Ex-Mormon Missionaries

[Matt_Carlson]

“This is NOT the ‘debate a Mormon’ forum, I would note.”

In that case I will simply bow out of the this site entirely. If you are unintersted in having your bubble popped then I will leave you to live in it.

 

[boppysbud]

  "As for your polemical presentation of my beliefs, we are not polytheists; we certainly believe in becoming gods;"

Already you contradict yourself, if you beleive in becoming “gods” as you just admitted, then you are polytheists who beleive in the existence of more than one “god”. Simply put you cannot have it both ways at the same time.

“your over- hyperbole regarding the relationship between Lucifer and Jesus is sensationalistic;”

Yet it is true, if it is true it cannot be “over-hyperbole” or sensationalistic, just true.

  "we do not deny the role of either the cross or Gethsemane in the atonement of Christ, both are part and parcel of the whole;"

Gethsemene has absolutely nothing to do with the Atonement, that is a mormon myth, and of course is much more important in momon teaching than Calvary. The fact is that you will never see a cross on a mormon meeting house or temple, why is that?

“we do not redefein (sic) atone in the manner you specify;”

Of course you do, not only that but your church has claimed that some sins are so bad that the blood of Christ cannot atone for them at all, but the sinners blood has to be shed for them, this is as you know the “Blood atonement” doctirne origianlly taught by “prophet, seer and revelator” Brigham Young"

"we do believe in the three that are one but that is pretty biblical as far as I am concerned;"

You actually beleive in (at least) three seperate “gods” who are unitied in purpose only but otherwise completely seperate.

“Lorenzo Snow’s couplet sounds very similar to some of the ECF’s;”

Lorenzo Snow’s couplet sounds nothing like any of the ECFs. None of the ECFs beleived in more than one God.

"I do not see how the physically of God can be an issue of Christ has a physical body, even if it were an issue Christ was not perfected until resurrected therefore a perfect Father must have a physical form;"

I thought in mormon theology “jesus” and “heavenly father” were two completely seperate “entities”, now you seem to be confusing them.

  "Clearly you don’t have a clue what you are talking about!"

Actually I do know exactly what I am talking about and it obviously makes you so angry that your English falls completely apart, what is the following gibberish supposed to mean?

 "Status as an x-mormon or the previous member of a priesthood quorum presidency does not qualify either you or your compatriot in arms as an expert"

 "If “everything I said is substantiated in official mormon writings” please present each item in turn with its support."

As you well know and have said to flame these posts are limited to 4,000 charectors, and you should do your own homework

"And I would prefer support from the Standard Works."

Your so-called “standard works” and “scriptures” have as much meaning to me as the Koran, the works of Ellen G. White, or Mary Baker Eddy.

 

[flameburns623]

Matt: we won’t keep swapping credentials. You have me trumped anyhow, since I’ve never served a mission and you have served as a Sunday School teacher for longer than I did–with a more mature audience. I’m not at all concerned about getting my ‘bubble popped’, by the way. I sometimes run into ‘anti’ stuff that is so off the wall I go somewhere and check it out. I visit the forums at Deseret Books, Beliefnet, and Delphi on and off. Same nic–I don’t swap screen names much. Too tough to remember who I am, otherwise.

I just wanted to point out that this thread gets longer all the time and it doesn’t seem as if the Catholics are participating. I don’t know how interesting this all is to them, and it’s their forum. 'Nuff said. I work tonight and need a nap anyhow. Thanks for the dialogue.

 

[rod_of_iron]

boppysbud:

As far as I know Ironhold, that Ironhold is a member of the mormon organisation, or one very simular, like the ROCOJCOLDS (Community of Christ), Temple Lot Church or another mormon organisation.

You are certianly a member of some mormon organisation, whether or not it is the Utah “lds” mormon organisation is immaterial, esp since most of the posters here would not know the difference.

Coincidence, I don’t think so.

Saying that it does not matter what group I belong to because all groups that believe in the Book of Mormon are so close that no one would know the difference is like claiming that there is no difference between the Catholic church and the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Both arguments are ridiculous. If you want to claim that I am mormon, I can claim in the same ridiculous way that Catholics are Jehovah’s Witnesses.

 

[rod_of_iron]

“Oat soda, I guess you have not been on this forum long enough to know that I am not a member of the LDS chruch.”

And of course more mormon deception, what do you call this one Iron, “plausible deniability”.

No, I call your insistence that I am LDS “purposeful ignorance” on your part.

 

[rod_of_iron]

Fidelis:

Here is a quote from an earlier post of yours:

"Well, since you started the sophistry in your last post, I do not know if I can compete. Since no one has proven that the Catholic church is indeed the continuation of the church that Jesus established, this claim of the Catholic church sure appears to be sophistry.

On the other hand, Jesus restored His church again through His servant Joseph Smith. The authority was restored when Peter, James, and John laid their hands upon the heads of Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery. You may claim that the authority of the Catholic church comes through Peter, but so can I claim that of my church. You can claim that my claim is fallacious, but you cannot prove it."

What did I lie about? I am not a member of the LDS church. I am a member of the true church that continued after Joseph Smith’s death. The LDS church is not that true church. It is an apostate church. So again, how did I lie?

 

[boppysbud]

Rod of Iron, let’s cut to the chase.

Are you are you you not the same person who has been posting on the Beleif-Net mormon boards using the same name and philosophy?

That is what I am most interested in finding out, and you have quite charectoristically ignored.

 

[Tmaque]

chimakuni:

Catholic Deacon Steve Seever, was on the Journey Home last night and this morning. He was a Mormon and his discussion with Marcus Grodi was very interesting. He said that some Mormons belief that 144,000 (not exact number…but the one in Revelations) only will be gods and that they must have multiple marriages to achieve this goal.

FYI. Most Mormons do not believe either of those things.

 

[Marauder]

rod of iron:

What did I lie about? I am not a member of the LDS church. I am a member of the true church that continued after Joseph Smith’s death. The LDS church is not that true church. It is an apostate church. So again, how did I lie?

I’m not attacking you just asking, which of the non-LDS “Mormon” churches are you a member of, the one that goes by the name “Reformed” or another one. All of them claim to be the true church set up by Joseph Smith.

I have had dealings with several of the “branches” of the LDS church through my role in Scouting. I have actually explained to an LDS scout that was wondering why some people were picking on his religion, what his religion actually said about different things. I later talked to his Bishop and he said that nothing I said was wrong. This scout was part of the largest “branch”.

There was a scout in my troop that was part of the Reformed branch.

 

[AmandaPS]

Matt Carlson:

there is no Latter-day Saint who would support the assertion that God the Father engaged in sexual intercourse with Mary, such is abhorrent and falsely attributed;

From the Seer pg158:

We are informed in the first chapter of Luke, that Mary was chosen by the Father as a choice virgin, through whom He begat Jesus. The angel said unto the Virgin Mary, “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore, also, that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” After the power of the Highest had overshadowed Mary, and she had by that means conceived, she related the circumstance to her cousin Elizabeth in the following words: “He that is Mighty hath done to me great
things; and holy is His name” It seems from this relation that the Holy Ghost accompanied “the Highest” when He overshadowed the Virgin Mary and begat Jesus; and from this circumstance some have supposed that the body of Jesus was begotten of the Holy Ghost without the instrumentality of the immediate presence of the Father. There is no doubt that the Holy Ghost came upon Mary to sanctify her, and make her holy, and prepare her to endure the glorious presence of “the Highest,” that when “He” should “overshadow” her she might conceive, being filled with the Holy Ghost; hence the angel said, as recorded in Matthew, “That which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost;” that is, the Holy Ghost gave her strength to abide the presence of the Father without being consumed; but it was the personage of the Father who begat the body of Jesus; and for this reason Jesus is called “the Only Begotten of the Father;” that is, the only one in this world whose fleshly body was begotten by the Father. There were millions of sons and daughters whom He begat before the foundation of this world, but they were spirits, and not bodies of flesh and bones; whereas, both the spirit and body of Jesus were begotten by the Father–the spirit having been begotten in heaven many ages before the tabernacle was begotten upon the earth.

The fleshly body of Jesus required a Mother as well as a Father.
Therefore, the Father and Mother of Jesus, according to the flesh, must have been associated together in the capacity of Husband and Wife; hence the Virgin Mary must have been, for the time being, the lawful wife of God the Father: we use the term lawful Wife, because it would be blasphemous in the highest degree to say that He overshadowed her or begat the Saviour unlawfully.

 

[Tmaque]

Matt16_18:

I always invite into my home the Mormon missionaries that come knocking at the door. I try to engage them in conversation, and give witness to the one true faith, but Mormon beliefs are so bizarre, that I find it hard to have a dialog with them about Christianity. I really don’t want to spend the time it would take to plow through the Book of Mormon or the Pearl of Great price to be conversant with Mormon beliefs.

For a Catholic that is reasonably informed about his faith, what apologetic tactics would you suggest for evangelizing Mormon missionaries?

Matt,
I’m coming to the conclusion that the first step in evangelizing Mormons is simply to plant a seed. The seed I would plant is the opening line of the Bible. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth”. I remember reading that shortly after my baptism and it struck me that I had never really “read” it before.

That verse, the first verse of the Bible stands in direct opposition to the LDS concept of who God is. If God created the heavens and the earth (the universe and everything in it), then God exists out of time itself. Now this would only make sense to you but coming from an LDS perspective it’s an epiphany.

Mormons believe in the concept of “eternal progression” meaning that everyone including “God” was once a mortal being and has progressed through time until he became God of the earth. And his God before him and on and on and on. But as you can see, if God is outside of time there can be no progression, he is in a changeless eternal state. He cannot change because change can only occur through time.

So, Mormons believe in a God that is subject to time and to the laws of the universe. In effect the LDS God is simply a glorified man. Christians believe in an eternal God that is “outside” of the effects of universe and is holding it all together through his will. The Christian view is the view held by the OT and modern Jews as well. The Mormon view is unique in the limitations it puts on God. Limitations so great, in my mind, they border on the ridiculous. It’s a HUGE difference of belief which is often overlooked. I think it’s a good first step in changing a person’s paradigm.

 

[MarkCeras451]

I think a key here is “evangelize” as opposed to minister; I may be biased because we deal with mixed households and marriages here.

First though, assume we can set a basline definition for being a Christian with three elements: belief in God, belief that Jesus is Lord, and belief in the presence and influence of a Holy Spirit in our lives. That alone puts one ahead of many of the early heresies faced by our Church, and, in some of those formative struggles, the issue was not IF the various factions were “real” Christians but rather what sort they were. With that yardstick in place, Mormons can be considered Christian-- whether one does that depends as much on personal bias and agenda as any theology differences. I go back to the First Things article excerpted by Matt, although it drew a different conclusion.
It is true that St. Paul says that nobody can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3). But that only indicates that aspects of Mormon faith are touched by the Holy Spirit, as is every element of truth no matter where it is found.

There are holes in the complex Mormon paleography one can drive a truck through: small ones such as the Book of Mormon’s description of beehives in the pre-Columbian Americas when bees had yet to be introduced there by the later-arriving Spaniards, and larger challenges such as the lack of archaeological evidence to corroborate the Book of Mormon’s elaborate prehistory. But these details (and that’s all they are) shouldn’t matter to Catholics secure in their faith , especially those who know how difficult it can be explaining to outsiders transubstantiation, infant baptism, the Holy Trinity, infallible popes, or how the Virgin Mary also produced James, the Brother of Jesus.

Christians accept mystery as part of everyday faith; we believe things happened that we can’t explain. Going scientific over how many “body” atoms are present in a chalice was about as productive as pondering how Mrs. Howell took so many outfits along on a “three hour tour.” Regardless of the faith, religious beliefs and practices have generated skepticism and outright hostility from outsiders for as long as multiple organized religions have existed. The important thing is to rely on the Holy Spirit, that most precious gift which Catholics and Mormons share, for the right answers to what is really important.

That gets back to the “ministry” part. When we deal with Catholics and Mormons together (in families, scouting, community activism, etc) we are dealing with two groups with strong commonality-- respect for life, family and marriage, and much more. We are better off ministering to those groups, and instead directing our evangelizing efforts and resources on the crumbling, moribund mainstream Protestant religions or the fundamentalists passing out those despicable Jack Chick comics to our kids.

That means learning about each other first and getting quality information (the Mormons writing here have that right!). My daughter, for example, was taught in her primary class that “Catholics don’t pray” and that we worship Mary (I had something to say about that), which I keep in mind when trying to explain to Catholics why they shouldn’t feel slighted because they can’t attend the Temple wedding of a Mormon friend (that one comes up a lot). I do disagree with some of the low assessments of Mormon missionaries-- my sister in law is back from her second in South America, and the kids coming over to our home for dinner every month know their stuff (if more Catholic youth were as grounded in our faith we’d be a lot better off).

 

[darcee]

The hardest thing about reaching Mormons is getting them to look objectivly at their faith at all. Most of them are SO seeped in their culture that they are strongly motivated to not look past what they are taught in their wards and church publications.

Missionaries know that mom and dad are home praying for them to be successful missionaries and the second one of the leaders thinks that you are influnenceing one of them they will be transfered to another area and you won’t see them anymore.
-D

 

[MarkCeras451]

I think a lot of the cultural influence depends on the area. We’ve lived on both the east and west coast in different locations. In Southern California, our LDS church was a mixed group but overall somewhat open. The Mormon community back in Boston were largely converts, and more objective in general I thought (I had much more in common with them having grown up there). In the Pacific Northwest, where much of the congregration is from Utah, Idaho, etc., I’ve found the cultural influence to be the strongest.

Of course, I am saying that as a former “cultural Catholic” who (finally) converted to spiritual Catholicism once I decided to return to the Church (the Church did not drive me away-- I did that all by myself). The socio-cultural dynamics in the LDS space are not all that different in my experience.

 

[darcee]

Oh now when I was in the Cambridge Mass ward it was my entire universe except for school. All my friends were in the ward, my kids played with their kids, we were “encouraged” to be very active with the ward. We could come up with really elaborate appoligetics to explain why away horses, steele and chariots.

It seems that in ways branches and wards in the “mission feild” are more issolated in a way then the Utah ones.

-D

 

[Fidelis]

MarkCeras451:

First though, assume we can set a basline definition for being a Christian with three elements: belief in God, belief that Jesus is Lord, and belief in the presence and influence of a Holy Spirit in our lives. That alone puts one ahead of many of the early heresies faced by our Church, and, in some of those formative struggles, the issue was not IF the various factions were “real” Christians but rather what sort they were. With that yardstick in place, Mormons can be considered Christian-- whether one does that depends as much on personal bias and agenda as any theology differences.

Your assumed baseline definition falls apart at the starting blocks. Historical, orthodox Christians don’t believe in just any God-- they believe in a Trinitarian God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Three persons, but only one God. This automatically excludes Mormons as Christians because of their key faith tenet of a multiplicity of Gods; that in fact, the “gods” of this world are separate “personages,” separate “gods.”

In the face of the facts, to attribute a refusal to recognize Mormons as Christians “on personal bias and agenda” is to raise the unwarranted bugaboo of mindless intolerance and to assign bad motives to those who are simply pointing out the obvious.

 

[sek]

Can any informed Catholic tell me if this is a credible video. It is from a fairly Catholic friendly (I exchanged an email with the gentleman) evangelical protestant:

mormonchallenge.com/newmc/view.html

In Christ,

Sean.

 

[rod_of_iron]

boppysbud:

Rod of Iron, let’s cut to the chase.

Are you are you you not the same person who has been posting on the Beleif-Net mormon boards using the same name and philosophy?

That is what I am most interested in finding out, and you have quite charectoristically ignored.

I have never been to the Beleif-Net mormon boards. I have never heard of it until you asked me about posting there.

 

[MarkCeras451]

Where you draw the line depends on when you want to draw it, though-- after Paul? Nicea? Luther?

I am well familiar with the concept of a Triune God, and struggle with it constantly-- but since, as my pastor is fond of saying, St. Augustine had an even tougher time with it, I don’t feel so inadequate. My deliberately low bar covers the essentials-- those who profess Jesus as Lord and accept the Holy Spirit into their lives deserve, I believe, our consideration as brothers and sisters in a Christ-centered life. Especially if, as most Mormons that I know do (and that’s half my social circle), they are truly living it.

The “bugaboos” are automatically raised when one’s definition of who “can” and “can’t” be a Christian moves away from who shares what’s in our hearts and towards who we think can join our club.

 

[rod_of_iron]

Marauder:

I’m not attacking you just asking, which of the non-LDS “Mormon” churches are you a member of, the one that goes by the name “Reformed” or another one. All of them claim to be the true church set up by Joseph Smith.

Do you always ask questions by calling someone a liar first? If you do, you must not be very popular. How can calling someone a liar be seen as anything but an attack upon them?

Also, what “Mormon” church goes by the name “Reformed”? You are showing your lack of knowledge about the different sects that trace their authority through Joseph Smith. I was a member of Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints until 1985, the year that the RLDS voted in favor of a so-called revelation to ordain women to the priesthood. I am part of what is called “Restorationists”. I prefer the name “Restoration Saints”. We are a continuation of the church that was restored in 1830 and reorganized in 1860. Any church can claim to be the church that was restored through Joseph Smith, but if the church’s doctrines and beliefs are different than the original, that church cannot be the original church.

Marauder:

There was a scout in my troop that was part of the Reformed branch.

Are you referring to the Reorganized Church?