Posted on 07/02/2014 5:05:48 PM PDT by Faith Presses On
The religious right remains one of the most potent forces in American politics, but Northeasterners could be forgiven for forgetting. Evangelical Christians and Mormons, the two religious groups who most consistently espouse conservative political and cultural views, are basically absent in the Northeastern corridor.
The map shows the number of regular Evangelical Christian or Mormon congregation members, as reported by religious bodies. The data, therefore, does not include every Mormon or Evangelical Christian in the country. Black Protestant denominations are a separate category from other Evangelical Protestant denominations in this data set, and are not represented on this map.
The map does not neatly represent the religious right, either. There are many religious and cultural conservatives who do not regularly attend church, perhaps especially in West Virginia, where reported attendance is unusually low.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
“I think it safer to say Mormons are not mainstream Christians. Belief in the Trinity is not a condition for salvation and scriptural support for the Trinity is not as strong as many assume it to be.”
1. Mormonism perverts the Gospel and the nature of God - making Him into a creature instead of eternal. It teaches the existence of an unlimited number of gods, with more being created every day and on a multitude of planets.
2. Your post indicates a lack of understanding of the Scriptures in regard to the nature of God.
3. Every cult in addition to the Mormon cult perverts the same issues.
God's speed and blessings to you and yours.
My thoughts also. But the NT church grew in an even more antagonistic yet more fertile perhaps, culture .
Its not as if all this was hidden.
But can you document this?:)
Thank you but I'll defer direct response to your first paragraph simply in order to maintain focus of the topic at hand which is the Trinity. In another thread when I have more time I'd be happy to broaden the discussion.
The Trinity is also not obscure, but a clear and present reality in the scripture.
Please cite the verse that you believe makes it so clear.
Nor do Christians tolerate those who refuse to affirm the Trinity and who give succor to those who deny it, although they themselves pretend to be "moderate" Christians. There is no option for being neither hot nor cold when it comes to the essentials of the Christian faith, but instead an active confession is required (Rom 10:9, Rev 3:15-16). If you hold yourself in a position where you neither affirm or deny such an important question as whether the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are a trinity, then you are damned,
Please show me the scripture which says that. In your first paragraph you strongly condemned anyone spreading a false gospel so, show me the scripture that places salvation subject to belief in the Trinity. If your bible contains such scripture in it's gospel message, please include the type bible and translation.
Thanks. That may be the most Mormon literature I have ever read. Without reading the entire book of mormon, or at least the chapter from which that page was extracted, I'd be reluctant to comment.
Very true.
Shall we enumerate them here; or continue to point out the FALSITY of Mormonism; compared to ANY Christian (traditional) group?
Please no. I can't type fast enough.
Such is the nature of belief.
Show me the scripture that defines the Trinity. Then show me the scripture that places salvation as being dependent upon belief in the Trinity.
The nature of God is defined by the totality of His revelation and not a single verse. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit all are revealed to have all the attributes of God. God is revealed as one God.
To believe in a multitude of gods - like Mormonism or Hinduism is not remotely Christian.
I think biblical evidence of divinity would be prayer and worship. Scriptures indicate the apostles prayed and worshiped both God the Father and Christ the Son. However, I know of no such scripture concerning the Holy Spirit.
Never-the-less, having established in scripture that God and Christ were divine, reconciling monotheism with God and Christ was necessary.
I believe there is a sufficient body of scripture to establish that the apostles understood God and Christ to somehow be one in the same and that there was no conflict with monotheism. However, I don't find where they had a clear understanding of the nature of the Holy Spirit. Was the Holy Spirit a diety, or some sort of force/presence? New Testament writers are not clear on that.
When considering faith and works, works without faith is meaningless in the context of salvation. However, with faith will come works/fruits. New Testament authors recognized false conversions were occurring and in Gal 5:23 established a test of the Holy Spirit's indwelling in a person.
Gal 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.Naturally, the Gal 5:22-23 test is time based and will be different for each person depending on where they began their particular spiritual walk at.
One can be confused, but for one, i do not believe one can be saved who denies the deity of Christ, which one implicitly does in trusting Him to give them eternal life, as that is one of many uniquely Divine attributes Christ possesses, as having the same nature, though there is an order in the Godhead.
See The DEITY of CHRIST by God's grace.
Thus to deny the Divine nature of Christ is to blaspheme God, as that would be ascribing uniquely Divine attributes to a created being, which is what the Jewish leaders saw the Lord Jesus as doing. And would have been right if He was not God manifest in the flesh.
Likewise the Spirit is obviously Divine, while that He is a person is sufficiently clear.
Thus while the doctrine of the Trinity was not formally defined till latter, it was essentially taught and believed before and thus it is Scripturally substantiated, which is why the same evangelicals who contend against Cath. traditions of men also contend for basic doctrine of the Trinity, .
Please cite the verse that you believe makes it clear that one verse is what makes a doctrine to be a clear and present reality in the scripture.
“New Testament writers are not clear on that.”
To believe that reveals a lack of familiarity those writers.
Thank you for all the research you do and bringing it to these threads. It’s very revealing. God bless you in your efforts.
In what way? Where do those writers establish the divinity of the Holy Spirit?
“
In what way? Where do those writers establish the divinity of the Holy Spirit?”
To not know this most basic revelation shows a limited exposure to the New Testament.
Then do me a favor and show me where the divinity of the Holy Spirit was clear to the New Testament writers.
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