A banned poster notorious for defending one of his more fact free assertions, when challenged, with the comment, “My post is my cite.”
Mormons believe an enormous amount that contradicts the New Testament. (Inasmuch as it’s possible to nail down anything specific about what they believe.) For example, Jesus ordered his followers to carry the Gospel to all nations. [Matthew 28 and many others] Mormons believed until recently that the Gospel shouldn’t be taken to dark-skinned people; they only changed that position in 1978, when the IRS was about to take away their tax-exempt status on grounds of racism. Moreover they still don’t acknowledge their previous racist position as wrong; apparently whatever deity guides them wanted them to be white supremacists until 1978. Someone truly knowledgable about this stuff could give plenty of other examples.
You could, of course, point to minor examples of more mainstream churches with beliefs that appear to contradict some portion of the gospel, but common sense can separate out such differences from the major differences that divide Mormonism from mainstream Christianity.
That argument is not based in facts, they didn’t allow “Lamanites” full bore into the priesthood or to perform most temple ordinances. They were quite happy to allow them into the church and accept their tithes and were not afraid to try and convert them.
And by your same logic no one who is a member of the “Southern Baptist Convention” would be a christian. This is really all just a thinly veiled “No true Scotsman” argument. They just renounced the racist heritage in 1995.
Catholics waited until 1875 before making James Augustine Healy the first black bishop and he was one of the first black priests. Absalom Jones was ordained priest in 1802 and was the first African-American Episcopalian.
Are they not christian?
It wasn’t the Lamanites (aka Native-Americans) that were restricted from the LDS Priesthood; it was Blacks.
I would love to see a citation for this claim that was linked to an actual news service.
It sounds much more like anti-Mormon glurge than anything that actually happened with respect to the IRS.
Page timed out on me while I was trying to edit. I tried to add this.
While there may be members of the LDS church who personally believe that Blacks or even Native-Americans are not to be taught the LDS gospel, I have never met any such members. Plus, the LDS church has had both Black and Native-American membership a heck of a lot longer than just back to the 1970s.
On the other hand, I have met my parents, both of whom are devout and quite active Episcopalians and both of whom believe fervently that the Bible completely condemns all inter-racial marriages.
Would you say that any denomination which ordains women, or even allows them to speak in church, is non-Christian?
You are correct that even Brigham Young considered it separate.
But who the “Lamanites” really are typically changes with the archeological stories of the day.
Locally I remember the local stake presidents saying the Laminites “skin of blackness” would justify withholding the priesthood from “Black” individuals due to the curse of Ham.
But it was not official policy to restrict the priesthood from all dark skinned people and thank you for the correction.
I wouldn’t call it “anti-Mormon glurge” but it’s not entirely accurate either. The truth is that there had been pressure building up within the governing body of Mormonism (the Quorum of the 12 Apostles) for a change since the late 60s. In fact, a majority of Apostles were in favor of changing the policy, but one or two die-hard racists (including prophet Harold B. Lee) scuttled the change.
In 1970, a letter was mailed to various racist religious educational institutions from the IRS, saying that their tax-exempt status was in jeopardy. AFAIK, we don’t know but can assume that BYU and other Mormon-owned schools received this letter. In 1976, Bob Jones University lost its tax status and started a long court battle that didn’t end until 1982. (Reagan, that classy guy, tried to drop the case against Bob Jones but public pressure forced him to continue.)
Now, only BYU was threatened by the loss of tax status, not the church itself. Also, the Mormon church was expanding very rapidly in Brazil and was having trouble growing with a large number of racially ambiguous men that couldn’t participate in church leadership. All this pressure (from within, from the IRS, from public opinion, from Brazil) finally culminated with the 1978 change in policy.
So, glurge it isn’t but neither is it entirely accurate.
Hey, colonial: Here’s a Pit Thread about you!
As someone who puzzles over the nature of theism and theology mostly from the outside this sounds a lot like the proverbial pot and kettle. Mainstream Christian thought is anything but unambiguous. For example, define “God.”
And really, all I see here is that Mormons have the misfortune of their dirty laundry hanging on the line during last century as opposed to the Iron Age. There’s plenty in the Bible to justify accusations of racism; modern Christians just enjoy the ability to plausibly deny that it applies to them for some reason.
trabajábamos: You may wish to check out post #103. ITR champion’s description of Mormon theology which you quoted is inaccurate.
Just to nitpick, Christianity is a religion. Catholicism and (depending on where you stand) Mormonism are denominations within the religion known as Christianity. So the question is whether Mormonism and Roman Catholicism are part of the same religion.
Obviously, the answer depends on who you’re talking to. Nicene, Schmicene: one significant facet of the classical Christian belief is that its triune God is the only God, always and everywhere. The Mormon departure from this belief is, at the very least, nontrivial. Like I said, whether it’s substantial enough to draw the line in a way that places Mormonism outside Christianity depends on who you’re talking to. But choosing to draw the line on that basis is hardly the stuff of nitpicking and hairsplitting.
There’s also a number of practices by which Mormons themselves differentiate themselves from the rest of Christianity, and seem to regard themselves as a separate religion. Take missionary work, for instance. Christians in general regard the mission field as people who aren’t Christians. Sure, it’s nice if you can get a Christian of another denomination to switch to your own denomination, but it’s got nothing to do with their status in the hereafter, and mission efforts are targeted at parts of the world where non-Christians are abundant. Mormons aren’t quite alone in including other Christians as part of their mission field, but their only company I’m aware of are the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who are equally suspect in the eyes of mainstream Christians.
Ah yes. I have an unfortunate habit of responding to posts as I read them which prevents me from considering subsequent posts as I’m writing. I read all posts, I assure you, and appreciate #103 for the reasons you mention.
When you allude to “classical Christian belief”, when do you mean? Wasn’t Arianism kicking around denying the triune God until the 4th century? The Council of Nicaea was convened to resolve this question by fiat, wasn’t it?
Kindly oblige yourself to conform to the same standards that you wish to impose
on others.
In post #38 you provide no citation for numerous statements about the sociology
of American religion. In post #39 and elsewhere you provide no citation for numerous
statements about the Nicene Creed.
I accept what you say as being sourced from a personal accumulation of generally
acknowledged fact. My definition is similarly sourced.
I used the phrase “over 1500 years” because of early Christian disagreement over
what to include in the NT, and because it was not necessary to provide an exact
date to make my point. Per Wiki the present canon was established by the Councils
of Carthage, with St Augustine in attendance, in 397 and 419. Thus my “over 1500
years” was an excellent estimate.
Per Wiki Luther in the end did not delete or alter a single NT word.
Not according to any facts provided by you.
Addressed above.
Only in the mind of someone who considers it possible for a true Red Sox fan to root for the Yankees in Fenway Park!
Numerous generalizations may be safely stipulated, and “Christians do not consider
themselves to be Jesus Christ” is surely, uncontroversially, one such. There may be
exceptions even to safe generalizations, but it is not a No True Scotsman fallacy to
require that exceptions be justified. In fact, failure to justify an exception to a
generalization is a form of special pleading. You contend Koresh is an exception to
a generalization. However, you provide no justification for your contention, and by
neglecting to do so you commit the fallacy of special pleading.
You misunderstand: I was reading Koresh out of the congregation, but a desire to
whitewash Christianity was not the reason for doing so.
Read what I said again, more carefully this time. I do not contend or imply that
Evangelicals consider Romney to be a Christian. Their hypocrisy arises from
willingness to vote for a non-Christian despite their aggressive and unyielding
political agenda promoting their version of Christianity values throughout society,
including the political arena especially.
You have yet to refute any matter of fact or logic I have had to offer.
Thanks for the tip, I will be sure to take a look at it. Can’t guarentee to deign reply, though.
Martin Luther must have had one heck of a time translating the New Testament into German for the first time from the 1516 Greek-Latin New Testament of Erasmus if he didn’t alter a single word.
Did he just convert all Germans to Greek/Latin speakers?
Also note that the English version he help produce was the Geneva Bible, it had a lot of differences from the King James version.
Note this was in the 1700’s which is far from “1500 years” ago.
And this is ignoring the fact that various sects just choose to ignore parts of the NT when it is in their favour.
But if what you say is true, and Luther had done a 100% copy, all sects that currently use the King James version are “not christian” by your argument.
There have been a few people I’ve run into – and some I’ve heard on the radio – who, when they say “I’m a Christian”, they mean “I’m a Fundamentalist Protestant.”
What was interesting about these folks is that they assumed that that’s what everyone else in the world meant by “Christian” too, and they would have looked at me with dumbfounded incomprehension if I’d called a Catholic a “Christian”.