huckelberry wrote:As you have pointed out LDS and trad Christian views on the fall are functionally very close together desite the amount of noise LDS make about their version being much better. I can't find that difference.
I think that's extremely well said, huckelberry.
It seems from me, in my own years of study, that Joseph Smith was very poorly catechized in Christian faith, although he was attracted to a number of aspects of it and repelled by others, and some (like infant baptism) that had direct bearing on his own life, he chose to design the way that was most attractive to his own worldview.
In so doing, I believe he misunderstood some aspects of Christian theology which got lost in translation, and nearly two hundred years later have not been remedied.
It's a really interesting hodgepodge he put together, influenced by many quarters, Swedenborgianism, the Anabaptist movement, Jewish mysticism, and so on, but there are many aspects of Mormon theology that claim to be
different from mainstream Christianity, where there is really a distinction without a difference. Unfortunately, the rank and file of LDS membership is completely unaware of this, and continues to parrot things taught to them which only perpetuate misunderstanding between them and other faiths.
I'm frequently amused by things that Joseph Smith apparently chose to "inquire of the Lord" regarding, like, hey, what really happened to the Apostle John? or hey, what about all those Old Testament characters who had multiple wives?
Of all the mysteries of the universe that could have been solved by inquiring of the Lord, those are two that wouldn't have even occurred to me as priorities. And it seems that further inquiry, if real, might have resulted in less confusion, and not more. The resulting theology that sprung out of Joseph Smith's enthusiasm for creating his own faith and tailoring it to his own specific preferences is astonishing in the ways it has put its membership at odds with the greater Christian community simply because Joseph Smith didn't understand the terminology.
(I guess if that first sentence you cited of mine wasn't convoluted enough for you, this one can compete with it.)