From: agr00@ccc.amdahl.com (Anthony G Rose)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Mormons are not Christians
Date: 16 Oct 92 02:19:53 GMT
Reply-To: agr00@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com (Anthony G Rose)
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA

>How can two people be absolutely sure they are talking about "the same
>Jesus"?  Isn't this requirement for being a christian a little stringent? 
>What principle of identity would one be using here?  And how can one 
>even settle the question of whether two individuals in the same religious 
>tradition [LDS, Catholic, or whatnot] are thinking of, worshipping, etc, the 
>numerically identical being? [Compare: religion requires faith. But how
>much? Isn't faith a matter of degree? If so, what is the minimal degree
>required? -- Moral: there's likely to be irremediable uncertainty and 
>arbitrariness in any delineation of degree.]
>
>The question non-lds people have is, do the mormons affirm the deity of 
>Jesus of Nazareth?  The answer appears to be yes. But what does it mean
>to affirm "the deity of Jesus"? Well now, there you will probably get
>different answers from different people, even in the same communion, 
>whether lds or not. Hence, if the lds answer is, "Yes, I do affirm this",
>further one cannot legitimately go.
>
>So, I am inclined to suggest that if an LDS person says he accepts the
>deity of Jesus that person ought to be able to affirm that he is a
>christian, and let the issue rest there.  
>
>As to the question whether lds believe that just being a member of the 
>mormon church is sufficient to assure salvation, I have one point to
>make. I doubt mormons say this, since they believe, I think, that not
>everybody who will be "saved" [in their idea of salvation] is or will
>be a member of the church in this world. So there's an end to that
>line of questioning. Also, I'm sure there are some who have joined
>that communion under false pretenses, like members of the CIA, or
>communists agents, and who knows what else, as they probably have in
>many other religious organizations.  And I doubt any lds person would
>want to say that their church membership alone assures them of eternal
>life.
>//////////////////////////////////////
>/* Kenny  *   Welcome to Mind Wars! */
>//////////////////////////////////////


The issue here is this, in the 2 Cor 11:4, Paul warns us of another,
Jesus, another gospel, and another Spriit.  In Gal 1:6-9 Paul again
warns of those that preach "another" gospel, which isn't a gospel at all,
but a counterfeit.

My point was simply this:  It is apparent from the writings of Paul, that
it is possible for a counterfeit to show up, and indeed will.  The gospel
and Jesus of the LDS church is certainly "different" than that of the
orthodoxed Christian faith.  This fact is confessed by Bernard P.
Brockbank, of the First Quorum of the Seventy, in May of 1977 in the
Ensign Magazine, a Mormon publication:

     "It is true that many of the Christian Churches worship a
      different Jesus Christ than is worshipped by the Mormons
      or The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints."
                       Ensign Mag, May 1977, pg. 26)

So we know that it IS a different Jesus.  Paul warned about "another"
Jesus, my point was that I suggested to my Mormono friends that they
should make sure that their "different" Jesus is not the same as the
"another" Jesus Paul spoke of.