Dang!
I am SO offended!!
And NOW I am going to devote all my time fighting CATHOLICS instead of MORMONism!
(wink!)
Posted on 10/26/2011 8:31:31 PM PDT by rzman21
By Francis J. Beckwith 1 In a piece recently published in the Catholic and Evangelical portals of the Patheos website, Warren Cole Smith explains why he cannot support Mitt Romney’s candidacy for President of the United States. “A Vote for Romney is a Vote for the LDS Church” reminded me of the sort of anti-Catholic screeds that were widely published during the presidential candidacy of Senator John F. Kennedy.
Catholics conversant with the 1960 election will recognize in Mr. Smith’s piece the sort of histrionics that were employed against them and their faith in the not-too-distant past. Consider this excerpt from Smith's essay:
The Christian worldview teaches that there is a short tether binding beliefs to the values and behaviors that flow from them. If the beliefs are false, then the behavior will eventually – but inevitably – be warped. Mormonism is particularly troubling on this point because Mormons believe in the idea of “continuing revelation.” They may believe one thing today, and something else tomorrow. This is why Mormons have changed their views, for example, on marriage and race. Polygamy was once a key distinctive of the religion. Now, of course, it is not. Mormons once forbade blacks from leadership roles. Now they do not. What else will change? Where to begin? First, the claim that “if beliefs are false, then the behavior will eventually – but inevitably – be warped,” depends on the plausibility of the belief in question and not on the overall plausibility of the worldview from which it heralds. For example, suppose that Mr. X, a Mormon, believes that marriage is a one-flesh communion between one man and one woman, and thus he aligns himself with the Catholic tradition, though he believes this understanding of marriage because he heard it from a Mormon prophet and he believes that the prophet speaks infallibly on such matters.
Although, as a Catholic, I do not believe that Mormon prophets are real prophets, this does not mean I believe that Mormon prophets may not utter true beliefs. After all, Mormonism developed out of nineteenth century American Protestantism, which is itself the result of the sixteenth century schism within Catholic Christianity. For that reason, it should not be a surprise to discover that the LDS [Latter Day Saints] get a lot of things right about the nature of the moral life and civil society, even though one may have good reason to believe that Mormonism as a theological tradition is mistaken.
Mitt Romney: Should his Mormonism trouble Catholics?
So, there is nothing incoherent in saying that one may have good reasons to reject a particular theological tradition, such as Mormonism, Islam, or Christian Science, while at the same time claiming that the tradition embraces beliefs that are nevertheless true. Mr. Smith, however, seems to believe that a belief is false if it is tethered to a worldview that is false. But that cannot be right, since it is overwhelmingly the case that people who hold a religious faith we think is mistaken are able to quite easily hold true beliefs that are derived from that faith but can be defended as true independently of it.
Second, Mr. Smith seems to be claiming that because LDS theology has changed over time based on the directives of an unaccountable magisterium, therefore, Mormon candidates cannot be trusted to hold those beliefs that they presently hold in common with traditional Christians. This is reminiscent of the old anti-Catholic canard that one ought not to vote for Senator Kennedy because he will take orders from the pope. So, just as a Catholic candidate must unthinkingly listen to the Supreme Pontiff (as it was often depicted during the 1960 election), an LDS candidate must obey his capricious and authoritarian leadership as well.
But in both cases the critic holds a one-dimensional and superficial understanding of doctrinal development. Take, for example, the two LDS cases cited by Mr. Smith – polygamy and the priesthood. In both cases the LDS Church has moved in the direction of Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and the Reformers, all of which have rejected polygamy as well as racial tests for clerical office. So, far from being a sign that portends to a theologically arbitrary LDS future, these shifts are positive and reasonable developments in Mormon doctrine that traditional Christians should applaud and support. That is, one may view these shifts as evidence that Mormonism is moving closer to the moral and doctrinal commitments of the Christian communities from which it sprang in the nineteenth century.
Third, it seems that the changes within Mormonism are far more modest than the sort one finds within Mr. Smith’s own Evangelical Protestantism. For example, on the matters of women’s ordination, abortion, contraception, divorce, eternal punishment, Chalcedonian formulation of the Incarnation, infant baptism, ecclesiology, the nature of God, and even the inerrancy of Scripture, Evangelicals have held a wide variety of views over the past fifty years, all of which are considered by many Evangelical scholars as well within the bounds of orthodoxy.
But unlike Mormonism, or even Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy, there is no magisterium within Evangelicalism that is constrained by the doctrinal pronouncements of its predecessors, such as in church councils or in official catechisms. Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church has far more latitude for changing his church’s doctrine than do Pope Benedict XVI and Mormon President Thomas S. Monson in tinkering with their own.
The lesson to be learned here is that one should examine another’s theological tradition with at least as much charity and rigor as one expects others to assess one’s own. (I know that this last sentence will probably come back to haunt me).
Francis J. Beckwith is Professor of Philosophy and Church-State Studies at Baylor University. He is the author or editor of over a dozen books including Politics for Christians: Statecraft as Soulcraftand The New Mormon Challenge: Responding to the Latest Defenses of a Fast Growing Movement, finalist for the 2003 Gold Medallion Award in theology and doctrine.
In case you didn’t realize Gnosticism is regarded as a heretical form of Christianity by some.
Sure - by some - and still outside of orthodox (please note small 'o') Christianity and is non-Christian by virtue of its denial of the essentials of Christianity.
Others will note that some of those forms of gnosticism developed separately from Christianity and attempted to incorporate components of Christianity into its system.
Either way - non-Christian.
That was news to St. Irenaeus of Lyons who attacked it as a Christian heresy in the 2nd century.
If I apply the strict standard of some of the Church fathers like St. Augustine then Protestants aren’t really Christians because they deserted the Catholic Church almost 500 years ago.
Your attacking the Mormons is a bit like the pot calling the kettle black.
http://www.cin.org/users/jgallegos/church.htm
Schism
“Why are there strifes, and tumults, and divisions, and schisms, and wars among you? Have we not [all] one God and one Christ? Is there not one Spirit of grace poured out upon us? And have we not one calling in Christ? Why do we divide and tear to pieces the members of Christ, and raise up strife against our own body, and have reached such a height of madness as to forget that “we are members one of another?” Remember the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, how He said, “Woe to that man [by whom offences come]! It were better for him that he had never been born, than that he should cast a stumbling-block before one of my elect. Yea, it were better for him that a millstone should be hung about [his neck], and he should be sunk in the depths of the sea, than that he should cast a stumbling-block before one of my little ones. Your schism has subverted [the faith of] many, has discouraged many, has given rise to doubt in many, and has caused grief to us all. And still your sedition continueth.”
Clement of Rome[regn c.A.D. 91-101],To the Corinthians,46(A.D. 91),in ANF,I:17-18
“Let no man deceive himself: if any one be not within the altar, he is deprived of the bread of God.”
Ignatius of Antioch,To the Ephesians,5(A.D. 110),in ANF,I:51
“For there are many wolves in sheep’s clothing, who, by means of a pernicious pleasure, carry captive(3) those that are running towards God; but in your unity they shall have no place.”
Ignatius of Antioch,To the Philadelphians,2(A.D. 110),in ANF,I:80
“Do not err, my brethren. If any man follows him that makes a schism in the Church, he shall not inherit the kingdom of God. If any one walks according to a strange opinion, he agrees not with the passion [of Christ.]”
Ignatius of Antioch,To the Philadelphians,3(A.D. 110),in ANF,I:80
“For there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup to [show forth] the unity of His blood; one altar.”
Ignatius of Antioch,To the Philadelphians,4(A.D. 110),in ANF,I:81
“But flee from all abominable heresies, and those that cause schisms, as the beginning of evils.”
Ignatius of Antioch,To the Smyrnaens,7(A.D. 110),in ANF,I:89
“See that ye follow the bishop, even as Christ Jesus does the Father.”
Ignatius of Antioch,To the Smyrnaens,8:2(A.D. 110),in ANF,I:89
“But those who cleave asunder, and separate the unity of the Church, [shall] receive from God the same punishment as Jeroboam did.”
Irenaeus,Against Heresies,4,26:2(A.D. 180),in ANF,I:497
“Whence you ought to know that the bishop is in the Church, and the Church in the bishop; and if any one be not with the bishop, that he is not in the Church.”
Cyprian, To Florentius,Epistle 68[66]:8(A.D. 254),in ANF,V:375
“Separate a ray of the sun from its body of light, its unity does not allow a division of light; break a branch from a tree,—when broken, it will not be able to bud; cut off the stream from its fountain, and that which is cut off dries up. Thus also the Church, shone over with the light of the Lord, sheds forth her rays over the whole world, yet it is one light which is everywhere diffused, nor is the unity of the body separated.”
Cyprian,Unity of the Church,5(A.D. 256),in ANF,V:423
“The spouse of Christ cannot be adulterous; she is uncorrupted and pure. She knows one home; she guards with chaste modesty the sanctity of one couch. She keeps us for God. She appoints the sons whom she has born for the kingdom. Whoever is separated from the Church and is joined to an adulteress, is separated from the promises of the Church; nor can he who forsakes the Church of Christ attain to the rewards of Christ. He is a stranger; he is profane; he is an enemy. He can no longer have God for his Father, who has not the Church for his mother. If any one could escape who was outside the ark of Noah, then he also may escape who shall be outside of the Church...He who does not hold this unity does not hold God’s law, does not hold the faith of the Father and the Son, does not hold life and salvation.”
Cyprian,Unity of the Church,5(A.D. 256),in ANF,V:423
“What does the fierceness of wolves do in the Christian breast? What the savageness of dogs, and the deadly venom of serpents, and the sanguinary cruelty of wild beasts? We are to be congratulated when such as these are separated from the Church, lest they should lay waste the doves and sheep of Christ with their cruel and envenomed contagion.”
Cyprian,Unity of the Church,9(A.D. 256),in ANF,V:424
“Let none think that the good can depart from the Church. The wind does not carry away the wheat, nor does the hurricane uproot the tree that is based on a solid root. The light straws are tossed about by the tempest, the feeble trees are overthrown by the onset of the whirlwind.”
Cyprian,Unity of the Church,9(A.D. 256),in ANF,V:424
“Do they deem that they have Christ with them when they are collected together, who are gathered together outside the Church of Christ?”
Cyprian,Unity of the Church,13(A.D. 256),in ANF,V:426
“Only-Begotten. At this time the altogether wicked heretics and ignorant schismatics are in the same case; the one in that they slay the Word, the other in that they rend the coat.”
Athanasius,Festal Letter 6,6(A.D. 334),in NPNF2,IV:521
“For you have said, among other things, that schismatics are cut off like branches from the vine, and, being destined for punishment, are reserved like dry wood for the fires of Gehenna.”
Optatus of Mileve,The Schism of the Donatist,1:10(A.D. 367),in OPT,10
“Indeed it would be monstrous to feel pleasure in the schisms and divisions of the Churches, and not to consider that the greatest of goods consists in the knitting together of the members of Christ’s body.” Basil,To Evagrius,Epistle 156:1(A.D. 373),in NPNF2,VIII:211
“Heretics bring sentence upon themselves since they by their own choice withdraw from the Church, a withdrawal which, since they are aware of it, constitutes damnation. Between heresy and schism separates one from the Church on account of disagreement with the bishop.”
Jerome,Commentaries on the Epistle to Titus,3:10(A.D. 386),in JUR,II:194
“And this confession is indeed rightly made by them, for they have not the succession of Peter, who hold not the chair of Peter, which they rend by wicked schism; and this, too, they do, wickedly denying that sins can be forgiven even in the Church, whereas it was said to Peter: “I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven.”
Ambrose,Concerning Repentance,33(A.D. 390),in NPNF2,X:334
“But heretics, in holding false opinions regarding God, do injury to the faith itself; while schismatics, on the other hand, in wicked separations break off from brotherly charity, although they may believe just what we believe.”
Augustine,On Faith and Creed,10(A.D. 393),in NPNF1,III:331
“In the time of Donatus, from whom his followers were called Donatists, when great numbers in Africa were rushing headlong into their own mad error, and unmindful of their name, their religion, their profession, were preferring the sacrilegious temerity of one man before the Church of Christ, then they alone throughout Africa were safe within the sacred precincts of the Catholic faith, who, detesting the profane schism, continued in communion with the universal Church, leaving to posterity an illustrious example, how, and how well in future the soundness of the whole body should be preferred before the madness of one, or at most of a few.”
Vincent of Lerins,Commonitories,9(A.D. 434),in NPNF2,XI:133
“Furthermore, those whom the error of the schismatics severs from the unity of the Church, strive ye, for your own reward, to recall to the unity of concord.”
Gregory the Great[regn A.D. 590-604],To Brunichild,Epistle 11(A.D. 597),in NPNF2,XIII:8
You could, but you do not have that authority to speak for the Catholic church as such.
Though the Catholic Church officially sees the Protestantism as 'separated', it does not deny that it falls within the boundries of Christianity.
What I will say is that our religious 'flavor' had nothing to do with those of us who gathered for the day on the Washington mall to pray for our country - nor in dozens of locations across America where Catholic joined their Protestant brethern to honor God. Perhaps you life may be less bitter if you consider those facts.
Your attacking the Mormons is a bit like the pot calling the kettle black.
Incase you haven't noticed - the official position of the Catholic Church is the same as Protestantism - mormonism is not part of Christianity. And this thread was Mormonism and Catholicism wasn't it?
Paul had this to say about such attitudes as yours -
Rom 16:17 KJV - Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.
As a former Catholic, I view Catholics as my Christian bretheren. We may scuffle on peripherial issues, but there is no problem with us both affirming our belief in the Apostles or Nicean creeds - which reflect the core of beliefs of Christianity.
Since this thread is about Mormonism and Catholism, you may want to keep it there. If you want to stir up trouble - you know how to start a new thread.
so you define on the basis of "socially" and a "perhaps" - interesting
Yet the rest of the article points to - doctrinally - mormonism is not Christian in that its baptism is not a valid Christian baptism.
Father Richard John Neuhaus made this observations:
"As is said in the Nicene Creed, "We believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church." That reality encompasses doctrine, ministry, liturgy, and a rule of life. Christians disagree about precisely where that Church is to be located historically and at present, but almost all agree that it is to be identified with the Great Tradition defined by the apostolic era through at least the first four ecumenical councils, and continuing in diverse forms to the present day. That is the Christianity that LDS teaching rejects and condemns as an abomination and fraud."
"A closer parallel might be with Islam. Islam is a derivative of Judaism, and Christianity. Like Joseph Smith, Muhammad in the seventh century claimed new revelations and produced in the Qur’an a "corrected" version of the Jewish and Christian scriptures, presumably by divine dictation. Few dispute that Islam is a new and another religion, and Muslims do not claim to be Christian, although they profess a deep devotion to Jesus. Like Joseph Smith and his followers, they do claim to be the true children of Abraham. Christians in dialogue with Islam understand it to be an interreligious, not an ecumenical, dialogue. Ecumenical dialogue is dialogue between Christians. Dialogue with Mormons who represent official LDS teaching is interreligious dialogue."
But the Catholic Church doesn't go to the extent of many Evangelicals and say they aren't Christians in any sense.
But your "catholic" view is that Protestants are not Christian based upon your interpretation of Catholic writings, I find it hard to believe that your 'view' regarding mormonism is any different. Interreligious means non-Christian.
As you correctly noted Lutheran baptism is valid because it has the same form and intention as Catholic/Orthodox baptism. -- to which you can add in the traditional Anglicans
By just these two exceptions, it proves that we cannot say all Protestants are ... -- that generalization fails.
One can specifically point to a particular denomination, but not a generalization as they are exceptionally different
Mormonism is far more different -- it is not a Christian heresy, but a non-Christian religion.
St. Irenaeus attacked Gnosticism as a Christian heresy. Mormonism even in "basic form" did not exist then. Mormonism was created in the 1800s, it is NOT a continuation of any early Christian or pagan thought in any way.
This pagan religion that is Mormonism was a piece of fiction dreamt up by a con-man called J Smith. He took elements of the Revivalist movement, merged it with the interest in Egyptology and put in good ole "burning in the bosom" and came up with his own religion -- of course he let men indulge their urges and get many women, so his new religion was a hit
rzman, you are wrong on one point --> the Catholic Church does not consider them to be Christians, either sacramentally or theologically -- since they believe in many gods they are not in the least bit Christian, not even a christian heresy.
Dang!
I am SO offended!!
And NOW I am going to devote all my time fighting CATHOLICS instead of MORMONism!
(wink!)
Resistance is futile!
So nice of you to be an "advocate" of sorts for the Mormon church.
Joseph Smith's nephew, the sixth "prophet" of the Mormon church, even said:
"Mary was married to Joseph for time. No man could take her for eternity because she belonged to the Father of her divine Son. In the revelation that has come thru Joseph Smith, we learn that it is the eternal purpose of God that man and woman should be joined together by the power of God here on earth for time and eternity" (Joseph F. Smith, Messages of the First Presidency, 4:330)
I'm sure your fellow Roman Catholics appreciate your "hands-off" approach to condemning such certain contentions!
Then isn't it just OBVIOUS that the following is translated INCORRECTLY?
Romans 7:2
For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.