[quote:3mh60vij]”The present Christian world exists and continues by division. The MYSTERY of Babylon the great, is mother of harlots and abominations of the earth, and it needs no prophetic vision, to unravel such mysteries. [i:3mh60vij]The old church is the mother[/i:3mh60vij], and the protestants are the lewd daughters.[/quote:3mh60vij]
[quote:3mh60vij]”Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the “whore of Babylon” whom the Lord denounces… as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness.[/quote:3mh60vij]
[/quote:3mh60vij]
Ahh, yes. When you spoke of an anti-Catholic bias, I wasn’t thinking in a grand enough way. In this sense, I certainly cannot disagree that we have what we as LDS would call a distinction between the church of God and anything that is not of God. We would heap any and all disciplines that were not aligned upon God’s pattern and denied his living sustainment of the organization into one large order of those arrayed in opposition to Him. Thus you shouldn’t feel to make the slight as if it is predicated upon your particular brand of religion as we embrace all disciplines such as atheism, science without god, psychology or any facet of idolatrous behavior that seeks to supplant the truth with a counterfeit.
However, part of the challenge for why I did not have any means of understanding what you could be referencing is because I don’t see you as a Catholic the same as the Catholic organization. In my mind, (limited playground that it is) in daily interactions, it is not with organizations but with people – People who may be aligned with any number of distractions that prevent them from advancing in spiritual concerns. So I see you as a person. Probably a very kind man or woman, whichever the case may be, who while trying to be sincere is aligned with one of many organizations that I might consider corruptions and or abominations of God’s word. As an individual, I can only see you as one, who like all of us, is in varying degrees of distance from God. Some are closer and some are further. I do believe with all my heart that it is possible to benefit the most in coming unto Christ by being LDS, however, you can start the process of coming unto Christ in any number of ways.
Indeed there are any number of LDS that fail to take advantage of the opportunity and also do not draw to Christ as much as they do an organization. That is as grievous an error as any.
As people and individuals, though, I do not consider you the abomination that I might consider the organization as a body that offends God unless it is that you choose this in pure understanding and not ignorance. I think in a way we might all view one another somewhat in this fashion. Yet as in all things, some people choose to despise another simply without knowledge of who they are but based on the umbrella they fit under. I myself make every effort to be forgiving of all and not create unnecessary obstacles to interaction.
Surely we represent, as LDS, the gamut of imperfect behaviors as do all groups. Nonetheless, it is practically always not a good idea to seek council or truth about an organization from its detractors.
Generally agreement is founded upon personal bias over a genuine desire to understand the truth. In which case we are not striving to understand truth, we are simply loving the lie of judgment that we so often feel to cast. I abhor certain counter lifestyles that are common in this world, but I would be completely dishonest if I didn’t recognize that in some cases the individuals involved in the behavior are in many other ways wonderful people just lost in a serious way that I someday hope they will overcome. It is not my place, in other words, to judge the people, though I may the behavior.
Soft soaping , really? Please.. Just as the Catholics have had to play down events of their pasts that might be misunderstood or be an affront to the public image there is an ongoing process that is for ameliorating public reaction in both our organizations. It is not necessarily wrong in and of itself to feed the milk before the meat. Though, I am not saying to cover up or lie about anything there is a time and a place to deal with the questionable issues.
I’m not going to toss out the obvious sound bites and tedium’s that speak to sweeping under the carpet the undesirable results of the behaviors of men. We both know they exist in yours and my organizations. Battles over such things only divert us from speaking of more pressing matters of Christ and the atonement that is availed of all. Will you or I be saved any more surely because we want to chronicle the acts of men and dwell upon the obvious that it is a good thing God provided repentance so we could overcome our evil tendencies? I think not.
Well…since we aren’t talking trinity specifically in this post, I’ll not go there for the moment, more than to say trinity as it tends to be understood by most Christians and Catholics is one of the unifying principles upon which the idea of abomination rests. If trinity is right then yes the LDS are an abomination as we do not accept the traditional views. If however, it is as it appears to me, a doctrine birthed from the void of darkness that could only exist without the corrective influence of revelation and Apostolic correction, then it must be one of several collective principles that is an egregious affront to God the Father, his son Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost. The internal strife and conflict that existed in the early church that fought to stop that aberration of true understanding finally failed, however, it stands as a testimony of the initial lack of universal acceptance of the change in doctrine of what and who is the Godhead.
Tell me how we can have a sincere conversation about the nature of this theology when you lack the line upon line precept upon precept mandate of understanding that is required. That was Paul’s whole point of not teaching the Corinthians, Hebrews and others more than just the introductory material. They simply were unable to comprehend more than the milk he offered though he lamented so much that that was the case of things. I can only say that in this second iteration of this material you still do not have the LDS approach understood and I suspect that is just going to be the case of it. My real issue is why you wrest the concept of enmity when we believe it just as you should from the Old Testament Genesis introduction of the concept in Gen 3. Enmity was implemented by God prior to casting Adam and Eve from the Garden for a particular purpose.
How can we speak of a preexistence and the conditions thereof and hope that it will make any sense to you, if you are only going to ignore the scriptural clues of Job and Jeremiah and Romans? Etc…
I am not going to presume that you are unaware of the true historical evidences that objectively call into question the claim that there were no changes of doctrine, no addition of doctrine, no suppression of doctrine in the Catholic church. The writings of the early church fathers are replete with the wrestling’s and turmoil that ensued as the churches began to teeter on the precipice of collapse. The infighting and the crisis between Arius, the Bishop of Alexandria, Clement, each in their time, and all of the others who worked tirelessly to unite and defend as best they could as the people wandered further and further from agreement on core principles of doctrine are much too available in the historical record for you to simply cast them aside as “the Mormons claim.”
When I see these kinds of statements I know the heart of the person who speaks them all too clearly. You aren’t looking for truth, as much as you are looking for a safe place that will not challenge your peaceful world view. Mormons, did not subvert the 1800 +- years of events that spawned the creation of Catholicism and bore the daughters of the reformation (as you earlier referenced).
Why did Luther feel compelled to split from the church? Did Mormons encourage his path? Was William Tyndale persecuted by the Church in Rome because he was a Mormon? Or what did he mean when he stated,” I defy the Pope, and all his laws; and if God spare me, I will one day make the boy that drives the plough in England to know more of Scripture than the Pope himself!” Would the Pope really enforce laws to keep the Bible out of the hands of the people? Was Tyndale wrong in blazing the trail that put the Bible that you and I read in our very own hands? Was that a mistake? The church at the time thought it would be and yet when the heretics prevail in their cause and it is so obviously in hindsight correct, are we willing to acknowledge that God prevailed against a few men at the top of an organization that sought to keep the masses in darkness?
All I can say is that long before Mormons became a force to be reckoned with, your history was being written and if you wanted to explore it and be objective about it, then perhaps we could dialogue on such things. However, if we ignore the lives shattered, the sufferings endured, the terror inflicted upon those that rose up to defend the causes that so obviously needed to be addressed then we proceed with blinders that ignore a history that seems too uncomfortable for you to acknowledge. I consider their sacrifices to great to overlook in defense of a straw man Mormon who did not write your history. Our own history is sufficient for my apologetic needs without dwelling on others denial of theirs.