Are Mormons and Unitarians Christians?

[lilypadrees]

What makes you think they haven’t rejected Christ or made their own version?

 

[curious_cath]

What makes you think they haven’t rejected Christ?

What makes you think they are out of the purview of meaningful ecumenism?

What Is "Ecumenism"? - Featured Today - Catholic Online

 

[lilypadrees]

Do your own research by Googling or your preferred search engine.

 

[TEdwards]

Viewing God as a certain gender is nothing more than a distraction. If someone thinks the Holy Ghost is female, I’m OK with that. If they want to claim God the Father is female, well we’ve got a few problems that need reexamination. Sort like a few years ago when Time Magazine suggested Jesus was gay… a lot of problems in that proposition.

Although, IF God is a female… it helps explain how the world got so messed up. JK

 

[exnihilo]

I would think that is problematic. The good news is if you enter the Catholic Church I think you’d be conditionally baptized.

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!

Deacons can baptize too. And as you probably know anyone can in case of emergency. This Sacrament the Church makes easily available because of its importance.

 

[exnihilo]

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.

No. Baptism is what makes one a Christian. We have to some objective way of knowing who is or is not a Christian. Baptism by desire might muddy the water a bit.

Q. 621. What is Baptism?

A. Baptism is a Sacrament which cleanses us from original sin, makes us Christians, children of God, and heirs of heaven.

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.

They promote homosexuality and same sex marriage. They also promote indifferentism.

They are in my opinion some of the most dangerous to the Faith. They promote the idea Jesus was just a worker of good deeds. They also reject any notion of an authoritative Church.

 

[Jerusha]

They promote homosexuality and same sex marriage. They also promote indifferentism.

They are in my opinion some of the most dangerous to the Faith. They promote the idea Jesus was just a worker of good deeds. They also reject any notion of an authoritative Church.

I agree. However, they respect my desire to be an orthodox Catholic. Many LDS, in my experience, do not.

 

[exnihilo]

They might. If you were promoting Catholic sexual moral teachings I think they’d really have a problem.

I think in some ways those that are committed to a particular belief, like Mormons, are easier to convert. The me and Jesus Christians (UUs are me and my philosophical God or no God) have made religion so selfish that they don’t ultimately care about anyone else or their reasons for their faith.

 

[meltzerboy2]

Are you saying that only ROMAN Catholics are Christian? This is a mighty specific definition.

 

[SnowRose]

Her quote was from 1957 - pre-VII - so I’m just ignoring it.

 

[george.s.v]

… 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]

No. Baptism is what makes one a Christian. We have to some objective way of knowing who is or is not a Christian. Baptism by desire might muddy the water a bit.
Q. 621. What is Baptism?
A. Baptism is a Sacrament which cleanses us from original sin, makes us Christians, children of God, and heirs of heaven.

You are right in terms of the Catholic Churche’s view concerning who is a christian and who is not. However, from a scientific viewpoint, e.g. that of the history/sociology of religion, a “christian” is defined in a broader sense; in this sense Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, Unitarians, etc. are all Christians, even of a fringe kind.

 

[exnihilo]

Even history and sociology need some criteria for their designation. What would that be? I don’t see how Unitarians would make the cut. If you say it is just some belief in Jesus as a special man sent by God you could say Muslims are Christians. In fact Islam as a Christian heresy is much more sensible than Unitarianism as one.

 

[Jerusha]

IMHO, Unitarianism is a catch-all organized religion for those who are disillusioned or hurt with the abuses which come with the practitioners of organized religions. Such people are often agnostic, but sloppily ethical. There is an underlying faith which only needs to be drawn out.

LDS are angry because the historical claims of their church are being revealed as fraudulent. I personally refuse to deal with that on an interpersonal basis, because of my own past hurt.

 

[thephilosopher6]

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

thephilosopher6:

“For early Christians the logical subordination of Son to Father was processional, a description of the movement of saving grace from the Father through the Son as we may distinguish the light of day from the Sun (“light from light”). Meanwhile, Arius held for an ontological subordinationism whereby the being of the Son is inferior to the Father.” (In Examination of the Problems of Inclusive Language in the Trinitarian Formula of Baptism, Thomas J. Scirghi, p. 65)

The Son was viewed as a principle of the Father (the Logos) that he sent out of himself by command. The Son was thought of as inferior to the Father inasmuch as he was wholly dependent on the Father for his status as well as his being which the Father communicated to him. This might be similarly said of the Holy Spirit, though there are scant details on exactly how this was. In this way, the Father is superior. This is logical subordinationism.

This is in contrast to ontological subordinationism which seeks to distinguish the Son from the Father (and naturally the Holy Spirit) from each others being. Instead, the Son is seen of as being a creature created by the Father rather than as a proceeding principle of the Father (even if that procession is not eternal).

 

[thephilosopher6]

For He can be called by all those names, since He ministers to the Father’s will, and since He was begotten of the Father by an act of will; just as we see happening among ourselves: for when we give out some word, we beget the word; yet not by abscission, so as to lessen the word [which remains] in us, when we give it out: and just as we see also happening in the case of a fire, which is not lessened when it has kindled [another], but remains the same; and that which has been kindled by it likewise appears to exist by itself, not diminishing that from which it was kindled. - Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 61 [160 A.D.]

Thus Christ is Spirit of Spirit, and God of God, as light of light is kindled… That which has come forth out of God is at once God and the Son of God, and the two are one. In this way also, as He is Spirit of Spirit and God of God, He is made a second in manner of existence—in position, not in nature; and He did not withdraw from the original source, but went forth. - Tertullian, Apology, 21 [200 A.D.]

This statement is taken in a wrong sense by every uneducated as well as every perversely disposed person, as if it predicated a diversity, in such a sense as to imply a separation among the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit. I am, moreover, obliged to say this, when they contend for the identity of the Father and Son and Spirit, that it is not by way of diversity that the Son differs from the Father, but by distribution: it is not by division that He is different, but by distinction; because the Father is not the same as the Son, since they differ one from the other in the mode of their being. For the Father is the entire substance, but the Son is a derivation and portion of the whole… - Tertullian, Against Praxeas, 9 [208 A.D.]

 

[thephilosopher6]

…the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost: three, however, not in condition, but in degree; not in substance, but in form; not in power, but in aspect; yet of one substance, and of one condition, and of one power, inasmuch as He is one God, from whom these degrees and forms and aspects are reckoned, under the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. - Tertullian, Against Praxeas, 2 [208 A.D.]

As light, accordingly, could never exist without splendour, so neither can the Son be understood to exist without the Father; for He is called the express image of His person, and the Word and Wisdom. How, then, can it be asserted that there once was a time when He was not the Son? For that is nothing else than to say that there was once a time when He was not the Truth, nor the Wisdom, nor the Life, although in all these He is judged to be the perfect essence of God the Father; for these things cannot be severed from Him, or even be separated from His essence. And although these qualities are said to be many in understanding, yet in their nature and essence they are one, and in them is the fullness of divinity. - Origen, De Principiis 4:28 [225 A.D.]

For who else was “He which is to come” than Christ? And as no one ought to be offended, seeing God is the Father, that the Savior is also God; so also, since the Father is called omnipotent, no one ought to be offended that the Son of God is also called omnipotent. - Origen De Principiis 1:2

The true and eternal Father is manifested as the one God, from whom alone this power of divinity is sent forth, and also given and directed upon the Son, and is again returned by the communion of substance to the Father. God indeed is shown as the Son, to whom the divinity is beheld to be given and extended. And still, nevertheless, the Father is proved to be one God; while by degrees in reciprocal transfer that majesty and divinity are again returned and reflected as sent by the Son Himself to the Father, who had given them; so that reasonably God the Father is God of all, and the source also of His Son Himself whom He begot as Lord. - Novatian, On the Trinity, 31 [230 A.D.]

 

[thephilosopher6]

It is not a correct statement.

This is an incorrect statement, you hold a blasphemous doctrine alien to all Christianity. Scripture teaches that God is Spirit,

God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” - John 4:24

And that he is not in anyway a man,

God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. - Numbers 23:19

And that he has no form,

You saw no form of any kind the day the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire. - Deuteronomy 4:15

 

[thephilosopher6]

I have already refuted you on this numerous times…

Origen is speaking about the Stoic notion of the spiritual being made of an special kind of mater which had found its way into the thought of Tertullian and some others of the time. These writers in no way thought of God as having a body, for them God was a Spirit, and Spirit was made out of a special kind of matter beyond spacial matter in the universe.

And just to note, the notion that Melito of Sardis taught God as having a body comes from a quote in Origen. However, fragments of Melito writings have been found which refute this, showing that he actually believed God was pure spirit.

There is that which really exists, and it is called God. He, I say, really exists, and by His power doth everything subsist. This being is in no sense made, nor did He ever come into being; but He has existed from eternity, and will continue to exist for ever and ever. He changeth not, while everything else changes. No eye can see Him, nor thought apprehend Him, nor language describe Him; and those who love Him speak of Him thus: `Father, and God of Truth.’ - Melito of Sardis, Fragments, [155 A.D.]

 

[thephilosopher6]

…but let Him, the ever-living God, be constantly present to thy mind. For thy mind itself is His likeness: for it too is invisible and impalpable, and not to be represented by any form, yet by its will is the whole bodily frame moved. Know, therefore, that, if thou constantly serve Him who is immoveable, even He exists for ever, so thou also, when thou shalt have put off this body, which is visible and corruptible, shall stand before Him for ever, endowed with life and knowledge, and thy works shall be to thee wealth inexhaustible and possessions unfailing. - Melito of Sardis, Fragments, [155 A.D.]

For this reason did the Father send His Son from heaven without a bodily form, that, when He should put on a body by means of the Virgin’s womb, and be born man, - Melito of Sardis, Discourse on Soul and Body, [150 A.D.]

On these accounts He came to us; on these accounts, though He was incorporeal, He formed for Himself a body after our fashion… yet arrayed in the nature of His Father - Melito of Sardis, Discourse on the Cross [160 A.D.]

 

[thephilosopher6]

Now, for the general Church Fathers:

“Our God has no introduction in time. He alone is without beginning, and is himself the beginning of all things. God is a spirit, not attending upon matter, but the maker of material spirits and of the appearances which are in matter. He is invisible, being himself the Father of both sensible and invisible things” Tatian the Syrian, Address to the Greeks 4 [170 A.D.]

“I have sufficiently demonstrated that we are not atheists, since we acknowledge one God, unbegotten, eternal, invisible, incapable of being acted upon, incomprehensible, unbounded, who is known only by understanding and reason, who is encompassed by light and beauty and spirit and indescribable power, by whom all things, through his Word, have been produced and set in order and are kept in existence” Athenagoras, Plea for the Christians 10 [177 A.D]

"Far removed is the Father of all from those things which operate among men, the affections and passions. He is simple, not composed of parts, without structure, altogether like and equal to himself alone. He is all mind, all spirit, all thought, all intelligence, all reason… all light, all fountain of every good, and this is the manner in which the religious and the pious are accustomed to speak of God -
Irenaeus, Against Heresies 2:13:3 [189 A.D].

“Being is in God. God is divine being, eternal and without beginning, incorporeal and illimitable, and the cause of what exists. Being is that which wholly subsists. Nature is the truth of things, or the inner reality of them. According to others, it is the production of what has come to existence; and according to others, again, it is the providence of God, causing the being, and the manner of being, in the things which are produced” - Clement of Alexandria, On Providence, [200 A.D.]