Yes they do. I dunked quite a few unfortunate souls into the Mormon church on my mission and if i remember correctly the prayer goes something like this, "[Name], having authority of the Aaronic Priesthood, I baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen"
There's no calling on the power of the priesthood. Just, "*Name* having been commissioned of Jesus Christ, I baptize you in the name of the father, and the son and the holy ghost. Amen."
I always thought that it was funny that for almost everything, you have to call on the authority of the priesthood, but with the older rites mormons share with other denominations, no priesthood is mentioned -- sacrament, etc.
Also, no real mention of the power of the priesthood in the temple. In fact, women who normally don't hold the priesthood, do all the same things the men do in the temple.
I don't get it. They don't believe in the Trinity. As I understood it they believe God was once a man. Actually they believe different things at different times so maybe they do believe in the Trinity at times. Then they dismiss it as garbage at other times.
According to Daniel C. Peterson, Mormon apologist, Mormons do believe in the Trinity.
Seems as though many of them don't realize that!
Most people in most denominations, apparently, do not rate doctrine as high on their list of reasons to attend church (according to surveys I have seen) so it's not surprising if they are not familiar with even the major pieces of dogma their church claims.
However, I don't believe the Mormon Church actually claims the Trinity as part of their doctrine. I think DCP means that in principle or broadly speaking their doctrine about the nature of God is in essence similar to, or not diametrically opposed to, the more mainstream beliefs about it.
Danny boy is blowing smoke. It was either Kimball or Hinckley who said that Mormons do not believe in the same God. Once you make God the Father a man, you have changed God and so no, Mormonism does not believe in the Judeo Christian God.
Christians will say god is like ice, water and steam all being water in a cup. Mormons just imagine it in separate cups. They consider the "Godhead" one in purpose. They just have different roles. Really, the human Jesus had a different role than the OT sky god in the Trinity even though Christians see them as the same.
The Trinity is harder to explain because generic Christian beliefs tend to focus on the human Jesus and the holy spirit. They tend to distance themselves from the crazy manifestation of the same god in the OT.
I think Mormons think they honestly have a little more knowledge about the true nature of God since Joseph said he SAW them (Christians often believe humans saw the fingers of god...JS just took it further).
I think most Mormons tend to think they have clarified the Trinity and what the nature of the Trinity really is. Believe me, it makes perfect sense to them...as much sense as the Trinity makes to everyone else.
So, if you Christians are baptized in the name of all three, why would that be necessary if you think they are the same thing? It's like saying I'm married to Bill, a human, and his personality. All I need to do is say I'm married to Bill. The rest is implied.
That's my take on it from having been both Mormon and Christian.
I grew up in the Baptist church. I converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when in my late teens. I have been inside both, and can promise you that the LDS church (Mormons) really is Christian.
For me, that was a huge part of the problem. I find all Christianity to be repulsive.
By whose definition do Christian's call prophets "false"? Mormons claim they do not believe in false prophets, because they believe their prophets to be genuine. Just like Christians believe the false prophets in the Bible to be true.
The Bible, which is used by Christians, came first. The Mormons claim to believe in the Bible.So they can't believe in false prophets if they believe in the Bible.
I never said that they call prophets false. There is a difference. Read carefully. The Bible says to be careful of "FALSE" prophets. Put up your armor I believe it says.
Of course Christians believe in false prophets, who do you think Moses, Abraham, Isaiah, Jesus or the people who wrote a warning about false prophets are? Apply the false prophet criteria to the ancient prophets and you will get either positive or non-falsifiable results.
Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses and Unitarian/ Universalists aren't considered Christian by some mainstream churches because they don't accept the trinity.
Not to nit pick (which means that's exactly what I'm going to do) but the exact words are “Having been commissioned of Jesus Christ, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen”
For some Christian churches, it is how Mormons believe in a plurality of Gods that makes them non-Christian.
Most evangelical and Protestant churches will insist on baptizing all converts regardless of what Christian church they may have previously belonged to. The Catholic Church believes in one baptism and therefore recognizes all Christian baptism and asks only for a profession of faith. The exceptions? Just two: LDS and JW.
I am Lutheran and this question is specifically addressed on our website (elca.org)--and the answer is that Mormon converts to Lutheranism must be re-baptized to formally enter the faith, because the Mormon baptism is not trinitarian, in the view of our theologians.
(I personally don't consider Mormons Christians for reasons outlined elsewhere in the thread. My humble opinion.)
Some Christian churches like the Episcopal church accept a Mormon baptism as they consider it to be Trinitarian, which is enough. Now, if someone were to formally join the Episcopal or other church that accepts a Mormon baptism, they would only have to be confirmed.
The Catholic church is like the Mormon church in that they only recognize their baptism as valid, so someone converting from Mormonism would have to be baptized again.
adoylelb Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > The Catholic church is like the Mormon church in > that they only recognize their baptism as valid, > so someone converting from Mormonism would have to > be baptized again.
Not true--as stated earlier, they recognize only one baptism and accept all Christian baptisms. Since LDS is not recognized as a Christian denomination, they are not considere baptized and must be baptized, as must JW's, but those are the only two.
For conversion to Catholicsim, if someone has already been baptized they need only profess their faith and they may then receive the other sacraments of the church.
Again, it's the way Mormons view God, their plurality of Gods and their definiton of Trinity (that differs from the traditioal Christian definition) that makes most Chrsitian churches view LDS as non-Christian or as a 'pseudo-Christian cult'.
Thank you nwmcare for your response to adoylelb. I was going to respond but didn't get around to it.
Two interesting examples in recent history are LBJ's daughter Luci Baines Johnson and retired Episcopal Bishop Carolyn Tanner Irish, both of whom may be read about in wiki.
According to wiki, when Luci converted from Episcopalian to Catholic, she was given "conditional baptism" which offended everybody, as Catholics definitely then totally honored Episcopal baptism and in fact regard "rebaptism" as a sacrilege, although "conditional" kind of finesses around that. Nowadays Catholics might do the "conditional" routinely on converts as nobody knows exactly what was said at the person's original one.
Carolyn was brought up LDS, converted to Episcopalian around age 36, went to seminary, became an Episcopal priest, and then a Bishop. There was controversy that she was not baptized by Episcopalians, but evidently back then they honored the LDS baptism and perhaps now no longer do.
adoylelb Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The Catholic church is like the Mormon church in > that they only recognize their baptism as valid, > so someone converting from Mormonism would have to > be baptized again.
Not true. The Catholic church accepts any Christian baptism as valid. You don't need to be re-baptised. The Mormon baptism is not considered a valid Christian baptism, so a Mormon converting to Catholicism would have to be baptised.
- They believe in the priesthood - They believe in a "temple" and the masonic play stolen by good old Joe Smith - They believe in works vs. Grace - They believe they can "work" they way back to heaven (see work vs. Grace) - They believe they can add to the Bible (if you are a Christian, you can't do this) - They believe in marriage in heaven; something Christ clearly said is not the case.
A Christian believe he/she is saved by Grace as their good works are "filthy rags" before God. A mo believes he/she has to do about a million things (works) with a little of "the atonement" tossed in to be saved.
Mo's are not Christian. I was a BIC and sooooooooooooo happy we (DW and three kids) escaped and became Christian.
Regardless of what someone may say regarding the validity of either religion, I would have to agree that Mormons are not Christians.
The biggest issue I see is that when most Christians "accept Christ" they accept him not only as the Savior of mankind, but as an entity of God. Part of Christianity is believing that Christ is in fact God too. This is the beginning of Mormondom veering off from mainstream Christianity. Mormons don't believe that the son is the father as well, but rather as a different being.
Besides, if Mormons reserve the right to tell members of the FLDS and RLDS that they are not Mormon, then I think Christians reserve the right to tell Mormons that they aren't Christians....a little tit for tat on that one.