The lowest form of rejection is grounded in name calling. Many a people call The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints a CULT. Yet the word "cult" when used by an anti-Mormon declares it actually meaning, "They are of a religion I don't like." Use such a word to describe us and all that you are saying is that we are not to your liking. Modern day tests of a "cult" confirms the uselessness of the term.

What offends the mainline churches of any day continues to be the twisted "cultlike" characterizations applied to the Mormons today.

I challenge anyone to apply what they believe to be cult-like to us without condemning churches you take as Christians today.

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News Item:
CNN.com
The Des Moines Register polled Republican caucus participants in Iowa last week. The results Romney 30 percent, McCain 18, Giuliani 17. Caucus participants are becoming more decided.

Fundamentalists and other sectarians are free to define the word CHRISTIAN any way they want to (obviously) for their own purposes. They can define themselves as the only true Christians on the entire globe, pitifully small as this globe has become. And in so doing they can shut EVERYBODY else out, as long as the rest of Christendom understands that that is how they are using the language. As long as everybody else understands that coming from them the assertion that "Mormons aren't Christians" simply means "Mormons disagree with us."

Now who is this "us" anyway? Where everyone else outside a given family of Christian churches is said to be non-Christian. Should the Latter Day Saints be considered a part of the "family of Christian churches" that would be surveyed? Whether yes or no, one must assume in advance the results of such a survey. What is anti-Christian suddenly has become a monstrously circular argument forcing a logical fallacy.

My husband asked a marvelous question to those anti-Mormons (to the man and woman) frequenting Thomisticquy at the most active religious blog in Blogstream. The blog immediately became mute. He repeated the question. The blog continued in its muteness.

Here is what my husband asked them (I paraphrase):

"The New Testament of the Bible tells us that Paul most assuredly knew things, believed things that could not be shared with some Christians ( see 1 Cor. 3 1-2) or with any other Christians at all (2 Cor. 12: 2-4). Did his knowing and believing things NOT taught in the Bible, things unknown to other Christians, render Paul a 'non-Christian'?"

The answer where they couldn't go and can't go now is, Absolutely not. This specialized definition of Christian clearly doesn't work.

If by Christian we mean someone who believes that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and the Savior of the World, that can be a Mormon. If by Christian we also require the believer to hold the Old and New Testaments as holy scripture and contain his teachings, that can be a Mormon.. If by Christian we also require the believer to acknowledge that God is three distinct divine beings, that is also Mormon. It is simply an accepted reality that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints hold to all these propositions. Certainly the Latter Day Saints differ from other Christians in some doctrinal interpretations. Christians differ in such ways from each other. That is, if anti-Mormons assert that only a certain plummage of water fowl can be an authentic duck, our plummage is of a different color. But these Mormons certainly share the basic attributes of what is a Christian.

However, if by Christian we adopt the sectarian meaning of "those people who believe as we" (certain Baptists, other Baptists, certain Western Catholics, other Eastern Catholics, certain Eastern Orthodox, other orthodox, many conferences and federations of Lutherans, the Presbyterian Church USA, other innumberable Presbyterians, varied Anglican Churches, Arminian Methodists, other Methodists, Universalists, Unitarians, Quakers, Jehovah Witnesses, Adventists), then the sect in question might be able to say that Mormons are not Christians - using the term in their very private and supremely exclusionary sense. But their use of personal definitions makes their charges against the mormons not only picky, but useless. Most importantly, it certainly has no bearing on whether Mormons believe in Jesus Christ.

What the average Christian (using the word inclusively) reader needs to be alert to, is that those who prefer the sectarian definition end up rejecting considerably more people than just the Latter Day Saints. But they refuse to acknowledge that disturbing problem. In the end, those who use the sectarian definition of Christian must acknowledge a world of unsaved people and define the "family of Christian churches" to be very small. Not even the Latter Day Saints would define being a Christian in such a limited way.

In saying that Mormons are not Christians, anti-Mormons are only saying "Mormons are not like us."

A big hug to my husband for helping me with the html.

We just concluded a brief discussion concerning the rejection of Mormons through outright fabrications. I showed you some Blogstream examples by some specific anti-Mormons. There has been no dispute here concerning these fabrications.

So we move on to another form of rejection. Anti-Mormons who call themselves Christians reject Mormons as Christians using distortion. In distorting the Mormon doctrines, anti-Mormons condemn us for doctrines we do not hold. Latter Day Saints can't reasonably or logically be declared non-Christian for beliefs they do not hold, even if the distortion is SIMILIAR to actual LDS beliefs.

It would seem only fair that any criticism of the Mormons must address doctrines that are actually held by them rather than doctrines merely attributed to them or interpreted for them by inflamed critics. If Mormons prayed to Joseph Smith, or believed that Jesus Christ was not the Son of God and was just an ordinary man, and worshipped Joseph Smith instead, they would not be considered as Christians. But first it would NEED to be established that Mormons held these beliefs, and not only that such beliefs were attributed to them by anti-Mormons critics.

So what constitutes genuine true blue Mormon Doctrine. Now my Mormon friend's grandmother was said to believe touching a frog gives warts to the fool who touched the frog. Does that become doctrine because one Mormon believes it?

A quote from Blogsteam's Anti-Mormon "Fireside":
"According to LDS teaching, one must keep the 'word of wisdom' to achieve 'salvation'..."

No, I don't believe this. And no, I have never been taught this. Salvation is attained solely through the Grace of Jesus Christ after all we can do.

At the same place, "the LDS church teaches that if you kill an inocent (sic), then you have to die for this crime to be forgiven for this sin.

No, I have never heard of such a thing. And no, I have never been taught this. One can obtain a full forgiveness of sins through the graces of Jesus Christ. You must foresake the sin and make restitution as best as you can. With murder restitution is not complete. Thus, the murderer should be that much more humble before the Lord.

And again, "the LDS church does not actually have rules against homosexual behavior and should allow such behavior."

Again we have an outright and outragious fabrication meant in its deception to misinform.

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In the Blogstream blog "Looking for Truth" we have this statement: "The Book of Mormon is a story of another Jesus, a murderous Christ."

What the Book of Mormon is can be found on its front cover. I do not believe in a murderous Christ, nor could I conceive of this characterization.

And again, Mormons believe and are taught "There is no eternal hell and punishment".

Well, I am a Mormon. I believe in an eternal Hell and an eternal punishment as a consequence. I believe this because we teach it and I find it to be true....that hell exists, it is eternal, and with it, its punishment.

And again, "They also believe in three (3) separate Gods."

No, I believe in One God. The Mormon Church teaches, as does the Book of Mormon, that there is One God. Now that I have said it and the Book of Mormon says it, that should settle it right? Not on your life.

And again, "you must be LDS to make it to heaven (with God).

This is not what we teach and this is not what I have been taught. We have no doctrine expressing this. Heaven is not reserved, nor is any part of it reserved for any particular or peculiarly defined people. Does it matter that this is what the Mormon Church teaches or that I believe? Not to these folks.

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I keep these example brief only to properly illustrate that they exist. I apologize for the darkness they bring to this place.

So, let me counter it with some Hawaiian weather. It's in the low 80's this afternoon, blue skies with a refreshing trade wind coming off the ocean. We have a freshly picked stalk of bananas on the back porch, geckos scurrying across the garage roof outside my window, as I wait for my husband to arrive home from work.