Bowman Study Guide: Exaltation, God And Man Part One

[KevinG]

I am advocating for "the faith once for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 3) and against your "sect'" that opposes that faith.

That basic assumption explains a lot about your strange form of politeness.

[wenglund]

I am neither advocating for a particular sect nor merely arguing against your "faith." Rather, I am advocating for "the faith once for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 3) and against your "sect'" that opposes that faith, and I could care less which of the many orthodox denominations or churches with which one might unite after coming to accept that faith.

Ah...the motto of today's Christian pharisees.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[Vance]

Besides, my comment was somewhat tongue-in-cheek (as witnessed by the smiley face). I have yet to refer to Rob as anti-Mormon, not because I don't view him as such (I do), but because doing so tends to be ineffectual in interactions with him here. It gives him unwarranted excuse to deflectively complain and anoint himself with victim status--a tactic he employes to maximum advantage except with those of us who can see through its lameness.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

You should whisper when you say such things. He might hear you.

[Loran Blood]

Loran,

I think Rob may have a point regarding being called a "sectarian" in these discussions. Were he, in his Study Guide or in his monologues here, to have been advocating and prostetyzing specifically for his sect, then it may be appropriate to consider him, in this context, to be sectarian. Rather, he is not arguing for his sect, but against our faith. So, rather than referring to him as sectarian, the more appropriate designation would be anti-Mormon.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

I'm using the term in a general sense and the sense in which I think virtually all contemporary General Authorities have used it, i.e. to denote any one sect among a vast body of sects of Christendom, all of which assert that they are, in one sense or another, part of a "body of Christ" that is just as legitimate, as to its ministerial authority, as any other (the Catholics would be one of potentially a small number of exceptions here, as they do claim to be the only true church).

As a member of one sect among a number of sects, all claiming an essential unity as to legimacy as authorized representatives of Christ, I think the term "sectarian" is appropriate, and it is in no way perjorative, unlike the term "cult," which Rob and many others within the Christian countercult have used prolifically, throughout their literary careers to describe anything whatever not comporting in fine detail with what he would term "biblical" or "orthodox" Christianity:

http://www.watchman.org/bowmanbio.htm

Bowman throws down the gauntlett here

If the Mormon Church believes it is the only true Christian Church, it should not attempt to publicly present itself as a part of a broader Christian community. Instead it should tell the world openly that those who claim to be orthodox Christians are not really Christians at all, and that the Mormon Church is the only true Christian Church. This in fact is what it teaches privately, but not publicly.

And here, in one of the IIR's classic "how I left the Church" stories:

I am committed to the Biblical principle of one-on-one discipleship as a mechanism for growth in Christ, and to helping Mormons escape from a legalistic, non-Christian cult.

From Bowman's own institute website:

I moved back east after my divorce to be with my friends and family, and met a returned missionary that I had grown up with. I was ecstatic – he was marriage-minded and accepting of my sons. We got married in the Washington, DC temple. I thought the ceremony was odd, rather pagan and occultish...

To anyone investigating joining the Mormon cult, I say “run away and don’t look back!”

I am not sorry for one minute for leaving. If I had it to do over, I would do it again! I have come away knowing the church is not true. That by scholastic standards the Mormon church is a destructive cult, and I am better off without it!

Robert is quite clear on his perspective of LDS as radically non-Christian when he's talking to the Choir:

http://www.reclaimin...question-again/

Rob is clear (and clearly upset that a number of people, inlcuding Christians, hear "the gospel" in Glen Beck's statements and general philosohpy, while they may be missing Rob's narrowling circumscribed "orthodox" Christianity):

The main objection to viewing Beck as an advocate for the gospel is that the theology of the LDS Church, of which Beck is a member, is radically incompatible with the biblical gospel.

Frankly, the evidence is overwhelming that the LDS understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ is radically different from that of the Bible.

As I have already observed, these differences deal with such basic elements of Christianity that from an evangelical perspective we must conclude that Mormonism falls outside the boundaries of doctrinally authentic, theologically viable Christian faith. The usual shorthand way of making this point is to say that Mormons are not Christians.

Rob does try to cover his bases, however:

If by “Christians” one means all members of all of the religious groups that belong to the world-religions classification of Christianity, then of course in that generic sense Mormons are Christians, along with everyone else who claims to be. If one uses the term to denote persons who have been saved from eternal condemnation through their faith in Jesus Christ, then the best answer we can give is that most Mormons evidently are not Christians in that sense although some may be.

Here Rob allows us to be lexical, but not authentic Christians, and then determines that no Mormon who accepts LDS teachings, apparently including the core teachings that Jesus is the Christ, the Saviour and Redeemer of the world, and that there is no other way or means to attain salvation other than through him, and that he is the Way, theTruth, and the Life, and took upon his the sins of the world and was crucified for us; none of this allows us anywhere near the possiblity of salvation, and especially the tightly wound technical fiat salvation of the transcendent, self defining soverign God of EV doctrine, in which God saves those who believe in him (irregardless of their actual conduct throughout the bulk of mortal life) but ignores those who may live strictly according to his commandments but have mistaken ideas regarding even the slightest points of "orthodox" doctrine, any persistence regarding will send one into the fires of Hell for all eternity, irregardless of one's behavior and character.

Keep in mind that, for Rob, even the saintliest and most righteous human beings within other of the great world religions, whether Hindu, Buddhist, Confucion, Taoist, Judiac, or a hodge-podge of whatever, are destined for eternal hell for no other reason than that they did not accept the Jesus of Rob Bowman and modern evangelical Christianity (i.e., the "Jesus of the Bible") for whatever reason. The only point of any salience is that they did not accept Jesus (have the "born again" experience at some specific point in time) and do not accept doctrinal point x and doctrinal point y in exact dogmatic form.

Don't get me wrong. In the Church there is clear, core doctrines one must accept as well, but these do not determine whether one ends in either Heaven or Hell, but only the level of glory and joy one rises to in the resurrection. For LDS, only the wicked must undergo the trials of Hell. For Rob, both the wicked and the merely unorthodox or sincerely mistaken must spend all eternity in the lake of fire and brimstone

Now, look at this:

link removed for temple content

To avoid Temple content (and its casting before swine), I won't post the content itself, but notice the italicized quotes about two thirds of the way down the page of the "story."

That Rob et al still allows his scholarly sounding Intitutue for Religous Research to foist the twaddle of intellectual frauds like Bill Schnoebelen on the unsuspecting tells me something about Rob Bowman that perhaps his usually nice, civil demeanor may be masking.

I think it more than fair that when Rob sees fit to encourage the purging of his website of mendacious and bizzare inflammatory bomb throwing such as this, and decides to become both intellectually serious and fair minded in the criticism he allows and promotes at his own organization, I'll be much more suscceptable to cries of "foul" over the use of unremarkable, neutral terms such as "sect." to describe (accurately) his own Christian background among a much larger Christian tradition of sects of which he is a part.