From: agr00@ccc.amdahl.com (Anthony G Rose)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Mormons are not Christians
Date: 14 Oct 92 03:07:39 GMT
Reply-To: agr00@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com (Anthony G Rose)
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA

In article <1992Oct13.051542.20525@macc.wisc.edu> bunner@vms.macc.wisc.edu (Dana A. Bunner) writes:
>In article <adre02hI25io01@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com>, agr00@ccc.amdahl.com (Anthony G Rose) writes...
>
>Against my better judgement I'm going to reply to this one.
>
>>Most Christian denominations agree with all the others on issues that are
>>important to salvation.
>> 
>>Some Catholic churches believe in all of the same things the Christian
>>churches beleive and they have no problem fellowshiping together.
>
>Can I take this statement to mean that Catholics are not Christians since
>you have clearly separated them into two groups?

No Dana, because that is not what am saying.  Please read it again.
You are picking words and not looking at what they are saying!

>Well I guess I have my answer.  If I may ask, Is the Pope Christian?

As I stated long ago and many times, whether an individual is a Christian
or not depends on that individual an God.  God can see the heart and man
cannot.  The best man can do is look at the theology of an individual.
But even that cannot be accurate to what his heart is.  I should put this
answer in a separate file and just download it every week.

>>If a religion is teaching things that are false, if the members of that
>>faith are interested in Truth, they should want to be told the Truth.
>>If what you believed was not true, and it was going to affect your
>>eternity, would you want to know about it?
>
>Irrelevant to whether one is Christian or not.  To be a Christian does not
>require that one has "all truth."  Perhaps to meet your definition it does
>but then again you don't get to decide.

Why didn't you answer the question?  If what you believed was false and it
had a direct affect on where you will spend eternity, would you want to
know?

Watch as she avoids it again

>>>The Evangelical definition of basic Christian beliefs posted here a week or
>>>so ago would have excluded several major Christian religions.
>> 
>>No they wouldn't have.  You need to redecide which ones are Christian
>>religions.  
>
>Aah, I'm beginning to see the light.  If they don't meet this definition
>then they aren't Christians, thus no Christians could possibly be 
>excluded!  How deviously clever of you Christians.

Do you add words to what everyone says that you talk with?

>>>I went into a "Christian" Bookstore three weeks ago and found an entire
>>>rack of publications whose purpose was to attack the beliefs of a variety
>>>of religions.
>> 
>>If the things in those books are telling the truth, then there is nothing
>>wrong with them being there.  If you thing they are lying, then why don't
>>you read them, find the errors, and get someone to do something about it.
>
>>their door.  They are not "Attacking" beliefs of the religionss.  They
>>are comparing the belifs, and showing why the different ones cannot be
>>considered as Christians, because they do not believe as the Christian
>>faith does.
>
>Sorry but I find this line of thought to be repulsive.  Once again if you
>insert some type of modifier such as "Evangelical" in front of each 
>occurance of the word Christian above, then I have no problem with it.
>The use of the term Christian in such a narrow fashion really turns me off.
>Regardless of my personal belief, I reject your right to determine the 
>authoritative definition for what constitutes Christianity.
>It comes off to me as all too un-Christlike.

I respect your right to your opinion.

>>You should consider what your church (assuming you are a Mormon, I
>>apologize if that assumption is incorrect) does.  They have over 41,000
>>missionaries world-wide going door-to-door approxiamately 10 hours a day
>>spreading the Mormon gospel.  Have you ever sat through those lessons?
>>If you have, then you know one of the early things they tell you if that
>>there was an apostacy in the Christian Church, that the LDS church is the
>>one true church, and that ALL others are wrong. 
>
>Again I don't dispute your right to take issue with these actions.  In fact
>I applaud it.  I am an ardent supporter of free agency.  And I like one
>sticking to their convictions.  But I see little difference in the "We're
>the One" attitudes of the LDS and your definition of Christianity.  If 
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
That was precisley my point! I am glad we finally agree on one thing!
Praise God!

>anything the LDS position is the more tolerant one, at least they don't
>condemn the unbelievers.  (Well some LDS statements aren't too charitable
>in this regard but the official position is not one of condemnation.)

The LDS position is that there are two classifications of churchs.  The
first is the church of the lamb of God, and you can guess who that is, and
the second is the church of the devil, and you can guess who that is,
right, anyone but the LDS.  Would you like documentation of this position,
or would you like to drop it here?

I'll know the answer to that question by whether or not you cut out this
part in your response.

>>So, it is the same
>>thing, the Christians right books and have seminars, and the Mormons go
>>door-to-door.  The difference is, that you cannot prove anything wrong
>>about the seminars and books in the Christian book stores
>
>Now this is a challenge you don't really want to make.  In my little 
>visit there a few weeks ago, I spend about an hour in the negative book
>section and found literally dozens of errors.  I searched through one 
>booklet and found very little which was accurate.  A few were so filled
>with errors that they were humorous.

If you can give me some accurate documentation of this, I will do what I
can to get those books off of the shelves.  I don't believe in having
anything that is false, and if this is true, I will hold to my offer.
Can you tell me which books, and which areas are wrong?  Just a few?  If
what you say is true then this should not be a challenge.