Posted on 05/04/2008 12:33:01 AM PDT by ansel12
"Headstrong in their two faiths, a Mormon and a Baptist squared off recently at the Tempe Institute of Religion at Arizona State University and spent 2 1/2 hours demonstrating they could aggressively question each other's religions but come away with deep respect and love for each other.
Actually, some 55 times since 2001, the Rev. Gregory Johnson, founding pastor of Ogden Valley Baptist Church in Utah, and Robert Millet, dean emeritus of religious education at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, have held "A Conversation Between a Mormon and an Evangelical" in the U.S., Canada and England. Between genial ribbing and sharing their own spiritual journeys, they posed questions about problematic parts of each other's religion.
The dialogue on April 25 was hosted by the Greater Phoenix Latter-day Saints Interfaith Council and the Arizona Ecumenical Council.
More than 500 people watched the two wage a spirited discussion. Most of the focus centered on Mormon doctrines and practices.
"This has been a sweet experience - the purpose is understanding," said Millet, now professor of religion education, outreach and interfaith relations for BYU and author of about 50 books. "This is a world where there is much misunderstanding and misperception and, unfortunately, misrepresentation," he said. The two collaborated on a book, released in November, "Bridging the Divide: The Continuing Conversation Between a Mormon and an Evangelical."
At the outset of the dialogue, they promised no winner or loser. "It is important to get along, but that is not the thrust of our approach," Johnson said.
"Bob and I are not willing to trade off on our doctrines," he said. "I am not conceding the Trinity (God, son and Holy Ghost) if you give up the baptism of the dead," a Mormon sacrament, or ordinance, in which church members by proxy and using a range of records vicariously baptize deceased persons of other faiths or no faith.
"Historically, Mormons and evangelicals know how to argue well," said Johnson, who spent much of his boyhood as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints until he had a conversion experience at a summer camp in Colorado when he was a teen and became a Baptist.
"We are not in conversation just to make points with one another," said Johnson, founder and president of Standing Together, a ministry "to advance biblical unity and spiritual transformation in Utah." He said they have engaged in intense dialogue to share "truth as we best understand it."
"Once in a while, we need to ask ourselves the hard question, 'Am I sometimes too proud, maybe even arrogant, to suppose that someone of another faith can actually teach me something - that I can learn something from him?' " asked Millet.
Often, he said, when people have contrasting religious beliefs and disagreements, "we say, 'flight or fight,' " Johnson said. It is manifested by family pledges to not discuss religion at Thanksgiving meals, for example. He recounted how often families have been "split right down the middle" when, for example, someone has left an evangelical church or the Mormon church and joined the other.
"It has severely tested marriages, it has put children opposite their parents, it has broken some families up," Johnson said. "That breaks our hearts to think there are people, in the context of loving family relationships," who let religious choices break bonds among loved ones. It runs counter to Christ's purpose on earth, he said. "Jesus died on the cross because he loved a lost world."
Johnson offered a litany of issues commonly raised with Mormons: whether Jesus and Lucifer were spirit brothers, the ban of black males from the priesthood before the doctrine was changed in 1978, the practice of polygamy until it was banned in 1890, and blood atonement whereby it was once taught that certain sins required the blood of the sinner to be shed to gain forgiveness.
"People are down on what they are not up on," Millet said. "And not many people are up on what the central teachings of the Latter-day Saints happen to be." The BYU professor said those topics and others are "peripheral teachings." He said there is a "tendency and the temptation on the part of people outside my faith to define me and to define my faith for me and tell me what I believe and what I don't believe."
Millet said the test for whether matters are bona fide Mormon doctrine falls into four areas:
Is it found in the canons of Scripture and taught in standard works?
Is it found in official declarations or proclamations of the church from the First Presidency?
Is it taught regularly and consistently by the highest authorities of the church, typically at twice annual General Conferences?
Is it found in the general handbooks of the church or its curricula?
Millet said the church constantly is defending itself from 150 years of massive writings and statements by authorities in what has been an evolving church. "We don't denounce our past, we don't denounce our beginnings, but we believe that this happens to be a living church, and if you are a living church, that means there comes line upon line, precept upon precept, development upon development. So we understand it better now than we understood in 1840."
The fundamental principles of the Mormon faith, Millet said, "are the testimony of the apostles and prophets concerning Jesus Christ, who died, was buried, rose again the third day and entered into heaven." The rest, he said, are appendages, and the church should not be judged on "anomalies."
"I can find where Southern Baptists encouraged people to practice slavery on the basis of biblical references," he said
Johnson said he would concede that point. "Martin Luther himself is a hero of the faith to me, but not very pleasant when it came to the Jews ... It is not fair to judge everything about your faith by what anybody might have said at any one time."
The two men repeatedly implored people of all faiths to engage in thoughtful, nonjudgmental dialogue. "Love is the ultimate apologetic," Johnson said. "The ultimate defender of your faith as a Christian is how you love people."
Millet said one telltale sign of neighborly love comes when someone moves in next door to a Mormon family, which extends traditional gifts of cookies and bread. If those new neighbors spurn all invitations to attend the chapel in their ward, he asked, "Do I withdraw? Do I say they aren't interested in learning about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, so I will just pull away? Or do I do something really radical and strange: Do I become friends with them?"
Johnson said love transcends religious belief.
"I believe Bob matters to Jesus Christ, that Jesus Christ loves Bob, and he represents a whole group of people that I was once a part of, the Mormon community," he said. "And I believe God loves Mormons. So if God loves Mormons, then I love Mormons because I want to love the same that God loves."
Baptists have better casserole.
The one world politic, the one world religion ... can anti-Christ be far ?
no lutefisk
Romans 12:9 ....Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.
Joseph Smith was nothing more than a two-bit con artist, charalatan. How many times has the BOM had to be changed because the mormon elders finally recognized the glaring contradictions? This in itself, should shake a Mormons belief system to the very core if they know scripture.
With all this said I have yet to find a Mormon who isn't kind, faithful, claims to love Jesus, and respectful. The problem is they are so duped by the evil lie of pride most of them can not turn an eye toward the evidence which is right infront of their noses showing Mormonsim to be what it is...A Cult.
Which is love? Smiling while you argue meaningless points, and afterwards claiming to "love" someone who profanes God's word? Or pointing out to the duped to really take a look at the evidence and question it's validity so you don't get sucked in by an evil lie?
You can not have one thing claim to be true, and have another claim the opposite and it be true also. One of them has to be false.
A false Jesus, I would hasten to add.
The Mormon Jesus is:
I'm amazed to see a believer in the Bible ask such a question. How many times has the Bible been changed because someone didn't like the doctrine it contained? :-)
Hmmmm.... YWHW is Jesus Christ. Making Jesus His own Father? I think that is a trinitarian problem, not a Mormon one.
Such is LDS doctrine, not mine.
John 1:1
I could be mistaken, but don’t trinitarians believe God and Jesus to be the same? Therefore they believe, Jesus, the son of God, is also God. That would make Jesus His own Father. :-)
Do you really want to discuss the nature of the Trinity?
I think we just did! Thanks.
All good points. Thanks for bringing them up. Do ya think the Mormons will investigate them and how they absolutely contradict biblical scripture?
Obviously, again someone wanting to be wilfully ignorant of reality. ;-)
Show one place, if you know, where the original text of the bible has ever been changed by it's meaning.
Fortunately or unfortunately depending on your point of view, Christians are directed to love their neighbor and their enemies. Not the evil that their neighbor or their enemy espouses but the person. Christ died for the sins of all, but not all will acknowledge Him and so will suffer the consequences. A Christian should speak the truth in love but the Holy Spirit is in charge of converting the lost. All a Christian can do is witness. Nobody including the Lord has ever said that would be easy.
Look, did not Jesus claim to be "I AM?" Do have clue who "I AM" is?
The Flying Inmans take to the skies to fly the Ilky Way! (John 14:6) “Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
You're exactly right. Those who do their research *before* falling for this cult know this. Those who feel some subjective warming in their bellies *before* doing their research may very well fall for this anti-Christian cult. May the Lord draw away to Himself those Mormons who continue to search for truth.
“I’m amazed to see a believer in the Bible ask such a question. How many times has the Bible been changed because someone didn’t like the doctrine it contained? :-) “
More LDS false doctrine and deception.
The changes I can see in the Bible are those of scholarly translation into many languages. Of course, Mormons only accept the KJV, especially the Joseph Smith version with additions/changes to meaning of the King James Version to conform with their false doctrines.
On the other hand, Joseph Smith did see KJV scriptures through his peepstone, with the same “thees” and “thous” in many many verses in the BoM as in the KJV, (BoM was supposedly written centuries before the KJV was published).
Does anyone see the real deception here? Beware of false prophets.
If you can explain it I have heard and read so many versions!
In all due respect how so, when in John so many times the distinction is made between the Father and the Son being seperate personages.
Jesus evens says you have to accept His Heavenly Father who is greater than Jesus
Jesus gave all the Glory to the Father.
Jesus did the will of his Father.
According to you we now have a Spirit God in Heaven and His Son who has a resurrected Body of Flesh and Bone.
That in its self seperates them.
But I believe they both have Eternal Spirit bodies of Flesh and Bone.
Why was Holy Ghost called a spirit why make the distinction if they were all Spirits?
No one ever answers these quesition I always get a will they are 3 in one, yet for a while part of one was on earth!
If I had been born to Mormon parents, I’d probably be a Mormon.
That is one way of looking at it!
The LDS see it as the restoring of the Plain and Precious Truths.
The Mainline spends its entire time "playing goalie" that they have never taken the time to pray to the Lord, an invite the Holy Spirit to witness to them as they read those restored passages.
I don't know. Why don't you show us?
I never heard of any denomination I knew who changed it. Don't most translators go back to the original Greek manuscripts, or as far back as they can?
John 10:30 I and the Father are one.”
John 14:8-10 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”
Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.
My what a talent you have, to be able to "discern" what thousands and thousands of folks do with their time, and in what manner they pray. There is a term for that kind of attitude. Said term isn't "Christlike."
God is one God, one Yahweh, one Lord, one Spirit.
24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
25 The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will tell us all things.”
26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.” (John 4:24)
And it isn’t true that one part of God was once on earth. The earth and the heavens are never separated from God.
They are ONE in MIND!
That is the reason God sent his ONLY Beggoten SON to earth to do the will of the Father!
We are also spirit so it is true our communication is in spirit not the natural man.
32 But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of.
33 Therefore said the disciples one to another, Hath any man brought him ought to eat?
34 Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.
John 14
23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
24 He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.
25 These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you.
26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
28 Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I.
29 And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe.
30 Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me.
31 But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment,
Amen.
He did that.
Jesus Christ exhibited submission to the Father. Even though He is God. That is an amazing truth.
No one can share in His glory. He EARNED it - with every struggling breath on a hard wood cross with His back a pile of mangled flesh from being flogged. Anyone who tries to take away His glory does so from an Evil heart.
Worship Jesus Christ - and Him only. Anything else is from Hell itself.
"We didn't celebrate Christmas. We celebrated the birthday of Joseph Smith."
Enjoy you propaganda but those are folks who left the Church when Polygamy was rescinded by the Lord and leaders in charge had their own version.
These people might think they are Mormons but they were not exposed to the original Lord’s Church only the renegade’s version who were excommunicated.
I am glad you are back after being banned restornu. I really am. You need to hear the Truth. It isn't "propaganda" - and I pray that if you have a sleepless night it is because Jesus (the Real One) is talking to you.
(The Mainline spends all its time "playing goalie" hoping others will not READ the BOOK OF MORMON!)
You do know that we have many ex-Mormons here who have read it, and have proven it false time and time again.
Your salvation restornu is in your hands.
Come to Christ - and Him only.
No.
Praise to Jesus Christ - only.
Revelation 22: 8-9
That means not this guy.
I was, and I’m not.
Yes, Jesus is God...
You are missundering it is Praise to the man who communes with Jehovah, We worship Jesus Christ!
****
This hymn was written by Phelps to the memory of Joseph Smith, who was assassinated at Carthage Jail, Carthage, Illinois, on June 27, 1844.
Hi drstevej!:)
That is the excuse of every cult that has sprouted up in the last 2,000 years.
"Then said Jesus to him, Away, Satan: for it is in the Writings, Give worship to the Lord your God and be his servant only."
Matthew 4:10
??????????????
Joseph Smith, who was assassinated at Carthage Jail, Carthage, Illinois, on June 27, 1844.
_________________________________________
The false prophet Joseph smith murdered aT LEAST 2 men as he shot his way out of jail where he had been lawfully incarcerated..Some other men shot back..and the criminal Joseph Smith was killed...
Stuff happens...
Only presidents and kings are assasinated and the false prophet Joseph Smith was a small time conman, thief and murderer, rapist and adulterer..
hardly the stuff of greatness...
The false prophet Joseph Smith lived a violent life, and died a violent death..
We don’t worship Joseph.
We Reagan left office people still praise him for his good leader ship!
get agrip and stop trying to spin!
The mormon worship of the false prophet Joseph Smith is blasphemy...
Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Matthew 4:10
My parents were Baptists and I am...kinda.
But he said to me, "Do not do it! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers the prophets and of all who keep the words of this book. Worship God!"
This shows that John is testifying God has body even if he mistaken the angel, John knew God had a Body previously!:)
That's a trick question, isn't it? We don't have the original text of the Bible. :-)
As for the 30,000+ variants of the Greek New Testament, you want only 1? You are too easy.
Here's one I've been looking at lately:
Mat 5:22 - omit KJV wording: without a cause <1500> - (based on the original text's correction of KJV's Greek text)
"Without a cause" is not found in any modern English versions, i.e., not found in those versions that are translated from the current representations of the original texts. (The NKJV is not such a modern translation. It is still totally dependent upon the KJV and the same questionable Hebrew and Greek texts from which the KJV was translated.) That "without a cause" was not in the original text of Matthew is attested by a number of very early manuscripts. In the Textual Commentary of the Greek New Testament, Second Edition (NY: United Bible Societies, 1994, page 11), Bruce Metzger writes regarding this verse: "Although the reading with eike is widespread from the second century onwards, it is much more likely that the word was added by copyists in order to soften the rigor of the precept, that omitted as unnecessary."
http://www.bibletexts.com/terms/som.htm#5
I guess you missed my earlier posts. :-) Follow the reply chain to the start to understand the post. If you still don’t understand give me a ring.
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