Do you think of Mormons as Christians?

Mormons are a weird offshoot of Christianity and they've bolted a crazy new apparatus onto the main body of the church, but they retain enough of the basic features that it's hard for me to say they aren't Christians.

they redid the upholstery and added a few new wings

Was raised protestant, semi-evangelical and was told that Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses both weren't true Christians. At 16, I was dumb enough to express this opinion at a Mormon friend's house where I'd been invited for dinner—not to be argumentative, but because I had no filter between my brain and my mouth.

I don't really think about it anymore. Technically any followers of Christ are Christians, so who am I to say otherwise.

mormons r cool

I think just about every Mormon I currently know is lapsed, but they are cool.

christian scientologists

Nope. "Christian" is reserved for all those indistinguishable forms of Protestantism-- Anglicans, Presbyterians, United, Lutheran, etc. Mormons are... distinct. I love Mormons and the way they never curse

i don't know why you wouldn't say anyone who believes Christ is our lord and savior isn't a Christian. there's a lot of different subgroups in there, some more different from the rest than others, but it seems like splitting hairs to put them outside that category.

I don't see why not. They view themselves as the continuation/restoration of Christ's church.

The Q isn't "are Mormons Christians" but "do you think of them as Christians" and the answer is no, I think of them as hiking teetotal basketball-loving smile-bots living in the mountains and standing up at service to give testimony

And not allowing black ppl in

of course they are, who cares which of the splitters is right, except the splitters, of course

they allow black people in, now

My cursory knowledge of Mormon history remembers pro-abolitionism, and black people ordained as Mormon ministers during Smith's life, but who knows with those guys? If we're gonna talk about where the Mormons fucked up it starts and ends with women's rights

matthew 7:3-5

Yes. As an outsider to the whole thing, I don't split hairs over Papist vs Mormon vs etc. - if you believe in Jesus, you're in the club.

oh crabbits. saw this last night and thought of you.

and here we are, a perfect place for me to paste this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVxqS0Y-DtA

Surprise, surprise, a guest cameo appearance by a trampoline.

Yeah black ppl allowed in since 1978, sorry for my outdated prejudices Mormons

i'd never thought about this but i guess in some way i draw a mental distinction between "proper" Christians and Mormons, but on the other hand i'd say JWs were Christians so i don't know. Mormons seem nicer than JWs on the whole when they're trying to get me to join their gang

i don't know why you wouldn't say anyone who believes Christ is our lord and savior isn't a Christian. there's a lot of different subgroups in there, some more different from the rest than others, but it seems like splitting hairs to put them outside that category.

― some dude, Monday, September 1, 2014 12:18 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i agree with this

i think there's some kind of difference between "arguing the toss about the significance and meaning of the life of Jesus and the scriptures" and "making up a whole sequel so you're definitively right about everything" somehow

Esp. considering how aggressively (first through violence, then through economics) the Mormons distinguished themselves from non-Mormon Christians

http://www.aeroartinc.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/c/r/crusades-main.jpg

not sarcastic: I don't really have the tools, knowledge to get deep in this discussion, sorry for the snark jpg.

no, good charging, very fierce, inspirational

I don't, nor jws. barely rly extend it to prods tbph.

that's the spirit

begrudgery innit

are there any self-described christian ska bands that are chiefly composed of mormons?

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_-F6eUppXK3Q/S-IkQgKaDhI/AAAAAAAAAAw/Zc5zCwsp5dc/S1600-R/black.jpg

What the hell is a heck?

I just found out that my mixed race parents married in a Canadian Mormon Church in the early 60s, or at least some branch thereof.
My brother just found the announcement that was printed in the London Ontario paper when they announced the wedding.

Upstate New York in the 19th century sounds like quite the place.. The story about Joseph Smith and the urim and thummin aka mystic divination rocks is wild.

The Q isn't "are Mormons Christians" but "do you think of them as Christians" and the answer is no, I think of them as hiking teetotal basketball-loving smile-bots living in the mountains and standing up at service to give testimony

― faghetti (fgti), Monday, September 1, 2014 7:28 PM (2 hours ago)

yeah IDK I grew up Mormon (hey hey have you heard)
they very much think of themselves as Christian
they're quite defensive about it
during my childhood they changed the graphic design on their logo to really hammer home the Jesus Christ part of the official name no one calls them
http://www.aftermormonism.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/lds.gif
l, r – "I'm going through changes" – Ozzy

you would think all that indoctrination would keep me from being surprised when people think Mormons are not xtians, but it still surprises me every time
when I first moved to NM, people would always start out conversations with, "so, are you Catholic, or are you Christian?"
like – those are the only options?
and – isn't the first in the same category as the second?

yes it is

right?
it was weird

i was only introduced to the notion that protestant christians might not consider catholics christians in college. a muslim friend of mine grew up in evangelical stronghold wheaton, illinois and had some stories. it left a mark. i realize wars have been fought over this stuff, but having been raised Muslim i found it hard to take the apostasy of Catholics/Mormons/whatever Christian group seriously. believing in the divinity of Christ is p distinctive.

I like that first font a lot more. Can we pool religious logos?

poll sorry

I was dumb enough to express this opinion at a Mormon friend's house where I'd been invited for dinner

― Everyone's a closet ned. (Johnny Fever), Monday, 1 September 2014 19:36 (3 hours ago)

how do mormons react to being told they are not christians

turn the other cheek?

i am not sure i knew what Mormons were till high school and even then i didn't have a solid grasp, but when I learned about them i remembered TV commercials i had seen that were sponsored by the church of jesus christ of latter day saints. that was enough for me to categorize them as christians. from this heathen's perspective, if jesus is in the name of your religious organization, you're christian.

sing this song?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzGS_gooSxE

xp

the notion that mormons might not be christians isnt something that is particularly well known here
during the 2012 presidential election season it was noted extensively that the evangelical constituency of the republican party do not regard mormons as kindred

I think anybody who thinks that Jesus H. Christ is the lord and savior of humanity is a Christian, even if that personal also believes in magic hats and glasses, or numerous lesser deities disguised as saints, or that Wonderbread and grape juice can transmorgify into flesh and blood, or that the world will end when a giant hand closes a book in the sky.

I have Mormon relatives on my dad's side so they were just like my Baptist or Presbyterian relatives except my got in trouble if they drank caffeine.

i was only introduced to the notion that protestant christians might not consider catholics christians in college.

I first heard of this in the early '00s when a fundamentalist coworker of mine casually mentioned something about all Catholics going to hell because they weren't Christian, the way I might casually mention that the weather is supposed to cool down by the end of the week.

evangelicals are definitely the american christians that are most intense about policing the boundaries of christianity

xp

She also invited me to church for Easter and when I declined, she shrugged and said, "Well, I'd hate to look down from heaven to see you burning in hell, so I tried." Then she went back to work.

and the most earnest about telling young muslims they're going to hell, according to my friend. i grew up in super-Catholic Buffalo and nobody ever confronted me about my doom.

lol xp

I love how non-agonized people sound when they say that kind of thing.
xp

I had no idea that anyone didn't.

She even allowed me in her home for a Mary Kay makeover! I might be doomed to the fiery depths of hell after death, but my money still spends.

i was only introduced to the notion that protestant christians might not consider catholics christians in college.

Didn't know this either. Tbh, I never even really understood why Protestantism and Catholicism were supposed to be different 'religions', any more than Saivite Hinduism and Vaishnavite Hinduism are different religions.

asking always made the priests angry at school so I always asked

i read some old reviews of U2 that classified them as christian rock.

its fair imo

according to some catholic message board, 50% of U2 are catholic (so I guess 50% catholic is still christian rock)

according to a list of famous mormons: "The Aquabats are an eight-man band. Currently, 2 of the Aquabats are LDS: Christian Jacobs and Chad Larson, the bassist. They're both active and attend the same ward in Orange County, CA. Band member Travis Barker is not a member of the church.”

so maybe the answer to this hinges on whether the aquabats are considered christian rock?

Would put them in the category, but in quite a distinct part of it

alt Christian

I find all the extra or 'weird' or weird mythology they have really interesting, if nothing else when someone else's mythologies stick out like a sore thumb it makes me realise that I've also got extra and weird mythologies

As someone raised in a communist areligious household I do not think of Mormons as Christians

I don't really know the difference between Catholics and heist oaks either

Feel like if I chose one it'd be seventh day Adventists because it sounds cool and it also sounds like you're part of a secretive dentistry cabal

Do all Christians follow the pope?

Oops heist oak should = Christians

Do all Christians follow the pope?

Only those who subscribe to People magazine.

Feel like if I chose one it'd be seventh day Adventists because it sounds cool and it also sounds like you're part of a secretive dentistry cabal

haha I feel like I judge various xtian faiths on how restrictive or non-restrictive they are, and on various human rights things, and you managed to pick one of the few with even tighter moral dictums and restrictions than the LDS

Whenever I think of mormonismi think of Joseph smith and how he found some cool gold bars that told him it was okay to have lots of wives?

I guess that's all I really know about Mormons

Are seventh day Adventists really strict?? Like no root canals on the sabbath, under absolutely no circumstances nuh uh??

Christiancatholics are straight up haunted by Jesus other christians seem to think he was alright if a lil uptight

I think I might feel positively about then because they're all vegetarians and live incredible long?

iirc they and Mormons both are studied by eipdemiology because of their clean living, no smoking, no drinking ways
BUT seventh day adventists are vegetarians, which is not something I disagree with, but it IS an added layer of discipline
My sister was vegetarian for a while and my dad would FIGHT with her about it
"It says in The Bible: man has dominion over the animals!"
nb this is not mormon doctrine; just my dad being my dad

ha xp

my family were real dicks about my sister being veggie
my mom would say things like, "I put chicken stock in the soup and didn't tell your sister – that's why she liked it so much"

Like I know 'catholic guilt' is a thing but I have never heard of 'Christian guilt' so I did figure Catholics have more shame about everything

And it does seem like every person you hear about who saves themself for marriage is a catholic and never say a Presbyterian

well yeah course it seemed like that I spent puberty on an island full of catholics

Here is what I wonder about mostly when I think about religion

Why do some monks live austerely but other monks get to brew and sell beer and get drunk?

What's the difference between a priest and a minister? I gather the priest has to wear a collar and all black and it definitely is a cool looking collar

Relating to above

Why do some church speakers get to have wives and children but others have to be celibate

When a ventriloquist dies what happens to his dummy?

Actually that last one was answered by the Simpsons

it was pretty crazy taking my boyfriend of ~2 years who grew up Episocpal in AZ to go meet my Mormon family in ID
his dad is a pipe organist and played for a lot of liberal strains of protestant faiths
he has never really been outside Tucson (according to the phone book there are 4 Mormon church buildings in Tucson)
on the way up we listened to a Maron podcast where Maron mentioned having just been in SLC, which he called "America's only working theocracy"
which, if you're going to call a U.S. city formed and governed by its constituent post-second-great-awakening faith members as a majority, SLC is not the only city in that category (maybe not doing my argument any favors but clearwater, fla., would be un ejemplo)

anyway the first day we were there in idaho and utah he had a panic attack of culture shock
he was freaked out that it was mostly white people
he was freaked out that it was "run by a cult"
he found my family's wholesome mormonnness foreign
he found my dad offputting – my dad managed to tell some racist and violent story about "Indians" raping a woman in the oil town where he works in ND, because my dad is just tactless at best

he eventually calmed down and I introduced him to some non-white, non-mormon idahoans

but last night I asked him out of curiosity if he thought mormons were xtian and he said "no" after a lot of hemming and hawing
that's why i started this thread

don't think i met any mormons until college

my first was this super nice guy (hi mike!) who had the misfortune of spending freshman year in a triple with an in-your-face evangelical and an asian hip-hop dude

tbf i'd not really met those stereotypes previously either

Speaking of priest v minister, what about a reverend? And no pun in ten did, an abbot?

pretty sure that evangelical did not consider mormons christian. dunno about catholics, but in any case they were of course going to hell

Like I know 'catholic guilt' is a thing but I have never heard of 'Christian guilt' so I did figure Catholics have more shame about everything

Would 'what does Protestant guilt look like' be a good thread?

I roomed with a Mormon freshman year

We didn't talk about his faith much

He was and still is a smilebot

the south park guys defs nailed what mormon guilt looks like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNEh4bm6rNQ

protestant guilt is a vague feeling that historically ye did awful things to the Catholics and it manifests itself as social justice campaigns on the internet iirc

I mean pretty much?

do mormons consider jews catholic

The very last thing I know about religion is that I know what a catechism is because I read Ulysses / Gawker sports explanatories

do muslims consider mormons people of the book

never satisfactorily picked through catholic views on Jews but I guess its like eh having someone ahead of you for an uncertain inheritance or something idk

I don't know what the hell Protestants are so smug about -- they're going to hell.

good q mookie

where are ilx Muslims BTW I did wonder this the other day

feel like j-smitty had his vision on my birthday, but i could be remembering wrong

Scared off by mordy xp

donnie and marie halal-you-can-eat branson buffet would do a lot of bridge-building.

where are ilx Muslims BTW I did wonder this the other day

why did u killfile horseshoe

I wd never u brute

@ Crabbits :(

When I said upthread that I don't think of Mormons as Christians, and I think others mean the same, I was saying that Mormonism is unique enough to be its own defined belief, the same way I don't think of Unitarians as Christians, or Ba'hai as Muslims, and make distinctions between country and bluegrass, or whatever. Specificity, not "Mormons aren't Christians".

I can see where your bf's culture shock came from. For me I had culture shock when I went to visit my Mormon grandparents, but it was positive, just because I was suddenly the child of all the families on the block, always invited over for dinner or for football or to play Zelda. Even now when I visit friends in SLC I'm amazed at the level of openness and comfort my Mormon friends have in discussing really heavy shit, like a trans friend getting specific about what the church teaches about queerness, about his fears toward missing his family in the afterlife, and the line his family walks between acceptance and sorrow, which is such a complicated thought and one that could only come from that specific wholesome attitude.

mormons r cool

― the late great, Monday, September 1, 2014 9:04 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think just about every Mormon I currently know is lapsed, but they are cool.

― Everyone's a closet ned. (Johnny Fever), Monday, September 1, 2014 9:08 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Why are Mormons ~cool~ ? Why would one think of any denomination as cool?

I'm a Mormophile and find them cool bc either they don't drink at all and are fun to do non-drinky things with, or they are lapsed and do everything

everything?

Always thought it weird that LDS wards/churches don't feature crosses on display.

Then again, I grew up Catholic where anything less than an effigy of Christ with blood pouring out of his palms and eyes rolled back was considered a poor effort.

w/ johnny fever: i know a bunch of jack mormons (some of who may just be low-profile regular mormons), and they are awesome people. super friendly, huggy, tight-knit but welcoming, emotionally open to an almost startling degree. rockers.

i do think of mormons as christians, but also sufficiently unique in their faith to be somewhat separate from the generic mass of protestant and evangelical "christianity".

do muslims consider mormons people of the book

― mookieproof, Monday, September 1, 2014 7:58 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

can't really see why not. in sunday school growing up, no one ever went into details of protestants v catholics being people of the book, it was just christians and jews. (i think this is because nobody but christians cares that much about those divisions.)

honestly, i feel like Mormonism is not that different from certain versions of Islam. you can't drink alcohol, right? can you gamble? i feel like there's an austerity that's kindred.

i know that most mainstream LDS followers don't believe in polygamy (neither do mainstream Muslims) but that's another similarity.

the main values/social norms I retain from growing up mormon would be:
- a loathing/discomfort of gambling (which holds up – 'the house always wins')
– 'preparedness'
– feeling like your actions represent/are judged as some subsection of humanity...feeling like you are always under the microscope...but not in such a derisive way that it can't be counteracted with some 'how to win friends and influence people'/customer service attitude, which can certainly be disingenuous...not generalizing these things to anyone but myself
– oh also they put you up in front of everyone enough that you get sort of good at public speaking/presentation....

in the 'young women's' group as a teenager you had to set a goal that took 20 hours to achieve...I tried to argue my goal could be 'growing my hair out' and they did not fall for it

how much does mormonism represent a culture that has arised within the anglo-american population

not that mormons trace their ancestry exclusive from the british isles but those maps of ancestries most commonly represented in a county show show that utah is one of the few places in america outside of new england where the most common reported ancestry is english

and most of the mormon luminaries seem very anglo but in a way that is culturally distinct from other such populations in the east, or the scots-irish of the upland south

i don't see mormons as christians bc of some pretty essential theological differences. my cynical view of mormons and claiming "christian" status is that it makes it much easier for mormons to engage with potential converts. like, most ppl have some cultural affinity for christianity but no one wants to be told they're joining a weird sect.

as noted upthread, mormons are generally rejected by other protestant/evangelical denominations. where i am baptist/low anglican/independent evangelical churches are happy to share resources and in some cases accept ministers from another denomination's bible college. mormons, sevvies, roman catholics and the more "out there" pentecostals operate as independent enterprises.

i'm also surprised by the apparent general ignorance of the reformation itt. it's still kind of a big deal for a lot of people.

thot i covered that w/ 'splitters'

the mandatory missions are pretty aggressively spread all over the world.
maybe the success rate is not so good if the stars are still phenotypically osmond-esque?

'mission to burma' would be a good name for a post punk mormon band.

thot i covered that w/ 'splitters'
― j., Tuesday, September 2, 2014 1:33 PM

if you have any special insight i would sure love to hear it

no really, is there some special knowledge of the reformation you are expecting of people in 2014

no, no, no. a "splitter" is type of fastball thrown with a minimum of rotation so it has more erratic movement than a normal fastball.

no really, is there some special knowledge of the reformation you are expecting of people in 2014

― j., Tuesday, 2 September 2014 04:52 (17 minutes ago)

tough trying to win an argument about religion with a character from the old testament

feeling like your actions represent/are judged as some subsection of humanity...feeling like you are always under the microscope...but not in such a derisive way that it can't be counteracted with some 'how to win friends and influence people'/customer service attitude, which can certainly be disingenuous

Well now, this just has me thinking mormons are the same as Minnesotans, based on my Fargo-watching anyways.

Minnesotans are stereotypically Lutheran

'minnestoa nice' seems more like a reflection of nordic politeness / janteloven culture rather than a religiously infomed thing

mormons are or believe themselves to be 'under the microscope' because other people think of them as strange, possibly sinister, possibly heretical and beholden unto private hierachies and their values (parallels with the panic about jfk's allegiance to the pope in 1960)

that is, insofar as nordic culture is separable from its gloomy lutheran inheritance

Ime as an evangelical, Mormons and Witnesses were all considered equally heretical and not Christian (and therefore not Saved), with Seventh Day Adventists having a slight edge in respectability but if you talked to one you'd prob be expecting them to traipse off into some theological thicket that mainstream evangelicalism didn't teach.

Otoh Catholics were Christians but only if they were Saved, otherwise they were just fake Sunday Christians who didn't live their faith and you should urge them to accept Jesus.

^^

I personally consider Mormons to be Christians, though.

i think nakh is otm about utah and utah-settlement mormons representing a distinct branch of anglo immigration than what you might find elsewhere in the u.s. the civil war-era overland migration is still the source of a lot of new-birth identification among people here but as the rest of the country asserted itself the zion-founding heritage and impulse mostly mainstreamed along to larger power lines in the blinkered and naive way that can only come from the strange mix of self-righteous self-identification persecution entitlement plus ultimately favored supreme whiteness in the eyes of the larger culture, and by 'people' it is obv. very male-centered. the offshoots (flds, etc.) are re-fundamentalizations of the 'zion' story which show the audacity of the whole thing in the first place, oddly assembled 5000 sq ft complexes in small wayward towns "hidden" in the network of the west/southwest. this whole heritage is very mystical-phallic homosocial and misogynistic which i think explains the high-level homophobia in the church administration and the vibrant underground metal scene in salt lake city among other phenomena.

the 'christian' campaign which afaict originated in the 50s was an attempt by the church to break into the protestant power currents of the time, which of course they did through both sheer ability to remake themselves and their sheer anglo ancestry, although there is still a lot of self-protective denials of mormon christian-ness from strongly evangelical camps esp. in the south (xps). of course 'christian' is not about 'christ' as if it ever could have been, that stand-in from 2000 years ago.

I think they're Christians too. I'm not one to judge.

However, I completely see where the other side is coming from. I mean, you can't tack on your own books to the Bible. (Right, Jews?)

http://i.imgur.com/xsLfe4q.jpg

But in the end, it's like arguing whether or not "Trapper John MD" is part of "M*A*S*H" canon or not.

I consider Mormons, Catholics, etc. to be Christians. Raised protestant, in a swings-both-ways Methodist and Presbyterian congregation (I know, I know. How could you reconcile the differences?) that itself was housed in a larger interfaith center. So I was completely baffled the first time I heard someone ask "are you Catholic or are you Christian?" I wish I had paid more attention to whoever asked that. Seems like something you'd want to keep tabs on somebody about.

xp thought we had an arnold friberg thread that maybe anthony started, can't find it

The whole "Are Catholics Christian?" sub-question baffles me a little bit. There was a time when ALL so-called Christians were Catholic. You'll even catch some older Jewish folk refer to all followers of Christ as "Catholic".

I mean, the Catholic Church was founded by AN APOSTLE. Protestants came about because someone was into making his own flyers.

My friend's coworker is a sikh who moved to the US from Tanzania (with his family having moved there from India) around the time he turned 20 and occasionally he'll voice some odd assumption or observation he picked up from popular culture that isn't quite right. It took a lot of explanation to convince him that no, the mainstream Mormon church has not endorsed polygamy and has in fact condemned it since before 1900.

this kind of question exists strictly to cast out heretics and since I don't care about internecine squabbles of gentiles yes from my outsider POV anybody who believes any nonsense about Jesus/the New Testament is a Christian.

iirc pplains, Catholicism got corrupted somewhere between becoming the official religion of the Romans in 380 or so and the common era

something regarding the Borgias, maybe, hard to say

My POV (raised Protestant)is if you've got baptisms, communions, and New Testaments, then you're in the club!

this kind of question exists strictly to cast out heretics and since I don't care about internecine squabbles of gentiles yes from my outsider POV anybody who believes any nonsense about Jesus/the New Testament is a Christian.

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, September 2, 2014 12:42 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol how benevolent of you.

i was trying to think of a jewish analog to this kind of boundary-making identification but afaict jewish ethnic divisions are much older much more about family groups than ideological posturing. is there a modern equivalent in jewish culture i wonder.

idk do Xtians care if Orthodox Jews consider converted Reform Jews actual Jews? (they do not btw)

lol xp

I really can't conceive of a rationale for saying an individual who professes to be a Christian is somehow wrong or mistaken about that. Contrariwise, while I profess to be a Jew and was raised Jewish, some Orthodox Jews wouldn't consider me Jewish based on the rules of matrilineal descent (my mom isn't Jewish), and we're all familiar with the phenomenon of people who profess not to be Jewish being told that they are by various authorities (including Jewish ones).

i was trying to think of a jewish analog to this kind of boundary-making identification but afaict jewish ethnic divisions are much older much more about family groups than ideological posturing. is there a modern equivalent in jewish culture i wonder.

― mattresslessness, Tuesday, September 2, 2014 11:57 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's the "did you know [X famous person] is Jewish?" game.

my take is that if you're not of a religion, and someone says "I'm a <X>" then whatever, they can be whatever they say they are

if you're part of <X> then in some small way, everyone is doing <X> wrong and you can make whatever metrics you need to decide if they're actually <X>

Can I be a buddhist that eats brisket? That would be awesome!

I really can't conceive of a rationale for saying an individual who professes to be a Christian is somehow wrong or mistaken about that.

the rationale is that they're weird sicko heretics. duh

Up the heretics imo

here tics

*vapes*

this clip explains rationale p well imo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBKIyCbppfs

i was trying to think of a jewish analog to this kind of boundary-making identification but afaict jewish ethnic divisions are much older much more about family groups than ideological posturing. is there a modern equivalent in jewish culture i wonder.

i think this is chassidim v. misnagdim probably tho very few jews would say that the other isn't actually jewish.

and of course this is at play in conversions today - orthodox doesn't accept conservative conversations, conservative doesn't accept reform, reform probably accepts any conversion

When I was a fundamentalist, our youth group leader showed us Anti-Mormon propaganda and essentially told us to be 'closed-minded' to this un-Christian form of thinking. It wasn't until later that I learned 20% of the propaganda video was 20-30 years out of date. Not to say that the Mormon religion view on Blacks wasn't completely o_O anyway but there's a lot of that anti-Mormon sentiment still circulating more traditional forms of Christianity

if yr Christian upbringing was only 20 yrs out of date with crucial info you got off lightly son

lol

tbf religion in america remakes itself at like 100x the speed of the rest of the world

I don't remember seeing any anti-unitarian propaganda when I was a kid/christian. How did they get off so easy?

do you think of steve jobsians as christians? why yes i do, i am open-minded that way

there's a lot of that anti-Mormon sentiment still circulating more traditional forms of Christianity

if you're a non-Mormon Christian it seems to me like you should at least firmly believe that Mormons are going to Hell, but my ideas of Christianity come from Baptists + evangelicals + King James onlies, not huggy liberal all-inclusive new agey types

i went to a mainline methodist church as a kid, they mostly seemed to believe in agape. and youth groups.

yeah, i kind of self-raised myself Methodist and we seemed to be pretty chill and not much hell stuff in there

i found a thread for unitarian jokes on the simpsons, and they found over the expanse of the series, there were four.

I never even heard of Unitarians until I was an adult in NYC! My impression is that they're a Northeast thing?

lol my mother was raised Methodist and then decided it was too much about doing good in the world and not enough about one's personal relationship with Jesus Christ, ever-present in your heart. Sealed my fate right there.

iirc aside from their internal problems with splitters and all-includers and gradual disappearance due to indefinite vagueness, unitarians had a hard time weathering the periodic religious revivals over the 19th/20th c and u.s. expansion

i told my grandfather he was going to hell when i was like 5. grandmama was delighted.

i went to a unitarian congregation in slc once, i was very put off by the western white liberal subaru w obama sticker congregation and sermon, made me think of crazy grandpas with "get US out of the United Nations!" bumper stickers with fondness

lol otm

i sometimes think about going to a Unitarian meeting, they seem like people i'd vibe with, but i don't really want to tourist other people's faith so i dunno

My impression is that they're a Northeast thing?

My impression is that they're "always within a mile of a college campus" thing.

I can immediately think of where the Unitarian congregations meet in both my hometown and college town, and that's definitely true for the latter but not for the former. Definitely near a historically edgier neighborhood, though.

Both in the midwest, naturally

i sometimes think about going to a Unitarian meeting, they seem like people i'd vibe with, but i don't really want to tourist other people's faith so i dunno

Oh god no they'd fucking love it, seriously.

Talked about this elsewhere but I went to a Unitarian church here in Chicago for a little while. They were so earnest and sincere. It was really sweet, actually.

Then they had this dramatic internal rebellion against the minister because she talked about God and Jesus too much (lolllll Unitarians) and it got weird plus I stopped wanting to get up so early so I quit going.

"I'm here to talk to you....about God."
'AGAIN?'
"And our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."
'Can't we explore some of the ancillary characters for once?'

"Listen lady, stick to 'Spirit of Life' and we'll all get along just fine."

I tried attending a Unitarian church once a while back during a period when I was really lonely and looking for some community in my life. First sunday went okay. Second sunday the sermon was about tithing. Third sunday it was themed around the football and I just peaced.

i only went to church when there was free food eventually

and even then Swayzed out when the youth group leader began insisting a fucking baked potato was a *meal*

I mean, a baked potato will fill you up pretty good.

in my house they were sides. I mean I won't shit on a baked potato or nothin cos I fuckin love em but they're an "and" for me

Neither here nor there, but I was talking to someone recently who spent her freshman year of college at a midwestern liberal arts school that has some reformed church linkage (and iirc, a link to an ilxor) and she told me that her roommates sat her down and tried an intervention because her family was Catholic and they thought she was going to hell.

once she was at liberal arts school her card was well marked anyways I'd say

that kind of thinking is rampant. our youth group leader loudly pronounced one night that she didn't want any of us to be Catholics, only to have one of the attendees blow up because he was Catholic (not a member of the church, but an occasional visitor).

besides Hell is gonna be rad

hell is other potatoes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funeral_potatoes

^^^one of the best parts of my childhood years in Utah

I don't have any experience with Mormon communities outside the Big U. I wonder about the differences.

Oh wait I went to Colorado City once, but those folks are pretty far outside of mainstream Mormonism. It was fucking scary.

there's a unitarian church in cambridge, the vicar or whatever he is is very "I play the drums in a local combo" (he may actually play the drums in a local combo)

When it's not too hot to turn the oven on we have baked potatoes for dinner once every couple of weeks but we're atheists so it follows.

It took a lot of explanation to convince him that no, the mainstream Mormon church has not endorsed polygamy and has in fact condemned it since before 1900.

Guessing, but I reckon you'd find a lot of australians would think this of mormons too tbh.

plus I stopped wanting to get up so early so I quit going

Why I Am Not A Christian

(well, nearly everything else as well, but that is how my apostasy began)

yes, they are christian. in a way that will likely prevent me from ever identifying as christian.

sorta feel like christianity was a barely necessary condition for their foundation, imo. convenient foundation.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Neither here nor there, but I was talking to someone recently who spent her freshman year of college at a midwestern liberal arts school that has some reformed church linkage (and iirc, a link to an ilxor) and she told me that her roommates sat her down and tried an intervention because her family was Catholic and they thought she was going to hell.

― mh, Tuesday, 2 September 2014 23:43 (1 week ago) Permalink

lol

had a really funny & uncomfortable convo about the mormons two years ago. they say in business never talk about politics or religion. my group had a visit from our director, who was from india. we took him out for lunch, and all he wanted to know about was what was mitt romney about and what is this mormonism he has. so two lapsed lutherans an ex catholic and a practicing something-or-other (none fans of romney either) tried to explain this stuff to him with some fairness. eh, they mostly live out west, they have their own extra book of the bible, believe jesus came to north america at some pt, used to be okay w/ polygamy but they quit that a long time ago, great at sales etc.

the punchline is our director was from goa, and was portuguese catholic. we were mostly surprised he'd never heard of mormonism before until romney started making the US political news.

anyway, my answer is yes, but a little different, like

Always think of these little dudes though.

http://www.marmotpress.org/images/sittingMarmotL.jpg

Looks like he's chillin' in the light of Christ if you ask me.

I was wondering if you were going to find that comment!

There was a time when ALL so-called Christians were Catholic.

think you'd struggle to get this by anyone of orthodox bent. I'm fascinated by all the debates about christian lineages, schisms, offshoots etc. & love seeing the different family trees&timelines different groups put out as corrective propaganda. dogmatism is obv boring but the more subtle ways that the more liminal groups relate to wider/older communities&traditions is often v interesting, e.g. rastafarianism & the ethiopian orthodox church, haile selassie sending over a bishop to try to explain things, bob marley getting baptized &c.

Well, yeah. Those guys.

how can you take your clergy seriously if they don't wear hats?

http://powerpointparadise.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/OrthodoxGodfatherPatriarch_kirills_folding_cross.gif

There was a time when ALL so-called Christians were Catholic.

this is like the most roman catholic thing to say, ever

ok it took me like 5 loops to see what happened there, looool.

That gif is amazing.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

"Even the Church of Satan, claiming thousands of members worldwide, is quick to distance itself from the Satanic Temple, despite agreement on atheism, individualism and affinity for pentagrams.

“We see nothing of value in the actions of this handful of individuals,” High Priest Magus Peter Gilmore of the Church of Satan said in an e-mail.

He also said the Church of Satan only applies the term “Satanist” to itself; the others are called “devil worshipers or demonolators, not Satanists,” Gilmore said in the e-mail."

xpost onion thread http://www.freep.com/article/20140915/NEWS05/309150017/-Tea-party-Satanist-bristles-over-Detroit-temple-s-left-leaning-ways

prob mentioned this once or twice but I went to a Lutheran school for a few years (which turned out to be run by the farthest right of the Lutheran synods, mom just put me there because my cousins went there and she thought all Lutherans were like ELCA Lutherans) and during the section of religion class about cults we probably did a week about Mormonism and its evils

of course my snarky lil irreligious brain immediately started being fond of them as a result, whatever the screws said I thought the opposite, \m/

this was the same school where I so bravely argued against their ludicrous creation science textbooks, leading to schoolyard bullying over my belief in evolution

i was raised fundie christian and yeah i was told that mormons were blasphemous hellbound weirdos again and again. ii was pretty surprised when mitt romney won the republican nomination because i was sure that the christian right would never in a million years align behind a mormon, esp after all of the talk in GWB's heyday that directly named the republican party as the party that Jesus himself is rooting for and talks to personally. i think it only happened because the field was THAT weak. james dobson and co just kind of backed away slowly and waited for 2016.

also on norm macdonald's podcast larry king said that he is married to a devout mormon, even though he does not personally believe in the afterlife or god, and that they don't talk about religion. which was pretty unusual imo /ime.

didn't think intermarriage was a "thing" as far as Mormons who are in full standing with the church goes but what do I know

Mormons seem paradoxical like that. Obviously, they're all about spreading the word and knocking on doors and sealing marriages and keeping outsiders at arm's length. BUT, they've never seem too haughty about it. Like maybe they realize they'll look more attractive if they don't turn their nose up at non-LDS members drinking a coffee like the Baptists do if you happen to pull out a longneck at a tailgate?

I couldn't stand Romney. He may have been one of the most red-faced, short-tempered egomaniacs to run on his party's ticket in 35 years. BUT while he was getting pissy about corporations not being people or getting called two-faced on abortion, he had this amazing "Well okey-dokey!" attitude toward voters he'd meet who'd spew about his religion being an amoral cult set up by a false prophet. "Diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks, it's what makes America so strong amirite?"

Look up what the Mormons call "soaking" if you really want to dig how they try to get around staying sacred.

I've heard it called 'docking' but I think the non-mormon usage has eclipsed the mormon usage

Also Mormon bubbling

Hey, what happens on the trampoline is what happens on the trampoline.

http://i.imgur.com/gOqJJU8.png

Could the GOP have found anyone who looked more like Patrick Bateman? Good Lord.

It's like being made to play with kids you don't like: 'But Daaad, they're not even trinitarians!#