The modern spirit of political correctness, of dialogue, and of Rodney's King's bleating cry asking if we can't just get along, warns us to be on the lookout for any work that is too anxious to find common ground at the expense of truth. I am pleased to report that How Wide the Divide?, despite a certain foreboding, doesn't set truth aside for the sake of "getting along," at least not from the perspective of the Christian side of the debate represented by Craig Blomberg...at least not intentionally. I can't speak of course for the LDS side, represented by Steven Robinson, but Richard Ostling has reported that some LDS were uncomfortable with some of what Robinson said about salvation and grace, and Robinson himself decries certain positions held by what he describes as extremists in his party. I suggest asking someone in the LDS to find out for yourself; but personally, I am having a hard time escaping the conclusion that when it comes to doctrine in popular LDS works, the left hand oft knows not what the right hand is doing, and this to a much greater extent even than in the diversity of orthodox Christendom. Or perhaps it is as two more cynical friends of mine have supposed: The right hand knows what the left is doing, but doesn't do anything about it because what the left hand does is good press for the body as whole.

This book isn't a dialogue exactly: It is a case of each author presenting his view on four major issues (Scripture, nature of God/deification of man, deity of Christ/Trinity, salvation/eternal state), followed by a joint conclusion presenting a list of agreements and disagreements. One can certainly learn a lot from this book. One can also see bad news ahead for the LDS side, and this is confirmed in my own book, The Mormon Defenders. Until now the debate has been overwhelmingly done by popular "countercult" writers on the orthodox Christian side; now that the deficiencies in their work is becoming apparent, and scholars of a higher level are entering the fray, one gathers the sense of an onrushing freight train bearing down on a tomato. Blomberg sounds scholarly and collects data holistically; Robinson spends much more time begging the question and explaining away problems in his position. Blomberg hits and hits hard in many places, and wonders about inconsistencies being taught between one LDS spokesman and the next; Robinson is often reduced to having to agree, admitting to past mistakes and wild speculations by early LDS leaders, admitting that certain LDS doctrines cannot be found in the Bible (including the idea that God has a body of flesh and bone [78], which is said not to be in the text "explicitly" -- read: it must be assumed and read into the text), offering up convoluted "cow eating grass" explanations and irrelevant analogies, setting out ad hominem replies (dismissing certain ideas as "Platonic" without any concern over whether or not they are true, perhaps a matter of universal rather than strictly Platonic logic -- an example of the genetic fallacy on Robinson's part; and never mind that NT Judaism was already "Hellenized" to a goodly extent -- these fellows ought to read less Hatch and more Hengel), or planting hints of conspiracies (Either the standard "Hellenized church" bit, or else conspiracies that are so good that they leave no evidence; i.e., there's no textual evidence that the Bible's text was altered, but that's only because all the evidence was destroyed!).

I found this book moderately helpful. It will help us to get past some of the common nitpicks in the popular literature which really aren't that useful, and get down to the brass tacks of deciding whether what the LDS proclaims as their doctrine (or what individual LDS writers proclaim as their doctrine!) is actually true. But a cloud lies behind the silver lining for both sides. The bad news for the LDS side is that this book drops strong hints that while they may smell fairly good when addressed to the popular countercult literature, most of their arguments won't survive the test of serious evangelical scholarship, such as I have now applied. The bad news for the Christian reader is that this book probably teaches us a lot more about the width of the divide between Blomberg and Robinson as individuals than it does about the divide on the historic and current doctrines of Christianity and Mormonism. I recommend this book highly, but also advise that it be used with caution.