Posted on 12/16/2007 11:15:52 PM PST by Mobile Vulgus
Mormons aren't Christians ...
... and other thoughts on religion and politics sure to get your blood boiling
Herewith, my views on religion and the politics of the present moment, with something to offend just about everyone:
1. Mormons aren't Christians. I don't mean that as a criticism, only as a descriptive phrase. When Mormons claim Jesus Christ as their savior, there's no reason to doubt their sincerity and good will, or even to deny that they are in some way followers of Christ. Yet Mormonism rejects foundational doctrines of traditional Christian orthodoxy, such that it is impossible to reconcile with normative Christianity.
2. Anyway, the Latter-day Saints church teaches that all other Christian churches are apostate. A heretic is someone who rejects one or more doctrines of religion, but an apostate is someone who has rejected the religion entirely. How is it, exactly, that you can get mad when people you regard as apostates consider you to be ... apostate? How does that work?
3. Theologically, this is a big deal. But politically, so what? Mormons vote like Southern Baptists and come down on the same side of most issues of public morality like conservative Christians do. If you're a socially conservative lawmaker, wouldn't you rather have a Mormon in your legislative foxhole than a Kennedy-style cafeteria Catholic or progressive mainline Protestant? I'm no Romney fan, but is there really no meaningful political difference between Good-Mormon Mitt and Bad-Catholic Rudy, to say nothing of Liberal-Protestant Hillary?
4. There are plenty of good reasons for conservative Christians not to vote for Mr. Romney, but his religious beliefs are not among them. Do Christians want to be in the position of rejecting a candidate whose political views and moral values they agree with, solely because they don't like his religion?
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
You need to open your dictionary and find out what “persecution” means.
Name calling, and dismissing someone's argument for being "Stupid" In one shot, wow what a sentence.Then only two lines away, after only four of your own words you say the followong:
You're stupidI'll leave it to other to decide who intelligent you are or aren't. But I CAN say you are a hypocrite.
I meant how intelligent, not “who” intelligent. Too late to type!
I still say you’re a hypocrite, but then your own words make that obvious.
Don't need to. The overall assault on Mormons is enough to convince anyone. When the folks who hate Christian are done with Mormons, they'll start on the other sects next.
I expect decent folks to leave them in peace.
Several years ago, I sat in a few 'Twelve Steps of A.A.' meetings. I will use this as an example.
There are 12 steps which are suggested to alcoholics to have them work, achieve and live in sobriety. What happens when one fails to work the steps? What happens if one goes back out to drink again? Are they 'kicked out' of A.A.? No.
The only membership requirement for A.A. is: "A desire to stop drinking". period!
My belief as a Christian is: "Acceptence of Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior". period!
Whether one follows the suggested steps of a specific Christian religion or for a recovering alcoholic, membership is merely a 'desire and acceptance'. This stuff ain't hard, folks, and it never was meant to be.
If one wants to "save" them, fine. However I won't waste my time entertaining the superiority of one follower of Christ over another.
It's up to the individual as far as how they handle their relationship with God.
The American whose influence over American Evangelical apologetics, credited with an enormous difference between such examinations of a generation ago and today was Dr. Francis Schaeffer. I recommend The God Who is There and the attendant volumes. His influence over the teachings of pastors is remarkable, which is almost certainly a argument recently popular is a book entitled The God Who Is Not There.
Like Jack Lewis, Francis Schaeffer wasn't perfect, but he was profoundly affected by and wrote convincingly of the decline of what he called Orthodox Christianity in Europe. Pope Benedict's writings are of a similar kind. Schaeffer was well acquainted with Augustine and with Hagel.
"Honest answers for honest questions."
As a Christian, as a Human, I think you can agree with my common and unoriginal "presupposition" that the louder one defends his or her beliefs, the weaker, in fact, their confidence. People confident in their beliefs don't presume to defend the God of Abraham's reputation. If the God of Abraham, if even Jesus of Nazareth is who He is reliably reported to have said He was, then He isn't sweating out his standing in the polls, if you know what I mean.
May I recommend an examination of the Humanist writer, hardly a Christian, Eric Hoffer, as well.
And what would those "humanly devised standards" be? Like those based on the mythical social contract theories of Hobbes or Rousseau, or the "history" of Marx? About sixty years ago, there ws a famous radio debate between Lord Russell and Father Coppleston, the historian of philosophy. The two general topics were the proof of God;s existance and moral philosophy. Reading the transcript, I thought that Russell had the better of it on the first topic. But on the second, Russell was no more persuasive than Chris Hitchens. The problem you have is that secularists begin with a false premise, which is that western morality is an evolutionary result. But even as Thomas Huxley et al. assumed that, God or not, that "we" have "advanced" to the point that Englishmen would no longer need religion in order not to be "beastly" toward one another, Nietsche was contending otherwise. And Lord Russell was living proof of that, since his character was very like that of Bill Clinton so far as women were converned, and in his debate, he could not offer any basis for morality other than power. He could offer nor reason to judge Hitler's actions " wrong," except that he had not been powerful enough to overcome his enemies.
You seem to have left out quite a bit.
bump and ping
Bravo! I really hate when someone spouts that pious sounding nonsense. The facts are we judge everything, all day long.
Of course, that is as contentious as whether Mormons are or are not.
Which Presidents were Unitarian?
The Presidents Adams and President Taft come to mind. Lincoln probably, with a little “u”. Never a member of any Church, but he did attend the New York Presbyterian church in DC. Mary Todd was Episcopalian, I think.
Precisely. From Acts of the Apostles presumed to have been written by Luke as a sequel to his own Gospel we read of the place and time when "they began to call one another Christians." I'll leave it to better memories of the Koininea Greek from which we get the word. But I recall from Paul, "Saul of Tarsus," the author two-thirds of the New Testament, in the context of another argument that "I am resolved to know no more of a man aside from Jesus Christ, and him crucified."
They called "themselves" Christians, so it's perhaps important to remember there appears to be no revelation, personal, public or propositional, where an Angel or other messenger, or God, or the Holy Spirit, no other divine instruction laying out either the word or the definition of the word "Christian."
I call myself "Christian," above and beyond denomination or Orthodox list of dos and don'ts. I know what I mean when I use the word, though there can be no communication without some agreement as to definition of terms.
So, I take that word as self-defined. I think of it as meaning one who believe that Jesus Christ was who he is reliably reported to have said he was, the Son of the Living God, the Word of God who "struck a tent in human flesh and dwelt among us." I believe his Crucifixion was a Finished Work, clearing the path between God and the creature man, burdened as we are with the awesome responsibility that comes from knowing "Good and Evil." (Burdened with a consciousness of the choice) And vital to this definition is His rising from the dead, and where he intercedes between Man and the God of Abraham.
So it's not a list of dos and don'ts. It's already been done, and "faith" is a poor word for what we do if we are convinced of the historic certainty of this unique set of events. There is no equivalent word for the Greek translated into English both as "faith" and "belief." The Greek word is best translated as a reaction to this conclusion. ""Faith" is Action, based upon belief and sustained by confidence (or experience.)
If you believe he died for our sins, was dead, and rose to sail off into the blue, promising to return - that he lives forever to intercede on behalf of those who ask him... then you are more than likely a Christian.
The rest is mostly Orthodoxy, since Man just can't accept that he can add nothing nor take anything away from that "it is finished" work. If you have concluded and therefore act upon this confidence, that's faith. Not faith in action, because "faith" is action.
Is that a sufficient definition of what a Christian is?
Dreher became a member of the Orthodox Church oh, ‘bout a year ago. Used to be Catholic, though. (And before that he was Methodist.) Does he have an old bio out there that he’s hasn’t updated for several years?
Is that a sufficient definition of what a Christian is?
Twenty years ago, I think I would have said, "Yes."
What happened to me was an increasing disquiet about what constituted faith and belief. I could say that I believed this, that and whatever the church I was in at the time believed; yet there were questions, including inconvenient passages of Scripture, that would not go away.
Then there was the question of history; that is, whence the beliefs that I am embracing; what is the source?
What was going on in the Protestant Reformation? And the Anabaptists were a whole different matter. Everywhere I looked, I saw men taking what had been passed down and re-forming and sometimes attempting to re-make it.
To make a long story short, I came to the point that I needed an objective standard, outside of myself. This leaves me with one of two choices - the Roman Catholic or the Orthodox Christian Church. In both, I find legitimate claims to preservation of the faith once delivered to the saints.
The differences between those two are minor, compared to the lack of coherence and the additions/subtractions that I was seeing in other Christian traditions.
So, what is my definition of Christian? The Catholic teaching I believe, speaks of those joined "imperfectly" to the Catholic church. Many share a few, several, or many beliefs, but depart on some. There is the "imperfection." The Orthodox generally lack definitive teaching in the same manner, but, I believe are in general agreement. Both can define who they are and who are theirs. They do not judge on who are not theirs.
So, who and what are Christians? I cannot say. But, I return in my mind, to the scene related by Jesus in a parable of the Final Judgement and the surprise of both those who are and those who are not received into the Kingdom. I'll probably be surprised as well.
I agree with you. Theology is Theology and politics is politics.
Stop your calls, please. We have a winner!
Mormons are not Orthodox Christians.
Or very nearly, IMHO. Of course, Mormons might say I'm not orthodox. Heck, even the "Orthodox" say catholics are not orthodox! And Protestants say all manner of things.
I'd go with "Nicene Creed and Chalcedonian Definition Subscribing" as a bulky and cumbersome effort to take both "Christian" and "Orthodox" out of the "they mean what I SAY they mean" pile and put them in the "more or less objectively determinable" pile.
But maybe that's just me.
This is wrong historically, theoligically, and factually. No two Christians believe the same thing. Even within one sect, like Roman Catholicism, doctrine evolves over time and is interpreted by individuals in different ways. Most are simply ignorant or confused as to what it all means anyway.
Religion is individual. If your personal religion is based on the teachings of Christ, you are a Christian. No human has the wisdom to say otherwise.
Schisms have occured over the recipe for the communion wafer. Raised as a Baptist, I asked a priest friend of my wife how he reconciled crucifixes with the commandment prohibiting graven images. He dismissed the question saying that to be a Catholic, you only had to believe in those things contained in The Apostles' Creed. He said I could be a good Catholic even if I thought crucifixes were blasphemous,or if I thought the Rosary was a joke.
I told him if that was the case I would stay Baptist since perpetual virginity bothered me and it's in the creed.
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