9:38-10:1 uses the Hebrew term ‎חָתַם (ḥātam) to speak of the princes, priests, and Levites who were sealed in covenant. It is also common in the New Testament: John 6:26 speaks of God sealing “the Son of man”(Jesus). Paul speaks of circumcision as a seal of righteousness (Romans 4:11), and chapter 7 of Revelation tells of the servants of God who are sealed on their foreheads. The verb used in the New Testament is σφραγίζω (sphragizō). The English word reflects the concept of the medieval Western and ancient Near Eastern seal which, much like a Korean인감, was an impression put on a thing to show ownership. Mormons believe that they must be sealed to their families. They must be marked by ritual as belonging to that family. And they believe that sealing makes it possible for their families to be sealed as part of God’s larger family. For this reason, Mormons believe that a person must find her ancestors and perform ritual work on their behalf in order to be with them in God’s kingdom. Her work seals her to her ancestors and them to theirs, marking them as a family and marking them as candidates for God’s family. Family is at the heart of Mormon religious understanding and experience. This ritual work of tying oneself to one’s ancestors through sealing is obligatory for members of the Mormon Church. It explains why the Church has enormous depositories of microfilm and microfiche of civic, ecclesiastical, and family records from all over the world. It explains why the Church sponsors a program for indexing historical records by tens of thousands of volunteers. It also explains why the Church has established numerous family history centers, where one can search the Church’s and many other archives via the Internet. There are presently twenty-four such centers in South Korea. The depository, the historical indexing, and those centers are necessary so that people can establish their ancestral lines and be sealed to their ancestors. This practice also explains why the Mormon Church builds temples all over the world. As of 1 July 2015 there were 147 temples worldwide, including one in Seoul, with another fourteen under construction and thirteen in the planning stages. Temples are not ordinary worship spaces, but places specially set apart for the sacred rituals associated with sealing individuals and families. Because of that, unlike the chapels in which Mormons worship weekly, temples are not open to the general public. Mormons are urged to go to the temple regularly to do the work for their ancestors. Mary Cook, a leader in the Church has said, “We know your virtuous lives will bless your ancestors. . . . Stand in holy places [in other words the temple] for your ancestors” (https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/04/when-you-save-a-girl-you-save-generations?). In the temple Mormons are reminded of who they are in a ritual that emphasizes their relationship with those who have lived before them, and they do that as proxy for a particular person who has died, preferably an ancestor. However, for Mormons, the obligation to one’s ancestors goes beyond ritual temple work. A contemporary Mormon leader said “Every human being who comes to this earth is the product of generations of parents. We have a natural yearning to connect with our ancestors” (Nelson 2010, p. 2). Because of that desire to connect with their ancestors, Mormons not only do proxy work for them in temples, they also compile family histories, preserving the stories of their ancestors. And they are encouraged to keep journals and to write personal histories for their descendants. Their understanding of family is expressed in one of their scriptures, which commands “Seek diligently to turn the hearts of the children to their fathers, and the hearts of the fathers to the children” (Doctrine and Covenants 98:16). As in many non-Western religions, to be a Mormon is to define oneself as a member of a family rather than as merely an individual. Obviously Mormon temple ritual, family histories, and personal journals are not the same as ancestor veneration in Confucianism. Equally obvious: Confucian rituals for the ancestors are not soteriological. Another obvious difference is that in Confucianism filial piety and state loyalty have been strongly connected, but there is little or no connection between work for the dead and state loyalty in Mormonism. It would be a mistake to see too many parallels between Confucian and Mormon belief. Nevertheless, both Mormonism and Confucianism understand religious worship to require ritually paying homage to one’s ancestors and memorializing that relationship, and both religions understand the family as central to human being and religious practice. Eternal progression :: Buddhist Enlightenment That brings me to the second comparison I wish to make, between the Mormon belief in eternal progression and the Buddhist understanding of enlightenment. I hope to show that, like Buddhism, Mormonism understands our existence as a series of lives in which we can progress toward an ultimate goal, enlightenment for Buddhists and divinization for Mormons. Joseph Smith hinted at the doctrine of eternal progression in various places, but that belief did not begin to be clear until his successor, Brigham Young. In a discourse Young delivered on 10 July 1853, he said: To simply take the path pointed out in the Gospel, by those who have given us the plan of salvation, is to take the path that leads to life, to eternal increase; it is to pursue that course wherein we shall NEVER, NEVER lose what we obtain, but continue to collect, to gather together, to increase, to spread abroad, and extend to an endless duration. Those persons who strive to gain ETERNAL life, gain that which will produce the increase their hearts will be satisfied with. Nothing less than the privilege of increasing eternally, in every sense of the word, can satisfy the immortal spirit. (Young 1853, p. 350) Though Young speaks in the expansive language of the nineteenth century, we can paraphrase his meaning briefly: those who follow God will be led to life, and life means eternally increasing in every essential aspect of our being, whether power, position, or knowledge. Though Mormons do not believe in reincarnation, they do believe that the eternal progress that Young speaks of happens through more than one life. We progressed in our life before we were born. We can progress in this world. We can progress in our life between death and resurrection, as well as in our life after our resurrection. The movement through these four lives is called “the Plan of Salvation” or “the Great Plan of Happiness.” According to Mormon scripture, we existed as persons before we were born: “Man was also in the beginning with God” their scriptures say (Doctrine and Covenants 88:40). Another scripture says that the beings we are “have no beginning; they existed before, they shall have no end, they shall exist after, for they are . . . eternal” (Abraham 3:18). In other words, every person has always existed and will always continue to exist. And we are where we are now because we have progressed to this point through the grace of God. The same Mormon scripture says that God organized the spirits in their pre-mortal life (Abraham 3:22-23). Then, he prepared the world for them to be born into so that they could become embodied beings rather than just spirit beings and so they could demonstrate whether they were willing to follow God (Abraham 3:24-25). The promise was “They who keep their first estate [pre-mortal existence] shall be added upon” (Abraham 3:26). In other words, those who learned and grew as organized spirits would be rewarded with the chance to learn and grow more: progress leads to the possibility of more progress. More significantly, the same verse of scripture tells us “they who keep their second estate shall have glory added upon their heads for ever and ever.” Most Mormons interpret that to mean that those who continue to learn and grow after their birth into this world will be able to continue to progress forever. It is important to note that regardless of whether a person chooses to follow God in this life, he or she will progress (Adams 1992). Some may do so more slowly. Some may progress differently or in a different direction. But in the long run, across their several lives, all persons will progress. There is no definitive Mormon doctrine as to whether that progression is in the same direction. Most Mormons assume that it is not, but a significant number assume that in principle all persons can eventually progress to the ultimate point of development. According to Mormon teaching, after resurrection each person enters a kingdom suited to his or her life as a mortal and suited to his or her desires. According to the Book of Mormon, we will have the same desires and inclinations in the afterlife that we have in this: Alma 34:34. Even the lowest of these kingdoms is a good place, a progression in comparison to this life. Mormon scripture says that its glory “surpasses all understanding” (Doctrine and Covenants 76:89). What is the most desirable, ultimate goal of spiritual development according to Mormons? To become divine oneself, to become like God. It is a version of what the Christian tradition has called “theosis.” The belief in theosis is held mainly among the Orthodox Christian churches, but most scholars recognize it as an ancient Christian belief. See, for example, Litwa 2008. Some researchers, especially those with a proselytizing axe to grind, have made much of nineteenth-century Mormon speculations concerning what theosis means. Those speculations included claims about populating new worlds, for example. These speculations had their roots in non-canonized things taught by Joseph Smith as well as interpretations of canonized teachings (for example, Doctrine and Covenants 132:19, 30). They received their strongest impetus, however, from the second Mormon prophet, Brigham Young. See, for example, Young 1862, among many other places where he speaks in this way. But during the twentieth century those ideas were taught less and less as time went on until now they are seldom heard at all in serious discussions. My suspicion is that most Mormons would say “I don’t know” if asked what it means to be like God. It doesn’t mean mystical union with God. Clearly it mean does mean having the character of God. It also means living with family in the presence of the Father and having all that he has (Doctrine and Covenants 84:38). But beyond that one can say little. As I have explained earlier, one achieves theosis by faith, repentance, baptism, reception of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. To this must be added, however, participation in the rites of the Mormon temple. Mormons often speak of the necessity of obedience and of the need to obey if we are to be with God. But that is shorthand for a more complicated belief. As one of the Mormon Church’s First Presidency said recently: We all know there are better reasons [than obedience] for attending our meetings and living our lives as committed disciples of Jesus Christ. . . . I am here to become a better man, to be lifted by the inspiring examples of my brothers and sisters in Christ, and to learn how to more effectively minister to those in need. In short, I am here because I love my Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. (https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/04/on-being-genuine?lang=eng) Mormons take seriously Jesus’s admonition, “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). We must live a life in accordance with Jesus’s teaching because we love him rather than because we are required to obey him in order to earn his reward. “Obedience” is the shorthand way of speaking of the necessity of such a life. Like Buddhists, Mormons believe that one must live a life of moderation, succumbing neither to indulgence nor self-mortification. The Western interpretation of Buddhism, particularly aspects of 선 Buddhism, has been attractive to a number of Mormon intellectuals. Their interest ranges from a vague understanding of Buddhism to an engaged understanding, including several summers learning meditation, to a scholar’s understanding. To my knowledge they have not published their thinking about the conjunction of Buddhism and Mormonism, but from private discussions with several of them I believe that they find most attractive the meditative practices and the doctrine of non-attachment. Adam S. Miller may represent this group best, combining experience in meditation at a Buddhist monastery and scholarly research in Buddhism, with his active engagement in Mormonism. The influence of Buddhism on his thought is perhaps most apparent in the essays of Miller 2012. Though one must be careful about inferences concerning these kinds of influences, the existence of these “Mormon Buddhists” suggests a hidden harmony between some aspects of Buddhism and Mormonism. One exploration of that possible harmony has been made by the Lebanese scholar Jad Hatem. Hatem’s study, Les Trois Néphites, le Bodhisattva, et le Mahdî: Ou l’ajournement de la beatitude comme acte messianique (Hatem, 2007), compares the Mormon belief in the importance of service to the similar teaching in Mahayana Buddhism, and Islam. Hatem (not a Mormon) does an excellent job of discussing the Mormon, Islamic, and Buddhist traditions with regard to the idea of a being who postpones heaven to serve others. In all three traditions, those who do so provide a model for others of what it means to be a believer. But, of course, there are more differences between Buddhism and Mormonism than there are similarities. In contrast to the Buddhist view that the body is a hindrance, Mormons believe in the importance of the body, that it is essential to our salvation. Indeed, Mormons believe that God himself is embodied. So Buddhists believe in the cycles of incarnation that will eventually lead to freedom from the body, but the Mormon Plan of Salvation is a way by which persons become embodied and then are able to be embodied eternally. Self-fulfillment rather than self-negation is the goal of Mormonism, though it understands self-fulfillment in terms of the family and relationships with others rather than in the individualistic terms of much Western thought and religion. This continuation of relationships with others means that Mormons believe that, though enlightenment or salvation might mean the cessation of craving, it does not mean the cessation of desire. In fact the desire for the other person as beloved is at the heart of Mormon belief and practice. Conclusion The project of this paper was to suggest some things that make Mormonism open to encounter with other religions. First, we would have to say, is their canonical belief that all major religions and philosophies have been inspired by God. Thus, the difference between Mormons and non-Mormons cannot be reduced to a simple “us versus them” in which “we” have the truth and “they” are wrong. Joseph Smith said, “We should gather all the good and true principles in the world and treasure them up, or we shall not come out as true ‘Mormons’” (Smith 1938, p. 316). Mormons are predisposed to believe that those of other religions have truth to share with them. Second would be that Mormonism is heavily weighted in favor of the practical rather than the theological. The consequence of that weighting is that differences in belief matter less than they would otherwise, though they matter. Mormons want to find ways of serving those within the faith but also others who are in need. They wish to work with others to alleviate suffering, and joining with other religions in that service, regardless of their beliefs, is unavoidable for such work. Of course the overlap of Mormon beliefs with those of other religions is also helpful in making Mormonism open to encounter with others. As we have seen, there are Mormon beliefs that may seem merely bizarre to some Western Christians, such the need to pay homage to one’s ancestors not only mentally, but also in religious rite, and the belief that the final goal of human existence is becoming like God. Yet we might expect those Mormon beliefs to strike a harmonic chord for many in non-Western religions, just as we might expect a similar chord to ring in the hearts of Mormons who learn about Confucianism or Buddhism. The commonalities between other religions and Mormonism open a space for discussion and respect. Respect for other religions has been central to a Mormon understanding of the world and to Mormon self-understanding from its beginnings. Mormonism does not have a creed. That is one evidence for the claim I made earlier that theology is relatively unimportant. But as part of an 1842 letter explaining Mormonism, Joseph Smith laid out a set of thirteen defining beliefs, as close to a creed as Mormons have gotten. Among those defining beliefs, called the Articles of Faith, is number eleven: “We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.” Perhaps we can locate the beginnings of Mormon openness to other religions in this early request for and statement of mutual respect, as well as in the belief that God has inspired the leaders of all great religions and philosophies and their writings. 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