Mormonism...Christian or Cult?

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When I became a Christian at the age of 13 and joined the Presbyterian Church at age fifteen I tried my best to follow the teachings of Jesus found in the Bible. When I became Mormon at the age of 18 no one told me to stop following the teachings of Jesus found in the Bible. Yes, there were additional teachings not found in the Bible, but none that encouraged me to stop living a Christian life. I did not stop being a Christian when I became a Mormon even though some of my other beliefs may have been in error.
 
Casen,

You misunderstand. Most Protestant groups believe the same thing about the nature of Jesus (that he is both 100% God and 100% man at the same time) that Catholics do. Therefore they are also Christian. I think it is not possible however, to reject the divinity of Jesus Christ and still be Christian. To just follow his teachings does not make one Christian. The belief that Jesus is God (the 2nd person of the Holy Trinity) is a pre-requisite belief one must hold in order to be Christian. It is that belief that sets Christianity apart from all other religions of the world. No other religion makes the claim that God Himself became human and dwelt among us. Only Christianity professes this. It is fundamental. Without believing this, I believe one disqualifies oneself from being Christian.

The problem arises because of the differences in the perception of what “Christian” means. You can’t simply say “I follow the teachings of Jesus, therefore I’m Christian” without first believing that Jesus is God. Afterall, one of the teachings of Jesus (as revealed through His Church) is that He is indeed God. So I would argue that you could not fully “follow the teachings of Jesus” without believing in His dvinity because that too is a teaching of Jesus.

It is not enough to lead a good life and bear good fruit. That indeed would be “Christian-like”. But to be truly Christian requires a fundamental belief that Christ is indeed God in the flesh.

BigJack
 
Searcher,

You did stop being a Christian when you became Mormon. Not because you stopped being “Christ-like” with your actions. Indeed I’m sure your life likely reflects many Christian values. You stopped being Christian because you stopped beliving the truths about the nature of who Jesus Christ is that have been revealed to the faithful by God. We can’t just change truth to fit what we would like it to be or what we think it is. In this case, the truth we are referring to is the truth about the nature of Christ. You cannot change that particular truth and still be Christian. To hold to a belief that Jesus is not God is contrary to the very essesnce of Christianity.

I suppose the whole arguement (as most do), boils down to the question, “Who has authority to determine what truth is?” I would suggest you continue to search and you will discover that that authority lies with the Church that Jesus Christ established as the “pillar and foundation of truth”.

BigJack
 
I understood that the LDS Church has an almost schismatic view of Jesus and His human nature…am I wrong?It is supposedly one of the reasons why the religious art of the LDS church emphasises the physicality of Jesus - very broad chested, kind of a ‘pin up’ kind of guy…
 
BigJack:

Actually, LDS do indeed believe Jesus is 100% God and 100% man. We don’t reject the divinity of Jesus Christ as you suggested and our position on the trinity is not so different from the Catholic position.

We believe that Jesus created the earth, is our Savior and Redeemer, is our Leader and our King. We pray and worship in Jesus name and he is the very center of our faith and the head of our Church. I submit that makes us Christian.
 
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BigJack1:
Searcher,

You stopped being Christian because you stopped beliving the truths about the nature of who Jesus Christ is that have been revealed to the faithful by God.
BigJack
Hi Big Jack

Just so I am on the same page with you regarding the above statement. Could you please give me the scripture that tells us that we have to believe that Heavenly Father, Our Lord and the Holy Ghost have to take on a particular form for us to be called a Christian.

Thanks
Paul
 
LSK said: I understood that the LDS Church has an almost schismatic view of Jesus and His human nature…am I wrong?It is supposedly one of the reasons why the religious art of the LDS church emphasises the physicality of Jesus - very broad chested, kind of a ‘pin up’ kind of guy…

I’ve never heard that before. LDS certainly believe Jesus is God. I did hear one LDS artist comment that he finds much of the artistic paintings of Jesus to depict him as overly feminine and sort of weak and frail looking so he tries to portray him in a strong masculine manner. I kind of prefer that image myself but that’s just artistic interpretation and I don’t think it’s at all an attempt to deemphasize his divine nature.
 
Paul G,

You won’t find in the pages of scripture the definition for Christianity nor will you find explicitly in scripture many other things that are to be held as true by the faithful as the Bible is not the sole rule of faith. It is the Church that is the pillar and foundation of truth and as such, we are to believe what it teaches. Therefore, if one believes things about the nature of Christ that are contrary to the teachings of the infallible Church established by Christ, then it would be difficult for one to be called Christian.

BigJack
 
Casen,

You say that the Mormon position on the Trinity is “not so different” than the Catholic position. Can you explain what the Mormon position on the Trinity is? It’s the “not so different” part that concerns me. If it is at all different, then the Mormon part that is different is error. To the extent the positions agree, the Mormon position would be true, but to the extent the positions disagree, the Mormon position must be in error. There can only be one truth and only one authority to determine what that truth is. It is my understanding that Mormons believe that the authority went into apostasy very early on and the authority was not restored until the 1800s. I choose to believe Jesus when he promised to send the Holy Spirit to guide His Church into all truth so that such apostasy could not have occured. I believe Him when He promised that the gates of hell would not prevail against his Church. Therefore, the one he established and the one that has existed in unbroken succession since its establishment, the Catholic Church, must be the authority that we are to adhere to.

BigJack
 
BigJack

We can agree that authority is not in the scriptures. However, it does tell us of the things of the spirit and our position in it.

We both claim authority to act in our Father in Heaven’s name. We both claim to have the truth. One of us has a little more than the other. On this we can agree to disagree.

Paul
 
Paul G,

I suppose that’s really what the whole thing boils down to. Which Church, LDS or Catholic, has the authority to teach the faithful what the truth is. It can be one or the other or neither, but it cannot be both. Until one of us becomes convinced that the other side is more credible, we will indeed have to agree to disagree. All I can say is that we have to rely on the evidence. The evidence for Catholicism is greater than for any other religion. There is no need to launch into evidence on this forum, but a careful review of the history makes it very difficult to come to any other conclusion than the Catholic Church being the authority established by Christ. I know nothing I say in this post is going to convince you of that, but I pray that you will look for truth with an objective, open mind.

God Bless,
BigJack
 
Thanks Bigjack

I appreciate your words and faithfulness to your believes. I have respect for the Catholic Church and its priesthood. We have a monastery close by to where I live, and have attended many masses there while studying music. It is a beautiful ceremony and celebration of Christ.

I try (a life long task) to follow the example of our Savoir, and as best I can pattern my attitudes toward others as He would have me do (not always successful). I do believe that I have an open mind, and not dogmatic to dismiss things that may have merit. It is not appropriate here to discuss the reasons why I chose to follow the Savoir as a LDS. However, I believe that our Father in Heaven guides our life through the promptings of the Holy Ghost, if we will listen. Where the Spirit leads I will follow.

Paul
 
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Casen:
BigJack:

Actually, LDS do indeed believe Jesus is 100% God and 100% man. We don’t reject the divinity of Jesus Christ as you suggested and our position on the trinity is not so different from the Catholic position.

We believe that Jesus created the earth, is our Savior and Redeemer, is our Leader and our King. We pray and worship in Jesus name and he is the very center of our faith and the head of our Church. I submit that makes us Christian.
I agree with this statement. As an ex-LDS I don’t feel like I’m suddenly praying to a different God now that I’m Catholic. There is a slight difference but not enough to warrant all this hubbub.
 
Tmaque,

The point is that there is a difference (however small you may say it is. Small is a relative term by the way. What you may deem small, I may deem extremely large) in the Catholic and LDS views of the Holy Trinity and of Christ Himself. Both positions cannot contain the fullness of the truth (while both may certainly hold elements of the truth, only one, or neither can have the fullness of the truth). Either you believe the Catholic Church’s position on the nature of Jesus or you believe that the Church went off into apostasy (making Jesus out to be a liar) very early on and then resurfacing in the 1800s and somehow keep from going off into apostasy again. If you believe in the apostasy thoeory, then you buy that the church that resurfaced in the 1800s is the true church and therefore whatever it teaches about the nature of Jesus must contain the fullness of the truth. Based on the evidence, I prefer to believe in the former.

I’ll give the LDS church much credit though. At least they acknowlegde a need to be conncected to Jesus from the very begining because they understand that conncection is needed in order to validly claim to be able to teach via Jesus’ authority. Mainstream Protestantism doesn’t get this concept. They make no attempt to establish a link between Jesus, the apostles, and their own churches. They just tend to make Jesus whatever they want him to be. The LDS church does understand that in order to have true authority, it must be the church established by Christ. Their only problem is the evidence they provide to establish this link pales in comparison to the Catholic evidence to that link.

BigJack
 
Where would Hillaire Belloc place the LDS church in the pantheon of heretics?
 
Jo's_Dad:
What does it matter?

The reason there are so many blue cars on the road today is because not everyone likes green. No one church is truely better or worse than any other once you get right down to it and no one church is right for everyone.

I have attended many denominations and they all say the same thing “We’re the ONE true church”. Baloney.

Does Jesus not say in Matthew 18:20 “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them”?

He dosen’t say two or three Baptists, or Catholics, or Mormons… he say’s two or three… PERIOD. The rest is just case of “Daddy loves me best”.

Just love one another, keep God’s commandments and teach others to do the same. Find YOUR faith in God and then find the church that sustains and fulfils that faith, and just respect the choice that other good Christians have made even though you may not agree with the teachings of that church. The rest is semantics.

Oh, and that whole thing about not being able to leave the LDS Church? Wrong. When I left, it was nothing more than “Well, sorry to see you go and hope you change your mind someday”.
Of course it matters. You’re talking about salvation of your soul. Does it matter if your soul gets saved or not? Of course it does. Every sheep counts says Jesus right. He would leave the 99 and find the 1 lost sheep. Your use of Matt 18 is pretty much a way of chopping the bible and applying that certain passage to your own personal beliefs. So what are we suppose to do when the church we are in now suddenly changes it position on principles of faith and morals which don’t suite our own principles? Are we suppose to leave and find another church that could tickle our ears? If that’s the case then we all will be hopping from one church to the other or maybe found our own church which basically happened in the Protestant churches.

This is not what Jesus wanted. He wanted for us to all be one. He founded one Church. The very Church who could speak for HIM infallibly until he comes back. God never left us orphans. He left HIS very own bride to guide and nurture us.
 
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Tmaque:
BJ, Thanks for telling me what I believe, I didn’t know I believed that about LDS.

I am a Catholic and frankly I’m sick of people saying the LDS Church is a cult. It’s simply ridiculous and only shows a persons ignorance. I also get tired of the “Christian or not” debate. Do LDS fall into the traditional category of Christian? No, they do not mainly because they deny the Blessed Trinity and they do not worship Jesus. But, they DO believe that Jesus Christ is the Saviour. Frankly, I think if a person believes Christ died for their sins then they can claim to be Christian. But, I can certainly understand why someone else would say they are not Christian.
That is ridiculous. Not that they believe that Jesus Christ is their savior. He certainly would like to be, all right. But it is not that simple just to say they reject the trinity and so what. If they reject the Trinitarian aspect of Christ, the person they see as their savior is simply not existent.The word Trinity is more than semantics, you see. People have gone to their death against pagan and heretical cults that rejected the Trinity. An integral aspect to recognizing Christ and fully recognizing and working within the Spirit of Christ is to be able to recognize the Trinity. Say I have a son who is a medical emergency doctor and I tell my neighbor the doctor is my beloved son and he says absolutely not. However he believes my son is a great doctor. The neighbor gets run over by a car but he refuses to call my son for help because my son’s name is the same as mine in the phone book and he has rejected me as the real parent- therefore he decides that is not the same doctor. He then embarks on a search through the phone book for the name he thinks it should be and bleeds to death in the meanwhile. well, you get the point. It’s a simplistic, very simplistic answer, but the point is without the Father, the Spirit and the Son together, the contact info is a bit different.
 
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LSK:
I understood that the LDS Church has an almost schismatic view of Jesus and His human nature…am I wrong?It is supposedly one of the reasons why the religious art of the LDS church emphasises the physicality of Jesus - very broad chested, kind of a ‘pin up’ kind of guy…
Just what I said in an earlier post. My cousin was used as a model for an LDS artist painting Jesus holding a lamb. I was in the Catholic chapel at Mercy Hospital, Sacramento and saw the same painting at the front of the chapel. I recognized it because the same painting hangs in our home. My husband is Catholic and he recognized my cousin, and thought it was great that the Catholic church was using a Mormon painting in their chapel.
You just don’t realize the similarities between us. I attend Mass and Sacrament meeting every Sunday and my husband does too. We both notice that the basics are very much the same in each church. Sometimes it is almost like the priest read the same book to prepare his gospel as the persons giving the talks in Sacrament meeting. Strange, could it possibly be that they read the Bible? Wow! Just imagine! God speaks to all of his children and he loves them equally. Jesus Christ is God the same as God the Father is God and the Holy Spirit is the messenger and also God. They make up the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit which is the Godhead. That is so far fetched for you to believe that you call it a mystery. I know my Heavenly Father and He knows my name and loves me as His child. If you do not believe in the same Jesus Christ and God the Father that I believe in then I am truely sorry for you. But, you have His picture in your Mercy Chapel in Sacramento, California. Check it out if any of you live near there. 👍 BJ
 
BJ Colbert:
Mom of 5:
BDawg,
You have Never read anything anti-Catholic??? Your religion is based on rejecting the Catholic church. You wouldn’t have a religion if it were not for ours!!!

Yes, your church is hard to leave…my husband was bombarded for several years until he simply wrote his letter and told them not to contact him again. He got a letter back saying that they would not contact him “for now”. They have started again even though most know that he is Catholic.

When Catholics “leave” the church, they can return anytime they want. Go to the priest, recieve sacrament of penance, NO re-baptism or re-confirmation.

My Catholic husband, had a really difficult time returning after divorce, he was told his sins were never to be forgiven. Fortunately after 3 years we found a priest who had us pay $150.00 and send some paperwork to a Tribunal, who called and asked some questions and then sent a retired priest to our home. He had to take several smoking breaks but eventually got to the point of forgiving my husband by having him say a bunch of Hail Marys and Glory Bees. Finally after 25 years of being divorced from his first wife he can take communion again and also confession. No, he did not have to be re-baptized, he just had to find the right priest to forgive him. 5 priests told him he had better have someone nearby when he was dying to call a priest for death bed repentance, as that was the only way for him to be forgiven.
Obviously money talks, also, I think the fact that he was molested and raped in the Catholic orphanage when he was a small boy age 6 and throughout his childhood with Catholic foster homes, might have had something to do with them forgiving him. My husband suffered greatly over this and the divorce was not his fault.
What do you think? Do you think this sounds easy to get back in the good graces of the Catholic Church?
😦
I kind of have a tendancy to get carried away like you do when defending my faith. Please don’t feel attacked, I understand you are only trying to tell the truth as you know it. Obviously you have come in contact with some very tenacious LDS. Please show them your post and you will never hear from them again. Your husband should have gone to his Bishop or Stake president and asked to be excommunicated, then they will never contact him.
I know, because I wanted them to contact me and they didn’t for 20 years. I had to go to them when I was ready to come back.

Oh for the Kolob guy, the scripture you reference, says Kolob is a star very near where God is, it does not say He lives there. I am not going to write out all of those verses, as I don’t have time. They are located in the Pearl of Great Price, the book of Abraham and you have told the verses, so you write them out if you want to.
The Pearl of Great Price is one of the four standard works of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints, and we believe the book of Abraham is a translation of some ancient records that had come from the catacombs of Egypt and are the writings of Abraham while he was in Egypt, called the Book of Abraham, written by his own hand, upon papyrus. That is all I know personally about Kolob.

Just more fodder for you to joke about, but think how you feel when someone says you worship Mary, or something worse? And you know it is not true and you love God so much, and no one believes you do, they keep telling you that you don’t. It is very painful and frustrating to be told over and over that you are not Christian when you know you are.
So with all of that, I will just say believe in whatever you think will get you to Heaven, be it Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Budha or Mary. I know that my Savior is Jesus Christ, and none other.

🙂 BJ
Sorry- but you do not operate on good faith here. Your diatribe on the marriage issue is utter nonsense. That is not how these things are done in the Church sorry. My husband also got an annulment in the Church and I am a member of the annulment tribunal. You are deliberately spreading false info.
 
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Tmaque:
How does labeling LDS as non-Christian help us as Catholics? It doesn’t. Do you think LDS think they are not Christian? On the contrary, they think they demonstrate true Christianity better than any other group. They love Christ and are devoted to him. All this sort of labeling does is to create a distance between us and them as children of God. It’s absolutely pointless and plays to the very worst part of human nature. It makes us feel self-righteous and indignant toward others. We should instead focus on demonstrating our Christianity rather than simply telling others they are wrong by labeling them non-Christian. How do you feel when some evangelical says the Catholic Church is a cult? All that does is make it harder for them to reach you. So, why do we as Catholics insist on doing the same sort of thing to LDS? All that does is drive them further away from the Church. And to drive someone further from the Church is just about the most Un-Christian thing we can do.
No, Todd I think you are wrong. If the Mormons tell us their Trinity is the same as ours, we have to refute it. If they disavow the Trinity, then they disavow the revealed Christ. And we have to tell them/ If they disavow the revealed Christ, Todd, they cannot be christian and we have to tell them. To go around allowing constant serious error is the most uncharitable behavior. Do you really think that if LDS makes the claim that God was man first then became God, it would be charitable to say oh how great- you have a trinity like ours? Truth hurts sometimes. But there is nothing charitable in not refuting false beliefs. If they claim to have a God like ours-well we know that God is infinite and eternal and did not create himself because he does not have a beginning and an end. But to claim that he was man first and then progressed to God is to say God has a beginning- a starting point. This defies all reason and logic and it also completely skews who the second person of the trinity, Jesus, is. It makes him a completely different person than he is. Therefore how could they possibly love him with all their hearts? Do you see that just doesn’t make sense? How is it charitable at all to encourage someone in self deception injurious to their soul?
 
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