Mormon Confusion

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I personally don’t have a religious prefrence, but I have been reading up on mormon doctrine and would like to know why they aren’t called christians? The way I see it all religions have similarities with all other religions. And in christian religions Jesus Christ is the focus of their religion(s). Now according to most dictionaries being a christian is defined by professing a belief in jesus christ and following his teachings as recorded in the bible. Now to me this would easily qualify mormons as christians. I mean just because there are many differences in doctrine between catholics and protestants they aren’t saying one another isn’t christian.
 
Dear friend, I do have a book from a Christian bookstore from ages ago, asking " Is Mormonism Christian" and other books explaining where Mormon issues were deceptive, but I’d have to get them out from one of my boxes and check them again.

I did seriously check out Mormonism and read the book of Mormon, but it led me straight back to the Catholic Church after 10 years away. I do need to make my husband lunch and for us to go shopping. It’s Monday afternoon here, nearly 12.30pm, so hopefully can get back to you at a later time if others haven’t replied.

God bless you in your search, and may God lead you to His truth and His true church.

Bless you, Trishie:)
 
Well thank you ma’m. The problem I’m having in learing about the mormons is that either I’m getting infromation from ex mormons who think because they left their church and now fight against it that they will be it’s downfall. And that’s true with all religions, but i’m finding that out of all the “apostates” from the various religions, none fight harder against their former religion than the ex mormons. Why? And another thought I’ve had about Joseph Smith and the mormon’s doctrines is that he would have had to be a master theologan to come up with the doctrines and policy’s of their church. I recently read about their kurtland temple and how certain “keys” were restored. I mean this guy was covering his tracks! to have biblical prophets come back to restore these certain preisthood keys is an amazingly thorough way to create a church. And in learning of their melchizedek preisthood which I have come to find out that no other church has, but is found in the bible in Heb. 5-7 melchizedek was a very improtant fella, and yet so little is known about him. I’m just saying that if the mormons are truly that false they have made it most difficult to expose them. The mormons are so facinating one of the most interesting religions I have looked into.
 
I think it depends on who that Jesus Christ is. Is he just “a” god–one of many? Mormons believe so. They also believe that their Jesus was just a man and a polygamist as well before he earned the right to be a god–not by dying on the cross, but by shedding His blood in the Garden and He founded two churches–one in Jerusalem and one in the Americas (and failed to keep both of them true.) From what I can tell, the Mormon Jesus is not the same as the Christian Jesus who Christians worship as one in being with the Father. Christians believe Father, Son, and Holy Spirit make up one God while Mormons believe they are separate gods. The Mormon Heavenly Father is not the same as the Christian God
 
jbrdu08 said:
I personally don’t have a religious prefrence, but I have been reading up on mormon doctrine and would like to know why they aren’t called christians? The way I see it all religions have similarities with all other religions. And in christian religions Jesus Christ is the focus of their religion(s). Now according to most dictionaries being a christian is defined by professing a belief in jesus christ and following his teachings as recorded in the bible. Now to me this would easily qualify mormons as christians. I mean just because there are many differences in doctrine between catholics and protestants they aren’t saying one another isn’t christian.
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Great question jb. The most basic question about any religion is to ask what its conception of deity is.

Christianity: There is one God who is a different kind of being than we are. God is the creator, we are creations, God is independent, we are dependent, God is infinite, we are finite, and so on.

Mormonism: there are an innumerable number of gods. Heavenly father is a god who was once a man on an earth like this one, and he progressed to his godhood just as we humans can also become gods. Gods are humans all grown up, so to speak, become gods based on pre-existing rules of the universe.

From this basic distinction comes many other theological differences, but this one is the greatest, and in my opinion, the deepest. I hope that helps. If you need sources, I am happy to provide them from materials published by the LDS church.
 
Tsuzuki said:
Mormons are Christian. But there is no concept of heresy in Mormonism, so individual Mormons can get away with a lot of variation in belief, including many leaders in the church, which tends to confuse the matter to outsiders (and some insiders).
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No concept of orthodoxy either.

(I’m not convinced the OP is not a Mormon.)
 
Tsuzuki said:
Mormons are Christian. But there is no concept of heresy in Mormonism, so individual Mormons can get away with a lot of variation in belief, including many leaders in the church, which tends to confuse the matter to outsiders (and some insiders).
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tsuzuki,

Really? No heresy? So if you were to start a society to worship heavenly mother you don’t think you’d run into problems?
 
To prehaps correct AMDGtoo. I have found no evidence to believe that that the mormon jesus was a polygamist. In fact from what I have learned that like catholics they are unsure if he was married or not. And you mentioned the him shedding his blood in the garden of gethsemane and him dying on the cross does one event have more importance than the other? To my understanding they were all imparitive parts to his overall mission.
And didn’t jesus say that there are other sheep which I have which are not of this fold, and they shall be brought into this fold and there shall be one fold and one shepard. Could this be mentioning the mormon’s BoM? And if not what did he mean by that? And what if there is the trinity which is not mentioned in the bible why would jesus pray to himself? and at his baptism didn’t the father say this is my beloved son who I am well pleased? Where did the term trinity come from? Couldn’t they be united in perpose rather than in body?
And from my research mormons do indeed believe in many gods, but only worship one- god the father. So they aren’t polytheists. Are aren’t christians encoraged to be like jesus? and if the trinity is one person, isn’t that like saying be like god? Why would it be bad to aspire to be like god? To become like him would be a good thing right? After all god is good. I’m sorry I have so many questions. Thanks I hope for a reply.
 
RebeccaJ said:
No concept of orthodoxy either.

(I’m not convinced the OP is not a Mormon.)
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Drat you beat me too it. I was looking at the OP’s posts when I came back you said this. Now you are first and I am second?😦
 
jbrdu08 said:
To prehaps correct AMDGtoo. I have found no evidence to believe that that the mormon jesus was a polygamist. In fact from what I have learned that like catholics they are unsure if he was married or not. And you mentioned the him shedding his blood in the garden of gethsemane and him dying on the cross does one event have more importance than the other? To my understanding they were all imparitive parts to his overall mission.
And didn’t jesus say that there are other sheep which I have which are not of this fold, and they shall be brought into this fold and there shall be one fold and one shepard. Could this be mentioning the mormon’s BoM? And if not what did he mean by that? And what if there is the trinity which is not mentioned in the bible why would jesus pray to himself? and at his baptism didn’t the father say this is my beloved son who I am well pleased? Where did the term trinity come from? Couldn’t they be united in perpose rather than in body?
And from my research mormons do indeed believe in many gods, but only worship one- god the father. So they aren’t polytheists. Are aren’t christians encoraged to be like jesus? and if the trinity is one person, isn’t that like saying be like god? Why would it be bad to aspire to be like god? To become like him would be a good thing right? After all god is good. I’m sorry I have so many questions. Thanks I hope for a reply.
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jb,

If you’re a Mormon, just say so from the get-go. It gives you much more credibility.

If you don’t see a problem with positing the existence of innumerable number of gods, then you don’t ‘get’ Christianity. Besides, I should point out, Mormons do in fact worship more than one God. They worship both the Father and the Son (simply type in ‘worship Christ’ to the lds.org search engine and you’ll see that I’m right). What’s more, positing that these gods are actually the same kind of beings as we are is a radical leap from orthodox Christianity which teaches taht God is a different kind of being than we are- namely, truly infinite (the mormon heavenly father who is a limited being is not).
 
nebula said:
tsuzuki,

Really? No heresy? So if you were to start a society to worship heavenly mother you don’t think you’d run into problems?
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Wasn’t there someone, a woman, IIRC that got in trouble for just this kind of thing.? Was it on TV?
 
zaffiroborant said:
Wasn’t there someone, a woman, IIRC that got in trouble for just this kind of thing.? Was it on TV?
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Yup, she got excommunicated. Another woman professor got excommunicated for agitating to give women the priesthood despite her desire to remain LDS. People do in fact get excommunicated for ‘heresy’ no matter what you want to call it. There is an orthodoxy in Mormonism, although it’s certainly more nebulous than in, say the RCC because of the Mormon aversion to professional theology, but it does exist and straying too far does result in punishment if you are vocal in your views. Saying that Mormonism has no boundaries makes no sense, otherwise who is to say what is ‘Mormon’ and what isn’t? Go into a temple recommend interview, tell them that you agree with the prophet some of hte time, that you agree with the BoM but not the D&C and see if you get a temple recommend.
 
Tsuzuki said:
Mormons are Christian. But there is no concept of heresy in Mormonism, so individual Mormons can get away with a lot of variation in belief, including many leaders in the church, which tends to confuse the matter to outsiders (and some insiders).
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Thats every interesting doesn’t one of the your articles of faith say if there is anything good we seek after these things? But there must be a wrong way of thinking to you mormons if your are one, I think the fact that there is the existence of mormon splinter groups proves that. I mean you do excomunicate members who stray from your teachings. As does most churches. I belive there was one instance in the bible of a man who was teaching or healing or something in Jesus’s name and when the apostle found out about it they wanted to rough him up so to speak, but Jesus said the man was not against them he was for them. That tells me there is good and truth in all christian religions.
 
jbrdu08 said:
To prehaps correct AMDGtoo. I have found no evidence to believe that that the mormon jesus was a polygamist. In fact from what I have learned that like catholics they are unsure if he was married or not. And you mentioned the him shedding his blood in the garden of gethsemane and him dying on the cross does one event have more importance than the other? To my understanding they were all imparitive parts to his overall mission.
And didn’t jesus say that there are other sheep which I have which are not of this fold, and they shall be brought into this fold and there shall be one fold and one shepard. Could this be mentioning the mormon’s BoM? And if not what did he mean by that? And what if there is the trinity which is not mentioned in the bible why would jesus pray to himself? and at his baptism didn’t the father say this is my beloved son who I am well pleased? Where did the term trinity come from? Couldn’t they be united in perpose rather than in body?
And from my research mormons do indeed believe in many gods, but only worship one- god the father. So they aren’t polytheists. Are aren’t christians encoraged to be like jesus? and if the trinity is one person, isn’t that like saying be like god? Why would it be bad to aspire to be like god? To become like him would be a good thing right? After all god is good. I’m sorry I have so many questions. Thanks I hope for a reply.
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This whole post shows not research but an LDS “theological” (for lack of a better word) view point.

And by the way Catholics are not unsure about Christ being married just as they are not unsure about Mary’s perpetual virginity. The Church is quite clear in it’s teachings, no jello here.
 
Tsuzuki said:
Mormons are Christian. But there is no concept of heresy in Mormonism, so individual Mormons can get away with a lot of variation in belief, including many leaders in the church, which tends to confuse the matter to outsiders (and some insiders).
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I must (strongly?) disagree. Their concept of a “christ” is vastly, and fundamentally different from all other concepts of Jesus Christ. He did not always exist. He was not always Christ. He was “elevated” to his status. This is a different christ. They (mis)use His name, attempting to lure true Christians away from the revealed truth. They are permitted to use what we would call “deception” in the furtherance of their beliefs. Their “prophet” Joseph Smith was self-proclaimed, and had many personal and moral crises in his life. He was a troubled man.

We worship a different God than that of the Mormons. Their god did not always exist, was preceded by an infinite number of other gods, did not pre-date all matter, but rather co-existed with it. There are other fundamental differences as well. I’m sorry, but this is clearly a different god.

The BOM is backed up by exactly zero physical evidence. Notice that there are no tours or pilgrimages to the Mormon “holy lands”. No one knows where, or if, they are. You must blindly accept the word of one troubled man.
 
Well I will come clean so to speak. I am not a mormon I have been raised in a mormon community where my parents where of no particular religion, so naturally I have many friends that are mormons. Now that I have moved out and am preparing to continue university I have begun to express interest in different religions. And so having many mormon friends and attended many many of their services I am naturally compairing other religions to what I know about the mormons.
 
jbrdu08 said:
Well I will come clean so to speak. I am not a mormon I have been raised in a mormon community where my parents where of no particular religion, so naturally I have many friends that are mormons. Now that I have moved out and am preparing to continue university I have begun to express interest in different religions. And so having many mormon friends and attended many many of their services I am naturally compairing other religions to what I know about the mormons.
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Okay, fair enough jb. I hope you get from this thread that there are fundamental differences between orthodoxy and Mormonism that you must grapple with. They are not superficial differences. If you disbelieve what I say, get a Gospel Principles manual and read it from cover to cover, and you will see in the last chapters exactly waht I am talking about- heavenly father, once a man just as men on this earth, exalted to be a god. Let me ask you, where did the rules come from by which heavenly father became a god? In Christianity, God is the author of all the rules of the cosmos, He is not their subject.
 
jbrdu08 said:
To prehaps correct AMDGtoo. I have found no evidence to believe that that the mormon jesus was a polygamist. In fact from what I have learned that like catholics they are unsure if he was married or not. And you mentioned the him shedding his blood in the garden of gethsemane and him dying on the cross does one event have more importance than the other? To my understanding they were all imparitive parts to his overall mission.
And didn’t jesus say that there are other sheep which I have which are not of this fold, and they shall be brought into this fold and there shall be one fold and one shepard. Could this be mentioning the mormon’s BoM? And if not what did he mean by that? And what if there is the trinity which is not mentioned in the bible why would jesus pray to himself? and at his baptism didn’t the father say this is my beloved son who I am well pleased? Where did the term trinity come from? Couldn’t they be united in perpose rather than in body?
And from my research mormons do indeed believe in many gods, but only worship one- god the father. So they aren’t polytheists. Are aren’t christians encoraged to be like jesus? and if the trinity is one person, isn’t that like saying be like god? Why would it be bad to aspire to be like god? To become like him would be a good thing right? After all god is good. I’m sorry I have so many questions. Thanks I hope for a reply.
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well, for not being a mormon you sure have a lot of mormon beliefs, or viewpoints

The Trinity did not evolve or come about.

Catholics have no confusion about Jesus being married. To clear it up for you, He wasn’t.

I recommend C. S. Lewis “Mere Christianity”, he explains basic Christian doctrines, including the Trinity, quite well.
 
Tsuzuki said:
As long as I don’t try to usurp the teaching authority of the church, I can believe and say whatever I want. Where people get in trouble is when they try to push it as church doctrine. People get away with far more in magazines like Sunstone than they don’t.
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tsuzuki,

So there is a standard and there are lines, it’s a matter of not being too ‘public’ with them…
 
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