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"Restored Christianity"


mfbukowski

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The premise and idea is very simple.

We always have to duke it out with those who don't call us "Christians" to the point that even I find myself, when asked what someone's religion is, might answer "Oh he's a Christian" when speaking of an Evangelical. The language itself is becoming co-opted!

We refer to them as "Creedal Christians" I think totally appropriately and descriptively.

Suppose we refer to ourselves as "Restored Christians"? What we practice is "Restored Christianity".

The advantages are clear. We identify ourselves as Christians from the beginning. In fact we affirm that Christianity had to be restored.

We also would most certainly get questions about what that means- and an opportunity to discuss why the restoration was necessary.

If we wanted to we could say that "Restored Christianity" is the same as "Mormonism", or if we didn't want to, we could skip the term "Mormon" (which is not too descriptive to those outside our faith) altogether and simply tell the story of the resoration and Book of Mormon etc- it is totally optional.

What say you? What's wrong with it? Good idea? I might try it for a while and see what happens.

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The premise and idea is very simple.

We always have to duke it out with those who don't call us "Christians" to the point that even I find myself, when asked what someone's religion is, might answer "Oh he's a Christian" when speaking of an Evangelical. The language itself is becoming co-opted!

We refer to them as "Creedal Christians" I think totally appropriately and descriptively.

Suppose we refer to ourselves as "Restored Christians"? What we practice is "Restored Christianity".

The advantages are clear. We identify ourselves as Christians from the beginning. In fact we affirm that Christianity had to be restored.

We also would most certainly get questions about what that means- and an opportunity to discuss why the restoration was necessary.

If we wanted to we could say that "Restored Christianity" is the same as "Mormonism", or if we didn't want to, we could skip the term "Mormon" (which is not too descriptive to those outside our faith) altogether and simply tell the story of the resoration and Book of Mormon etc- it is totally optional.

What say you? What's wrong with it? Good idea? I might try it for a while and see what happens.

They have a fit when I have asked them to even consider us as Heretical Christians.

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I think it is worth a try.

I think the issue is that we cannot allow them to define us. That is for us to decide.

Just calling ourselves "Christians" leaves it ambiguous and says that we want to be just like them, which is certainly not the case. I do not want to be confused with a Creedal Christian.

And yet I want it unmistakeably clear that I am a follower of Christ. I love the term "Mormon"- it is distinctively our own, but it does not describe anything about what we believe and in fact it confuses the issue. Quick- are Moravians Christian? I bet you don't know at the moment.

I love the name of our church, it is perfectly descriptive, but it is too long for ordinary usage.

To me, the term "Restored Christianity" is distinctive, it labels one as a follower of Christ, and yet says that you believe something different that most Christians- it implies immediately that Christianity needed to be restored and was in fact restored.

I like it.

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They have a fit when I have asked them to even consider us as Heretical Christians.

Too bad for them! We of course are not heretical- they are because they are not "Restored Christians".

They are "Half-Catholics"!

I am sure they would love to be called that!

Yet it's true!

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I prefer what the original Christians called themselves. Saints.

Of course, but everyone thinks they are "Saints". I think we need a more descriptive term!

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The premise and idea is very simple.

We always have to duke it out with those who don't call us "Christians" to the point that even I find myself, when asked what someone's religion is, might answer "Oh he's a Christian" when speaking of an Evangelical. The language itself is becoming co-opted!

We refer to them as "Creedal Christians" I think totally appropriately and descriptively.

Suppose we refer to ourselves as "Restored Christians"? What we practice is "Restored Christianity".

The advantages are clear. We identify ourselves as Christians from the beginning. In fact we affirm that Christianity had to be restored.

We also would most certainly get questions about what that means- and an opportunity to discuss why the restoration was necessary.

If we wanted to we could say that "Restored Christianity" is the same as "Mormonism", or if we didn't want to, we could skip the term "Mormon" (which is not too descriptive to those outside our faith) altogether and simply tell the story of the resoration and Book of Mormon etc- it is totally optional.

What say you? What's wrong with it? Good idea? I might try it for a while and see what happens.

I prefer to call them Apostate Christians, and call ourselves just Christians! :P

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I prefer to call them Apostate Christians, and call ourselves just Christians! :P

Well that is of course true, but then we are indistinct from all the other groups which call themselves "Christians"

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I think the issue is that we cannot allow them to define us. That is for us to decide.

And yet, by insisting upon the qualifier "Restored", you are doing precisely that.

By adopting "Restored" you** are surrendering the perfectly acceptable descriptor of "Christian" to those who wish to claim it for their own narrow sectarian purposes.

Just calling ourselves "Christians" leaves it ambiguous and says that we want to be just like them, which is certainly not the case.
I flatly disagree.

"Christian" is a perfectly acceptable and wholly accurate descriptor of the Latter-day Saint. No qualifier is necessary.

I do not want to be confused with a Creedal Christian.
Understandable. But your behavior will speak louder than your words.

There is no need to differentiate yourself as a "sub-species" of Christian- when your deeds and beliefs will demonstrate that you are simply "Christian" in the classical, literal sense of the word.

Surrendering the title of "Christian", or allowing others to force you to qualify it, is to surrender the meaning of the word to those with an agenda- much like was done with the word "gay" over the last half-century.

To yeild "Christian" to sectarian mobs to pervert for their narrow partisan purposes- or worse, to allow them to force us to qualify ourselves by applying "Restorationist" (or any of the other half-dozen adgectives proposed over the last 150 years)- is, IMO, intellectual cowardice and moral surrender.

You say you don't want to allow them to define us- and yet that's precisely what your proposed change does. You** are allowing them to define who is and is not "Christian".

And that's both intellectually dishonest and counterproductive.

And yet I want it unmistakeably clear that I am a follower of Christ. I love the term "Mormon"- it is distinctively our own, but it does not describe anything about what we believe and in fact it confuses the issue. Quick- are Moravians Christian? I bet you don't know at the moment.

I love the name of our church, it is perfectly descriptive, but it is too long for ordinary usage.

To me, the term "Restored Christianity" is distinctive, it labels one as a follower of Christ, and yet says that you believe something different that most Christians- it implies immediately that Christianity needed to be restored and was in fact restored.

I like it.

To each his own.

I- for one- am a Christian, and need no qualifier.

** This should be understood as a rhetorical "you", rather than an accusation against mfbuc himself.

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Well that is of course true, but then we are indistinct from all the other groups which call themselves "Christians"

The issue does not center on whether we call ourselves Christians or something else; it centers on what they want to call us. There are some folks out there who will insist that we are not Christians (of any description) no matter what we choose to call ourselves. It is a deliberate and malicious campaign waged against LDS. The question is, What strategy should we adopt to combat it? Merely looking at it from the point of view of what we need to "call ourselves," without taking cognizance of the reality of the fact that we face a deliberate, subtle, hostile, and malicious campaign from an intelligent source who knows what he is doing, will not address the problem involved.

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The premise and idea is very simple.

We always have to duke it out with those who don't call us "Christians" to the point that even I find myself, when asked what someone's religion is, might answer "Oh he's a Christian" when speaking of an Evangelical. The language itself is becoming co-opted!

We refer to them as "Creedal Christians" I think totally appropriately and descriptively.

Suppose we refer to ourselves as "Restored Christians"? What we practice is "Restored Christianity".

The advantages are clear. We identify ourselves as Christians from the beginning. In fact we affirm that Christianity had to be restored.

We also would most certainly get questions about what that means- and an opportunity to discuss why the restoration was necessary.

If we wanted to we could say that "Restored Christianity" is the same as "Mormonism", or if we didn't want to, we could skip the term "Mormon" (which is not too descriptive to those outside our faith) altogether and simply tell the story of the resoration and Book of Mormon etc- it is totally optional.

What say you? What's wrong with it? Good idea? I might try it for a while and see what happens.

if the situation and spirit dictate......then go for it!!! :P

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And yet, by insisting upon the qualifier "Restored", you are doing precisely that.

By adopting "Restored" you** are surrendering the perfectly acceptable descriptor of "Christian" to those who wish to claim it for their own narrow sectarian purposes.

I flatly disagree.

"Christian" is a perfectly acceptable and wholly accurate descriptor of the Latter-day Saint. No qualifier is necessary.

Understandable. But your behavior will speak louder than your words.

There is no need to differentiate yourself as a "sub-species" of Christian- when your deeds and beliefs will demonstrate that you are simply "Christian" in the classical, literal sense of the word.

Surrendering the title of "Christian", or allowing others to force you to qualify it, is to surrender the meaning of the word to those with an agenda- much like was done with the word "gay" over the last half-century.

To yeild "Christian" to sectarian mobs to pervert for their narrow partisan purposes- or worse, to allow them to force us to qualify ourselves by applying "Restorationist" (or any of the other half-dozen adgectives proposed over the last 150 years)- is, IMO, intellectual cowardice and moral surrender.

You say you don't want to allow them to define us- and yet that's precisely what your proposed change does. You** are allowing them to define who is and is not "Christian".

And that's both intellectually dishonest and counterproductive.

To each his own.

I- for one- am a Christian, and need no qualifier.

** This should be understood as a rhetorical "you", rather than an accusation against mfbuc himself.

I don't disagree, it is just that I am not as passionate about it as you are.

The reality is we are what- 15 million against billions?

I don't see "being practical" as a "surrender" but I can see how some might see it that way. I just don't want to be confused with Creedals.

As much as we might not like the reality, it is just a word, and I am not proposing we give it up, just distinguish ourselves.

I have seen many members who don't even care to be associated with the term "Christian" because of what it has become. It's kind of like trying to reclaim "gay". Good luck on that one.

Maybe I am wrong, but I am not seeing it yet.

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I think we face the same type of dilemma musicians did a couple of decades ago.

With the introduction of the electric guitar, they needed a new term, and just prepended the adjective "electric" to the noun "guitar" to differentiate between them. As the "electric" versions became the "standard", real guitars were the ones that had to accept a modifier, and became "acoustic guitars".

I'm with thesometimessaint (who will doubtless faint at the notion): we should call ourselves "Saints", since that is the Lord's name for us. But many people will not accept that (nor any other self-applied label), so we're stuck with modifiers. "Restoration Christians" is as good as any, even if it implies something "other" than "Christians". It does have the advantage of having little baggage associated with it; and baggage is exactly what enemies of the Church of Christ want attached to any title referring to us.

It won't stick among those who hate us, at least not until they figure out how to laden us with their falsehoods and innuendos designed to weaken men's faith in Christ and "them that were entering in [they] hindered," in Christ's words.

Lehi

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I disagree.

Well, you have the right to be wrong. :P;) It's no skin off my nose.

In fact, it's solid enough of a suggestion that I may take it for a test drive and see what kind of mileage I get out of it.

I wish you luck with it, but as stated it's not for me.

But we are not all of a piece (if we were, Chaos would be tearing her hair out in clumps).

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The original Christians called themselves a number of things. Christians, saints, and disciples were three of the terms they accepted as self-designations.

CFR that the early-day Saints accepted "Christians" as a term to refer to themselves.

Lehi

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I do believe being passionate about keeping the term simply "Christian" is more than sufficient and many outside the faith doesn't really know why others do not consider Mormons as Christian. LDS will run into more individuals who are not as passionate to make an issue if LDS are Christian or not.

My last incident in dealing with the issue occurred at my family reunion where the majority was LDS, my girls and I were the Catholics and one of my cousins with his wife and two kids were the EV's. Somehow there was a small group of us and religion came up. The EV wife ended a comment and stated something along the lines 'well we're simply Christian' and I passionately spoke up that we ALL were Christian since we all follow Jesus Christ. That sort of killed the conversation at that point which was fine by me.

In casual interactions with the majority of people outside the faith, I believe this approach is more than appropriate. If the scholars want to take it to the next level, let them. I've rarely ran into a situation where I've had a desire to defend the trinity vs the LDS Godhead. How one shows their Christianity by what they do in being 'His Hands and His Feet' seem much more important than trying to figure out if the label of who is a Christian and who is not.

My 2 cents

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I think a simple asterisk can do wonders.

Like the word "marriage," "Christian" has, for centuries, a traditional definition tied to the traditional trinitarian formula, a formula that Latter-day Saints usually reject. Thus, Mormons cannot not be properly defined as Christian in a traditional theological sense. However, a simple asterisk can solve this problem. Mormons are Christian*.

Similarly Fundamentalist Mormons can be defined as Mormon*.

*=in a general/loose understand, and not in the traditional sense.

Problem solved.

Oh yeah, and SSM is marriage*. Now traditional marriage can be preserved while allowing homosexual couples to be married*.

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I don't think calling yourselves "restored Christians" will go over well. They will probably think that you personally as an individual fell away from God and then came back, as they view Christs church as individuals who belong to Christ and not a denomination. (Different terminologies for the same words)It would be calling yourself a prodigal.

In the way you are wanting it to mean, it comes across as I have the truth and you have been duped is not very polite, as you LDS should know, because as it is done to you all the time and how is that working for you to want to leave Mormonism? Go ahead and try it, but I know the Christian's will not take it laying down. I dont think this is a way to convince someone who loves God and knows God, as he is very present in their everydays lives, that what they experience is a lie. You will not convince them that anything needs restoring. You would not like it if a new group imerged calling themselves the "restored Mormons" because the old Mormons dropped precious teachings and then they changed doctrines taboot telling you that you had to follow the restored way. Hmmm, I think that has happened.

By the way, My pastor told us that being called a Christian in the early church was a derogatory term, because outsiders were making fun of them, calling them "little Christs" in a not nice way. The Bible says that the first Church called themselves "The Way".

Heartleap...

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I disagree.

In fact, it's solid enough of a suggestion that I may take it for a test drive and see what kind of mileage I get out of it.

The actual advantage as I see it, is that it separates us from the creedals and also gives us an opportunity to explain that the church needed to be restored.

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Hi,

The original Christians called themselves a number of things. Christians, saints, and disciples were three of the terms they accepted as self-designations.

The earliest Christians, or followers of Jesus, were called disciples. Later on they were identified by other names. Have a look at this article I wrote about what it means to be a Christian, and tell us what you think.

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