Would it be simple to convert to a Mormon?

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Rv_Cain_Spencer

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I would like to ask this question just to see the depths of change one would have to go through in order to convert to mormonism.

Would it be easy to convert from Catholic to Mormon?
 
I think you are asking the wrong question. A more comprehensible question might be: “Is it simple to convert from Mormon to Catholic?” That is a question that we here could understand.
 
Rv_Cain_Spencer said:
I would like to ask this question just to see the depths of change one would have to go through in order to convert to mormonism.

Would it be easy to convert from Catholic to Mormon?
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Well, for starters you would have to give up being a Christian. Mormons do not believe in Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity in a properly formed manner.

Why in the world would anyone even want to do such a thing anyway? :confused:

~Liza
 
2 directions

From no religion to the empty Cross, to the Crucifix unto death, into life
Or
From the Crucifix, to the empty Cross, to no Cross at all unto death, into hell

Catholics have to enter into the Crucifixion of Christ, the death of Christ in order to be raised in Christ.

Mormons have no conception of this, no belief in Trinity to help them with this, they wait at the empty tomb for the risen Christ to have the joy, avoiding the pain of their own sin. You cannot enter heaven that way. Because they believe in the power of self through works it would be hard for a learned Catholic to become LDS. They would have to deny Christ as their everything thus they would be entering into a type of death that the Scriptures speak about in volumes.

The death that turns one away from God, the death that took our first parents away from Gods grace into their own. So without the One True God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, (Trinity) One God throughout all of eternity you do die a death of separation from God. I am one who has traveled from the Mormon Religion the empty Cross, to know religion, to the Cross, unto the Crucifix, with the Grace of God I will enter the Cross, a Death , to the other side of the Crucifix which is Heaven, where its all about God forever. Never about what I can do…never about me…rather all about Jesus
www.utahmission.com
www.chooseyourcross.com
 
Yes, it is a different religion altogether. Not of the same vine.
 
I am a Catholic, it would be a sin to do what you are speaking about. As a Catholic I understand that one has to turn to Jesus in order to realize Heaven. The thief on the Cross is one of my favorite reads, the Prodigal son is me. It is pretty clear in the Scriptures that one has to turn to Jesus, the One True God. I could not judge a single soul as I have to keep sight on my own. But I do know what our Catholic faith teaches and I have to rely on it when helping others find Christ. It may be my writing skills that I lack, and words have to be taken seriously, with that in mind God bless you for the correction as to the meaning conveyed.

In Christ
Rich
www.utahmission.com
 
RebeccaJ said:
Yes, it is a different religion altogether. Not of the same vine.
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Amen, that is how I see it.
lizaanne said:
Well, for starters you would have to give up being a Christian. Mormons do not believe in Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity in a properly formed manner.

Why in the world would anyone even want to do such a thing anyway? :confused:

~Liza
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I would never actually do it!
catholic-rcia said:
I am a Catholic, it would be a sin to do what you are speaking about. As a Catholic I understand that one has to turn to Jesus in order to realize Heaven. The thief on the Cross is one of my favorite reads, the Prodigal son is me. It is pretty clear in the Scriptures that one has to turn to Jesus, the One True God. I could not judge a single soul as I have to keep sight on my own. But I do know what our Catholic faith teaches and I have to rely on it when helping others find Christ. It may be my writing skills that I lack, and words have to be taken seriously, with that in mind God bless you for the correction as to the meaning conveyed.

In Christ
Rich
www.utahmission.com
Click to expand...
We turn to Christ because he was God; but mormons think he wasn’t. They think that Jesus was another God.
 
From what I’ve read, even some LDS people in powerful positions in the LDS have doubts, however if they follow those thoughts to their logical conclusion and get out of the LDS, they face some difficult problems. First, their reputations are trashed since it is all too common for the Mormons to assume that the person, instead of following his conscience, has committed grievous sin. LDS family and LDS friends often “turn their backs.” Then there is the “coup de grace”–if the ex-Mormon works in a particularly Mormon area, he get’s to find himself without a job courtesy of his Mormon employer. Pretty formidable. And one has to understand that usually the regular Mormon is not allowed to read anything that is not the approved LDS doctrine. They are only supposed to read “Faith-Promoting” articles and books. (They even have their own book stores that sell their own stories of their glorified histories.) Then, the LDS have both “home teachers” and “visiting teachers” visiting member homes and “reporting back” should they notice “problems.” The “cards are stacked against a Mormon conversion”. But nothing is totally impossible.
 
Rv_Cain_Spencer said:
I would like to ask this question just to see the depths of change one would have to go through in order to convert to mormonism.

Would it be easy to convert from Catholic to Mormon?
Click to expand...
Could you be a little more specific as to what it is you’re asking? I currently see your question as multifaceted:
  • How difficult is it for a Catholic to undergo all the motions of conversion to Mormonism (i.e. the actual steps of initiation)?
In this case, it’s very easy to convert to Mormonism. The LDS missionaries only have six discussions with a potential convert concerning LDS doctrine, and the meatier doctrines aren’t taught in these discussions. A potential convert is asked if (s)he would like to be baptized only by the second discussion. If the investigator answers yes, a baptism can be scheduled within the week and the recently baptized can be confirmed the very next day. Compare this to the Catholic modus for conversion which includes a 9 month course called R.C.I.A. Study of more than just the basic creeds and dogma of the Church.
  • How difficult is it for a Catholic to adopt LDS beliefs and/or discard previously held Catholic beliefs?
The answer to this will obviously be relative to the exact person in question. What if the person was a committed, believing Catholic when the LDS missionaries met him or her? I would suspect that the time to switch beliefs would take a relatively long time, whereas the case of an already lapsed Catholic meeting missionaries would likely take far less time. My own conversion went in the opposite direction (from Mormonism to Catholicism). I had already lost faith in the religion of my ancestors prior to ever considering Catholicism, so there wasn’t any doctrinal baggage that I had to deal with. Furthermore I already had intensely studied Catholicism on my own for nearly 3 years prior to approaching R.C.I.A. so I was already certain of my allegiance to the Catholic Church prior to even converting. It’s certainly conceivable that there are Catholic-turned-Mormons out there who were in a similar boat as I: They stopped believing in Catholic teachings prior to finding Mormonism and even gained a testimony of the Book of Mormon and the LDS Church prior to ever once meeting a missionary or ever stepping foot in an LDS meetinghouse.
  • How difficult is it for a Catholic to deal with the break in previous associations due to conversion to the LDS Church?
Again, this will depend on the individual. I would imagine that a person raised in a devoutly and culturally Catholic family such as an Italian, Filipino, or Irish one would have to deal with a great deal of familial guilt for converting, just as us 6th generation Mormons from pioneer stock have to deal with when we leave the LDS faith for another. An individual who was raised in a nominally Catholic household (just as an individual raised in a Jack Mormon home) would likely experience minimal friction.

So to answer your question:

It all depends!
 
What a great and thorough answer to this question!👍
xixxvmcm85 said:
Could you be a little more specific as to what it is you’re asking? I currently see your question as multifaceted
  • How difficult is it for a Catholic to undergo all the motions of conversion to Mormonism (i.e. the actual steps of initiation)?
In this case, it’s very easy to convert to Mormonism. The LDS missionaries only have six discussions with a potential convert concerning LDS doctrine, and the meatier doctrines aren’t taught in these discussions. A potential convert is asked if (s)he would like to be baptized only by the second discussion. If the investigator answers yes, a baptism can be scheduled within the week and the recently baptized can be confirmed the very next day. Compare this to the Catholic modus for conversion which includes a 9 month course called R.C.I.A. Study of more than just the basic creeds and dogma of the Church.
  • How difficult is it for a Catholic to adopt LDS beliefs and/or discard previously held Catholic beliefs?
The answer to this will obviously be relative to the exact person in question. What if the person was a committed, believing Catholic when the LDS missionaries met him or her? I would suspect that the time to switch beliefs would take a relatively long time, whereas the case of an already lapsed Catholic meeting missionaries would likely take far less time. My own conversion went in the opposite direction (from Mormonism to Catholicism). I had already lost faith in the religion of my ancestors prior to ever considering Catholicism, so there wasn’t any doctrinal baggage that I had to deal with. Furthermore I already had intensely studied Catholicism on my own for nearly 3 years prior to approaching R.C.I.A. so I was already certain of my allegiance to the Catholic Church prior to even converting. It’s certainly conceivable that there are Catholic-turned-Mormons out there who were in a similar boat as I: They stopped believing in Catholic teachings prior to finding Mormonism and even gained a testimony of the Book of Mormon and the LDS Church prior to ever once meeting a missionary or ever stepping foot in an LDS meetinghouse.
  • How difficult is it for a Catholic to deal with the break in previous associations due to conversion to the LDS Church?
Again, this will depend on the individual. I would imagine that a person raised in a devoutly and culturally Catholic family such as an Italian, Filipino, or Irish one would have to deal with a great deal of familial guilt for converting, just as us 6th generation Mormons from pioneer stock have to deal with when we leave the LDS faith for another. An individual who was raised in a nominally Catholic household (just as an individual raised in a Jack Mormon home) would likely experience minimal friction.

So to answer your question:

It all depends!
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I think it would depend on your “stage” of life as to how hard it would be to convert to Mormonism. In the 1970’s my 18 year old cousin met and fell in love with a Mormon missionary. She had been raised RC and attended parish schools. I think that young people with little or no education regarding Church history would be easy targets. Without the historical background of the RCC and the understanding that there is no archeological evidence to support Joseph Smith’ s claims people may be swayed. It’s hard for me to imagine any adult person who is RC giving up their love for the Holy Trinity and start baptizing people “by proxy”!
 
Simple? Yes, as in uncomplicated. But no, as in impossible. The most successful way of demonstrating apostasy is not by comparing the LDS Church to the Catholic Church, or to any single church at all. A recent book, written within the least ten years is typical. It was written by Barry Bickmore and called Restoring the Ancient Church. Whenever he did refer to anything distictively Catholic in that book, it was through the lens of a Cardinal Danielou who didn’t sound very reliable to me. But mostly he would just make sweeping statements lumping all of non-LDS Christianity together in agreeing for instance, that all the prophetic and miraculous gifts ended with the Apostolic Age. So here he is, effectively telling his inquiring readers that Catholics no longer believe in miracles or prophesy. It seems to me like one of the bigger problems with the way the Catholic Church gets swept under the rug.

When they don’t do that, its the same old junk they inherited from the Reformation. Find five bad popes out of 263 and wallah…there’s your apostasy. Well, unless you read the Old Testament, where there were totally corrupted priests, God giving the nation to captivity, with a finally politicized Temple named after Herod, and you still have Our Lord calling it His Father’s House during His earthly ministry. Sorry…Catholics know and have been instructed from Holy Scripture that it takes more than personal sin to destroy God’s kingdom. And that analysis is only necessary if we assumed all the historical exaggerations of the Reformers/Restorers was true! The popes are our glory for virtue, wisdom, and holiness! If you can have one bad apostle out of twelve, it sure seems like God’s Church could surive 6 bad popes out of 263!

I did vote for the apostasy answer. If they could demonstrate an apostasy, I would expect that the Catholic Church wasn’t just a little bit wrong, but a lot wrong. My problem with the Reformation would be that they have too much Catholic (apostate) baggage. Mormons don’t have that problem. God forbid, but if I apostasized from the Catholic faith, I could sooner see myself LDS than Protestant.
 
My problem with the Reformation would be that they have too much Catholic (apostate) baggage. Mormons don’t have that problem. God forbid, but if I apostasized from the Catholic faith, I could sooner see myself LDS than Protestant.

You have a much braver soul than I do in that case!:rolleyes:
 
Ugh! It causes me serious consternation to see any Christian talking about converting to Mormonism. I was born into a fourth generation Mormon (LDS) family, and I was a Mormon until I was 35 years old. I graduated from BYU and nearly all of my family (including six of my eight children) are Mormons to this day. I say all that to say this: the LORD that you know, if you have been brought up Baptist, Catholic, or Orthodox is NOT the god who is worshipped in the Mormon Church, and you might not know it until you had been LDS for a year or two!
 
RoryMcKenzie56 said:
Mormons don’t have that problem. God forbid, but if I apostasized from the Catholic faith, I could sooner see myself LDS than Protestant.
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You’d have to forsake the Trinity in order to convert to Mormonism. That is FAR outside of the majority of Protestant denominations. Mormons are a result of Protestantism, particularly sola scriptura. Joseph Smith taking sola scriptura to the absurd; rewriting and forming his own scripture in order match his personal interpretation of the Bible. Mormons are not the solution to Protestantism.
 
kozlosap said:
My problem with the Reformation would be that they have too much Catholic (apostate) baggage. Mormons don’t have that problem. God forbid, but if I apostasized from the Catholic faith, I could sooner see myself LDS than Protestant.

You have a much braver soul than I do in that case!:rolleyes:
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Hi kozlo…

There’s more than one way to look at it. It would be nice to be something familiar. That statement you quoted probably says more about the unlikeliness of my becoming Protestant than the likelihood I could be LDS. I am saying that I think they are more consistent with their apostasy doctrine than the Protestants. I admit I would rather be Protestant than LDS.

Protestants did what the Mormons do. Start new churches. By what authority if you are Protestant? I see the Protestants having grave problems when it comes to apostolic succession. There is an unadmitted discontinuity. The Mormons solve that problem. There is an admitted discontinuity. That kind of stuff. Ecclesiology. There are probably problems with their positive beliefs that I haven’t encountered. I suppose that if I didn’t get this burning bosom from the Book of Mormon, I couldn’t join anyway. (I have never read the book).

So no, I’m not brave. And hopefully not foolish either. I think I am light years from becoming LDS, but I do think the Apostasy doctrine is key. I think there is a place for a distictively Catholic approach to Latter day Saints when it comes to apologetics that begins by honestly and respectfully granting that they are more consistent ecclesiologically than the Protestants. I don’t see how it serves any purpose to tell them how crazy we think they are, how cultish. I don’t think that but even if I did, I’d be quiet about it. Nobody is ever insulted into becoming Catholic.

We should, in my opinion, try to understand what apostasy means before we condemn them for wackiness. It means that if it were true, we shouldn’t expect the Nicene Fathers to have the Holy Ghost leading them. If it is safe to abandon the Catholic Church, it is also safe to abandon the doctrines of the Catholic Church. We have to expect that they will turn doctrine on its ear. And as for weird, we can make fun of them having colonies on the sun or God living on some planet that starts with a K. But to the skeptic, there is much in our own beliefs and practices that can easily be mocked or caricatured too.
 
RebeccaJ said:
You’d have to forsake the Trinity in order to convert to Mormonism. That is FAR outside of the majority of Protestant denominations. Mormons are a result of Protestantism, particularly sola scriptura. Joseph Smith taking sola scriptura to the absurd; rewriting and forming his own scripture in order match his personal interpretation of the Bible. Mormons are not the solution to Protestantism.
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Hi Rebecca J,

I think I address that question in my answer to Kozlo. If there was an apostasy, why would I be concerned to defend the Trinity?
 
Michael_Vernon said:
Ugh! It causes me serious consternation to see any Christian talking about converting to Mormonism. I was born into a fourth generation Mormon (LDS) family, and I was a Mormon until I was 35 years old. I graduated from BYU and nearly all of my family (including six of my eight children) are Mormons to this day. I say all that to say this: the LORD that you know, if you have been brought up Baptist, Catholic, or Orthodox is NOT the god who is worshipped in the Mormon Church, and you might not know it until you had been LDS for a year or two!
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I agree Michael Vernon, but only as a Catholic Christian. If I believed that the Catholic Church could be safely abandoned, as all non-Catholics do, everything seems up for grabs to me. I will admit that I would rather my children, if God forbid they fell away, be Protestant, because at least they have valid baptisms. So I see your point too.

But I think I have the same revulsion to the idea of converting out of the Catholic faith, as you have in converting to the LDS. So I am sure we are both okay.
 
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