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ContraFool
Guest
I have actually heard two priests have a discussion about JWs and they said that they were absolutly not Christian.
carol marie:
carol marie:
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C
carol_marie
Guest
Sad but true, as one who’s been there, done that.
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Gottle_of_Geer
Guest
Their belief in the Divinity of Christ does not set Him apart from the rest of us. As we are all of us gods in embryo, He is in no way special. So He is not our unique Redeemer, Mediator, King, High Priest, Model, or Lord.
That being so, they might as well deny His Divinity; because they exalt all of us, to be as truly gods as He is a god. Or as the Father is a god.I’m not certain whether they hold that Adam is God the Father - some of their sources do suggest this; others, deny it.
They do use sources which say “Father Adam” benefitted the human race by disobeying God - as though the Fall were a Fall upwards. Only Joseph Smith has done more for the human race - my impression is that he holds roughly the sort of place in Mormon thinking that Our Lady does among Catholics: except that she must, on Mormon principles, be a god too: which rather confuses matters.
IOW, the logic of the Mormon “doctrine of God” (so to call it) destroys the Christian understanding of the Trinity; and, amounts to something oddly like atheism - because promoting us to equality with God, is in practice no different from demoting God to our created condition.
That is what happens if one denies the transcendence & uniqueness of God.
None of this is to deny the possibility that there are Mormons who are truly Christian people, who are in communion with Christ: for “the Spirit of the Lord fills the whole earth”; not just the Catholic or Christian bits of it. But AFAICS, Mormonism is not Christian in belief or doctrine.
None of this has more than a surface resemblance to the doctrine of theiosis: because that presupposes that Christ is both God & man in the sense familiar to all who accept the teaching of Nicea I or Chalcedon. ##
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flameburns623
Guest
One of the problems in talking about Mormonism is that it does behave in a rather ‘gnostic’ fashion, disclosing more controversial aspects about itself only gradually. However, one need also be careful in trotting out such things as the ‘blood atonement’ theory: this was a doctrine speculated about by Brigham Young and which remained more-or-less ‘on the table’ in LDS theology for more than a century afterward. However, most LDS apologists today will say that the doctrine has been quietly dropped, if not expressly repudiated. It is rather akin to the ‘Adam-God’ theory also put forward by Brigham Young. Or the idea held so dearly only a half-generation or so ago that all Native Americans are descended from the ‘Lamanites’ (Jewish refugees of the 6th Century BC) from the Book of Mormon.
At one point, Mormons basked in the glory of the idea that they were a totally unique, totally different sort of faith than any form of traditional Christianity. In such an atmosphere, the crackpot theories of various early General Authorities (LDS leadership–sort of like the Magisterium of the RCC) were seen as ‘good’ things: they marked the Mormons off from other Christians and in an odd way affirmed to the LDS that many plain and precious things’ had been lost to Christianity. Somewhere along the way, the LDS leadership has decided that they covet respectability and acceptability more than eccentricity, and Mormon apologetics have been moving in the direction of a sort of Evangelical Protestantism since the mid-fifties or so. If they could do so without destroying their own carefully-constructed little empire, I suspect the LDS leadership would already have disavowed large portions of their doctrines in the same way the Worldwide Church of God did in the early 1990’s, following the death of the founder of the WWCoG, Hebert Armstrong.
The problem is that Mormon leaders are supposed to be ‘inspired’, and the writings of Joseph Smith in particular are largely deemed to be Scripture. And the theologians and apologists within Mormonism have not yet arrived at any way of determining when their leaders are speaking ‘ex cathedra’ rather than merely engaging in personal speculation.
I’m not claiming by the way, that LDS General Authorities are ‘crypto-Evangelicals’ or deliberately scheming to make Mormonism into an Evangelical sect–only that I feel that many of them are subconsciously drawn towards Evangelicalism and might have made major changes in LDS doctrine, if only their own theological history didn’t impede such a move. The Armstrongite movement has been nearly obliterated by it’s own moves towards orthodox Christian theology, and I suspect that Mormon leaders have seen this. I doubt they will make many truly radical changes or boldly disavow too many of the ‘problem doctrines’ unless they feel truly ‘safe’ in so doing.
At one point, Mormons basked in the glory of the idea that they were a totally unique, totally different sort of faith than any form of traditional Christianity. In such an atmosphere, the crackpot theories of various early General Authorities (LDS leadership–sort of like the Magisterium of the RCC) were seen as ‘good’ things: they marked the Mormons off from other Christians and in an odd way affirmed to the LDS that many plain and precious things’ had been lost to Christianity. Somewhere along the way, the LDS leadership has decided that they covet respectability and acceptability more than eccentricity, and Mormon apologetics have been moving in the direction of a sort of Evangelical Protestantism since the mid-fifties or so. If they could do so without destroying their own carefully-constructed little empire, I suspect the LDS leadership would already have disavowed large portions of their doctrines in the same way the Worldwide Church of God did in the early 1990’s, following the death of the founder of the WWCoG, Hebert Armstrong.
The problem is that Mormon leaders are supposed to be ‘inspired’, and the writings of Joseph Smith in particular are largely deemed to be Scripture. And the theologians and apologists within Mormonism have not yet arrived at any way of determining when their leaders are speaking ‘ex cathedra’ rather than merely engaging in personal speculation.
I’m not claiming by the way, that LDS General Authorities are ‘crypto-Evangelicals’ or deliberately scheming to make Mormonism into an Evangelical sect–only that I feel that many of them are subconsciously drawn towards Evangelicalism and might have made major changes in LDS doctrine, if only their own theological history didn’t impede such a move. The Armstrongite movement has been nearly obliterated by it’s own moves towards orthodox Christian theology, and I suspect that Mormon leaders have seen this. I doubt they will make many truly radical changes or boldly disavow too many of the ‘problem doctrines’ unless they feel truly ‘safe’ in so doing.
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St_Veronica
Guest
JW and LDS baptisms are not valid, since they are not Trinitarian.
I spent a year in the LDS Church before becoming Catholic and I will say they are NOT up front about their theology. So it would not surprise me that some of their own members aren’t real clear about it.
Because I am a ‘why’ person, I asked questions and they were VERY uncomfortable with this, telling me that it was too deep of a theological concept for me to understand at that point. I asked to join a specific Bible study and was told the same thing. So I did research on my own and then asked questions which they had to answer. When they confirmed that yes these were their true beliefs, I did not go back.
Another thing. The LDS hold to the position that if the country they are in allows pologymy then it is OK…they follow the laws of the land they are in and since the US disallows it, they don’t practice it here.
My neighbors (wonderful people) are RLDS (Reformed) and they insist they are the ‘Mother Church’ and the current LDS have broken away from their true roots. They denounce any sort of plural marriages etc…they do seem to hold a view of the Trinity more in line of the CC but I’m not positive it’s the same.
Just my .02!
SV
I spent a year in the LDS Church before becoming Catholic and I will say they are NOT up front about their theology. So it would not surprise me that some of their own members aren’t real clear about it.
Because I am a ‘why’ person, I asked questions and they were VERY uncomfortable with this, telling me that it was too deep of a theological concept for me to understand at that point. I asked to join a specific Bible study and was told the same thing. So I did research on my own and then asked questions which they had to answer. When they confirmed that yes these were their true beliefs, I did not go back.
Another thing. The LDS hold to the position that if the country they are in allows pologymy then it is OK…they follow the laws of the land they are in and since the US disallows it, they don’t practice it here.
My neighbors (wonderful people) are RLDS (Reformed) and they insist they are the ‘Mother Church’ and the current LDS have broken away from their true roots. They denounce any sort of plural marriages etc…they do seem to hold a view of the Trinity more in line of the CC but I’m not positive it’s the same.
Just my .02!
SV
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ContraFool
Guest
I told one of my Mormon friends about the Catholic Church being the church of Satan in the book of Mormon, and she showed me the passage where it talked about the “abmoninable church” and I really don’t think it refered to the Catholic Church, and she said Mormons don’t think that it does. The passage just mentioned that there was a church founded by Satan, without using anything to indicate Catholicism. She said Mormons believe it just refers to anyone who worships Satan, which is clearly not the Catholics. Though if I were guessing, I would say that this is not always what Mormons believed. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to find out that there are Mormons who think this referes to the Catholic Church. But just so you know, not all of them believe that.
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tkdnick
Guest
Again, I would say that this is maybe one of those things that the LDS “bureacracy” is trying to do away with to make Mormonism more like mainstream Christianity. That again may be one of those things that the LDS leadership doesn’t make known to the LDS faithful. I don’t know though, that’s just my personal speculation. There are comments, though, in the BoM regarding the Romish Church. This is clearly a reference to the Roman Catholic Church. I am not sure where exaclty this is, but I think in the first three books or so.
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ContraFool
Guest
Yes, I know the reference you are talking about, as I read it. I saw it on the LDS website. It really did not mention the Catholic Church or anything associated with it, other than the fact that it was big…but so are many churchs. It didn’t mention Rome or anything like it. No adjective implying Catholicism was used at all. Of course, it is entirely possible that this new trend in Mormonism has caused them to “re translate” the BoM or something of that nature. Maybe you read an older version. But even if the main church believes it, their rank and file clearly don’t, so I’m not about to hold it against them.
tkdnick:
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flameburns623
Guest
Classically, Mormons are about as anti-Protestant as they are anti-Catholic. However they have a classic work, written by a well-respected LDS writer named James Talmage, called The Great Apostasy. This work would definitely qualify–in it’s unabridged form–as a polemic against the Roman Catholic Church. Be careful to try to get the ORIGINAL–I note that an abridgement has recently been published and I cannot vouch for what has or has not been modified. Obviously, not all Mormons have read this book any more than Catholics have read all of the works of GK Chesterton or Thomas Merton etcetera.
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ntractv
Guest
Here are a few quotes from prominent LDS leaders concerning the LDS Churches stance on Christian Churches.
Peace of Christ be with you.
- “I was answered that I must join none of them (Christian churches), for they were all wrong…their creeds were an abomination in [God’s] sight; that those professors were all corrupt” (Joseph Smith—History 1:19).
- “Orthodox Christian views of God are pagan rather than Christian” (Mormon Doctrine of Deity, B. H. Roberts [General Authority], 116).
- “Are Christians ignorant? Yes, as ignorant of the things of God as the brute beast” (Journal of Discourses, John Taylor [3rd Mormon President], 13:225).
- “The Roman Catholic, Greek, and Protestant church, is the great corrupt, ecclesiastical power, represented by great Babylon” (Orson Pratt, Writings of an Apostle, Orson Pratt, n. 6, 84).
- “All the priests who adhere to the sectarian [Christian] religions of the day with all their followers, without one exception, receive their portion with the devil and his angels” (The Elders Journal, Joseph Smith, ed. Vol. 1, n. 4, 60).
- [Under the heading, “Church of the Devil,” Apostle Bruce R. McConkie lists:] “The Roman Catholic Church specifically—singled out, set apart, described, and designated as being ‘most abominable above all other churches’ (I Ne. 13:5)” (Mormon Doctrine, 1958, 129).
- “Believers in the doctrines of modern Christendom will reap damnation to their souls (Morm. 8; Moro. 8)” (Mormon Doctrine, 1966, Bruce R. McConkie, 177).
Peace of Christ be with you.
C
Chris-WA
Guest
While doing some research I came across this statement. To authenticate it, I went to the library and checked the book out. To my surprise, there was no specific reference to the Catholic Church or any particular Christian denomination. I scratched my head for a while and then figured it out. I went back to the library and found an earlier edition of the same book and there it was in black and white, exactly as shown above. Apparently somebody had revised McConkie’s book to delete the references to any specific church in the above statement.
After doing more research it became quite clear that until recently, Mormon leadership believed and taught that the Catholic Church is the “the church of the devil” as described in the Book of Mormon. Your average Mormon is completley unaware of this. Even if you show them the two editions of the book side by side, they would probably dismiss it by saying that McConkie wasn’t the prophet. I would respond that if a Mormon Apostle publicly teaches something regarding interpretation of the Book of Mormon, a Mormon is going to believe it no questions asked. To my knowledge, he was never publicly rebuked for making such a statement either. Keep in mind that a Mormon Apostle is rougly equivalent to a Roman Catholic Cardinal in their heiarchy.
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ContraFool
Guest
Let me just make one final statment to charges about Mormons being anti-Catholic.
I do believe that many of their leaders are and have been anti-Catholic, and that there have been many who follow after that example.
However; based on my personal experience with them, I am ready to say that the average Mormon isn’t anti-Catholic at all, beyond disagreeing with us over theology. The Mormons I know say that their church encourages them to learn about other religions and befriend members of other faiths, and they even believe salvation is possible for members of other religions, even if they don’t get as high a place as the Mormons will.
I think all of this is the result of the inconsistancies inherrent in a group of people who have fallen away from the true Church. It is therefore hard if not impossible for a person to make a consistant stament that accuractly describes the whole LDS church. So you can come up with as many examples of them being anti-Catholic as you want, and I can probably find as many examples of them being just the opposite. Heck, I have even heard my LDS friends go as far as to say they regret the loss of tradition that is happening in the Catholic Church. That is far from being anti-Catholic.
So until someone can provide proof that the entire LDS church is anti-Catholic, I think it is very unfair to both them and their Catholic friends to assert the very broad and sweeping statement, “Mormons are anti-Catholic.”
I do believe that many of their leaders are and have been anti-Catholic, and that there have been many who follow after that example.
However; based on my personal experience with them, I am ready to say that the average Mormon isn’t anti-Catholic at all, beyond disagreeing with us over theology. The Mormons I know say that their church encourages them to learn about other religions and befriend members of other faiths, and they even believe salvation is possible for members of other religions, even if they don’t get as high a place as the Mormons will.
I think all of this is the result of the inconsistancies inherrent in a group of people who have fallen away from the true Church. It is therefore hard if not impossible for a person to make a consistant stament that accuractly describes the whole LDS church. So you can come up with as many examples of them being anti-Catholic as you want, and I can probably find as many examples of them being just the opposite. Heck, I have even heard my LDS friends go as far as to say they regret the loss of tradition that is happening in the Catholic Church. That is far from being anti-Catholic.
So until someone can provide proof that the entire LDS church is anti-Catholic, I think it is very unfair to both them and their Catholic friends to assert the very broad and sweeping statement, “Mormons are anti-Catholic.”
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Chris-WA
Guest
Sorry. You are quite correct to say that by far Mormons are not anti-Catholic. I wasn’t trying to say that they are. They are some of greatest people I know. My focus was on the issue of their official church teaching versus personal beliefs.
I was merely trying to point out that their church made a drastic change in their official interpretation of a key Book of Mormon passage describing the “Great Apostacy.” The apostacy is the crux issue between our two churches. Mormons used to teach that the Catholic Church was the “great and abominable church.” Now they don’t. We need to ask why. What changed? Are they even aware that it changed? If that can change then does that weaken the position that a great apostacy ever took place at all? All worthy items of discussion between you and your Mormon friends, in charitable dialogue of course.
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Sophie
Guest
Right. Mormonism has always taught their members that the Catholic Church is the “great abominable church of Satan”. They use many typical anti-Catholic rhetoric. For example, one Mormon I know tried to tell me that the Catholic Church is Babylon the great mother of harlots spoken about in the Bible in revelation, chapters 17 & 18. And that the Vatican is the harlot who sit on the seven hills. He read this out of a Mormon “missionary” lesson book. Of course, I explained to him that this could not be, since the Vatican is built on one hill. The seven hills in Rome are on the opposite side of the river that runs through Rome and that this passage was most likely talking about pagan Rome, before it became the center of Christianity. This was the first run-in with anti-Catholicism I had ever experienced. Since then the good Lord has opened my eyes to all the anti-Catholicism in the world.
Mormons are misled into believing that they are the only true Christians. It they didn’t believe this then there would be no need for Joe Smith and his Mormonism. So they must dispute the fact that the Catholic Church is God’s Church.
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flameburns623
Guest
It is precisely this sort of semi-covert revision of which one need be aware when looking at LDS sources. Brigham Young’s Journal of Discourses has undergone similar modification.
I’d not get too carried away with this. Although the emphasis upon this sort of thing has been played down, LDS Elders used to commonly purchase for their own use some refererence works which ‘proved’ the human and carnal nature of a great many Protestant denominations alongside of the usual canards against Roman Catholicism. Understand that though Mormons inherited much 19th-century bigotry against ‘Romanism’, they really suffered very little at the hands of Roman Catholics: most of their persecutors were nominal Protestants of various frontier faiths. Mormon resentment against those Protestant sects ran very deep for many years. Not only before the martyrdom of Joseph Smith, but even after they had established themselves in Utah, Mormons generally saw the worst of non-Mormon Protestants: several of the military governors appointed to the Utah Territory during the ‘Mormon Wars’ were incredibly venal, having won appointments by way of cronyism and nepotism. Some brought prostitutes with them, one brought along a concubine, many were hard drinkers, etcetera. I dimly recall one of the better military governors sent to Utah while the US government was attempting to ‘subjugate’ the Territory was actually a practicing Catholic. Though he won no more cooperation from the Mormons than other governors, I think he is remembered in Mormon histories as having been a person with some integrity.
VERY roughly so: an Apostle is revered as being nearly so 'specially inspired as the Prophet, though only the Prophet can speak for the whole LDS Church for all time. I suspect that later revisions would be justified among LDS apologists by way of the Latter-Day Saint doctrine of the primacy of later revelation over earlier revelation (“progressive revelation”) as well as because earlier epochs of LDS history also include anti-Mormon literature which modern critics of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints would not want to be associated with. More than a few ‘exposes’ of Mormonism were written by ‘former wives’ or others who had in fact never been Mormons. Just as there are some ‘exposes’ of Roman Catholicism by folks who profess to have been, but NEVER were, Roman Catholic priests or nuns. Mormons would say that in such a poisoned atmostphere, the tendency to speak harshly of one’s critics can be understood, particularly since most popular journalism of the early Mormon era was sensationalistic and tabloidish by modern standards.
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Sophie
Guest
I had a good friend for 3 years who was Mormon. She invited me to a few Mormon meetings, which I always declined. At the time, I believed she was a sincere friend. Until the day we started to talk religion and I attempted to show her the differences between Mormonism and Christianity. This was 4 years ago and she has never spoken to me since.
My daughter once moved into an apartment with a Mormon roommate. This woman seemed so loving and friendly. Three weeks later, her Mormon roommate tried to give my daughter the Book of Mormon to read. My daughter graciously declined. This woman tried 3 times to get her to read the Book of Mormon. On the third attempt, my daughter took the Book of Mormon and tried to show this woman why it is a fraud and that she was definitely not interested in Mormonism. The next day, this woman threw my daughter out of the apartment, giving her 7 days to be out.
A friend of mine once worked for a man who was a Jehovah’s Witness. They were on very friendly terms. That is until his boss offered him Jehovah’s Witness Watchtower literature to read, which he declined, telling his Jehovah Witness boss he wasn’t interested. This was the end of their friendship and his job. His Jehovah boss fired him.
Unfortunately for cultists, they are taught their first and foremost goal in life is to befriend people only to try to bring them into the group. They are taught this is what they must devote their lives to. So, Contrafool, hopefully your Mormon friends are being sincere with you. But, if you should happen to find out someday that they are not, don’t feel bad. This has happened to many people. Lots of folks have even lost relationships with loved ones because of cult involvement.
Unfortunate souls lost in cults need many, many prayers!
F
flameburns623
Guest
I know that the Jehovah’s Witnesses take some measure of pride in holding the casually-interested investigator ‘responsible’ for the information that a Witness might attempt to teach them about Watchtower doctrine. One who displays a ‘bad spirit’ about such doctrines would usually be shunned.
Mormons have no such strict attitude and the anecdotal stories you tell, Sophie, could be duplicated by Mormons who were ill-treated by Roman Catholics. Among themselves, by the way, Mormons are none too certain that it isn’t the Roman Catholics and the Protestants who aren’t the ‘cultists’: after all: Mormons meet many nominal Christians in their door-to-door canvassing and via other sorts of contacts who seem utterly ignorant of the basic doctrines of their own denomination. I have personally met professed Roman Catholics who insisted upon denying doctrines which the RCC definitely teaches, or who believe in things or engage in practices which the RCC definitely discourages.
When folks ask me how to evangelize Mormons I do commend a certain number of core LDS books with which Mormons would be generally familiar, as a way of getting some insight into how Mormons really think. I recommend VERY FEW anti-LDS books, because I find so few to be fully reliable as well as because one often gets caught up in the excitement of ‘dueling apologetics’: Mormons have their own analogues to Catholic Answers and can often give reasonable if not fully adequate (IMHO) responses to most of the common criticisms of their faith. More often: the practice of ‘dueling apologetics’ grows boring fairly quickly. So far as that goes: most opportunities to evangelize someone of any faith or of no faith at all are rather fleeting and life is too short to memorize extensive ‘responses’ to Mormonism, Watchtower doctrine, Christian Science, ‘Oneness’ Pentecostalism, Unificationism, Paganism, Eckancar, Scientology, Zen Buddhism, Nichiren ShoShu Buddhism, Amidist Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, umpteen brands of Hinduism, and so forth. Most of us have jobs, families, and lives to get on with: we can’t study comparative religions ad infiniturm.
Rather than a laundry list of ‘tactics and techniques’ to bedazzle the unwary or ill-studied Mormon or whomever, I think it is better to get so thoroughly familiar with orthodox Christian doctrine and it’s exposition that one can answer all or most objections rather readily. And then, KNOW WHERE TO GO for the more sophisicated questions. And then cultivate a willngness to listen and to dialogue in a meaningful fashion rather than ‘blast’ someone with definitive ‘refutations’ of their faith.
C
ContraFool
Guest
hmmm…It seems to me that I have a great deal of reseach to do about this. Does any one know where I can find original copies of Mormon books with anti-Catholic sentaments?
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flameburns623
Guest
E-bay is a cheap source. Or a public library in many cases, since the older books often end up staying on library shelves for quite awhile. In many cases you can simply ask Deseret Books (the major LDS book chain) if they know where to get unabridged copies of a source.
R
rich123456
Guest
The Mormon Faith could not be further away from Christianity. There is nothing that we as Christians have in common with them when it comes to Christianity. Although Christ still works through them and good is indeed done. Because they do not have the revelation of the Trinity they do not understand that it is Christ doing these works. As a once Mormon, Now Catholic it is so wonderful to come to this Revelation as to who I am, as to whom Christ is. It is a Relief! The treasure found! The more one learns, is willing to learn about Catholic Christianity the more one finds them selves in complete awe. Life becomes living for others well being. You want everyone to find this gift. All Glory is Gods Glory. We on the other hand can discover this Glory and pass it on to others in need of it. The biggest difference is that we do not worship the same God, the same Christ, the same Holy Spirit. the Mormon god is not the same. Because of this they could never be called Christian. There is only One in Christianity, you and I have come to know this God, love this God, and give our lives up to Him. Our Creator.
Peace in Christ always
From Logan Utah
Rich Horrell 435-881-5722
www.catholic-rcia.com
Questions? utahmission@aol.com
Peace in Christ always
From Logan Utah
Rich Horrell 435-881-5722
www.catholic-rcia.com
Questions? utahmission@aol.com
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