Posted on 10/13/2011 5:52:58 PM PDT by Gamecock
I subscribe to a Mormon apologetic Newsletter titled FAIR (Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research).
Normally it falls into my junk email account and I don't even open it, but today I had a few minutes and scanned the latest offering and was stunned to see the hypocrisy of the authors. Please note the entire email is posted below.
This particular issue has a great deal of whining about those mean Christians who make the spurious claim that Mormons are not Christians, but are a cult.
A couple of examples:
-"Mormons are a cult" epithets into the national spotlight. In his "On Faith" commentary this week, Church Public Affairs managing director Michael Otterson suggests why people make such claims and shares his own experience of being labeled not Christian.
Calling Mormonism a cult is old hat, and the voters are yawning.
-Texas Gov. Rick Perry's minister ally Robert Jeffress might think Mitt Romney's church is a cult, but a new documentary on the presidency and Mormonism suggests that Romney could snag the nation's top job despite the religious feud between Christians.
-....the "cult" of Mormonism means that you raise a solid family, work hard, make money and do good for the greater community of mankind, then by all means pass the Kool-Aid.
-It seems just too petty and small for a country as big as America to have. America, as a melting pot of many cultures and many beliefs, is supposed to be more tolerant of differences.
-Another woman in Texas remembers that her LDS congregation was banned from participating in a community-wide Christmas event and that non-Church members once barged into Sunday meetings shouting that Mormons were cult members and devil worshippers.
The reader will note, when comparing the above quotes with the below article, that the quotes originate from the MSM. Why would the MSM, a known enemy of Christianity, care if Christians consider Mormons a cult or not? I suggest that these quotes are really more of an attack on Christianity than some deep concern for Mormons. Notice how when Mormons talk family values the press fawns over them. When Christians do the same we are are intolerant of other lifestyles.
That being said, consider the above quotes. Christians who deny Mormons mainstream status are bigoted, intolerant, etc. But ask your self this: are Mormons not intolerant when they make the following claim: that Joseph Smith unearthed a book of golden plates from a New York hillside in 1827 with the help of an angel and translated hieroglyphics that detailed the true Christian faith.
So Mormons don't want to be Christians, but rather the "true Christian faith." Isn't that just a bit intolerant?
I suspect what is really going on here is that in reality the MSM sees Romney as a palatable Republican. They don't really care about Mormons, but are afraid of Cain and Perry.
Take a few minutes and scan the below and see what other nuggets jump out at you. There are more than a couple.
For your ping lists.
Catholics are used to being called the whore of Babylon, but Mormons teach that both Catholics AND Protestants are the whore of Babylon. it’s good to have company.
Were I a Mormon, I’d not worry.
Consider the sources.
There are blithering idiot “leaders” in every religion.
However, Muzzies appear to have the commanding lead in this area.
Good ol’ Christian tribalism: “You must have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ...as long as it’s identical to mine.”
Ping
Of course there’s the God had sex with Mary, Satan is the brother of Jesus, denial with the Trinity, and other charming Mormon beliefs that cast is far outside the camp..
When I hear the doorbell at 7am and find a bunch of latter day saints on the door step, I ask “what time is it”?
I get the response, ‘7 am’ and I say..
“Well then...come back latter in the day”! *door slam*
This isn't particularly well-worded, but I think it's saying that discussing whether the Mormon leadership was involved in the Mountain Meadows Massacre constitutes religious intolerance.
Wow.
This is a matter of historical interest and can be settled, at least to some extent, by standard historical methods.
The answer, BTW, is that local Mormon leadership organized and led the MMM. The only question is whether Brigham Young in SLC ordered the massacre or just did everything he could to cover it up after the fact.
It also seems to me that the MMM itself was a better example of religious intolerance than any debate today over who was responsible. Considering the Mormons killed more Gentiles in this single massacre than all the Mormons killed by Gentiles during their persecution in the Middle West.
It doesn't make someone a hypocrite to claim that his religion is the "one true" version and complain when other people say that his isn't. If you believe you're right then when other people say you're wrong that should get you at least a bit upset.
The question here is whether a voter can support a candidate of a different faith. In a pluralistic society such as ours it is almost mandatory. If each voter only voted for candidates of like faith then we would soon be Balkanized.
The hit against Mormons goes like this: "Well I don't mind that they have a different faith, but they lie when they say they are Christians and I won't vote for a liar."
But even between Christian faiths such as Catholicism, Orthodox, and the various Protestant faiths there are members who claim that the other faiths are not Christian. There are Protestants who believe that Catholics are not Christian, but pagan. There are Catholics that believe that Protestants are heretics. For some reason we no longer here about those disputes. The relatively few people that hold these intolerant views are by-and-large not given a microphone when they address large crowds.
I believe that Mormonism is close enough to certain forms of Christianity that Mormons do not lie when they call themselves Christians. Are Christian Scientists not Christian? They don't believe in the actual physical Christ. There are those that claim that because of this for Christian Scientists Christ never really suffered and died for our sins, therefore Christian Scientists are not Christian. It seems to me that Mormons who believe that Christ existed as a real person are at least one up on Christian Scientists in this regard.
Also, what about all of the Christians that believe that no one is a true Christian if they believe that abortion is OK or homosexual marriage is OK even if they have been attending a Christian church all of their life? Voters who oppose such candidates seldom say "He is a liar when he says he is a Christian." Rather they say "His position on abortion/gay marriage is wrong and un-Christian."
Mitt believes he is a Christian. He seems to be living a life that is well within the bounds of a typical Christian lifestyle. His main defects are his support for Romney/Obamacare and his waffling in general. I'd call him a liar based on the changing of his positions on abortion before I'd call him a liar based on him calling himself a Christian.
Mormonism is more than “un-Christian”. It’s ANTI-Christian.
This is a “religion” that gets its beliefs in supposed books of gold found by someone in the woods of New York and he translated the books as the word of God. Of course, the books have disappeared since then. Sorry, this is a cult.
You're partially right, but you're off on one point. While it is true that the MSM considers Romney slightly more palatable than Cain or Perry, that will not stop them from tearing him to shreds the moment, I mean the very nanosecond, he is (God forbid) confirmed as the Republican nominee.
Once that happens, any nice things they have said about Mormonism will go right into the memory hole and a full scale assault on every controversial aspect of LDS Church history will hit every MSM outlet because they want the Republicans to lose and they will use any weapon they can grasp to make that happen.
Every election the same thing happens, and it amazes me that so many people fall for it each time. Dole was positioned by the MSM and the Republican candidate as "inevitable". They said nice things about him until he was nominated, then suddenly the narrative switched to every flaw (real or imagined) they could present. The same thing happened with Bush, the same thing happened with McCain, and the same thing is bound to happen if we nominate Romney.
Romney has a wide variety of flaws that already make him unpalatable to Conservatives. A full court, in depth expose of Mormonism and it's controversial past will destroy him.
You call it lies. I call it research.
Priceless.
You call it research, but look up ‘Ohio Decalogue Stones’ and don’t stop reading at the :DS version, read right through the refutation of the LDS claims. It is becoming common for LDS inc to respond to scientific refutations of their claims with ‘you see the data one way, we see it another way; let’s agree to disagree’.
Can't recall any "tribe" that promoted magic underwear, celestial marriages or being temple worthy in order to go to heaven? Only a cult would attach that kind of garbage to a free gift of salvation.
I see that PD has found work!
but wrong...
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