[aaronshaf]

The amusing thing is he views his wife as his personal slave, and has a child who he seeks to have ridiculed and ignored. He is truly an abomination of a human being.

I'm not sure how to even take this seriously.

Third, there have a few persons who were invited by Aaron in Utah County to visit his home where he snookers them in, having the LDS believe they will have a friendly discussion wherein Aaron hits them with preprepared anti-Mormon tracts and terminology. Others here can verify.

I've never had someone from this board visit me. I've never even given someone a tract in my house. Unless a neighbor, I usually would meet someone I meet in a public restaurant so they feel more comfortable. I'd be interested to see what you can have "verified".

I choose to not do the research on somebody as a low life as Aaron. His is a simple dickweed with no redeeming virtues or value. He is on par with the infamous Tanners of Salt Lake and Lighthouse Ministeries, equally as virulent and clueless.

As I read this I honestly wonder about the anger and contention issues of the person writing it.

By analogy, what I see Aaron doing, is walking into Harlem, "yelling N...." every day, and then sending his kid to school after he hurled hateful invectives toward everyone else in the neighborhood.

Hurled hateful invectives? Any examples of such a thing? That seems to be precisely what I am receiving, not sending, on this board.

My offer to take anyone out here to lunch still stands. I don't bite, but I'll buy you some grub to bite.

So what happens if someone claims they have accepted Christ as their personal savior, yet afterwards they show no obedience, no works, no repentance for their sins and live in a manner that contradicts anything and everything Christ ever said or did?

Great question. The classic evangelical answer to this has been that they were never truly repentant or justified or "saved" to begin with. "Faith saves alone, but saving faith is never alone." Externalized works of obedience (aka "fruits") necessarily follow repentance and faith, but are not to be considered a part of repentance and faith. Repentance and faith are inward heart conditions that immediately bring full forgiveness. A section of an article I've on this subject might be helpful: http://mormonwiki.org/Repentance#Com...l_Christianity

In Biblical Christianity repentance is a godly sorrow, confession to God, resolve to abandon sin, and an empty-handed desperation of faith toward God for forgiveness. The fruits of repentance (obedience, restitution to man, etc) necessarily follow genuine repentance (as Jesus said, "Bear fruits in keeping with repentance" [Matthew 3:8, Luke 3:8]), but they are not to be mistaken with repentance itself. For the person who genuinely wants to be right with God, the LDS process of repentance adds an extra yoke and bondage that was never meant to be. In the Biblical model, one can repent in one setting, and receive immediate forgiveness, security, and absolution from God on the basis of the purity of Christ, being assured that God will work to "cleanse him from all unrighteousness" and produce in him the fruits of repentance. Even if one's repentance is not completely pure, when it is genuine God still forgives and gives a solid hope for a solid future. This puts the focus off one's own supposed worthiness and gives credit and praise to the purity of Christ and his sacrifice and his mediating work as an intercessor.

To forgive means to absolve one of the what restitution they owe. For Mormonism to require restitution as a prerequisite for forgiveness misses the entire point and meaning of free forgiveness.

You know you could be having this exact converation with some more conservative Christians. And Indy could be having this same debate with more grace-leaning Mormons like myself. But you know that, too.

I aware of the diversity on both sides (especially today), but I think the fundamental differences are still there and worth engaging over. When someone of my own "side" doesn't understand the relationship between grace, faith, and works, I think they should nonetheless be engaged.

Douglas Davis writes in The Mormon Culture of Salvation:

"What may be happening in these affirmations of grace by authors such as Mangum, Yorgason, Millett, and Robinson is a twofold development in turn of the century and millennium LDS life. The one answers the needs of devoted Saints, labouring under apparently impossible goals of achievement, the other displays the preparedness of a Church that now need not fear its distinct identity to accept wider Christians theological terms. It is as though modern Mormonism feels free to draw on the discourse of grace... Amongst ['the currents running within the current Mormon culture of salvation'] we find various checks and balances underlying undue movements in doctrine, with one example relating to a debate between Millett and some Baptist theologians on the issue of grace. This led to Boyd K. Packer, one of the most senior of the Twelve Apostles, addressing himself to the topic in a major satellite broadcast to church members in February 1998. Amongst other doctrines, he emphasized Latter-day Saints 'belief in the saving power of works in conjunction with Christ's sacrifice, rather than salvation by grace alone'." (Reported in Sunstone, June 1998, 21:2(110), 78)" - Davies, Douglas. The Mormon Culture of Salvation. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000. p. 58

Given the whole integrated system of Mormon theology, I think it and the various "checks and balances" (in authoritative sources as well as customs like temple recommend interviews) will bring Mormons back to an orientation toward merit and personal worthiness. That's something to be concerned over until the whole system is abandoned.

What's the point of all this bickering if both sides already know the other's views?

It would be an overstatement to assume both sides significantly comprehend the other's view of soteriology.