Quote from Washington Post

[Tex]

I'm not sure if I have more to offer than what folks have said here, but I'll afflict you with my opinion anyway.

Beyond sharing a common sense of purpose to bless the lives of the needy, I'm not sure I am concerned with being included in the community of Christians. We are different, and in a doctrinal sense I'd say we we even want to be different.

Where being known as Christians, in addition to Mormons, is helpful is in conveying our values to people who don't know much about us. We want folks to know we believe in Christ "and him crucified" as Paul would say. We want them to know we believe in being "honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men." Outside of the obvious missionary benefits, it disarms people when they feel they share something in common with you.

The problem of being persecuted for not being Christian is fortunately growing smaller, in my opinion, and I speak as someone raised in the south. I don't mean to demean others' negative experiences, but I always felt that whatever ridicule I received could be converted into something positive if handled properly. I also find that given our history, Mormons sometimes have a persecution or inferiority complex, and may take offense more easily than is necessary.

My 2 cents.

[jay santos]

Originally Posted by BarbaraGordon

The Washington Post today featured several perspectives on the current status of Mormonism within the American religious community.

Here is a quote from the guest commentary:

These words were written by a BYU prof and LDS member.

I was curious if any of you had any thoughts.

From your posts (taken collectively), I had gotten the impression that members would rather not be confused with mainstream Christianity and would instead rather maintain and celebrate the distinctions. But this guy feels that members do want to be regarded as part of the Christian mainstream (whatever that may mean). Comments?

I would like LDS to be accepted as a branch of mainstream Christianity.

I would like LDS to accept that 99% of our doctrine matches up nearly perfectly with Christian mainstream doctrine. I'm sick of dumb comments in Sunday School about how they're glad we believe X when Christian churches believe Y, when actually Christians believe X as much as we do. I'd like the Christian community to see how our doctrine is nearly a mainstream Christian doctrine with the gaps being, IMHO, in a lot of fairly insignificant items.

[jay santos]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

Jay Santos is probably the other extreme. He sometimes comes across like he wishes he was a presbyterian. And if you couldn't largely tell the difference between mainline protestantism and Mormonism, that would be a good thing. (I exaggerate a bit, I know).

That's probably fair. To me, the meat of the gospel is not in the stuff we end up talking about here. The meat of the gospel is faith in Christ, repentance, fall of man and need for Savior, justice and mercy, atonement, salvation through the merit of Christ, grace, the desire to do good works and emulate Christ for those that accept him, baptism, learning the truths of the gospel through the Holy Ghost, personal revelation, healings through the power of God, sacrifice, consecration.

There's not much more outside of that about the gospel that interests me, and there's not much more that the church teaches definitively with authority these days.

There are teachings that are significantly different than Christian doctrine but I see a deemphasis in many of these as we find we never understood them correctly and will be modified more in the future: polygamy, God once was man, man will become like God, other worlds/Gods, some elements of the preexistence, some elements of the three kingdoms.

There are items we disagree on that are important and don't fit in the categoy above: BoM, priesthood authority, temple work, living prophet, continued revelation. However the major difference I see here is that the purpose for these is simply to reinforce and confirm the truths that we share from paragraph 1, not to take us in a different direction.

[Solon]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

When Mormonism is considered just another protestant-type religion, it's game-over for Mormonism. Just look where the protestants are headed. It ain't pretty.

I'm probably out of the mainstream though. I posit that there has been a reduction in emphasis on JS, the BoM, restoration, etc. Not everyone agrees with me. And those that do agree, mostly feel this is a good thing.

I agree with your analysis of emphasis reduction, but apparently LDS leadership doesn't. I think this is something LDS members have been struggling with since WWII or so. The struggle for and theological paradoxes of assimilation into mainstream religious cultures is essentially the gist of Mauss' The Angel and the Beehive.

[MikeWaters]

One of the best talks I heard at church started off, "The Bishop has asked me to talk about personal apostacy.....We are not christians, and we should be proud of it!"

He of course explained, that we are not christians in that we do not subscribe to christianity's false beliefs (nature of salvation, nature of the godhead, etc).

I appreciate a man who can come in and forcefully stir up the congregation.

He has not been asked to speak since then.

[BarbaraGordon]

Originally Posted by jay santos

There's not much more outside of that about the gospel that interests me, and there's not much more that the church teaches definitively with authority these days.

There are teachings that are significantly different than Christian doctrine but I see a deemphasis in many of these as we find we never understood them correctly and will be modified more in the future...

I can see Mike's point here, then...if this (above) is the case, why wouldn't a member just go down the street to the Methodist church and join up? If the original Gospel of Christ is sufficient alone, and the embellishments are merely embellishments (rather than substantial doctrine), then what is the purpose of the Church?

[Solon]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

He has not been asked to speak since then.

Nice. Talk about killing two birds with one stone.

[MikeWaters]

Originally Posted by BarbaraGordon

I can see Mike's point here, then...if this (above) is the case, why wouldn't a member just go down the street to the Methodist church and join up? If the original Gospel of Christ is sufficient alone, and the embellishments are merely embellishments (rather than substantial doctrine), then what is the purpose of the Church?

Don't encourage him BG. We're trying to retain our members!

[Cali Coug]

Originally Posted by BarbaraGordon

The Washington Post today featured several perspectives on the current status of Mormonism within the American religious community.

Here is a quote from the guest commentary:

These words were written by a BYU prof and LDS member.

I was curious if any of you had any thoughts.

From your posts (taken collectively), I had gotten the impression that members would rather not be confused with mainstream Christianity and would instead rather maintain and celebrate the distinctions. But this guy feels that members do want to be regarded as part of the Christian mainstream (whatever that may mean). Comments?

I don't think Mormons necessarily want to be considered mainstream Christians, just Christians.

[BarbaraGordon]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

Don't encourage him BG. We're trying to retain our members!

Sorry. Didn't mean to go all AShaf on you.