Re: Mormonism
Submitted by F.O.D. on January 25 2000 at 21:13:52
In reply to Mormonism Submitted by Don on January 25 2000 at 00:44:02
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Some ten odd years ago I looked a little into what Mormons believe. I got a copy of the Book of Mormon (they love handing that out), but other info was second-hand or worse, taken from what other Christians say about them. So, as Mark warned, we have to be careful about what is said about "The Enemy", as wishful-thinking can easily make our "Allies" twist and colour the truth. The Mormon scriptures seem to come at two levels: 1) The book of Mormon, which is readily available. 2) The special writings of Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism. The Book of Mormon is....weird...in the sense that all it does is copy the Old Testament. I mean, whole chunks are there pretty much word-for-word. One gets the impression that young Mr. Smith (he was 14 at the time) tried thinking up some really cool prank, or maybe went plain mad, and turned all his Sunday School lessons around, added a dash of Northern American culture and out came this Book of Mormon. As for the so-called Witnessess to the original gold documents he was supposed to have dug up, the background there is very shady, with no one seeing them except for the special "inner circle". I remember reading somewhere that a "transcription" was shown to a linguist or something, and he declared "what a load of trollop". In summary, the archaelogical evidence for the events in the Book of Mormon is said to be dim. But theologically the Book of Mormon doesn't have a whole lot to say, it just copies the thought of the OT. Now, about the other books, Joseph Smith's writing, again, as I said, this comes from what others have said, not from what I've read myself. This is where the bizarre theology is supposed to be. I'll just summarise what I can remember: - Jesus and Satan are brothers [the bible says Jesus is the perfect image of God and Son of God, the Devil is seen as a fallen angel, not a Representation of God] - heaven is divided into various levels. the "true Mormons" in the highest level, other religionists (Christians) in a kind of "heaven on earth", atheists in the lowest level (I don't remember if that's hell or oblivion or what) [the bible says all who believe in God will not be turned away, without subdivisions like this] - if a Mormon gets baptised on behalf of a deceased relative, that relative will be allowed into a higher level of paradise. [bible says only by faith - a person's own faith - can they be saved] Something funny about how they understand the Holy Spirit and the Trinity too, like Compassion said. I don't remember exactly how they obtain salvation, or life with God or the Highest Paradise. The general principle when assessing the truth of a group's theology, as someone else pointed out, is to look at how they perceive the work of Jesus, his death and resurrection. If it's non-Christian, then they'll be trying to earn their way in God's favour by being good little boys and girls, rather than trusting in Jesus and what he has done. In short, as far as I can see they are not Christian. But I'd have to take a more serious look at what they themselves say, do and teach before I would want to get categorical about it. Regards, F.O.D. |