Mormons (LDS) Know More About Bible Than Other Christians

The Salt Lake Tribune ^ | 09/28/2010 | Peggy Fletcher Stack

[zippythepinhead]

Atheists and agnostics know more about major world religions than many people of faith, while Mormons can answer more Bible questions than their Catholic and mainline Protestant counterparts.

Those are among the somewhat startling conclusions about religious literacy in America the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life drew after surveying 3,412 Americans.

Some of the multiple-choice questions were relatively simple: Where was Jesus born and who led the exodus from Egypt? What religion was Mother Teresa, what day does the Jewish Sabbath begin and what is the name of Islam’s holy book?

Others were more obscure: What is Indonesia’s dominant religion? Which Christians teach that salvation comes through faith alone?

About half the Protestants (53 percent) couldn’t correctly identify Martin Luther as the person whose writings and actions inspired the Protestant Reformation. Fewer than half of Americans (47 percent) knew the Dalai Lama is Buddhist and only 38 percent correctly associated Vishnu and Shiva with Hinduism.

John Morehead, director of the Western Institute for Intercultural Studies in Salt Lake City, had already noted religious illiteracy in the general population as well as in the evangelical community. But he did not expect Mormons to top them in their biblical fluency.

“Mormons tend to emphasize Mormon scriptures like the Book of Mormon rather than the Bible in their devotional life,” Morehead said in an e-mail.

Even some LDS scholars were surprised to find Mormons at the top.

[Elsie]

14 out of 15

I missed the LEAD a class in prayer question

[Elsie]

Apples or Oranges?

Which to pick as they BOTH look SO good!

[Elsie]

Isnt that what most Christians believe, that Jesus saved us, but we have to follow his laws to accept it?

Some, sadly, yes.

But MOST of us believe:

"Saved by GRACE"

(And KEPT by GRACE; not WORKS.)

[magritte]

"Their law wasn’t God-made, but man-made."

So, you're saying the Torah is made-up?...magritte

[Elsie]

If the members are happy in their beliefs and their form of worship, why should so many people want them to change?

HAPPY?

Is THAT the criteria that is important?

[Elsie]

My Gr. x3 grandfather left his family to fight for a country that had condoned killing Mormons. After they were burned out in Nauvoo, IL he joined, along with 500 other Mormon men to march with the Mormon Battalion. He actually walked 5000 miles to get back to them in winter quarters where he found them half-starved. They gathered what they could and then walked back to Utah. His story is well celebrated in Mormon history books. He was the “Butcher” that slit a wild bull's throat with a knife in the “Battle of the Bulls”.

I 'prophecy' that Paul Harvey will be along soon...

[1010RD]

As Bible-believing Christians we have to accept at face value that the words chosen in the Bible are purposeful. At the very least the words of God or Jesus are specific and with purpose.

That said Jesus didn’t say to the Thief you’ll be with me in Heaven. He said Paradise. It is safe to conclude that Heaven isn’t Paradise.

It is also safe to conclude that Hell/Gehenna isn’t Sheol. They’re just too different in description and implication.

Maybe Narses or NYer can expound a bit on the Catholic teachings regarding these verses. Do Catholics still believe in limbo, purgatory, etc.?

Finally, was the Thief baptized? Think on Mark 16:16, Acts 2:38, etc. What are the implications?

[MayflowerMadam]

“Isnt (sic) that what most Christians believe, that Jesus saved us, but we have to follow his laws to accept it? Or can you do anything you want, murder, rape, steal, and still get to Heaven because Jesus died for everyone’s sins?”

Jesus died so that those who make a decision to accept Him will be saved. Not all will accept this gift, so not all will be saved. We don’t have to follow His laws in order to be saved. The thief on the cross accepted Jesus as his Savior and he definitely did not follow His laws; he didn’t have time. Still, Jesus told him “Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.”

If a person is truly saved, he will live a decent and good life (follow His laws) because the Holy Spirit dwells in him.

[Utah Binger]

And the rest of the story is that if you exaggerate your family history often enough, pretty soon it becomes factual. Of course when the Mountain Meadows history is told by a good member of Mormonism or their descendants it becomes a band of Paiutes that did the nasty killing and that the terrible Apostate John Lee was the only Mormon present.

Even the title of this thread is a humorous exaggeration. I guess the PR department is working overtime this week.

[investigateworld]

So a honest question to all Mormons:
Come judgment day, do you folks see yourselves as Danites and ... uh like try to take over the show ... so to speak?
Please, be honest.

[Godzilla]

After they were burned out in Nauvoo, IL

Interesting piece of fiction. The LDS departure from Nauvoo was orderly and the only thing 'burned' was the temple by u/i arsonists. Emma and her family and the entire RLDS sect continued to live in Nauvoo in peace until they moved to Plano IL, in 1866.

[greyfoxx39]

I invite all to seek the truth about whatever “issue” is being “revealed” or “exposed”. I promise that if you do so with honest intent, the “ahah” moments you will have will be many and frequent. You will start to recognize the tactics employed to cleverly twist and attack and will likely chuckle the more you see. There’s nothing new here. It’s all been addressed many times before.

Link

As of December 31, 2009, there were 51,736 LDS missionaries serving in 344 church missions throughout the world. Their work, often in cooperation with local members, resulted in 280,106 convert baptisms in 2009.[12] Author David Stewart points out that the number of convert baptisms per missionary per year has fallen from a high of 8.03 in 1989 to just 4.67 in 2005.[13] He argues that the number of converts would increase if Mormon missionaries made greater efforts in meeting new people; he points out that the average companionship spends only four or five hours per week attempting to meet new people.[13]

How terrible it is that a handful of Christians post a handful of threads per week on FreeRepublic to counter the proselytizing efforts of the missionaries and public relations campaign of the mormon church. Don't you just feel SO sorry that the poor, persecuted mormons aren't able to have their message heard?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJqhFm2Zpck

[ansel12]

Mormons do love Jesus and God, they are Christians and they live clean lives.

You want to push Mormonism as Christian, although Christianity is clear that they are not Christian, yet you are annoyed that people here from all of the Christian denominations would speak up against a non-Christian religion that is sending thousands of missionaries out to our hometowns to try and convince Christians that the Joseph Smith cult is Christian too, and that they should join it to become gods and to serve Mormonism.

You are proselytizing as a Mormon, and a member of the non-Christian cult, have you been trained in this practice? Have you been a Priest within the cult, or even a Missionary for them?

[panaxanax]

Are you calling me a liar?

My family chose to leave Nauvoo after the riots brought about by the religious bigots.

[greyfoxx39]

My Gr. x3 grandfather left his family to fight for a country that had condoned killing Mormons. After they were burned out in Nauvoo, IL

Source for this claim? Link?

Explain why the immediate family of Joseph Smith was not "burned out" but stayed and prospered.

[MHGinTN]

I personally believe that the story Jesus told reagrding the rich man and Lazarus the beggar is a huge clue. Lazarus is said to have died and been transported to a place described as 'Abraham's bosom', with a great gulf fixed separating that place of comforting from a place of torment where the rich man was transported.

Curiously, a place of comforting would not be too comforable if from that place one could look over to the place where people are in torment, so I conclude that though the rich man could see Lazarus being comforted, Lazarus would not have seen the rich man being tormented.

The place of torment is so bad that the rich man asks to have Lazarus sent from thence to warn the rich man's kin so that they repent and not end up where he is! The Lord responds that even if one returned from the dead to testify, since for their lifetimes they had the witness of the law and the prophets they would not repent even for the witness of one returned from the dead to warn them ... and Jesus was only weeks away from returning from that place of comforting to witness to all of humankind that there is resurrection from death through Him. The New Testament relates to us that during the three days He was physically dead, Jesus witnessed to those in that place of comforting and that these He will bring with Him upon His return to claim His Church and the witnesses who will witness the marriage of the Lamb.

Addressing the notion that Jesus was not yet ascended into Heaven when He related to the thief on the cross next to Him, 'Today thou shalt be with me in paradise', when Jesus died His human soul and spirit were transported to the place Lazarus had been transported to. From thence the thief would be transported to Heaven when Jesus brings the souls of the saved with Him.

The thief was as saved as Lazarus the instant Jesus told him he would be with Him in Paradise. The thief had no baptism. The thief fulfilled no temple ordinances. The thief had no lifetime of striving to keep the commandments. BUT the thief did the thing Jesus tells us was required by God to obtain deliverance: the thief believed on Him WHom God sent as Soter, Deliverer. Believing on Him is the work God requires for salvation. And that day, the thief did the work that God requires.

[RobRoy]

>>Paying the price for our redemption in the garden of Gethsemane<<

Huh?

He paid the price on the cross. He PRAYED in the garden.

[colorcountry]

The LDS departure from Nauvoo was orderly and the only thing 'burned' was the temple by u/i arsonists.

My progenitor JL Heywood was one of the Mormons left behind to facilitate the sale of Mormon properties. He wasn't attacked or burnt out and he was able to conduct business with non-mormons.

From MormonWiki...

When the Latter-day Saints commenced their exodus from Nauvoo in 1846, Heywood, along with Almon Babbitt and John S.Fullmer, was chosen as one of the trustees to supervise the disposal of Church property. After arriving in the Salt Lake Valley in 1848, he was named postmaster of Salt Lake City, Bishop of the Seventeenth Ward, and surveyor of highways in the provisional State of Deseret. He helped John M. Bernhisel at the nation’s capitol obtain a territorial government for Utah and was appointed U.S. Marshal for the newly created Utah Territory.

Panax...these family stories of heroism do NOT make Mormonism true or good. They are simply stories. Another of the progenitors is John D Lee. He was tried, convicted and executed for following his Mormon Militia orders an his part of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. He played the role of scape goat for a cult.

[RobRoy]

>>...they are using Christian terminolgy in which to bait and switch the unsuspecting...<<

I think you are correct, but I’ll take it a step further: I think many mormons ARE Christians - at first. As they accept more and more of what the church teaches they are led farther and farther astray.

All that said, I will not be dogmatic about it. I don’t know which “Christians” are or are not saved, and the same goes for mormons. Only God knows what is in each person’s heart. But Mormonism is a belief system and one can study it all they want. It is clearly not Christian.

[MHGinTN]

I'm afraid I cannot agree completely with you on the following:
"Clearly Paradise doesn’t equal Heaven (agree here) and the scriptures are very clear about the basic necessaries to Salvation (I wouldn't make that a plural, just 'basic necessary'). The thief doesn’t qualify for Biblical Salvation under those descriptions and his specific circumstances." Sorry, I disagree completely here. The thief did precisely what Jesus said God commands as the work that one must do to obtain salvation, he believed upon Whom God had sent to deliver those who trust in Him.