Is Mormonism Christian?

At the Mormon Church's General Conference in October 2012, Elder Robert D. Hales (I'll call him Robert as this is easier, though no disrespect is intended) gave a talk at which he outlined a couple of key Mormon beliefs.

He then asked if there can be any doubt Mormons are Christian.  

After reading what he said, I think the answer is clear - there can be doubt.  Here is what he said:

What does it mean to be a Christian?

A Christian has faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, that He is the literal Son of God, sent by His Father to suffer for our sins in the supreme act of love we know as the Atonement. 

A Christian believes that through the grace of God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, we can repent, forgive others, keep the commandments, and inherit eternal life. 

The word Christian denotes taking upon us the name of Christ. We do this by being baptized and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands by those holding His priesthood authority. 

A Christian knows that throughout the ages, God’s prophets have always testified of Jesus Christ. This same Jesus, accompanied by Heavenly Father, appeared to the Prophet Joseph Smith in the year 1820 and restored the gospel and the organization of His original Church. 

Through the scriptures and the witness of Joseph Smith, we know that God, our Heavenly Father, has a glorified and perfected body of flesh and bone. Jesus Christ is His Only Begotten Son in the flesh. The Holy Ghost is a personage of spirit whose work is to testify of the Father and the Son. The Godhead is three separate and distinct beings, unified in purpose. 

With these doctrines as the foundation of our faith, can there be any doubt or disputation that we, as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, are Christian?

Where do I start?!  

Robert starts out well, Christians do indeed have faith in Jesus.  From here, I have issues.  When a Mormon says Jesus is the literal Son of God, they do mean literal - God had sex with his wife and she gave birth to Jesus.  And Satan, and you and me.  Is this Christian?

A Christian certainly believes in grace, repentance etc.  But do we inherit eternal life by obeying commandments?  No.  That's not what the Bible teaches in Ephesians 2:8.  We inherit eternal life (indeed inherit anything) because someone - Jesus - died for us.  We obey God out of love, not to get something.

Do we receive the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands by someone with "priesthood authority"?  No.  We receive the Holy Spirit by believing in Jesus.  (Galatians 3:2)

Do we believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet?  Hardly (see my other articles on the Book of Mormon for why).

Do we believe that the Father has a body of flesh and bone?  No! (John 4:24) Do we believe that the Godhead is merely unified in purpose?  No.  (See article on the Trinity)

Revisiting Robert's question then, "With these doctrines as the foundation of [their] faith, can there be any doubt or disputation that ...members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, are Christian?"  Erm... Yes!  Sociologists may say they are Christian, but Mormons are definitely not Christians in any biblical sense of the word "Christian".  

Image: Google Images
Source: http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/10/being-a-more-christian-christian?lang=eng
The talk also appeared in the November 2012 edition of the Ensign Magazine, published by the Mormon Church.

Is MCC a Cult?

I was watching one of Rev. Troy Perry's sermons online when another video caught my eye. It was called Queering Christ and the subtitle included the words "Metropolitan Community Cult". The video was published by Battling Christian and is also linked to a blog site (Journal of a Battling Christian).

Erik, the man behind Battling Christian admits to struggling with sexuality himself. He says, interestingly in the past tense, "At the time I was going to either deny my faith and pursue homosexuality, attempt to accommodate my faith to meet my desires or end my life". This is a struggle.  I and many other gay Christians know what he is going through.

Erik has studied gay theology (the study of what the Bible says on same-sex relationships). He concluded that people who say a man can have a relationship with Jesus and another man, are wrong. That's fair enough. I have no issue with people who (having thought it through) disagree with same-sex relationships. But Erik goes one step further and asserts that the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) is a cult. Why?

Erik says that there are 3 things cults have in common.

1. They claim a link to the Biblical Jesus
2. They twist Scripture
3. They have secret beliefs

Erik claims that MCC meets these criteria and therefore is a cult. Really?

Like Erik I come from a conservative Evangelical background. I have not abandoned that - I still think of myself in those terms. I was brought up in a Presbyterian Church (Erik's denomination) but switched to the Baptist Church over the issue of baptising babies. Later I started attending an MCC, and now MCC is my main Church though I still frequently go to a Baptist Church. So I know something of what MCC believes, and how this compares to other mainstream Christian Churches. So I would like to challenge Erik's view that MCC is a cult. I would also like to challenge his criteria for a cult as I think he is missing one important factor - which most people recognise as being "cultish". Specifically to "avoid independent thinking" (to borrow the Jehovah's Witnesses terminology). He also discusses MCC in the same breath as JW's and Mormons so I will be making references to them as well (see also other posts on my blog about them)

His first criteria is only half true. Not only do cults claim a link to the Jesus of the Bible, so do all legitimate Christian Churches. So we can ask if a Church is Trinitarian, does it accept Jesus claims to be the one true God, equal to the Father and Holy Spirit? MCC's statement of faith says, "Christianity is the revelation of God in Jesus Christ and is the religion set forth in the Scriptures... We believe in In one triune God, omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient, of one substance and of three persons: God, our Parent-Creator; Jesus Christ, the only begotten son of God, God in flesh, human; and the Holy Spirit, God as our Sustainer". So, MCC maintains the same view of Jesus as Christians have held for 2,000 years.

Secondly he says that cults twist Scripture. I agree with that one, but this raises the question - how do we know who is twisting Scripture? It is telling that the JW's made their own version of the Bible, and the Mormons read the Bible through "Modern Scripture" - and both through what their organisations teach. If a JW or Mormon sees a verse, he is told what it means. "Independent thinking" is discouraged. MCC does not do this. Our Churches have Christians from a variety of backgrounds in our congregations. We hold varying beliefs on issues like creation/evolution, the end of the world etc. But on the core doctrines (Jesus, God, the Bible, salvation by grace through faith, etc) we agree. But we all hold to the Bible as our standard. MCC's statement of faith says, "the Bible is the divinely inspired Word of God, showing forth God to every person through the law and the prophets, and finally, completely and ultimately on earth in the being of Jesus Christ."

Differing opinions on side issues (divorce, women in ministry, same-sex relationships) do not mean a person has joined a cult. It is worth noting that the Church of Scotland (which is Presbyterian) has recently agreed that gay men currently in training can be ordained, and is considering opening this to all future ordinations as well. Has the Church of Scotland become a cult, too?

Finally Erik maintains that MCC must have secret beliefs. It's hard to argue with this one, since it's impossible to prove the non-existence of a non existent belief! All I can do is to give you my testimony, MCC is very up front about what it believes. Specifically that God loves us all, that he came here in the person of Jesus to pay the penalty for our sins so that we don't have to. Jesus died and rose again, and now intercedes for us before the Father. The Holy Spirit indwells all who trust Jesus for forgiveness. We try to follow God by seeking his will (through study of the Bible and through prayer). God calls us to a life of personal holiness, prayer and outreach. There are no "insider secret beliefs" in MCC.

Where MCC diverges (though many other Churches agree with this, and many Christians within Churches that officially don't also accept this) is that we not only believe that faithful monogamous relationships are fine (whether straight, gay, lesbian), we campaign for it. We also campaign for social justice across the board.  We do reject much of what the gay community stands for in terms of promiscuity, just as we reject heterosexual promiscuity.

It is true that there are some liberal elements in MCC, but that is true of every Church. But for Erik to brand MCC a cult because he disagrees with what some people in MCC say is wrong. I would encourage Erik to cease slandering MCC, and to have an open honest dialogue about what the Bible says, because that is what matters. Churches make mistakes, people make mistakes, but we always need to go back to the Bible. It alone is our standard.

My final point is simple. I encountered the Holy Spirit in the Presbyterian Church and in the Baptist Church. The same Holy Spirit is active in the Metropolitan Community Church as well. How could that be so unless the people there are also the Body of Christ?

Image: MCC Logo, from Google Images, Logo (c) Metropolitan Community Church www.mccchurch.org

Book of Mormon - Is it true?

I had the Mormon missionaries round recently. We got to talking about how we know what is true.

The Mormons cited the Book of Mormon:

"And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things." (Moroni 10:4-5)

And how does the Holy Spirit do this? The answer came from Doctrine and Covenants 9:8-9 (another LDS scripture). It says,

"But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right. But if it be not right you shall have no such feelings, but you shall have a stupor of thought that shall cause you to forget the thing which is wrong; therefore, you cannot write that which is sacred save it be given you from me".

In other words, if it feels good - it's right. It sounds simple, ask God and He'll make you feel good if it's true. But, then what of people in other religions who feel good about what they believe? Are feelings a good way to test truth claims?

The Bible says

"Look to God’s instructions and teachings! People who contradict his word are completely in the dark." (Isaiah 8:20)

This makes sense; if we are convinced the Bible is true, then we know that those who contradict it cannot be teaching what comes from God. Mormons believe that there are many "gods". God has parents and siblings who are also gods. Yet the Bible says,

"You have been chosen to know me, believe in me, and understand that I alone am God. There is no other God - there never has been, and there never will be." (Isaiah 43:10)

So, according to Isaiah 8:20, where is the Mormon Church on the issue of how many "gods" exist? Isaiah says that it is completely in the dark.

The Book of Mormon also makes an interesting, and testable claim:

"And the angel of the Lord said unto me: Thou hast beheld that the book (the Bible) proceeded forth from the mouth of a Jew; and when it proceeded forth from the mouth of a Jew it contained the fulness of the gospel of the Lord, of whom the twelve apostles bear record; and they bear record according to the truth which is in the Lamb of God. Wherefore, these things go forth from the Jews in purity unto the gentiles, according to the truth which is in God. And after they go forth by the hand of the twelve apostles of the Lamb, from the Jews unto the Gentiles, thou seest the formation of that great and abominable church, which is most abominable above all other churches; for behold, they have taken away from the gospel of the Lamb many parts which are plain and most precious; and also many covenants of the Lord have they taken away." (1 Nephi 13:24-26)

The claim is that the Bible has been deliberately corrupted by the early Church resulting in the loss of "plain and most precious" things. This means that we need a restoration of the truth - which is where the LDS scriptures come in. Without that corruption everything the Mormon believes is meaningless. So is it true? The Book of Mormon footnotes claim this was first written around 600-592 BC. Leaving aside the fact that there is no evidence to support the Book of Mormon's existence prior to the 19th century, we can test this claim. And the Bible says we should. It asks an important question:

"How will we know whether or not a prophecy is from the Lord?" (Deuteronomy 18:21)

Good question! The next verse answers the question:

"If the prophet speaks in the Lord’s name but his prediction does not happen or come true, you will know that the Lord did not give that message." (Deuteronomy 18:22)

This is genious - it's so simple and it confounds self-fulfilling prophecy! So, if Nephi is a false prophet there may be some of his predictions which would not come true. And this is one of them! We know from the Dead Sea Scrolls and over 40,000 manuscripts for the New Testament, that the Bible has not been changed.

Conclusion: Mormonism fails the tests of doctrine, factual accuracy, and the test of a prophet. Doctrinally it contradicts what God has already said. It has no historical basis before the 19th century. Even if it did, the Book of Mormon fails the test of a prophet. Mormonism is therefore not from God.