Posted by:
justarelative
(
)
Date: February 22, 2016 03:32PM
bingoe4,
There are many, many Mormons who have become Christians, especially in recent years. While on a fact-finding trip to Utah last year I spent time with a Christian pastor whose church was 1/3 former Mormons; they recently had to expand their building to make room for the influx.
Some Mormons make their way to Christianity via a direct conversion, others by way of a wilderness period. The stories of hundreds of them are available to you on the website I mentioned in a previous post. But not very many of them hang out here at RFM.
In my opinion, (<-- did everybody hear that?) many ex-mos could accelerate their recovery process by doing exactly as you have said: separate the Christian God from the Mormon one. And I would also add, separate the Bible from the other Mormon standard works. Even those ex-mos who have no interest in becoming Christian. More on that below.
Here is another resource that you might find helpful in this separation process. It is described as "...a respectful comparison of the differences between historic Christianity and the predominant religious culture of Utah." Please note that I don't know the individuals or institutions involved; and I'm not at all favorably disposed to the dry, classroom, lecture format. It's only the content that I'm recommending:
http://theheightscommunity.org/watch/fresh-start/Please know that I regularly get together with Christians who are former Mormons, or whose lives significantly intersect Mormonism in some way as does mine. Last year I watched a young man go through the difficult process of disentangling his Mormon upbringing from his new Christian faith. He and his never-mo wife both are brilliantly sharp people. Doesn't matter; disentangling is still tough. I'm one of the people who's doing what I can to help. (For free, Satan isn't paying me.)
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This is why I think ex-mos (maybe not all, but certainly some) could benefit from the separation described above. [The 'in my opinion' disclaimer still applies.]
First, you have to get a grip on this reality: Mormonism is not Christianity; Mormonism is not sort-of Christian with a twist; no, Mormonism is NOT EVEN REMOTELY Christian. The reasons people think Mormonism is at least somewhat Christian is because (1) Mormons say they're Christian, and (2) they use many, many Christian terms and phrases. But their words means something very different from what a Christian means when using the same word or phrase.
God, Jesus, Holy Ghost/Spirit, prophet, apostle, church, elder, deacon, priest, teacher, missionary, faith, grace, sin, worthiness, heaven, obedience, gospel -- I suppose I could come up with dozens of words before getting into the full phrases such as plan-of-salvation, etc. -- these all mean something different to a Christian than they do to a Mormon, often something radically different.
[Decades ago an adult friend of mine converted to Mormonism and proudly boasted to me that he had been made a deacon. I wasn't even Christian at the time but thought he had leaped immediately into some high office. Made no sense.]
The fact that Mormonism has no relationship to Christianity would become obvious if we could somehow take all the Christian words out of Mormonism and substitute uniquely Mormon words instead. This would allow a person to see Mormon CONTENT and MEANING more clearly without being confused by the similar language. And find that the content is unrelated to Christianity; indeed is unique among all religions.
[Yes, it's not just words but forms also such as baptism, the laying on of hands, etc. For now let's keep this discussion simple.]
Here is how this phenomenon affects ex-mo recovery, again, in my opinion. Mormon words and phrases are emotional triggers for ex-mos. We live in a still somewhat Christian world, especially in America. Christians use Mormon words and phrases. (Actually, it's the other way around; Mormons use Christian words and phrases. But I'm talking about the ex-mo's perspective of Christians.) When Christians use Mormon words and phrases (without realizing it since most of them don't even know what Mormonism is) in the presence of an ex-mo, the ex-mo gets triggered.
The ex-mo is driven emotionally into hearing something that the Christian has not said, has not meant to say. The survival instinct of the ex-mo shuts down the conversation quickly, as it should. (This happened to me many times on this board before I started figuring it out, and still does when I'm not extremely careful.) Communication is difficult at best.
This is an unfortunate wall. One that cuts off the unrecovered ex-mo from a significant part of the world around him/her. Separating Christianity from Mormonism would help pull down the wall between us and let us talk to each other.
May the healing continue!
JAR
[I would offer a prayer here, but that might trigger someone, so...]
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/22/2016 04:11PM by justarelative.