I'm not a Christian. I am an atheist. So in some sense the argument between Abrahamic covenant works people and NT Christian faith and grace people is immaterial to me. It's all peeing in the wind. B/c I have family still in the church, I do find myself thinking of ways to discredit the abusive works focus of Mormons. I find arguments from Christians that might make sense to a presumed "follower of Jesus" Mormon.

Besides, Mormons irritate me with how they like to get indignant when they aren't considered just as Christian as anyone else but they also like to be superior to Christians because they focus on works and sacrifice and on being perfect and Gods.... Etc. The final poster below, JMG, glorifies Abraham's obedient willingness to sacrifice his son. He doesn't answer the question of why Christians should look to Abraham before Christ or how this shifts focus from Christ's sacrifice or how the Christian faith in Jesus is what sets Christian works in motion. The poster seems to do the usual LDS move of seeing faith as a kind of immaturity that is only brought to "maturity" and perfection through works. Hence, we get the Mormon fascination with works righteousness as opposed to the Christian gratitude in Christ's incomparable gift of grace.

So I like the way that Christians are typically able to answer Mormons on the faith/works controversy.

1) The Christians just make more sense: Living like a Mormon is obviously stressful busy-work focused and NOT centered on Christ.

2) The LDS turn by JMG below to Abrahamic sacrifice as the basis of the supremacy of works seems to throw out the sacrifice of Christ. Even though Mormons recognize that the Abrahmic sacrifice of Isaac is a similitude of the sacrifice of Christ, somehow Christ's sacrifice doesn't matter in any final sense. Mormons are very squirrelly on this point I think. In their theology, Christ's sacrifice is just one hurdle, something that justifies but doesn't sanctify. Obedience and works sanctifies. And yet Jesus was obedient and clearly sanctified more than any earthbound Mormon ever will be. And no, I don't see that Christians will expect everyone to be exalted by becoming and doing what Jesus did. But I think Mormons think that: To be a God of your own world you'll need to be able to do your own Christ sacrifice to justify all your little underlings/created beings so they will worship you. Yes, this is weird.

3) A reasonable Christian response to the insistence on Abrahamic sacrifice seems to be 1 Cor 15:1-4: "Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures." For the Christians, Christ is central. For the Mormons the idea of sacrifice and proving oneself (to church authority) God seems to be the basis for their works focus.

Anyway, I answered the blogger at this link: http://blog.chron.com/mormonvoice/2011/10/mormons-are-christians-heres-why/.

I write there as Blake Garten. Any comments or suggestions would be welcome. Thanks for reading this far, and if you read the rest of the way I'll have to put you into some exmo hall of fame.

Blake Garten says:
November 6, 2011 at 12:54 am
This controversy about whether Mormons are Christians comes up regularly when Mormons and their faith become part of public discussion. I was a Mormon for ten years and I think that Mormons give lip service to Jesus Christ, and he matters to them, but He isn’t really the focus of their talks and worship. The problem is that they have so many other things that they have to focus on besides Jesus.

On Sundays there is the communion (Sacrament) that includes sacramental prayers that include Jesus’ name, but in the three hour block of talks and lessons that is the Mormon church time on Sunday, there are typically talks about food storage, the temple, the priesthood, the prophet Joseph Smith, the need to do home-teaching or visiting teaching, the family, the young women’s program or young men’s program, principles like faith or chastity or tithing or prayer or thankfulness or marriage or…you get my point. There is a lot of talking AROUND Christ and there have been Christmases and Easters where there was more discussion of Joseph Smith or the current President of the church than there was of Jesus. Most Mormons have a better idea of Joseph Smith’s life than they do of Jesus’ ministry. Every four years the new testament is discussed in Sunday school (the other three years are divided up between the Old Testament, the Book of Mormon, and the Doctrine and Covenants). Right there half the years, two of the four, are devoted to the Old Testament–especially the Abraham, Joseph, and Moses and Isaiah–and modern church history and revelation. The NT comes up one year out of four, with just a few weeks on Jesus’s ministry. AND HERE’S THE POINT: Protestants and Catholics talk about Jesus much more often. They focus on Jesus more because they aren’t bogged down with Joseph Smith and the pioneers and Brigham Young and the Book of Mormon characters and the Presidents of the church and the General Authorities of the church.

Mormons get indignant that they are not considered real Christians, and I suppose I’d call them Nominal Christians. They are Christians in name but the substance of what they are about is a works-based faith: 2 Nephi 25:23 “. . . for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.” After all you can do I found out is a LOT. There is never enough time or energy to do everything that you CAN do, and if you don’t then you are selfish or stuck in the gutter of repentance b/c you are never perfect enough. And Mormons don’t consider Christ’s grace seriously enough or often enough to appreciate that incomparable gift nearly as much as, I’ll say it, REAL Christians. Now you know why I don’t think Mormons are very Christian. They are kind of Christian, but they are caught up in a lot of other stuff that gets in the way of a focus on Christ. That’s why I left the Mormons, among other reasons–they are far away from the Jesus of my Baptist youth, the saving grace, the real gift that doesn’t need my works–my puny works–but b/c it’s offered freely and is so great, I am truly grateful, and b/c of that gratitude and love and humility I serve. Mormons have it the other way around: You serve and THEN you might get some grace, some forgiveness, but it’s never enough. It’s all very conditional, very bound up in what men think (your current church leaders, your ward bishop). The lie of Mormonism is that these men have special discernment, that they are “called of God.” They don’t; they aren’t. One knows Christ for oneself, by oneself, in communion with Christ the Lord oneself. That’s where the change of heart comes and not from hero worship of a dentist or executive or accountant who happens to have done everything just right and done everything he was told so for all of his life so that he could climb up the Mormon social and ecclesiastical ladder. (Typical Mormon priesthood pedigree: Born in the Covenant (parents were in the church), was baptized at 8, got all the priesthood ordinances, went on a mission as a young man, went to BYU, got a good job (solid tithe payer, doesn’t worry about 10%), and does everything he is told.)

Reply
Paul Walworth says:
November 6, 2011 at 9:28 pm
James Chapter 1
Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.
18 Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.
19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.
20 But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?

Reply
JMG says:
November 8, 2011 at 6:35 am
(Part 1)

The quote is actually James 2 (rather than 1) verses 17-20.

Aside from the fact that the words of verses 17-19 are not those of James himself but actually from the mouth of a hypothetical objector to James, and the fact that James’ response to the objector does not begin until the final verse (2:20), many miss the point that James is making through the passage by viewing the verses through the pre-conceived lense of thinking that James is suggesting that works are necessary for salvation contra Paul and his writings. This is not James’ goal whatsoever.

Without going into minute details, the best way to get to what James is trying to say it to look at the concluding verse of the passage, that being James 2:26

“For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.”

Note here that James illustrates his point by likening faith without works to a body without an animating spirit. Such a body is NOT non-existent or false. It is quite real and it is quite tangible. However, it has no vitality and nothing to set it into motion. It has nothing to allow it to perform all that it is capable of. All of its potential is wasted and lost. This is what James is striving to say in the passage.

This understanding is quite clear from the intervening verses as well. (Note verses 2:22-23.) Here in calling attention to events in the life of Abraham to support his argument, James affirms that Abraham’s faith (which had occurred long before the incident with Isaac) was the basis of God’s pronouncement of righteousness upon Abraham (vs 23a). However, Abraham’s faith later was brought to maturity (“made perfect”) through his work of obedience (vs 22). Through his act of obedience, God’s earlier pronouncement of righteousness upon Abraham was vindicated in the eyes of men and Abraham was seen as a true “friend of God” by those who learned of his obedience (vs 23b) and this was what they called him from then on.

JMG



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/08/2011 11:07PM by derrida.

I like your Number three and the fact you are stressing that grace is what makes Christians focus on Jesus. Due to his love we must provide works if we are Christians and we do so willingly. They go hand in hand, but we focus on Christ's grace - we are so not deserving of it but are grateful for it. I hate that Mormons think that we do not feel much regarding works. We certainly do and our outreach to others in the community and beyond - not just our congregation - shows it. How much do the Mormons talk about their outreach to those not in their church? The organization needs money to build malls, buy property, and send young men on missions to spread more hero worship for the cult leader JS.

And you are right in saying Christians have a personal relationship to JC.....we do not need to go through anyone else. Mormons do....it is always the Bishop who is to give permission for this or that. How stupid. We volunteer and our Christian churches are grateful for all who choose to help in any capacity and the pastor would never say "Sorry, you are not worthy at this time."

If it requires an obscure theological debate to determine whether there is the appropriate definitions for works and grace and the appropriate mixture to qualify as Christian, then the debate has reached a level of bullshittery too rarified for most people to care one way or the other.

Mormons exhibit most of the usual Christian neuroses. I think they are nuts enough to be considered Christian. QED

Dueling circular logic quotations from unverified, dubiously translated Bronze Age documents applied to the 21st century?

The whole issue for me is like getting into a heated debate about Star Trek characters. Diverting and entertaining at times, but that's all.

The Courtier's Reply:

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Courtier's_Reply

The point is not to argue for the true interpretation b/c there cannot be one. As an atheist in particular I see the whole discussion as a waste of time, such a waste of time in fact that I would not bother with the discussion at all, not even to mock people who engage in it, except for one small problem: Mormons have abused the f*ck out of me, stolen my family, put many of us here on this board in a position of needing to "recover" in order to regain a semblance of normality in our lives, etc. The list of grievances against Mormons is a long one.

Bob McCue makes the point that the reason many of us exmormons are so p*ss@d off is that we feel that in some sense we have been "cheated" by the LDS church. No small measure of this sense of abuse was enabled no doubt by the LDS church's emphasis on works righteousness.

Because the dominant culture is "Christian" in a sense that is typically withheld from Mormons, much to their consternation, when they enter public debate--as has been rife in a political season with two presidential candidates who happen to be Mormon--the discussion of whether Mormons are "real" Christians or not has been UNDERSTANDABLY a common topic of discussion.

Obviously one of the contested doctrines in this public debate between grace focused Christians and works focused Mormons is that of the primacy of faith or works. The point is not to decide which one is true. The point is to publicize the Mormon position and to not let them obfuscate their differences from the dominant Christian voting public.

Those of us who have attacked Mormons in these public debates have attacked them along a number of fronts, one of which is the grace/works controversy, where Mormons appear to be very vulnerable: 1) because they are so extremely works focused, 2) because they are shown to be so unfocused on Jesus and therefore NOT as Christian as they would like to claim, and 3) because their extreme works focus does open them to easy charges of organizational abuse, calling for recovery from Mormonism sites that the public is usually ignorant of.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/09/2011 08:16PM by derrida.