Church rejects Mormon couple as Cub leaders

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — In shopping around for a Cub Scout program for their two sons, ages 6 and 8, Jeremy and Jodi Stokes decided on the one at Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, N.C.

The Stokeses, also of Matthews, weren't members of the evangelical megachurch, but they had many friends who were. And unlike the Cub Scout pack at their own church, which doesn't have a program for 6-year-old Tiger Scouts, Christ Covenant's was big enough to accommodate both of their boys.

The couple even signed up to be Scout leaders when they discovered the church needed adult help. And when the Scouting officials at Christ Covenant found out Jeremy Stokes was an Eagle Scout, they were thrilled.

So why did Christ Covenant reject the Stokeses' application to be Scout leaders?

Because they're Mormons. And, therefore, not real Christians, church officials told the couple.

"I can't believe they had the audacity to say, 'You can't be leaders, but we want your boys,' " Jodi Stokes said. "Are you kidding me?"

The Rev. Gabe Sylvia, Christ Covenant's staff liaison to the Scouting program, confirmed the Stokeses' account. He called them to apologize but defends the church's decision.

"When it became clear that they were Mormons, they could not become leaders in our pack. Mormonism is not consistent with historical Christianity," he said.

That view — that Mormons, whose church is formally titled the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, are not Christians — is shared by other Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox Christian churches, as well.

"It was so offensive," said Jodi Stokes, who was raised Catholic, then became a Mormon. "I have a picture of Jesus in my living room."

Members of the Salt Lake City-based church believe salvation is possible because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But significant theological differences separate Mormons from most Christian churches.

The LDS church treats as holy scripture the Book of Mormon, which isn't recognized by other churches, but which it believes was divinely revealed to Joseph Smith in the 1820s.

Mormons also disavow belief in the core Christian doctrine of the Trinity — that the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are one — instead believing the three to be individuals united in a single purpose.

Mormons believe the original Christian church vanished 100 years after Jesus' death and resurrection. The authentic church, they believe, was restored by Smith.

Undecided readers,

If you peruse the Free Republic religion forums you will notice a pattern. There’s an anti-Mormon group of people here that spends a great deal of their time attacking the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. They post regurgitated propaganda on an almost daily basis.

They have a misguided obsession. You can witness many different tactics employed that you might find quite interesting. The straw man argument is a big favorite and is frequently preceded by cherry-picking quotes or other material. After the “quotation” the attacker will misrepresent what has been said or what was meant and then attack their own interpretation.

Another favorite is posting scripture or statements which on their own really present no dilemma. They make something out of nothing while never bringing up a single objection that hasn’t been addressed a hundred times before.

Sometimes they cruise the headlines of the day seeking any story that might be twisted into making the Church look bad. Anything will do, just watch the progression of posts following it and see what I mean.

After reading their posts, I invite you to seek the truth about whatever “issue” they seem to be “revealing” or “exposing”. I promise that if you do so with honest intent, the “ahah” moments you will have will be many and frequent. You will start to recognize the tactics employed to cleverly twist and attack and will likely chuckle the more you see. In actuality, there’s nothing new here. It’s all been addressed many times before.

Here’s a few links to get your started from a different viewpoint. I have found that the vast majority of the “issues” brought up can be found and addressed at http://www.fairlds.org/ but here’s more:

http://scriptures.lds.org/
http://www.lds.org
http://www.fairlds.org/
http://www.mormonapologetics.org/
http://www.mormonwiki.com/Main_Page
http://www.lightplanet.com/response/index.html
http://www.jefflindsay.com/LDS_Intro.shtml
http://www.answeringantimormons.com/index.htm
http://promormon.blogspot.com/

OK then. Presbyterians voted to allow gay clergy, but booted the Mormon cub leaders. At least they have their priorities straight.

And you claim we misrepresent Mormons when the fLDS are involved in certain things?

CharlesWayneCT, on this thread, mentioned that the church denomination this church is involved in is the PCA (the conservative Presbyterian Church in America). You are talking about the PC-USA, headquartered in KY, the "liberal" branch of Presbyterians.

While the rift in the PCUSA is recent, within the last year, it's still a definite change about belief among groups. (Post #61)

Again, it's not a PCUSA church.

Now, if you want to advocate that we treat all Mormons alike just like the way you're treating all Presbyterians alike, no matter where they splash down association-wise, then hey, just let us know, and we'll note that the next time Mormons try to say, "Hey, we don't practice polygamy any more, that they really don't speak for all Mormons...*"

[* NOTE: The asterisk is for the qualifier read in a fastunintelligiblewayattheendofacommercialsothatyoucan'treallyunderstandit...
...wedon'tpracticepolygamyanymoreexceptfor...
...whentheMormonjesusreturns...perldsapostlebrucemcconkie...
...Kolobianresidents...
...otherworldsdweltuponbyldsgodswhoeitherwerepolygamistsonearthorwereserialmonogamistsonearthbutaccumulatedspouses...]

Sorry but Mormonism IS historical Christianity restored.

Does this pass the "straight face" test?

ALL: Let's assume many of you have some "bare" details about the Mormon belief system. So let's just run by you the ABCs of the Mormon belief system, and then ask you, "Does this sound like historical Christianity?"

(a) Mormonism believes the godhead are 3 separate gods, and that there's a "mom god" on Kolob...and that her husband was assigned to this planet earth by a "council of gods"...and that you can become a god, too. Does having all these thousands to millions of gods sound like historical Christianity to you?

(b) Mormonism believes you have to learn special handshakes to discern spirits (D&C 129:1-9) and couples are taught to have a special handshake recognizable only to their spouse so that there's no spirit world confusions there. Is that historical Christianity?

(c) Mormons are told to wear special protective underwear. Now do you really think that Jesus' problem in getting nailed to the cross was that He just forgot to wear His proper underwear that day? Is that historical Christianity?

Or consider these Examples of LDS 'Doublespeak' & 'Mormonese definitions of biblical terms'...as you read these, ask yourself, "Is this "historical" Christianity, or "hysterical" christianity, Mormon-style?

10. "Little kids are perfect until age 8. That's why we baptize them at that age...for the remission of sins...that, uh, the sins they, uh, don't have."
9. "Adam & Eve disobeyed God & brought sin into the world. So we celebrate that...as a, you know, as a sort of 'upward fall'...'Cause that brought us parenthood, mortality & potential godhood for us. (Sin pays)"
8. "Your Christian gospel isn't fair. With our Mormon proxy baptism for the dead, people get a second after-life chance...our Mormon gospel IS fair...uh, so long, uh, as we find the birth certificate of, you know, every cave dweller and illiterate peasants from pre-existant, pre-published times."
7. "We don't believe in earthly polygamy, anymore...well, at least, you know, not until jesus returns...at least so says Brother Bruce R. McConkie."
6. "We ex-communicate polygamists. Uh, except for Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Parley P. Pratt, and others -- including Jesus Christ, who some of our founding apostles said was also a polygamist. (And they're STILL practicing polygamy in the great beyond."
5. "We have a living prophet; pay attention to us 'cause we're the only church that believes in continuing revelation. Uh, except pay no attention to those quotes of our prophets cited by FReeper Inmans! Our 'living prophets' weren't continually 'revelating' when they said those Inman-cited things from the tabernacle."
4. "Christians are apostates. Oh, and we're Christian, too!"
3. "Christians are apostates. (That's why 53% of our Lds hymnal -- 190 of them -- were hymns inspired by those 'apostates'!)"
2. "We are not polytheist. There's only one god. Well, just a lot of 'only one gods.'" [Ejonesie's submission]
1. "Oh, man can become one [a god] too -- just like jesus the son and god himself did at one point. (But there is only one god)." [Ejonesie's submission & personal fave]

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