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One of my favorite US History subjects. Mormons have come a long way from the Golden Plates of the Angel Moroni and Joseph Smith. They have a long history of Government persecution, and the resentment of Buchanan’s Utah Wars against Brigham Young still carry deep resentment within the inner sanctum. Granted, very polite deep resentment. I get a kick out of Mormons. They are amazingly committed to evangelical missions but remarkably good natured bout a joke. When Trey Parker wrote the Book of Mormon, he also commented on this, saying Mormons were easily the most good natured about being ribbed–many adherents showing up for the play.
Salt Lake City is a great place. And Utah, their chosen land, is beautiful. Despite the 3% beer.
Great post Cat.
This is not correct. Catholics are not justified by works. Tradition (Councils of Carthage and Trent) and scripture teach that we are saved by God’s grace alone, completely unmerited by works. In Philippians 2:13, Paul states that “God is the one, who, for his good purpose, works in you both to desire and to work.” The desire comes by the Grace of God…we are justified by faith. However we must also work toward righteousness. The good works are a sign of faith, as James 2:17 states, “Faith without works is dead.”
Very illuminating on why Mormons Do Not Dig Donald. Still curious re why Evangelicals do (if they do). Part II?
I don’t know hardly anything about so-called “nutcase” Skousen, but I was intrigued by this in the linked Wikipedia article:
Not so nutty, eh?
Perhaps it’s The 5000 Year Leap .
During the last election, I found myself around a camp fire on a cub scout outing, with a lot of people I didn’t know well. The subject of Romney’s religion came up. Quite a few had the same question: “I normally vote Republican, but can I vote for a Mormon?”
See, for most Christians fall in to two camps regarding Mormons. They either don’t have any idea what they believe, and consider them an odd, legalistic, denomination of Christianity. Or they know a bit about Mormon theology and recognize that they are most certainly not Christian at all.
Those in second category were right to pause for a moment and ask the question. But, as I said that evening around the campfire, “Would you rather vote for a guy who claims to be a Christian, but shows by his actions that he is not? Or would you rather vote for a guy who is not a Christian, but lives his life guided by principles that you and I share?” Only one person around the fire agreed. The rest either continued with their hand wringing, or were fully on board with Obama.
I really think there were a lot of reasons that Romney didn’t win that election. His religious beliefs were certainly among those reasons.
As 9th said, in Catholic theology it’s a “Both/And” of faith and works, not an either/or. The works are a cooperation with the grace you’ve been given through faith. They are your part of finishing the race — the process of sanctification.
As they say on Catholic Answers: “Be a saint. What else is there?!”
Cat is also incorrect about Mormon teachings. From the Book of Mormon (2 Ne. 2:8):
“[…] no flesh that can dwell in the presence of God, save it be through the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah, […]”
In fairness to Cat (who wrote a good essay on the whole), the place of works within Mormon theology is more prominent than among other churches (particularly evangelical groups) since we also believe that no one can enter heaven without being baptized and receiving the Holy Ghost (John 3:5), and that disagreement is often reduced to a false dichotomy of “faith vs. works”.
-E
My wording was poor, as it implied faith was irrelevant to Catholics and Mormons. Protestants object to faith’s place in these religions, but both still believe it is a requirement for salvation. There is also the practice of baptizing the dead, which makes it possible for spirits to come to faith in the afterlife. I think that belief is unique to Mormonism, but wouldn’t mind if anyone provided examples of sects with similar ideas.
It’s also worth mentioning that many Mormons (though not all) are turned off by his anti-muslim rhetoric. The persecutions of the 1830’s and -40’s (Extermination Order, Haun’s Mill, Martyrdom of Joseph Smith, etc.) figure prominently in our history, so we’re pretty averse to any calls for religious discrimination.
-E
Ok, Cat III. There’s no Article XI to the Constitution–there are only seven articles, to be quite frank! You mean Art.VI, Clause 3 for the prohibition of a religious test?
Yeah, that baptizing of the dead seems both rather unique & very much unwelcome. I’ve never heard it mentioned in a friendly way, that is, by people I know, who are not Mormons–I only know one Mormon family…
And a few of us, who have gotten a sense for the eccentricity of beliefs to be found even in the minds of nominally orthodox Christians, think of Mormonism as a heterodox Christianity. Not that this is a spat to get into today of all days.
Thanks for the article, @catiii.
Hey vote this up to the Main Feed, will ya!
Done!
I don’t know what heterodox means. If it means “not Christian” then I agree. Here is just one example of why Mormon theology puts itself squarely outside of Christianity.
It’s extremely rare, though, apparently, the New Apostolic Church now practices it. That’s the only instance I’ve heard of.
-E
We do appreciate that. If you haven’t yet, you should check out Stephen H. Webb’s Mormon Christianity. I just finished it a few months ago and found it to be very eye opening.
-E
Where is @catiii and what have you done with her?
Seriously, though, this was excellent.
We need a Cleon Skousen thread. I have a book review of his I’ve been working on. This may be just the push I need to get it done.
My take on Mormonism vs other religions is this:
I used to have two cats, and for the first few days they hated each other. Then I vacuumed the carpet. They both hid under my bed and looked at each other and said, “You’re afraid of the vacuum, too?” And after that they got along okay. Just okay though. They still had their spats.
Thus it is with other churches, and the LDS, and the vacuum of atheism/secularism.
Semper ubi sancti sub ubi.
The reason why my hackles raise a little at being told I’m not Christian is that it feels incredibly presumptuous to me and like the person is telling me that I do not have a sincere connection or relationship to my Lord and Savior. There certainly are profound differences in doctrine between Mormons and mainstream Christianity on the nature of the Godhead and a host of other things, and I don’t want to downplay those differences either. But even though I think mainstream Christians are plain wrong about certain doctrines (like they think I’m wrong), I’d never presume to tell them they’re not Christian. In my opinion, if you believe in Christ as the Son of God who suffered and died for all man’s sins, was raised again, and is the only path to salvation, you’re Christian. There may be plenty of differences between you and me about what all those words and what Christ’s teachings exactly mean and entail, and we can break out scriptures and argue over what words are meant to be taken literally and which are meant to be taken metaphorically and what does the original Greek or Hebrew say, but in the end we’re all coming down to faith-based claims.
Trump’s supposed Mormon Problem will turn out to be the Y2K of electoral issues; a big nothingburger. He’ll win Utah comfortably.
Coming from the Evangelicals in my sphere:
The country is in a better space with Donald than with Hillary. Christians in particular will be in a better space with regards to the anti-Baker style laws. First amendment rights with regards to religion will be under a lower level of attack. Second amendment rights (such are the Evangelicals I know), the same.
They also see the Hillary situation as a ratchet rather than a pendulum.
I’ve also been fascinated by my community’s reaction to Trump. Now, there are plenty of Mormons out there who will vote for Trump (I voted for him; my Dad’s voting for him; I have a cousin on facebook who’s been arguing passionately for Trump and against voting McMullin), but yes, the fact that Utah might not actually go for the GOP candidate this year is pretty amazing, and tells you how awful a pick Trump was.
Trump is like a perfect storm of almost everything that would turn a Mormon off- proudly lecherous, crude, dishonest, and, as a CandE already pointed out, his anti-Muslim rhetoric sounds off like warning bells in many Mormon’s minds. I also think many Mormons aren’t as hard-line when it comes to immigration enforcement or restriction as other groups within the GOP, and that some of his rhetoric regarding that issue turned off some Mormons as well.
But why did so many of them vote for him in the Primaries? I get voting for him now out of self-preservation against Hillary, but why did so much of the Bible belt willingly choose him over the other GOP candidates?
I don’t think they did in any big way, but once he won the primaries they hopped on board.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/07/21/churchgoing-republicans-once-skeptical-of-trump-now-support-him/
Now that you bring it up, I remember hearing or reading about that study before. Fair enough.
With regards to this issue, I’ve basically adopted Steve Deace’s mentality. The Religious Right has proven they are by in large either not really evangelicals, or are simple hypocrites. Most people are evangelical today because they grew up in a town that had a Baptist Church on the corner, they went to Sunday school, and still enjoy the summer church social. Beyond that what matters most to them is the magic R.
If a candidate has a magic R after their name, they can do no wrong. If you challenge their defense of a candidate based on Biblical writing what you get in response is not a religious defense but a solely political one. They will excuse both words, and deeds of a person who has the magic R after their name, that they will not excuse if the person has a D after their name.
This mentality exist throughout much of American Protestantism, and Catholicism where Biblical thinking stops the moment politics exist.
The main group that rejects this thinking, is the Mormons. Whether that is because of their theology, their culture, or how their Church is set up I’ll leave to the experts. One thing is for sure though, they are not blinded by the magic R, and instead worry more about both words and deeds than other religious groups.
If the world goes to hell, expect the Mormons to continue living their faith, and not be blinded by the promise of power.
Indeed. That’s sort of the boat I’m in as well. My first 6-8 preferences went down almost immediately, and by the time I voted (in California) everything was already sewn up.