ENDORSEMENTS  /  ABOUT THE AUTHORS  /  EXCERPTS

About the book and authors:

Robert Millet and Greg Johnson, authors of Bridging the Divide, set out to have a conversation that would mend wounds between two faith traditions with a history of deep enmity-the Mormons and the Evangelicals. They achieved their goal. An unintended consequence of their dialogues could result in a new voice of Christian unity that might have a profound political effect.

The back-story: Johnson, the Evangelical, was raised as a Mormon in Utah, had a personal encounter with Jesus in his mid teens and became Born Again. Millet is part of the intellectual aristocracy of the Mormon Church. Evangelicals do not recognize Mormons as Christians. Mormons believe that the Book of Mormon supercedes the Bible.

"Debates between Mormons and Evangelicals have been a common thing and you can certainly draw a crowd when you have that kind of an event because people want to see the fists fly." writes Greg Johnson. But what Johnson and Millet had in mind was not a debate, but a dialogue. And to accomplish that, they came up with a revolutionary idea: to stop trying to convert each other. Johnson and Millet wanted a conversation without the pretence of conquest and the pressure for either to concede to what each hold sacred about their faith.

What started as a private talk ten years ago became public when the authors opened their dialogues to others, taking questions from Evangelical and Mormon audiences. To date they have appeared in over 50 churches and universities attracting as many as 1,600 people at a single event. Many come expecting a Mormon and an Evangelical debating each other; what emerges is an impressive journey over a fragile bridge that has divided the two faiths.

The current political implications are significant in Bridging the Divide. "Without question, the shared values and morals that both Evangelicals and Latter-day Saints hold dear are under sustained attack from a hostile unregenerate world, and if we do not discover ways to
come together, we will surely suffer together" concludes Johnson.