quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Aros, you certainly misrepresented Catholic beliefs in your post. Not "simplified" but made up from whole cloth.
I disagree. I think that the intercession of saints qualifies to be nit-picked in my (albeit glib) summary. From the lay perspective, or even a popular perspective, one could make some pretty interesting suppositions about the nature of intercession.
Furthermore, the Catholic church has a nasty habit of canonizing native deities when they take over nations, with the notion of subjugating native populations.
One could argue that this almost constitutes polytheism. That would certainly cause Catholicism to stand outside "mainstream" Christianity.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Aros, you certainly misrepresented Catholic beliefs in your post. Not "simplified" but made up from whole cloth.
I disagree. I think that the intercession of saints qualifies to be nit-picked in my (albeit glib) summary. From the lay perspective, or even a popular perspective, one could make some pretty interesting suppositions about the nature of intercession.
Furthermore, the Catholic church has a nasty habit of canonizing native deities when they take over nations, with the notion of subjugating native populations.
One could argue that this almost constitutes polytheism. That would certainly cause Catholicism to stand outside "mainstream" Christianity.
One could argue that - but it would not be Catholic belief. Saints are not demi-gods. Polytheism certainly would be a problem which is why we make clear that saints are not gods. They are no more divine than the rest of us. They are (ideally*) human examples and intercessors. They are venerated, not worshiped as deities.
*Certainly canonization often carries plenty of political baggage.
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What other sects think of the practice is their concern. If you had claimed to be characterizing other people's misconceptions of Catholic belief, you might have been correct. You claimed to be characterizing Catholic belief, so you were wrong.
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I was characterizing a specific practice as an abbreviated example. I wasn't attempting to explain why Catholics rationalize their behavior.
Isn't the point of this thread to single out a religion based on an outsider perspective and judge it by our subjective worldview? Oh . . . sorry . . . did I pick the wrong religion to judge?
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You can't compare actual Mormon doctrine to misinterpretation of Roman Catholic doctrine and say, "see, this is just as out-of-the-mainstream!"
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Aros, my point is that you are mischaracterizing that behavior. If, I am mischaracterizng LDS doctrine and they actually do believe that God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one God in three persons, that Jesus is one in being with the Father, that God is infinite and eternal, and so forth, then I am the one who is confused. Is this the case?
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To put that more specifically, the LDS church actually teaches that God has a body, has gender, and is the same type of being as human beings only more advanced. The LDS church actually teaches that Jesus, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit are separate beings, though one in purpose.
The Catholic church does not actually teach that saints are demigods to be worshiped. In fact, they go through quite a bit of effort to clarify that that is not their teaching.
See the difference?
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The LDS point doesn't contradict most Christian doctrine. It clarifies and expounds upon it.
- A Body: Is there specific scripture that states that God doesn't have a body? The LDS view is an extension of dogma, not a divergence from classical thought. God made man in his image, correct? It is only dogmatic interpretation on the part of a few religious scholars that refutes this claim.
- Gender: The Catholics purport that God has no gender. Most other Christian faiths (including literalists) claim that he is male. Some religions don't clarify.
- The Trinity: The LDS church believes in the trinity. The Catholics describe the trinity as three distinct personages with "one nature". LDS dogma does not contradict this. There are many arguments on both sides of the fence on this subject, but the answers are under debate by all sides of the fence. Many Christian churches have different interpretations of trinity, but it is officially considered a "mystery". We're not going to solve it here.
- The Catholic Church: Intercession means that saints can approach God on your behalf. Most other Christian sects believe that Jesus is our only intercessor. Based on your interpretation of idolatry, many other faiths interpret intercession as such. Does it matter if the Catholics want to split hairs?
I don't see the difference. You're claiming that one doctrine is different from "mainstream" while the other is the same. I don't agree. Each Christian religion has major points of contention with each other. They're all based on the same book -- only interpretation varies.
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This does remind me of an interesting point, however. One thing that Catholicism, Judaism, and the LDS church have in common --- they all believe that there are additional scriptures that are inspired and add to the body of canon in the bible. Also, they all believe in additional, dogmatic interpretation of obscure biblical reference that can apply.
The one difference I see is that the Catholic church and religious leaders can interpret scripture and apocrypha. In the LDS church, every member is encouraged to interpret scripture on an individual basis.
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quote:Originally posted by dkw: To put that more specifically, the LDS church actually teaches that God has a body, has gender, and is the same type of being as human beings only more advanced. The LDS church actually teaches that Jesus, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit are separate beings, though one in purpose.
I would add they are often described as "One God" because they form a Godhead together.
1. "I would that ye should understand that God himself shall bcome down among the children of men, and shall redeem his people.
2 And because he dwelleth in flesh he shall be called the Son of God, and having subjected the flesh to the will of the Father, being the Father and the Son—
3 The Father, because he was conceived by the power of God; and the Son, because of the flesh; thus becoming the Father and Son—
4 And they are one God, yea, the very Eternal Father of heaven and of earth.
5 And thus the flesh becoming subject to the Spirit, or the Son to the Father, being one God, suffereth temptation, and yieldeth not to the temptation, but suffereth himself to be mocked, and scourged, and cast out, and disowned by his people."
You may have seen these verses from the Book of Mormon before.
"As well as those who should come after, who should believe in the gifts and callings of God by the Holy Ghost, which beareth record of the Father and of the Son;
Which Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are one God, infinite and eternal, without end. Amen."
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You can argue that the LDS church is right and Nicene Christianity is wrong. Arguing that the two aren't fundamentally different doctrines on the being of God is nonsense.
You can also argue, as some have right on this forum, that the differences shouldn't matter. But again, you can't reasonably argue that the differences don't exist.
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I'm not arguing that either are right or wrong. I AM arguing that it is often a matter of interpretation.
The LDS church isn't the only one that takes issue with portions of the Nicene creed. Many Protestant groups do, fundamentalists do, Church of New Jerusalem, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc.
But in the end, many of the contradictions aren't wholly so . . . it's almost more of a matter of verbage.
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Aros, you don't get to decide what is important and what is mere verbiage for us. And, sure, other sects have problems with our interpretation. If they don't consider us doctrinally "Christian", they are welcome to do that. I imagine that some do. For the record, we don't consider the baptisms of members of the Church of New Jerusalem or Jehovah's Witnesses to be valid Christian baptisms either. Or Christian Scientists or Christadelphians. If I were to convert to one of those sects, I imagine that my baptism would not be considered valid either.
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I've never really understood the ire that pops up when one Christian-related religion declares another one to be "non-Christian". I guess it's that it's an emotional appeal, it's a trick often used to try to destroy rather than a definition to clarify. From a technical aspect: I don't care at all if other people think the LDS Church is a Christian church. I think normally what they mean by it is: "You can't be saved as a LDS". And since I don't think they can be saved without LDS ordinances (we get a little bit of wiggle room since we believe in the efficacy of postmortem ordinances and thus can still believe or allow for non-LDS people being saved) I'm hardly in a place to call 'foul'.
I think the issue becomes when a word is divorced from its emotional meaning so that it can apply to more things, and then used to try to get that emotion to rise up again. An example I ran into a lot when I was serving a LDS mission was the word 'cult'. Someone would say that the Church was a cult. When challenged on it, they'd say the definition of 'cult' was something along the lines of "Small group of people expressing religious or other emotional veneration for an idea, person or system of beliefs". Which fits a lot of dictionary definitions but also fits any religion that the user deems "small". So technically correct, but then they'd use the word as a scare tactic and try to conjure up imagines of helter-skelter style lifestyles and disregard for human decency.
My impression was that most people who wanted to label the LDS church as "not Christian" did so because they knew that most people, or most people they associated with, would convert the phrase "not Christian" to "evil". For my part, if people are really insistent that I believe in a different Christ than they do: meh. Maybe I do. There's certainly some differences, and from my perspective, there are a lot differences. I'm not sure how material they are to living a Christian life and being saved in everlasting glory, but since I'm pretty sure I believe in the real Christ I don't know why I'd be bothered if someone wanted to insist that they believed in a different one. I imagine they feel the same way, otherwise I'd strongly recommend switching faiths. That's just the nature of talks across denominations. It just helps when both parties aren't jerks about it.
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Just to clarify, I know that people who are non-Christians doctrinally can and often do follow the teachings of Christ as well and often better than those of us who have had a valid Christian baptism. I believe that they are as able to be "saved" as those with a valid Christian baptism. I am certain that they are as capable of being good, holy, people beloved by God.
This doesn't carry emotional baggage for me. My purpose here was to clarify or correct points of theology regarding obstacles to ecumenism.
I'm making no judgement here on anybody's goodness, evilness, salvation, or lack of salvation. But if you show up in a comparative religions class that I'm teaching and claim that the differences between the LDS and Lutheran views of God aren't any further apart than the Lutheran and Catholic views of God you'd better hope that whatever assignment you make that claim in isn't a large component of the course grade.
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I should've been clearer: I wasn't accusing anyone here of trying to trick people or make emotional appeals. I think it's been apparent that people are making doctrinal corrections or clarifications. The experience I was referring to was dealing with people in meat-space. People that tend to be less informed about their religion as well as others as well as more likely to be confrontational (anyone who offers an opinion about if another religion is Christian or not to someone they don't know is likely to be more confrontational). My observations were more about why I think it can be a prickly subject.
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I think what might jar some Mormons is that ignoring the doctrinal distinctions we humans make amongst ourselves, that were you to ask Jesus if Mormons, Catholics, Protestants are all "Christians" that he would say yes.
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It's complicated by the fact that "Christian" is such a loaded word. It would be nice if the question "Do these two sects have enough in common that they should be considered the same religion, or are have they grown apart enough that they should be considered two different religions?" could be discussed separately from the question of who is or isn't "a real Christian."
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BB, the word "Christian" is a distinction that humans have made among themselves. I don't see any reason to assume that Jesus would take a particular position on linguistics.
Certainly according to the definition you're using he would say "yes." If he were asked the question while serving on a panel at a history of world religions conference he might have a more complicated answer.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Aros, you don't get to decide what is important and what is mere verbiage for us. And, sure, other sects have problems with our interpretation. If they don't consider us doctrinally "Christian", they are welcome to do that. I imagine that some do. For the record, we don't consider the baptisms of members of the Church of New Jerusalem or Jehovah's Witnesses to be valid Christian baptisms either. Or Christian Scientists or Christadelphians. If I were to convert to one of those sects, I imagine that my baptism would not be considered valid either.
It seems to me that you are doing precisely that, with regard to the LDS faith. Maybe I was acting a bit of the devil's advocate. Perhaps it wasn't terribly grown up of me.
Some people on this thread have been judging specific pieces of LDS dogma and deeming it significantly different from "mainstream". In return, I was using a bit of hyperbole and a bit of dramatic criticism of Catholisim to make a point -- even the mainstream Christian religions have HUGE doctrinal differences.
If someone labels themselves a Christian, and if they say they follow Christ, they're a Christian. If they say they're a Buddhist, and all they know about it they've learned from fortune cookies, who am I to judge?
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: We do not have a linguistically distinct word for a follower of Christ and somebody who grasps what Christ is.
Yes. But we do have a specific theological definition. Whether we should or not is a different question. The fact is that we do and have for roughly 1700 years. Accepting the trinitarian nature of God was pretty much how Christianity was determined once we got around to determining (officially) what was Christian.
I am not insisting or even suggesting that you must use our definition.
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Originally, Christians didn't even call themselves that. According to the book of Acts, they called themselves "followers of the Way", and their religion was called "The Way." They were first called "Christians" (i.e, "Little Christs" as a derogatory term (much like the term "Mormon" started as a derogatory term for "Latter Day Saint") which was later adopted. It's not a term Jesus created or ever used.
Since about 325 AD the term "Christian" has been accepted by the vast majority of Christians to mean "one who believes and follows the Nicene Creed". If Mormons wish to change the definition of Christian to include their own beliefs, then it's perfectly fine for them to call themselves Christians. It doesn't bother me. But it's pretty rediculous for them to insist that everyone else change their definition of Christian to include them. It'd be like a Catholic insisting that Jews refer to all Catholics as "Jews", despite different scriptures and doctrine, and then getting angry and offended every time any Jew says "Catholics aren't real Jews."
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Aros, do you think that being called different from the mainstream is an insult, or ..? The LDS church certainly isn't big enough to represent the "mainstream", so I would think you'd just accept that it's different from the mainstream.
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quote:Originally posted by Dogbreath: Since about 325 AD the term "Christian" has been accepted by the vast majority of Christians to mean "one who believes and follows the Nicene Creed".
I wasn't aware of this. Huh.
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The very rough version of this is that when Constantine put his royal stamp of favor on Christianity, it became "important" to know who was Christian and who wasn't. Various questions had to be settled. The nature of God/Jesus was the big question. Also when to celebrate Easter. Go figure.
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quote:Originally posted by scifibum: Aros, do you think that being called different from the mainstream is an insult, or ..? The LDS church certainly isn't big enough to represent the "mainstream", so I would think you'd just accept that it's different from the mainstream.
No, I just think that a few people unfamiliar with the religion are over-accentuating the differences between the LDS faith and other Christian religions. In my humble opinion, it is more accurately grouped with the Protestant faiths.
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quote:Originally posted by Dogbreath: Since about 325 AD the term "Christian" has been accepted by the vast majority of Christians to mean "one who believes and follows the Nicene Creed".
I wasn't aware of this. Huh.
"Christian" is any of the religions derived from the teachings of Christ. Yes, many Christians attempt to minimize other religions by saying that they aren't Christian. But that doesn't make it so.
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Yeah. Aros, in this case, your humble opinion is pretty humble. While I am not usually a cheerleader for our hierarchy, I am pretty sure that the folks making that call were more familiar with both Catholic and LDS doctrine than you are.
quote: "Christian" is any of the religions derived from the teachings of Christ. Yes, many Christians attempt to minimize other religions by saying that they aren't Christian. But that doesn't make it so.
According to you. But you don't have the authority to decide that for billions of Christians. Again, speaking from a strict theological rather than a casual, social point of view.
Again, not an attempt to "minimize" anything. Other religions are not necessarily "smaller" than Christianity.
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Yes, you can say that the LDS church isn't Christian. And I can say that the Catholics are pagan. But, objectively speaking, we're both wrong.
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This is a pretty interesting read. I guess that the Mormons aren't the only Christians that believe humans can "become gods". It seems to be quite the orthodox belief, if more-so in Eastern Christianity.
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quote:Originally posted by Aros: Yes, you can say that the LDS church isn't Christian. And I can say that the Catholics are pagan. But, objectively speaking, we're both wrong.
Using the definition "follower of a religion derived from the teachings of Christ" Mormons are Christians. Using the definition "teaching in accordance with the Nicene Creed/Chalcedonian formula" they're not.
When Mormons say to someone who uses the latter definition, "you should consider us Christians because we're followers of Christ" it's not persuasive. When you say that that's because the person misunderstands or is unfamiliar with the Mormon religion you're wrong.
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The key is to get clarification. In my experience when people have claimed Mormon's aren't Christian they aren't thinking about the Nicene Creed. They are claiming something more along the lines of "Mormon's don't believe in Christ and worship the devil."
Other times though it has been simple Person 1: "You aren't Christian." Person 2: "What do you mean by Christian?" Person 1: "You don't follow the Nicene Creed." Person 2: "Oh, well you are right I don't."
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quote:Originally posted by Aros: Yes, you can say that the LDS church isn't Christian. And I can say that the Catholics are pagan. But, objectively speaking, we're both wrong.
Using the definition "follower of a religion derived from the teachings of Christ" Mormons are Christians. Using the definition "teaching in accordance with the Nicene Creed/Chalcedonian formula" they're not.
I would say that, for me, which definition to use is a question of context. The latter definition is the appropriate one to use for conversations about whether someone who is converting needs to be baptised, for example, or for conversations about ecumenism.
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*nods* As I said before, it comes down to how you define the word. I know a group of people who call themselves "followers of Christ" who specifically reject the label "Christian", partly due to disillusionment with the church, but mostly because they don't believe the label applies.
Again, Aros, if you want to create your own definition of what "Christian" means, you're free to do so. You need to realize, though, that most of the world outside of your religion defines Christianity in a way that excludes Mormons. Not because they are Mormons, but because LDS specifically believe things that are incompatible with being Christian. Trying to force your own definition on the rest of the world and getting offended when they don't accept it is absurd.
If most of the world defines a "hat" as something you put on your head, and you decide that the word "hat" means "something you put on your feet", well, you're certainly entitled to call your shoes hats. It's all fine and dandy. But if you go out and get offended when you overhear someone else saying "shoes aren't hats" and try to make everyone else accept your new definition (even if they're people who wear neither shoes nor hats) you might get looked at as being a little crazy.
So basically, this argument is unsolvable. According to your definition, are Mormons Christian? Yes, absolutely. According to my definition? No. Can you be a follower of Jesus Christ without being a Christian? Of course! As I mentioned before, there were Christ-followers for 300 years before the word "Christian" was properly defined.
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The hat thing is a bit much. If you polled America on "give a brief definition of what a Christian is" do you really think most of them would talk about the Nicene creed?
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Or even if you polled dictionaries. I don't see anything about the Nicene Creed there. It seems more like Mormons are saying "look I have a hat on my head," and someone else says "No that's a baseball cap, hats have a brim that goes all the way around and is at least 2 inches wide."
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: The hat thing is a bit much. If you polled America on "give a brief definition of what a Christian is" do you really think most of them would talk about the Nicene creed?
Of course not. And the hat thing is a deliberate simplification.
But we're talking about specifics here, and the reason why most other Christian denominations don't recognize Mormons as Christian. I doubt the majority of Americans even know what the Nicene Creed *is*, let alone what it says or what it means.
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Because they disagree with you? I think you're wrong too and my whole family and most of my friends are Mormons.
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quote:Originally posted by Aros: It seems more likely to me that a few self-important Hatrackers have a beef with Mormons. . . .
Nothing new.
That's pretty lame, dude. You have (solidly) lost an argument and your parting shot is that people have a beef with Mormons, despite the fact that no part of anyone's argument was a denigration of LDS beliefs or LDS people. Again, I suspect you think there's some insult inherent in the concept of being different from mainstream...which is just kind of an odd thing to think.
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While I am not usually a cheerleader for our hierarchy, I am pretty sure that the folks making that call were more familiar with both Catholic and LDS doctrine than you are.
