Took the words right of my mouth, repeatedly. - Edit 1
Before modification by Joel at 04/10/2011 01:02:16 PM
I could point out some of the countless problems that virtually everyone else has with your faith (the most notable being Joe Smith making up fake gold plates that he said were given to him by God in a language only he could read, making up entire civilizations that never existed and whose existence cannot be proven by one scrap of evidence, pretending to be able to translate Egyptian hieroglyphs and so making a fake "Book of Moses" out of a standard funerary text, rewriting your holy text on a nearly yearly basis to whitewash it - in some cases literally, as in the way black people were accepted in the 1970s - and make it acceptable to your changing ideas, silly ideas like the Adam-God doctrine, and a whole host of other foolishness).
However, let's just take a very simple approach and look at the Nicene Creed, the fundamental affirmation that separates Christians from people who talk about Jesus (like Jehovah's Witnesses). The Creed says (with questions from me interspersed throughout):
We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen.
Can you say this? Do you truly believe in ONE GOD? Did ONE GOD create all that is and ever was? If not, you are not Christians (or Jews or Muslims, for that matter).
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father. Through him all things were made.
Do you believe that Jesus Christ is GOD, that he is the SAME GOD as God the Father, that he is one in Being with the Father and that he was begotten, not made? That is to say, that he was not created by God the Father, that he is eternally existent (as the Gospel of John states: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" - this is a direct reference to Christ)? If you do not believe that Christ is God, that He is identical to God the Father and that he is eternally existent, you are not a Christian.
For us men and for our salvation He came down from heaven. By the power of the Holy Spirit He was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man. For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate, He suffered, died, and was buried. On the third day He rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
To be Christian is to accept the miracle of the Incarnation, the miracle of the passion and death and the miracle of the Resurrection of Christ. Key to this acceptance is the concept that Christ has saved us by suffering and dying for us, and that this salvation is a gift that God has bestowed upon people. Though I loath to use Protestant terminology, we have been saved by the grace of God, not by our works.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and His kingdom will have no end.
Note that implicit in this is the statement that Christ appeared once, and only once, on this Earth, and not to sci-fi white Indians in a North America that had all sorts of technology that real Native Americans never had.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father [Catholics add: and the Son]. With the Father and the Son He is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets.
The Holy Spirit is the third and crucial part of the Trinity of God. It is the expression of God within us and around us. The statement about "the Prophets" should be clarified in the context of the New Testament, which explicitly says that the gift of prophecy has been made unnecessary because Christ is better than, and in place of, any prophets. This is a fundamental dispute between Christians and Muslims because Muhammad is explicitly understood to be a "false prophet". Beware of any angels that purport to speak to you, the Bible says. Either you believe the Bible and Joe Smith was a fraud or agent of evil powers, or you disregard the Bible and are not Christian.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.
One baptism, and not performed after death.
Christianity existed in this framework for over 1800 years until a dim-witted con man who made his money "divining" with a dowsing rod and a stupid rock claimed to have spoken to angels and sought to completely change virtually every statement made in the fundamental Christian profession of faith.
So please tell me, why should any Christian consider you to be Christian? Christians can accept you as fellow human beings and honest, decent people, but then again they can do that with anyone from any religion. Why should anyone consider you to be Christian?
However, let's just take a very simple approach and look at the Nicene Creed, the fundamental affirmation that separates Christians from people who talk about Jesus (like Jehovah's Witnesses). The Creed says (with questions from me interspersed throughout):
We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen.
Can you say this? Do you truly believe in ONE GOD? Did ONE GOD create all that is and ever was? If not, you are not Christians (or Jews or Muslims, for that matter).
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father. Through him all things were made.
Do you believe that Jesus Christ is GOD, that he is the SAME GOD as God the Father, that he is one in Being with the Father and that he was begotten, not made? That is to say, that he was not created by God the Father, that he is eternally existent (as the Gospel of John states: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" - this is a direct reference to Christ)? If you do not believe that Christ is God, that He is identical to God the Father and that he is eternally existent, you are not a Christian.
For us men and for our salvation He came down from heaven. By the power of the Holy Spirit He was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man. For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate, He suffered, died, and was buried. On the third day He rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
To be Christian is to accept the miracle of the Incarnation, the miracle of the passion and death and the miracle of the Resurrection of Christ. Key to this acceptance is the concept that Christ has saved us by suffering and dying for us, and that this salvation is a gift that God has bestowed upon people. Though I loath to use Protestant terminology, we have been saved by the grace of God, not by our works.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and His kingdom will have no end.
Note that implicit in this is the statement that Christ appeared once, and only once, on this Earth, and not to sci-fi white Indians in a North America that had all sorts of technology that real Native Americans never had.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father [Catholics add: and the Son]. With the Father and the Son He is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets.
The Holy Spirit is the third and crucial part of the Trinity of God. It is the expression of God within us and around us. The statement about "the Prophets" should be clarified in the context of the New Testament, which explicitly says that the gift of prophecy has been made unnecessary because Christ is better than, and in place of, any prophets. This is a fundamental dispute between Christians and Muslims because Muhammad is explicitly understood to be a "false prophet". Beware of any angels that purport to speak to you, the Bible says. Either you believe the Bible and Joe Smith was a fraud or agent of evil powers, or you disregard the Bible and are not Christian.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.
One baptism, and not performed after death.
Christianity existed in this framework for over 1800 years until a dim-witted con man who made his money "divining" with a dowsing rod and a stupid rock claimed to have spoken to angels and sought to completely change virtually every statement made in the fundamental Christian profession of faith.
So please tell me, why should any Christian consider you to be Christian? Christians can accept you as fellow human beings and honest, decent people, but then again they can do that with anyone from any religion. Why should anyone consider you to be Christian?
My only quibble is that while the NT does explicitly say prophecy is unnecessary (at least insofar as salvation is concerned,) it does not say prophecy has been abolished or rescinded. In fact, it refers implictly and explicitly to prophecy subsequent to both the Crucifixion and Pentecost. Paul (who was still persecuting the Church when Pentecost occurred) refers to prophecy as one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, after all. Revelation clearly represents itself as a prophecy Christ HIMSELF begins imparting to John. The problem with Joseph Smith is not his claim to be prophet but, as you note, that his prophecies were false and in the service of a theology that contradicts Christianity.
Not that that is especially shocking, since his theology manages to contradict itself at a basic level, in some places denying trinitarianism for the purist monotheism and in others affirming polytheism to the point of claiming God the Father had a grandfather. America remains a free country where people are free to believe as they wish, but to call that Mormonism Christianity is laughable at best and blasphemous slander at worst. It concerns me deeply that people who demonstrably know better nonetheless do just that; it makes me wonder what other false claims they have made to their own laity as well as the general public. Since I know you are already aware of the statements I have in mind, I will present them to the Mormon advocates apparently and regrettably unaware of what you and I have long known their religions founder claims as heavenly doctrine.
EDIT: Oh, and Ephesians 2:8 is not merely "Protestant" terminology, though James 2:18 and Romans 13:1 do testify the need for a LIVING faith.