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From: hutch@shark.UUCP (Stephen Hutchison)
Newsgroups: net.religion,net.flame
Subject: Re: Mormons are not Christians.
Message-ID: <1239@shark.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 6-Feb-85 19:53:09 EST
Article-I.D.: shark.1239
Posted: Wed Feb  6 19:53:09 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 9-Feb-85 04:54:07 EST
References: <319@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> <432@ucsfcgl.UUCP>
Reply-To: hutch@shark.UUCP (Stephen Hutchison)
Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR
Lines: 92
Xref: watmath net.religion:5528 net.flame:8244
Summary: 

In article <432@ucsfcgl.UUCP> arnold@ucsfcgl.UUCP (Ken Arnold) writes:
>Quoting article <319@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> (Scott Deerwester):
>>"The Mormon Papers", by H. Ropp, published by IVP.
>>
>>Mormons believe that salvation is earned by the things that
>>you do (salvation by works).
>>
>>Christians believe that salvation is a free gift and was
>>accomplished once and for all by Jesus' death on the cross.
>>The works are a result of faith.  (If you don't understand what
>>I just wrote, at least recognize that it's not the same thing
>>at what Mormons believe).
>
>This is hardly correct.  Historically there have been great differences
>of opinion among various Christian beliefs as to whether good works were
>necessary or sufficient for salvation.  Catholicism, for example, has
>made people saints for their good works alone, because their works made
>them holy.  And to accept Jesus as faith is not sufficient; one must
>confess ones sins, do proper penance for them (these sometimes also take
>to form of good works), and generally act in a Christian fashion.  The
>question of "good works" is not settled in the universal fashion H. Ropp
>indicates; there is a complete range of belief.

Uhhhhhhh.... While I agree that there have been differences of belief, and
that doctrines of Trinity, f'rinstance, have been points of dissension,
I have to point out here that when major deviations from the teachings about
salvation and justification occur, they usually occur because of ignorance
of the New Testament writings, or because of revisionism (Gee, I don't like
this particular bit of theology, so I will claim that Paul, or Peter, or John,
was actually lying/misinterpreted here, and...)

I am not a Catholic nor do I claim to be a Catholic theologian.  However,
from my Hist Christianity class, I recall the description of what the rules
for canonization were, as established by one of the Vatican councils (number 2,
I think) and these were   a) the saint is a very historical one, even though
there may be no real proof that there WAS such a person,   b) a martyr for
the faith, regardless of good works,   c) a person who was a member of the
church, who demonstrated through their life of good works that they had
faith, and after whose death, it could be shown that there were at least
three documented miracles attributable to the intercession of that saint.

That is, I believe, THE set of requirements.  Bernard of Clairveaux was
decanonized because his membership in the church was rendered doubtful.
Christopher was decanonized because there was not enough evidence about
his "miracles" to fit documentation requirements.

For SALVATION, in fact, even in the Catholic church, which during the Dark
Ages developed some ODD traditions due to the ignorance of most of the
priests, FAITH IN JESUS AS SAVIOR is sufficient for salvation.  However,
there MAY be purgatory to serve for unconfessed or unrepented sins.

Works are EXPECTED, as a sign that a person has faith, but they DO teach
(according to my discussions with practicing Catholics) that they are not
of themselves sufficient for salvation, and that good works without faith
ought to shame those who have faith but do not engage in good works.

The doctrine of purgatory is not biblical in origin, and has been questioned
by a number of Catholic scholars.

>Yeah?  Christians may accept "each other's faith and doctrine", but first
>they have to exclude people they think aren't Christian, and then this
>becomes a tautology: I accept as Christian the beliefs of people I accept
>as Christian.
>-- 
>
>		Ken Arnold

No tautology.  We have a written handbook from which we derive our doctrine,
as you have complained before.  Since we can constantly perform checksums
against that handbook, we can tell if what is held by one person is the
same or significantly dissimilar to what is held by another.  Sure, we go
eventually to the point of accepting what someone taught us, and we can look
to see that what they taught corresponds to what we KNOW was taught by the
founder of our religion.  We can say that the Mormons do not seem to teach
the same faith because we can examine their teachings against the documented
teachings of our faith.  We can determine that they have several hundred
points of deviation from our teaching.  We can therefore say that they
do not teach Christian doctrine, AND THEY MAKE THE SAME DISTINCTION.

The Mormon church is called
	"The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints"

This indicates that THEY hold a schism to have occurred.  They claim that
they have the original, REAL word of God, and that the rest of us are
mistaken and have false doctrines taught by Paul and others introduced later
by the council at Nicea.  We claim that they have (at best) not-too-clever
imitations of scripture, given to them by a pair of con men.

The fundamental question of "are Mormons saved by their faith in Jesus"
is not really one I can answer;  I am not Jesus and I do not presume to
speak for Him in this case.  I HOPE they are saved.  I still think that
most of their doctrines are false.