Baptist minister embraces Book of Mormon

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I guess only Mormons (with all their splinter-groups) do so…
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LOL-- splinter-- as in tiny thin piece of wood, like what gets under the skin and causes irritation.

Snake-Mauler, you are forgetting the fall from favor of the Nephites at the end of the book, because of their pride and racism. Of course, that is not the orthodox Mormon interpretation. 😃

They would rather die than surrender to the Lamanites, and end up becoming Lamanites. What a sick people-- just like many Mormons. 😃
 
This is the type of logic this guy is advancing:
A bit of trivia–God would not end His book with the numbers ’66.’ That’s one “six” short of 666—the number of the Anti-Christ. God’s number has always been “seven,” not “six.”
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Of course the problem with this is the Church canonized 77 books and the Protestants reduced it to 66. So if there are any anti-Christ’s to be had …
 
BartBurk said:
If they did this they would essentially cease to exist as any kind of religious force. Their exceptionalism is what makes them viable. The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of LDS followed this track, became the Community of Christ and is in danger of imploding completely.
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i find the Reorganized Church, fascinating. they accept the same view of the Trinity as we do. do they not? its my understanding they accept the BOM, D+C and the pearl of great price, but in essence they are very much a group, that could be considered Christian. Peace 🙂
 
benidict said:
i find the Reorganized Church, fascinating. they accept the same view of the Trinity as we do. do they not? its my understanding they accept the BOM, D+C and the pearl of great price, but in essence they are very much a group, that could be considered Christian. Peace 🙂
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My understanding is the Catholic Church accepts a Community of Christ baptism as valid because they have the same basic understanding of the Godhead that Catholics do. The Community of Christ does not accept the Book of Abraham as scripture. I also notice that the Baptist minister who accepts the Book of Mormon was baptized Mormon along the way, but then decided to become a Baptist minister again:

greaterthings.com/Ridenhour/index.html

He must have found something wrong with the Mormons and seems to be closer to the Restoration Branches of the RLDS tradition at this point. The RLDS changed its name to Community of Christ several years ago.

Here is an essay I found on the Community of Christ’s understanding of the Trinity:

cofchrist.org/enduringprinciples/trinityLove.asp
 
benidict said:
i find the Reorganized Church, fascinating. they accept the same view of the Trinity as we do. do they not? its my understanding they accept the BOM, D+C and the pearl of great price, but in essence they are very much a group, that could be considered Christian. Peace 🙂
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The RLDS Church does NOT accept the Pearl of Great Price!

They accept the Holy Bible (as well as the Inspired Version of the Holy Bible by Joseph Smith; - Although some parts of the Pearl of Great Price are in the Inspired Version, like the Book of Moses which are the first 8 * chapters of Genesis), the **BoM **and parts of the D&C including some newer prophesies up to section 164 at the moment.

I do find the RLDS Church fascinating as well. 🙂 Especially the CofC has been moving constantly in the past years towards “liberal Protestantism” (as their priests are trained in a Methodist college.)

Esdra*
 
Mormonism is going through alot of standardization. I don’t think their young people are quite aware of past documents.
 
Talk about messing with the Bible…We have been forewarned not to even change one word of Scripture…or believe in unknown angels…

Pope John Paul II said to only recognize those angels named in Sacred Scripture.

Martin Luther changed one word in Scripture and look what happened to Christianity in the past 500 years. He speaks of faith alone, yet he alone was the one responsible for removing those books from Scripture because they contradicted his hypothesis…including the apostle James.

You don’t even have to look at Mormonism.
 
KathleenGee said:
Mormonism is going through alot of standardization. I don’t think their young people are quite aware of past documents.
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Uhm, I wouldn’t talk so general about Mormonism…

I guess the LDS Church still follows pretty strictly the teachings of JS and Brigham Young.

However, I agree with you when you are talking about the RLDS Churches (and the CofC in particular!)

Esdra
 
KathleenGee said:
Talk about messing with the Bible…We have been forewarned not to even change one word of Scripture…or believe in unknown angels…

Pope John Paul II said to only recognize those angels named in Sacred Scripture.

Martin Luther changed one word in Scripture and look what happened to Christianity in the past 500 years. He speaks of faith alone, yet he alone was the one responsible for removing those books from Scripture because they contradicted his hypothesis…including the apostle James.

You don’t even have to look at Mormonism.
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It is hard to ignore Mormonism in the United States. They will always come calling. Unfortunately, the Mormons are completely deceived so you always hope there might be a way to reach them. The Book of Mormon is the soft spot in their armor because it is so obviously flawed. I really wonder how a Baptist minister can claim to believe it with a straight face, but I guess there are a lot of people who believe incredible things. Of course some would say the same thing about us I’m sure.
 
Esdra said:
Yes, I know this website where this extract is from.

I have read the whole article.

And actually, I have to agree this Baptist pastor: The BoM (as I have also read it) does really in no single point contradict the bible and is a very “protestant book” with lots of parts in it that are in the Baptist doctrine, but not explicitly in the bible (like the prohibition of the child-baptism in Moroni 8:11-12)

Although I of course don’t think that it describes the real history of the ancestors of the present day Native Americans. 😉
But I really value the BoM for it’s theology.

Esdra
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My opinion is that you, and the Baptist pastor under discussion, recognize the influence of Sidney Rigdon, who was a licensed Baptist minister and pastor of the First Baptist Church in Pittsburgh.

He then became a follower of the Campbell restoration movement, which is where Mormon “restoration” roots are. He eventually became one of Joseph Smith’s right-hand men, and had a great influence on the early Mormon church, it’s theology (such as it is) and doctrines.
 
RebeccaJ said:
My opinion is that you, and the Baptist pastor under discussion, recognize the influence of Sidney Rigdon, who was a licensed Baptist minister and pastor of the First Baptist Church in Pittsburgh.

He then became a follower of the Campbell restoration movement, which is where Mormon “restoration” roots are. He eventually became one of Joseph Smith’s right-hand men, and had a great influence on the early Mormon church, it’s theology (such as it is) and doctrines.
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Thanks for this intersting information about the history of the Mormons.

I didn’t know that.

Yes, this definitely explains why the said Baptist pastor, myself and even RLDS ministers, I have been emailling to lately, consider the BoM as a “very Baptist/Protestant/Evangelical book”.

Esdra
 
RebeccaJ said:
My opinion is that you, and the Baptist pastor under discussion, recognize the influence of Sidney Rigdon, who was a licensed Baptist minister and pastor of the First Baptist Church in Pittsburgh.

He then became a follower of the Campbell restoration movement, which is where Mormon “restoration” roots are. He eventually became one of Joseph Smith’s right-hand men, and had a great influence on the early Mormon church, it’s theology (such as it is) and doctrines.
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It is also highly likely he was involved in actually writing the Book of Mormon:

i4m.com/think/history/Book-of-Mormon.pdf

That’s a real controversial theory, but it makes sense to me. Most Mormon historians reject the idea, but there is more and more evidence coming out in support of it. It’s likely Joseph Smith didn’t have the ability to write it on his own, and it is obvious it is not a translation of an ancient document.
 
It’s puzzling to see many sidestep any discussion of the OP: How the theology taught in the book of mormon overlaps with protestant teachings.

Instead they jump to attacking the book as a forgery.

This tthread was about the theology in the book, not how it came to be. Of course you are not going to agree with divine inspiration. and thus you must have your theories on how the magician did his magic.
 
Todd520 said:
It’s puzzling to see many sidestep any discussion of the OP: How the theology taught in the book of mormon overlaps with protestant teachings.

Instead they jump to attacking the book as a forgery.

This tthread was about the theology in the book, not how it came to be. Of course you are not going to agree with divine inspiration. and thus you must have your theories on how the magician did his magic.
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The two are related. Grant Palmer noted in his book that many of the sermons in the Book of Mormon could very easily shown to have the same theology as 19th century frontier Evangelical Christianity. To accept the Book of Mormon as an ancient text would require us to believe that ancient Hebrew Americans had the same theology as 19th century evangelical preachers. It happens that Sidney Rigdon was one of the more prominent preachers in Joseph Smith’s day.

Believing the Book of Mormon would require you to believe that ancient Hebrew Americans were given more insight into Jesus’ future ministry than anyone in the Old World. That is a stretch. Read the last three chapters in 2 Nephi – it just is a real stretch to believe ancient Americans prior to Christ’s birth would have had that kind of specific knowledge of Jesus Christ. You really can’t divorce the teachings of the Book of Mormon from 19th century American Protestantism.
 
Yes, the two are highly related and comparing the theology will include discussing the source influence.
I guess I was trying to urge focus on the theology as opposed to diverting into a discussion on who helped write it. My bad 😊
 
Todd520 said:
Yes, the two are highly related and comparing the theology will include discussing the source influence.
I guess I was trying to urge focus on the theology as opposed to diverting into a discussion on who helped write it. My bad 😊
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You are getting there, Todd. Just be as patient with yourself as we should be with you. :grouphug:
 
Todd520 said:
Yes, the two are highly related and comparing the theology will include discussing the source influence.
I guess I was trying to urge focus on the theology as opposed to diverting into a discussion on who helped write it. My bad 😊
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Ridenhour’s essay shows how he as a Baptist minister can see that Book of Mormon teachings are basically warmed over Protestantism – that’s why he can accept it so easily. Knowing that he had become a baptized Mormon and then separated from them is also interesting. Perhaps he was able to see that LDS theology is very different from Book of Mormon theology. I think if folks read Ridenhour’s essay there is an excellent summary of Book of Mormon teachings.
 
BartBurk said:
Ridenhour’s essay shows how he as a Baptist minister can see that Book of Mormon teachings are basically warmed over Protestantism – that’s why he can accept it so easily. Knowing that he had become a baptized Mormon and then separated from them is also interesting. Perhaps he was able to see that LDS theology is very different from Book of Mormon theology. I think if folks read Ridenhour’s essay there is an excellent summary of Book of Mormon teachings.
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I found his essay to be a good starter for this thread topic, but I don’t feel anyone should take it as too authoritative.
His observatins start an interesting discussion, that the overlap is much greater than the differences.
Unfortunately, in religion we always seem to focus on the differences (hence the 33k Christian denominations)
 
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