Are Mormons and Unitarians Christians?

[thephilosopher6]

I’ve refuted you on this so many times by this point. You are confusing logical subordinationism with ontological subordinationism, of which the Church Fathers were the former. @gazelam, please just stop.

(Also, just to note, there is no evidence at all the early Church held to God having a body; all suggest he was pure Spirit.)

 

[SnoopSword]

In my well researched opinion, the ‘church/organization/business’ doing baptisms must be Christian (read: Trinitarian). Their CLAIMS of being Trinitarian are simply claims, regardless of the actual words they use at baptism (Mormonism being a prime example).

Trinitarian claims are legitimized by a FULL acceptance and confession (profession) of specific documents called Creeds. Simply put, they are legal documents stating specific terms and conditions regarding the Trinity (both directly and indirectly). The Pope, long ago, legally bound these Creeds on heaven and on earth with His authority to do so.

The first Creeds were bound in heaven before the NT was even written and the vast majority of scholars and historians including agnostic/atheist ones, agree they are the oldest Christian writings.

St Paul himself also had to agree to the terms of the Creeds before he was baptised and also continue to instuct other Churches to use them. St. Paul gave them to the churches he was ‘overseeing’. Paul recites the first Creed in 1 Cot 15:3-7 if I remember. That very Creed has since been appended to in order to fight HERESY. (ie: to ensure people who CLAIM they are Christian really are).

It’s been 1500 years since the Creeds were last appended to and have stood strong with the VAST MAJORITY of ‘Christian Churches’ professing them worldwide. This vast majority of Chuches goes by only a dozen or so different names. These have always accepted and confessed the Creeds. They have valid baptisms and baptise babies and catechumens into Christianity like we’ve always done for 2000 years.

However, in the past 100 years, mostly in the Unitd States, tens of thousands of new business ventures popped up with tax filings as a church essentially. They are a VERY ‘driven’, vocal, and loud minority on the world stage who dominate much of the English internet, Youtube, and media. And 100 million of these people while small, are still quite large. The growth model of their enterprise depends almost entirely from ‘winning over’ souls from other Churches that profess the Creeds.

I will give my two cents and say this; if any ‘church’/organization/venture does not formally confess the Creeds of faith like everyone else worldwide, I can say with near certainty they are not Trinitarian, they are not Christian, they are not a Church, and their baptism is what they say it is - ‘just water’, or, as John Piper puts it, ‘theatre’. There might be small exceptions for lengthy reasons i wont get into.

Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water though, ask your priest to for a conditional baptism if you are coming over to the Catholic Church from a Church that is Creed-less. The Trinity and the Creeds contain far too many stumbling blocks for enterprises that serve demons. They arent a REligion, but more of an invisible, globally organized legion, a force moving on the world stage who mainly aims to… how shall we say… come looking for the sheep in their fold. Is this how sheep naturally behave?

(Question: are the ‘countless’ written promises found all throughout the Bible legally bound in heaven and earth? That is something we should seriously ponder in our modern times).

 

[joeybaggz]

I agree. Any further discussion/argument would only be about semantics. We understand Father, Son, Holy Spirit, all three “persons”, one God.

 

[Whitney]

Some don’t. This is why I think everyone who is received should be conditionally baptized. In the promotion of ecumenism they’ve, in my option, sacrificed assurance of proper baptism.

Protestants don’t believe in forgiveness of sins through baptism either though, so doesn’t their baptism contradict the churches intent of the sacrament?

Interesting points! I was baptized in 2014 in a swimming pool, knowing generally nothing about baptism having grown up atheist. Just before my baptism the girl who was to baptize me, sat me down and said something to the effect of “I need you to know that this doesn’t mean anything, it doesn’t forgive your sins, it’s just symbolic for you proclaiming publicly that you follow Jesus now, ok?” And I said ok and was dunked! I don’t remember what she said before dunking but I think she said “in the name of the Father, etc”. So … am I baptized? Will I need to be rebaptized to enter the Catholic Church?

 

[curious_cath]

Paul recites the first Creed in 1 Cot 15:3-7 if I remember. That very Creed has since been appended to in order to fight HERESY.

Okay, but this ancient creed has nothing to do with the concept of the Holy Trinity.

 

[curious_cath]

the girl who was to baptize me, sat me down and said something to the effect of “I need you to know that this doesn’t mean anything"

Haha! This girl must have been of very good heart!

Unless you are in immediate danger of expiring, you should be baptized by a consecrated priest in a Catholic church. So go and get it!

 

[Whitney]

This girl must have been of very good heart!

Ha I’m not sure what you mean by that but, she is probably the most pious woman I’ve met! She definitely meant well, and was just regurgitating what she had been told her whole life, presented as absolute truth and accepted by her with faith like a child. Such is life in God’s country of rural Oklahoma .

 

[SnoopSword]

I already mentioned that Creed has been APPENDED to in order to fight Hersey. But they havent been appended to for 1500 years. And it has everything to do with the Trinity.

The Catechism says that BEFORE EVEN DISCUSSING the Trinity one must discuss the Holy Spirit (implying that theres a good chance those against the Trinity are not baptized [legally at least] and thusly are not Christian.)

 

[curious_cath]

Such is life in God’s country of rural Oklahoma .

Wow!

 

[Pup7]

The Mormons believe in a Celestial Mother - they believe God had a wife.

Hence the She and Mother.

 

[george.s.v]

Strictly speaking, when one is a follower of Christ (in whatever sense), he/she is a Christian. It is another thing if someone else considers him/her an “orthodox christian”, an “heretic”, or whatever else.

 

[SnoopSword]

I disagree. You must accept the Creeds of the Church which automatically places you in subjection to the Roman Pontiff and therefore places you in the Kingdom of God (fulfilling the calling of Romans 1:7).

“To be CHRISTIAN one MUST BE ROMAN” -Pope Pius XII (Oct 8, 1957 allocution to Irish pilgrims) [Romans 1:7]

 

[lilypadrees]

The Mormons believe in a Celestial Mother - they believe God had a wife.

Hence the She and Mother.

Exactly, Pup7.

 

[gazelam]

I’ve refuted you on this so many times by this point. You are confusing logical subordinationism with ontological subordinationism, of which the Church Fathers were the former.

Please share the definition of these two forms of subordinationism. Probably many contributors on this thread could not distinguish between the two.

(Also, just to note, there is no evidence at all the early Church held to God having a body; all suggest he was pure Spirit.)

It is not a correct statement. For starters, scripture teaches that Jesus is in the likeness of God the Father

Hebrews 1:3 who is the refulgence of his glory, the very imprint of his being, and who sustains all things by his mighty word. When he had accomplished purification from sins, he took his seat at the right hand of the Majesty on high

And so are we

James 3:9 With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings who are made in the likeness of God.

Both Jesus and mere mortals have bodies and are in the image of God. Therefore God the Father has a body.

Origen said the issue wasn’t settled in his day. “For it is also to be a subject of investigation how God himself is to be understood, – whether as corporeal and formed according to some shape, or of a different nature from bodies, – a point which is not clearly indicated in our teaching, and the same inquiries have been made regarding Christ and the Holy Spirit”. (The Anti-Nicene Fathers 4:241)

Origen also named Melito, bishop of Sardis in the late second century as one of the Christians who believed God to have a material body in human form. (David L. Paulsen, “Early Christian Belief in a Corporeal Deity: Origen and Augustine as Reluctant Witnesses,” Harvard Theological Review 83 (1990):111-112)

For instance, the great Christian writer, Tertullian (ca. 200 A.D.) wrote,
For who will deny that God is a body, although ‘God is a Spirit?’ For Spirit has a bodily substance of its own kind, in its own form. Tertullian, “Against Praxeas,” in 7 Ante-Nicene Fathers, edited by Philip Schaff (Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1886)3:602

Augustine of Hippo attributed his conception of God as incorporeal substance to Neoplatonism: “I no longer thought of thee, O God, by the analogy of a human body. Ever since I inclined my ear to philosophy I had avoided this error”. (Augustine (1955) [c. 400]. “Book Seven, Chapter One”. Confessiones [Confessions]. Translated by Albert C. Outler. Philadelphia: Westminster Press. LCCN 55005021)

Christopher Stead of the Cambridge Divinity School explains how a statement that God is spirit would have been interpreted within ancient Judaism:

By saying that God is spiritual, we do not mean that he has no body … but rather that he is the source of a mysterious life-giving power and energy that animates the human body, and himself possesses this energy in the fullest measure. (Christopher Stead, Philosophy in Christian Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 98)

I hope this helps…

 

[Spyridon]

In a general and broad sense? Yes.

In a narrow and technical sense? No.

 

[thistle]

According to you. But who are you and who am I to judge them?

Not according to me. The Catholic Church is the only church established by Christ and he gave it authority in matters of faith and morals. He entrusted the deposit of faith to the Church he founded (the Catholic Church).
When the Catholic Church defines a Christian as one who has been baptised with water in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holt Spirit and that the Holy Trinity is one God then that is it because it has the authority of God behind it.
Anyone who does not believe in the Trinity cannot be a Christian no matter what they say!!

 

[curious_cath]

that is it because it has the authority of God behind it.

I am familiar with the Catholic view on this. Although, as far as I know, there is no dogma declared on other denominations

But another view is different precisely in that it is not Catholic. According to non-Catholic view the Unitarians are Christians.

 

[thistle]

I am familiar with the Catholic view on this. Although, as far as I know, there is no dogma declared on other denominations

But another view is different precisely in that it is not Catholic. According to non-Catholic view the Unitarians are Christians.

If you know the Catholic Church position on this then you know by default any other non-Catholic religion whose baptism and belief in the Trinity is not in line with the Catholic Church (the only Church established by Christ and given authority in matters of faith and morals) that the members of those other religions are not Christians.
If you wish I can give you a list of the baptisms the Catholic Church considers valid and invalid.

 

[Jerusha]

If you mean Unitarian Universalist, most of them wouldn’t even claim to be Christians; they hold to a variety of beliefs ranging from atheism to theism including multiple belief systems such as Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, etc. They don’t have a specific set of beliefs.

Unitarians do agree with us in many social justice issues (except the sanctity of life). I have two UU friends on FB, and occasionally rattle their cages by sharing Catholic and pro-life messages. But they are still friends, even though we disagree.

I would not have any LDS friends on FB, because of fear of the poisonous sort. And, of course, any poisonous sort of their friends. My friends back home and I rarely mention anything LDS-related. We tend more to rejoice in God’s creation.

 

[curious_cath]

the members of those other religions are not Christians.

I talked about denominations. You may call them different religions, but it is your view. The Catholic Church teaches that everyone who do not knowingly reject Jesus as Christ can be saved. This means all those who go to heaven are Christians.