“Posters who try to tear down other’s beliefs or use subterfuge to accomplish the same goal are the disrupters on ecumenic threads and will be booted from the thread and/or suspended.”
It seems your posted article tears down Christianity Restornu. As such, I don’t think it qualifies under the rules for ecumenic discussion, but that is up to the moderator...
So in the meantime,
Having examined the article, I find if historically flawed in order to present the beliefs of mormons to be somehow historically a part of Christian belief. The author does not deal with the fact that each heretical group that challenged the church was condemned as heresy. Had the author not started with his conclusion, he would never align the facts in this way.
Best,
ampu
Well, the LDS does incorporate similar ideas to many of the Gnostic doctrines, but I find that most of these ‘proofs’ in the article are taken out of context as well.
How do you think this would fare in a ‘peer review’ situation?
“The author does not deal with the fact that each heretical group that challenged the church was condemned as heresy.”
Probably because that is totally irrelevant to the point the author is discussing.
Joseph Smith, a man of little worldly education (and certainly no means to conduct any of the research done by the author), established a church claiming the doctrines in it had roots in early Christianity even though it was a radical departure from what orthodox Christianity taught.
The historical records (what parts of it we have) shows there were early Christians who held to ‘unique’ Mormon doctrines. That groups of early Christians were branded as heretics for those ideas doesn’t change that, in fact it is consistent with his claim that there was an apostacy.
You would expect that if somebody did make up a bunch of radical stuff and try to pass it off as ideas that existed in early Christianity that they wouldn’t be so lucky as to have their made up ideas turn out be things actually supported by the historical record. It doesn’t really constitute proof that Joseph was right, but it is significant evidence in his favour.