Question about LDS Church after Smith's death.

[babe]

You are a pretty fair and balanced guy, imo. The bolder surprises me. Almost every friend I have now is LDS and my business partners (every one of them) are bishops and stake presidents. Each one of them, to the person, can quote BoM chapter and verse (end hyperbole) but readily admit they only passively crack open the Bible. That is every Mormon I know. That's not being judgmental by the way, just an observation.

all I can say to this is that I can and do quote the Book of Mormon, too. Maybe more than I do the Bible, even. There have been some leaders who praise the Book of Mormon as a better way to get closer to the Lord. So, people looking at a complex world or picture will focus on one aspect or another, and maybe get completely different impressions. My comment is not scientific in that I have not compiled thousands of current quotes and classified them as sourced in the Bible or Book of Mormon. I don't care enough to do all that work. I do "look for the source" when I listen to talks, that's about it.

I have this "working theory" of Mormonism that is shifting a bit with more recent inputs. I notice "dropped themes", or things that are falling into disuse currently, and "new themes" or things getting more play. Good Mormons will get hot or bothered, perhaps, when I irreverently or disrespectfully characterize what I think I see, because it's certain that's not the part of the picture they want to see.

I imagine I have more respect for God than changing fashions of thought.

The Book of Mormon's content from the outset consisted of religious or speculative themes that existed in the area of the northern American woods frontier. The idea that the aborigines were lost Israelites had been advanced for over a hundred years. Most of the prominent doctrinal themes involved extensions of Isaiah's prophecies about the ultimate restoration of Israel, New Testament ideas, and what I'd term post-Pauline expositions. There were massive remains of earlier civilizations that had no fixed history at the time, lots of weaponry lost in the woods, deep layers of bones in some spots suggesting genocidal wars. There were findings of copper and silver artifacts that fueled a speculative employment of young boys to dig for treasures like that.

I do know a lot of nice LDS folks who read the Book of Mormon and feel it is the centerpiece of their faith. Maybe it does not get the play in the press/conference context, or in the lesson manuals, because of a purposed intent to focus on stuff that might be more familiar to the new converts or something, I don't know.

 

[green]

Well, this thread is a complete waste now.

It was interesting for awhile.

Anyone find it ironic that grace people bag on Mormons for their focus on works, then spend all day working to show how mormons are wrong? Why do they care so much if you are saved by grace and not works? What is the point? Either you are saved by grace or works or both. If it is grace, and mormons have accepted Jesus in their hearts, then the rest is just icing on the cake.

To think that Christ would turn someone away because they worshipped him through the Lutheran, Catholic, Mormon route and would deny his grace is silly. Especially when Christ is losing the battle to Muhammad, Budda, atheists, etc and the other Asian/African religions. Christ needs all the believers he can get right now.

 

[BENTLEY]

You just described Mormon theology on grace and works.

Here's a talk by Elder Bednar from 2013.
https://www.lds.org/ensign/2012/04/the-atonement-and-the-journey-of-mortality?lang=eng

This grace is an enabling power that allows men and women to lay hold on eternal life and exaltation after they have expended their own best efforts.”2

Grace is the divine assistance or heavenly help each of us desperately needs to qualify for the celestial kingdom. Thus, the enabling power of the Atonement strengthens us to do and be good and to serve beyond our own individual desire and natural capacity.

In my personal scripture study, I often insert the term “enabling power” whenever I encounter the word grace.

This talk is flowery and subtle. But Bednar's admitting in it that he's re-writing scripture to fit his definition. He's preaching a gospel of salvation by works, assisted by God and in conflict with the gospel first preached by our early Christian fathers. It's nice and pretty but follow Jesus' advice and be ye not deceived.

Galations 1:6-9 "I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel. There are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed."

Colton, you're a lawyer, aren't you? I thought you were. In a courtroom there is a guilty party who has broken the law. His punishment is death (the wages of sin is death). But Jesus Christ steps in as a substitute, a whipping boy, as it were, to take the punishment for us. So He accepts our punishment and dies, so that we don't have to - because He loves us. Where in this is the guilty party "enabled" to do something? Of course, we're grateful that He saved us "while we were sinners" (not after we started being good). But because He saved me I want to be good. But salvation doesn't depend on my actions because the penalty had already been pain. It's finished.

 

[babe]

I like the faith side of the coin over the works side. It is a lower standard. If you are saved by faith alone and there is no requirement for any works, just those you feel like doing, that is a lot easier than holding yourself to a certain standard of behavior all the freaking time. Less to repent for. Less reason to feel guilty. Less stuff to worry about.

This might be your problem. If you view faith and works as alternate sides of the same coin, or if you feel folks who emphasize the redeeming deed of Jesus over their own goodness, or if you have a list of essential things you feel you need to do to be OK with God, these ideas will fuel decisions in different ways.

I say it's just one issue, perhaps with many sides but one issue. People just don't really understand it.

The issue is your gift, not the anybody else's. Jesus did his part, but one question remains. What is your choice? maybe, it's not a one-time event but an ongoing life choice.

Well, I've heard some preachers explain that there may be phonies in the flock who say they're Christ's but who are essentially unchanged by their claim. Others want it to be a one-time event, and leave the rest to Jesus. My criticisms of Mormons lie in the area of substituting organizational compliance and rituals, like the Catholics did throughout the dark ages in Europe, as I would make it out, for the clear-cut emphasis on the first commandment, or the "Greatest Commandment" as Jesus termed it, but it all seems to me to reduce to a way of life where considerations of God's commandments are an on-going priority over various interposed human "requirements".

Mormons can be as good as any Christians in this respect, and often are. Other Christians can fail as often and as badly and any Mormons do, as well.

God has given us our lives, our time here, and perhaps much more. What can we give Him? Love, and service to God and to others, to God's other children. Talking about faith and works as inherently different things confuses that single truth and isn't even worth the argument. . . .

 

[♪alt13]

all I can say to this is that I can and do quote the Book of Mormon, too. Maybe more than I do the Bible, even. There have been some leaders who praise the Book of Mormon as a better way to get closer to the Lord. So, people looking at a complex world or picture will focus on one aspect or another, and maybe get completely different impressions. My comment is not scientific in that I have not compiled thousands of current quotes and classified them as sourced in the Bible or Book of Mormon. I don't care enough to do all that work. I do "look for the source" when I listen to talks, that's about it.

I have this "working theory" of Mormonism that is shifting a bit with more recent inputs. I notice "dropped themes", or things that are falling into disuse currently, and "new themes" or things getting more play. Good Mormons will get hot or bothered, perhaps, when I irreverently or disrespectfully characterize what I think I see, because it's certain that's not the part of the picture they want to see.

I imagine I have more respect for God than changing fashions of thought.

The Book of Mormon's content from the outset consisted of religious or speculative themes that existed in the area of the northern American woods frontier. The idea that the aborigines were lost Israelites had been advanced for over a hundred years. Most of the prominent doctrinal themes involved extensions of Isaiah's prophecies about the ultimate restoration of Israel, New Testament ideas, and what I'd term post-Pauline expositions. There were massive remains of earlier civilizations that had no fixed history at the time, lots of weaponry lost in the woods, deep layers of bones in some spots suggesting genocidal wars. There were findings of copper and silver artifacts that fueled a speculative employment of young boys to dig for treasures like that.

I do know a lot of nice LDS folks who read the Book of Mormon and feel it is the centerpiece of their faith. Maybe it does not get the play in the press/conference context, or in the lesson manuals, because of a purposed intent to focus on stuff that might be more familiar to the new converts or something, I don't know.

Couldn't you make a similar case about the Bible? The flood, virgin birth, resurrection, etc. Didn't all these themes exist within religions that predated both Christianity and Judaism?

 

[RandyForRubio]

Well, this thread is a complete waste now.

It was interesting for awhile.

Anyone find it ironic that grace people bag on Mormons for their focus on works, then spend all day working to show how mormons are wrong? Why do they care so much if you are saved by grace and not works? What is the point? Either you are saved by grace or works or both. If it is grace, and mormons have accepted Jesus in their hearts, then the rest is just icing on the cake.

To think that Christ would turn someone away because they worshipped him through the Lutheran, Catholic, Mormon route and would deny his grace is silly. Especially when Christ is losing the battle to Muhammad, Budda, atheists, etc and the other Asian/African religions. Christ needs all the believers he can get right now.

With all due respect, the fundamental problem you're stating here is thinking that Christ needs us. He does not. He wants us, but He does not need us. We already know how this story ends, God wins...with or without us.

As for most of what you said, there's a very good reason that the Bible says that the gate is narrow that leads to life and those who find it are few. Read about this stuff, pray about it, it can't hurt at all.

 

[babe]

Well, this thread is a complete waste now.

It was interesting for awhile.

Anyone find it ironic that grace people bag on Mormons for their focus on works, then spend all day working to show how mormons are wrong? Why do they care so much if you are saved by grace and not works? What is the point? Either you are saved by grace or works or both. If it is grace, and mormons have accepted Jesus in their hearts, then the rest is just icing on the cake.

To think that Christ would turn someone away because they worshipped him through the Lutheran, Catholic, Mormon route and would deny his grace is silly. Especially when Christ is losing the battle to Muhammad, Budda, atheists, etc and the other Asian/African religions. Christ needs all the believers he can get right now.

An active conscience requires discriminating views between nearly identical concepts as well as the broadly differing. It is generally true that people focus more on the differences between nearly congruent claims than they do the obviously incoherent.

Here I am, all fussy about decadal differences in Mormonism's drift, annoying the happy Mormons, because I think it's important to have a clear alternative to the World Council of Churches neo-orthodoxy.

start by finding one thing you do believe, and build from that, and you will understand why specifics matter.

 

[Dr. Jones]

all I can say to this is that I can and do quote the Book of Mormon, too. Maybe more than I do the Bible, even. There have been some leaders who praise the Book of Mormon as a better way to get closer to the Lord. So, people looking at a complex world or picture will focus on one aspect or another, and maybe get completely different impressions. My comment is not scientific in that I have not compiled thousands of current quotes and classified them as sourced in the Bible or Book of Mormon. I don't care enough to do all that work. I do "look for the source" when I listen to talks, that's about it.

I have this "working theory" of Mormonism that is shifting a bit with more recent inputs. I notice "dropped themes", or things that are falling into disuse currently, and "new themes" or things getting more play. Good Mormons will get hot or bothered, perhaps, when I irreverently or disrespectfully characterize what I think I see, because it's certain that's not the part of the picture they want to see.

I imagine I have more respect for God than changing fashions of thought.

The Book of Mormon's content from the outset consisted of religious or speculative themes that existed in the area of the northern American woods frontier. The idea that the aborigines were lost Israelites had been advanced for over a hundred years. Most of the prominent doctrinal themes involved extensions of Isaiah's prophecies about the ultimate restoration of Israel, New Testament ideas, and what I'd term post-Pauline expositions. There were massive remains of earlier civilizations that had no fixed history at the time, lots of weaponry lost in the woods, deep layers of bones in some spots suggesting genocidal wars. There were findings of copper and silver artifacts that fueled a speculative employment of young boys to dig for treasures like that.

I do know a lot of nice LDS folks who read the Book of Mormon and feel it is the centerpiece of their faith. Maybe it does not get the play in the press/conference context, or in the lesson manuals, because of a purposed intent to focus on stuff that might be more familiar to the new converts or something, I don't know.

I really like how you communicate regarding religion. You suck at everything else though. JK,bro.


















about the first sentence.


























haha


































but srs

 

[BENTLEY]

You seem to be saying that we are not Christians because we belong to a faith that has (in your opinion) questionable origins. But shouldn't we be evaluated based on our own beliefs and our actions? Do you consider me to be a Christian? If not, what's your definition of Christian?

Yeah, the origins. There is evidence to support that the Smith's were diviners and occultists and swindlers. It's worth looking into, don'tcha think? I mean, when I'm wondering about purchasing something on amazon I read all the reviews to see the positive and negative things people say about a product. It should be the same with religion. Investigate the positive reviews but also read the negatives to weigh for yourself if the negative reviews are objective and valid.

In fact, read this book. It was written by a mormon who worked for 34 years in the CES:
https://www.amazon.com/An-Insiders-View-Mormon-Origins/dp/1560851570


One of the major things Mormonism teaches that is different from Biblical Christianity is Jesus coming to North America to give the sermon on the mount. There's no evidence of the multitudes of Nephites, Lamanites, their battles, their cities. There's no golden plates to verify Joseph Smith's claims.
There is evidence of the people and places in the Bible, and there are tons of ancient copies of the Bible that agree with each other 99%.

There are other things that separate mormons from Biblical Christians, but just read that book. It covers a lot.

 

[sgjazzfan]

If everyone is saved by Grace, then what is the purpose of this life? Is Hitler saved? What about Bin Laden, Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, etc...?

If you answered no, then isn't it their works that kept them from salvation, thus works are part of salvation?

If you answered yes, then is there a distinction between them and those who follow Christ and led good lives? What does "saved" mean in this case?

 

[Dr. Jones]

Thanks. I do appreciate that.



Let's focus on me, then. Or on the other present-day Mormons in the thread. You seem to be saying that we are not Christians because we belong to a faith that has (in your opinion) questionable origins. But shouldn't we be evaluated based on our own beliefs and our actions? Do you consider me to be a Christian? If not, what's your definition of Christian?

No one is a Christian based on which religion or denomination they follow, but rather their own faith, belief, and walk regarding Jesus Christ. I humbly say that I believe I know Mormons that are Christians, some whom are not, as well as protestants/evangelicals that are Christian and some are not. Sitting side-by-side in the same pew, in the same church building, making the same claims to their own beliefs.

I do not wholesale say any group is or isn't children of God.

I do fear for most Mormon due to the doctrine, but I also find it silly to suggest the being Mormon or Christian as being mutually exclusive. Btw, I also fear for the average mainstream Christian that does live 'however they want' and think they're a child of God because a label they bestowed upon themselves.

 

[♪alt13]

No one is a Christian based on which religion or denomination they follow, but rather their own faith, belief, and walk regarding Jesus Christ. I humbly say that I believe I know Mormons that are Christians, some whom are not, as well as protestants/evangelicals that are Christian and some are not. Sitting side-by-side in the same pew, in the same church building, making the same claims to their own beliefs.

I do not wholesale say any group is or isn't children of God.

I do fear for most Mormon due to the doctrine, but I also find it silly to suggest the being Mormon or Christian as being mutually exclusive. Btw, I also fear for the average mainstream Christian that does live 'however they want' and think they're a child of God because a label they bestowed upon themselves.

Didn't Jesus say something about rich people and camels?

 

[BENTLEY]

2 Timothy 2:23-24: avoid foolish and ignorant disputes, knowing that they generate strife. And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition,

Sorry if I offended anyone. I'm a miserable sinner, but I try to be nice.

 

[Dr. Jones]

Didn't Jesus say something about rich people and camels?

You're right. Buying myself an extra large needle tomorrow. Hope it's not too late.

 

[Dr. Jones]

If everyone is saved by Grace, then what is the purpose of this life? Is Hitler saved? What about Bin Laden, Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, etc...?

If you answered no, then isn't it their works that kept them from salvation, thus works are part of salvation?

If you answered yes, then is there a distinction between them and those who follow Christ and led good lives? What does "saved" mean in this case?

Did Hitler accept Jesus Christ as his personal savior? Did he turn from his old ways in repentance and begin his new walk?

It wasn't their works, but their deciding against the above, that kept them out.

Saved means doing and meaning the bolded.

 

[sgjazzfan]

Saved means doing and meaning the bolded.

Isn't this an action word, which implies some work was involved? My only point is, you can't be saved with some type of action, thus grace alone is insufficient.

 

[Dr. Jones]

Isn't this an action word, which implies some work was involved? My only point is, you can't be saved with some type of action, thus grace alone is insufficient.

Is this about winning a debate? If so, I yield, you win.

 

[sgjazzfan]

Is this about winning a debate? If so, I yield, you win.

I don't think you need convinced. I think you understand somewhat how LDS view grace (maybe even better than some members). My point is toward those that think that we are trying to work our way into heaven. It only makes sense that there has to be some work. It seems to me that there is more agreement in how we believe (based on what your previous post said) than difference.

 

[Dr. Jones]

I don't think you need convinced. I think you understand somewhat how LDS view grace (maybe even better than some members). My point is toward those that think that we are trying to work our way into heaven. It only makes sense that there has to be some work. It seems to me that there is more agreement in how we believe (based on what your previous post said) than difference.

Amen. Works is evidence of our faith.
But without what Jesus did we couldn't possibly work our way to worthiness.
Love you bro.

 

[mellow]

I try to stay away from religious talk on message boards for many reasons mostly because faith can be deeply personal and strongly felt, and too many come here just to argue. I don't want to stir up an argument or attack another's faith. But there were a couple of things in bentleys post I want to respond to. You should know that I am a believing Mormon, but Im not out to convince anyone.

Yeah, the origins. There is evidence to support that the Smith's were diviners and occultists and swindlers.

There is also evidence and testimony to support the that the Smiths were honest, hardworking, christians. It's worth looking into don't you think?

One of the major things Mormonism teaches that is different from Biblical Christianity is Jesus coming to North America to give the sermon on the mount. There's no evidence of the multitudes of Nephites, Lamanites, their battles, their cities. There's no golden plates to verify Joseph Smith's claims.
There is evidence of the people and places in the Bible, and there are tons of ancient copies of the Bible that agree with each other 99%.

That line of argument has always bothered me. Intentional or not it puts the Mormon respondent in a position where it would be easy to say something that could be interpreted as an attack on the Bible or the Early Christian fathers to whom we owe so much. Our desire is to build faith, not destroy it, and that is my desire. However, I think it is helpful for me to draw a comparison, PBS played a program several months ago where they were documenting archeological discoveries in Israel/Palestine. The archeologists found cities that existed at the time the Bible reports Joshua brought Israel into the area. But the archeological evidence did not match the Biblical account in multiple ways. The scientists wanted to draw conclusions suggesting that if these sites did not match the record then the record was flawed. These discoveries did not change my faith in the Bible, or in Christ, because I rely on something more than physical evidence. Truly if faith were based solely on archeology and history then something is defect in Christian history that keeps 67% of the world from becoming Christian.

Please don't misunderstand, if artifacts or traditions help people believe, then I thank heaven for them, and pray that more evidence will be found.

Likewise, My belief in the Book of Mormon is not tied to physical evidence, it is based on something more. Still, I must admit I wish there was more evidence that would remove pre-conceived beliefs about the Book of Mormon For other people so they would try it with a sliver of belief. But I don't know what evidence that would be, I guess it is different for each person.

As a side note I find it interesting that Mormonism is not easily passed on through a family. The claims of the origins of the church and the Book of Mormon are so fantastic, and there are so many people offering alternative explanations --some reasonable, some equally fantastic, that it sooner or later puts every would be believer in an inescapable position. Those moments of truth finds people old, young, active in the church or not. I know people, who having reached that crisis, have gone both ways. I can't explain why some find a conviction while others don't. But in my mind without a spiritual conviction the church could not have survived much more than a generation past the death of Joseph smith.

There are other things that separate mormons from Biblical Christians, but just read that book. It covers a lot.

And I would say there are many things that the Book of Mormon teaches about Christ, just read the book. It covers a lot.