The LDS - there are also Mormons who are not LDS, including progressive offshoots like the Community of Christ - and JWs both meet the BITE model of describing cults. This is not to say that every individual LDS member or JW is personally endorsing such things, but the LDS in particular run Utah as a theocracy and have an outsized amount of power in the US as an organisation. Personally I find the LDS and Hegseth's church affiliation to be as unpleasant and cultish as each other. Cults absolutely exist within Christianity as well as outside it, and cults are primarily about behaviour rather than belief.
@Lamb Chopped which is pretty much what I was saying about the 'h' word and about Mormonism.
@stetson - I'm not sure I follow. A Zen Buddhist is a Buddhist. They aren't a 'different religion' to non-Zen Buddhists.
A Hindu is not valid Buddhist. They belong to a different religion.
A Presbyterian is a Christian. So is a Roman Catholic. They aren't members of different religions but different versions of the same faith.
And I'm saying that, in everyday conversation, I think it could be appropriate to describe eg. Roman Catholicism with the word "religion", depending on the nomenclatural assumptions of the discussants. If someone with a typical Ship-level of religious knowledge were to ask me in a private conversation "What was your mother's religion?", I might reply "Roman Catholicism", and know that he wouldn't assume I was talking about a separate entity from Christianity(like eg. Islam), but rather a subcategory of Christianity.
OTOH, if I saw a sentence in a textbook reading "The three major monotheistic religions are Judaism, Christianity, and Islam", I would not think "Hey, what about Catholicism? There are more Catholics than Jews in the world." Because I would know that "religion" was being used there in a way that excluded subcategories.
The question of whether Mormonism qualifies as Christian is a separate one. If it DOES so qualify, then I think it's subject to the same informal situational rules as Catholicism in my example.
And FWIW...
If Christianity is a religion, but not Catholicism, Lutheranism etc, what about the phrase "the European wars of religion"? Should that actually be "the European wars of religious subcategories"?
The LDS - there are also Mormons who are not LDS, including progressive offshoots like the Community of Christ - and JWs both meet the BITE model of describing cults. This is not to say that every individual LDS member or JW is personally endorsing such things, but the LDS in particular run Utah as a theocracy and have an outsized amount of power in the US as an organization.
Are the points about the Utah theocracy and outsized Mormon power in the US meant to demonstrate the previous statement that Mormonism is a cult?
@Pomona what does BITE stand for please? As it is an ordinary word that means what one's teeth do, I could not find any other meaning by searching.
Although Christians have been all too ready to throw the charge of heresy and the accusation of heretic at each other, and for a long time, to my reckoning most of us in our separate ecclesiological households vis à vis each other are schismatic, even the ones who proclaim that everyone else is either schismatic or heretical except them.
I get the impression that culthood, though, is something that people can stray into without deviating into heresy at all.
I don't know much about the Mormons and have not studied them. Are they Christians who are a bit weird, or have they gone so far into weirdness that they aren't quite Christians at all? The Lord knows and I don't. I am under the impression the JWs are Arians.
@Lamb Chopped which is pretty much what I was saying about the 'h' word and about Mormonism.
@stetson - I'm not sure I follow. A Zen Buddhist is a Buddhist. They aren't a 'different religion' to non-Zen Buddhists.
A Hindu is not valid Buddhist. They belong to a different religion.
A Presbyterian is a Christian. So is a Roman Catholic. They aren't members of different religions but different versions of the same faith.
And I'm saying that, in everyday conversation, I think it could be appropriate to describe eg. Roman Catholicism with the word "religion", depending on the nomenclatural assumptions of the discussants. If someone with a typical Ship-level of religious knowledge were to ask me in a private conversation "What was your mother's religion?", I might reply "Roman Catholicism", and know that he wouldn't assume I was talking about a separate entity from Christianity(like eg. Islam), but rather a subcategory of Christianity.
OTOH, if I saw a sentence in a textbook reading "The three major monotheistic religions are Judaism, Christianity, and Islam", I would not think "Hey, what about Catholicism? There are more Catholics than Jews in the world." Because I would know that "religion" was being used there in a way that excluded subcategories.
The question of whether Mormonism qualifies as Christian is a separate one. If it DOES so qualify, then I think it's subject to the same informal situational rules as Catholicism in my example.
And FWIW...
If Christianity is a religion, but not Catholicism, Lutheranism etc, what about the phrase "the European wars of religion"? Should that actually be "the European wars of religious subcategories"?
'Wars of religion' = 'Wars about religion.'
Lutheranism isn't a religion, Christianity is a religion. Lutheranism is a subcategory within that.
You know that. I don't understand the point you are making.
I don't know much about the Mormons and have not studied them. Are they Christians who are a bit weird, or have they gone so far into weirdness that they aren't quite Christians at all?
There's a cartoon on YouTube, admittedly produced by anti-Mormon fundies, which details their heterodox beliefs. Just type in "anti-Mormon cartoon", and try to find the shorter version, since the longer one includes parts of the larger documentary it was originally part of(though the cartoon isn't hard to find on that one, either).
[quot]I am under the impression the JWs are Arians.[/quote]
Basically, yes, though I don't know if they explicitly cite Arius as a forebear. I'm sure the higher-ups know the Council of Nicea to be an abomination, but I don't how completely that's explained to members.
There's an anti-JW cartoon similar to the anti-Mormon one, also on YouTube. Same sorta format, but different narrator.
As I understand it, Mormonism believes that God's plan is for the faithful to become gods exactly like himself, and therefore God is potentially not unique. According to Wikipedia many Mormons, including Joseph Smith, have speculated that God is a successful graduate of the previous iteration, who built the world from preexisting matter rather than created it ex nihilo. Anyway, their doctrine of the Trinity is entirely tritheistic: they think the Trinity are three separate entities.
@Pomona what does BITE stand for please? As it is an ordinary word that means what one's teeth do, I could not find any other meaning by searching.
Although Christians have been all too ready to throw the charge of heresy and the accusation of heretic at each other, and for a long time, to my reckoning most of us in our separate ecclesiological households vis à vis each other are schismatic, even the ones who proclaim that everyone else is either schismatic or heretical except them.
I get the impression that culthood, though, is something that people can stray into without deviating into heresy at all.
I don't know much about the Mormons and have not studied them. Are they Christians who are a bit weird, or have they gone so far into weirdness that they aren't quite Christians at all? The Lord knows and I don't. I am under the impression the JWs are Arians.
Googling my precise wording, "the BITE model" immediately brought up multipleresults. Did you search for "BITE" or "bite"? BITE isn't something a mouth does.
The LDS - there are also Mormons who are not LDS, including progressive offshoots like the Community of Christ - and JWs both meet the BITE model of describing cults. This is not to say that every individual LDS member or JW is personally endorsing such things, but the LDS in particular run Utah as a theocracy and have an outsized amount of power in the US as an organization.
Are the points about the Utah theocracy and outsized Mormon power in the US meant to demonstrate the previous statement that Mormonism is a cult?
I specifically said that Mormonism meets the criteria in the BITE model. Running Utah as a theocracy and having an outsized influence in the US is, I suppose, part of the outworkings of their cultic behaviour.
A really quick run-down of the basic Mormon beliefs. Keep in mind that your average "Jack Mormon" as they call them may be unaware of some of these, or have forgotten them. There is a kind of "hidden knowledge" thing going on for those who qualify. Which is quite a few people, but they don't generally talk about these things publicly to others who have not qualified (the terms are "having a Temple recommend" and "receiving one's endowments.")
First of all, the Mormon religion is polytheist. There are theoretically an infinity of gods and goddesses, though there are only three "with whom we have to do"--that is, the Father, Son and Spirit. (These are three separate entities possessing bodies. My understanding is that the Father is said to have physically impregnated Mary to cause her to conceive Jesus.)
The reason for the polytheism is that in the Mormon scheme, those who believe and do what they ought will eventually die and become gods themselves (or goddesses, gender continues after death--as does marriage if you perform the right rites). This is the third heaven, and it is open to those who go through the Temple initation, keep in good standing (a financial audit of one's tithing is involved, I understand--they don't just trust you on that). You also have to be married (to at least two women, living or dead, if you are a man). To a Mormon man, if you are a woman. The man is responsible for raising his wives from the dead at the appropriate time.
The polygamy thing caused no end of trouble for the Mormons with the United States, especially when Utah was seeking statehood. It was resolved by most Mormons by putting off the actual polygamous living till the afterlife. (A few small and usually isolated sects kept the requirement in this life, and periodically one of these groups hits the news, usually for child marriage and abuse.) Thus a man who needs an extra wife (or simply wants to) may be "sealed" to a woman, living or dead, and she is then considered to be his wife in the afterlife. This is one of the drivers behind the Mormon fascination with genealogy--not just their own but everybody's. The dead can be and are baptized by proxy into Mormonism, and may be endowed, sealed, etc. by proxy as well. This is a way of ensuring their salvation, no matter what they believed in life.
Men who reach god status require many polygamous goddess wives because at this point, they acquire a planet of their own and must begin to people it with human beings. This is done by first begetting/bearing "spirit babies," the first of whom is supposed to be the Savior of that world (example in this world: Jesus). Each of these spirit babies is later conceived physically and born into this world as an embodied human being--hopefully as a Mormon. What they do in this life affects their own ability to become a god or goddess in the future, with their own planet.
AS you can imagine, the polygamous goddess wives are perpetually pregnant (darn these p's!) and share one husband and his planet. There is some relationship between the god/a goddess and the planet's version of Adam and Eve, but it's rather murky--at least, there seem to have been a few different views at different times.
Okay, so what does this all mean for people in this life? It means that, if you become a Mormon, all males age twelve and up hold the Aaronic priesthood, a status that conveys the ability to bless and to preach. (Male teens learn to give "temple talks," which seem to be a kind of short moral sermon.) At either 18 or 21 (can't recall) men also receive a priesthood after the order of Melchizedek, they say. Women cannot hold priesthoods. There are no clergy of the sort most Christians are familiar with, but there are administrative and political type figures over various divisions of the church--and the highest is the so-called "living prophet," who is supposed to be in direct contact with God and who can hand down new revelations (and change doctrine) at any time.
When a Mormon reaches adulthood, provided he or she is in good standing (which includes demonstrating that one is giving at least 10 percent of one's income), then one can apply for a Temple recommend. This entitles the bearer to enter the local Mormon Temple and participate in the secret ceremonies there (called "receiving one's endowments"), which are supposed to convey certain blessings and powers. One watches a drama, receives a secret name, goes through a semi-Masonic ceremony, and may get baptized and/or married during this time. Non-Mormons or those not in good standing may not attend. Marriages performed in the Temple are said to be eternal, while ordinary ones are for this life alone. Some Mormons will go to the Temple many times, and will be baptized, married, etc. on behalf of dead individuals who have been identified as part of their genealogical research. They don't seek permission from descendants or anybody--they just go ahead and posthumously "convert" them, which makes some people angry.
Mormons who have gone through this ceremony are supposed to wear temple garments under their ordinary daily clothes. These look rather like long underwear that has had certain mystic marks made on it. Some fashion-minded Mormons have a bit of difficulty making this requirement work in daily life, and I don't blame them. There is a folk belief (don't know if it's officially encouraged) that wearing one's holy underwear is a guard against accidents and sudden death.
Mormonism possesses five holy books, I think it is, although these don't hold anything like the same normative status the Bible holds in most Christian denominations. Allegedly the Book of Mormon was delivered to founder Joseph Smith on golden plates, which are no longer available. They believe that Jesus Christ came to America after his resurrection, and that there were various civilizations here that were connected to the Jews (I think this is a "ten lost tribes" kind of thing). Research into their books and the history of the texts is firmly discouraged. The Bible holds a degraded status in their eyes--they see some good in it, but the other books take precedence. (Anyone who reads the Book of Mormon can see for him/herself just how much of it is plagiarized from the Old Testament.)
Salvation (if we can call it that) means getting to the highest of the three heavens (the "celestial heaven") and becoming a god. If you make it only to the lowest, you end up as a servant to the higher people for eternity. This is called the "telestial heaven." There's an in-between heaven called the "terrestrial heaven," but I can't recall anything in particular about it.
Salvation is definitely by works, not by grace or through faith. One must do the right things, which involves obeying the church hierarchy. The church is very set on proselytizing, and young men (a few women, I believe) are encouraged to serve as missionaries for two years when they are missionary age. I believe this is usually done at one's own expense.
There is a fairly recent history of racism, whereby black people (and really all non-whites, I think) were not allowed to hold the priesthoods from which all spiritual power flows. This meant essentially remaining a child forever. There was a "revelation" to the then-current "living prophet" which changed this and opened the priesthoods to all males, I believe in the 1970s.
I think this is the basics. The polytheism alone would take Mormonism out of Christianity.
Wow! Thank you @Lamb Chopped. That's much weirder than I realised. It makes some of the odder forms of Gnosticism seem quite tame.
There may have been one or two others over the years, but I have only recollections of having met three Mormons. Two were a pair of young men from, I assume, Salt Lake City, one cold winter's evening which was not conducive to conversation and the third was someone I encountered the Thursday before last. There are not that many round here.
@Pomona it would have helped if you could have explained that when you first mentioned it. I would be surprised if I was the only one who had never heard of BITE before. Even following your link I am not sure that it has got me any further or made me any wiser. Is it something most people other than me have heard of?
Running Utah as a theocracy and having an outsized influence in the US is, I suppose, part of the outworkings of their cultic behaviour.
I'd say only in the sense that they are a group who happen to be a cult, whose doings gave them a lot of political power. But I don't think a faith has to be cultic in order to achieve that.
Christianity in post-Constantinian Rome(to take the ur-case in the west) enjoyed a lot of political influence and privileges, but it had been awhile, I think, since it could have been labelled a "cult" in the modern sociological sense.
I would be surprised if I was the only one who had never heard of BITE before.
I'd never heard of BITE, but I knew Steve Hassan by name and general reputation via perusing the general anti-cult vs. anti-anti-cult debate in both the analog and on-line media. Having clear memories of the glory-days of "deprogrammers" getting lauded in the media as semi-legit law enforcers(before getting their asses sued off by "deprogramees" who actually DIDN'T come around to their family's POV; there was a Barney Miller episode about that), I do approach the beliefs and practices of the anti-cult lobby with an extra layer of skepticism. Which doesn't mean they can't be informative.
If eg. the Moonies are pulling people away from their families and funding right-wing lobby groups, that's useful to know about. I am somewhat less enamoured of targeting individual converts for reclamation(apart from everyday persuasion techniques), especially when motivated by the idea that the converts lacked free agency in deciding to join.
Wow! Thank you @Lamb Chopped. That's much weirder than I realised. It makes some of the odder forms of Gnosticism seem quite tame.
There may have been one or two others over the years, but I have only recollections of having met three Mormons. Two were a pair of young men from, I assume, Salt Lake City, one cold winter's evening which was not conducive to conversation and the third was someone I encountered the Thursday before last. There are not that many round here.
@Pomona it would have helped if you could have explained that when you first mentioned it. I would be surprised if I was the only one who had never heard of BITE before. Even following your link I am not sure that it has got me any further or made me any wiser. Is it something most people other than me have heard of?
Could you explain what it is specifically that you are struggling to understand? Also sorry, I always use the specific wording used when searching online so assumed that everyone did - an acronym is obviously not the same as a regular word.
Funnily enough, there used to be quite a moral panic over Mormonism in the UK - for example, you can find references to this in Sherlock Holmes - and Preston (of all places) is the spiritual home of the LDS here as it's the nearest town to where the first Mormon missionaries here landed. As a result you get quite a lot around the NW of England. Mormonism caught on in the UK via the temperance movement, Mormons being strictly teetotal and also abstaining from coffee and tea (but not caffeine in cola, or caffeine in hot chocolate....). Winston Churchill as a Liberal MP even asked a question in Parliament on "the Mormon question".
@Lamb Chopped per my formerly-Mormon friend from Utah (with a caveat that Utah Mormons are a whole other breed in terms of strictness), missions are now near-mandatory for girls as well. And there is no choosing where you go on mission, so some unfortunate souls get given mission fields in already majority-Mormon areas. For those unaware, the US Mormon Belt extends beyond Utah but also covers southern California, Nevada, and Idaho. Those who remember California's Prop 8 vote may remember the heavy Mormon campaigning on the issue.
Utah as a whole is actually only 40% practicing Mormons, which is a big part of the problem - the 40% includes the wealthiest and most powerful ones who then basically run the whole state. They also make life very difficult for the Native tribes living in Utah.
Winton Churchill as a Liberal MP even asked a question in Parliament on "the Mormon question".
William Lyon Mackenzie, a prominent republican agitator in mid-C19 Upper Canada, defended Mormons(pre-Utah settlement) against the sectarian tyranny of the Tory-Anglican elite. Apparently he is well-regarded for this among certain academic circles in Utah.
the US Mormon Belt extends beyond Utah but also covers southern California, Nevada, and Idaho.
And one of the last holdouts for the schismatic polygamists in the FLDS was the region containing southern Alberta and southeastern British Columbia, the latter of which still had active polygamy going at least as recently as a decade or so ago, maybe still does. It's been harder than you might think for the authorities to find a way to shut them down under the law as written.
It's been harder than you might think for the authorities to find a way to shut them down under the law as written.
Just re-checking the history, and yes, after challenges to the law going all the way to the SCOC, a prominent FLDS leader from the southeast BC community was convicted of polygamy in 2017. I'd probably assume that shut down the practice generally in the area, but I honestly don't know.
To the extent that the military's classifications of religions have a use, it is to determine which members of the military are willing to accept the ministry of which chaplains.
I'm an Episcopalian. Naturally, I would prefer a priest of my own tradition. If one wasn't available, I'd prefer an ELCA pastor. Next on the list would be a Catholic, Presbyterian, or UMC. I'd choose the Rabbi or the Imam before I chose the Mormon or the Jehovah's Witness.
Note that the religion classifications were probably more use for the chaplains in figuring out what resources were needed. Got a certain number of mainline Protestants make sure you have a mainline Protestant Easter service in a room big enough to hold them, same for Evangelical Christians, Catholics, etc. The new system merges all the Lutherans together, all the Episcopalian/Anglicans together, all the Presbyterians together, and the United Church of Christ is now under "other religion". There is no easy way of knowing how many mainline Protestant Christians might be at that service unless there hasn't been much changeover since the last major Christian holiday. Other religions category besides including the United Church of Christ also includes Native American religions, Humanism, Unitarian Universalist Association, Wicca.
Note that the religion classifications were probably more use for the chaplains in figuring out what resources were needed. Got a certain number of mainline Protestants make sure you have a mainline Protestant Easter service in a room big enough to hold them, same for Evangelical Christians, Catholics, etc. The new system merges all the Lutherans together, all the Episcopalian/Anglicans together, all the Presbyterians together, and the United Church of Christ is now under "other religion". There is no easy way of knowing how many mainline Protestant Christians might be at that service unless there hasn't been much changeover since the last major Christian holiday.
So, if Mormons had been specifically declassified from "Christian" status, could that actually have worked to their advantage? Because they wouldn't have had the annoyance of getting invited to a bunch of ecumenical services they probably wouldn't wanna attend anyway.
For those unaware, the US Mormon Belt extends beyond Utah but also covers southern California, Nevada, and Idaho. Those who remember California's Prop 8 vote may remember the heavy Mormon campaigning on the issue.
Ugh, yes, the Mormons and the Knights of Columbus gave loads of money. The Mormons were investigated for some kind of shenanigans in their campaign financing, if memory serves. I volunteered on the anti-8 campaign. A real heartbreaker. We spent so much time just explaining to our voters that a No vote was a Yes for marriage equality.
I feel like there are fewer Mormons in SoCal than there used to be, but I haven't looked at numbers.
We spent so much time just explaining to our voters that a No vote was a Yes for marriage equality.
In the late 1970s, my hometown had a plebiscite on building a new convention centre. The question was worded in such a way that if you wanted the convention center to be built, you should vote "No", prompting the No side to adopt the slogan "NO MEANS GO".
As a useless piece of information aside, Chorley in Lancashire is the unlikely location for the big Mormon Temple here in the UK and it's very close to Preston.
Oddly enough, although they initially concentrated their efforts in the north-west of England the first Mormon congregation here emerged many miles to the south in the even more unlikely Ledbury in rural Herefordshire.
As well as the Temperance issue, which @Pomona mentions there was also a sense of them tapping into concerns as to which of the competing Protestant groups was the 'real deal' - what was the 'True Church'?
With memories of sectarian conflict from previous centuries, competing revivalist groups and the emergence of 'denominationalism' as we understand it today, someone presenting something new and different- however weird and exotic - was going to get a hearing.
Even in rural Herefordshire.
For different reasons, Mormonism flourished in some parts of the Pacific due to its genealogical emphases and polytheism.
There's an LDS church a few miles from here and we get their missionaries around now and again.
The estranged wife of our local GP caused a stir by becoming Mormon when I was a kid. It was seen as very weird.
JWs were and are more common, I think but the number of Mormons in the UK is higher than might be imagined.
"Heresy" (Note I did NOT say "heretic", which gets a bit more emotionally charged, as it describes a person, not a belief) is in my post a technical term from the field of theology. It refers to a doctrine or system of doctrines that had its origin in orthodox Christianity (or Judaism, etc.) and then veered so far away from its roots that it no longer qualifies to be considered Christianity. In other words, it is not a mere variant, like the thousands of denominations around the world. It's a new thing, though with Christian roots.
I am aware that plenty of people use "heretic" as a pejorative. This is doing everybody a disservice, as it takes a useful word and ruins it for the purpose it was developed for.
I can't work out what you mean by that.
Christian heresies were criminalised in the year 380. Before that, in the 2nd Century, Irenaeus was writing against heresies and against heretics. Heresies and heretics have long been seen as a threat to orthodoxy.
The idea that the field of Christian endeavour called "theology" has preserved a distinct, technical, non-pejorative usage of "heresy" and "heretic" for getting on for 2000 years seems unlikely.
I'd agree that it's difficult - if not impossible - to use the terms 'heresy' and 'heretic' in a non-pejorative way - which is why I tend to use them sparingly.
I do think it's possible to 'play the ball and not the man,' as it were (apologies for the non-inclusive term) though. To say that Mormonism is heretical from a conventional, traditional, historic creedal Christian stand-point, isn't to make a moral judgement on individual Mormons. The may well be lovely and wonderful people but their belief system is wonky from the stand-point of historic creedal Christianity.
As an aside, I would place many if not most most 'non-creedal' Protestant groups within the over-arching umbrella of 'creedal Christianity' even if they don't explicitly avow the historic creeds. To all intents and purposes most of them accept the Nicene formularies even if they don't post them on their websites or recite creeds in their services.
This thread is about Hegseth and most if not all of us here seem to have a perjorative view of him. Which is fair enough. He's done very little to endear himself to those outside of his particular world-view or who share his underlying assumptions in a more 'secular' way, if we can put it like that, without signing up to his particular brand of ultra-conservative neo-Calvinism.
Polemicists of all stripes can veer into ugly territory.
I'd apply that to those within my own Tradition who spend their time online slagging off everyone else and picking fights with anyone within their own camp who differs from them on issues like rubrics, calendars, snippets of dill, rue and cumin ...
Anti-Mormon and anti-JW ranters from the Protestant fundamentalist side of things can be equally unattractive.
I'm always wary of the 'N' word too. I know some Orthodox zealots who'd apply the charge of Nestorianism willy-nilly to almost anyone and everyone, particularly Protestants.
I just have to take a moment to rejoice in a message board where the "N" word refers to Nestorianism. Praise the Lord!
Sounds quite possible, based on my observations elsewhere, though it's interesting, since JWism requires a far higher degree of social segregation than does Mormonism. I expect there's a study somewhere on what precise psychological needs are met among those who make the choice to "cross Brooklyn Bridge".
I could make a few observational comments on the demographic, but nothing scientific.
One of the reasons why Christian fundamentalists get so hot under the collar about Mormons and JWs, I think, is because they all tend to draw from a similar demographic irrespective of the theology involved.
That's not the only reason of course but highly conservative evangelicals are more likely to run into JWs and Mormons than people from other Christian traditions here in the UK is that they tend to 'door knock' and evangelise in the same sort of neighbourhoods - or did so when 'door knocking' was more common than it is now.
That's not to say that people from other churches don't run into them from time to time but back in my charismatic evangelical days I used to debate with JWs fairly regularly and also with Mormon missionaries from time to time.
I'm always wary of the 'N' word too. I know some Orthodox zealots who'd apply the charge of Nestorianism willy-nilly to almost anyone and everyone, particularly Protestants.
I just have to take a moment to rejoice in a message board where the "N" word refers to Nestorianism. Praise the Lord!
I think it's a historical reality that the words "heretic" and "heresy" were commonly found together with words like "burn", "persecute", "denounce", "condemn" and "Hell", so it'd be quite an achievement to use it in a value-neutral non-judgemental way.
I doubt any committed believer is going to use them in a completely neutral way. I mean, does a doctor use "cancer" (excuse me, "neoplasm") in a neutral way? But then, it's entirely possible to refer to the belief system with ... negative feelings, while treating the people involved with positive feelings. I mean, I do, because I've got any number of such people in my own family, let alone among my friends. (Not specifically Mormons--rather people of non-Christian belief systems.)
But getting back to the theologians. I've been privileged to study with some of the best, and yes, they treated the various heresies the same way a doctor might classify neoplasms, or an ecologist might analyze the various threats a particular ecosystem is under (pollutants, erosion, population pressure, etc.) The term exists for the sake of classification; it's much easier to say "Such-and-such was a fourth-century heresy" than to say, "Such-and-such--well, it wasn't Christian, though it arose among the Christians, but it took a real left turn when it came to its view of Christ and the two natures..." etc. etc. etc.
And I've not met a theologian yet (I mean a real one, a teacher, not some media-driven loudmouth) who treated those believing in various heresies with any less compassion than doctors show to cancer patients. I'm sure such people exist--but they are not the primary reason the word was invented.
I believe Hegseth's spiritual advisor is Pastor Doug Wilson, a founder of the church Hegseth is part of. Wilson is fairly clear on Mormons as holding a 'non-Christian faith'.
Wilson is also a proponent of the proposition to repeal the Bill or legislation for permitting women to vote. 'Women are the kind of people who people come out of' is a direct quote from the learned gentleman, who sits at the elbow of the Secretary for Defense/War.
One of the reasons why Christian fundamentalists get so hot under the collar about Mormons and JWs, I think, is because they all tend to draw from a similar demographic irrespective of the theology involved.
Yeah. But conservative calvinists also compete for adherents with conservative Baptists, but I don't really recall the "heresy" section of many Christian bookstores extensively stocking paperback exposés of Baptists. I think there is something about the theology of the Mormons and the JWs that gets those particular competitors perceived as an extra-awful threat. Same with Jack Chick tracts(though he does put Catholicism on the irredeemable side, unlike a lot of other contemporary Protestant heresy hunters).
Your Christian bookstores have a heresy section???? !!!
Well, not called by that name, but...yeah. Some of them, anyway.
Maybe you know the old series from Concordia, with a buncha titles on the model of "How To Respond To...", eg. "How To Respond To The Lodge", "How To Respond To Eastern Religions"? I think Mormons and Jehovahs Witnesses also merited their own anti-chatecisms, but maybe a lot of the newer outfits were just lumped in with "How To Respond To Cults".
Those seemed ubiquitous at the Christian bookstores, plus stand-alone books criticizing Mormons, JWs, cults generally etc. And, yeah, at least one or two shops I remember as having them all housed in one section. Not sure what they called that section, or if the theme was just supposed to be obvious.
CPH's site shows the books in the third edition formatted as...
THE [ERRONEOUS BELIEF SYSTEM]
HOW T0 RESPOND
With installments for "The Cults", The Lodge", "Jehovah's Witnesses", "The Mormons", "Muslims", "Satanism", The New Age Movement", and "Judaism".
I should admit that I never gave any of these more than a quick browse, if that, but until shown otherwise will continue to assume the treatment of the subject matter was polite but negative.
It was, I’ve read them. More or less designed for people who has family members join said groups, or churches where a new temple of whatever had just gone up next door, that sort of thing. The idea is that it’s far better to get correct information about the group than to have nothing to rely on but wild stories from your next door neighbor—or these days, social media.
As I recall, the tone was almost completely informative, certainly not combative. The goal was to leave the reader correctly informed, so that when they came into conversation with such groups, they would not be misled. Given the deceptive presentations that some such groups get up to (such as Scientology presenting itself as a form of psychology, or the current Mormon thing of claiming to be just another kind of Christian—a real turnaround from their historic position!) its goood to know what you’re dealing with.
It was, I’ve read them. More or less designed for people who has family members join said groups, or churches where a new temple of whatever had just gone up next door, that sort of thing. The idea is that it’s far better to get correct information about the group than to have nothing to rely on but wild stories from your next door neighbor—or these days, social media.
As I recall, the tone was almost completely informative, certainly not combative. The goal was to leave the reader correctly informed, so that when they came into conversation with such groups, they would not be misled. Given the deceptive presentations that some such groups get up to (such as Scientology presenting itself as a form of psychology, or the current Mormon thing of claiming to be just another kind of Christian—a real turnaround from their historic position!) its goood to know what you’re dealing with.
Thanks!
Yeah, going by the model for the naming, I guess the books were supposed to be read by people who wanted to dissuade others from joining, rather than given to potential joiners for the purpose of showing them why the group in question was bad.
Though assuming the books contained sufficient negative info about the various groups, I'd imagine they could serve the second purpose as well.
FWIW I've heard that some book-stalls in cathedrals, churches and monasteries in some majority Orthodox countries have books tracts and pamphlets about the errors and 'heresies' of Protestantism and Roman Catholicism.
I've met Eastern Europeans who don't appear to differentiate between JWs and Baptists, for instance. They lump them both together in the 'cult' category.
At the same time, Greek or Russian translations of some Protestant fundamentalist books will appear elsewhere on the shelves of those same bookstalls no questions asked and alongside material from impeccably Orthodox sources.
Loud-mouth ranty material tends to be gaining traction, I'm afraid.
We had an egregious incident when a wild and woolly new convert upset some RC and Anglican friends by posting anti-ecumenical and anti-Papal responses to a piece on our parish FB page about Pope Leo praying with the Ecumenical Patriarch.
'We are supposed to pray for our enemies, not with them,' he ranted. Fortunately his comments, which became more extreme, were deleted and some of us have tried to put things straight with those upset by it.
I'm sure @Lamb Chopped is right that the theologians she's mentioned don't go in for ranty stuff, but how much 'reach' do these theologians have with the people in the pews as it were?
There can be a tendency for all of us to define ourselves over against other groups. Heck, I've even known Quakers make snide remarks about other groups and one instance where a Friend harangued an Anglican vicar on train for wearing a dog collar and demanding unquestioning loyalty and submission from his parishioners.
'If only that were the case,' he responded drily.
Every group sets boundaries as to what does or doesn't fall within its accepted and agreed beliefs. Heck, non-creedal churches do that as well so those who formally adhere to the historic Creeds.
How we 'police' or guard those boundaries without bad-mouthing, anathematising or persecuting those we consider outside those parameters is the issue.
And it's perfectly possible to behave in a cultic way whilst not being in something generally considered to be a cult.
As a lovely local URC minister said to me recently "When Christians are in a minority and have their backs to the wall, it is better to work with each other than against each other."
I doubt any committed believer is going to use them in a completely neutral way. I mean, does a doctor use "cancer" (excuse me, "neoplasm") in a neutral way? But then, it's entirely possible to refer to the belief system with ... negative feelings, while treating the people involved with positive feelings. I mean, I do, because I've got any number of such people in my own family, let alone among my friends. (Not specifically Mormons--rather people of non-Christian belief systems.)
But getting back to the theologians. I've been privileged to study with some of the best, and yes, they treated the various heresies the same way a doctor might classify neoplasms, or an ecologist might analyze the various threats a particular ecosystem is under (pollutants, erosion, population pressure, etc.) The term exists for the sake of classification; it's much easier to say "Such-and-such was a fourth-century heresy" than to say, "Such-and-such--well, it wasn't Christian, though it arose among the Christians, but it took a real left turn when it came to its view of Christ and the two natures..." etc. etc. etc.
And I've not met a theologian yet (I mean a real one, a teacher, not some media-driven loudmouth) who treated those believing in various heresies with any less compassion than doctors show to cancer patients. I'm sure such people exist--but they are not the primary reason the word was invented.
The analogy with cancer does rather effectively illustrate a traditional attitude within Christianity to non-orthodoxy, portraying it as something inherently harmful, as a threat to human health and well-being, to be confronted and combatted and excised from a person's life.
Where the analogy breaks down is in the attitude of the person "suffering" from non-orthodox belief to their own belief. In contrast to common attitudes to cancer, a lot of people are quite attached to their non-orthodox beliefs, to the extent of not seeing any health issue, and in not thinking they are suffering from something from which they need to be healed.
I'm not convinced it makes much difference whether you consider such a person, willingly "suffering" from non-orthodox belief, to be someone who deserves sympathy or antipathy, if you're determined to see them as someone who needs to be treated. The idea of Christians seeing themselves as doctors, as having the "cure" is a familiar one.
Comments
And I'm saying that, in everyday conversation, I think it could be appropriate to describe eg. Roman Catholicism with the word "religion", depending on the nomenclatural assumptions of the discussants. If someone with a typical Ship-level of religious knowledge were to ask me in a private conversation "What was your mother's religion?", I might reply "Roman Catholicism", and know that he wouldn't assume I was talking about a separate entity from Christianity(like eg. Islam), but rather a subcategory of Christianity.
OTOH, if I saw a sentence in a textbook reading "The three major monotheistic religions are Judaism, Christianity, and Islam", I would not think "Hey, what about Catholicism? There are more Catholics than Jews in the world." Because I would know that "religion" was being used there in a way that excluded subcategories.
The question of whether Mormonism qualifies as Christian is a separate one. If it DOES so qualify, then I think it's subject to the same informal situational rules as Catholicism in my example.
And FWIW...
If Christianity is a religion, but not Catholicism, Lutheranism etc, what about the phrase "the European wars of religion"? Should that actually be "the European wars of religious subcategories"?
Are the points about the Utah theocracy and outsized Mormon power in the US meant to demonstrate the previous statement that Mormonism is a cult?
Although Christians have been all too ready to throw the charge of heresy and the accusation of heretic at each other, and for a long time, to my reckoning most of us in our separate ecclesiological households vis à vis each other are schismatic, even the ones who proclaim that everyone else is either schismatic or heretical except them.
I get the impression that culthood, though, is something that people can stray into without deviating into heresy at all.
I don't know much about the Mormons and have not studied them. Are they Christians who are a bit weird, or have they gone so far into weirdness that they aren't quite Christians at all? The Lord knows and I don't. I am under the impression the JWs are Arians.
'Wars of religion' = 'Wars about religion.'
Lutheranism isn't a religion, Christianity is a religion. Lutheranism is a subcategory within that.
You know that. I don't understand the point you are making.
There's a cartoon on YouTube, admittedly produced by anti-Mormon fundies, which details their heterodox beliefs. Just type in "anti-Mormon cartoon", and try to find the shorter version, since the longer one includes parts of the larger documentary it was originally part of(though the cartoon isn't hard to find on that one, either).
[quot]I am under the impression the JWs are Arians.[/quote]
Basically, yes, though I don't know if they explicitly cite Arius as a forebear. I'm sure the higher-ups know the Council of Nicea to be an abomination, but I don't how completely that's explained to members.
There's an anti-JW cartoon similar to the anti-Mormon one, also on YouTube. Same sorta format, but different narrator.
Googling my precise wording, "the BITE model" immediately brought up multiple results. Did you search for "BITE" or "bite"? BITE isn't something a mouth does.
I specifically said that Mormonism meets the criteria in the BITE model. Running Utah as a theocracy and having an outsized influence in the US is, I suppose, part of the outworkings of their cultic behaviour.
First of all, the Mormon religion is polytheist. There are theoretically an infinity of gods and goddesses, though there are only three "with whom we have to do"--that is, the Father, Son and Spirit. (These are three separate entities possessing bodies. My understanding is that the Father is said to have physically impregnated Mary to cause her to conceive Jesus.)
The reason for the polytheism is that in the Mormon scheme, those who believe and do what they ought will eventually die and become gods themselves (or goddesses, gender continues after death--as does marriage if you perform the right rites). This is the third heaven, and it is open to those who go through the Temple initation, keep in good standing (a financial audit of one's tithing is involved, I understand--they don't just trust you on that). You also have to be married (to at least two women, living or dead, if you are a man). To a Mormon man, if you are a woman. The man is responsible for raising his wives from the dead at the appropriate time.
The polygamy thing caused no end of trouble for the Mormons with the United States, especially when Utah was seeking statehood. It was resolved by most Mormons by putting off the actual polygamous living till the afterlife. (A few small and usually isolated sects kept the requirement in this life, and periodically one of these groups hits the news, usually for child marriage and abuse.) Thus a man who needs an extra wife (or simply wants to) may be "sealed" to a woman, living or dead, and she is then considered to be his wife in the afterlife. This is one of the drivers behind the Mormon fascination with genealogy--not just their own but everybody's. The dead can be and are baptized by proxy into Mormonism, and may be endowed, sealed, etc. by proxy as well. This is a way of ensuring their salvation, no matter what they believed in life.
Men who reach god status require many polygamous goddess wives because at this point, they acquire a planet of their own and must begin to people it with human beings. This is done by first begetting/bearing "spirit babies," the first of whom is supposed to be the Savior of that world (example in this world: Jesus). Each of these spirit babies is later conceived physically and born into this world as an embodied human being--hopefully as a Mormon. What they do in this life affects their own ability to become a god or goddess in the future, with their own planet.
AS you can imagine, the polygamous goddess wives are perpetually pregnant (darn these p's!) and share one husband and his planet. There is some relationship between the god/a goddess and the planet's version of Adam and Eve, but it's rather murky--at least, there seem to have been a few different views at different times.
Okay, so what does this all mean for people in this life? It means that, if you become a Mormon, all males age twelve and up hold the Aaronic priesthood, a status that conveys the ability to bless and to preach. (Male teens learn to give "temple talks," which seem to be a kind of short moral sermon.) At either 18 or 21 (can't recall) men also receive a priesthood after the order of Melchizedek, they say. Women cannot hold priesthoods. There are no clergy of the sort most Christians are familiar with, but there are administrative and political type figures over various divisions of the church--and the highest is the so-called "living prophet," who is supposed to be in direct contact with God and who can hand down new revelations (and change doctrine) at any time.
When a Mormon reaches adulthood, provided he or she is in good standing (which includes demonstrating that one is giving at least 10 percent of one's income), then one can apply for a Temple recommend. This entitles the bearer to enter the local Mormon Temple and participate in the secret ceremonies there (called "receiving one's endowments"), which are supposed to convey certain blessings and powers. One watches a drama, receives a secret name, goes through a semi-Masonic ceremony, and may get baptized and/or married during this time. Non-Mormons or those not in good standing may not attend. Marriages performed in the Temple are said to be eternal, while ordinary ones are for this life alone. Some Mormons will go to the Temple many times, and will be baptized, married, etc. on behalf of dead individuals who have been identified as part of their genealogical research. They don't seek permission from descendants or anybody--they just go ahead and posthumously "convert" them, which makes some people angry.
Mormons who have gone through this ceremony are supposed to wear temple garments under their ordinary daily clothes. These look rather like long underwear that has had certain mystic marks made on it. Some fashion-minded Mormons have a bit of difficulty making this requirement work in daily life, and I don't blame them. There is a folk belief (don't know if it's officially encouraged) that wearing one's holy underwear is a guard against accidents and sudden death.
Mormonism possesses five holy books, I think it is, although these don't hold anything like the same normative status the Bible holds in most Christian denominations. Allegedly the Book of Mormon was delivered to founder Joseph Smith on golden plates, which are no longer available. They believe that Jesus Christ came to America after his resurrection, and that there were various civilizations here that were connected to the Jews (I think this is a "ten lost tribes" kind of thing). Research into their books and the history of the texts is firmly discouraged. The Bible holds a degraded status in their eyes--they see some good in it, but the other books take precedence. (Anyone who reads the Book of Mormon can see for him/herself just how much of it is plagiarized from the Old Testament.)
Salvation (if we can call it that) means getting to the highest of the three heavens (the "celestial heaven") and becoming a god. If you make it only to the lowest, you end up as a servant to the higher people for eternity. This is called the "telestial heaven." There's an in-between heaven called the "terrestrial heaven," but I can't recall anything in particular about it.
Salvation is definitely by works, not by grace or through faith. One must do the right things, which involves obeying the church hierarchy. The church is very set on proselytizing, and young men (a few women, I believe) are encouraged to serve as missionaries for two years when they are missionary age. I believe this is usually done at one's own expense.
There is a fairly recent history of racism, whereby black people (and really all non-whites, I think) were not allowed to hold the priesthoods from which all spiritual power flows. This meant essentially remaining a child forever. There was a "revelation" to the then-current "living prophet" which changed this and opened the priesthoods to all males, I believe in the 1970s.
I think this is the basics. The polytheism alone would take Mormonism out of Christianity.
There may have been one or two others over the years, but I have only recollections of having met three Mormons. Two were a pair of young men from, I assume, Salt Lake City, one cold winter's evening which was not conducive to conversation and the third was someone I encountered the Thursday before last. There are not that many round here.
@Pomona it would have helped if you could have explained that when you first mentioned it. I would be surprised if I was the only one who had never heard of BITE before. Even following your link I am not sure that it has got me any further or made me any wiser. Is it something most people other than me have heard of?
I'd say only in the sense that they are a group who happen to be a cult, whose doings gave them a lot of political power. But I don't think a faith has to be cultic in order to achieve that.
Christianity in post-Constantinian Rome(to take the ur-case in the west) enjoyed a lot of political influence and privileges, but it had been awhile, I think, since it could have been labelled a "cult" in the modern sociological sense.
I'd never heard of BITE, but I knew Steve Hassan by name and general reputation via perusing the general anti-cult vs. anti-anti-cult debate in both the analog and on-line media. Having clear memories of the glory-days of "deprogrammers" getting lauded in the media as semi-legit law enforcers(before getting their asses sued off by "deprogramees" who actually DIDN'T come around to their family's POV; there was a Barney Miller episode about that), I do approach the beliefs and practices of the anti-cult lobby with an extra layer of skepticism. Which doesn't mean they can't be informative.
If eg. the Moonies are pulling people away from their families and funding right-wing lobby groups, that's useful to know about. I am somewhat less enamoured of targeting individual converts for reclamation(apart from everyday persuasion techniques), especially when motivated by the idea that the converts lacked free agency in deciding to join.
That is one of the links I gave to Enoch.
Could you explain what it is specifically that you are struggling to understand? Also sorry, I always use the specific wording used when searching online so assumed that everyone did - an acronym is obviously not the same as a regular word.
Funnily enough, there used to be quite a moral panic over Mormonism in the UK - for example, you can find references to this in Sherlock Holmes - and Preston (of all places) is the spiritual home of the LDS here as it's the nearest town to where the first Mormon missionaries here landed. As a result you get quite a lot around the NW of England. Mormonism caught on in the UK via the temperance movement, Mormons being strictly teetotal and also abstaining from coffee and tea (but not caffeine in cola, or caffeine in hot chocolate....). Winston Churchill as a Liberal MP even asked a question in Parliament on "the Mormon question".
Utah as a whole is actually only 40% practicing Mormons, which is a big part of the problem - the 40% includes the wealthiest and most powerful ones who then basically run the whole state. They also make life very difficult for the Native tribes living in Utah.
William Lyon Mackenzie, a prominent republican agitator in mid-C19 Upper Canada, defended Mormons(pre-Utah settlement) against the sectarian tyranny of the Tory-Anglican elite. Apparently he is well-regarded for this among certain academic circles in Utah.
And one of the last holdouts for the schismatic polygamists in the FLDS was the region containing southern Alberta and southeastern British Columbia, the latter of which still had active polygamy going at least as recently as a decade or so ago, maybe still does. It's been harder than you might think for the authorities to find a way to shut them down under the law as written.
Just re-checking the history, and yes, after challenges to the law going all the way to the SCOC, a prominent FLDS leader from the southeast BC community was convicted of polygamy in 2017. I'd probably assume that shut down the practice generally in the area, but I honestly don't know.
Note that the religion classifications were probably more use for the chaplains in figuring out what resources were needed. Got a certain number of mainline Protestants make sure you have a mainline Protestant Easter service in a room big enough to hold them, same for Evangelical Christians, Catholics, etc. The new system merges all the Lutherans together, all the Episcopalian/Anglicans together, all the Presbyterians together, and the United Church of Christ is now under "other religion". There is no easy way of knowing how many mainline Protestant Christians might be at that service unless there hasn't been much changeover since the last major Christian holiday. Other religions category besides including the United Church of Christ also includes Native American religions, Humanism, Unitarian Universalist Association, Wicca.
So, if Mormons had been specifically declassified from "Christian" status, could that actually have worked to their advantage? Because they wouldn't have had the annoyance of getting invited to a bunch of ecumenical services they probably wouldn't wanna attend anyway.
Ugh, yes, the Mormons and the Knights of Columbus gave loads of money. The Mormons were investigated for some kind of shenanigans in their campaign financing, if memory serves. I volunteered on the anti-8 campaign. A real heartbreaker. We spent so much time just explaining to our voters that a No vote was a Yes for marriage equality.
I feel like there are fewer Mormons in SoCal than there used to be, but I haven't looked at numbers.
In the late 1970s, my hometown had a plebiscite on building a new convention centre. The question was worded in such a way that if you wanted the convention center to be built, you should vote "No", prompting the No side to adopt the slogan "NO MEANS GO".
Oddly enough, although they initially concentrated their efforts in the north-west of England the first Mormon congregation here emerged many miles to the south in the even more unlikely Ledbury in rural Herefordshire.
As well as the Temperance issue, which @Pomona mentions there was also a sense of them tapping into concerns as to which of the competing Protestant groups was the 'real deal' - what was the 'True Church'?
With memories of sectarian conflict from previous centuries, competing revivalist groups and the emergence of 'denominationalism' as we understand it today, someone presenting something new and different- however weird and exotic - was going to get a hearing.
Even in rural Herefordshire.
For different reasons, Mormonism flourished in some parts of the Pacific due to its genealogical emphases and polytheism.
There's an LDS church a few miles from here and we get their missionaries around now and again.
The estranged wife of our local GP caused a stir by becoming Mormon when I was a kid. It was seen as very weird.
JWs were and are more common, I think but the number of Mormons in the UK is higher than might be imagined.
Christian heresies were criminalised in the year 380. Before that, in the 2nd Century, Irenaeus was writing against heresies and against heretics. Heresies and heretics have long been seen as a threat to orthodoxy.
The idea that the field of Christian endeavour called "theology" has preserved a distinct, technical, non-pejorative usage of "heresy" and "heretic" for getting on for 2000 years seems unlikely.
I do think it's possible to 'play the ball and not the man,' as it were (apologies for the non-inclusive term) though. To say that Mormonism is heretical from a conventional, traditional, historic creedal Christian stand-point, isn't to make a moral judgement on individual Mormons. The may well be lovely and wonderful people but their belief system is wonky from the stand-point of historic creedal Christianity.
As an aside, I would place many if not most most 'non-creedal' Protestant groups within the over-arching umbrella of 'creedal Christianity' even if they don't explicitly avow the historic creeds. To all intents and purposes most of them accept the Nicene formularies even if they don't post them on their websites or recite creeds in their services.
This thread is about Hegseth and most if not all of us here seem to have a perjorative view of him. Which is fair enough. He's done very little to endear himself to those outside of his particular world-view or who share his underlying assumptions in a more 'secular' way, if we can put it like that, without signing up to his particular brand of ultra-conservative neo-Calvinism.
Polemicists of all stripes can veer into ugly territory.
I'd apply that to those within my own Tradition who spend their time online slagging off everyone else and picking fights with anyone within their own camp who differs from them on issues like rubrics, calendars, snippets of dill, rue and cumin ...
Anti-Mormon and anti-JW ranters from the Protestant fundamentalist side of things can be equally unattractive.
I just have to take a moment to rejoice in a message board where the "N" word refers to Nestorianism. Praise the Lord!
Sounds quite possible, based on my observations elsewhere, though it's interesting, since JWism requires a far higher degree of social segregation than does Mormonism. I expect there's a study somewhere on what precise psychological needs are met among those who make the choice to "cross Brooklyn Bridge".
One of the reasons why Christian fundamentalists get so hot under the collar about Mormons and JWs, I think, is because they all tend to draw from a similar demographic irrespective of the theology involved.
That's not the only reason of course but highly conservative evangelicals are more likely to run into JWs and Mormons than people from other Christian traditions here in the UK is that they tend to 'door knock' and evangelise in the same sort of neighbourhoods - or did so when 'door knocking' was more common than it is now.
That's not to say that people from other churches don't run into them from time to time but back in my charismatic evangelical days I used to debate with JWs fairly regularly and also with Mormon missionaries from time to time.
:-) :-)
But getting back to the theologians. I've been privileged to study with some of the best, and yes, they treated the various heresies the same way a doctor might classify neoplasms, or an ecologist might analyze the various threats a particular ecosystem is under (pollutants, erosion, population pressure, etc.) The term exists for the sake of classification; it's much easier to say "Such-and-such was a fourth-century heresy" than to say, "Such-and-such--well, it wasn't Christian, though it arose among the Christians, but it took a real left turn when it came to its view of Christ and the two natures..." etc. etc. etc.
And I've not met a theologian yet (I mean a real one, a teacher, not some media-driven loudmouth) who treated those believing in various heresies with any less compassion than doctors show to cancer patients. I'm sure such people exist--but they are not the primary reason the word was invented.
Wilson is also a proponent of the proposition to repeal the Bill or legislation for permitting women to vote. 'Women are the kind of people who people come out of' is a direct quote from the learned gentleman, who sits at the elbow of the Secretary for Defense/War.
Yeah. But conservative calvinists also compete for adherents with conservative Baptists, but I don't really recall the "heresy" section of many Christian bookstores extensively stocking paperback exposés of Baptists. I think there is something about the theology of the Mormons and the JWs that gets those particular competitors perceived as an extra-awful threat. Same with Jack Chick tracts(though he does put Catholicism on the irredeemable side, unlike a lot of other contemporary Protestant heresy hunters).
Well, not called by that name, but...yeah. Some of them, anyway.
Maybe you know the old series from Concordia, with a buncha titles on the model of "How To Respond To...", eg. "How To Respond To The Lodge", "How To Respond To Eastern Religions"? I think Mormons and Jehovahs Witnesses also merited their own anti-chatecisms, but maybe a lot of the newer outfits were just lumped in with "How To Respond To Cults".
Those seemed ubiquitous at the Christian bookstores, plus stand-alone books criticizing Mormons, JWs, cults generally etc. And, yeah, at least one or two shops I remember as having them all housed in one section. Not sure what they called that section, or if the theme was just supposed to be obvious.
With installments for "The Cults", The Lodge", "Jehovah's Witnesses", "The Mormons", "Muslims", "Satanism", The New Age Movement", and "Judaism".
I should admit that I never gave any of these more than a quick browse, if that, but until shown otherwise will continue to assume the treatment of the subject matter was polite but negative.
As I recall, the tone was almost completely informative, certainly not combative. The goal was to leave the reader correctly informed, so that when they came into conversation with such groups, they would not be misled. Given the deceptive presentations that some such groups get up to (such as Scientology presenting itself as a form of psychology, or the current Mormon thing of claiming to be just another kind of Christian—a real turnaround from their historic position!) its goood to know what you’re dealing with.
Thanks!
Yeah, going by the model for the naming, I guess the books were supposed to be read by people who wanted to dissuade others from joining, rather than given to potential joiners for the purpose of showing them why the group in question was bad.
Though assuming the books contained sufficient negative info about the various groups, I'd imagine they could serve the second purpose as well.
I've met Eastern Europeans who don't appear to differentiate between JWs and Baptists, for instance. They lump them both together in the 'cult' category.
At the same time, Greek or Russian translations of some Protestant fundamentalist books will appear elsewhere on the shelves of those same bookstalls no questions asked and alongside material from impeccably Orthodox sources.
Loud-mouth ranty material tends to be gaining traction, I'm afraid.
We had an egregious incident when a wild and woolly new convert upset some RC and Anglican friends by posting anti-ecumenical and anti-Papal responses to a piece on our parish FB page about Pope Leo praying with the Ecumenical Patriarch.
'We are supposed to pray for our enemies, not with them,' he ranted. Fortunately his comments, which became more extreme, were deleted and some of us have tried to put things straight with those upset by it.
I'm sure @Lamb Chopped is right that the theologians she's mentioned don't go in for ranty stuff, but how much 'reach' do these theologians have with the people in the pews as it were?
There can be a tendency for all of us to define ourselves over against other groups. Heck, I've even known Quakers make snide remarks about other groups and one instance where a Friend harangued an Anglican vicar on train for wearing a dog collar and demanding unquestioning loyalty and submission from his parishioners.
'If only that were the case,' he responded drily.
Every group sets boundaries as to what does or doesn't fall within its accepted and agreed beliefs. Heck, non-creedal churches do that as well so those who formally adhere to the historic Creeds.
How we 'police' or guard those boundaries without bad-mouthing, anathematising or persecuting those we consider outside those parameters is the issue.
And it's perfectly possible to behave in a cultic way whilst not being in something generally considered to be a cult.
Sadly ...
Would these people really repeal women's right to vote?
Don't answer that question. I think I need to go and lie down ...
I know Wikipedia isn’t the most reliable, but if half of it is true, Pastor Doug is not a force for good.
He describes himself as a “paleo-confederate” and that is one small step removed from the Neo-Confederacy.
Where the analogy breaks down is in the attitude of the person "suffering" from non-orthodox belief to their own belief. In contrast to common attitudes to cancer, a lot of people are quite attached to their non-orthodox beliefs, to the extent of not seeing any health issue, and in not thinking they are suffering from something from which they need to be healed.
I'm not convinced it makes much difference whether you consider such a person, willingly "suffering" from non-orthodox belief, to be someone who deserves sympathy or antipathy, if you're determined to see them as someone who needs to be treated. The idea of Christians seeing themselves as doctors, as having the "cure" is a familiar one.
And Christians who think of themselves as the doctors in this analogy are losing the plot. That would be Christ …