Interesting Op-Ed in today's New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/13/opinion/im-a-mormon-not-a-christian.html?_r=1&hp

I quite like the approach that Mormons don't need Christians' approval. The argument over who is a Christian and who is not is about as relevant as arguing whether Pringles are potato chips or not.

I'm betting 2 to 1 that you just started an are Mormons Christians battle thread, ironically by stating it doesn't matter.

I agree with your point. However, I'm quite offended your blasphemy of Pringles - of course they are potato chips! ;)

I see it as two groups arguing over myths they believe in.

As far as I can tell, the big push to have Mormons be considered Christian is so the LDS can for alliances with other Christian churches and increase their political clout.

In the late 1970s, there was an increasing effort among Evangelical anti-Mormons, such as Ed Decker, to brand the church as not being Christian. The church responded by emphasizing Christ in the missionary discussions and by adding "Another Testament of Jesus Christ" to the title of the Book of Mormon.

I don't think they did it as attempt to increase cooperation with other groups or gain political clout. Rather, they knew that most potential converts would not be receptive to a church they considered non-Christian.

I also think it had a lot to do with Hinckley coming to power in the LDS church and his strong bent for PR.

I think that has a lot to do with it as well. Being more mainstreamed is better PR.

The evidence that I saw does not correlate with your conclusions.

Fascinating. Even after 40-plus years of being a Mormon, I learn something new. I'm glad I posted the OP.

you don't spend the first 180 years saying you're not Christian and slamming Christians' take on their own religion,

then change your tune mid-stream for expediency.

Fuck you! and no, you're a polytheistic cult. That pretty much cuts you out of the monotheistic biz.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/13/2012 10:24AM by scooter.

I don't recall the church ever saying they were not Christian. They attacked "so-called" Christianity as being a corrupted, apostate version of Christianity, with Mormonism being "true" Christianity.

Hmmm. Maybe it was a Utah thing. I never heard that, even once, growing up in California. What I heard was that all other Christians had strayed from the gospel, but the LDS church was the true restoration of Christ's church.

Could be - Utah Mormons have the luxury of being more insular.

Who knows? I find the whole argument over who gets to be a Christian silly and oddly entertaining.

runtu Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hmmm. Maybe it was a Utah thing. I never heard
> that, even once, growing up in California. What I
> heard was that all other Christians had strayed
> from the gospel, but the LDS church was the true
> restoration of Christ's church.


I grew up in Orange County and heard this from my Mormon classmates.

Maybe my memory is faulty. I don't remember that. I do remember the big push to tell everyone we were Christian, though.

I'm from the other side of LA west of the San Fernando Valley.

But for us olders (50+) we WERE taught to say "I am not a Christian, I am a Mormon." And that was in California.

runtu Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hmmm. Maybe it was a Utah thing. I never heard
> that, even once, growing up in California. What I
> heard was that all other Christians had strayed
> from the gospel, but the LDS church was the true
> restoration of Christ's church.

Nope. I grew up in the mission field in the 60s and remember the "We're not Christians; we're Mormons" doctrine as being extremely straightforward and unambiguous. Along with the Catholic church being the "whore of Babylon".

When I was attending as a child, we were taught to say "We're not Christian, we're Mormon!" with a big cheesy smile. This was back in the 60s.

"you don't spend the first 180 years saying you're not Christian and slamming Christians' take on their own religion,

then change your tune mid-stream for expediency."

Yes you do, and yes you can. You specifically don't have the power to change how another person self identifies. Only a person or an organization can do that for themselves. It doesn't matter what they did in the past or what other people think.

Your opinion and my opinion on the matter is irrelevant. If a Mormon believes in Jesus Christ, they are a Christian.

They could say "We are Christians with ferretts hanging out our asses".

Why do Mormon's sudden;y want to be classed as part of the whore of the earth?

When I was a Mormon I considered myself Christian because I worshiped and believed in Jesus Christ.

There is no other legitimate definition. I was a Christian.

I believe there is at least one other valid definition.

Does someone act like a Christian?

I don't agree with that. Mostly this is because the definition is very nebulous.

Jesus Christ in a literal, non religious reading of the New Testament is found to have whipped people and was an elitist who would not help the gentiles. Is that a Christian? What about being against abortion? What about acting like the super hippy "Create Your Own Jesus" style Jesus that most people believe in?

Can one spot a Christian by the whip hanging around their belts? :)

Belief in Christ is the only rational way to define Christianity, as everybody and every religion understands him and what he did differently.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/13/2012 12:03PM by snb.

It is easier to convert a Christian to Mormonism because they have already bought into part of the myth. Try explaining to a Buddhist or Hindu that see, there was this guy born 2,000 years ago, who is really god of the universe who had to be offered to himself (long story) as a blood sacrifice to redeem all mankind.

With Christians, at least that part of the story has already been swallowed, and Mormonism is just a weird variation on a (weird) theme. If you don't buy into Christianity, why would you care about it being restored to a 19th century NY horn dog?

Interstingly the Latter Day Saint Church wants to retain the right to decide who can be called Mormon yet doesn't think Catholics to have the right to decide who can be called Christian.

Two-faced

Very good point. I never thought of that, but it's sure true.

Mormons insist that the polygamist cults are in no way "Mormon" whereas they want to insist (now) that they are part of the body of "Christians."

I was converted in the early 70's in California. I was taught that Mormons were proud of being different than Christians, BETTER than Christians because they more closely resembled the Christian Church in the first century.

I asked about the doctrine and was told there was nothing weird (yes, used that word) and it was just another protestant religion. I still remember the look the missionaries exchanged before they answered my question, "Is there anything weird or unusual about Mormon religious beliefs that I should know about?"

My opinion about the current push for acceptance by the one-condemned Christian church is simply a business decision. Odwalla wants to be in the soft drink section now after condemning soft drinks and calling themselves the fruity alternative. When marketing studies showed they were losing market share by being in the fruit juice section, they instructed their reps to insist on product placement with the soft drinks, thus increasing sales.

It's a business decision motivated strongly by the need to be seen as just another "drink" instead of a protein meal substitute because being a drink seems to be a requirement for the President of the United States.

Power trumps doctrine AND prophecy.

Anagrammy

True. Neither the Mormons nor the Christians get to retain that power. Warren Jeffs, for example, is both a Mormon and a Christian.

Back in the 1970s, I was taught to say "I'm not Christian -- I'm Mormon!" with a big smile. :D

Then in the late 70s, I remember my Deacon's quorum advisor saying that we used to say that but that now the brethren were encouraging us not to say that but to say that we are indeed Christian.

I'm sure the brethren will tell Mormons what they believe again soon.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/13/2012 10:11AM by Makurosu.

Mormon's were once a peculiar people and now they are just like everyone else. What a roller coaster ride...

There's obviously a purposeful effort by ChurchCorp to move away from lots of Mormon wackiness, even Millenarianism. They are walking a tightrope, because too much change will alert members to the fact that it's all pretend anyway, and too little will not do the work of convincing the world that it's mainstream.

I recall DW herself telling me she "wasn't Christian" some years ago.

A reader's comment from the article that I found interesting:

Poster SB (in The Great Midwest):
June 13, 2012 at 9:54 a.m.

<quote>
Professor Mason, you're forgetting some things. The founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, was a convicted con man whose stories kept changing. He used his status as a self-proclaimed prophet to force sometimes-unwilling women into his bed (he'd had a revelation that God wanted them there), and one of his "translations" of an Egyptian papyrus turned out to be a risible mistranslation of the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Early Mormons were as enthusiastic about persecuting their "Gentile" neighbors as the reverse, and the Mountain Meadows Massacre is a lasting blot on the religion's reputation.

A religion that teaches that God was once a man, and that good Mormon men (like Mitt Romney) can expect to become gods of their own planets with their own harems in the afterlife has nothing to do with Christianity and a lot to do with a really ugly line of male fantasies of sex and power.

No, you're not a Christian. The mystery is that anyone can read Smith's pastiche of Biblical plagiarism, homegrown polytheism and self-serving prophecy and imagine it touched by any trace of the humble carpenter-rabbi from Nazareth. His spirit is nowhere to be found in Smith's world.
<end quote>

I remember clearly in the '70s being told "We are not Christian we are Mormon."

I got no dog in this fight.

I do not care about professional sports; but I do recognize that baseball and football are different games. Major difference: In baseball one guy at a time wears a helmet, in football they all do. To state that baseball and football are the same game because I don't care about either one seems somewhat egocentric.

Sounds like they wanted to be peculiar and non-Christian until the late 70's? I wasn't around then, so I grew up thinking we as Mormons were technically Protestants (except we weren't breaking away from Catholicism, we had restored the original Christianity that Catholicism had corrupted). But when I got to Utah, I did hear the occasional disparaging remarks about those Christians, which confused me. I remember saying, "What are you talking about? We're Christian!" Now it makes sense why some Mormons were still talking about "Christians" as opposed to "Mormons".

Love the analogy and I love the link. Thanks!