Are Mormons and JWs Christians?

SaintJoeNow said:

JW's and Mormons believe Jesus is not God. They are anti-Christian, the same as atheists and Muslims.

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Those groups are anti-christian? you sure?

Christian = Accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and doing all that He commanded us to do (repent and turn away from sin, love one another, etc).

If the denomination does this, then they are Christian.

If they do not, they are not Christian.

It really is that simple.

A "Christian" is someone who has Accepted Christ as Lord and Savior, who believes that Christ is God the Son in Human Flesh who died on the cross to pay for all sin for those who accept Him, who resurrected after death 3 days later.

That's a "Christian".

Any faith that does not include Jesus Christ at its center cannot be called "Christianity" to be quite honest.

Do Mormons believe in Christ as being all of the things I just listed above?
Do JWs believe in Christ as being all of the things I just listed above?

If the answer to any of the things above is "no", then they aren't really Christian.

TheBarrd said:

who, me?

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In the old days, the Bard was someone to be wary of. The Singer of Songs had real power, and her (or his) words could give a person a really rough time

Whatever you say, Ma'am!

SaintJoeNow said:

JW's and Mormons believe Jesus is not God. They are anti-Christian, the same as atheists and Muslims.

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Would you consider any belief or non belief different from Christianity to be; anti Christian?

Would this also make you; anti any belief that is not Christian?

RDKatz said:

How can you say someone or something is un-Christian when you cannot even provide a valid scriptural definition of Christian.

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Generalize much?

RDKatz said:

I do not know much about Arians but the little I do know sounds like they are on the right track. They are much closer to the Truth than Nicene.

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Really? Denying the divinity of Christ is closer to the truth than Trinitarianism?

Really?

I've guess you've never heard of [in no particular order] John 8:58, John 10:25-30, John 20:29, Colossians 2:8-10, Hebrews 1:8-9, Philippians 2:10-11 [compared with Isaiah 45:22], Acts 20:28, Titus 2:13, 2 Peter 1:1, John 1:1-18, Philippians 2:5-7, Colossians 1:15-17, 1 Timothy 3:16, Isaiah 9:6, Revelation 1:8, Revelation 1:17-18, Revelation 2:8, Revelation 22:12-13, Hebrews 13:8, John 21:17, Matthew 28:20, Colossians 1:16, Hebrews 1:3, Acts 3:15, and Hebrews 2:14, among others.

RDKatz said:

The concept of the Trinity is obviously false on the face of it. It is certainly un-scriptural.

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Give me scripture denying it. I've given you just a few of those passages affirming it.

RDKatz said:

The Plan of Salvation makes a lot more sense than anything I have ever heard of by any 'Christian'.

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Ah yes, because in the beginning, we existed as conscious pieces of energy floating through the cosmos. Then a flesh and blood god saw us, and feeling bad for us, decided that as we had no progression, we were damned. This flesh and blood god, it should be noted, was once a piece of conscious energy once long ago, who had been transformed by another flesh and blood god, who had once been a piece of conscious energy long ago, &c., and had been raised on a planet, with his own god, and his own savior. Then this flesh and blood god and his wife had sex, and we were born as spirit children, our conscious pieces of energy transformed into bodies of spirit matter. Matter much like ours, but more translucent. However, as we were not flesh and blood, per se, we could not experience the fullness of joy. So this flesh and blood god, who is not all powerful or all knowing, decided to create a planet out of existing matter (matter is eternal, so you, me, the material forming the computer in front of you, &c., is as old as "god" is). However, the question soon became how we were going to advance and return to our flesh and blood god. One of our spirit brothers, Lucifer, decided that he wanted to take away our agency (free will), and make us all return to our flesh and blood "god" in exchange for "god's" power. Then our eldest spirit brother, Jesus, said "thy will be done, I will offer myself as sacrifice." Our flesh and blood "god" liked this, but 1/3 of our spirit brethren did not, so they joined up with lucifer and were cast down to earth without bodies. In the future they will be cast into the outer darkness. This is the "first estate."

Then on earth our memories were wiped and we were given complete free will. Jesus came, BoM occurred, &c., and the LDS was founded. This is the "second estate." People died, went to the spirit prison/spirit paradise and were proselytized, and some became LDS through proxy work in temples (which are modems peeking through the "veil" into the hereafter). Then the resurrection occurrs, and the terrible people are sent to the telestial kingdom (whose glory, mind you, is so great that according to Joseph Smith, Jr., we would kill ourselves to get to it), the mediocre people are sent to the terrestrial kingdom, and the good LDS members are sent to the celestial kingdom, which is again divided into thirds. I'm excluding discussion of the sons of perdition and outer darkness for sake of brevity. The top third has the potential to eternally progress, and become flesh and blood "gods" like our flesh and blood "god" and repeat the cycle all over again.

RDKatz said:

I am not sure what problem you have with the Eternal nature of Christ.

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Well, if everyone has an Eternal nature, like Christ, then what's so special about God?

Mormons are Christians, definitively yes!, Jesus said the ones who do not speak bad about me are with me.

You have no right to judge, their Christianity is not like yours but they are loyal followers of Jesus principles, they have other doctrine but every group has other doctrine.

Who are you Pharisees to judge them!???

ivanc0 said:

Mormons are Christians, definitively yes!, Jesus said the ones who do not speak bad about me are with me.

You have no right to judge, their Christianity is not like yours but they are loyal followers of Jesus principles, they have other doctrine but every group has other doctrine.

Who are you Pharisees to judge them!???

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"For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. 'Purge the evil person from among you.'"
1 Corinthians 5:12-13

RDKatz said:

You are talking a bit over my head but if I get your jist:

The Bible does not claim to be the Be all and End all of Scripture. It is obviously not. The Bible did not exist when the Prophets wrote the various books. Man decided what books to include and which to exclude from the Bible. The Bible refers to books that are not found in the Bible. Sometimes it tells us to look to these books for verification.

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Scripture is defined by the community that accepts it. The Bible is the collection of Scripture accepted and received within the historic Christian Church. From the perspective of historic Christian orthodoxy even if we were to ever discover texts such as the Book of Jasher or the Book of Ido the Seer, they would not be counted as Scripture. To that extent the Bible is, indeed, the definitive bounds of what is and is not Scripture; the Bible is not a set of Scripture, but is the set of Scripture--and different traditions in Christianity accept different boundaries for what is and is not the Canon of Scripture (i.e. the Bible) such as the differences in opinion between Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox over what are called the Deuterocanonicals--books like Tobit, 1 & 2 Maccabees, Judith, etc.

From what you describe of Arian, it sounds like they were on the right track. The Bible clearly shows at least two separate and distinct Gods. The concept of three Gods in one is pure heresy. Thus the Trinity concept is false.

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Trinitarians don't believe in three Gods, but one God. The position of the Nicene fathers against the Arians was a position of Monotheism--that there is one and only one God. Every Trinitarian can confess, without fingers crossed, the Sh'ma of Deuteronomy 6:4 which declares that there is one God, that God is indivisibly and inseparably one. Likewise every Trinitarian can confess with the Prophet Isaiah that there is no god other than God.

-CryptoLutheran

Ironhold said:

I think you and I are the only ones here who might get the reference.

BTW, there's an alternate "extra dark" version of that song. Ever hear it?

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Don't think so. For a Weird Al song it's already pretty dark, so that would be interesting.

-CryptoLutheran

As a minister of the Gospel and one who has worked with an outreach to those in cults and abusive religion, and after having come to know many LDS and JW's personally, as well as those who left these groups, I can categorically say that the religions are not Biblically grounded, reject many of the major foundational doctrines of historic and orthodox Christianity and are institutionally cultic and abusive. Having said that, the presence of sincere and earnest people of good morality and works among them, while laudable and praiseworthy, does not prove that their religions are based on sound doctrine but rather people working hard to prove God they're worthy of His grace, which faith in Christ alone bestows. Good call. It's reassuring that discernment has not fully fled the building.

ViaCrucis said:

Don't think so. For a Weird Al song it's already pretty dark, so that would be interesting.

-CryptoLutheran

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_Santa_Went_Crazy

The "extra gory" cut ends with the SWAT team getting involved, leading to a much higher body count.

TheBarrd said:

There has been a lot of confusion since CF made it's ruling that Mormons and JWs are not valid Christian faiths.
There has been anger and hurt feelings...and accusations flung back and forth.
Many of us feel that this decision was right and proper. There are basic tenets of Christianity that simply may not be compromised.
Many others feel that the decision was unfair. They feel that, as long as someone believes in Jesus he or she is a Christian, regardless what other strange doctrines he/she might hold.
Wdo you think?

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I think the decision was correct. There are certain doctrines that if you deny them, you put yourself outside the fold of Christianity. There must be a cutoff at some point in time and denying basic core doctrines of Christianity seems like a good place to do it. If we don't do this then something like Islam could be considered a denomination of Christianity.

football5680 said:

I think the decision was correct. There are certain doctrines that if you deny them, you put yourself outside the fold of Christianity. There must be a cutoff at some point in time and denying basic core doctrines of Christianity seems like a good place to do it. If we don't do this then something like Islam could be considered a denomination of Christianity.

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Relax. Unlike Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses, Muslims do not consider themselves to be Christian.

Niblo said:

Relax. Unlike Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses, Muslims do not consider themselves to be Christian.

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I wouldn't expect them to. The point was that if you loosen the standards too far, any religion that has some kind of view on Jesus could be considered Christian.

football5680 said:

I wouldn't expect them to. The point was that if you loosen the standards too far, any religion that has some kind of view on Jesus could be considered Christian.

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I understand that.

Just as an aside:

As some people on this site will know, I once spent time with the Trappists at Mount Saint Bernard Abbey here in the UK. On one occasion I was in the library talking with my spiritual mentor - a Father Simon (and yes, Trappists are allowed to converse. There is no ‘vow’ of silence. It is a Rule, and can be set aside on certain occasions……far more often today than it was then).

Anyway, while we were talking a visiting Anglican Franciscan friar - who had been given leave to enter the main Abbey building - interrupted our conversation and began to speak to Simon, quite rudely, about aspects of the Catholic Church.....even questioning, at one point our right, to call ourselves Christian! I was a much younger man then, and quite fiery. I so wanted to poke this person in the eye (in a fraternal manner of course) for the way he was addressing my friend. But……….there is a time to keep silent! When the friar had gone, I sat back and waited for Simon to take him apart…….it was a delicious anticipation. But Simon did nothing of the sort. He merely resumed our conversation from the very point of its interruption, and in a perfectly calm manner. It was as though the friar, and his rudeness, had never existed. It taught me then that sometimes the most appropriate way of dealing with a critic is to say nothing.

On a lighter note: In those days the monks were not allowed access to social media; newspapers and the like. The only exception was the Guest Master. He was allowed to purchase newspapers for our guests. Occasionally (okay, almost daily), the GM would spot an article of interest to the rest of the Community. Taking a current piece of news by way of example, he would wait until evening prayer. During that prayer he would say: ‘We pray today for the people of Ireland, who have just voted whether or not to allow same sex marriages. The result of the vote is expected some time tonight’…….and so on. We were pretty well informed!

Have a good day.

Niblo said:

Relax. Unlike Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses, Muslims do not consider themselves to be Christian.

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Actually, Muslims do consider themselves to be Christians - they even think they're "the best Christians". When my mother was going to a British Christian school in Beirut (where she was born and raised) there were many Muslims who attended her school and even knew the Bible very well.

ArmenianJohn said:

Actually, Muslims do consider themselves to be Christians - they even think they're "the best Christians". When my mother was going to a British Christian school in Beirut (where she was born and raised)

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I'm guessing they would have been Druze. Don't know enough of their teachings to say more, but I believe there are elements of Christianity there; and that they are unitarians. Thank you.

One group of Christians claims that another is heretical. What's new?