Interesting. What exactly are you doing over there?

Again thanks, I hope to get some more time tomorrow or Friday (day off!)

Wexler

1st: Paul talks (ambiguously) about baptism for the dead. It would be great if he’d written a few more verses on it. (Okay, he wasn’t actually WRITING verses, I know.) The KJV COULD be interpreted to imply that baptism for the dead was so well understood by his audience (Church members in Corinth) that he didn’t need to elaborate.

2nd: You’ve stated that Mormons believe God and Jesus have bodies of flesh and blood. I think you meant “flesh and bone.” Mormon theology typically teaches resurrected and exalted beings are bloodless.

No, you’re not.

The very first line in your post says that you’re not “Creedal” Christians, you’re “New Testament” Christians. You then proceed to contradict yourself on a number of points and omit other points that are salient to the definition.

Baptism: When a person becomes baptized is irrelevant, except that they have to be alive. Jesus never baptized a dead person, but he did baptize persons of all ages. Mormons baptize the dead.

The Trinity: Mormons believe that God and Jesus exist today as flesh and blood. That is heresy.

Theosis: I believe you are trying to make a case for polytheism. Mormons believe that each MAN becomes GOD equal to GOD and goes to live in their own universe. This is heresy.

The cross and atonement: You say that atonement was somehow achieved in Gethsemane. The Christian world says that atonement was attained on the cross. Your view is heresy.

Grace vs works: You say that people attain grace by obeying Christ’s commands. (As an aside, I think a whole hell of a lot of Mormons are in deep trouble if you think you’re obeying Christ’s commands). The Christian world believes that salvation is a gift of grace from God and that is why Christ died on the cross. Your view is heresy.

Definition of Christian: Just because you don’t think that Catholics and Protestants are Christians doesn’t mean that YOU are Christian. Your cult of heresy doesn’t measure up to core Christian beliefs as described above. You cannot be polytheistic and Christian at the same time. You cannot believe that you can attain salvation through works alone and be Christian. You cannot believe that God and Jesus are flesh and blood and be Christian. You cannot believe that Jesus and Satan are twins. You cannot believe that YOU will become a God in your own universe. That’s heresy.

You have a separate scripture book (Book of Mormon) and that is heresy.

I could go on but I think you get the drift. If you have anything relevant to add to this thread you are welcome to post it but I will not entertain a rehash of modern Mormon mythology that restates the same case.

-Wexler

I suggest, if you haven’t already, that you read the list of Mormon heresies I put at the end of Part 2 of this series. I will be raising those points as I proceed.

The title of this series is Glenn Beck’s Mormon Cult Membership VS Christian Fundies. I predict that the Teaparty movement will come apart on religious fault lines. In Part 3 I will talk about Glenn Beck’s relationship with the Teaparty movement and in Part 4 I will provide more detail about the battlefield upon which the Mormons and Fundies compete for the soul of the conservative movement.

Thank you for your post, please check back for rebuttals of your points, one at a time.

-Wexler

The Church of Jesus Christ (LDS) is often accused by Evangelical pastors of not believing in Christ and, therefore, not being a Christian religion. This post helps to clarify such misconceptions by examining early Christianity’s theology relating to baptism, the Godhead, the deity of Jesus Christ and His Atonement.

Baptism:

Early Christian churches, practiced baptism of youth (not infants) by immersion by the father of the family. The local congregation had a lay ministry. An early Christian Church has been re-constructed at the Israel Museum, and the above can be verified. The Church of Jesus Christ (LDS) continues baptism and a lay ministry as taught by Jesus’ Apostles. Early Christians were persecuted for keeping their practices sacred, and prohibiting non-Christians from witnessing them.

The Trinity:

A literal reading of the New Testament points to God and Jesus Christ , His Son , being separate , divine beings , united in purpose. . To whom was Jesus praying in Gethsemane, and Who was speaking to Him and his apostles on the Mount of Transfiguration? The Nicene Creed’s definition of the Trinity was influenced by scribes translating the Greek manuscripts into Latin. The scribes embellished on a passage explaining the Trinity , which is the Catholic and Protestant belief that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The oldest versions of the epistle of 1 John, read: “There are three that bear witness: the Spirit, the water and the blood and these three are one.” Scribes later added “the Father, the Word and the Spirit,” and it remained in the epistle when it was translated into English for the King James Version, according to Dr. Bart Ehrman, Chairman of the Religion Department at UNC- Chapel Hill. He no longer believes in the Nicene Trinity. . Scholars agree that Early Christians believed in an embodied God; it was neo-Platonist influences that later turned Him into a disembodied Spirit. For example, it was an emperor (Constantine) . who introduced a term, homoousious, which defined the Son as “consubstantial” (one being) with the Father. Neither term or anything like it is in the New Testament. Harper’s Bible Dictionary entry on the Trinity says “the formal doctrine of the Trinity as it was defined by the great church councils of the fourth and fifth centuries is not to be found in the New Testament.” Furthermore, 11 of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were non-Trinitarian Christians http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2009/01/richard_price.php The Church of Jesus Christ (LDS) views the Trinity as three separate divine beings , in accord with the earliest Greek New Testament manuscripts and the Founders.

Theosis

Divinization, narrowing the space between God and humans, was also part of Early Christian belief. St. Athanasius of Alexandria (Eastern Orthodox) wrote, regarding theosis, “The Son of God became man, that we might become God.” Irenaeus wrote in the late 2nd Century: “we have not been made gods from the beginning, but at first merely men, then at length gods” Justin Martyr in mid 2nd Century said: “all men are deemed worthy of becoming ‘gods,’ and of having power to become sons of the Highest” Jerome wrote that God “made man for that purpose, that from men they may become gods.” Clement of Alexandria said worthy men “are called by the appellation of gods, being destined to sit on thrones with the other gods that have been first put in their places by the Savior.” Origen in reference to 1 Corinthians 8:5-6 said “Now it is possible that some may dislike what we have said representing the Father as the one true God, but admitting other beings besides the true God, who have become gods by having a share of God . . As, then there are many gods, but to us there is but one God the Father, and many Lords, but to us there is one Lord, Jesus Christ.” The Gospel of Thomas (which pre-dates the 4 Gospels, but was considered non-canonical by the Nicene Council) quotes the Savior: “He who will drink from my mouth will become as I am: I myself shall become he, and the things that are hidden will be revealed to him,” (Gospel of Thomas 50, 28-30, Nag Hammadi Library in English, J.M.Robinson, 1st ed 1977; 3rd ed. 1988) For further information on this subject, refer to http://NewTestamentTempleRitual.blogspot.com The Church of Jesus Christ (LDS) agrees with Early Christian church leaders regarding theosis.

To paraphrase Origin’s thoughts in the words of Church of Jesus Christ (LDS) Apostle, Bruce R. McConkie: “There is and can only be one who is supreme, who is the head and to whom all others are subject”. Becoming like God is not saying we will ever be equal to Him, frankly we won’t and can’t He, and only He, will forever be worshipped by us.

The Deity of Jesus Christ

Mormons hold firmly to the deity of Christ. For members of the Church of Jesus Christ (LDS), Jesus is not only the Son of God but also God the Son. Evangelical pollster George Barna found in 2001 that while only 33 percent of American Catholics, Lutherans, and Methodists (28 percent of Episcopalians) agreed that Jesus was “without sin”, 70 percent of Mormons believe Jesus was sinless.

The Cross and Christ’s Atonement:

The Cross became popular as a Christian symbol in the Fifth Century A.D. The Emperor Constantine first used it as a battle symbol for his soldiers in his quest for the Roman Empire . Members of the Church of Jesus Christ (LDS) believe the proper Christian symbol is Christ’s resurrection, not his crucifixion on the Cross. [If your son died in a car accident, would you hang a replica of the smashed car around your neck!] Many Mormon chapels feature paintings of the resurrected Christ or His Second Coming, which give us assurance of the re-uniting of our bodies and spirits. Furthermore, members of the church believe the major part of Christ’s atonement occurred in the Garden of Gethsemane as Jesus Christ took upon him the sins of all mankind.

Grace Versus Works

One Evangelical Christian author wrote of his sudden discovery that his previous beliefs about salvation were very different from those held by the early Christians:

“If there’s any single doctrine that we would expect to find the faithful associates of the apostles teaching, it’s the doctrine of salvation by faith alone. After all, that is the cornerstone doctrine of the Reformation. In fact, we frequently say that persons who don’t hold to this doctrine aren’t really Christians…
Our problem is that Augustine, Luther, and other Western theologians have convinced us that there’s an irreconcilable conflict between salvation based on grace and salvation conditioned on works or obedience. They have used a fallacious form of argumentation known as the “false dilemma,” by asserting that there are only two possibilities regarding salvation: it’s either (1) a gift from God or (2) it’s something we earn by our works.
The early Christians [and Latter-day Saints!] would have replied that a gift is no less a gift simply because it’s conditioned on obedience….
The early Christians believed that salvation is a gift from God but that God gives His gift to whomever He chooses. And He chooses to give it to those who love and obey him.”
—David W. Bercot, Will The Real Heretics Please Stand Up: A New Look at Today’s Evangelical Church in the Light of Early Christianity, 3rd edition, (Tyler, Texas: Scroll Publishing Company, 1999[1989]), 57, 61–62.

The Church of Jesus Christ (LDS) agrees with the earliest Christians that grace is conditioned upon obedience to Jesus Christ’s commandments.
•
Definition of “Christian”: .

But Mormons don’t term Catholics and Protestants “non-Christian”. They believe Christ’s atonement applies to all mankind. The dictionary definition of a Christian is “of, pertaining to, believing in, or belonging to a religion based on the teachings of Jesus Christ”: All of the above denominations are followers of Christ, and consider him divine, and the Messiah foretold in the Old Testament. They all worship the one and only true God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and address Him in prayer as prescribed in The Lord’s Prayer. It’s important to understand the difference between Reformation and Restoration when we consider who might be authentic Christians. . Early Christians had certain rituals which defined a Christian , which members of the Church of Jesus Christ (LDS) continue today. . If members of the Church of Jesus Christ (LDS) embrace early Christian theology, they are likely more “Christian” than their detractors.

• The Need for a Restoration of the Christian Church:

The founder of the Baptist Church in America, Roger Williams, just prior to leaving the church he established, said this: “There is no regularly constituted church of Christ on earth, nor any person qualified to administer any church ordinances; nor can there be until new apostles are sent by the Great Head of the Church for whose coming I am seeking.” (Picturesque America, p. 502.) Martin Luther had similar thoughts: “Nor can a Christian believer be forced beyond sacred Scriptures,…unless some new and proved revelation should be added; for we are forbidden by divine law to believe except what is proved either through the divine Scriptures or through Manifest revelation.” He also wrote: “I have sought nothing beyond reforming the Church in conformity with the Holy Scriptures. The spiritual powers have been not only corrupted by sin, but absolutely destroyed; so that there is now nothing in them but a depraved reason and a will that is the enemy and opponent of God. I simply say that Christianity has ceased to exist among those who should have preserved it.” The Lutheran, Baptist and Church of Jesus Christ (LDS) churches recognize an apostasy from early Christianity. The Lutheran and Baptist churches have attempted reform, but Mormonism (and Roger Williams, and perhaps Martin Luther) require inspired restoration, so as to re-establish an unbroken line of authority and apostolic succession.