Topic: Why are Mormon's not Christians?

[Adrian82]

well you beat me to the punch.
In the end each person follows God, than if they are saved shall became a God of there own universe and than people in that universe can became like god and get there own universe. So ya many Gods.

[AustralianDiaspora]

. . . I was raised a Mormon and while I keep reading these notions about certain mormon ideas, I have honestly never encountered them. In my decade in the church, never once did anyone mention

- "magic glasses" or "Seeing stones"
- man becoming Godlike
- Christ and The Holy Ghost (how they refer to The Holy Spirit) being separate and lesser from God. The mormon interpretation of The Holy Trinity is certainly less nuanced than that of other Christians, and it's true that they are seen, in a sense, as somewhat separate persons.

While it's true that the idea of a Heavenly Father (God) suggests that there is a Heavenly Mother and many mormons do believe this, they go to great lengths to divorce themselves from what they consider to be paganism. In fact, one of the main criticisms I heard of Catholicism in particular is the fact that the rituals, such as the Holy Communion, are given a 'magical' significance and are therefore pagan, and therefore, heretical. We were told that Catholicism adopted these practices to appeal to pagans, who they were trying to convert. The same applies to praying to Saints and Icons; mormons consider it to be idolatry and pagan.

What is most terrifying about converting to Orthodoxy after being raised in a mormon church is that certain things you are told about Christian theology are completely individual to mormonism, yet you don't know that until you encounter them. Just yesterday I saw someone mention the mormon notion of the brotherhood between Christ and Satan, and honestly it never even occurred to me to think of it yet alone question it. Horrifying! Another significant point about mormonism is that they don't believe in Original Sin, as they are under the impression that Original Sin implies guilt, and it's not ones fault that Adam and Eve bit the apple. Also, for some reason mormons dislike crosses, which I've always found perplexing. The way it was explained to me was that "it's not Christ's death that's important, it's His Life and emphasis on his death is missing the point." Mormon Jesus is also white and clean shaven, which is of course almost certainly historically inaccurate.

What I find most disturbing about the church though is the fact that everyone is expected to give 10% of their income, and this is written in a slip and given in an envelope with the persons full name, total income and total weekly tithe. My honest opinion is that, which members of the church no doubt believe it, it's a scam. Joseph Smith Jnr, the founder of the church, has actually been found to have been a scam artist in his day. So there's that.
Edit: oh and the fact that they whitewashed the entire history of Indigenous peoples in the Americas, making up their own race of American Jews BC which has been proven to be incorrect.

[Nephi]

. . . I was raised a Mormon and while I keep reading these notions about certain mormon ideas, I have honestly never encountered them. In my decade in the church, never once did anyone mention

- "magic glasses" or "Seeing stones"
- man becoming Godlike
- Christ and The Holy Ghost (how they refer to The Holy Spirit) being separate and lesser from God. The mormon interpretation of The Holy Trinity is certainly less nuanced than that of other Christians, and it's true that they are seen, in a sense, as somewhat separate persons.

Were you raised LDS or another sort of Mormon?

[AustralianDiaspora]

I was raised in 'The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints', the recognised LDS church (as opposed to one of the off-shoots).

[mabsoota]

nice icon, where is it from?

[AustralianDiaspora]

nice icon, where is it from?

If you are talking to me, I found it here; http://classicalchristianity.com/2012/03/22/on-the-theotokos/ while going a google image search for images of the Theotokos

[Nephi]

I was raised in 'The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints', the recognised LDS church (as opposed to one of the off-shoots).

Then that is really strange for you to have never heard those ideas. I did a lot during my short time as a member. Maybe you heard the ideas differently than phrased in this thread, like "Urim and Thummim," "exaltation" or the highest degree of glory in the celestial kingdom, etc.

[augustin717]

They are nice people though, if slightly boring. The lapsed ones aren't boring yet still nice. From my limited experience.

[Romaios]

They are nice people though, if slightly boring. The lapsed ones aren't boring yet still nice. From my limited experience.

I also find lapsed Communists both nicer and less boring than practicing ones, fwiw. That doesn't say much about Communism, but speaks loads about myself, I guess.

[augustin717]

They are nice people though, if slightly boring. The lapsed ones aren't boring yet still nice. From my limited experience.

I also find lapsed Communists both nicer and less boring than practicing ones, fwiw. That doesn't say much about Communism, but speaks loads about myself, I guess.

Will you leave me alone?!Seriously. It verges on the obsessive. It's a thread about Mormons.

[Romaios]

Will you leave me alone?!Seriously. It verges on the obsessive. It's a thread about Mormons.

You were giving it a subjective slant. Chill! 

[Alveus Lacuna]

Heck, I'll go out on a real limb and say any religion that denies the Nicene Creed (as Mormonism does) is not Christian!. That's *really* old-fashioned!

Wouldn't the Nicene Creed exclude all non-Orthodox Christians right off the bat?

Most Christians even familiar with the creed would recite it with the Filioque. So that would exclude all but maybe Orthodox, Oriental "Miaphysites", Nestorians and some Eastern Catholics.

Even ignoring the Filioque issues, many Protestants are excluded by denying the oneness of the Apostolic Church by reinterpreting it, or in the case of Lutherans intentionally mistranslating "Catholic" into "Christian".

Ignoring that issue, those Evangelicals who eschew a sacramental soteriology deny the acknowledgement of the remission or forgiveness of sins through baptism. They do not believe that baptism actually forgives sins.

Many also have never considered a physical resurrection of the dead and it is strange to them.

Using the Creed as the litmus test for genuine Christianity is great, but few hold up to it outside of Orthodoxy.

[Marc1152]

The main is that Mormons have a different Chistology. That is to say the answer to the question "Who is Jesus Christ?" or put another way  "What is the spiritual identity of Jesus Christ?" is completely different than in the Christian Religion in all it's stripes and variations.

So just because you have a character in your mythology that you call "Jesus Christ" does not mean youre a Christian or part of the Christian Religion or even on the fringe of it if your Christology is as totally and utterly different.

[Nephi]

Wouldn't the Nicene Creed exclude all non-Orthodox Christians right off the bat?

Most Christians even familiar with the creed would recite it with the Filioque. So that would exclude all but maybe Orthodox, Oriental "Miaphysites", Nestorians and some Eastern Catholics.

Even ignoring the Filioque issues, many Protestants are excluded by denying the oneness of the Apostolic Church by reinterpreting it, or in the case of Lutherans intentionally mistranslating "Catholic" into "Christian".

Ignoring that issue, those Evangelicals who eschew a sacramental soteriology deny the acknowledgement of the remission or forgiveness of sins through baptism. They do not believe that baptism actually forgives sins.

Many also have never considered a physical resurrection of the dead and it is strange to them.

Using the Creed as the litmus test for genuine Christianity is great, but few hold up to it outside of Orthodoxy.

I think that if one holds the Nicene Creed, ignoring the Filioque business, then you have the most important churches recognized as being Christian. In other words, the Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, Oriental Orthodox, Assyrian Church of the East, non-canonical churches., Magisterial Protestants, etc.

[xariskai]

Heck, I'll go out on a real limb and say any religion that denies the Nicene Creed (as Mormonism does) is not Christian!. That's *really* old-fashioned!

Wouldn't the Nicene Creed exclude all non-Orthodox Christians right off the bat?

Most Christians even familiar with the creed would recite it with the Filioque. So that would exclude all but maybe Orthodox, Oriental "Miaphysites", Nestorians and some Eastern Catholics.

Even ignoring the Filioque issues, many Protestants are excluded by denying the oneness of the Apostolic Church by reinterpreting it, or in the case of Lutherans intentionally mistranslating "Catholic" into "Christian".

Ignoring that issue, those Evangelicals who eschew a sacramental soteriology deny the acknowledgement of the remission or forgiveness of sins through baptism. They do not believe that baptism actually forgives sins.

Many also have never considered a physical resurrection of the dead and it is strange to them.

Using the Creed as the litmus test for genuine Christianity is great, but few hold up to it outside of Orthodoxy.

If we (anyone) grant that Christianity is true and there are diverse accounts of what it is, clearly not everyone can be practicing the fullness of Christianity. Your points are worth pondering (as always).

But without resolving all of that, if the topic at hand is "why are Mormons not Christian," for my two cents Mormonism is a clear example of outright denial of what every major trajectory of Christendom for the last 2000 years -not just we Orthodox- has understood Christianity to entail, even if arguably in some cases and at important junctures only at the level of "lip service." In Mormonism we do not even have that

Orthodox do not have a monopoly on the use of language even if they have the fullness of the faith. Ala Wittgenstein, if the meaning of language is its use, neither per se does a majority have a monopoly on the usage of language just because they are a majority. So Mormons call themselves Christian, and they always will. But is is not the sort of Christianity this world ever knew before Joseph Smith. Ask me as a philosopher and I might say their label "Christian" would be in a completely different vein than we see in history before them, yet as an Orthodox Christian philosopher, both theologically and with no less cultural-linguistic justification (since I am a user of language too!) I must insist, no, no, that is not Christian!

[Nephi]

Ancient Faith Radio Today's Mormonism and Orthodox Christianity:

Chris Ionna Holland, an ex-Evangelical who was drawn to Mormonism as a teenager and (later) returned to her traditional Christian roots before becoming an Orthodox Christian (and taught how to evangelize Mormons), and Andrew Gusty (M.D.), a cradle Mormon, Temple worthy, an LDS High Priest, and Second Counselor to the Bishop, discuss their unique perspectives with Kevin Allen about Mormon theology, doctrines, and practices, as well as why they left the Mormon faith and became Eastern Orthodox Christians.

[AustralianDiaspora]

I was raised in 'The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints', the recognised LDS church (as opposed to one of the off-shoots).

Then that is really strange for you to have never heard those ideas. I did a lot during my short time as a member. Maybe you heard the ideas differently than phrased in this thread, like "Urim and Thummim," "exaltation" or the highest degree of glory in the celestial kingdom, etc.

I really doubt that this is the case. I attended almost every Sunday for sacrament and the two teaching classes afterwards, progressing from the children's classes to the adolescent classes. I attended from the age of 2 years old to 12 years old, and my mother bought me children's books published by the church about mormonism. None of these ideas were there. We were taught that Joseph Smith Jnr was able to to translate the book of mormon due to the holy ghost allowing him to understand the language - without aids, similar to how the Holy Spirit gave the gift of tongues. There were even animated movies showing Joseph Smith Jnr translating the tablets and they didn't show any use of magic glasses or seeing stones. That's why I find these beliefs so confusing! Mormonism is, in my opinion, a scam rather than a religion but some of the stranger ideas attributed to it are something I've never encountered.

[Shiny]

Gotta agree with xariskai here. I used to have an axe to grind with Mormons, not anymore. Has their evangelism gone down as of late? I hardly see the suits on bicycles anymore.

[GabrieltheCelt]

Using the Creed as the litmus test for genuine Christianity is great, but few hold up to it outside of Orthodoxy.

 And that, I believe, is the point of a creed.  For Eastern Orthodox Christians, the Creed is also The Symbol of the Faith and, as such, it unites those who accept and believe as well as helps us discern who does not.  But we should be clear that whether or not a person is or isn't a Christian, and as an Eastern Orthodox Christian I do not believe that Mormons are Christians, we are not to self-righteously judge or condemn them.  

 PS- Alveus, I was merely spring-boarding off of your comments and not necessarily addressing you per se.  

 

[Jetavan]

Gotta agree with xariskai here. I used to have an axe to grind with Mormons, not anymore. Has their evangelism gone down as of late? I hardly see the suits on bicycles anymore.

I saw two Mormon missionaries at the public library, just last week. I was about to say "What up?", but they were too engrossed surfing the web.

[Marc1152]

Gotta agree with xariskai here. I used to have an axe to grind with Mormons, not anymore. Has their evangelism gone down as of late? I hardly see the suits on bicycles anymore.

I saw two Mormon missionaries at the public library, just last week. I was about to say "What up?", but they were too engrossed surfing the web.

They always skip my house.. Im thinking of putting chocolates on the door step next time I see them in the neighborhood.

[Jetavan]

Genetically, Mormons belong to the Christianity clade, sort of similar to how birds belong to the dinosaur clade.

[Shiny]

Gotta agree with xariskai here. I used to have an axe to grind with Mormons, not anymore. Has their evangelism gone down as of late? I hardly see the suits on bicycles anymore.

I saw two Mormon missionaries at the public library, just last week. I was about to say "What up?", but they were too engrossed surfing the web.

Oh yeah it's all about those social media evangelism these days.

[Ionnis]

I was raised in 'The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints', the recognised LDS church (as opposed to one of the off-shoots).

Then that is really strange for you to have never heard those ideas. I did a lot during my short time as a member. Maybe you heard the ideas differently than phrased in this thread, like "Urim and Thummim," "exaltation" or the highest degree of glory in the celestial kingdom, etc.

I really doubt that this is the case. I attended almost every Sunday for sacrament and the two teaching classes afterwards, progressing from the children's classes to the adolescent classes. I attended from the age of 2 years old to 12 years old, and my mother bought me children's books published by the church about mormonism. None of these ideas were there. We were taught that Joseph Smith Jnr was able to to translate the book of mormon due to the holy ghost allowing him to understand the language - without aids, similar to how the Holy Spirit gave the gift of tongues. There were even animated movies showing Joseph Smith Jnr translating the tablets and they didn't show any use of magic glasses or seeing stones. That's why I find these beliefs so confusing! Mormonism is, in my opinion, a scam rather than a religion but some of the stranger ideas attributed to it are something I've never encountered.

That is interesting.  Joseph's translation of the Book of Mormon is discussed in great detail very early on.  It is covered in Primary.  The teaching on exaltation while probably not discussed explicitly, certainly came up from time to time in Primary.  God's plan of salvation is discussed, which includes the belief that Heavenly Father has given a means for families to live together for all eternity. What were you told about ordinances and temple work?  Have you ever heard President Lorenzo Snow's famous phrase, “As man now is, God once was; as God is now man may be"?  That is a still widely used quotation in church literature. 

I personally wouldn't call "Mormonism" a scam, but to each his own! 

[Shanghaiski]

What in particular about there doctrines makes then non-Christians instead of heretics?

First and foemost they are polytheists.  While they say Father, Son and Holy Ghost the recognize each as a seperate god and indeed the goal of each man is to become a god and have their own planet to populate and rule over. 

Thus, they are not Christians.

[Shanghaiski]

Aren't Muslims closer to Christianity than mormons are?

Nah. They're kind of the same, being both founded by false prophets with something to gain. Mormonism is very American, though.

[Father H]

Aren't Muslims closer to Christianity than mormons are?

Nah. They're kind of the same, being both founded by false prophets with something to gain. Mormonism is very American, though.

Right.  Its same story, different millennium.   Prophet meets angel, angel gives "real story behind the scenes," "real story" contradicts previous prophecy, etc.  Of course, for the former Mohammed is the "last prophet" ("no, really, the last one") and Mormons open up the possibility of endless prophets.  Also, Mormons won't kill you if you challenge Joseph Smith.  But besides that, it is a repeat with amendments to that which preceded minus the "kill whoever does not submit on the Arabian peninsula" clause, and with the additional "white skinned ancient Americans have the real story originating south but winding up in New York" bit. 

[xariskai]

Also, Mormons won't kill you if you challenge Joseph Smith.  

Or if you post funny Mormon cartoons, thank God!!!

The specter of Mormon missionaries on bicycles with white shirts and machetes is almost too horrible to imagine!


Quakers on the Moon

[AustralianDiaspora]

I was raised in 'The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints', the recognised LDS church (as opposed to one of the off-shoots).

Then that is really strange for you to have never heard those ideas. I did a lot during my short time as a member. Maybe you heard the ideas differently than phrased in this thread, like "Urim and Thummim," "exaltation" or the highest degree of glory in the celestial kingdom, etc.

I really doubt that this is the case. I attended almost every Sunday for sacrament and the two teaching classes afterwards, progressing from the children's classes to the adolescent classes. I attended from the age of 2 years old to 12 years old, and my mother bought me children's books published by the church about mormonism. None of these ideas were there. We were taught that Joseph Smith Jnr was able to to translate the book of mormon due to the holy ghost allowing him to understand the language - without aids, similar to how the Holy Spirit gave the gift of tongues. There were even animated movies showing Joseph Smith Jnr translating the tablets and they didn't show any use of magic glasses or seeing stones. That's why I find these beliefs so confusing! Mormonism is, in my opinion, a scam rather than a religion but some of the stranger ideas attributed to it are something I've never encountered.

That is interesting.  Joseph's translation of the Book of Mormon is discussed in great detail very early on.  It is covered in Primary.  The teaching on exaltation while probably not discussed explicitly, certainly came up from time to time in Primary.  God's plan of salvation is discussed, which includes the belief that Heavenly Father has given a means for families to live together for all eternity. What were you told about ordinances and temple work?  Have you ever heard President Lorenzo Snow's famous phrase, “As man now is, God once was; as God is now man may be"?  That is a still widely used quotation in church literature. 

I personally wouldn't call "Mormonism" a scam, but to each his own! 

We learned about the translation of the translations probably in primary, but the idea of a tool used for that translation was non-existent; we were taught, including in the movies, books etc., that it was the holy ghost who enabled him to translate the tablets. We did indeed learn about heavenly families though nothing about the idea that humans can become Godlike. We were told that we should aspire to be Christlike and this was the purpose of life, but being human and flawed it would almost certainly not happen.

[Romaios]

Mormons have a reputation for shedding or changing aspects of their doctrine once they become too embarrassing.

[Jetavan]

Mormons have a reputation for shedding or changing aspects of their doctrine once they become too embarrassing.

All religious traditions have that reputation. Those that don't change their doctrine are known as "conservative". Those that do, "liberal".

Those Mormons who didn't want to change polygamy teachings, schismed from the main body of LDS, e.g.

[AustralianDiaspora]

We were taught that polygamy was appropriate (and accepted by God) for a certain time when women needed to be looked after by their husbands. I agree that Mormon doctrine changes greatly as do their religious texts. I don't mean to sound critical of the mormon church, but from my own experience and that of my friends who have also grown up in it, I believe it's harmful.

[mabsoota]

this may be interesting from the evangelism group i am in:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XnbSYuhpRE

about how to discuss the orthodox Christian faith with mormons.