Wednesday, October 19, 2011
10 Huge Differences between Mormons and Christians
Mormonism and Christianity, 10 Differences
A friend of mine wrote this, and uses it as a part of his ministry directed toward the LDS folks, the article is here :
1) What is the Church?
Mormons believe:
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only true Church; all other churches are "wrong", all their creeds an "abomination", and all who profess them are "corrupt" (Joseph Smith?History 1:19, The Pearl of Great Price).
Christians believe:
The one true Church is the mystical, spiritual Body of Christ made up of all those from various denominations or churches (Acts 15:35-41; 20:28; 1 Corinthians 11:19; 12:13ff.; and Ephesians 4:4-13).
2) Are there other Gods?
Mormons believe:
There are many gods who create and rule over other worlds, and worthy Mormons may become gods there some day. On those worlds, worship excludes the God of our world (Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 576-7; Joseph Smith, The Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 346-7; Abraham 4:1, The Pearl of Great Price; and Gospel Principles, 290).
Christians believe:
There is only one God who created and rules over everything in existence. To think that God did not create something like some other world is to simply devalue and weaken God (Genesis 1:1; Deuteronomy 4:39; Isaiah 40:12-20; 43:10; 44:6-8 and 24; and John 1:1-3).
3) About the Trinity:
Mormons believe:
The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three separate gods, who are one in purpose and nature, but not in a Being they share eternally (Ibid.).
Christians believe:
The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three distinct persons, who are eternally one in purpose, nature, and Being (Ibid.; Matthew 3:16; 4:10; and 28:16-19).
4) Are men and God the same nature or species?
Mormons believe:
The nature of these gods is identical to the nature of man, and as such these humans had to become gods; they haven?t always been gods (Smith, The Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 345; Thomas C. Romney, The Life of Lorenzo Snow, 46; and Doctrine and Covenants 130:22).
Christians believe:
God has His own unique nature that man, a created being by definition cannot ever have. God is God by nature, and not by obtainment (Psalms 90:2; Hosea 11:9; Acts 14:15; Galatians 4:8; and 2 Peter 1:3-4).
5) Is God married?
Mormons believe:
God the Father has at least one wife by which we on this world were all literally born as spirit children prior to taking on our tangible bodies of flesh and bones via our mortal parents (McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 516-7; and Brigham Young, The Journal of Discourses, vol. 1, 50).
Christians believe:
Since God is not a man by nature it is impossible for Him as God to even have a wife. It is just as impossible for God to lie. Further, God does not even have a body that He would need to produce us. Marriage requires partiality, receiving counsel from the other partner, and compromise. But God cannot do these either. Finally, He does not need anything, let alone a wife, to become God (Ibid.; 1 Kings 8:27; and Hebrews 6:18).
6) Does the Father have a Father?
Mormons believe:
God the Father had a Father whom He followed as Jesus had followed Him in order to become a god (Smith, The Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 373).
Christians believe:
There is no other God before God. He is not so weak that He needed to serve and receive counsel from some other God in order to become God; He always was God (Ps. 90:2; Isa. 40:12-20; and Isa. 43:10).
7) Is there anything that the Father did not create?
Mormons believe:
Thus God the Father did not create the planet that His Father had already created. No God for any world created all worlds. No God for any world created intelligence, matter, or the laws that govern them. These are eternal. Any person, including a God for any world, eternally existed as intelligence, and not as God (Ibid.; and Doctrine and Covenants 93:29; 131:7-8; and Abraham 3:21-24).
Christians believe:
There is only one Being who created and rules over everything in existence. To think that God did not create something like some other world is to simply devalue and weaken God (Genesis 1:1; Deuteronomy 4:39; Isaiah 40:12-20; 43:10; 44:6-8 and 24; John 1:1-3; and Acts 17:28).
8) Is there anything that the Son did not create?
Mormons believe:
Jesus being the literal son of exalted human gods obviously did not create all things either. That is why He is referred to as Lucifer?s as well as our elder brother in the pre-earth life (Milton R. Hunter, The Gospel through the Ages, 15).
Christians believe:
Jesus existed prior to becoming man as "the only begotten God" (John 1:18, New American Standard). As such, He created everything that was ever created from the very beginning (John 1:1-3). To relativize this creation to only concerning the things of this world devalues and cheapens Jesus, who has not only the nature of man (1 Timothy 2:5), but also the nature of "God over all blessed forever" (Romans 9:5).
9) Does the Son receive the same worship as the Father?
Mormons believe:
Jesus is not worshipped equally with the Father, since Jesus is not our begetter. Jesus is not even directly prayed to. Prayer is directed only to the Father in the name of Jesus (BYU Devotional [March 2, 1982], 17, 19, and 20).
Christians believe:
Since Jesus is God by nature, He is worshipped equally with the Father. Jesus receives both worship and prayer, and we are commanded to do so (Mt. 4:10; 28:16-19; Jn. 5:18-23; 14:14 [NAS]; Acts 7:59; 1 Cor. 1:2; and 1 Jn. 5:13-15).
10) What role do good works play with our standing before God?
Mormons believe:
Good works are a necessary requirement of salvation and right standing before God (2 Nephi 25:23; Alma 5:27-28; 11:37; 34:33-35; Moroni 10:32; Doctrine and Covenants 42:18; 58:43; 82:7; 2nd Article of Faith; and Gospel Principles, 75-77).
Christians believe:
Salvation is a free gift that must be received through faith alone, and this automatically is demonstrated by the overall good life produced by it (Romans 4:5; 11:6; Galatians 3:11, 23-26; Eph. 2:8-10; 1 Jn. 5:10-13).
Why do Momons Claim to be Christian when their prophets hated Christianity?
Does Mormonism hate Christianity? Decide for yourself.
Some of you were asking for references to Mormon leaders condemning Christians and denying that Mormonism is Christian.
Not only have some Mormon leaders made it clear that they do not consider Mormonism Christian, these inspired leaders have insist that NO ONE can be saved without Joseph Smith and argue that even Islam is better than Christianity.
Mormon Leaders Condemn Christians
"This is not just another Church. This is not just one of a family of Christian churches. This is the Church and kingdom of God, the only true Church upon the face of the earth..."
- Prophet Ezra Taft Benson, Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, p.164-165
"What is it that inspires professors of Christianity generally with a hope of salvation? It is that smooth, sophisticated influence of the devil, by which he deceives the whole world"
- Prophet Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.270
"...all the priests who adhere to the sectarian religions of the day with all their followers, without one exception, receive their portion with the devil and his angels."
- Prophet Joseph Smith , The Elders Journal, Joseph Smith Jr., editor, vol.1, no.4, p.60
"Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the 'whore of Babylon' whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any person who shall be so corrupt as to receive a holy ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent"
- Apostle Orson Pratt proclaimed, The Seer, p. 255
"After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christendom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They all belong to Babylon"
- George Q. Cannon said, Gospel Truth, p.324
"When the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was grovelling in darkness."
- Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 5:73
"With a regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world."
- Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 8:199
"The Christian world, so-called, are heathens as to the knowledge of the salvation of God"
- Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 8:171
"Brother Taylor has just said that the religions of the day were hatched in hell. The eggs were laid in hell, hatched on its borders, and then kicked on to the earth."
- Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 6:176
"Christians—those poor, miserable priests brother Brigham was speaking about—some of them are the biggest whoremasters there are on the earth, and at the same time preaching righteousness to the children of men. The poor devils, they could not get up here and preach an oral discourse, to save themselves from hell; they are preaching their fathers' sermons —preaching sermons that were written a hundred years before they were born. ...You may get a Methodist priest to pour water on you, or sprinkle it on you, and baptize you face foremost, or lay you down the other way, and whatever mode you please, and you will be damned with your priest."
- Apostle Heber C. Kimball, Journal of Discourses, 5:89
"The Gospel of modern Christendom shuts up the Lord, and stops all communication with Him. I want nothing to do with such a Gospel, I would rather prefer the Gospel of the dark ages, so called"
- Prophet Wilford Woodruff, Journal of Discourses, vol. 2, p.196
"But as there has been no Christian Church on the earth for a great many centuries past, until the present century, the people have lost sight of the pattern that God has given according to which the Christian Church should be established, and they have denominated a great variety of Christian Churches ... But there has been a long apostasy, during which the nations have been cursed with apostate churches in great abundance"
- Apostle Orson Pratt, Journal of Discourses, 18:172
"Christianity...is a perfect pack of nonsense...the devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century." (Journal of Discourses, vol. 6, p.167);
"Where shall we look for the true order or authority of God? It cannot be found in any nation of Christendom."
- Prophet John Taylor, Journal of Discourses, 10:127
"What! Are Christians ignorant? Yes, as ignorant of the things of God as the brute beast."
- Prophet John Taylor, Journal of Discourses 13:225
"What does the Christian world know about God? Nothing... Why so far as the things of God are concerned, they are the veriest fools; they know neither God nor the things of God."
- John Taylor, Journal of Discourses 13:225
"Doctrines were corrupted, authority lost, and a false order of religion took the place of the gospel of Jesus Christ, just as it had been the case in former dispensations, and the people were left in spiritual darkness. For hundreds of years the world was wrapped in a veil of spiritual darkness, until there was not one fundamental truth belonging to the place of salvation ...Joseph Smith declared that in the year 1820 the Lord revealed to him that all the 'Christian' churches were in error, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men."
- Prophet Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 3, p.282
"...the Book of Mormon remains secure, unchanged and unchangeable, ...But with the Bible it was not and is not so....it was once in the sole and exclusive care and custody of an abominable organization (Christianity), founded by the devil himself, likened prophetically unto a great whore, whose great aim and purpose was to destroy the souls of men in the name of religion. In these hands it ceased to be the book it once was."
- Apostle Bruce R. McConkie, The Joseph Smith Translation, pp. 12, 13
"Must we, under the broad folds of the American Constitution, be compelled to bow down to the narrow contracted notions of Apostate Christianity? Must we shut up our consciences in a nut shell, and be compelled to submit to the bigoted notions, and whims, and customs of the dark ages of popery, transferred to us through the superstitious of our fathers? Must we be slaves to custom and render homage to the soul-destroying, sickening influences of modern Christianity? No!"
- Official Church Publication "The Seer," Vol.1, No.7, p.111
"And also those to whom these commandments were given, might have power to lay the foundation of this (Mormon) church, and to bring it forth out of obscurity and out of darkness, the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth..."
- Supposedly Jesus Christ Himself, Doctrine and Covenants 1:30
Salvation not Through Jesus Christ, but Joseph Smith?
[There is] "no salvation without accepting Joseph Smith. If Joseph Smith was verily a prophet, and if he told the truth...no man can reject that testimony without incurring the most dreadful consequences, for he cannot enter the kingdom of God"
- Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 1, p.190
"No man or woman in this dispensation will ever enter into the celestial kingdom of God without the consent of Joseph Smith...every man and woman must have the certificate of Joseph Smith, junior, as a passport to their entrance into the mansion where God and Christ are... [Joseph Smith] reigns there as supreme a being in his sphere, capacity, and calling, as God does in heaven. Many will exclaim—"Oh, that is very disagreeable! It is preposterous! We cannot bear the thought!" But it is true."
- Prophet Birgham Young, Journal of Discourses, vol. 7, p.289-91
"He that confesseth not that Jesus has come in the flesh and sent Joseph Smith with the fullness of the Gospel to this generation, is not of God, but is anti-christ"
- Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, vol. 9, p.312
"If we get our salvation, we shall have to pass by him [Joseph Smith]; if we enter our glory, it will be through the authority he has received. We cannot get around him [Joseph Smith]"
- Apostle George Q. Cannon, as quoted in 1988 Melchizedek Priesthood Study Guide, p. 142
"I tell you, Joseph holds the keys, and none of us can get into the celestial kingdom without passing by him. We have not got rid of him, but he stands there as the sentinel, holding the keys of the kingdom of God; and there are many of them beside him. I tell you, if we get past those who have mingled with us, and know us best, and have a right to know us best, probably we can pass all other sentinels as far as it is necessary, or as far as we may desire. But I tell you, the pinch will be with those that have mingled with us, stood next to us, weighed our spirits, tried us, and proven us: there will be a pinch, in my view, to get past them. The others, perhaps, will say, If brother Joseph is satisfied with you, you may pass. If it is all right with him, it is all right with me. Then if Joseph shall say to a man, or if brother Brigham say to a man, I forgive you your sins, "Whosoever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them;" if you who have suffered and felt the weight of transgression—if you have generosity enough to forgive the sinner, I will forgive him: you cannot have more generosity than I have. I have given you power to forgive sins, and when the Lord gives a gift, he does not take it back again."
- Apostle Orson Hyde, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 6, p.154-155
"It is to be feared that in course of a century, some gifted man like Paul, some splendid orator, who will be able by his eloquence to attract crowds of the thousands who are ever ready to hear, and be carried away by, the sounding brass and tinkling cymbal of sparkling oratory, may command a hearing, may succeed in breathing a new life into this modern Mahometanism, and make the name of the martyred Joseph ring as loud, and stir the souls of men as much, as the mighty name of Christ itself. Sharon, Palmyra, Manchester, Kirtland, Far West, Adam-ondi-Ahman, Ramus. Nauvoo, and the Carthage Jail, may become holy and venerable names, places of classic interest, in another age; like Jerusalem, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Mount of Olives, and Mount Calvary to the Christian, and Mecca and Medina to the Turk."
- Prophet Brigham Young, History of the Church, Vol. 7, p.40-41
Islam Better than Chistianity?
"The Greek and Roman Churches, which have been called Christian, and which take the name of Christians as a cloak, have worshipped innumerable idols. On this account, on the simple subject of the Deity and His worship, if nothing more, I should rather incline, of the two, after all my early traditions, education, and prejudices, to the side of Mahomet, for on this point he is on the side of truth, and the Christian world on the side of idolatry and heathenism."
- Apostle Parley P. Pratt, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 3, p.38
"..instead of saying that Mahometanism prevailed against Christianity, and that Christianity was in danger of being done away by its prevalence, we would rather say, that where Mahometanism prevailed, it taught and established one truth at least, viz., the true and living God, and so far as this went, it did preserve people from worshipping idols. And had the crescent waved on the tower of London, or on the church of St. Paul, instead of the cross, and had the Mahometan religion been enforced instead of the Roman religion that was enforced for a series of generations, and had tradition riveted what the sword enforced, then that nation and the surrounding nations would have been worshippers of one true God instead of idols; they would have recognized it in theory at least, whether they would have worshipped Him in spirit and in truth or not. But now [Christians] do not recognize Him in theory, for they acknowledge as their god an imaginary being without body, parts, or passions."
- Apostle Parley P. Pratt, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 3, p.39
"Now, if we take Mahometanism during those dark ages, and the corruptions that are so universally prevalent over the earth, and the idolatrous systems of religion, falsely called Christianity, and weigh them in a balance; with all my education in favor of Christian nations and Christian powers, and Christian institutions, so called, with all my prejudices of early youth, and habits of thought and reading, my rational faculties would compel me to admit that the Mahometan history and Mahometan doctrine was a standard raised against the most corrupt and abominable idolatry that over perverted our earth, found in the creeds and worship of Christians, falsely so named."
- Apostle Parley P. Pratt, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 3, p.40
"Though Mahometan institutions are corrupt enough, and need reforming by the Gospel, I am inclined to think, upon the whole, leaving out the corruptions of men in high places among them, that they have better morals and better institutions than many Christian nations; and in many localities there have been high standards of morals. So far as that one point is concerned, of worshipping the one true God under the name of Mahometanism, together with many moral precepts, and in war only acting on the defensive, I think they have exceeded in righteousness and truthfulness of religion, the idolatrous and corrupt church that has borne the name of Christianity."
- Apostle Parley P. Pratt, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 3, p.41
This is a good collection to keep along with the quotes given earlier which included the old temple ceremony which had a preacher hired by satan as a response to Mormons who claim that the church has never talked about other faiths.
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