http://bycommonconsent.com/2012/08/27/ben-witherington-on-whether-mormons-are-christians/

Julia
poetrysansonions.blogspot.com

I can’t speak to Mr. Bloom’s paradigm directly since I have not studied his writing. However, it does not surprise me in light of other Christians not being able to understand a “living” prophet and ongoing revelation – let alone someone of the Jewish faith where they only have commentaries being added to the original Torah (missing a lot of revelation – ancient and recent.)

In his opinion piece, Bloom’s prejudices and passions at times belie any professed intellectualism.

Now, as to the more general point Ardiss made about the fact that change is a necessary corollary to our belief in continuing revelation, I think this is one of the fundamental forces driving Mormon history. Over the course of my lifetime, there have been many changes, from how we train missionaries, to how we finance church buildings and operations, to who we ordain to the priesthood, to the curriculum of Sunday School and Priesthood/Relief Society, to the Church magazines, to the mission of Ricks College, to the way we design and build temples, which have been driven by revelatory changes that adapt the Church from one of a million members at my birth, principally in the Western US, to one of 14 million now, distributed worldwide. I cannot think of anything about these changes that I would want to change back.

Sometimes when we look back in Church history, the events during the life of Joseph Smith are so varied and tumultuous that it is hard to appreciate they all happened in about 15 years. The changes in the Church during Joseph’s short lifetime, in organization and community integration, are amazing, and they laid the foundation for the building of a state-size LDS community in the West. I get the sense when reading about the Saints in Joseph’s day that part of the reason they followed him was because they lived in anticipation of the gems of new revelation he might share with them on any given Sunday. While the pace of revelation-driven change has obviously slowed, much of the hope I feel for the ongoing success of the Church is due to the expectation that, as inevitable challenges arise, we will be ready to meet them, not only through new revelation to prophets, but also because we as a people are acclimated to carrying out the changes we are invited to make.

And let me add here that I believe one of the major reasons why so many people of so many different viewpoints on religion are hostile toward the Church is that its success, not only its growth but also the competence exhibited in the design and execution of its work, is scary to them. It is a force that they see coming, but they do not understand its motivations and its ethics. It is a movement that they do not feel confident they can control. Some of them are literally panicky about each further advance of the Mormon tide, and focus on Mitt Romney as the crest of a wave they fear will pull them under. In the view of the paranoid, every statistic that Mormons tout, such as the loyalty with which our teenagers support their parents’ religious faith, or the number of Mormons in positions of influence, just amplifies their paranoia. That means that ANYTHING Mormons do that demonstrates success and achievement and growth will be viewed with apprehension by many people. And since we Mormons fully expect that the trend of achievement will continue upward, we can look forward to even higher levels of opposition and criticism.

But at the time (early 90′s as I recall) everyone was talking Bloom up simply because he was saying (they thought) nice things about us. Now he’s saying really similar things, but because he’s ultimately taking a negative stance folks are all up in arms.

Honestly though I don’t see a big difference between the two.

Bloom’s current and previous states or conditions are irrelevant.