[C19fan]

The Jesus Mormons claim to love is not the Jesus of the Bible and elaborated by 2,000 years of doctrine and theology.

[Manic_Episode]

Obsessed with Jesus=good

Obsessed with Smith=bad

[Da Coyote]

Mormons are not our problem.

Muslims are our problem.

One question: if you could eliminate Mohammed or Smith from history, which would you pick in order to save millions of lives?

[faucetman]

“by adding the Book of Mormon to the Bible—and that makes it much less than Christianity as well. Nevertheless, the fact that Mormonism adds to the traditional Christian story

does not necessarily mean that it detracts from Christianity to the point of denying it altogether.”

OH YES IT DOES!

Revelation 22:
18 For[i] I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds to these things, God will add[j] to him the plagues that are written in this book; 19 and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away[k] his part from the Book[l] of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.

[blueunicorn6]

“Mocking Mormonism” is “verbal lawlessness”? Wow. You normally don’t see that kind of pomposity outside of hollywood.

“The mormon court has found you guilty of verbal lawlessness. Your sentence is to listen to two mormon missionaries for an hour.”

“I beg for mercy! Please execute me instead!”

[matthew fuller]

Mormons are less obsessed with worshiping Christ than becoming Christ.

[DaxtonBrown]

“verbal lawlessness”. No 1st Amendment for You!

[OldNavyVet]

History tells us that various civilizations explain God in varying ways, each explanation varying from others in various ways; and humans fight over said variations … in varying ways.
Personally, I think that some power exists out there that is beyond man’s comprehension, and that humans fighting over said power is not in that power’s interests.
Deo gratias

[Vigilanteman]

I’m old enough to remember a time that it was considered equally chic and fashionable to hate Roman Catholics. It is basically the same crowd with a different target.

[greyfoxx39]

From the article:

Mormons are so materialistic that they insist that the same unchanging laws govern both the natural and the supernatural. They also deny the virgin birth, since their materialism leads them to speculate that Jesus is literally begotten by the immortal Father rather than conceived by the Holy Spirit.

By treating the spiritual as a dimension of the material, Smith overcomes every trace of dualism between this world and the next. Matter is perfectible because it is one of the perfections of the divine. Even heaven is merely another kind of galaxy, far away but not radically different from planet earth. For Mormons, our natural loyalties and loves have an eternal significance, which is why marriages will be preserved in heaven. Our bodies are literally temples of the divine, which is why Mormons wear sacred garments underneath regular clothing.

This should not be taken lightly. The Mormon metaphysic calls for the revision of nearly every Christian belief. Still, not all heresies are equally perilous. If Gnosticism is the paradigmatic modern temptation—spiritualizing Jesus by turning him into a subjective experience—Mormonism runs in the exact opposite direction. If you had to choose between a Jesus whose body is eternal and a Jesus whose divinity is trivial (as in many modern theological portraits), I hope it would be an easy choice.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“The Mormon metaphysic calls for the revision of nearly every Christian belief”.

Yet mormons demand that Christians accept them as Christian. What’s wrong with this picture?

[nonsporting]

Mormonism is obsessed with Christ, and everything that it teaches is meant to awaken, encourage, and expand faith in him. It adds to the plural but coherent portrait of Jesus that emerges from the four gospels in a way, I am convinced, that does not significantly damage or deface that portrait.

It is a different Christ, a false Christ. Jesus Christ and the Father are one. Not one in purpose, but one God, not different gods, as the Mormons teach. Jesus Christ is God manifest in the flesh (1 Timothy 3:16), not a god manifest in the flesh, as Joseph Smith revealed. Jesus Christ is not an exalted man (neither is God the Father an exalted man), but very God, God from everlasting, the Creator, not a creature, not a created being.

Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was not God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am the LORD, and beside me their is no saviour. (Isaiah 43:10,11)

And:

Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be on his shoulder: and his name shall be Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6)

No need to read between the lines to see that Isaiah is revealing the Godhead here.

Without very Christ, Mormons do not have God. (1 John 2:23). And this fact shows in Joseph Smith's authorizing vision where he says he sees the Son and the Father. He says God the Father spoke to him. Jesus Christ himself says

"No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." (John 1:18)

And Paul writes:

"In whom we have redemption in his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature." (1 Colossians 1:15)

The author's hyper-intellectual philosophical analyses aside, the question remains who did Joseph Smith see and hear. It wasn't God the Father, for he is invisible and a Spirit, not corporal: "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. John 4:24). The Mormon Christ is a false Christ, and the deceiver wants to take as many souls with him to hell as he can. What better way than to offer a counterfeit, dress it up in the trappings of Christianity.

I'm researching why Mormon's detest the cross! They've gone to great lengths to pervert the atonement account, claiming that Christ's suffering and bleeding in the garden in Gesthemane is what atoned for our sin. (re: Luke 22:44 -- He didn't "bleed"--it's a simile). Game over so soon? Not quite. The sacrificial victim must die first before his blood is used for the purging. (Remember how we are enjoined not to consume the blood of animals, but the life is in the blood?) The Bible says in stark contrast:

Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:" (Galatians 3:13)

It is no small difference that Jesus was sacrificed "outside the camp" (not within the city gates -- i.e. Gesthemane).

Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gates. (Hebrews 13:12)

Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach. For here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come.

The blood smattered image of Christ is the only true portrait. The other is a fake. (Must end here).

[Cicero]

I’m disappointed to see an article like this in First Things. I was a subscriber from the first issue, but I dropped it a year or two after the current editor took over, because regretably it just wasn’t the same.

Mormons are the only religion mocked and scorned by Christians and atheists alike, and there are no objections from the politically correct? Surely the editor must know that the religion most scorned by Christians, atheists, and the politically correct is Catholicism? Not all Christians, of course, but as we see here in the forum there are plenty of Christians who make it a primary business to attack the Church. And as we saw at the recent Grammy show, it’s not Mormons that Hollywood most likes to attack.

The article also is curious because it does a constant shuffle dance. Mormons love Christ. But their Christ is not the same as the Christian Christ. Well, yes.

So what is the point? No, the LDS is not the same kind of problem as Islam, obviously. But it is not Christian. And it shares with Islam a habit of changing the basic facts of the Bible and of history. I hope that Christians can get along with Mormons and work with them against some of the crimes of the secular culture. But we need to recognize our differences, to do so.

[dragonblustar]

Mormons claim to be the "restored church" but look how they dismiss Christ's sacrifice and replace it with personal atonement.

[NCLaw441]

I have hesitate to weigh in on the Mormonism issue, and I won’t really do it here. I recommend that we all step back from our own beliefs for a moment and understand how we get to where are in terms of religious faith.

My views, briefly stated:
God is God. He made us; we did not make Him.
What I believe, I believe by faith; I cannot prove it, even to myself, except through the eyes of faith.
Everyone else who believes in God is subject to the same limitations as I am.
I believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Moses, and I believe in His only Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, who died for the sins of all who will believe in Him.
My faith in Christ is bolstered by the faith of His Apostles and many who lived with Him, who, in the face of unspeakabel tortures and deaths, clung to their beliefs.

Others do not believe as I do; some do not believe at all. A proper response by those who do not believe as I do is: “I don’t believe as you do.” I may try to persuade them, and they may try to persuade me to change their/my beliefs.

Mormons (and Muslims, as well) truly believe what they believe. As long as they respect my beliefs, or at least do not interfere with my right to live and believe as I do, I can tolerate them also.

[Elsie]

Mocking Mormonism is one of the last frontiers of verbal lawlessness to be untouched by the vigilante powers of political correctness.

Steve; BABY!!

Get over your persecution complex and deal with the FACTS about MORMONism!!

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Hint: "What GOES around; COMES around!"

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Questions put to Joseph Smith: "'Do you believe the Bible?' [Smith:]'If we do, we are the only people under heaven that does, for there are none of the religious sects of the day that do'. When asked 'Will everybody be damned, but Mormons'? [Smith replied] 'Yes, and a great portion of them, unless they repent, and work righteousness." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 119).

Joseph Smith: "for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible" (from Pearl of Great Price 1:12). "What is it that inspires professors of Christianity generally with a hope of salvation? It is that smooth, sophisticated influence of the devil, by which he deceives the whole world" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.270).

 

 

 

Brigham Young stated this repeatedly: "When the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was grovelling in darkness" (Journal of Discourses 5:73); "The Christian world, so-called, are heathens as to the knowledge of the salvation of God" (Journal of Discourses 8:171); "With a regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world" (Journal of Discourses 8:199); "And who is there that acknowledges [God's] hand? ...You may wander east, west, north, and south, and you cannot find it in any church or government on the earth, except the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.24); "Should you ask why we differ from other Christians, as they are called, it is simply because they are not Christians as the New Testament defines Christianity" (Journal of Discourses 10:230).

 

 

 

Orson Pratt proclaimed: "Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the 'whore of Babylon' whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any person who shall be so corrupt as to receive a holy ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent" (The Seer, p. 255).

 

 

 

Orson Pratt also said: "This great apostasy commenced about the close of the first century of the Christian era, and it has been waxing worse and worse from then until now" (Journal of Discourses

, vol.18, p.44) and: "But as there has been no Christian Church on the earth for a great many centuries past, until the present century, the people have lost sight of the pattern that God has given according to which the Christian Church should be established, and they have denominated a great variety of people Christian Churches, because they profess to be ...But there has been a long apostasy, during which the nations have been cursed with apostate churches in great abundance" (Journal of Discourses , 18:172).

 

 

President John Taylor stated: "Christianity...is a perfect pack of nonsense...the devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century." (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.167); "Where shall we look for the true order or authority of God? It cannot be found in any nation of Christendom." (Journal of Discourses , 10:127).

 

 

 

James Talmage said: "A self-suggesting interpretation of history indicates that there has been a great departure from the way of salvation as laid down by the Savior, a universal apostasy from the Church of Christ". (A Study of the Articles of Faith, p.182).

 

 

 

President Joseph Fielding Smith said: "Doctrines were corrupted, authority lost, and a false order of religion took the place of the gospel of Jesus Christ, just as it had been the case in former dispensations, and the people were left in spiritual darkness." (Doctrines of Salvation, p.266). "For hundreds of years the world was wrapped in a veil of spiritual darkness, until there was not one fundamental truth belonging to the place of salvation ...Joseph Smith declared that in the year 1820 the Lord revealed to him that all the 'Christian' churches were in error, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 3, p.282).

 

 

 

More recent statements by apostle Bruce McConkie are also very clear: "Apostasy was universal...And this darkness still prevails except among those who have come to a knowledge of the restored gospel" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol 3, p.265); "Thus the signs of the times include the prevailing apostate darkness in the sects of Christendom and in the religious world in general" (The Millennial Messiah, p.403); "a perverted Christianity holds sway among the so-called Christians of apostate Christendom" (Mormon Doctrine, p.132); "virtually all the millions of apostate Christendom have abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ whom they vainly suppose to be a spirit essence who is incorporeal uncreated, immaterial and three-in-one with the Father and Holy Spirit" (Mormon Doctrine, p.269); "Gnosticism is one of the great pagan philosophies which antedated Christ and the Christian Era and which was later commingled with pure Christianity to form the apostate religion that has prevailed in the world since the early days of that era." (Mormon Doctrine, p.316).

 

 

 

President George Q. Cannon said: "After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christendom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They all belong to Babylon" (Gospel Truth, p.324).

 

 

President Wilford Woodruff stated: "the Gospel of modern Christendom shuts up the Lord, and stops all communication with Him. I want nothing to do with such a Gospel, I would rather prefer the Gospel of the dark ages, so called" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 2, p.196).

[x]

What I thought was interesting:

The writer says that Smith and Mormonism understood as concrete and material things that other Christians considered metaphorical or metaphysical. So God's body had to be physical and material. Heaven had to be a place with a spacial location or locations in our universe. "Holy garments" had to have an actual material equivalent. Religious community, authority, and responsibilities had to be more concretely described and instituted than they were in most other denominations.

I don't know how accurate he is, but it does explain many of the features of Mormonism that strike others as "strange" or "weird." Of course, 19th century Christians did tend to understand the Bible in a more literal sense than later Christians did.

[Marguerite]

Mormons are obsessed not only with Jeshua bar Joseph, that you call Christ, which was not his name, but with Jews in general.

“February 14, 2012 - Mormon church leaders have apologized to the family of Holocaust survivor and Jewish rights advocate Simon Wiesenthal after his parents were baptized posthumously in a Mormon temple ritual last month.

Salt Lake City researcher Helen Radkey found documentation of the baptism while conducting regular checks of a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints genealogical database last week.

Mormons believe posthumous baptism by proxy rites allow deceased persons to receive the Gospel in the afterlife.

The baptism of Holocaust victims was supposed to be barred by a 1995 agreement between the church and Jews, although some submissions continue by church members.

Church officials say the person who entered the names into the database has been disciplined.

The California-based Wiesenthal Center expressed outrage and called the rite insensitive.”

http://www.newsmax.com/US/Mormon-baptize-holocaust-Wiesenthal/2012/02/14/id/429412