Rick Warren explains the problem in calling Romney a ‘Christian’

The Daily Caller ^ | 04/08/2012 | Jeff Poor

[markomalley]

Much has been made about Mormonism, now that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney looks to be on his way to the Republican presidential nomination.

But should he win the general election in November, would it be accurate to say that Romney is a Christian president? On Sunday’s “This Week” on ABC, fill-in host Jake Tapper posed the question of Romney’s religion to Rick Warren, the pastor of the California mega-church, Saddleback Church.

“Mitt Romney will almost certainly be the Republican nominee and if that happens, which it looks like it will, he’ll be the first member of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to be the nominee,” Tapper said. “A lot of evangelicals have been talking about whether or not Mormons are Christians. Are Mormons Christians?”

Warren explained the problems with saying Mormons are Christians, saying it is centered around the Church of Latter Day Saints’ interpretation of the Christine doctrine of the Trinity.

“The key sticking point for evangelicals and actually for many is the issue of the trinity,” Warren said. “That’s a historic doctrine of the Church — that God is three in one. Not three Gods, one God in father, son and Holy Spirit. Mormonism denies that. That’s a sticking point for a lot of Catholic Christians, Evangelical Christians, Pentecostal Christians because they don’t believe that. Now, they’ll use the same terminology. But they don’t believe in the historic doctrine of the trinity. And people have tried to make it other issues, but that’s one of the fundamental differences.”

[NorthernCrunchyCon]

> Islam denies God in three persons as well.

Islam, for all its faults (and there are many), is theologically closer to Christianity in its understanding of God than Mormonism is.

Islam began as an extreme version of Arianism, which itself was the most extreme of the christological heresies facing early Christians. Basically Islam is so strict in its understanding of monotheism that it attempts to reduce Jesus to the status of prophet.

Mormonism, on the other hand, while presenting itself as Christianity through its appropriation of the Bible and Christian language, divorced itself completely from Judeo-Christianity when it abandoned monotheism for polytheism. In the Bible, Lucifer rebels against God because he wishes to become a god himself, while the serpent tempts Adam and Eve with the suggestion they will become gods if they eat of the forbidden fruit.

[magritte]

Jews worship the God of Abraham. Christians like to say they worship the god of the Jews, but obviously the God of the Jews has nothing to do with the Trinity or the Man-God of the Christians. It is apostasy.

[LomanBill]

"...who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world, and through all time;

 

...

 

 that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order; and finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them. "

 

"I HAVE SWORN UPON THE ALTAR OF GOD ETERNAL HOSTILITY TO EVERY FORM OF TYRANNY OVER THE MIND OF MAN"

--The Virginia Act For Establishing Religious Freedom
--Thomas Jefferson, 1786

http://religiousfreedom.lib.virginia.edu/sacred/vaact.html

 

[Dapper 26]

I see. OK then, vote for Obama.

[Dapper 26]

Exactly.

[Secret Agent Man]

Rick after you signing that document saying Muslims and Christians worship the same god and his name is Allah, I have a problem calling you “Christian”.

[Secret Agent Man]

Yes he is.

[Psalm 144]

“I see. OK then, vote for Obama.”

Your pogo stick of logic doesn’t track.

[worst-case scenario]

Do Mormons believe Jesus id divine? Or is he also simply a prophet?

[magritte]

Mormons believe Jesus is a literal Son of God and do not believe he is a prophet. Mormons do believe in additional prophets where I believe Christians agree with the Jews that Malachi is the last true Prophet.

[worst-case scenario]

What about the primacy of the Old and New Testament? Do you think that Mormons believe the Book Mormon is the supersedes the Bible, or not?

The issue, finally, is whether you believe in Joseph Smith as a Prophet of God, and the Book of Mormon as Holy Writ, or not.

I don’t. I think that Smith was a charlatan, and that the Mormon Church is a cult. (It may be a cult that performs good works, but so do the Krishnas.) What really matters to me is whether Romney swears first allegiance to the Constitution of the United States, or to the ruling member so the Mormon Church. He is the seventh generation of one of the original seven followers; many Mormons believe him to be the fulfillment of the White Horse Prophecy.

I want to hear Romney tell us to whose dictates he would listen first. I’d ask the same thing of a Scientologist. Mormonism is the 19th Century Scientology.