Cause of my Tanner Kerfuffle

[Markk]

Well the Tanners, as I do, and basically the very most of protestants would disagree with you; that Mormon Doctrine is Christian Doctrine, it is simply not. The Book of Mormon was inspired by Christian thought and doctrine, but soon evolved into something that is hardly Christian, especially from the 19th century Protestant/Evangelical faith.

Your argument stands, and fall's, on the straw-man that the Protestant faith must somehow adhere by your view that Mormon Doctrine is Christian Doctrine. When core LDS doctrine and thought is broken down and shown for what it teaches ,and it's logical ends....it is far far from Christian.

Your baseline for criticizing Mormonism is that "kind" can't criticize "kind," which is just silly in my opinion. Everyone else can criticize Mormonism except those you categorize as being the same "kind" as them. And to boot, without you identifying your "kind" in your criticisms of the church

Mormonism excluded, and doctrinally still separates themself from 19th century Christianity, and did so well into the 20th century with teachings like the Catholic church is the whore of Babylon, and the Protestant Church it's Harlot Daughter. (Pratt and BRM).

“And virtually all the millions of apostate Christendom have abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ whom they vainly suppose to be a spirit essence who is incorporeal uncreated, immaterial and three-in-one with the Father and Holy Spirit” (Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 1966, pg.269).

Back on the old boards I once had a similar conversation with DCP. As you know it was his pet peeve that Evangelicals do not consider LDS doctrine Christian doctrine, he wrote a book about it called something like "offenders of a word" if I remember correctly. I asked him (several times) if the "Children of God" was a Christian church....even though they taught sex with children, even their own (incest) were Christian, and finally, he reluctantly stated "unfortunately yes." You seem to share that same shallow definition of what Christian doctrine teaches.

More Later

Yeah, this is the reason I have no time for you guys. This is a big SMH. The world’s largest sect of heterodox Christians denies Christian identity to millions. A sect of bigotry. I am not interested.

Lol, Kish, have you ever taken the time to study the faith of the church doctrine of the "church" that Mormonism calls, in their cannon, the church of the Devil? I believe you said you have not, right? The LDS church spends a billion or more $ a year on missionary efforts, championing that the protestant church is the church of the devil, that our doctrine are an abomination, and that we are corrupt directly in their cannon, and then somehow believe we are of the same universal faith....sure, okay.

I am not asking anyone here to believe as I do, but I am asking you to at least understand the positions and what the two faiths believe with a hint of objectivity.

[Marcus]

...I think the view that Mormons believe in another Jesus is thoughtless and breeds misunderstanding. Mormons believe in the same Jesus one reads about in the New Testament. I do not know of anything in the Book of Mormon which presents ideas contradicting but I view it as a fictional expansion. This business of calling Mormon Jesus a different Jesus has grown in popularity, a fad...

I'm having a difficult time viewing the catholic position on this as a fad, as fictional expansion, or as thoughtless and something that breeds misunderstanding.

[huckelberry]

...I think the view that Mormons believe in another Jesus is thoughtless and breeds misunderstanding. Mormons believe in the same Jesus one reads about in the New Testament. I do not know of anything in the Book of Mormon which presents ideas contradicting but I view it as a fictional expansion. This business of calling Mormon Jesus a different Jesus has grown in popularity, a fad...

I'm having a difficult time viewing the catholic position on this as a fad, as fictional expansion, or as thoughtless and something that breeds misunderstanding.

Marcus, I am aware of Catholic rejection of Mormon baptism because of Mormon garbled or rejected Trinity. I think that makes sense. I am unaware of any position about the phrase another Jesus. Saying Mormons have an unacceptable understanding of Jesus divinity would not be surprising.
....
adding, I can understand that someone might say Mormons have another Jesus meaning instead of Trinitarian Mormons have a highly irregular Arian view of Jesus. I thinking spelling that out is clearer than the phrase another Jesus.

[Marcus]

I'm having a difficult time viewing the catholic position on this as a fad, as fictional expansion, or as thoughtless and something that breeds misunderstanding.

Marcus, I am aware of Catholic rejection of Mormon baptism because of Mormon garbled or rejected Trinity. I think that makes sense. I am unaware of any position about the phrase another Jesus. Saying Mormons have an unacceptable understanding of Jesus divinity would not be surprising.
....
adding, I can understand that someone might say Mormons have another Jesus meaning instead of Trinitarian Mormons have a highly irregular Arian view of Jesus. I thinking spelling that out is clearer than the phrase another Jesus.

I agree. The phrase 'another Jesus' doesn't capture the full position, as I understand it, and unfortunately only exacerbates for some the thinking that this is a thoughtless position. Here's the best explanation I have been able to find for the statement that catholics see Mormons as "believing in a different 'Jesus' " :

...we don’t accept Mormon baptisms as Trinitarian baptism. The Catholic Church actually pronounced on this issue particularly as regards to LDS in the year 2001.

At the time they did that, Father Ladaria, now-Cardinal Ladaria, wrote an essay that as a member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, explaining why. He explained, in the 20th Century, the Catholic Church became more aware of the Trinitarian errors that J[oseph] Smith had taught and that he used these traditional terms, but nevertheless meant something different by them.

It created this situation in which the words Mormons were saying were right. The words seemed totally unobjectionable, but the meaning of the words had been changed so much that, as Ladaria explains, there became this twofold disagreement on the Catholic side, that Catholics who didn’t have much exposure to Mormonism would just say, “Okay. Great. It looks like you had a Trinitarian baptism. We don’t need to rebaptize you.”

This is an important point. Scripture is very clear there’s one baptism for the forgiveness of sins, and so the church historically has always said, “Well, if you had a valid baptism, we’re not going to baptize you because we want to acknowledge that God has already done a work in your life in baptism, that even if that baptism wasn’t by a Catholic priest or a Catholic deacon, even if it wasn’t by a Catholic at all, even if you were becoming Methodist or something, like, “Fine. That’s okay. It’s still a Trinitarian baptism. We accept you as a brother or sister in Christ, and we welcome you into the fullness of faith, but we’re not going to baptize you as if that first baptism didn’t happen.” It’s an important bit of sacramental theology, and it’s an important way of not doing what’s called Anabaptism or rebaptism.

The question became, on the one side, you had Catholics saying, “Okay. Well, yeah, do the same thing to a Mormon that you would to a Protestant or to an Orthodox,” which is you don’t rebaptize them. However, Catholics who knew Mormon theology better or were more immersed in the Mormon world would say, “Hang on guys. This is a much bigger divide than you realize. They actually don’t believe in the Trinity,” and we’ll get into whether or not that’s true in a second here, but Ladaria explains, “The formula used by the Mormons might seem at first sight to be a Trinitarian formula.

However, there’s not in fact a fundamental doctrinal agreement.

There’s not a true invocation of the Trinity because the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, according to the LDS, are not the three persons in which subsist the one Godhead, but three gods who form one divinity.

This is an important claim that Christianity is monotheistic. Following Judaism, we believe there is one God. There’s no other God besides God.

Mormonism, Ladaria is saying, is not monotheistic. It’s tritheistic. It’s polytheistic, believes there are three gods who form one divinity.

In fact, as we’re going to see, there are a lot more than three gods. That’s a really important claim. We don’t just disagree with this or that wording, this or that doctrinal practice. We actually disagree with how many gods there are.

Ladaria goes on to say, “The words Father, Son and Holy Spirit, for Mormon, have a totally different meaning than they do for Christians.” These differences are so great that it’s not even a case of heresy, that instead the teachings of Mormons have a completely different matrix. We don’t even want to say this is a Christian heresy. We wanted to say this is just a different religion. If you said Krishna and Brahma, we wouldn’t say, “Oh, you’re a Christian heretic.” Take again the example of Islam. Muslims believe Jesus Christ is a prophet. They follow Jesus in that sense, but we don’t consider Islam a Christian heresy. We consider it a totally different religion because the differences are big enough that it’s not even a difference within the family at that point. That’s an important difference. It’s an important understanding.

https://www.catholic.com/audio/sp/what- ... d-his-wife

[huckelberry]

Marcus, some thirty plus years ago I joined a Lutheran congregation. The minister thought no new baptism was necessary (Lutherans have the same basic ideas about baptism as Catholics). A year later change minister decided I really should be baptized again (reasons as explained in the statement you posted), so I was. That change made some sense to me.

[Kishkumen]

Lol, Kish, have you ever taken the time to study the faith of the church doctrine of the "church" that Mormonism calls, in their cannon, the church of the Devil? I believe you said you have not, right? The LDS church spends a billion or more $ a year on missionary efforts, championing that the protestant church is the church of the devil, that our doctrine are an abomination, and that we are corrupt directly in their cannon, and then somehow believe we are of the same universal faith....sure, okay.

I am not asking anyone here to believe as I do, but I am asking you to at least understand the positions and what the two faiths believe with a hint of objectivity.

LOL!!! Because you do, right? You wouldn’t recognize objectivity if it punched you in the nose. Look at this post, for example. The missionary efforts of the LDS Church do not push the position that the Protestant Church (there is no such thing) is the church of the devil. And please, could you spell canon correctly for once?

[Markk]

Lol, Kish, have you ever taken the time to study the faith of the church doctrine of the "church" that Mormonism calls, in their cannon, the church of the Devil? I believe you said you have not, right? The LDS church spends a billion or more $ a year on missionary efforts, championing that the protestant church is the church of the devil, that our doctrine are an abomination, and that we are corrupt directly in their cannon, and then somehow believe we are of the same universal faith....sure, okay.

I am not asking anyone here to believe as I do, but I am asking you to at least understand the positions and what the two faiths believe with a hint of objectivity.

LOL!!! Because you do, right? You wouldn’t recognize objectivity if it punched you in the nose. Look at this post, for example. The missionary efforts of the LDS Church do not push the position that the Protestant Church (there is no such thing) is the church of the devil. And please, could you spell canon correctly for once?

Well, we can certainly objectively discuss and show that the LDS teaches that there was an apostasy and that in their "canon" they teach that the 19th century church was in apostasy, and in case you did not know this is what they teach in regard to the protestant church.

19 I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: “they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.”

We can objectively discuss how the Book of Mormon, the most important book in their "canon" teaches there are only two churches, the church of Lamb and the Church of the Devil.

1 Nephi 14:10 And he said unto me: Behold there are save two churches only; the one is the church of the Lamb of God, and the other is the church of the devil; wherefore, whoso belongeth not to the church of the Lamb of God belongeth to that great church, which is the mother of abominations; and she is the whore of all the earth.

We can objectively discuss and see here Joseph Smith, or God if the Book of Mormon is true, that the church teaches the 19th century protestant church (body of believers),... the Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Congressional, etc... are an abomination, and the "whore of the earth."

We can objectively see that this is what Joseph Smith believed and that modern LDS prophets, seers, and revelators believed it and taught it. I gave you a few example in an earlier post.

These books are taught from in the churches missionary efforts, and unless things have changed, and the LDS church no longer teach they are the restored church to investigators then it is still a direct slander against the 19th century protestant church.

I get you may still believe the Book of Mormon and that Joseph Smith is a true prophet of God, I do. But I also believe that anyone that can open up and read the Mormon standard works and read, can objectively own what the church teaches about the 19th century Christian church.

Who is the church of the devil and the whore of the earth according to the Book of Mormon?

[huckelberry]

Kishkumen,

There are interesting questions that emerge comparing Protestant and Orthodox thought. Neither is unified enough to lay out simple yes nos, which makes it interesting.

To be fair, two nineteenth-century Reformed theologians, John Williamson Nevin and Philip Schaff of the Mercersburg Theology school, sought to highlight the more holistic understanding of salvation within the Reformed tradition. (See my assessment of this small but important movement.) More recently, Anglican bishop N.T. Wright’s writings and some of his Reformed followers in the Federal Vision movement have moved away from this narrow, exclusively legal-forensic view. Sadly, in their attempt to incorporate aspects of patristic theology, they have been charged as heretics by their Reformed brethren for seeking to recover ancient Christianity! (See the Recommended Reading at the bottom which lists several articles about the alternative soteriologies that recently surfaced within the Reformed tradition.)

https://orthodoxbridge.com/2018/07/22/o ... atonement/

This is from a discussion of penal substitution and older understandings of atonement and relating questions of theosis and idea of infused grace seen by Protestants as sanctification subsequent to initial salvation resulting from Christ rightness being imputed to sinner.

I do not think these differences are going to be completely separated or resolved anytime soon.

Perhaps I could explain that despite my studied copy of Westminister Confession and appreciation of John Owens Death of Death in the Death of Christ I remain influenced by Irenaeus and am a fan of N-T Wright so I see dialogue not a simple one side is right and the other wrong.

I thought I could respond to Kishkumen's view of how much Protestants removed from Christian tradition. Probably not possible to make a sure decision between some and much but this is what comes to my mind. Papal infallibility and authority, required absolution from a priest, purchased indulgences, monastic orders, adoration of Mary, and specifics of transubstantiation.

I wish I could add brutal inquisition but that has had at least some persistence.

[Marcus]

Marcus, some thirty plus years ago I joined a Lutheran congregation. The minister thought no new baptism was necessary (Lutherans have same basic ideas about baptism as Catholics). A year later change minister decided I really should be baptized again (reasons as explained in the statement you posted), so I was. That change made some sense to me.

Me too.

[Kishkumen]

Well, we can certainly objectively discuss and show that the LDS teaches that there was an apostasy and that in their "canon" they teach that the 19th century church was in apostasy, and in case you did not know this is what they teach in regard to the protestant church.

As mentioned above, there is no "Protestant Church." There are many churches in Protestantism. Yes, many Christians in the 18th and 19th centuries believed that Christianity had lost something vital and was in need of a Restoration. Joseph Smith was one of those Christians.

We can objectively discuss how the Book of Mormon, the most important book in their "canon" teaches there are only two churches, the church of Lamb and the Church of the Devil.

I have very low expectations regarding how objective such a discussion is likely to be. It is not completely clear to me what, in each instance it appears in Joseph Smith's translations and revelations, the word church is supposed to refer to, especially in the Book of Mormon, which was composed before Joseph Smith founded a church.