What Mormons Believe--according to a Former BYU Professor

[brakelite]

Every church believes that they are they have they most Truth. LDS Christians are no exception. It is firmly believe that their interpretation is most correct, that they have the only valid Priesthood authority, etc.

Just like every other church makes the case about their church.

Ummm, no. None of the Protestant churches who have the Bible as the foundation of the faith and practice teach that any man has priesthood authority. And that is one area where the LDS differ so markedly from biblical Christianity. There is only one High Priest, and no other mediator...aka priest... Between man and Christ.
Setting up any priesthood such as Israel had... Such as Catholicism and similar faiths have... Is akin to putting the curtain up again between the holy place and the most holy place. Your church is shutting people out from the presence of God, and creating an elite structure where only those who have passed all the tests are worthy of God's presence. The ultimate heavenly experience yes? Do you not see how this is so totally contradictory to apostolic Christianity and the teachings of the NT? Even have rebuilt the temple... Where did the apostles teach such an idea? How does this revealed LDS gospel harmonise with the early church?

It is firmly believe that their interpretation is most correct,

But it isn't an interpretation Jane... Its a whole new paradigm.

Every church believes that they have the most Truth.

That is true... And some indeed have more truth than others. And some even claim to be closer to apostolic Christianity than any other church. But the LDS church claims are vastly more radical than simply believing they are more advanced than others in understanding and knowledge. The LDS claims to be completely unique and different because the original gospel was purportedly lost... No one else therefore has any truth... And this is openly apparent in the way your church goes about its business... To quote you

they have the only valid Priesthood authority, etc.

Which makes everyone else's teaching, doctrine, faith, and practice, invalid.

 

[Waiting on him]

It’s truly sad to hear all of you arguing over who has the truth, brings to mind Paul’s address to Corinth. Make me glad that I’m not affiliated or belong to any of this crap.

 

[brakelite]

I have not and will not read through all of the new posts on here. It becomes repetitious without edifying anyone really. It is supposed to be a discussion about what is written in a particular book written by one person, a former Mormon, but it keeps moving away what she has written to the individual beliefs or biases of the posters here with regard to Mormonism in general. You @Prayer Warrior cannot stop that from occurring even if that is what you really want. Can you not see the futility of it? Who is it helping? Who is it hurting?

A one on one conversation might work [but probably not], but you would have to pick your opponent or partner and go to PMs to avoid interruptions and comments by others.

Who is being edified here by repeating what has been posted on this forum many times before? Not about the writer of your book, but about Mormonism, pro and con.

Help us all dear Lord!

Jane's church claim to have the only valid priesthood authority on earth. In other words, only through the LDS system can anyone hope to experience the real presence of God. This is their teaching and Jane doesn't deny it. Are you saying that we ought not challenge this from a biblical perspective? Are you saying that such a system which locks out even certain of its own members, let alone those outside of the Mormon faith, from the privilege of full acceptance with God based on certain works and rituals is a valid biblical Christian faith? Then are we also to accept Catholicism as entirely acceptable also?
While some may view this discussion as a challenge to Jane's personal faith, and perhaps in some sense it may be, yet the real challenge to personal faith in reality chimes from the LDS own claim to exceptionalism and as Jane herself said, only valid priesthood authority which therefore declares your faith, and mine, invalid. Which seems to run contrary to Jane's own thoughts when she says that her church does say that other faiths are okay. I think this is worthy of discussion so long as we refrain from personal insults... Which I think we have this far managed to do.

 

[Jane_Doe22]

Jane's church claim to have the only valid priesthood authority on earth. In other words, only through the LDS system can anyone hope to experience the real presence of God..

Stop trying to put words in my mouth to things I have not said nor believe.

You keep trying to do that, it is beyond disrespectful, and makes any dialogue impossible.

 

[brakelite]

It’s truly sad to hear all of you arguing over who has the truth, brings to mind Paul’s address to Corinth. Make me glad that I’m not affiliated or belong to any of this crap.

No one is arguing over who has truth. This isn't an interdenominational conflict. It is a discussion on what one specific church believes and teaches, and that church's definition of the gospel according to one ex member of that church. Sure, it has developed somewhat, but it hasn't gone off topic to the extent where it has become an argument.

 

[brakelite]

Stop trying to put words in my mouth.

You keep trying to do that and it is beyond disrespectful.

It is firmly believe that their interpretation is most correct, that they have the only valid Priesthood authority, etc.

What are we to make of this if not the invalid gospel of everyone else? I am not putting words in your mouth. It is a natural conclusion to be drawn from your own lips. It is also a tidy method of deflecting the discussion to make it sound as if I am being insulting and making a personal attack.
Care to simply comment on this...

None of the Protestant churches who have the Bible as the foundation of the faith and practice teach that any man has priesthood authority. And that is one area where the LDS differ so markedly from biblical Christianity. There is only one High Priest, and no other mediator...aka priest... Between man and Christ.
Setting up any priesthood such as Israel had... Such as Catholicism and similar faiths have... Is akin to putting the curtain up again between the holy place and the most holy place. Your church is shutting people out from the presence of God, and creating an elite structure where only those who have passed all the tests are worthy of God's presence. The ultimate heavenly experience yes? Do you not see how this is so totally contradictory to apostolic Christianity and the teachings of the NT? Even have rebuilt the temple... Where did the apostles teach such an idea?

Without suggesting this is personally insulting?

 

[Jane_Doe22]

What are we to make of this if not the invalid gospel of everyone else? I am not putting words in your mouth. It is a natural conclusion to be drawn from your own lips.It is also a tidy method of deflecting the discussion to make it sound as if I am being insulting and making a personal attack.

No, it is you assuming stuff and trying to go off on things that are not believed. It is beyond insulting and makes dialogue extremely difficult (if not impossible) because you're not actually responding to anything I said.

For example: you hav the idea that a priest is supposed to stand between a person and God and block your access to Him. That's not remotely LDS Christian beliefs. Rather, LDS Christians readily acknowledge that all people have access to God, and can approach Him. Not only 'can', but it is downright essential for a person to do so and have an individual relationship with Him. Priests don't stand between a person and God. Rather they serve as a support crew to help that person on their walk with God.


LDS Christians aren't Protestants. And if not being Protestant makes a person/church not Christian or exceptional in your eyes, then that's your view and I acknowledge it. (Again, If, I'm not certain).

 

[Waiting on him]

No, it is you assuming stuff and trying to go off on things that are not believed. It is beyond insulting and makes dialogue extremely difficult (if not impossible) because you're not actually responding to anything I said.

For example: you hav the idea that a priest is supposed to stand between a person and God and block your access to Him. That's not remotely LDS Christian beliefs. Rather, LDS Christians readily acknowledge that all people have access to God, and can approach Him. Not only 'can', but it is downright essential for a person to do so and have an individual relationship with Him. Priests don't stand between a person and God. Rather they serve as a support crew to help that person on their walk with God.


LDS Christians aren't Protestants. And if not being Protestant makes a person/church not Christian or exceptional in your eyes, then that's your view and I acknowledge it. (Again, If, I'm not certain).

Do you guys only worship on Saturday?

 

[Grailhunter]

When I replied to the comment made by 4Jesus I was equating the following remarks in his statement viz.

“The worst case scenario, if true, is that an angel (a messenger), an evil angel, purposely found someone who would believe their information, caused said person to confound God's Word with those deceptive teachings, and then propagated that information with the eventual outcome of being able to claim that result is Christian, and to sow division within the whole of Christianity at later points in time.”

With what actually took place following the death of the last of the Apostles. While they were alive and were on the seen they were able to keep the Church pretty much clear of deceptive teachings, but “while men slept” (that is when the last of these died, Matt 13:25) the spirit of antichrist which had already begun in the early church grew expeditiously resulting in a falling away (an apostasy) from the simplicity of the gospel truth and as such led to the development of the Antichrist, the “Man of Sin”, the Papacy.

That’s where my comparison ended. I was not referring to either the Book of Mormon or to LDS Christians.

With what actually took place following the death of the last of the Apostles. While they were alive and were on the seen they were able to keep the Church pretty much clear of deceptive teachings, but “while men slept” (that is when the last of these died, Matt 13:25) the spirit of antichrist which had already begun in the early church grew expeditiously resulting in a falling away (an apostasy) from the simplicity of the gospel truth and as such led to the development of the Antichrist, the “Man of Sin”, the Papacy.

So how many years after the close the Bible was the Antichrist suppose to appear? In these last days? Then well after 1000 years......some 1500 years after Christ's ministry, then comes a march of men to start religions, many religions named after them. Note the definition of CULT.

Webster's Encyclopedia Edition...Cult (Kult), n [<Fr. <L. cultus, care <colere, to cultivate] 1. a system of religious worship or ritual. 2. devoted attachment to, or admiration for a person, principle, etc. 3. a group of followers; sect.

Do we pick a possible Antichrist or cult leader from this robust list of founders of Protestant denominations? But when they first started, they were known as heretics.

Arnoldist

Arnold of Brescia (1090-1155)

other early Arnoldist reformers

Waldensian

Peter Waldo (1140-1205)

other early Waldensian reformers

Lollard[

John Wycliffe (1320-1384)

other early Lollard reformers

Hussite

John Hus (1369-1415)

Jerome of Prague (1379-1416)

Petr Chelčický (1390-1460)

other early Hussite reformers

Other

Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498)

Tomáš Štítný ze Štítného (1333-1409)

other early independent reformers

Magisterial Reformers

There were a number of key reformers within the Magisterial Reformation, including:

Lutheran

Martin Luther

Philipp Melanchthon

Justus Jonas

Martin Chemnitz

Georg Spalatin

Joachim Westphal

Andreas Osiander

Johannes Brenz

Johannes Bugenhagen

Hans Tausen

Mikael Agricola

Primož Trubar

Jiří Třanovský

Reformed

Huldrych Zwingli

Martin Bucer

John Calvin

Heinrich Bullinger

Theodore Beza

William Farel

John Knox

Andreas Karlstadt, later a Radical Reformer

Wolfgang Capito

Johannes Oecolampadius

Peter Martyr Vermigli

Leo Jud

Anglican

Thomas Cranmer

Thomas Cromwell

Matthew Parker

William Tyndale

Hugh Latimer

Arminian

Jacobus Arminius

Unitarian

Ferenc Dávid

Radical Reformers

Important reformers of the Radical Reformation included:

Anabaptist

Thomas Müntzer

Zwickau prophets

John of Leiden

Sebastian Franck

Menno Simons

Dirk Willems

Schwenkfelder

Kaspar Schwenkfeld

Second Front Reformers

There were also a number of people who initially cooperated with the Radical Reformers, but separated from them to form a "Second Front", principally in objection to sacralism. Among these were:

Anabaptist[edit]

Johannes Bünderlin

Hans Denck

Christian Entfelder

Conrad Grebel

Balthasar Hubmaier

Felix Manz

 

[Jane_Doe22]

Do you guys only worship on Saturday?

No.
Worship services can happen any day, and typically just go with the local culture. In western countries, that's Sunday. But like in the middle east they do Saturday. The purpose of the Sabbath is to remember to have a day of rest and to worship, not be phrasisees about the calendar.

Obviously individual worship of God should happen much more than one day a week



(Aside: obviously breklite who is SDA disagrees with me on this point. I acknowledge that respectfully)

 

[Prayer Warrior]

I have not and will not read through all of the new posts on here. It becomes repetitious without edifying anyone really. It is supposed to be a discussion about what is written in a particular book written by one person, a former Mormon, but it keeps moving away what she has written to the individual beliefs or biases of the posters here with regard to Mormonism in general. You @Prayer Warrior cannot stop that from occurring even if that is what you really want. Can you not see the futility of it? Who is it helping? Who is it hurting?

A one on one conversation might work [but probably not], but you would have to pick your opponent or partner and go to PMs to avoid interruptions and comments by others.

Who is being edified here by repeating what has been posted on this forum many times before? Not about the writer of your book, but about Mormonism, pro and con.

Help us all dear Lord!

I respect you, and I believe that I have shown you this, so please know that I am not intending to be disrespectful to you when I say what I have to say. You are welcome to your opinion about this thread, as everyone is. And no one is forced to participate in any forum that they think is a waste of time.

I agree that not everything being said is edifying. Calling people names is not edifying. Judging people's character because they disagree with us is not edifying.

However, a discussion about unbiblical doctrine can be edifying if we all behave ourselves and limit our comments to the issue at hand. There are many threads set up to discuss doctrinal issues. I have participated in some over the last year, but I have never seen so many objections to this type of thread based on protecting a person's feelings. It's not that I don't care about the feelings of others. I think that I have shown that I do care over the last year. I set up this thread because I care about people who may be caught in the snares of deception.

In one of the threads I participated in some time ago, the Catholics were under attack. I think they've taken it on the chin more than anyone. (Of course our friend BoL launches a pretty intensive counter attack.) But I never heard someone saying that the thread should be abandoned because of anyone's feelings even though some offensive things were said on both sides of the debate, unfortunately.

It's sad to me that you don't recognize the importance of this endeavor--sorting out truth from error. The fact is that there may be some people who are being edified by the excerpts from Lynn's book, etc. You haven't talked to everyone who has read this thread.

I certainly hear your concerns, but I have to do what I believe the Lord is leading me to do. When He tells me that I'm done here, I will be happier than anyone, believe me. Having my motives judged as evil by some of you has not been easy, but I know that our Lord endured much much much worse than this.

As always, I pray that God's purposes will be accomplished here.

 

[Jane_Doe22]

I respect you, and I believe that I have shown you this, so please know that I am not intending to be disrespectful to you when I say what I have to say. You are welcome to your opinion about this thread, as everyone is. And no one is forced to participate in any forum that they think is a waste of time.

I agree that not everything being said is edifying. Calling people names is not edifying. Judging people's character because they disagree with us is not edifying.

However, a discussion about unbiblical doctrine can be edifying if we all behave ourselves and limit our comments to the issue at hand. There are many threads set up to discuss doctrinal issues. I have participated in some over the last year, but I have never seen so many objections to this type of thread based on protecting a person's feelings. It's not that I don't care about the feelings of others. I think that I have shown that I do care over the last year. I set up this thread because I care about people who may be caught in the snares of deception.

In one of the threads I participated in some time ago, the Catholics were under attack. I think they've taken it on the chin more than anyone. (Of course our friend BoL launches a pretty intensive counter attack.) But I never heard someone saying that the thread should be abandoned because of anyone's feelings even though some offensive things were said on both sides of the debate, unfortunately.

It's sad to me that you don't recognize the importance of this endeavor--sorting out truth from error. The fact is that there may be some people who are being edified by the excerpts from Lynn's book, etc. You haven't talked to everyone who has read this thread.

I certainly hear your concerns, but I have to do what I believe the Lord is leading me to do. When He tells me that I'm done here, I will be happier than anyone, believe me. Having my motives judged as evil by some of you has not been easy, but I know that our Lord endured much much much worse than this.

As always, I pray that God's purposes will be accomplished here.

How?
How is anyone edified by spewing out inaccurate junk to "warn" someone another group?

Would it not instead by edifying to talk about Christ and rejoice in Christ? To see the miracles He works in others?

Prayer Warrior, I know you mean well. I've been watching these type of arguments for over 30 years. As long as the conversation is distracted with spam about junk & men's sins, it's never edifying and everyone just walks away with a bitter taste thinking the other guy is an idiot. What is edifying is Christ and His power: put that center.

 

[Waiting on him]

How?
How is anyone edified by spewing out inaccurate junk to "warn" someone another group?

Would it not instead by edifying to talk about Christ and rejoice in Christ? To see the miracles He works in others?

Prayer Warrior, I know you mean well. I've been watching these type of arguments for over 30 years. As long as the conversation is distracted with spam about junk & men's sins, it's never edifying and everyone just walks away with a bitter taste thinking the other guy is an idiot. What is edifying is Christ and His power: put that center.

My wife and I were just talking about you, and for the most part we see you to be not like others cramming their religious practices down everyone’s throats. Even now you saying edification should be predominant, the focus should be on Christ.

 

[Waiting on him]

My wife and I were just talking about you, and for the most part we see you to be not like others cramming their religious practices down everyone’s throats. Even now you saying edification should be predominant, the focus should be on Christ.

You should like it provoke people to love.

 

[Jane_Doe22]

My wife and I were just talking about you, and for the most part we see you to be not like others cramming their religious practices down everyone’s throats. Even now you saying edification should be predominant, the focus should be on Christ.

His is King!
Lord of Lords!
The so many wonderful lives touched by Him here, not just my own. I see His power and glory in so many others here, including yourself and so many others. His power doesn't stop at the end of a pew.

 

[Prayer Warrior]

How?
How is anyone edified by spewing out inaccurate junk to "warn" someone another group?

Would it not instead by edifying to talk about Christ and rejoice in Christ? To see the miracles He works in others?

Prayer Warrior, I know you mean well. I've been watching these type of arguments for over 30 years. As long as the conversation is distracted with spam about junk & men's sins, it's never edifying and everyone just walks away with a bitter taste thinking the other guy is an idiot. What is edifying is Christ and His power: put that center.

I would like to challenge you, JD, to show how the excerpts from Lynn's book spew out "inaccurate junk." Why don't you refute what she has said based on LDS scriptures?

It's true that the gospel of Jesus Christ needs to stay front and center. That really is the issue here. What is the true gospel? Because only the true gospel will lead to salvation.

If you have read the New Testament, (and I'm sure that you have), then you know that Paul spent quite a bit of time in his epistles refuting bad doctrine. This is a very important thing to do, or Paul wouldn't have spent so much time doing it.
.

 

[Jane_Doe22]

I would like to challenge you, JD, to show how the excerpts from Lynn's book spew out "inaccurate junk." Why don't you refute what she has said based on LDS scriptures?
.

As I just said: I've been watching these type of arguments for over 30 years. As long as the conversation is distracted with spam about junk & men's sins (that includes any man-made book), it's never edifying and everyone just walks away with a bitter taste thinking the other guy is an idiot.

It's true that the gospel of Jesus Christ needs to stay front and center. That really is the issue here. What is the true gospel? Because only the true gospel will lead to salvation.

If you have read the New Testament, (and I'm sure that you have), then you know that Paul spent quite a bit of time in his epistles refuting bad doctrine. This is a very important thing to do, or Paul wouldn't have spent so much time doing it.
.

Actually Paul spent his time preaching truth. He does't waste much time talking about what other people believe. He focused on Christ.

Let's talk about Christ.

 

[amadeus]

Jane's church claim to have the only valid priesthood authority on earth. In other words, only through the LDS system can anyone hope to experience the real presence of God. This is their teaching and Jane doesn't deny it. Are you saying that we ought not challenge this from a biblical perspective? Are you saying that such a system which locks out even certain of its own members, let alone those outside of the Mormon faith, from the privilege of full acceptance with God based on certain works and rituals is a valid biblical Christian faith? Then are we also to accept Catholicism as entirely acceptable also?

So you want me to argue with you? I really don't like to argue but a profitable discussion is OK. Is this one profitable? Hmmm?

I am no expert on the LDS nor on any of the multitude of church organizations including yours. When I want to get involved is when I can hopefully accomplish edification of someone to a better view of what God sees. What does God see? What do you see? What do I see?

When should we challenge someone? When led to do so by God? We are challenging whom here? The Mormon Church? That does someone some good? So then don't challenge this entity but challenge our friend @Jane_Doe22 because she admits to or claims membership? So then find out what she believes and go from there. Don't presume she is the Mormon Church and proceed. That is, if she is willing to go that way. The problem is that too many people won't fairly and reasonably proceed in that direction in real discussion, will they? Even if you will. If so then ask her, but do not presume either that those who will not, will stay clear. For it was time to back up and I did. Here with one comment, I am back in it, at least for the moment.

While some may view this discussion as a challenge to Jane's personal faith, and perhaps in some sense it may be, yet the real challenge to personal faith in reality chimes from the LDS own claim to exceptionalism and as Jane herself said, only valid priesthood authority which therefore declares your faith, and mine, invalid.

Do they? Is my faith or yours up to the challenge if anyone, Mormon or atheist or anyone else challenges it? When someone challenges me, I may respond as I have to you here...or I may not, hopefully as God directs.

With no direct personal challenge should we seek out someone we are certain is in error and proceed? I guess we might end up challenging everyone around us on something since I doubt that any two of us really agree on everything although some may say that they do.

When I am here on this forum it is hopefully always to be edified or to edify. I am not sure that a specific attack against the RCC, the Mormons or the JW or the non-tongue talkers [me being a tongue talker] would do that on every case. Should everyone participate in this thread?

Hmmm, I cannot even read all of the threads on this forum. I spend sometimes more time on this forum than I should, and I certainly never read even half of what is posted on most days. Wouldn't it be best to be led by the Spirit even in what we read so as to be led by the Spirit in what and when to post a comment or an answer? It is certainly a time to be silent and I must choose some to do that with because I don't have enough time or energy or patience or whatever it would take to do more.

Which seems to run contrary to Jane's own thoughts when she says that her church does say that other faiths are okay. I think this is worthy of discussion so long as we refrain from personal insults... Which I think we have this far managed to do.

Why do you or anyone take the word of others who are not here against the word of Jane who is here? Why not simply take it to the scriptures if you need to take it anywhere? Do we have to show a person that his/her belief is different that what is known or believed or even proven about their church group?

Has Jane not been insulted on this thread? Ask her! Has anyone else been insulted? So go on ahead if you think it is a "worthy" discussion! I had inserted my thoughts and you challenged them. I am not, by the way, insulted.

I guess one reason I put in my two cents in the first place is because I know that some my own beliefs are closer to Mormonism and to JWism than to some of those groups included in what most people would call mainstream Christianity churches. I don't like the arbitrary presumptions of some that because it is Mormon, or Catholic, or JW, or Pentecostal, or Oneness it is necessarily in every case wrong. I don't accuse you of that but you know that it happens. Sometime I simply talk/write too much. Have I answered all of your questions to me?
Silence really is at times very golden.

Give God the glory!

 

[Jane_Doe22]

I've posted this on CB before, but it bears repeating:

When I was ~6 six years old, I was going through a really rough time in life. I was bogged down in the difficulties of life and in pain this existence can bring. I also felt weighed down for my own shortcomings- that I couldn’t do this or that, that I wasn’t good enough, or that I had done wrong things, even things which brought pain to those I loved. There was so much I regretted, so much I wanted to get away from—part of me even hated myself for all of this. I felt very alone in all this, that no one self could understand what I was going through.

During this time I would frequently go out the backyard swing set for solace to think with hanging upside on the monkey-bar swing for hours, just thinking. Sometimes I would get bogged down in my self-hatred. Sometimes I would say a prayer to fight off those demonic feelings. I wonder the purpose of it all. On one such day, a song came:

“Heavenly Father, are you really there?
And do you hear and answer ev'ry child's prayer?
Some say that heaven is far away,
But I feel it close around me as I pray.
Heavenly Father, I remember now
Something that Jesus told disciples long ago:
"Suffer the children to come to me."
Father, in prayer I'm coming now to thee.”

I remembered that song. I remembered the story of Jesus which went along with it. I remembered how He asked specifically for the little children to come to Him, and blessed them. I remember how He lived, prayed, and died to understand all of us and to save us from evil. He suffered for all of it—He understood all of it—even the littlest thing. Like Jesus understood exactly what it was like to have a sister-with-a-temper! He also understood the more complicated things I was going through. And there was a reason for it! The end of all this struggle was so glorious—such amazing great things to come! God hadn’t forgotten about me or anything- I was His child- He cared beyond measure.

I sat on that swing and just poured my heart out in prayer. I can’t express the relief to have someone to talk to- to have someone to understand. That feelings of welcome and love….And then, to have someone to that could Heal on top of it—that knit up my heart so much that day. To express it in words…. “the best hug ever!” is what my little self called it, and those are probably the best words I still have at many years lager.

As I grew up more, I had more moments and wavering and certainty in faith, and in God. I knew God was the person whom Understood everything I was going though: my wishes, my desires, my pains. I devote myself to Him every day: He is my Lord, my Savior, the only begotten Son of God.




How about you guys? What's a powerful moment you felt Christ & His almighty love in your life?

 

[Grailhunter]

When I replied to the comment made by 4Jesus I was equating the following remarks in his statement viz.

“The worst case scenario, if true, is that an angel (a messenger), an evil angel, purposely found someone who would believe their information, caused said person to confound God's Word with those deceptive teachings, and then propagated that information with the eventual outcome of being able to claim that result is Christian, and to sow division within the whole of Christianity at later points in time.”

With what actually took place following the death of the last of the Apostles. While they were alive and were on the seen they were able to keep the Church pretty much clear of deceptive teachings, but “while men slept” (that is when the last of these died, Matt 13:25) the spirit of antichrist which had already begun in the early church grew expeditiously resulting in a falling away (an apostasy) from the simplicity of the gospel truth and as such led to the development of the Antichrist, the “Man of Sin”, the Papacy.

That’s where my comparison ended. I was not referring to either the Book of Mormon or to LDS Christians.

You'll have to forgive my active sense of humor....when people get this way, I turn to humor. But then what is left in this thread.....labeling, name calling, accusations, and for what? My point with the Protestants is that we can always find ways to condemn, give them negative labels, and call each other names. There are real problems, but it is not the Mormons.

Tens of thousands of Christian denominations. How is a new Christian to know which one is right? How are they to pick? It is almost like Russian Roulette. Which one will bless? Which one will damn? Does Christ hold it against them if they pick the wrong one? Was the fracturing of the Church one of Satan’s plots?

As the Bible went along someone took the names of God the Father and God the Son out of the Bible…significant in several ways, but one of them is that, only one name can be called upon for salvation, and how many Christians know it?

Go take a trip to Jerusalem and you will find out the name of that town starts with a “Y” as does any name of a person, place, or thing that starts with a “J” in the Bible, because the letter “J” nor its pronunciation did not exist during the biblical era and did not exist for another 1400 years after Christ. If you have the letter “J” in your Bible someone has changed it! Considering all of that….and you are worried about the Mormons? Talk about straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel! There are real things to be concerned about, but it is not the Mormons.

Using high powered negative words and labels are only going to put someone on the defensive. The worst of them are the ones that slip an insult in there thinking people do not notice.

Christians are on our side. How about loving Christians.