Drawing the Line for Mormons
A Closer Look
at the LDS Church
MARY
KOCHAN (Roman Catholic
Author)
Mormons want you to believe that they are "Christians"
and that their church, "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter
Day Saints", is just another Christian denomination. Mormons
themselves believe that they are Christians and
that their church is the only true church. (As
do almost almost every church or denmination I have been to.)
There is even a move among Mormons to shorten the name of their church to
simply "The Church of Jesus Christ."
Their founder, Joseph Smith claimed to have been told in a vision regarding
the Christian churches that God "forbade me to join with
any of them" and "all their creeds were an abomination
in his sight." It is hence Mormons (not Christians) who
established, from the beginning of their group, an antagonistic
relationship with those Christian groups already in existence.(This
is practiced through the whole of Churchdom.)
While in recent years Mormons have sought to downplay this antagonism,
that testimony of Joseph Smith continues to be prominently featured
on Mormon websites.
In one sense clearly, Mormons are Christian. If
you were going to categorize Mormons according to world religion
criteria, you would have to say they are Christians.
(In sccripture they fall under the catagory of those that are
called by My name -- this is not a statement of honor by God
but rather lament. Or to use a termed coined on this website
CINO's Christians In Name Only -- and that actually covers the
majority of goats and tares of this day regardless of church
or denomination)World religions are the major
belief systems found around the world that frame a tradition
of enough cultural richness to support a civilization. The major
world religions are: Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism,
Shintoism, Confucianism and Islam. Clearly Mormonism fits into
the broad "Christian" category. And so would many
other groups whose relationship with the wider Christian world
is antagonistic: Jehovah's Witnesses, Branch Davidians, Oneness
Pentecostals, etc.
It may be that in the not-too-distant future, we will have to categorize
Mormonism as a separate world religion.(This
is a stretch! --What is actually lamented here is in the near
future having to have to publicly name Mormons as a major Christian
denomination along with Catholics and Pentecostals and Baptists
which up till now has never happened.) It
is the fifth largest religious group now in the US,
having just passed the Lutherans,
(The sole reasonfir this is the Mormon's skillful use of scripturally
having all their unmarried young poeple to go door to door and
house to house entusiastically preaching their "warped
and twisted" Gospel. And simply put no one in evangelical
churches, fundamentalist churches, pentecostal churches, or
charismatic churches, is obedient in any meaningful way to what
Paul describes in the book of 1 Corinthians about being single
a fervently serving the Lord and doing the work of the ministry
until their find themselves burning with passion and then getting
married and making lots of little believers. -- the Mormon's
religiously do both.) and the LDS are experiencing
rapid expansion in other countries. In many ways its development
(and origin) parallels
that of Islam. (Which has been
also mentioned on this website in serveral articels.) Both
religions were founded by prophets who claimed to have been
visited by an angel. They borrow heavily from Judaism
and Christianity, (Like
other churches and denominatons they pick and chose what they
want to beleive and preach.--but their leaders have made some
very bad doctrinal picks as we will see. And have chosen to
dramtically redefine key terms of the faith.)
yet reject their central tenets. Both rely upon strange revisions
of history. The Koran identifies Mary, the mother of Jesus,
with Miriam the sister of Moses, who lived over fourteen centuries
earlier. The Book of Mormon makes numerous claims regarding
the peoples of the Americas (including the idea that the American
Indians descended from a lost tribe of ancient Israelites) that
have been refuted by history, archeology and anthropology. Both
Islam and Mormonism claim that where their sacred writings contradict
the Bible, the Christian and Jewish scriptures have been corrupted.
It might be argued that Mormons have the right to say that they are "Christians"
and no one should deny what they say about themselves. It is
possible however for us to respect their right to call themselves
whatever they wish without feeling compelled to validate that
claim ourselves. This is complicated
by the fact that to many Catholics,
(This article was originally published on some Roman Catholic
publication or web page) Mormonism seems no
more strange than the Baptist faith, or that of any other Protestant
denomination. In part this is because Mormons themselves generally
use the language and terminology common to (especially Protestant)
Christians. In their initial approach to you, they will do all
they can to hide or gloss over the distinctive beliefs of their
church. Statements of Mormon belief sound so much like statements
of the Christian faith that many Catholics and Protestants are
quite willing to recognize Mormons as "Christians",
not merely in the world religion sense, but
in the sense in which we Catholics recognize Protestant Christians
as our "separated brethren".(THIS
IS A WONDERFUL PRAISEWORTHY ACKNOWLEDGEMENT FROM AN CATHOLIC
THEOLOGIAN) This is a serious error (Granting
this status to Mormon's) with two major consequences:
First, Christians (including Catholics) are misled into the Mormon church
where they are indoctrinated in a religion which rejects the
central doctrines of the Christian faith, resulting in them
bringing their children up as non-Christians. Second, Christians
embrace Mormons as fellow Christians instead of evangelizing
them.
In order to protect Christians from this deception
and to help Mormons learn the truth, we must understand how
Mormon doctrine differs from the historic Christian faith that
we share with Protestants. To do this, we will
examine first what Mormons say, then how they define the terms
they are using and how that differs from the Christian faith.
Finally we provide a biblical, Christian response and suggestions
for how to discuss these things with a member of the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
What Mormons will say they believe about God:
1. We believe in God the Father who is the Father of Jesus Christ.
2. We worship God the Father and pray to him in Jesus' name.
3. Jesus is our Savior.
Why the Mormon God the Father is not the Christian God the Father:
1. "God the Father" to a Mormon is not God the Father, first Person
of the Holy Trinity, whom Christians confess. He is one of many gods.
2. The Mormon worships God the Father because he
is the god of this planet, but other planets have
other gods equal to or even greater than God the Father.
3. The Mormon "God the Father" had a
Father and was once a man on a planet who worshipped his own
Father God. He was subsequently exalted to godhood.
He has a physical, human body.
4. It is the hope of the male Mormon to progress
to the point where he too will be a god like God the Father
and be ruling over his own planet.
5. The Mormons have a saying: "What man is,
God once was; what God is, man will become." This
is polytheism.
Christian answer:
1. The God of the Bible is the Creator and God of all the universe, of all
worlds, not just our planet. He made the heavens and the earth;
there is no other God; there never has been any other God, nor
will there ever be another. (Gen. 1.1; Isaiah 43.10; 44.6,8,24)
2. God the Father was never a man.
3. You will never be God.
4, True Christianity, like Judaism, is monotheistic. As our creed states
"We believe in one God."
Jesus, Brother of Lucifer
Why the Mormon Jesus is not the Christian Jesus:
1. The Mormon Jesus is the spirit brother of Lucifer
(Satan). They were both born in heaven by God
the Father's union with one of his many spirit wives.
2. According to Mormon teaching, when it was time for Jesus to come down
to earth, God the Father sent down one of his spirit wives
from heaven to be born as a woman, Mary. Then
he came down and had physical, marital relations with her in
order for her to give birth to a human body inhabited by Jesus
coming from heaven. This is a denial of the Virgin
Birth.
Christian answer:
1. Since God the Father does not have a physical human body, he did not impregnate
Mary by a physical union (2 Chronicles 6.18; John 4. 24).
Jesus became incarnate by the power of the Holy Spirit and was born of the
Virgin Mary (Mat. 1. 23; Lu. 2.30-35).
2. God the Father does not have a wife or wives in heaven.
Jesus is the eternally-begotten Son of God, one in being with the Father
(John 1. 1-1.
3. He is not the older brother of Lucifer.
4. He is the older brother, as well as Lord and God, of those born again
by water and Spirit, God's adopted children (John 3.3-17; Rom.
8.14-17,29).
Why the Mormon doctrine of man is not the Christian doctrine of man:
1. According to Mormonism, all human beings existed
as spirit children of God and his wife in heaven before coming
to earth.
2. They grow to spirit "adulthood", serving God (even fighting
in heavenly battles), and are then sent to earth to be babies
of human parents.
3.The earthly life is their opportunity to become gods themselves, like their
heavenly Father by "obeying the laws of the Gospel"
just as the god of this planet once did.
Christian answer:
1. There is no biblical support for the idea that human beings were spirit
children of God in heaven before coming to earth.
2. Jesus was unique in being a human being with a pre-human existence (John
1.18; 3.13,31; 8.23,5.
3. Jesus took on human nature at the Incarnation. God became man not the
other way around. His human nature was glorified at his resurrection.
4. We will be like God in that we will have the same kind of glorified human
nature which Jesus possesses, not in becoming gods and ruling
planets ourselves (1 John 3.3; Rom. 8.22, Phil. 3.20-21).
5. While heaven is the presence of God with unfettered communion, the distinction
between God and creatures remains (Rev. 5.13,14).
Challenging Mormons
What Mormons will say they believe about salvation:
1. All are redeemed by the Savior's self-sacrifice, from the consequences
of the fall.
2. Immortality comes as a free gift, by the grace of God alone, without works.
3. Jesus is our Savior.
Why Mormon salvation is not Christian salvation:
1. According to Mormonism, everyone and everything
all of creation has been redeemed and therefore "saved".
(Automatically by Christs death and ressurection.)
2. His salvation gains, for all human beings, a physical resurrection
only not eternal life. (They teach)
is not "salvation"; it is "exaltation" (Into this Godhood in the universe status) he is
saved (per Evangelical parlance), he will answer yes.
4. If you ask him if he believes you are saved, he will answer yes. This
confuses Christians who do not understand that being "saved"
and gaining "eternal life" are not the same thing
in Mormon thinking.
5. It is further confused by the Mormon distinction between "immortality"
(salvation to physical resurrection) and "eternal life"
(The exaltation to godhood).
6. The Mormons have a saying: "Salvation without exaltation is damnation."
(So to live forever with God and
Christ in heaven is to be damned.)
7. Therefore, a Mormon can, with a straight face, tell you
he believes you are "saved", while he also believes
you are damned.
Christian answer:
1. We define salvation according to what we are saved from. We are saved
from sin and from the wages of sin death.
2. To be saved from sin is to be justified and sanctified. To be saved from
death is to receive eternal life (Rom. 6. 22, 23).
3. Being saved, justified, sanctified and given eternal life by the grace
of God are all things which are interconnected in the scriptures.
There is no biblical basis for separating them (Rom. 5th).
4. Seeking exaltation is contrary to the spirit of Christ. We are rather
to humble ourselves, recognize our sinfulness and call upon
the Lord for mercy and forgiveness (James 4. 6-10).
Why the Mormon hope is not the Christian hope:
1. It is the hope of the male Mormon to progress
to the point where he will be a god like God the Father and
be ruling over his own planet. This is "exaltation",
and depends upon the Mormon "Plan of Eternal Progression".
2. The hope of
Mormon females depends upon their being married, in a temple
ceremony, to a Mormon male who achieves exaltation.
3. Mormon women married to non-Mormons ("Gentiles")
can arrange for a "temple sealing" (marriage by proxy)
to a Mormon male after their death. This is to assure that in
eternity they are considered to have been married to and produced
their children from a Mormon husband so that they and their
children can be exalted.
4. Mormon males expect to produce offspring in
heaven with
their mate(s), offspring who will subsequently be sent
to populate their planet and achieve their own exaltation to
godhood and so on and so on
(This is incest
the salvation they preach and teach is tied directly to incest
with their wives daughters.)
Christian answer:
1. The God of the Bible is the Creator and God of all the universe, of all
worlds, not just our planet. He made man for Himself and in
His image to be in communion with God and enter into the love
of the Holy Trinity.
2. When man fell into sin and marred the image of God in his own being, the
second person of the Trinity became incarnate taking human
nature to Himself.
3. He then did what He could not do in the form of God He died to save
us from sin and death, so that we could come back into communion
with God and share the love of the Holy Trinity. Our hope is
to be with God, not to be God (Gen. 1st-3rd; Phil. 2. 5-11).
When Talking to a Mormon
Remember that the Mormon is trained to hide the difference between his beliefs
and yours and to present himself as a Christian. However, his
belief that he is a Christian is sincere, and his efforts to
hide the distinctives of the Mormon religion are pursued in
his desire to get you to accept Mormon teachings.
Do not allow glib, surface responses to go unchallenged; press the Mormon
to define the Christian-sounding words he is using.
Define your own terms also. Draw the contrast for the Mormon. Calmly and
clearly insist that what you and he believe about the nature
of God, the identity of Jesus, the nature of man, salvation
and eternal life are different. To pretend otherwise is dishonest.
Appeal to his honesty and sense of fairness. You might say, "Look, we
are not going to get anywhere unless we are honest with each
other. Without making any statement about which one of us is
right, can't we just acknowledge that we do not worship the
same God?" or "Can't we just acknowledge that we do
not have the same hope for the future?" Help the Mormon
to consider the logical and philosophical problems with the
Plan of Eternal Progression.
If God had a Father and He had a Father and so on then who was the first
God? Mormons say it is an "infinite regression". But
since there is no way to cross an infinite distance or pass
an infinite amount of time, there would be no way to get to
"now" and to "us" from an infinite past.
Time has to have had a beginning and it did. It began with the
creation "of all things seen and unseen" by God. Mormons
say that God is omnipotent (almighty, all-powerful), yet they
say there are many Gods. There cannot be more than one omnipotent
being, so the Mormon conception of God is shrunken and distorted.
A big selling point of the Mormon hope for the future is the idea that families
will be together eternally. But if Mormons become Gods of planets
and then their children become Gods of other planets how do
the children and parents get together? Can a God leave his planet
unattended while he goes to a celestial family reunion? This
Mormon selling point would be diminished if we Christians were
more vocal about our hope for the "new heavens and new
earth" in which we know one another in the all the relationships
of our present lives, only in glory (2 Pet. 3.13, Rev. 21.1).
Welcome the participation of Mormons in causes which we share for the common
good: strengthening family life, fighting pornography and abortion,
fostering the virtue of patriotism. We honor each Mormon as
a person who desires what is genuinely good for himself, his
family and his society and when we share the truths of the
Christian faith with him.