Forum:Judeo-Christian-Islamic-Mormon four-way match

nobs' idea that Mormons are protestants

 * The Mormon faith has been left in the trusteeship of the Mormon Prophet - the President of the LDS. Mormon's beleive what the President of the Church tells them to believe, i.e. the revealed truth as interpreted by him. In this sense, they deny the written or scriptural basis of faith and invest the interpretation of God's word in a man - the head of the church - making them more akin to Roman Catholicism than any bible-based protestant sect. And like Roman Catholcism, they tend to preach a gospel of works, not grace. nobsdon't bother me 02:23, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * What, you mean like Jesus did? Damn those heretics. -- 02:31, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * What's Jesus got to do with Christianity? --Kels (talk) 03:24, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Uh, Rob, you have just described how the Mormons reject sola scriptura, sola fide, and sola gratia. How exactly are these people Protestants? 06:47, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * There are SEVERAL different branches of Christianity. Some of their views on God are as different from each other as they are from the Islamic view (which itself is hardly homogeneous). Which ones get to use the word 'God'? (Also, I'd LOVE to see a Conservative Koran Project. I wonder if Andy has the balls to attempt that.) --Night Jaguar (talk) 07:00, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * LX, by not being Roman Catholic. As I said, Mormonism is protestantism with a pope. It was a novel idea Joseph Smith introduced to Protestantism, a living person to interpret scripture voted in succession to to head up the church. And it relieves members of the burden of reading, studying, or embracing scripture. nobsdon't bother me 07:28, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * So your definition of protestantism is "not Roman Catholic"? So Hindus are protestants then. -  π    07:31, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * No. Mormons pay homage to Jesus, carry the bible under their arm, and don't kiss the pope's ring. All the outer trappings of protestantism. nobsdon't bother me 07:38, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * And the bit where Jesus went on vacation to America fits into Christianity where? -  π    07:40, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Pure bulltwinkies, but it must've been appealing reading to some people of that day. It's hard to follow any discernible spiritual significance, or plot line for that matter. The original manuscript wAS written by a fellow named Spalding and somehow got in Jos. Smith hands. nobsdon't bother me 07:46, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Even within Christianity, "Protestant" and "not Roman Catholic" are not synonyms; you have the Eastern Orthodox Church (you know, the church Stalin had that big shouting-match with?), the Oriental Orthodox churches, the Church of the East, the Old Catholics, etc. And all those, unlike Mormons, follow the Nicene Creed. 07:51, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * According to Wikipedia:
 * "Some religious movements, such as the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, other Nontrinitarian movements, and the New Religious Movements, which share certain characteristics of Protestant churches, are often included in lists of Protestants by some outsiders. However, neither mainline Protestants nor the groups themselves would consider the designation appropriate."
 * I think the issue boils down to how you define 'Protestant'. In any case, Mormonism definitely differs from most sects of Protestantism. I kinda wonder how CP hasn't fallen for the religion, what, with it making America so holy and all. --Night Jaguar (talk) 07:58, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Rob, please point out the bits in the Protestant Bible (KJV or the Word According to Andy) where God is a physical man and lives on a planet and when I die I get judged by Jospeh Smith & Jesus. Those pages seem to be missing from my book. Also, where can I buy my sin-resistant underwear? -- PsyGremlin  08:40, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I think it's fair to say, on the one hand, Mormonism is not a form of Protestantism - Protestants don't see it that way, and Mormons don't see it that way either. On the other hand, Mormonism is an offshoot of Protestantism, and still has some cultural similarities to it. In certain surface matters, Mormonism is closer to Protestantism than to Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy; dig beneath the surface to get to the substance, it's basically equally far from all three of them. -- 12:11, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Mormanism is closer to Moonies, Scientology & Jim Jones' (ex) crowd than Xianity - it's a cult. Plain and simple. It might dress itself up in Xiam mumbo jumbo, but it's a cult. Then again, Moonies run Conservapedia, so we'd expect them to support Mormons too.  -- PsyGremlin  12:23, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * How do you decide what is a valid from of Christianity, and what isn't? How to distinguish the "non-cult" Christianity from the "cults"? -- 12:37, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Since Mitt Romney and Glenn Beck are Mormons, my guess is Mormonism is perfectly acceptable to religious right evangelical Christians, at least for the next 18 months; afterward we can go back to debating if Mormons are Protestants or even real Christiansa. nobsdon't bother me 13:34, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The US wasn't ready for a Catholic President. They certainly weren't ready for a black President. Not a fuck will they be ready for a Mormon President. Then again, evangelicals will believe anything - even that Benny Hinn isn't a crook. -- PsyGremlin  13:52, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I think I've generally considered Mormons to be Protestants in the most general sense of the term, though I never gave it much thought. Obviously they are quite distinct from the other Protestant groups, which are often difficult to distinguish. Hell, I bet your average Presbyterian can't tell you what makes them fundamentally different from a Methodist. I think Rob's summary of "Protestant with a Pope" is an interesting take (I'm assuming he means that as an oversimplification), which I guess would make them the opposite of the high Anglicans (Catholics without a Pope). If we're discussing whether Mormons and other Christians worship the same god, I guess that's an interesting question. I don't know enough about that wacky faith to weigh in really, but they all accept Jesus as their God (or at least 1/3 of him) so that at least overcomes the Jesus issue that is an essential difference between the Christians and the Jews and Muslims. All the crazy shit about coming to America is a significant difference which might have your typical Protestant balking at saying he's the same, or at least thinking Mormons are wrong about him. DickTurpis (talk) 14:58, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Mormon theology is very different from Protestantism, or other forms of Christianity in general. Not one God, but many (probably infinitely many) - "God" is just our God. God has a wife, or wives (essentially a Goddess, but Mormons don't like to call her that, or talk about her much). God and Goddess have sex to produce human souls, so we are their children. God has a body of flesh and bones. Jesus is a separate person from God the Father, and, given we are God's literal children, he is quite literally the Son of God. If a man is a good, when he grows up (i.e. dies), God will turn him into a God, and then he'll have a planet (or planets) of his own to rule, where God used to be a human being, serving under his own God, but then was a good little human so he became a God too. Women can look forward to becoming the heavenly wife of their divine husband. (Or one of many, since although mainstream Mormonism currently prohibits polygamy on earth, it still believes in polygamy in the afterlife.) So as well as God the Father, there is God the Grand-Father, God the Great-Grand-Father, hey probably an infinite family tree of Gods, and we are at the bottom where it is continuing. And, do you see now how many (mainstream) Christians believe Mormons follow a different God, because the Mormon God has a radically different nature from the (mainstream) Christian one? It comes down to, if they both believe in "God", but believe radically different things about him, does this radical difference in what they think God is amount to two different deities, or just two radically different views of the one deity? -- 19:28, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Is that all true? I never heard that before, but admittedly haven't paid a whole lot of attention to Mormonism. I do think I have a Book of Mormon kicking around here somewhere, but obviously I haven't been reading it. Man, I knew they were wacky, but I didn't know they were that wacky. Fucked up. DickTurpis (talk) 19:45, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The question is, What is the ultimate authority? Protestants say the bible, Roman Catholics say the Pope, the Vicar of Christ. Here's were Mormon's depart from orthodox protestantism, they reject the authority of the recieved text, and like Roman Catholics, rely on the sitting head of the church to be the loan interpreter of the recieved text of scripture to decipher its meaning and intent for church members. And of course this authority and interpretation can vary from time to time, depending upon each successor. nobsdon't bother me 20:48, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Best description of Mormonism I've come across: 19th century Scientology. --Night Jaguar (talk) 22:13, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Anyway, you can see here how the Mormon view of God is very different from traditional Christianity. --Night Jaguar (talk) 22:26, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, DickTurpis, it's all true (unless I'm mistaken about something, of course). But you won't find any of this in the Book of Mormon - there is very little of this non-traditional theology in the Book of Mormon. It was only revealed to / invented by (depending on which you want to believe) Joseph Smith after the Book of Mormon was published. You'll find this stuff more in two other Mormon Scriptures, Doctrine and Covenants, and especially, The Pearl of Great Price. Another good source is a famous speech Joseph Smith made, call the King Follett Discourse. But, the LDS church today, they don't deny this stuff, but they downplay it in public, and in public they play up their similarities to mainstream Christianity. In that sense, Night Jaguar's label of 19th century Scientology is quite apt, because it is similar to how Scientology downplays publicly some of Hubbard's more unusual teachings (although, unlike Scientology, the LDS church doesn't have secret scriptures, or anything like that). Another way in which the Scientology analogy is apt, is that some of the odder Mormon doctrines sound like 19th century science fiction, like the claim that God lives on the planet Kolob, or a star orbiting a planet of that name. -- 08:51, 9 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Mormonism is not regarded as Christians by the vast majority of Trinitarian Christians. They're regarded as a separate religion. Among the later, the Father, the Son (Jesus) and the Holy Ghost are regarded as "avatars" of one God with one consciousness, while in Mormonism they're separate gods in a god council. Same goes for Jehovah's Witnesses, who regards Jesus as son of God but a created being who don't have the full powers of God. According to Trinitarian Christians, the taxonomy is about the following:
 * Abrahamite religions:
 * Torah users:
 * Samaritanism
 * Tanakh/Old Testament users:
 * Judaism
 * New Testament users:
 * Christianity (Nicene creed adherents): Pre-calchedonian orthodoxes, Greek orthodoxes, Roman Catholics, Protestants
 * Mormonism
 * Jehovah's Witnesses
 * Quran users:
 * Islam
 * Baha'i
 * Rursus dixit (yada³!) 17:55, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Your diagram is pretty good, but here are a few more data points to add to it: there are a number of forms of "Nontrinitarian Christianity", beyond just Mormonism and JW. Others include Oneness Pentecostalism, Christadelphianism, the historic Arians, Sabellians, etc., Unitarianism. Mormonism is rather unique among these in being quasi-polytheistic, while the others are more in a monotheistic direction (either Jesus is less than God, or else the Father and the Son are identical). Most Jews would follow, to varying degrees, the Mishnah/Talmud as well as the Tanach, Karaites being the obvious exception. Baha'is also have their own scriptures, in addition to the Quran (and in practice, what is written in the Bahai scriptures counts, not what is in the Quran). 08:04, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Triple-god in other Abrahamic religions
According to wikipedia, in Islam, the Holy spirit is the Archangel Gabriel, and is not clear on its status in Judaism. In Islam, Isa (Jesus of Nazareth) is the second most important prophet; Jewish teaching ends before his birth. Does anyone know if Jews regard the forth-coming messiah as part of the god-head? If not, then the Jewish god is no more the Christian god, as the Islamic god is. CS Miller (talk) 06:29, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * No; as far as I know, the idea of the messiah being God incarnate was a novelty in Christianity, an intellectual contortion exercise designed to make the religion monotheistic. 06:49, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * "What think ye Christ, whose son is he?" They say David. "Then why in spirit doth he call him lord?" from that day forward no man durst ask him a question." Question: Just what the hell doth durst mean? nobsdon't bother me 07:34, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * (archaic) Simple past of "dare" -- 07:47, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Islam on the whole is very unitarian, although a few minority groups seem closer to the Christian position (e.g. the ghulat sects); most versions of Christianity are trinitarian, but some are unitarian; Judaism tends to be strongly unitarian, but Kabbalah also seems willing to admit some degree of multiplicity in the divine (the Sefirot, the Shekinah, etc.), and even a certain degree of human-divine ambiguity (Adam Kadmon). This is a very complicated issue, I don't think any simple summary can do it justice. -- 07:38, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * What is Mithraism? nobsdon't bother me 07:46, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * You apparently can't look up anything for yourself? -- 07:48, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The Catholic Encyclopedia entry is long winded. A muslim onc e told me Christianity was a rip-off of Mithraism (virgin birth, resurrection, etc.)  nobsdon't bother me 07:55, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It's been quite a while since I've looked, but I've read some ideas that Jesus' origin story was geared to appeal to rank-and-file Roman soldiers, who were largely followers of Mithras. So a lot of common themes were rolled in.  --Kels (talk) 17:57, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * This seems to be a fair synopsis of how some Islamic scholars view Christianity: How did Christianity become mixed with polytheistic beliefs?, beginning with "In his book Christianity and Idolatry, Robertson states that Mithraism, which is a religion of Persian origin, flourished in Persia approximately six centuries before the birth of Christ, and it reached Rome around the year 70 CE...", et seqq. nobsdon't bother me 18:23, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Isn't Conservapedia supposed to be some sort of educational resource? Yet no article on Mithras or Mithraism?  Lily Inspirate me. 18:38, 8 May 2011 (UTC)