I Said: Am I to be judged of sins this grievous by you who have never laid eyes on me nor know my faults? Fine, Expel me from your church (LOL).
You Said: This is what we've done; but you don't laugh, but complain.
We consider YOUR Jesus and YOUR god to be IDOLS; not the Jesus and GOD that we find in the Scriptures.
I see the problem, somebody here does not know the difference between a "
Religion" and a "
Church".
Elsie, you see, you simply do not have the power to declare that I am not a Christian for it is a religion, not a Church. Lets look at the two nouns "
Religion"
a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.
With the Noun "
Church"
a building for public Christian worship.
See a difference? In both I just took the #1 definition for the noun I was looking at, in both cases their are alternate meanings, but the first one is the most common usage and you have to look at Context to move to alternate meanings. You may kick me out of your building, but you cannot say I am not Christian. To say that I am not Christian is A) something you cannot know, for I am the only mortal who truly knows if I believe or not, and B) not your place, Jesus will decide who is his, and you are not him.
You see Elsie, Words mean things, and when you say I am not Christian, you are saying you know what I believe. When I say I am a Christian, and you say I am not you confuse people, and are insinuating that I am a liar, it's not good for either of us. Feel free to kick me out of your "Church", but Jesus and I will decide if I am a Christian or not, capisce?
Some other words you might want to know the meanings of:
You see to any non Christian, you and I look Identical in our beliefs, just as Moslems (in all their denominations) are Moslems to us and Buddhists (in all their denominations) look the same to most Christians. We look the same to them because we are of the Same Faith (we believe in Jesus Christ) even if we disagree on the specifics about him, we both believe in a person named Jesus Christ, who was Born of Mary, in Bethlehem, we both believe he is the Jesus the Bible's new testament speaks of, to them we are the same religion, Christian. There is a Schism (or doctrinal difference) between our two Churches, yours being considered
Orthodox, my religion being considered
Unorthodox, another way to put that is the people who believe your way, outnumber the people who believe my way, for Being orthodox, merely means you are part of the majority who are in consensus about something.
I have never said Mormons were Orthodox Christians, but we are Christian, and it is not your place, right, or even logical for you to try to say otherwise.
Mormons get upset when our Christian brethren don't even understand the words they are using to differentiate themselves from us because they make us both look bad by being publicly ignorant about english, and their history and their religion. I find most Orthodox Christians have never read the Bible that they tell me I don't believe in. Most Orthodox Christians don't know when the Nicene Creed was assumed by the Catholic church. Most Orthodox Christians don't know their history, their doctrine, or their creeds These So called followers of Christ don't read the scriptures and don't pray to him expecting answers, then they come on forums like this one and tell me I am not a Christian, when in fact, I am.
I revel in concepts, thoughts and facts, I enjoy them, I ran into this one, and I have kept it in my conscious mind for a long time. All Christians should have things like this that they think about constantly, here it is:
If I were on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict me?
Elsie, I hope and pray that both of us would be convicted Christians.
I also ran into a quote in the last emperor:
Emperor: are words important?
English Teacher: Yes words are important.
Emperor: Why are words important?
English Teacher: A gentleman always means what he says and you can't mean what you say, if you can't say what you mean.
In this modern society of ours, liberals have discouraged excellence, they have dumbed down the language and diluted the meanings of words, if people cannot communicate their thoughts they will stop having them. The destruction of the english language begins by teaching people that actually knowing the proper meaning of a word is unimportant. Religion is one of the best hopes for this country's reform so I see ignorance in religion, particularly among Christians as an effort by Comunism (which I believe to be of the Devil) to weaken us and have us argue when we should be supporting each other.
I will say it again, If you don't like what I believe and teach, kick me out of your church, no problem, call me unorthodox, again, no problem, Tell me I am not a Christian, now you are not telling the truth, problem.
I hope this cleared up a long running misunderstanding, and I hope this motivates all who profess to believe in Jesus to learn more about their faith, and it's tenets, history and vocabulary.