From: tensmekl@infonode.ingr.com (Kermit Tensmeyer)
Subject: Re: Mormons are not Christians
Organization: Intergraph Corporation, Huntsville, AL.
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 16:16:35 GMT

In article <1992Oct6.114200.13090@phillip.edu.au> lbarrass@phillip.edu.au writes:
>
>
> If you reject the virgin birth, you are rejecting a SINLESS saviour. To reject
>Jesus as sinless, you are rejecting His ability to be a perfect sacrifice
>without blemish.
> 

As I understand this common fallicy, all who are born via the mechnism of
sex are born guilty and thus seperated from God at Birth. This fallicy
requires that Jesus to be born with out Sin so that He could be a Perfect
Sacrifice?. The Catholic Doctrine of Immaculate Conception takes this
idea one step further, Mary was not born in the normal way and that she
was without sin, so that her Son could not be _contaminated by sin by
being born by her.

Mormons have a simpler solution to the overall problem: Children are
born without sin. Children who die with out baptism before they are
accountable are believe to return to the presence of God.

Christ was like every other child, born without Sin. We believe that
Man will be punished for his own transgression and not for Adam's 
Transgression.

	<< Detris deleted >>

>> 
>> I know quite a few Mormons who would agree with this, although they
>> don't use the protestant rhetoric.  This really isn't objectionable,
>> although it isn't the emphasis I would use.  I would also remind you of
>> the moral walk that Jesus emphasized as being critical
>> to religion.  I recognize Paul downplayed that side of it somewhat.
>> I think that Jesus would be a bit upset with so many Christians
>> of today thinking of religion almost totally in terms of their
>> own personal salvation and forgetting too often their
>> Christian duties vis-a-vis their neighbor.
>
>
>  My guess is that those Mormons you know who believe _all_ of these things are
>believing different meanings to commonly held expressions. See the rest of my
>original post regarding definitions. Do these Mormons believe in grace only or
>grace AND works???
>

	There are some Mormons who understand Grace in the same way that
	my Reformed Lutheran neighbors do. Most mormons causal beliefs
	may or maynot match the Orthodox LDS view.

	Many LDS understand that covenants are only operative through
	the free grace and tolerance of Jesus Christ.

    And you are partially right Mormons tend to describe the same
    expierence using different terms. The problem comes when people
    use the same terms to mean different things. I don't think that
    it is done in order to decieve, but derives out of a different
    background culture.
>
>> 
>>>           - has given their life "lock, stock and barrel" to Jesus!
>> 
>> 
>> I truly doubt that there are many Christians then.  I don't know
>> anyone that has really done this, though many may say they have.
>
>  Yes, well we will only really know at judgement won't we!! Being a Christian
>doesn't mean instant (or even gradual) perfection in this life. I believe that
>I have given my life lock,stock and barrel to Jesus, but I still make mistakes,
>I know I am still holding things back - but I ask God to show me what. I am
>saved by grace through faith - and no more..

  You understand the double edge of judgement // self and others ?

  If faith alone is sufficent to reconcile a Sinner to Christ, what
  is the attitude of the truly repenant with regards to his own
  fall from grace and the needs of others. Is simple voice confession
  sufficent for a complete conversion or are there more fundamental
  changes apart of being a true follower of Christ?


>==========================================================================
>lbarrass@phillip.edu.au                     Lindsay     
>==========================================================================


-- 
         Kermit Tensmeyer                         | Intergraph Corporation
Life is sometimes a bowl of Cherries; Watch out for the pits;
   klt@kt8127.b23a.ingr.com                       |