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Except it isn't a "redefinition". It is the logical conclusion to our theology. "God" being a status does not in any way conflict with the idea that God the Father is both "a God" and "the God" or that Jesus is also "a God" but not "the God". My army can have two generals. Both are referred to as "general". However, one can be senior to the other and thus be "the general" in matters of decision-making. Boiling down the Trinity to "a Mystery" effectively renders any theological disagreements Nicaeans have with us (or anyone else) on the nature of God moot. If God "can't be fully explained with our human understanding", then there is no logical or theological basis for saying that the LDS church "believes in a different God/Jesus". It also provides some of the strongest support for a "Great Apostasy", as it shows how the various schisms in the post-Apostolic church were all based on man-made nonsense. It's almost like God helps us understand him by continuous revelation through living prophets. John Calvin had Michael Servetus executed for denying the Nicene Trinity. If it is indeed a mystery, how was that act justified? How are concepts like partialism or modalism considered heretical if the Trinity is ultimately "a mystery"?

That also isn't accurate. Reformed/Calvinist denominations believe in a concept of unconditional election. What this means is that God chooses who to save and that humans, based on the concept of total depravity, are unable to choose God on their own. Therefore, it doesn't matter what you say or do as God will ultimately decide your fate for you. They even believe in two churches. The visible church that comprises all those who profess belief, and the invisible church that is made up of God's elect. Catholics have historically believed that formal heretics receive some form of divine punishment. This would include many Protestants, as they not only engage in theologies that the Catholic church considers heretical (see sola scriptura, the priesthood of all believers, sola fide), but reject certain Catholic dogmas (see Immaculate Conception, transubstantiation). Your story even backs up my assertion. If the ruling council did not believe that their church was the one true church, the pastor would not have been removed over merely expressing thoughts that the council disagreed with. There would be no formal censure at all for merely expressing a theological or socio-political opinion. If I'm coming off as "snotty", that's entirely on you. Accuracy is important to me as well, and you aren't accurate. You're having to ignore both the formal theologies of these groups as well as their behaviors, both current and historical. If none of these groups considered themselves to be "the one true church", what was their rationale for justifying the murder of dissenters? The very concepts of heresy, schism, and apostasy require a belief in the singular truth of one's group over the others.

If you are unaware that the Evangelical movement split off from Fundamentalism in the 1940s and that the differences have expanded ever since, then you are not as informed about non-LDS Christians as you think. Fundamentalists are often or more often witnessing to Evangelicals as they are to the LDS. They think we have apostasized from the truth, so perhaps we (Evangelicals) are even worse than the LDS. The Evangelical community broadens in incremental ways, especially within theological distinctions. I am a "wideness on God's mercy" Evangelical. That makes me center left in the Evangelical community. I have been to Temple Square many times, but never once to witness. I, in fact would be far more likely to chastise my Fundamentalist friends that to my LDS friends. Cherry picking websites and youtube posts is not a particularly good way to make a point. Anyway, I don't think you are of a mind to dialogue with either me or your more moderated brothers and sisters here from the LDS community. BTW strickly thinking, I have never seen an Evangelical witnessing at Temple Square or at a pageant. Many Fundamentalists, yes, but never an Evangelical. But, best wishes anyway.

I have no idea what is going on here with the youth as I have not attended for a few years now. I know of my remaining active children (adults with kids) say there is pretty much no youth program anymore where they are at. My neighbor says the same of the ward I live in. Most of the folks in this neighborhood which is all one ward have their kids n other activities because nothing of substance is going on at church during the week (according to my neighbor). I have not heard about any FSY stuff, but again I’m not really connected anymore so..

Youth conferences are still held in most stakes (at least in the US) and are different than EFY or the new FSY stuff. They are generally put together by the stake youth leadership (the stake young mens and young womens presidencies) and then the ward YM and YW presidencies help during the event. They are a lot of work, it was always my least favorite thing about serving youth leadership callings. Entertaining and spiritually feeding (and just physically feeding and keeping alive) a few hundred kids for a couple of days is a herculean task. Some of the people in charge of the big ones probably should get paid as well!

I'll try to clarify. It is equivalent to them not considering themselves to be the true church because the disagreement has no bearing on their beliefs about what will be happening to each of them in the next life. While the presbyterian may believe the methodist or the baptist is wrong on some points of doctrine or belief, they generally don't believe that translates into a need for the methodist or the baptist to change anything in order to receive eternal life or be saved. There probably was a time (and in some independent congregations I'm sure that time is right now) where the doctrinal differences were much more tied to heavenly consequences. Most of the big denominations came to existence during a time when people were very much trying to find the 'correct' gospel and they persist today, even though the members don't usually hold to the same perspective, for a lot of different reasons. My husband grew up very active Lutheran. He began investigating the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when the pastor of his church was kicked out due to disagreements with the ruling church council and they wanted to hire someone else. The pastor that was booted started his own congregation and took a large chunk of the other congregation with him (while my husband started taking the missionary discussions and moved on). That's one example of why so many different protestant churches exist and it has nothing to do with the old Lutheran congregation believing that they were the only true church, nor the new Lutheran congregation believing they were the only true church. (I was shocked to learn just how many different kinds of Lutheran churches there are!). As an aside, I'm not sure that 'snotty' is the tone that you want to be conveying right now, but it's what's coming through so just be aware. Sometimes we don't realize the tone that our posts have and I'm guessing you aren't here to do more harm than good. Accuracy is important to me. I've seen to many members become the worst enemies of the gospel of Christ because of they way they speak and act when trying to defend it. I have been that person in the past and all that comes from it is bad fruit.

There's a reason that the Trinity is called a "Mystery". It can't be fully explained with our human understanding. We (LDS) have similar things with our belief in God. For example, to say that we believe in "one God" because it is a title, station, etc doesn't really help because we do believe that Heavenly Father is actually a God and the God. We pray to Him, not to Jesus. But Jesus is also a God but not the God. We do have multiple Gods as separate entities. Redefining it the way you did doesn't help with Occam's Razor approach.

Jfyi this will be the last response you ever get from me on this board. I will refuse to entertain any of your responses because you recently labeled me as pedophile without any justification on another thread. I don’t engage with name callers or those who attribute statements to me (that was someone else, not you) that I never said. Anyway- just saving you keyboard time unless you enjoy writing soliloquies.

I did make a point though, that being that evangelical Protestantism requires very little out of its adherents, hence its popularity. This in turn leads to what is essentially a big head, and so when they try to play the apologetics game armed with little more than "muh faith" and "muh inerrant Bible", they get trounced. Some of them don't even attempt to address arguments and just use formal debates as their "Hey look I have a Mormon audience so I can crap on them to their faces" time. While Kelly Powers isn't a good example of someone knowledgeable, he has a decently large following on his Youtube channel. About two months ago, he had a debate with Robert Boylan of the Scriptural Mormonism blog: During this, you can see that Powers spends most of his time doing anything but addressing the topic of the debate. It's lazy, weak, and only serves as more support for the article's premise. Am I "conflating Fundamentalists and Evangelicals"? How am I doing so? What is the official difference between the two? Does one even exist considering both groups seem to reject the idea of magisterium (hence the sola scriptura concept)? As for "likes and dislikes being valuable currency", speak for yourself on that matter. Internet points get you nowhere and popularity is not a measure of correctness. Were that the case, we'd all be in trouble. Strictly speaking, LDS missionaries don't go hanging outside other churches just to harass their members. Trying to equate these two is more evidence of bad faith on your part.

@BlipBlap seems to have forgotten that the Latter-day Saints have a scripture specifically instructing them not to attack other religions. D&C 18:20: "Contend against no church, save it be the church of the devil."

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Last week's Come Follow Me dealt with Job chapters 1-3; 12-13. "The opening chapters of Job emphasize, in a poetic way, Satan’s role as our adversary or accuser; they don’t describe an actual interaction between God and Satan." Job 42:7 says God spoke to both Job and Eliphaz. Was this also poetic?

Note that I didn't assert inconsistency, I asserted a contradiction. Why don't you explain the concept instead of telling me to look it up? It stands to reason that you should be able to instead of outsourcing to others, correct? Here, I'll put forth what I believe these to be based on the text of the Nicene Creed: https://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe Consubstantial: Being one in essence or substance despite a difference in aspect Hypostatic union: The quality of being both fully divine and fully human, we can derive this from the Athanasian Creed: "Perfect God; and perfect Man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting. Equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead; and inferior to the Father as touching his Manhood." https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02033b.htm Now, here's where the contradiction occurs. If I am "one in essence or substance", that would require them to share all of their natures. As seen in the Athanasian Creed, Jesus is "Equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead". In other words, his divine aspect is equal to that of the Father. However, the very next statement, "and inferior to the Father as touching his Manhood", illustrates that the human nature of Jesus is inferior to the Father and therefore his own divine nature. How can I be "consubstantial" with something yet have a part of me that is explicitly stated to be inferior? This is where Nicene Christians had to go to non-Christian philosophy to create their belief. Jesus distinguishes himself on multiple occasions as being not the same as the Father. The Father does likewise at least twice. This is where the difference in thought comes in: Nicene Christians believe "God" to be a singular being. The LDS church still believes in "one God", but essentially holds that "God" is a status, office, station, organization, etc. It's the Occam's Razor approach. Keep in mind that you chose to continue responding to me. Instead of quailing over your feelings in what reeks of false piety, you could've simply spared yourself the trouble and just, you know, said nothing.

Birth control is a sin according to what I quoted before.

In the last 70ish years, how is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints any different from the Catholic church with regards to revelation. We say we have continuous revelation but yet there are no new published revelations. Just "divine inspiration". Will we continue doing that? And when we get to be as old as the Catholic church (thousands of years old), will a new upstart religion be able to say the same thing you are saying here? That we (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) don't believe in continuous revelation because we only have "divine inspiration". Revelation means something specific for Catholics and is targeted for very specific things. But they still believe that God leads them and directs them. Pretty similar to us. We just use revelation much more broadly.

If you had made a point, I would not have downgraded your post (not you). Likes and dislikes are valuable currency in this forum. You are both generalizing and normalizing in your posts. Those are two of the five precursors to human conflict. They rarely, if ever, bring about understanding or dialogue. This is a dialogue forum. I haven't seen a desire in your few posts for much dialogue. Your statements are sweeping and written with certitude. Neither is the stuff of dialogue and consensus building. Methinks you are conflating Fundamentalists and Evangelicals, two very distinct and often mad-at-each-other communities within conservative and middle-of-the-road non-LDS Christianity. Conflating Fundamentalists and Evangelicals is kind of like conflating LeBaron and Kingdom of God Mormonism with LDS Mormonism here where I live. BTW, it surprises me that you are opposed to "witnessing." So are you equally opposed when LDS missionaries "witness?" Take care.

Where is the misunderstanding, exactly? Your analogy doesn't really work seeing as how I can actually point out where anti-Mormons are incorrect versus you simply saying "you don't understand X". You're deliberately mistaking bluntness for aggression and condescension in an attempt to dodge the point. Here is the English text of the Dei verbum from the Second Vatican Council, straight from the Vatican's archives. https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei-verbum_en.html "Therefore, following in the footsteps of the Council of Trent and of the First Vatican Council, this present council wishes to set forth authentic doctrine on divine revelation and how it is handed on, so that by hearing the message of salvation the whole world may believe, by believing it may hope, and by hoping it may love. (1)" This establishes the purpose of the council and confirms that what is contained within is to be considered binding to the members of the Catholic church. "The Christian dispensation, therefore, as the new and definitive covenant, will never pass away and we now await no further new public revelation before the glorious manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ (see 1 Tim. 6:14 and ***. 2:13)." In quite plain English, this establishes that your church does not believe that any public revelation will occur before the Second Coming of Christ. What is the official definition of "public revelation" according to the Catholic church? According to this site: https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/index.cfm?id=35908 "The supernatural manifestation of God's wisdom and will for the human race, in order to lead humanity to its heavenly destiny. It is entrusted directly to the Church for preservation and interpretation and is contained in Sacred Scripture and sacred tradition." Are you going to try to claim that the determination of the Biblical canon wasn't revelation? It seems that such a thing would be very important and would require something beyond mere "divine inspiration" in order to determine.

I have already replied to the first paragraph, and leave it now for context. Maybe someone else that is LDS might want to try to answer the second paragraph for BlipBlap? The Catholics here have obviously gotten off on the wrong foot with this person. Maybe she/he would listen if it was explained by a non-Catholic at least, or better, a Latter-day Saint. I might suggest that you look up the meaning of consubstantial according to Catholic theology. Then go to the Vatican web page for the Council of Chalcedon and find what it says about who Jesus is consubstantial with. Combine that with what Catholics mean by the hypostatic union and there is our answer. It doesn't prove anything against the LDS position. It just shows that we are consistent with our own beliefs, contrary to what BlipBlap wants to think. No obligations obviously! I have never seen anything like this around here. In a way it has been fun, but it also brings out the worst in me. I waited almost a week before an earlier post to BlipBlap because my opinion of her/him was so negative that I could feel some malice stirring. But now it is just getting distasteful. Pray for me. I have to love everybody here. I may have mentioned this before. But one of my favorite quotes from our last Council is paraphrased "Through His Incarnation, Christ has, in a certain sense, united Himself with every man." Pray that I may be true to that belief. I will reply later if anyone else expresses curiosity about anything she/he has raised. But I will consider myself relieved from any further fruitless interaction with BlipBlap, for the sake of my own soul. I am sorry BlipBlap. I should have more love and patience. I truly wish you every grace and heavenly blessing in this world and in the next. I do. God make us be friends in heaven. God love you. Rory McKenzie

Which is fine and all, but it doesn't really do much to refute the point I made. All you have to do is look at CARM, the MRM, Youtube channels like "God Loves Mormons" or "Hello Saints", or just go out and talk to the rabble from groups like the Apologia Church who hang outside our church buildings and temples (mostly in Utah) to try to "witness" to us. Even the linked article states much of what I said, just less bluntly.

In my first response, I did so from a rather light-hearted, personal perspective. Let me simply add that I think the article you quote is spot-on. It was written twenty years or so ago and I think things have improved since then. I only would add my perspective that I hinted at before, that the blind spots, generalizing and normalizing are equally to be found among both groups. I claim to be able to say that because I have lived most of my life watching Evangelicalism evolve and I actually taught a few sessions of Old Testament study in a Mormon ward adult Sunday School (Gospel Doctrine class) as a non-member. The desire and thirst to understand the Bible was as great or perhaps even greater than when we moved on to the other LDS scriptures (which I did not teach)! At 77 years of age I no longer have the quest for confrontation that I had as a sixteen year old. Today (as I write this) I am aware of a greater sense of sadness about the tropes, straw men, and fallacious debates that are often had among our two groups (especially conservative traditional members of the LDS church and Fundamentalists (who I still rigorously maintain need to be understood by my LDs friends as distinct from Evanglicals. My personal experience is that there is pretty equal reluctance to budge from what is sometimes spuriously described as doctrine on both sides. That is why I enjoy hanging around this forum. All that noise is quite muted here. Sometimes I wish some of us could get together for hotcakes and bacon; something that in my experience might really bring us together (spoken maple syrup in cheek)!

Well Congratulations! I have been on this forum for around nine years now. I have never given anyone's post (that I remember) a down vote. Now I can't say that anymore!

You don’t understand what the Catholic Church means by public revelation. Your tone is aggressive and condescending. You are like anti Mormons who try to tell Mormons what they believe and are wrong.

Maybe the founders of these independent Churches considered themselves to be correct, and Christian, because they felt that they were the one true Church.

Bad apologetics is essentially a built-in feature for a lot of the evangelical side of the Protestant group. It's a movement built more or less on "Catholics bad" and, at least to me, seems to be a religion for people who either want as little engagement as possible with theology or who are masochistic. It has mass appeal because of the general lack of commitment and is attractive to people who want easy money (vocational pastors). "Jesus Jesus Jesus, Bible Bible Bible. Why yes, I do accept all major credit cards."

Every country's laws are completely malleable to those in power. Every. Single. One. No, there is no such thing as being "self-evidently wrong". It's a cop-out drummed up by those unable to respond. It isn't irrational at all. Just because you don't like it doesn't make it "irrational". Again, another cop-out. Nope, not at all. This has nothing to do with Ukraine. The law he was arrested under was made prior to 2022. Again, you lose to a basic calendar. The law is entirely relevant as it created justification for this arrest to happen. Great replacement theory isn't nonsense at all. Again, you can't actually respond to the point, so you have to cop-out with vague platitudes. https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.development.desa.pd/files/unpd-egm_200010_un_2001_replacementmigration.pdf Godwin's law references Hitler only, not the Holocaust. Therefore, you don't understand the concept. What, do you seriously think that the Holocaust wouldn't have happened had Hitler not existed? You are downplaying persecution. There's nothing simple-minded about this at all. A law was passed in 2016 that justified government action against evangelizing religious groups. We are one of those groups. The man in question was arrested for an act that happened five years ago. What is 2026-5? 2021, yes? So prior to 2022. It has been standard practice for Putin to go after his political opposition. Alexei Navalny, the man who's group this LDS leader donated to, was poisoned in 2020 and blamed Putin for it. Putin's been implicated in the poisoning deaths of Roman Tsepov and Alexander Litvinenko as well. Both of those cases happened before 2010. Again, downplaying a decades-long pattern of attacking political opposition just because of "muh Ukraine war".