Replies

Yes, it’s done that way to offset the negative connotations of the *real cult* religion of Mormonism (i.e., Romney) which is a non-Christian cult group, from its teachings and doctrines.

Star Traveler, there is something you need to understand. Jesus Christ loved his Father in Heaven. His Father taught him and showed him all he needed to know to successfully perform his mission on earth.

Then 300 years later, a rather notoriously wicked political emperor, who was pagan to the core, forced a perverse philosophical doctrine down the throats of all organized religion. It is called the Nicean Creed. The Creed basically stripped the truth of God the Father and the wonderful relationship Jesus had with his Eternal Father from any religious discussion or understanding.

When the young boy, Joseph Smith, went into that grove to ask his sincere question about religion, he did not understand why Christ told him that the creeds were an abomination. But if you study history at all, the philosophical corruption of the creeds will be perfectly obvious.

The tender Father and Son relationship between God the Father and His beloved Son, is something you may not want to understand, but it is crucial. That relationship is more than evident in the entire 17th Chapter of John.

To believe as your professional clergy advocates, you have to turn the entire chapter into a meaningless soliloquy between Christ and his ethereal, bodiless self.

Yes...you can continue the bigoted hate speech of the professional clergy based on the fact that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints do not believe the politically expedient, and specious, doctrine of the creeds. But now you know how deceptive the clergy have been about this. (If nothing else, follow the money.)

I would invite you and all who read here to pause and consider what I have said. The Nicean creed is not scripture. Substantively, it is no different than Hillary calling a conference of the National Council of Churches and dictating how all religions will believe.

Instead, come and discover the Jesus Christ of scripture, the son of the living God. As Peter testified, God is the living God. He does live, we look like him, and Christ is His beloved Son. Nothing is more scriptural than these truths. And their father-son relationship is an example of what Christ wants for each of us.

Take that away as Constantine did in the Nicean creed. And hide the facts as your professional clergy continue to do by calling revealed and restored truths a dangerous cult, and you are left with only the doctrines of men, mingled with scripture.

PS: If you and your ilk continue to rail against the sincere, and often very educated members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as evil, non-Christian cultists, don't be surprised when the day comes that the secular politicians start persecuting Nicean Christians as un-American, dangerous right-wing radicals. At that day, Mormons will stand by and with you in protecting our Constitutional rights to religion. But you might feel a little chagrin.

You said — “PS: If you and your ilk continue to rail against the sincere, and often very educated members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as evil, non-Christian cultists, don’t be surprised when the day comes that the secular politicians start persecuting Nicean Christians as un-American, dangerous right-wing radicals. At that day, Mormons will stand by and with you in protecting our Constitutional rights to religion. But you might feel a little chagrin.”

Look here..., the Christians have not begrudged any other religion from starting their own ways and teachings and doctrines and “whatever” about the kind of religion that another group wants to perpetrate and adhere to. That’s not the issue here. You’ve got that freedom of choosing whatever “religion” you want.

What is at issue here is very simply that the religion that you’ve chosen to adhere to (its teachings and doctrines and even its “holy scriptures”) — totally differs from what is the basic, historic and foundational Christianity.

Now, what you (or anyone who does adhere to these teachings and doctrines of the Mormon church) do is come in and say that what Christians teach and what they have for doctrines are *wrong* and are not the kind of Christianity they should be teaching. What you say is that it is a corruption of the (so-called) “true Christianity” that you have (supposedly that Joseph Smith) restored, by the angel that visited him and gave him the plates by which he was able to produce the Book of Mormon.

Well — right there — you’ve basically admitted that you don’t have the basic, historic and foundational doctrines of Christianity. You’re saying that what these folks (who do adhere to these basic and foundational teachings) are teaching the “doctrines of man” and not from the Bible (even though your church has “extra-Biblical materials” for your authority that the Christian church does *not* adhere to).

You’re talking about of both sides of your mouth — *at the same time* — saying that “we’re Christians” — but — “you’re teaching the wrong Christianity” that isn’t right.

You’ve basically set yourself off — against — the basic, historic and foundational Christianity of the centuries, from the time of Christ — by saying that what is being taught now is *wrong*. And then — you wish to have the label of “Christianity” to “paste onto your doctrines” — which don’t adhere to those basic, historic and foundational teachings of Christianity.

So, when it comes to the right of those to choose whatever religion they want to practice for their own personal faith— the Christians will be “right in there” with everyone else (the cults groups and the Christian groups and the Buddhists and so on) to support the right of those to freely choose their own faith and practice (because that is also a “historic Biblical imperative” too).

BUT, what the Christians won’t accept — is that the teachings of the Mormon church is at all the “teachings and doctrines of basic, historic and foundational Christianity”. The Mormon teachings and doctrines are *so far removed* from those Christian teachings and doctrines — that it is *unrecognizable* as Christianity.

Thus, “freedom of choice” in one’s religion has *absolutely nothing* to do with what I’m talking about. The *ability to distinguish* a cult group from basic, historic and foundational Christianity is *entirely* what I’m talking about.

Regards,
Star Traveler

P.S. — Jo, I don’t know if any of your group is interested in the “distinguishing” of Mormon theology and teaching from basic, historic and foundational Christianity. If so, you could let them know about this. I’m sure that the *point* can be made that it is not *bigoted* to defend one’s *doctrines and teachings* as something *totally different* from another group, especially when it’s a “cult group” — such as the Mormon Church (and one that keeps trying to “cloud the issue” of the “distinction” between the two...