Posted on 05/24/2012 12:19:11 PM PDT by greyfoxx39
Brian Johnston was desperate. The pressures of raising six children on one accountant salary were crushing, but worse was that he was starting to doubt the entire reason he and his wife had created a big family with a stay-at-home mom in the first place: Their Mormonism.
-SNIP-
The official church historian Marlin Jenson made news last year when he said that the loss of members in the last five or 10 years has been greater than perhaps any period since Mormonism was founded in 1830.
-SNIP-
For Mormons grappling with doubts, the potential spiritual consequences can appear frightening. Mormon scripture teaches that the lowest status in the afterlife, called Outer Darkness, is reserved for people who know Jesus and then become unbelievers. At times, the church can appear to respond harshly as well, tales about which surface on stayLDS.com, which receives about 700 visitors a day.
-SNIP-
When relatives found out four years ago that he was venting about the church online, they called his church and he was removed from leadership, he says, for expressing doubts about the literal truth of Mormonism. He lost his ”temple recommend” — a credential showing you are a good, orthodox Mormon, which means he can’t attend weddings and baptisms even of relatives or close friends, because those rituals happen in the temple and only Mormons in good standing are allowed in.
He sounds simultaneously heartbroken and seething with anger. “I’m pretty well a second-rate Mormon; I kind of sit in the back,” he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Paul makes it pretty clear regarding Christ and the Father and heir relationship and that they are two distinct personages, both being God...as does Christ himself and the Gospels.
Paul also speaks to Baptism for the Dead plainly, making it clear that if there was no resurrection resulting from Christ, there would be no need to be baptised for the dead...but there Christ did bring the resurrection, ergo...
Anyhow, my intent earlier was simply to clarify what happens in the Church regarding a person who loses their temple recommend as opposed to the impression the article left. They can still attend baptisms of their friends or relatives, and any civil marriage ceremonies held in the Chapels.
They just can’t attend the temple until they meet those requirements once again...and that means they cannot be a part of Baptisms for the Dead, or Temple Marriages.
I expected to get several responses from the Flying Inmans (a name they call themselves) and they did not disappoint. But they were taking issue with doctrine and my intent was simply to give explanation and clarification to the article.
Thanks for providing reference to some of the doctrinal side. God’s speed, and BZ.
My Witness for Christ, as an LDS Member
http://www.jeffhead.com/jlhwitness.htm
I cut my teeth on mormonism over 40 years ago...
I worked with one who destroyed my belongings badmouthed me to our co-workers and demanded that our boss fire me...
The Mormon missionary was the one who left in a huff...
But not before she left a pile of literature about Mormonism and Joey Smith digging in the dirt in his Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes and polygamy etc behind...
she had been wooing our very land rich and money rich bosses and they said No thanks we’re Methodists..
She kept telling them more and more secrets and they finally convinced her I guess...
In one afternoon after she had left, my boss taught me all she had been told about Mormonism
and begged me never to join them that they were a cult and not Chritsin
at 19 I had been already saved for 11 years and read the Bible several times...
Even I recognized that what i was reading and discussing with my boss was not Christianity but blasphemy of an evil seductive sort...
So God allowed me to know then in 1968 more probably that your average BIC Mormon knows today...
Ive watched them evolve from not claiming to be Christians to trying to replace real Christians..
The old replacement theology at work...
Theyve added the Mormon holy ghost and a few other things since 1968..
although its more of a mascot lap dog...
It doesnt have any power and doesnt do anything...
Oh and its not entitled to a body like the Mormon gods and the Mormon jesus has...
It hasnt earned one...
The most important reason that I oppose Romney has nothing to do with what he believes. My main reason for opposing Romney is because he really doesn’t believe in anything other than his own personal advancement.
Sorry, Nana, you may think you know a lot about the Church, but your comment there reveals that you really know very little.
I joined the Church in 1970. The Holy Ghost was taught then, and clear back to the founding of the Church, just as it was in the New Testament and in the Book of Mormon.
The Holy Ghost is the third member of the Godhead,. His mission is to testify of truth through the power of the Spirit, which is why He is still a spirit and will receive His body after the great work of God and Christ are done...He having been the one all along to drive the message home into the hearts of mankind.
It is why the Church has allways Baptised people in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
That’s what the church teaches and has taught from the start. The Holy Ghost was not “added” after 1968. And the church certainly does not teach or consider that He is a “lapdog.”
Your use of such terms to descibe the beliefs of others is not beoming of you, Nana...it is direspectful and shows vitriol and mockery that, IMHO, is unbecoming a Christian.
But just so you can know, that is what the Church teaches.
Have a great Memorial Day weekend.
The idea of the trinity is not easy or obvious, and if it were not for the direct teachings of Christ and the Apostles, most of us would probably allow ourselves to believe in a badly watered down version of God. But real things often go against our convenient simplifications. We barely understand how a bumble bee flies, but we pretend to know how God exists as God? We would have no shot at understanding God if he did not reveal himself to us, at least just a little. Happily, he has done so.
Consider the words of John:
John 1:1-3 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
You only quoted part of this passage in your post. But the passage must be taken as a whole. Understanding that John here uses the “Word” to refer to Jesus, this passage teaches:
1. That Jesus existed from the beginning.
2. That Jesus was with God.
3. That Jesus was God.
Now lets absorb that first. From the beginning. That is, there never was a time when Jesus wasn’t, then suddenly came into being. Didn’t happen that way. He was always there.
Next, we see he was both with God, and was God. Odd thing for John to put it that way. You can see how the early Christians must have scratched their heads over this one, just like you did. How can he be “with” God and also “be” God. Sounds impossible. Humans can’t live that way. But then we’re talking about God, right? Why should it be impossible? He can exist in ways we cannot imagine.
To continue, we also see:
4. That all things were made by Jesus
5. That there is no created thing that wasn’t made by Jesus
See how John fences the reader in from both sides, to make doubly sure they get what he is saying. On the one hand, Jesus made everything. Cool. But just in case you’re still tempted to think Jesus was himself created, or the offspring of some earlier-in-time deity, John cuts off that avenue by saying if it’s a “made” thing, Jesus made it. That would mean that Jesus himself must preexist all “made” things. And that would mean he himself is eternal, uncreated, which matches perfectly with the teaching that there never was a time when Jesus wasn’t, just like God, and because he is God.
Not easy to understand, but if it is what God teaches us through his word, what choice do we have? We must believe it.
“you wouldn’t feel that you were being “bashed””
Well right there you’ve put your finger on it. So-called “bashing” is largely about feeling, not reason. But words do have meaning. If every belief system can co-opt the term Christian and apply it without limit to distinctly non-Christian beliefs, the word loses its meaning. It becomes a mere fashion accessory.
I only ask that people be honest. “Christian” as a label got its meaning from the early followers of Christ, as defined by their written record, the Bible. Along with that label came a body of specific doctrines about God, Jesus, man, salvation, etc. When a much later group comes along with a new and very different set of doctrines and claims the same label, a rational person could see that as creating a set of competing and contradictory claims that would have to be resolved, normally in favor of the first inventor.
Think of this as a patent problem. Someone invents a rocket powered gym shoe and call it a “hotfoot.” Someone else comes along, much later, and invents another version of the rocket gym shoe, using a mix of components, some stolen directly from the “hotfoot,” word for word, and some from other completely incompatible sources. And of course they also call it the “hotfoot.”
Given the above scenario, do you really think it would be “bashing” if the original inventor claimed infringement? Or dilution or confusion of brand or trademark? The original “hotfoot” inventor has a right to keep the original label associated with the original product. If someone comes up with a new product, they can market their product like everyone else, but let them make their own name. That would be the honest thing to do.
Hi,
I wanted to share a verse I heard a Catholic apologist
state shows Jesus Christ IS GOD. A new one to me.
John 17:4
I have glorified thee on the earth; I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. [5] And now glorify thou me, O Father, with thyself, with the glory which I had, before the world was, with thee.
It's not about feelings, but facts. And your comparison doesn't work because, as you say, you're talking about varying denominations of the Christian faith. Even with their doctrinal differences, they're all Christian and share the same basic creed. A religion which denies the Bible, and basic Christian doctrine---i.e., saying that God used to be human, and humans will one day be gods---is not, by definition, Christian, though it might say so, and might try to get others to say so, too. This is not hate, nor is it bigotry. It's simply stating what IS.
Iwondr, what Jeff fails to reference in the 1 Cor. 15 verse he's talking about is that Paul said "they" baptize the dead -- not "we." (Who are the "they?")
If I said in 2012 "they" baptize the dead -- meaning Mormons -- that doesn't mean I do it/we do it...or that it's an endorsement just 'cause I mentioned it.
Typical incompletion/obfuscation from Jeff.
So you "prophesy" here Jeff -- claiming that the Holy Spirit is somehow "incomplete" minus a body...
Utter blasphemy!
...and you "prophesy" He will receive a body?
Are you a "prophet" Jeff? If not, where did you get this specific prophesy from? (Source, chapter & verse, please)
Right now, I'll consider the source as Hot Air 3:16.
You’re always okay in my book, Jeff. I suspect you’re okay in God’s Book, too. :-)
Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.
**It is why the Church has allways Baptised people in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.**
There has to be more to this statement, for the Catholic Church does not accept the Baptism of a Mormon when a former Mormon seeks to enter the Catholic Church.
And I don’t think that other churches accept the Mormon baptism either, but I could be wrong.
...it is direspectful and shows vitriol and mockery that, IMHO, is unbecoming a Christian.
_________________________________________
Joey Smith the founder of your religion was “direspectful and showed vitriol and mockery” towards Christianity...
do you think that should have drawn your indignant ojectioin on behalf of us Christians ???
Or is Mormonism something special and superior to Christianity ???
wouldnt Joey Smith be acting in a way that was “unbecoming a Mormon” ???
Oh silly me...
There I go again..
as you said I “think you know a lot about the Church, but your comment there reveals that you really know very little”
The fact is that Mormons are blood sworn to be “direspectful and show vitriol and mockery” towards Christianity...
From the first Mormon Joey Smith on down...
and as we know we Christians get a lot of that in these threads from the Mormons...
Thanks LArry, the feelings are mutual.
God’s speed and blessings to you and yours...and I pray His blessings on our nation that we as a poeple can rise up and throw off the Kenyan MArxist and his Chicago style governance and cohorts and abettors, and return closer to or fundamental moral and republican roots to start a turn around in America.
I believe that is what is riding on the elction of 2012.
BZ.
Nana, I have never mocked or shown vitriol towards you or your beliefs.
Joseph Smith quoted what he said God in Heavne told him, and it wasn’t about the people themselves, it was about the teachings that had strayed from Christ’s original teachings.
Clearly, you do not believe they had...and that is fine. we simply teach that Christ restored the fullness of His Gospel and His Church to the erth and invite all to come and test the waters. It is entirely up to them and we are taught to respect the beliefs and sincere heartfelt sentiments of others toards our Savior, Jesus Christ, even if they are not LDS.
Not everyone chooses to do that and I have been on record here on FR speaking against that...wherever it comes from.
I personally believe that anyone who sincerely accepts Jesus Christ into their hearts as Lord and Savior is a Christian and will be left standing at the last day.
I believe He will give them the opportunity to know the whole truth...whatever it may be...and that any sincere follower of our Savior, when He testifies of His truth to them and they know it, will follow Him and His teaching.
So, when He appears, I am sure, because I believe you are sincere in your love for Christ, you will do whatever He says, even if He says to go to the Temple.
And for my part, should He tell me to stop or not go there, well then I certainly will not do so, because He is my Savior and Lord and I will follow Him.
That’s how I feel, nana, and how I have been taught to feel towards others, and what I teach at church and anywhere else.
The One God evidences Himself in the work He is doing The following will be 'a way' to understand the notion of the trinitarian nature of the Deity, not a strictly Biblical explanation, but one which is applicable to the teaching of the Bible. Here goes:
God The Father Almighty is greater than His creation, thus greater than dimension time and dimension space, thus we may think of The Father Almighty as beyond time and space but not prevented from touching and indeed penetrating His creation.
The universe of space and time is likened to a bubble: what is inside the bubble is in time and space. But the nature of what is inside the bubble is only partially understood in modern Physics.
The Bible relates scenes which defy our simplistic notions, but let us make the statement that God The Father Almighty is as comfortable outside the bubble of our spacetime as He is inside the bubble.
Modern Physics has discovered that the balance of forces and tensions sustaining the universe necessary for human life to arise within the universe is extremely delicate, on the order of a mathematical improbability, represented as a 'one in less than' fraction so tiny that a one over a one followed by more than one-hundred zeros [1/1x10100] defines the probability that the whole thing remains in balance! Such a delicate balancing act is but one of the continuing 'works' of the Holy Spirit of God. It is by the Spirit of God, The Word, that the universe came into existence and it is said in the Bible that by His Spirit the whole is maintained.
But the Bible also states that The Word was with God in the beginning and was God. In John's gospel we find that Jesus is The Word made flesh Who dwelt among us. So, inside the bubble Created by The Father Almighty, sustained by God The Holy Spirit, is the Word, God made flesh Who dwelt among us. The Creator does not stop being greater than His creation bubble, nor does His Spirit cease to sustain it all in balance, when Jesus comes in the flesh to dwell among us.
When one reads the Tanakh/Old Testament, one finds scenes like the fifth chapter of Daniel where a being is in one spacetime 'where/when' reaching into another 'where/when' to write on the palace party central wall of king Belshazzar. Just the forearm/hand is seen in the where/when of Belshazzar and the party folks, the rest of the being remains in 'another' where/when.
God The Father Almighty created this 'other' where/when, His Holy Spirit maintains its balance and separateness from our where/when, and Jesus has moved in and out of this other where/when: as shown when He resurrected from the tomb without rolling away the stone, just passing out of the tomb where/when, into 'another' where/when; then back into our where/when as He spoke to the women come to the sepulchre; and when He appeared in a locked and shuttered room with the disciples present; or appeared suddenly with the disciples walking on a road and broke bread with them then left our where/when to go to the 'other' where/when.
The trinitarian nature of God is shown in the Bible, even in the Tanakh. Trinity IS the nature of God as we have been given to know. Even in the Old Testament/Tanakh, we do have instruction on the Three nature of God as Creator, Sustainer, and Deliverer. God Is manifested as three yet one, seen identified by the 'work' He is doing/'action' He is taking.
With each manifestation, we are given to realize His presence simultaneously as Creator--because we exist in the realm He created, as Sustainer--because the balance is too delicate to stand alone without His sustaining the separation and interdependence, and as God with us in the person of Jesus our Lord and Savior.
The One God evidences Himself in the work He is doing The following will be 'a way' to understand the notion of the trinitarian nature of the Deity, not a strictly Biblical explanation, but one which is applicable to the teaching of the Bible. Here goes:
God The Father Almighty is greater than His creation, thus greater than dimension time and dimension space, thus we may think of The Father Almighty as beyond time and space but not prevented from touching and indeed penetrating His creation.
The universe of space and time is likened to a bubble: what is inside the bubble is in time and space. But the nature of what is inside the bubble is only partially understood in modern Physics.
The Bible relates scenes which defy our simplistic notions, but let us make the statement that God The Father Almighty is as comfortable outside the bubble of our spacetime as He is inside the bubble.
Modern Physics has discovered that the balance of forces and tensions sustaining the universe necessary for human life to arise within the universe is extremely delicate, on the order of a mathematical improbability, represented as a 'one in less than' fraction so tiny that a one over a one followed by more than one-hundred zeros [1/1x10100] defines the probability that the whole thing remains in balance! Such a delicate balancing act is but one of the continuing 'works' of the Holy Spirit of God. It is by the Spirit of God, The Word, that the universe came into existence and it is said in the Bible that by His Spirit the whole is maintained.
But the Bible also states that The Word was with God in the beginning and was God. In John's gospel we find that Jesus is The Word made flesh Who dwelt among us. So, inside the bubble Created by The Father Almighty, sustained by God The Holy Spirit, is the Word, God made flesh Who dwelt among us. The Creator does not stop being greater than His creation bubble, nor does His Spirit cease to sustain it all in balance, when Jesus comes in the flesh to dwell among us.
When one reads the Tanakh/Old Testament, one finds scenes like the fifth chapter of Daniel where a being is in one spacetime 'where/when' reaching into another 'where/when' to write on the palace party central wall of king Belshazzar. Just the forearm/hand is seen in the where/when of Belshazzar and the party folks, the rest of the being remains in 'another' where/when.
God The Father Almighty created this 'other' where/when, His Holy Spirit maintains its balance and separateness from our where/when, and Jesus has moved in and out of this other where/when: as shown when He resurrected from the tomb without rolling away the stone, just passing out of the tomb where/when, into 'another' where/when; then back into our where/when as He spoke to the women come to the sepulchre; and when He appeared in a locked and shuttered room with the disciples present; or appeared suddenly with the disciples walking on a road and broke bread with them then left our where/when to go to the 'other' where/when.
The trinitarian nature of God is shown in the Bible, even in the Tanakh. Trinity IS the nature of God as we have been given to know. Even in the Old Testament/Tanakh, we do have instruction on the Three nature of God as Creator, Sustainer, and Deliverer. God Is manifested as three yet one, seen identified by the 'work' He is doing/'action' He is taking.
With each manifestation, we are given to realize His presence simultaneously as Creator--because we exist in the realm He created, as Sustainer--because the balance is too delicate to stand alone without His sustaining the separation and interdependence, and as God with us in the person of Jesus our Lord and Savior.
The Holy Ghost was taught then, and clear back to the founding of the Church, just as it was in the New Testament
_______________________________________
AH “taught” ???
You mention the Christian Bible ...
What about the Old Testament of the Bible ???
The Holy Ghost was present right at the first verse Genesis 1:1
Th the beginning, God...
God the Father, God the Word and God the Holy Spirit..
Then when we look at the New Testament, the last Book of the Bible...there arte only those two...
we find in John 1:1 again In the Begining...
This time John is speaking of the second person of the Trinity, the Word..God..
Read this Jeffie and learn something...
You are sadly unschooled in the things of God..
John goes on to say...
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word WAS God..John 1:1
Then John goes back to mention Genesis
the same (the Word) was IN THE BEGINNIG with God
Then John tells us that the Word created everythging
All things were made by Him...
You see Jeffie when God opened His mouth and spoke and said “Let there be light” there was absolutely NOTHING...
But whenb He spoke out of His mouth came (What or who Jeffie thats right5 kid) the WORD...
The WORD came out of the mouth of God and did what ???
He created ...Light...in that Light was life..
What was the Light Jeffie ???
Yes
the Word of God...
Who later took on flesh and became the LORD Jesus Christ...
Dont argue with me because you have no learnin and you dont understand what happened
ask the Holy Spirit...
He was there too...
OK so here we have established that the Word was there in the beginning and Light was created...
and so was everything else...
The heavens, the Earth, the plants, the fish, birds animals...
and yes Adam...and his wife, Eve...
and Jeffie when God brought Eve to Adam He was marrying them...
They had sex in the Garden of Eden...
It was not a sin...
They were married by Pastor God...
Their sin which caused the downfall of man was their disobedience to God in eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil...
Here Adam and Eve were romping through the Garden buck naked, eternal honeymoon..
Taking to God, playing with the animals, smelling the flowers picking the fruit.. apples included...that was not the forbidden fruit...
but when they sinned all that stopped...
God tossed them out of the Garden and put angels with fiery swords at the gates so thet they could not eat the fruit from that other tree, the Tree of Life which would cause them to live forever...
Thats why we all are born into sin ...because of the awful sin of Adam..
Sin, evil distruction, death, murder, rape robbery, terrorism, false religion came into the world because of the first Adam...
But the last Adam is the Word...who became flesh and dwelled among us...John 1:14
The Word of God did not have any flesh just as God the Father has not flesh, just as God the Holy spirit has no flesh...
When Mary became pregnant without the aid of sex with man or Mormon god, then the Word took on flesh right from conception as any other human baby does...
Ignorant men not understanding the abilities, the Power, the miracles of God thought at one time that Mary had to have had se3x with a male in order to conceive...
But God Almighty is just that...Almighty...He can do anything...beyond the puny imagination of man...
If He could speak the world into being from nothing and make a human Adam His greatest creation from a handful of dirt and without the sex act...
There is no reason to believe that He didnt create the LORD Jesus Christ in the womb of a little unmarried virgin without the aid of man or Mormon god...
God can do anything...
As He said to Mary when she wondered “NOTHING is impossible for God”
So Jeffie the Word of God became flesh and dwelled among us...
and then John goes on to tell us more...
But if you are interested at all then you need to go to a Christian bookstore or Walmart or B&N and get yourself a Bible and read it...
Because you have a confused idea of just who the Holy Spirit really is...
For instance why did the Holy Spirit have to be present when the LORD Jesus was baptised in water by John ???
Well Jeffie the Word was God but up till that time Jesus did not have the power of God...
He did after the Holy Spirit anointed Him at the River Jordan...
As Luke in the 4th Chapter tells us He said in the Temple later (quoting Isaiah 61) “The SPIRIT of the LORD God is upon me because the LORD has annointed me to preach, heal, proclaim freedom, open the spiritual prisons
and proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD and the day of vengence...
comfort, give beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise”
and so on...
Well that was enough to make the legalists of His day mad and accuse Him of bashing the Jews...
Just who was that Man who walked into the Temple in Nazareth and asked for the scroll of Isaiah ???
Well Jeffie you need to read all about Him for yourself...
Since years of study seem important to you and you didnt enter Mormonism until 1970, I started studying the Christian Bible about 1950..
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