A few years back the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints sought membership in the San Diego County Ecumenical Council, an organization of more than 100 Christian churches. The petition for membership was received while I was Council president.
While I favored the Mormons' membership the Catholic members of our board said you can have Catholics as members or you can have Mormons, but you can't have both. Their opposition did not arise out of animosity but theology. Mormons reject the Trinity, a fundamental Christian creed. I too embrace the Trinity, but having long admired the Mormons' social ethic, I thought the Council would benefit by their inclusion, but I was outvoted.
All of which came to mind last week during a Values Voters Summit in Washington, DC, when Robert Jeffress, pastor of Dallas' First Baptist Church, spoke passionately against Mitt Romney as a Republican candidate for president. Rev. Jeffress said Romney, a Mormon, isn't a "Christian," and belongs, not to a church, but a "cult."
Having made Romney the non-Christian among Republicans running for president, Rev. Jeffress endorsed Texas governor Rick Perry; saying, "He's an evangelical Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ."
Rev. Jeffress described Romney as a "good moral person, but...not a Christian. Mormonism is not Christianity. It has always been considered a cult by the mainstream of Christianity."
Theologically and historically Rev. Jeffress is right, but in these politically correct times, a time of heightened sensitivity toward others perceived as "different," employment of the "cult" word is ill-advised; it is seen, not without cause, as pejorative.
But while being pummeled by media for denying Romney his Christian faith, Rev. Jeffress raised an issue that may prove decisive in 2012 -- how will Fundamentalist Christians vote?
Will Romney's conservative principles, not different in kind from Rick Perry's, trump the peculiarities of Mormonism? If Rev. Jeffress' concerns are reflective of what others within the Fundamentalist/Evangelical camp believe, then the former Massachusetts governor has a major political problem; one borne not by an absence of religious faith but because it is a different religious faith.
But the real issue is far greater than Mitt Romney's personal religious beliefs. The issue is why did it become an issue?
Article VI, paragraph 3, of the United States Constitution reads:
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution, but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.
Does Article 4's guarantee of "no religious test shall ever be required" include everyone? Will the "strict constructionists" among us, those who affirm fidelity to the Constitution and conservative values, stand up and be counted? Will they tell us any religious test is Constitutional heresy?
And what about liberals. Will they stand up for the Constitution, too? Or will Romney's religious problems silence them because it serves their political interests?
But let me frame the question somewhat differently:
What if Mitt Romney were other than Mormon? A candidate still holding to his conservative voters values, still calling for an increase in the defense budget, still wanting 100,000 additional troops under arms, still insisting we need a fence from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico to keep immigrants out, still insisting he can grow the economy and create jobs, still blaming Obama for being Obama.
Specifically, what if Mitt Romney were not Mitt Romney the Mormon but Max Rabin the Jew? Would Rev. Jeffress still have suggested he's unfit to be president because he's not a "Christian"? Would he deem candidate Rabin unworthy of holding the nation's highest office because he's a Jew and not a "follower of Jesus Christ"?
No Fundamentalist pastor, conscious of the ties fundamentalism has with Israel, would dare suggest anything of the kind, knowing it would unleash a torrent of criticism and charges of anti-Semitism; that any such suggestion would result, deservedly, in public rejection and ridicule.
So why should Mitt Romney's Mormonism be judged differently?
As a liberal Kennedy Democrat and confessing Christian, Governor Romney won't be getting my vote if he's on the ballot in 2012; but it will be a political decision not a religious one.
Mitt Romney says he's a Christian. I take him at his word and honor his expression of faith. I do so because I haven't been appointed to judge anyone's Christianity or religious beliefs; that in matters of faith such judgments are best left where they belong -- in the Councils of God.
George Mitrovich is a San Diego civic leader and member of the city's Human Relations Commission.
http://www.whatmormonsbelieve.org/joseph_smith_quotes.html
Bob, you are in the minority in the intellectual and religious community. Even if scholars can't explain what Joseph did, they marvel at it. I think you are a bright guy, I really do, but even bright people can be misguided with a little emotion. I don't know all of your history with this Church, but I can tell you have a lot of emotion behind your comments. (as do I) Again, why the insatiable desire to disprove this Church. Much smarter people have been trying for 150 years, and there is not a shred of evidence that cuts down the foundation of this Church. All of the criticisms (including yours) are peripheral at best, chomping at the outer edges (quotes from Leaders of the Church, or this or that).
Richard Lloyd Anderson said this of the Apostle Paul and Joseph Smith:
"Both Paul and Joseph Smith were considered blasphemers by their contemporaries. Their sin? They had added to the traditional scriptures. For this “offense,†Paul was considered anti-Jewish, and followers of Joseph Smith today are labeled as non-Christian. But Paul and Joseph Smith were simply doing what every Jewish and Christian prophet had done: they were adding a personal witness to prior revelations and speaking God’s message for a new generation."
I ask you honestly, would you have blasphemed against Paul in that day? Your persecutionist attitude is reflective of that of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
I ask again, why have you persecuted The Church of Jesus Christ? That is all you have done for the last few weeks on this site, and I suspect it is a regular part of your daily life. I am on here to defend my Faith, and for no other reason.
Let's have some closure here Bob, and level with each other. From day one, you have persecuted my faith. I have never attacked your faith, rather I have asked you to define what it is you believe. I have called your claims about my faith what they are, which is "mostly" lies. I have even suggested where I think those lies come from.
But why is that you spend all of your time persecuting my faith. Since 90% of Americans believe Mormons are Christians, let's just assume for now that I am Christian. When has it ever been ok for a fellow Christian to persecute another Christian? But for conversation sake, let's assume I am not Christian. When has it ever been ok (by Jesus' standards) to persecute anyone of any faith???
Are you going to need a visitation like the Apostle Paul had, in order to get you to believe you are actually persecuting good people who are by every definition good Christians?
Mormons believe they are working to become Gods. It is not an ad hominem attack to ask if this is also Romney's personal belief. If it is, would this belief affect Romney's actions in the office of the President? Many politicians have positioned themselves as godlike: Hitler, Mao, Moammar Gadhafi, etc. Even President Barack Obama has been heralded as a "messiah" in the press. Core values such as this Mormon "I can become a God!" belief, are not the kind of core values that I believe we want in our next American President! We want a President that understands he is elected to be a servant to the American people, not a President that may become preoccupied or distracted at working to earn godhood! Regarding this issue, questions of personal conduct, character, motives, etc., are legitimate and relevant; and if that means this post is judged to be an ad hominem argument, then I remind one and all that "The philosopher Charles Taylor has argued that ad hominem reasoning is essential to understanding certain moral issues" as noted in the Wikipedia article titled "ad hominem." The question is: What is Romney's position regarding working one's way to godhood?
Romney believes (as I do) that man may become like God (as Jesus charges us to become in Matthew 5:48). This does NOT mean that we believe man may become "The God" as you suggest, because all men and women on this earth answer to God the Father and Jesus Christ His Son. But man may become "gods" as it says in Psalm 82:6 and John 10:34...in other words gods under direction of the ONE TRUE GOD ! This is the doctrine of Christianity as found in the Bible.
Can I be any clearer for you Bob? Are you not understanding something?
My claim: Mormonism says "Jesus was a procreated child of God and his wife in the spirit realm... Smith maintained that the Holy Spirit was not involved with the conception of Jesus." bplatt responds: "Please ... give me the quote ....tell me where it was recorded. I know it doesn't exist unless you fabricate it..."
"First, God himself, who sits enthroned in yonder heavens, is a man like unto one of yourselves, that is the great secret.... I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined that God was God from all eternity.... God himself; the Father of us all dwelt on an earth the same as Jesus Christ himself did.... You have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves.... No man can learn you more than what I have told you." - Joseph Smith, Times and Seasons, vol. 5, pp.613-14.
"The Mormon church teaches that God the Father had a Father, and that God's Father also had a Father, and so on. President Brigham Young claimed: "He [God] is our Father—the Father of our spirits, and was once a man in mortal flesh as we are, and is now an exalted being. How many Gods there are, I do not know. But there never was a time when there were not Gods ... God has once been a finite being ... " - Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, vol. 7, p.333.
I can see that you will not answer my questions straight, without a bunch of rambling or a mis-applied quote. Just be definitive and answer my questions in a concise and specific way. You continue to dance around almost ALL of my questions.
By the way, the quote you used is Truth as I know it, so thanks for posting it. But again, it doesn't answer your ridiculous claim.
Isaiah 44:6 - Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God.
Matthew 1:20 - But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.
My conclusion is that Jesus was not the offspring of God and his spirit realm wife, but rather that Jesus was the offspring of Mary, Joseph's betrothed, and the Holy Spirit. I also conclude that there are no multiple God's out there. There is only one God, who is the First and the Last. And I conclude that the claims made by Joseph Smith and Brigham Young in the above quotes are the rediculous claims.
On the Ten Tribes, I didn't need a rattling off of who they are (though I agree there are 13 due to Joseph's tribe splitting into 2). But rather my question is this:
Were the 10 lost tribes to hear from Jesus in person? What say ye.
You still haven't answered what the "Mainstream Christian beliefs" are about the Doctrines I put forth (the Trinity etc.). All you have told me is what Mainstream Christianity doesn't support (i.e. Mormonism).
So you do not BELIEVE God would leave the Canon open? Ok, but you do NOT know. To say so would be telling God what He can do. Which is why you danced all around that one. You fear condemnation on that topic, and you should, because God has always reserved the right to proclaim revelation to his prophets. READ AMOS 3:7. God always reveals truths to His servants the Prophets.
What speak ye Bob, the truth please!
We have the testimony of the Jewish historian Josephus to the effect that the Old Testament canon was closed in the reign of Artaxerxes Longimanus in the time of Ezra. Ezra was peculiarly concerned with the sacred oracles. He is described as the Scribe (Nehemiah 8:1,4,9,13; 12:26,36), and a specialist in the law of Moses (Ezra 7:6), being taught in the commandments of the Lord and teaching His statutes to Israel (Ezra 7:11).
The formal conclusion of the New Testament is intimated by the writing of the Book of Revelation. The difference of how the two Testament's close is highly significant. The anticipatory and unfulfilled hope of the Old Covenant is articulated at the end of the last book, Malachi. It gives an assurance of the coming of another prophet. But on the other hand, no continuing revelation is mentioned at the end of the New Testament. Rather we find an announcement about the Lord's soon return and thus the consummation of all things at the Eschaton. The natural conclusion is that no other voice will be heard from heaven before the second Advent of Christ.
bplatt, what do you think of this quote wherein Smith boasts that he did things better than Jesus?
Retention
1. Motive Questioning- When sound evidence against the group is presented, members are taught to question the motivation of the presenter. The verifiable (sound documentation) is ignored because of doubts over the unverifiable (presenter's motives). See Opposer Warnings (#2 above).
2. Information Control - Group controls what convert may read or hear. They discourage (forbid) contact with ex-members or anything critical of the group. May say it is the same as pornography making it not only sinful and dangerous but shameful as well. Ex-members become feared and avoidance of them becomes a "survival issue."
3. Isolation, Separation & Alienation - Group becomes substitute family. Members encouraged to drop worldly (non-members) friends. May be told to change jobs, quit school, give up sports, hobbies, etc.
4. Coercion - Disobedience, including even minor disagreement with group doctrine, may result in expulsion and shunning.
5. Phobias - The idea is planted that anyone who leaves goes into a life of depravity and sin, loses their sanity, dies, or will have children die, etc. Constant rumors of bad things happening to people who leave. No one ever leaves for "legitimate reasons."
6. Striving for the Unreachable - Group membership and service are essential for salvation..."Work your way into God's favor." NO matter what you do, it is never enough.
Programming
1. Intense Study - Focus is on group doctrine and writings. Bible, if used at all, is referred to one verse at time to "prove" group teachings.
2. Opposer Warnings - Recruiters are told that "Satan" will cause relatives and friend to say bad things about the group to try to "steal them away from God." Recruits soon believes group members, alone, are truthful/trustworthy.
3. Guilt and Fear - Group dwells on members' "sinful nature" (many use public confession). Guilt and fear arising from "failing God" are magnified to manipulate new member.
4. Schedule Control & Fatigue - Study and service become mandatory. New member becomes too busy to question. Family, friends, jobs and hobbies are squeezed out, further isolating the new member.
5. Attack Independent Thought - Critical thinking is discouraged as prideful and sinful, blind acceptance encouraged.
6. Divine Commission - Leader(s) claim new revelation from God, within past 200 years, in which all but their group are rejected by God. They, alone, speak for God.
7. Absolutism - They insist on total, unquestioning obedience and submission to the group, both actions AND thoughts. Group "love" and acceptance becomes dependent upon obedience and submission. Unconditional love...isn't.
8. Totalism - "Us against them" thinking. Strengthens group identity. Everyone outside of group lumped under one label.
Recruitment
1. Deception - Group identity and/or true motives are not revealed. The group leaders tell members to withhold truth from outsiders.
2. Emotional Leverage/Love Bombing - Instant friendship, extreme helpfulness, generosity and acceptance...Group recruiters "lovingly" will not take "no" for an answer-invitations impossible to refuse without feeling guilty and/or ungrateful. "Love", "generosity", "encouragement" are used to lower defenses and create an ever increasing sense of obligation, debt and guilt.
3. Exploit Personal Crisis - They use an existing crisis as a means of getting you to participate. They exploit vulnerability arising from:
Broken relationships
Death in the family
Loss of job
Move to new location
Loneliness/depression
Guilt/shame
Stress/fear
4. Crisis Creation - They employ tactics designed to create or deepen confusion, fear, guilt or doubt. i.e. "you aren't serving God the way He intended." Questions areas of faith never before examined or explored and attack other faiths specifically.
5. All The Answers - Provide simple answers to the confusion they, themselves, create. Support these answers with material produced or "approved" by the group.
1) What is the UNITED and undisputed belief by Mainstream ChristianiÂty on the Godhead (i.e. Trinity, etc.). Does the mainstream Christian World agree there? Does one Church even agree with another, let alone with all of the rest?
2) What is the UNITED and undisputed belief by Mainstream ChristianiÂty on Baptism and how it should be affected? Is there a united belief?
3) What about Grace vs. Works? Are you united on that topic?
Point being that you are not a United group of Mainstream ChristiansÂ! So why pretend to be. Why do you need to act like your numbers and unity is greater than it is, just to counter the Church of Jesus Christ?
I can't tell you 2 mainstream Christian Churches that believe the same way on these foundational Christian topics.
4) If the Bible is sure on every doctrine, why does every Church have a different one (doctrine that is)?
The Lord ordained that 2 or more witnesses are needed (see 2 Corinthians 13:1). That's God's way and it always has been. The Canon is open, and always has been.
It is my personal opinion that since the Bible states there is one God that there is one God. Remember that God is omnipresent. I would assume that God can thus sit on his throne as the Father while at the same time appearing personally to men as Jesus Christ in human form, and at the same time He can be everywhere at the same time as the Holy Spirit doing the current work on earth among men of that unique office. Thus there is the One God consisting of the "three in one" so-called Godhead. God is not finite as we are, so our understanding of this eternal Being that transcends time and space, is couched in finite language that imparts to us this partial understanding of His greatness. A God that can create all things can, and has, created a reality for us that is designed to make us aware of Him. Thru scientific research we know that matter can disappear and that matter also suddenly appears, apparently going from our "dimension" to another "dimension" and back and forth. This is a wondrous creation, indeed! Term such discoveries with whatever phraseology as you like, but trying to box in God, trying to divide God into three totally separate personages like an earthly family is arrainged, is, I'd suggest, "a step above our pay grade."
If God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ are the same being, how did Stephen the great disciple see Jesus on the right hand of the Father in the Heavens (see Acts 7:55-56). I suppose Jesus was standing next to himself? You say you follow the literal interpretation of the Bible?
Also, how do you explain the hundreds of verses in the New Testament where the living Christ refers to His Father who art in Heaven? Please don't proclaim yourself a student of the Bible and still hold that Jesus is the literal Father in Heaven, because that is completely incongruous. Jesus said He can do nothing save that which He has seen the Father do. So again, is he watching himself? But in case those logical questions don't answer it for you, Stephen's witness stands through eternity (and not just his, but many others) that Jesus is the Son of the living Father in Heaven.
Don't get me wrong, if you want to believe the way you do, that's fine and I'll defend your right to believe it. But the instance you tell me and the members of my Faith that we are shameful for following the literal meaning of the Bible, I draw the line.
By the way, you never gave me your interpretation of Jesus' New Testament charge to " Be ye therefore Perfect even as your Father which art in heaven is perfect". (yet another reference where Christ refers to the Father in Heaven as distinct and different).
Are we (man) to become some "blob" of super matter, as you describe it, by becoming like God? I really get lost in your explanation of what God is. You've told me a lot of what He's not.
Lastly, in case this hasn't been absolutely clear in my many comments, I do NOT aspire to be God (nor does any member of my Church, nor did the Prophet Joseph). But I do aspire to become LIKE God in every way I can throughout all eternity. If God the Father intends to allow me to be one of the many gods that will be under him in the eternities, then so be it, but all I can do is obey His word. This is the truth and it is the charge of the Bible and I intend to follow it, and I know you do too.
Baptism is by immersion, no doubt, but it also needs to be performed by one in authority which John the Baptist possessed (in other words, the Priesthood of Aaron or the Levitical priesthood). READ ACTS 19: 1-7. These disciples said they were baptized after the manner of John the Baptist, but they had never been taught about the Holy Ghost, and also they missed Christ in the whole equation. They were not baptized by proper authority from the Apostles. So what did Paul do? HE BAPTIZED THEM AGAIN AND LAID HIS HANDS UPON THEIR HEADS TO BESTOW THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. The Lord's way is clear.
Many say that God will work it out in the end, and they set aside vital and saving ordinances which are to be done in the flesh. If Baptism is indeed essential, then it has to be performed in the flesh. Once a person dies and their spirit separates from their body for a time awaiting the resurrecti¬on, can that spirit be baptized in water? I say unto you no, it is a temporal ordinance to be done on the earth.
Group is focused on a living leader whom members display excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment.
Group preoccupied with obtaining new members.
Group preoccupied with making money.
Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or punished.
Mind-numbing techniques (meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, debilitating work routines) are used to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).
Leadership dictates sometimes in great detail how members should think, act, and feel (examples: members must get permission from leaders to date, change jobs, get married; leaders may prescribe what types of clothes to wear, where to live, how to discipline children, etc.).
Group is elitist, claiming special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s), and members (examples: leader considered the Messiah or an avatar; group and/or leader has special mission to save humanity).
Group has polarized us-versus-them mentality, causing conflict with wider society.
Group's leader not accountable to any authorities (as are military commanders and ministers, priests, monks, and rabbis of mainstream denominations).
Group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify means that are unethical (for example: collecting money for bogus charities).
Leadership induces guilt feelings in members to control them.
Members' subservience to the group causes them to cut ties with non-group family and friends, and to give up past personal goals and activities.
Members expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group.
Members encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members.
3. Mormonism is disingenuous in its approach to proselytization. While claiming to be true to the Christian faith, Mormonism has seriously redesigned and recreated it. The whole basis of the church is built on the words of Jesus which are canonized in Joseph Smith's religious autobiography. Joseph Smith claimed that God and Jesus commanded him not to join any church because "they were all wrong ... their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors [members] were all corrupt." Mormonism, in fact, has set itself apart from main-stream Christianity. It has insisted that in order to join and be a part of God's one true church, as well as to enter into the fullness of his salvation, one must become either a temple-worthy Mormon in this life or proxy baptized and temple-worthy in the life to come.
No matter how Robert Jeffress may be viewed by the general public, the main essential issue is that Mormonism has been, is, and probably always will be a radical departure from Biblical faith.
The Mormon Church’s interpretation ignores the historical background. At the 6th Century time of the prophet Ezekiel, from shortly after Solomon, Israel was divided into two kingdoms. The ten northern tribes called Israel, had earlier been taken captive by the nation of Assyria in 723/722 B.C. Then the two southern tribes called the Kingdom of Judah, were taken into captivity by the Babylonians (606 – 583 B.C.).
In verses 15-22, God promises a future national restoration, prophesying the northern kingdom, called “Joseph,†and the southern kingdom, called “Judah,†would once again be united.
In verse 16 Ezekiel is told to write on one stick “For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions.†This first stick represented the southern kingdom, or Judah. On a second stick, or piece of wood, Ezekiel was to write, “For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions.†This represented the northern ten-tribe kingdom, called Israel.
God tells Ezekiel, verse 17, to join the two sticks into one stick and have them become one in Ezekiel's hand. God is saying that He will bring back together His divided people. That this is the meaning of the two sticks and their being joined together is stated very explicitly in verses 21-22.
Then in verse 29, Paul points out a further reason that the resurrection is real. He says: "Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?" The apostle is pointing out an inconsistency in the practice of these false teachers. Apparently, they did not believe that the dead would rise (15:12), but they practiced proxy baptism for the dead. If the dead do not rise, why did they baptize them after death? It was a contradiction.
By carefully noticing the pronouns, one can see who was actually practicing baptism for the dead. Paul says, "...what shall they do which are baptized for the dead... why are they then baptized for the dead?" Paul did not say, "Why are you (Corinthian Christians) then baptized for the dead?" He did not say, "Why are we (the followers of Christ) then baptized for the dead?" He did not say, "Why then am I (Paul himself) then baptized for the dead?" He was asking, in effect, why these false teachers, who did not even believe in the resurrection, would want to baptize for the dead if the dead do not rise at all.
The Bible soundly condemns the practice of genealogy for religious purposes (1 Timothy 1:4 and Titus 3:9). The Bible teaches that there are no opportunities for salvation after death. Any doctrine that teaches otherwise is both false and dangerous. As Hebrews 9:27 proclaims: "...it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment."
-- The fullness of salvation is "not easy," but it is "possible," as Mormons work to be worthy of celestial exaltation in an ultra-legalistic system of religious acts.
These concerns are just scratching the surface of the doctrinal errors of Mormonism.
2. Mormonism radically redefines and reconstructs the Christian worldview. If one understands the Mormon faith clearly, their position would maintain that:
-- Native Americans are true descendants of Jewish people.
-- There once flourished a major Jewish civilization in the western world.
-- There was a language that existed called Reformed Egyptian which was the dominant language at one time in the western world and the Book of Mormon was written in it.
-- The millennium will be a Mormon millennium with millennial headquarters established in Independence, Mo., with the temple work for the dead and genealogical research being done across the world in order to ensure proxy baptism for virtually every human being who had ever lived.
-- The Mormon faith alone will dominate and guide the world after Christ's return.
-- Joseph Smith is the true prophet of God who reestablished God's one true church on the earth.