PROVO, Utah -- The question of whether men and women are saved by grace or works long has been a flashpoint in relations between The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other Christian denominations.

A new analysis by an LDS religious educator found the LDS position generally consistent since 1882, but also found large, meaningful and interesting shifts in the way church leaders have presented it -- including waxing and waning debates about the doctrines of other denominations.

Through the first eight decades of the 1900s, church leaders decreased their use of scriptures and increased the use of personal narratives when discussing grace and works. Many emphasized works, Ronald Bartholomew said Friday at a Brigham Young University conference celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of John Taylor, the third president of the LDS Church.

The increasingly frequent comparisons with the beliefs of other denominations coincided with efforts by church leaders to portray the differences between LDS doctrines and those of other churches as LDS missionary efforts expanded. Toward the end of the 20th century, however, Bartholomew found church leaders moved back toward the positions and teaching style of President Taylor, with its more balanced view of grace and works.



In 1882, President Taylor published "Mediation and Atonement," a 205-page book on salvation and grace that devoted 94 entire pages to scriptural passages. The book is available free online at Google Book. President Taylor emphasized the LDS belief that grace and works are necessary for salvation without comparing the church's doctrine with that of other denominations.

That practice would change.

Bartholomew said President Taylor's position was "that the power to overcome every aspect of the Fall and become like and with God is possible only through the gift bestowed by the Atonement of Jesus Christ and is completely outside the reach of fallen man. At the same time he exerts that in order for fallen man to reach this exalted state he must exercise his agency to believe in Christ, obey celestial laws and participate in ordinances prescribed for exaltation."

Bartholomew is a Church Educational System employee who teaches full-time in the BYU religion department. He studied thousands of pages of church magazines to analyze the statements of church leaders in the 126 years since President Taylor's book appeared. His goal was to see if the doctrine had changed and if future statements mirrored President Taylor's.
  
The majority of statements by church leaders for the next 40 years mirrored President Taylor's positions, though some began to outline the differences between the LDS doctrine and those of other Christian denominations, Bartholomew said.

For example, Elder George Teasdale, ordained a church apostle by President Taylor the year "Mediation and Atonement" was published, said at an 1899 conference a dozen years after President Taylor's death, "It is all nonsense that ordinances are non-essential."

The period from 1900 to 1919 was an era of reconciliation, and as the church desired peaceful relations with those outside the church, teachings took on a similar tone, Bartholomew said.

However, as the this era drew to a close, subtle changes began to appear. The presentation moved toward personal narrative rather than scriptural texts and Elder David O. McKay, Bartholomew said, "began to bring the church's doctrinal position into the context of a distinction between the physical and spiritual redemption, the former being provided solely by grace, the latter depending on our works and grace."

Elder McKay's emphasis set a tone that continued through much of the 20th and 21st centuries, Bartholomew said.

The 1920s brought a more radical shift as the church's membership and missionary efforts expanded, forcing more interaction with other denominations. Teachings and writings, Bartholomew said, became more polemic, or argumentative, and featured more comparisons.

The 1930s saw another change, with a focus on the need for both grace and works to obtain exaltation, which to Latter-day Saints is more than salvation.

Those outside the church may have gotten the impression that church doctrine changed during the 1940s and '50s as leaders' emphasis on works became "rather extreme," Bartholomew said, though they had not abandoned salvation by grace.

Some statements appeared to contradict President Taylor because of this strong emphasis on works. Elder Henry D. Moyle of the Quorum of the Twelve said, "Man can through his own effort, through the exercise of his own will power, lift himself from sin to righteousness," but only President McKay, Elder Moyle and two others taught in this manner.

And during the same era, in 1956, Elder Marion D. Hanks said salvation and exaltation are made possible solely through the graciousness of God.

In the 1960s, statements became significantly more harmonious with President Taylor's position. Elder Moyle's own emphasis shifted dramatically. In a 1962 conference, just three years after his earlier statement that man could lift himself to righteousness, he said, "(Christ) performed for us a task we could not do for ourselves."
  
In the next decade, the emphasis on works over grace returned in an effort to underscore the uniqueness of LDS doctrine. This again coincided with explosive growth as well as the revelation on the priesthood, Bartholomew said.

In a 1988 conference Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve delivered what Bartholomew said was an important talk that turned back toward President Taylor's position in two ways and set the tone for future teachings. First, Elder Oaks relied extensively on scriptural texts and, second, struck a cautious balance between grace and works.
  
That tone has continued.
  
In a 1995 talk titled "Building Bridges of Understanding," Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve said, "No matter how hard we work, no matter how much we obey, no matter how many good things we do in this life, it would not be enough were it not for Jesus Christ and His loving grace."

The past two decades has also seen the increased use of scriptural texts as the general church membership has increased its scriptural understanding, Bartholomew said.

E-mail: twalch@desnews.com