Fox Advocacy Group Declares Romney Non-Christian

[_Buffalo]

I know the source, but some may not, so please link to this talk.

And it helps to remember some of the other things this gentleman said.

http://speeches.BYU.edu/reader/reader.php?id=6843

[_Runtu]

I think it's the other way around. The talk about not worshiping Christ was given in 1982. Those lyrics were written at least 10 years earlier.

Here's the difference: the church adopted the hymn and therefore endorsed its content in 1985. McConkie's 1982 talk was never adopted or endorsed by the church.

[_JohnStuartMill]

Mormons declare EVs don’t believe the right thing and will be eternally divided from Heavenly Father and will no longer have families. What an anal, obsessive-compulsive, controlling God, with ego issues. Just the type of fellow to worship.

This is peripheral to the main focus here, and I hate to suddenly break the amicable rapport, but I confess that I just don't understand this issue, which you've raised yet again just now: You seem to think that the default position, before the Mormons came along, was to assume that families would all be together in the eternities, and that the Mormon abruptly declared eternal divorce for husbands and wives unless they complied with Joseph Smith.

But this seems historically untrue. Read Dante's Commedia. There are no family units to be found in it. Not in the Inferno, not in the Purgatorio, and not in the Paradiso. Every soul is punished or purged or blessed in individual isolation. That was the default setting. The Mormons didn't arrive with the bad news of permanent divorce and family break-up unless you toe the line. They arrived with the good news of the possibility that families might remain intact after death.

You're glossing over half a millennium of evolving religious thought. Dante's conception of heaven may have been the "default setting" in the 14th century, but by the time Mormonism was founded, the idea that Christians would be united with their loved ones in the afterlife was already pretty popular. Mormonism wasn't innovative on this score; it merely crystallized a popular religious belief into a core doctrine, in a process similar to its absorption of the ideas of the temperance movement. Your version of history is oblivious to the Protestant Reformation.

[_Sophocles]

For crying out loud, the OP is simply stating the trivial fact that Romney is not likely to raise a lot of money from the same networks as people like Perry and Huckaby because he is not a part of those networks.

The only reason this is an issue at all is because those networks happen to describe themselves as "Christian." When people say Romney isn't Christian in this context, they aren't making a theological statement about his beliefs. They are simply identifying a network to which he does not belong, and from which he draws little support.

What, are we to imagine that if Romney can successfully define his religion as "Christian" that he will suddenly be embraced by Perry's network of supporters?

Maybe Obama should try that. As a former senator, he is the very embodiment of the republican form of government. Once the GOP understands that he is, in fact, a republican, surely he will have their support.

Of course, I supposed this works both ways. Romney needs only to demonstrate that he fully believes in the principles of democracy to win the support of the Democrats.

It's not about theology, it's about ingroups and outgroups. Romney isn't going to magically ingratiate himself with another group just by parsing the names the groups use to label themselves.

[_Buffalo]

I think it's the other way around. The talk about not worshiping Christ was given in 1982. Those lyrics were written at least 10 years earlier.

Here's the difference: the church adopted the hymn and therefore endorsed its content in 1985. McConkie's 1982 talk was never adopted or endorsed by the church.

I agree that McConkie was an outlier in that view, but doesn't it say something when one of the top leaders of the church isn't clear on whether worshiping Jesus is appropriate or not? How does one become an apostle and have that view? Do you suppose even the shallowest televangelist shill would have trouble deciding whether or not it was appropriate to worship Jesus?

[_Runtu]

I agree that McConkie was an outlier in that view, but doesn't it say something when one of the top leaders of the church isn't clear on whether worshiping Jesus is appropriate or not? How does one become an apostle and have that view? Do you suppose even the shallowest televangelist shill would have trouble deciding whether or not it was appropriate to worship Jesus?

Having been at BYU in 1982, I'm quite aware of the circumstances giving rise to McConkie's talk. Given what was going on at the time, McConkie's talk is best seen as a specific response to a particular teaching, not as a blanket statement that Mormons don't or shouldn't worship Christ. I think far too much has been made of this talk as some sort of symbol of Mormon incoherence, confusion, and lack of Christianity. I don't think that's fair.

[_Daniel Peterson]

When you've got an LDS apostle telling students that it's not proper to worship Jesus, it's time to reevaluate your status as a supposedly Christian church.

No, it's not. There are, historically and still today, numerous variations on the Christian theme. But I think you're misunderstanding and/or misrepresenting what Elder McConkie was saying.

Either you do or you don't.

That's not true.

There are multiple shades of meaning for the term worship, and Mormons worship Jesus (and always have) in just about every one of them. Nor was Elder McConkie advocating anything different.

We pray in the name of Jesus, perform every ordinance and conclude every speech and testimony in the name of Jesus, sing hymns to Jesus -- In his correspondence with the Emperor Trajan from roughly AD 113, Pliny the Younger informs Trajan that the adherents of the sect sing hymns to Christ at daybreak “as if he were a god [quasi deo]” (much like the Latter-day Saints) -- read canonical scriptures that depict Jesus as divine, pray to the Father in the name of Jesus (believing that no other way is proper), trust in his atonement, commemorate it every week, regard him as our mediator and intercessor, take his name upon us at baptism, believe that all should and will kneel before him, and etc., and etc. It seems silly and nitpicking to me to claim that we don't worship him.

If it's up for grabs, then Mormonism isn't ready to be called Christian yet.

It's not up for grabs, and, by any reasonable, mainstream definition, Mormonism is Christian.

I'm afraid it's you vs. God's apostle, here, Daniel.

I disagree with Elder McConkie on several issues. But not on this one. Not at all.

I know you're just as fond as we are of dismissing the teachings of the apostles, but at least we're not calling ourselves believers.

A stupid, unserious, and agenda-driven distortion.

You're glossing over half a millennium of evolving religious thought. . . . Your version of history is oblivious to the Protestant Reformation.

You can't really be imagining that I set forth my entire "version of history" in a brief message board post. Can you?

Dante's conception of heaven may have been the "default setting" in the 14th century,

And for many centuries both before and after.

but by the time Mormonism was founded, the idea that Christians would be united with their loved ones in the afterlife was already pretty popular.

I understand that. Hence the reference to the Lange and McDannell book.

Mormonism wasn't innovative on this score; it merely crystallized a popular religious belief into a core doctrine, in a process similar to its absorption of the ideas of the temperance movement.

There is some truth to this, but perhaps rather less than you imagine. If you read the accounts of people like Parley Pratt (and others, much less famous), they were delighted and surprised at the doctrine. It didn't merely confirm what they already knew.

[_Buffalo]

There are multiple shades of meaning for the term worship, and Mormons worship Jesus (and always have) in just about every one of them. Nor was Elder McConkie advocating anything different.

Perhaps you're referring to a different McConkie.

We do not worship the Son, and we do not worship the Holy Ghost. I know perfectly well what the scriptures say about worshipping Christ and Jehovah, but they are speaking in an entirely different sense--the sense of standing in awe and being reverentially grateful to him who has redeemed us. Worship in the true and saving sense is reserved for God the first, the Creator.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Perhaps you're referring to a different McConkie.

I'm referring to the McConkie who performed every ordinance and concluded every speech and testimony in the name of Jesus, sang hymns to Jesus, read canonical scriptures that depict Jesus as divine, prayed to the Father in the name of Jesus (believing that no other way is proper), trusted in his atonement, commemorated it every week, regarded him as our mediator and intercessor, took Christ's name upon himself at baptism, believed that all should and will kneel before him, and announced his intention to "worship him with all my might."

That McConkie.

[_beastie]

I only have time for a quickie at the moment, but may return later today for a fuller reply if I have time.

beastie

Catholics have as many issues with “work versus grace” as Mormons do.

Hoops

Not hardly.

Really?

Do Catholics require works and rites in addition to accepting Jesus as one's Savior?

Of course they do.