They are denying we were ever told to tell people about being Mormons and not Christians. They are also denying the fall of so many members. Would anyone care to enlighten them? I sent them over here to find out why we have left the church as well.

1. "We are Mormons not Christians"
2. Membership retention rate?
3. How many are active in South America? How many are active members?
4. Does the Church lie about its numbers to it's membership?
5. Why did you leave the Mormon Church?

I remember "we are Mormons. Not Christians." and then we were instructed very specifically to no longer call ourselves Mormon instead call ourselves "LDS". And then along came that embarrassing FLDS association and now we're to call ourselves Mormon again and we are just as Christian as any other christians.

Ay yi yi!

Wow, when was this "We are Mormons, not Christians" debacle? On my mission, it was stressed, and I mean STRESSED, that you specifically tell people that Mormons ARE Christians, and immediately jump into the Book of Mormon being another testament of Jesus Christ.

This was '03-'05.

I was just a kid when this "we're mormons not christians" was pushed. So I guess it was in the 80ies. There never was any push for LDS here (or SDH in my language) because we never heard anything about the polygamist cults in Utah. That mormons are christians is something that has, to my knowledge, only been around this century.

the whole "mormons not christians" thing got confusing for me. It was pushed and then it turned into "we're christians as well as mormons" then it turned into "We're LDS not Mormons, but we're still Christian". As a kid-young adult in the church from the 70's-90's it got downright dizzying trying to keep up with what we were and weren't. It keeps morphing like a gelatinous blob.

It was 1979-1982.

Saying Mormons are Christians is purposely deceptive!

Mormonism and Christianity share some beliefs, but there are stark differences where Mormonism goes off on its own. Everything related to the temples is unique to Mormons (if one overlooks the obvious theft of Masonic traditions by Joseph Smith). What else? Oh yes, a living prophet and the one true church thing.

Those differences are significant enough that mormonism stands apart from traditional mainstream Christianity.

I remember my mother explaining we were not Christian we were Mormon, because modern Christians had fallen away from the true teachings of Jesus. We had restored the original doctrine but didn't call ourselves Christian to reinforce the differences. We were a peculiar people. Blah Blah Blah.

Having joined the church in 1958 (jumped in at 8 years old), I've seen a lot. It changes according to who the leadership are. "We are a peculiar people... in the world but not of the world" morphed into "We are Christians" and blacks aren't the devil's spawn and are now allowed to be full members. A thousand other little changes, bit by bit, and it begins to be unrecognizable as the same church. Of course, if you could go back to the 19th century, you'd never recognize it at all. It changes for one major reason. In order to attract and retain members, it must have some conformity to current cultural norms.

Most churches do this, but not as quickly. Mormon doctrine changes quicker because it was bat-crap crazy theology to begin with, and there's more catching up to do.

The changes never keep pace with cultural changes though. It's dragged kicking and crying, brakes full-on. They are furthermore building resentment because they never refute discarded doctrines. They just sweep it under the rug. To refute those would be like denying the principle of ongoing prophesy. The best they can do is to promulgate the policy of "living prophets trump dead ones," A dubious tactic at best. This tacitly denies prophecy as dependable. The current prophet will always be a dead one soon enough! Let's face it, like the liar who gets himself ever deeper into his web of lies, they are between a rock and a hard place. And that's precisely because that's not an analogy. JS was a liar and they are still liars.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/22/2012 02:33AM by rationalguy.

The one I hate the most is "we are members," as in some kind of special club. And in Utah I hated being asked "are you a member?"
I used to say "of what? If you are referring to the human race then YES I am a member."
It doesn't matter if they call themselves Mormons, Christians, members or LDS, they are CULTISTS and to be avoided.

I vaguely remember being told that we are mormons not christians, maybe early 70's?

But I have never found any official sources other than 19th century/

Are there any pamphlets, GC talks, transcribed BYU devotionals, Ensign articles, "I have a question", lesson manuals, etc?

Or is it just a catchy phrase that we all used to use.

The fact that it was used world wide doesn't make it "official" ( I'm using the term loosely). cf. Jingle Bells, Batman Smells is also worldwide...

We are NeverMo, and lived in a neighborhood with a few Mos when I grew up in the 70s in Central Ohio (Columbus area).

There certainly was a concerted effort then or some kind of campaign, for Mos to go around saying, "We're not Christian--we're Mormon".

They ALL did it and repeated it like lobotomized parrots, whenever they got the chance.

I am not a liar. I dislike being called one. And that is exactly what they are doing when they say this never happened.

Do they now deny that LDS baseball and swimming pool baptisms happened all the time then, too?