Are Mormons Christian?

[Snow]

I was just watching TV, a local public station and there is a show called Faith Under Fire hosted by Lee Strobel (who wrote The Case for Christ). There was a former Mormon, now a baptist minister debating against Robert Millet from BYU.

They rehashed the same stuff we continually hash on the internet but both Lee Strobel and the baptist guy said, nicely, that Mormonism falls outside, doctrinally, historic Prostestant Christianity... to which I reply, here, here; as if mainstream historical Prostestantism has some sort of proprietary handle on truth. I take deep exception to the notion that Mormons aren't Christian but I hardily endorse that they aren't Christian the way that Martin Luther, John Calvin, Billy Graham and Benny Hinn are Christian and thank goodness for that - says I.

I found it interesting that Millet essentially said of faith and works that work don't save, that salvation is an unearned gift, works being a requisite manifestation of the faith.... no works means you had no faith but that the works themselves merit nothing.

He also downplayed, and appropriately so I think, the JS teachings in the King Follet Address. Not that I don't believe it, I do, just that beyond the address, we don't know much about it, it is not a core doctrine of salvation and until more is revealed (which I hear may have happened recently in an apparition to three young peasant girls by Our Lady of Provo Canyon) we ought'nt get to worked up about it.

[Cal]

Originally posted by Snow@Nov 27 2004, 11:54 PM

I was just watching TV, a local public station and there is a show called Faith Under Fire hosted by Lee Strobel (who wrote The Case for Christ). There was a former Mormon, now a baptist minister debating against Robert Millet from BYU.

They rehashed the same stuff we continually hash on the internet but both Lee Strobel and the baptist guy said, nicely, that Mormonism falls outside, doctrinally, historic Prostestant Christianity... to which I reply, here, here; as if mainstream historical Prostestantism has some sort of proprietary handle on truth. I take deep exception to the notion that Mormons aren't Christian but I hardily endorse that they aren't Christian the way that Martin Luther, John Calvin, Billy Graham and Benny Hinn are Christian and thank goodness for that - says I.

I found it interesting that Millet essentially said of faith and works that work don't save, that salvation is an unearned gift, works being a requisite manifestation of the faith.... no works means you had no faith but that the works themselves merit nothing.

He also downplayed, and appropriately so I think, the JS teachings in the King Follet Address. Not that I don't believe it, I do, just that beyond the address, we don't know much about it, it is not a core doctrine of salvation and until more is revealed (which I hear may have happened recently in an apparition to three young peasant girls by Our Lady of Provo Canyon) we ought'nt get to worked up about it.

In my opinion, the bottom line on the question of whether mormons are christians is simply a move by the evangelical protestants to discredit mormonism in the eyes of other christians because they hate the way mormons are converting their flocks.

You don't hear the catholics saying that mormons are not christian and their teachings are as far from mormons, maybe even further in some ways.

On faith and works, I do tend to agree that to simply say that you should be able to work your way to the kind of heaven that mormons describe is kind of like saying that if I spend a morning raking a yard, I should recieve the Taj Majal as a reward--there is just no rational relationship between the amount of good we can do in this short mortal life, and the kind of eternal bliss, power and dominion that is described in mormon circles. In other words, eternal life is simply a gift that has no relationship to the amount of work that could be done to achieve it. Therefore, by definition, it is a gift.

To introduce a slightly different topic, though somewhat related:

Is there really all that much to admire in the "works" of faith----a substantial number of mormons see the good they do as their way of working their way to heaven (as perhaps some in other religions also). However, this position is basically a selfish or selfcentered one. So, is it OK that we do good just so we can get a reward. It that what true christianity is all about--earning rewards but jumping through the right hoops? I think a good question to ask one of these people would be: What if there were absolutely no reward in the hearafter or even the hear and now, accept for the good feeling of doing good, would you still keep doing what you are doing? In otherwords, would you, say, pay tithing, if there were no promise of any payback, of any sort?

You see, if you do good works because there is a payback, then you have done it to benefit yourself---not God, nor anyone else---and why would a God reward you for doing something that is supposed to be out of shear devotion and obedience, when you are REALLY doing it do get a "pot of gold at the end of the rainbow"?

Perhaps this is getting too philosophical and borders on the unanswerable, but, is it even possible for humans to act in a truely "selfless way"? For example, let's say I pay tithing to a church. Now in the mormon church you are made several promises--"you will not burn", "the windows of heaven will be opened" etc. These are incentives whose purpose are clear---they provide a selfish motive for paying tithing. You don't hear anywhere in the scriptures on the subject, "pay tithing, just for the good feeling" or "pay tithing because it is a nice thing to do". Religious leaders are savy enough to know that people only act out of selfishness.

Now you might hear people claim that they do lots of things just because it makes them feel good---implying that this is an unselfish motive. Is it? Really? How is making oneself feel good NOT selfish. Would you do it even if it made you feel BAD? The only time I see this is when people insist that even though it makes them feel bad, there is a greater reward later---and we are back where we started.

And, what do we call people that do things that have no apparent reward, AND makes them feel bad? We call them masachistic and label them pathological.

Having said that--what comes out of this is that there is really no such thing as unselfishness--so the next question is, "what KIND of selfishness is the good kind, or the kind we can all tolerate?" That would be the kind that benefits others, and does not harm others or ourselves. But we shouldn't pretend that we are somehow above the heathen because we are doing unselfish acts of pure faith.

[Snow]

Originally posted by Cal@Nov 28 2004, 09:20 AM

Perhaps this is getting too philosophical and borders on the unanswerable, but, is it even possible for humans to act in a truely "selfless way"? For example, let's say I pay tithing to a church. Now in the mormon church you are made several promises--"you will not burn", "the windows of heaven will be opened" etc. These are incentives whose purpose are clear---they provide a selfish motive for paying tithing. You don't hear anywhere in the scriptures on the subject, "pay tithing, just for the good feeling" or "pay tithing because it is a nice thing to do". Religious leaders are savy enough to know that people only act out of selfishness.

Now you might hear people claim that they do lots of things just because it makes them feel good---implying that this is an unselfish motive. Is it? Really? How is making oneself feel good NOT selfish. Would you do it even if it made you feel BAD? The only time I see this is when people insist that even though it makes them feel bad, there is a greater reward later---and we are back where we started.

I have to think of my own motivations in this - when I pay tithing, I have no expectation that it will prevent me from "burning" or that it will cause have heavenly "window opening." I do it because it seems the right thing to do. No consequences that could reasonably be attritibuted to it are associated with it. I have to think that in this sense, others are like me. My thoughts processes might not always be the norm but my magninimity of spirit isn't better than anyone elses.

As far as questioning whether the desire to feel good is selfish, I think you are over thinking it.

[Cal]

Originally posted by Snow+Nov 28 2004, 11:26 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Snow @ Nov 28 2004, 11:26 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin--Cal@Nov 28 2004, 09:20 AM

Perhaps this is getting too philosophical and borders on the unanswerable, but, is it even possible for humans to act in a truely "selfless way"?  For example, let's say I pay tithing to a church. Now in the mormon church you are made several promises--"you will not burn",  "the windows of heaven will be opened" etc. These are incentives whose purpose are clear---they provide a selfish motive for paying tithing. You don't hear anywhere in the scriptures on the subject,  "pay tithing, just for the good feeling" or "pay tithing because it is a nice thing to do". Religious leaders are savy enough to  know that people only act out of selfishness.

Now you might hear people claim that they do lots of things just because it makes them feel good---implying that this is an unselfish motive. Is it?  Really?  How is making oneself feel good NOT selfish. Would you do it even if it made you feel BAD? The only time I see this is when people insist that even though it makes them feel bad, there is a greater reward later---and we are back where we started.

I have to think of my own motivations in this - when I pay tithing, I have no expectation that it will prevent me from "burning" or that it will cause have heavenly "window opening." I do it because it seems the right thing to do. No consequences that could reasonably be attritibuted to it are associated with it. I have to think that in this sense, others are like me. My thoughts processes might not always be the norm but my magninimity of spirit isn't better than anyone elses.

As far as questioning whether the desire to feel good is selfish, I think you are over thinking it.

Are you saying that it DOESN'T make you feel good to pay tithing? And just HOW am I over thinking it? If you are as altruistic as you pretend, then tell me it doesn't make you feel good to do it? That you don't feel a heightened sense of self esteem and internal satisfaction--essentially a good feeling. By the way, I'm not saying you shouldn't do it because at the root there is a selfish motive--I'm just asking you to recognize the real truth of it--all human actions are essentially selfish--there is simply good selfishness and bad (the bad is the selfishness that hurts people)--obviously paying tithing doesn't hurt anyone, and does good--but that is not my point. Let's not pretend we deserve a big reward in heaven because of our great unselfishness.

[Setheus]

I think all those "christians" that are bashing Mormonisim, saying we are not "christians" will all go to heaven. After all its clear they are too retarded to be held accountable.

[Cal]

Originally posted by Setheus@Nov 28 2004, 11:50 AM

I think all those "christians" that are bashing Mormonisim, saying we are not "christians" will all go to heaven. After all its clear they are too retarded to be held accountable.

Cute, but not really a very "christian" comment in itself. Put yourself in their shoes--they are just as convinced of the truth of their religion as mormons are of theirs. We are certainly just as guilty of pronouncing their beliefs in perjorative terms.

[Guest TheProudDuck]

It's interesting that the "faith/works" debate should even come up in a discussion of whether Mormons are Christians. It seems to me that that debate has to do with whether Mormons are Protestants. If believing that righteous works have something to do with one's salvation defines a person out of Christianity, then Christianity falls from the world's largest religion to third or fourth. Because you'd have to exclude the Catholics and Orthodox along with the Mormons.

Sounds like Strobel and the Baptist minister have a particularly parochial view of what makes a Christian, i.e., "if you don't think like we do, you're not Christians." Mormons might well be heretical Christians, to their perspective, but it seems to me that any people that are willing to be called after Christ's name, and believe that he is the divine son of God, fall within most objective definitions of Christian.

[Cal]

Originally posted by TheProudDuck@Nov 28 2004, 12:07 PM

It's interesting that the "faith/works" debate should even come up in a discussion of whether Mormons are Christians. It seems to me that that debate has to do with whether Mormons are Protestants. If believing that righteous works have something to do with one's salvation defines a person out of Christianity, then Christianity falls from the world's largest religion to third or fourth. Because you'd have to exclude the Catholics and Orthodox along with the Mormons.

Sounds like Strobel and the Baptist minister have a particularly parochial view of what makes a Christian, i.e., "if you don't think like we do, you're not Christians." Mormons might well be heretical Christians, to their perspective, but it seems to me that any people that are willing to be called after Christ's name, and believe that he is the divine son of God, fall within most objective definitions of Christian.

I think a large part of this issue about what is a "christian" has to do with two main factors: One is that the evangelical christians, who are the ones that raise the issue at all, are jealous of th success of mormon missionaries in their otherwise Baptist congregations. Second, evangelical christians have a problem including mormons in their family of acceptable christians because WE don't accept them. Most of these evangelicals teach that as long as your accept Jesus as your savior, you are saved, and it doesn't much matter whose particular church it is (as long as it is a church that thinks the same way). But mormons don't think the same way on that point--so the evangelicals don't feel like accepting as christian, which defines their whole identity, a group (like mormons) who wholly reject the validity of their authority to claim salvation on their terms. Historically mormons have isolated themselves from the rest of the christian world, particularly the protestants from which JS himself emerged. They are aware of the separatistic position the mormon church has--so it isn't surprising that they would react by distancing themselves from mormonism.

[Jenda]

Originally posted by Cal@Nov 28 2004, 10:20 AM

To introduce a slightly different topic, though somewhat related:

Is there really all that much to admire in the "works" of faith----a substantial number of mormons see the good they do as their way of working their way to heaven (as perhaps some in other religions also). However, this position is basically a selfish or selfcentered one. So, is it OK that we do good just so we can get a reward. It that what true christianity is all about--earning rewards but jumping through the right hoops? I think a good question to ask one of these people would be: What if there were absolutely no reward in the hearafter or even the hear and now, accept for the good feeling of doing good, would you still keep doing what you are doing? In otherwords, would you, say, pay tithing, if there were no promise of any payback, of any sort?

You see, if you do good works because there is a payback, then you have done it to benefit yourself---not God, nor anyone else---and why would a God reward you for doing something that is supposed to be out of shear devotion and obedience, when you are REALLY doing it do get a "pot of gold at the end of the rainbow"?

Perhaps this is getting too philosophical and borders on the unanswerable, but, is it even possible for humans to act in a truely "selfless way"? For example, let's say I pay tithing to a church. Now in the mormon church you are made several promises--"you will not burn", "the windows of heaven will be opened" etc. These are incentives whose purpose are clear---they provide a selfish motive for paying tithing. You don't hear anywhere in the scriptures on the subject, "pay tithing, just for the good feeling" or "pay tithing because it is a nice thing to do". Religious leaders are savy enough to know that people only act out of selfishness.

Now you might hear people claim that they do lots of things just because it makes them feel good---implying that this is an unselfish motive. Is it? Really? How is making oneself feel good NOT selfish. Would you do it even if it made you feel BAD? The only time I see this is when people insist that even though it makes them feel bad, there is a greater reward later---and we are back where we started.

And, what do we call people that do things that have no apparent reward, AND makes them feel bad? We call them masachistic and label them pathological.

Having said that--what comes out of this is that there is really no such thing as unselfishness--so the next question is, "what KIND of selfishness is the good kind, or the kind we can all tolerate?" That would be the kind that benefits others, and does not harm others or ourselves. But we shouldn't pretend that we are somehow above the heathen because we are doing unselfish acts of pure faith.

I think that the LDS interpretation of "works" is very different from what Christ taught. I look, instead, to the 25th chapter of Matthew for a more appropriate definition of works. When Christ said to his disciples, "Inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these, you have done it unto me" (parpaphrased a bit.) Works define our faith, they are not our faith. If we love Christ, we will love others and want to do better for them. Not because of some reward hundreds (thousands, or millions) of years in the future, but because we see their need are are touched by it.

So, I say, yes, it is possible for humans to act in a truly selfless way. When we are not thinking of ourselves, there can be no selfishness in our works.

[Cal]

Originally posted by Jenda+Nov 28 2004, 02:15 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Jenda @ Nov 28 2004, 02:15 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin--Cal@Nov 28 2004, 10:20 AM

To introduce a slightly different topic, though somewhat related:

Is there really all that much to admire in the "works" of faith----a substantial number of mormons see the good they do as their way of working their way to heaven (as perhaps some in other religions also). However, this position is basically a selfish or selfcentered one. So, is it OK that we do good just so we can get a reward. It that what true christianity is all about--earning rewards but jumping through the right hoops?  I think a good question to ask one of these people would be: What if there were absolutely no reward in the hearafter or even the hear and now, accept for the good feeling of doing good, would you still keep doing what you are doing? In otherwords, would you, say, pay tithing, if there were no promise of any payback, of any sort?

You see, if you do good works because there is a payback, then you have done it to benefit yourself---not God, nor anyone else---and why would a God reward you for  doing something that is supposed to be out of shear devotion and obedience, when you are REALLY doing it do get a "pot of gold at the end of the rainbow"?

Perhaps this is getting too philosophical and borders on the unanswerable, but, is it even possible for humans to act in a truely "selfless way"?  For example, let's say I pay tithing to a church. Now in the mormon church you are made several promises--"you will not burn",  "the windows of heaven will be opened" etc. These are incentives whose purpose are clear---they provide a selfish motive for paying tithing. You don't hear anywhere in the scriptures on the subject,  "pay tithing, just for the good feeling" or "pay tithing because it is a nice thing to do". Religious leaders are savy enough to  know that people only act out of selfishness.

Now you might hear people claim that they do lots of things just because it makes them feel good---implying that this is an unselfish motive. Is it?  Really?  How is making oneself feel good NOT selfish. Would you do it even if it made you feel BAD? The only time I see this is when people insist that even though it makes them feel bad, there is a greater reward later---and we are back where we started.

And, what do we call people that do things that have no apparent reward, AND makes them feel bad?  We call them masachistic and label them pathological.

Having said that--what comes out of this is that there is really no such thing as unselfishness--so the next question is, "what KIND of selfishness is the good kind, or the kind we can all tolerate?"  That would be the kind that benefits others, and does not harm others or ourselves. But we shouldn't pretend that we are somehow above the heathen because we are doing unselfish acts of pure faith.

I think that the LDS interpretation of "works" is very different from what Christ taught. I look, instead, to the 25th chapter of Matthew for a more appropriate definition of works. When Christ said to his disciples, "Inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these, you have done it unto me" (parpaphrased a bit.) Works define our faith, they are not our faith. If we love Christ, we will love others and want to do better for them. Not because of some reward hundreds (thousands, or millions) of years in the future, but because we see their need are are touched by it.

So, I say, yes, it is possible for humans to act in a truly selfless way. When we are not thinking of ourselves, there can be no selfishness in our works.

That is one of the best responses to what I have said---I suppose it is possible to have such empathy with the plight of others that one instinctively responds--If there is any selfishness in that, it is probably the least obvious of all.

[Marsha]

How about responses about what or how you have been treated once some people find out that you are Mormons?

I have reliquinshed (lost) one job when my employer found out my religon. (All of a sudden he wanted me to work on Sundays.

I had a buisness inside another persons business. He found out that I am Mormon when a co-worker became very ill and I offered to get her a Priesthood blessing and he was in the same room. He asked "how." I told him it was very simple I could call an Elder and get someone there. (It was in my home) He made a remark about "US CHRISTIANS." I simply said, "I am christian too." Less than a month later I found it unbearable to work MY BUSINESS under HIS roof.

I would like to hear others share their stories about when they expressed their religon and the reactions they encountered.

Marsha

[Snow]

Originally posted by Cal@Nov 28 2004, 10:44 AM

Are you saying that it DOESN'T make you feel good to pay tithing? And just HOW am I over thinking it? If you are as altruistic as you pretend, then tell me it doesn't make you feel good to do it? That you don't feel a heightened sense of self esteem and internal satisfaction--essentially a good feeling.

I'm not saying that. I am saying that my motivation for paying is not so that I can feel good. The motivation is that it is the right thing to do. Whether I feel good is gravy. There is such a thing as duty. Don't judge others' actions as selfish in light of your own experience. People can be and are selfless on certain things.

[Blessed]

We had a couple of missionaries here a couple of weeks ago. They were astonished I invited them in so much that they didn't really know what to say. They were so use to having the doors shut in their faces. I said "expect more."

My church has been labeled "Mormon" even though we don't see it that way. We have far distinctions from you all, but because we have the BoM and a D&C and Joseph Smith as our foudning prophet we are and I guess, shall be considered Mormons. However, I have been apart of Aglow that is an interdenominational women's ministry. After much sharing they accept me as a "Christian." So I have no clue.

When I meet people I share Jesus Christ first and foremost. He is my Lord and Savior and not Joseph Smith. If they are interested in knowing more about Jesus then I will share my faith with them. That has worked for me.

Men look on the outward appearance and only God can see our hearts.

[Guest TheProudDuck]

Originally posted by Cal+Nov 28 2004, 12:19 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Cal @ Nov 28 2004, 12:19 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin--TheProudDuck@Nov 28 2004, 12:07 PM

It's interesting that the "faith/works" debate should even come up in a discussion of whether Mormons are Christians.  It seems to me that that debate has to do with whether Mormons are Protestants.  If believing that righteous works have something to do with one's salvation defines a person out of Christianity, then Christianity falls from the world's largest religion to third or fourth.  Because you'd have to exclude the Catholics and Orthodox along with the Mormons.

Sounds like Strobel and the Baptist minister have a particularly parochial view of what makes a Christian, i.e., "if you don't think like we do, you're not Christians."  Mormons might well be heretical Christians, to their perspective, but it seems to me that any people that are willing to be called after Christ's name, and believe that he is the divine son of God, fall within most objective definitions of Christian.

I think a large part of this issue about what is a "christian" has to do with two main factors: One is that the evangelical christians, who are the ones that raise the issue at all, are jealous of th success of mormon missionaries in their otherwise Baptist congregations. Second, evangelical christians have a problem including mormons in their family of acceptable christians because WE don't accept them. Most of these evangelicals teach that as long as your accept Jesus as your savior, you are saved, and it doesn't much matter whose particular church it is (as long as it is a church that thinks the same way). But mormons don't think the same way on that point--so the evangelicals don't feel like accepting as christian, which defines their whole identity, a group (like mormons) who wholly reject the validity of their authority to claim salvation on their terms. Historically mormons have isolated themselves from the rest of the christian world, particularly the protestants from which JS himself emerged. They are aware of the separatistic position the mormon church has--so it isn't surprising that they would react by distancing themselves from mormonism.

Cal,

Second, evangelical christians have a problem including mormons in their family of acceptable christians because WE don't accept them.

Except we do accept evangelicals as Christians. President Hinckley has been emphatic on the point that non-Mormons are Christians, and that they have a good deal of truth. While it's true that Mormons do have unique beliefs, which they believe are more correct than their evangelical counterparts, that has nothing to do with whether we consider Baptists Christians or not. (Orson Scott Card once defined a Baptist (through a French Catholic character in "Seventh Son") as "a Christian, only louder.")

So it's a false comparison. If Mormons' claim to be the true and living Church justifies evangelicals in reading them out of Christianity, they have to give the Catholics, who say the same thing, the same treatment.

[Snow]

Originally posted by TheProudDuck@Nov 28 2004, 11:07 AM

It seems to me that that debate has to do with whether Mormons are Protestants.

Sounds like Strobel and the Baptist minister have a particularly parochial view of what makes a Christian, i.e., "if you don't think like we do, you're not Christians."

That's the whole point. They define Christian as historical Protestantism, and anyone who doesn't think like they do is "lesser than;" ie not qualified for God's grace. It is the sign of an immature faith characterized by a need to have an "other" to play themselves off against. "Us" versus the "less-than them."

Remember the days when the Church language talked about us, the Saints and them, the gentiles. Notice how you don't hear that anymore. It started falling out of favor in the 1950's and is not pretty much a relic of the Church's infancy.

Makes you wonder when the evagelicals are going to grow up.

[Traveler]

If the ordinances, doctrine, organization and covenants that Jesus established as the Gospel of the Kingdom existed prior to 1830 then there would be no need for the restoration of the kingdom defined by G-d as Christianity. Joseph was told by Jesus that the creeds of those that declared and defined for themself the meaning of Christian and Christianity was a abomination in his sight.

This is not to say that there are not individuals that had found favor in G-d’s eye - only that there was no kingdom in which Christ is the king to be found on the earth until the restoration. And I might add that the restoration continues and will continue and be complete and ready for Christ when comes. The prupose of the restoration is so that Jesus will have a kingdom that meats his specifications - not man made creeds - where he will be king.

The Traveler