Posted on 02/15/2010 10:15:24 AM PST by colorcountry
The Gospel Principles 2009 manual essentially calls classical Christianity “false Christianity” and its theology of God “pagan” and its adherents those who are “called” Christian.
If we talked about Mormon beliefs and Mormonism and Mormon members this way, we’d get priesthood-slapped.
Yes, you heard me right. Let me explain.
In chapter 16 it implicitly taps into popular assumptions about Nicaea and then says that “false Christianity” (that the “Roman emperor adopted”) “taught that God was a being without form or substance.”
My first reaction was that the New Testament teaches that Jesus is the image of the invisible God, and that God is spirit, etc.
But then it struck me: WAIT, did a 2009 LDS Church manual just make a delineation between true and FALSE Christianity partly the basis of teaching that “God was a being without [spatial] form or [material] substance”?
Mormonism has been complaining for a long while now that anyone should make pronouncements about what is and what is not true Christianity. But here we have it in the 2009 manual: Mormonism has essentially fired a shot at Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, and Eastern Orthodoxy as being “false Christianity” for teaching the “pagan”[1] idea that “God [is] a being without form or substance.”
Here is the quote (with emphasis added):
Soon pagan beliefs dominated the thinking of those called Christians. The Roman emperor adopted this false Christianity as the state religion. This church was very different from the church Jesus organized. It taught that God was a being without form or substance.
Make no mistake, the manual is not doing ALL of what Mormons complain that the wide range of countercultists do, but it is hypocritically doing a great deal of it. The manual digs its criticism in by calling these people with pagan beliefs those “called Christians”. It in effect is calling them so-called Christians. So the manual isn’t merely criticizing the religious systems (which teach God is spirit and not a material substance) as false Christianity; it is also suggest its adherents are merely “called” Christians.
Ask yourselves, what kind of vehement reaction do evangelicals get when we speak of Lorenzo Snow couplet theology as “pagan” and of Mormonism as “false Christianity”[2] and of Mormons as those “called” Christians? Look, I don’t believe it’s inherently wrong to say someone’s beliefs are pagan, or that a religion is a false Christianity, or that many of its adherents are only called Christians[3]. Mormonism is a false Christianity with pagan beliefs and with many adherents that are merely “called” Christians. But I’ve been given a lot of grief for saying those kinds of things, with the premise that saying such things is unethical. I just am calling out the LDS Church for its hypocrisy on this.
I would rather that they just get all McConkie on us[4]. We’re big boys. The more cards we have out on the table the easier it can be for us to tackle the big issues!
[1] Ironically, at other times in Mormon history the “pagan” concept of God has been glorified, not criticized.
[2] When the GP manual essentially says traditional Christianity has “pagan beilefs” and is a “false Christianity”, it isn’t flattering. It might help some Mormons feel better to explain, “But hey, it didn’t say traditional Christianity is non-Christianity, it just says it is FALSE Christianity”, but it seems like an exercise in missing the point. At the colloquial level evangelicals don’t make a big distinction between the two. I’m reminded of Paul in Galatians 1 who said he was disturbed that people were turning to a “different gospel”. Paul immediately then says, “not that there is another one”. That’s how I feel about “false” Christianity. Like Paul can speak of a “different” gospel that is no gospel at all, I can speak of a different, false Christianity that in theological essence is no Christianity at all. But that’s not all that can be said on the issue. I would agree with Rob Bowman’s articulation elsewhere that Mormonism is within sociological Christianity but not within the Biblically theological Christianity. Inasmuch as Christianity is a historical, sociologically identified movement that is marked by a general focus and devotion to the historical person of Jesus, Mormonism is Christian. But inasmuch as Christianity is the body of believers that is faithful to the essential doctrines taught in the Bible, Mormonism is not Christian.
[3] It would however be wrong to stereotype all Mormons as non-Christians. Not all Mormons believe in the distinctives of traditional Mormonism, and frankly some Mormons are struggling evangelicals-in-embryo.
[4] “You talk about teaching false doctrine and being damned. Here is a list of false doctrines that if anyone teaches he will be damned. And there is not one of these that I have ever known to be taught in the Church, but I am giving you the list for a perspective because of what will follow. Teach that God is a Spirit, the sectarian trinity. Teach that salvation comes by grace alone, without works. Teach original guilt, or birth sin, as they express it. Teach infant baptism. Teach predestination. Teach that revelation and gifts and miracles have ceased. Teach the Adam-God theory (that does apply in the Church). Teach that we should practice plural marriage today. Now, any of those are doctrines that damn” (Sermons and Writings of Bruce R. McConkie, p.337).
For thought on who is pagan -
“The Gospel Through the Ages” (1946), Seventy Milton R. Hunter is the principal author, the preface states very clearly that “the volume has been written and published under the direction of the General Authorities” (p.vii).
In chapter 17 (“They Shall be Gods”), Hunter attempts to use pagan history and dogma to justify this Mormon practice. Under the heading of “Pagans’ Concept of Knowing God,” Hunter writes:
“Even the doctrine of a knowledge of God as the avenue to Godhood made its way outward from the Divine Fountain of Truth into the heathenistic religions of the Mediterranean world. THE TEACHINGS OF THE HERMETIC PAGAN CULT SOUND QUITE FAMILIAR TO THOSE WHO ARE ACQUAINTED WITH THE DOCTRINE TAUGHT BY JESUS, by John the Beloved, by Paul, and by Joseph Smith the American Prophet. THEY HAVE A CLOSE KINSHIP TO THE TRUE GOSPEL (mormonism) which came to earth through the holy prophets of God. For example, Hermes declared: ‘And this alone, even the knowledge (gnosis) of God, is man’s salvation. This is the ascent to Olympus, and by this alone can a soul become good.’ THIS RELIGION TAUGHT , as did the Prophet Alma, that man must experience a rebirth. The Hermetic rebirth involved nothing less than deification. ‘This is the good; this is the consummation for those who have got gnosis-they enter into God’; so declared the Hermetic teacher.
“Note the close resemblances between the foregoing pagan teachings and those of the true Gospel…Thus we see that the true doctrine of knowing the Lord as the pathway to Godhood was revealed to man as part of the knowledge of the divine plan of salvation; and, like many other Gospel truths, it was disseminated among pagan worshipers.”
http://www.mrm.org/glorifying-paganism
We feel that it's not nearly as bad as the blasphemy about being "exalted" in the "celestial heaven" and becoming "gods" themselves ... which is pretty much as bad as blasphemy can get.
Nana, it behooves me not to dwell upon what they believe. If I become upset or angry at what they think or say about my faith, I am the one who suffers, not them. So, I choose to focus on my faith (a positive).
Maybe they imagine themselves as heroes...
“Into the valley of death rode the 600”
:)
“One man’s theology is another man’s belly laugh” -—Robert A. Heinlein
So long as it doesn't get you beheaded?
It appears to me by your statement that you might be just a tad more focused on the physical and not the spiritual.
Is this typical of the Catholic response?
If that was only Chapter 16, I wonder what else is in “The Gospel Principles 2009 manual” ???
“Why are so many Christians remiss in defending their faith from the onslaught of attack by Mormonism? Why?”
I suspect it’s because so many mormons are basically good moral people and many Mormons’ do have in their heads the correct notion of Christ’s divinity,death, and resurrection. Many Mormons may have a saving knowledge of Christ. One doesn’t have the heart to judge all mormons collectively despite recognizing that Mormon doctrine is heretical. Christ will have to separate wheat from chaff.
The Bible says to contend for the faith.
“The Bible says to contend for the faith.”
I’ve been a Christian for 5 years. I led a few people to Jesus. Not one of them did I argue to Him or debate to Him.
My question was about defending your faith from the onslaught of MormonISM.
While we cannot judge the individual heart, we CAN and MUST judge beliefs. We are commanded to defend the faith, but so few do because of fear of offending “good” people. The Bible tells us that there in NONE good - that ALL have fallen short of the glory of God. It is our duty as Christians to tell others of this truth and also to introduce them to the Savior who died to make us perfect in the site of God, through the atonement.
This is why we are bombarded with attacks against us - simply because we “allow” it.
Have you led any Mormons to the faith? I have.
It serves me no purpose to defend (argue) my faith through a forum such as FR. If I were inclined, I would seek out either online Catholic/Mormon forums or live debates between Catholics and Mormons to defend (debate) my faith. Only in such a debate is there any real possibility of swaying another’s opinion.
I wish you were inclined, bst since you are not, I will gladly contend in your stead. Of course I have a bigger stake, since God has called me to introduce Him as He is shown in the Bible to the Mormons I know, and to refute the teachings of Mormonism in public. I was born into a multi-generation LDS family. I have since come to know Christ.
Your calling is perhaps somewhere else.
Thanks.
“Have you led any Mormons to the faith?”
I have yet to meet any. There is a mormon church in town, fairly new too. They used to send the boys around to bother people at home as well. It’s a small enough town that word got around when they were coming and people either did not answer their door, chose not to be home or I even know a few that chose that time to have their Pastors come for a visit. A Pastor friend of mine (charismatic) was born and raised a mormon and found Christ at 28 years of age (he’s 33 now).....he loves the opportunity to talk to the mormon boys at the door. Now HE has convinced a few of the door kids of the error of their ways and they now make up almost a third of his church every Sunday.
The local mormon hierachy is not too happy with him. His mother (in Nevada) even called him to ask “What the heck are you doing to tick off the local mormons up there?”
Apparantly with just his name, they tracked his mother down and asked her to have him quit.
He hasn’t. But even through all his success, he does not beat these young men with his Bible, he lovingly shares the true gospel and his own experience with them. It seems to work for him.
I cannot speak to the ‘Catholic response’. I can give you my response. I perceive no physical threat form Mormons or Mormonism so I pay little heed to what they say.
“Argue” is not the same as “contend.” Please don’t twist my words.
No one is saying you lead someone to the Lord by arguing with them. Contend means to maintain and/or assert.
“Your calling is perhaps somewhere else.”
This is true, colorcountry. God works through me in a different way.
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