Lutha Mahtin posted:

I've read recently that basketball is one of the world's fastest-growing sports, and/or is now the world's second favorite sport. Mormonism is also one of the world's fastest-growing religions. Coincidence???


As a big believer in ecumenism and interfaith understanding, the way you have described this makes me do the face. It also makes me confused about why Mormons promote the "we are Christians" thing. Is it an attempt at saming* themselves with more established and "respectable" denominations? Is it a genuine expression of their doctrinal exclusivism? How genuinely self-aware are Mormons of the origins of their religion, and the fact that part of their claim to legitimacy lies in their claim that the religion of over two billion people is illegitimate?

* The verb "saming" is a term I learned in a religion class, it means roughly the opposite of "othering". It's one of those postmodern-ish critical-theory things.