Ask Me about Mormonism

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McPhock: Dec 25, 2004; hat-wearing champion of rhode island

Pellisworth posted:

Yeah I'm mostly curious about comparisons to broader Christianity. I could attend an LDS service I suppose, the most "different" service I've been to is an Eastern Orthodox Divine Liturgy and I'd love to check out an Armenian one sometime. They're hardcore, like almost three hours long.

The biggest divide seems to be Western vs. Eastern Christianity and I'm wondering how much Mormonism fits in the Western tradition.

Orthodox Christian checking in.

https://orthodoxwiki.org/Mormonism

This article is super helpful, if a bit long.

TL:DR "Mormons have a very difficult time understanding why Orthodox and other Christians deny that they are Christian. The simplest answer to this question is that the Mormon god is simply not God--at least not the God worshipped by Orthodox Christians (and other Trinitarians). This does not mean that the Mormons are necessarily immoral or wicked people, simply that they worship a god completely dissimilar from the Christian Trinity. "

# ¿ Sep 12, 2016 23:30

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McPhock: Dec 25, 2004; hat-wearing champion of rhode island

ZombieLenin posted:

Atheist who knows way to much theology chiming in. That's an interesting thing about Mormons. Their god is literally one of many possible gods, and their version of Jesus--since their god actually had sex with Mary to make Jesus--is really a demigod.

In fact, some versions of the Mormon afterlife postulate the raising of good Mormon men to godhood. So in many ways, the faith is prima facie polytheistic.

They also, magically, abide by the doctrine of apostolic authority, but claim this vanished when the last apostles died and wasn't renewed until Joseph Smith. This is, of course, magical because the standard gospels of the new testament, which the Mormons still use, were written 50 to 100 years after the death of the last apostle. By all rights their theological foundation should dictate that these gospels were apostate, and thus, garbage.

The only other Christian church to use the doctrine of apostolic authority is the Roman Catholic Church; however, they at least thought this through, and claim apostolic authority was passed on from Peter to the Catholic Church, thereby preserving the little things--like the new testament and the absolute authority of the church.

(PS discussing the above with Mormon missionaries has twice resulted in me being told, "we will check with the bishop and come back" for me. On neither occasion did the missionaries come back.)

My experience matches yours in that the missionaries did not come back.

If by the "only other Christian church to use doctrine apostolic authority" you mean LDS, then I disagree. The Orthodox Church maintains the full essence of the faith from the establishment of the Church.

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Like many Restorationist heresies, Mormons believe that the Church entered an age of opprobrium several years after its founding. In doing so, say they, it lost all right to perform sacraments, consecrate priests, or otherwise act in God's name. And from that moment until 1830, say the Mormons, there was no true Church anywhere on the earth. While Mormons offer no specific date for this alleged catastrophe, they tend to believe that it had occurred by the era of St. Constantine the Great and the First Ecumenical Council in A.D. 325. The Orthodox Church, which traces her unbroken succession to the Apostles themselves and alone teaches the fullness of their doctrine, is ergo in apostasy (with all other non-LDS churches) according to the Mormons.

Mormons point to New Testament scriptures that they assert as speaking of a complete apostasy of the entire Church, as proof of their claims. While Orthodox Christians would agree that these passages did indeed speak of apostates to come--such as Arius, Nestorius and Paul of Samosata, for instance--they emphatically reject the Mormon interpretation (advanced to varying degrees by nearly all Protestants) that the entire Apostolic Church would fall into heresy. In St. Matthew 16:18, our Lord clearly states that the "gates of hell shall not prevail" against the Church He had founded--a Church which the Mormons agree existed, but which they claim to have been subsequently "lost", in violation of our Lord's words.

Mormons believe ardently in the necessity of Apostolic Succession, which they refer to as "Priesthood succession" or "Priesthood lineage." However, since they recognize no valid church between the alleged "Great Apostasy" and the establishment of their own in 1830, they trace their succession to one of four "exalted beings," who purportedly visited Joseph Smith on two separate occasions in the 1820's, just prior to their church's founding.
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This topic is super interesting to me

# ¿ Sep 13, 2016 21:16

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Ask Me about Mormonism