Thursday, January 26, 2012
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Monday, January 16, 2012
What is Doctrine?
Over the past few week I have found issues on websites and forums about what is “official Doctrine”. Now in the Christian churches like the one I am in we hold the bible and the teachings of Jesus and truth to be Doctrine.
Christian truth and teaching passed on from generation to generation as “the faith that was delivered to the saints” (Jude 3 HCSB).
Specifically, doctrine refers to Christian teaching and most specifically to Christian teaching about God, the gospel, and the comprehensive pattern of Christian truth. The word itself means “teaching” and generally refers to the accepted body of beliefs held by the Christian church universally and to those beliefs specific to individual denominations and congregations in particular.
The Christian church cannot avoid teaching and thus must formulate a framework for understanding and teaching the basic rudiments and principles of the faith and for developing those basic doctrines into more comprehensive and thorough understandings. Without such a framework, the church has no coherent system of beliefs and no means of discriminating between true and false beliefs. —Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary
But in understanding the LDS church, they are lead by a living prophet and at times receives Inspired words from God to become scripture.
“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints accepts four books as scripture: the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. These books are called the standard works of the Church. The inspired words of our living prophets are also accepted as scripture” (Gospel Principles, 2009, p. 45).
“In addition to these four books of scripture, the inspired words of our living prophets become scripture to us. Their words come to us through conferences, the Liahona or Ensign magazines, and instructions to local priesthood leaders” (Gospel Principles, 2009, p. 48. Italics in original).
We see clearly that in the church manual “Gospel Principles” that the inspired words of the prophet is the word of God or scripture. Now do LDS member claim this? Over the past few weeks I have would have to say NO.
The issue came about when a non-LDS asked about Adam-God and was hammered with commits saying that it’s not official LDS Doctrine so we could not talk about it. But did not Brigham Young preach Adam-God? Was it not inspired?
“I have never yet preached a sermon and sent it out to the children of men, that they may not call Scripture. Let me have the privilege of correcting a sermon, and it is as good Scripture as they deserve. The people have the oracles of God continually” (Brigham Young, January 2, 1870, Journal of Discourses 13:95).
The question then was brought up about how things become doctrine and I was told that when the prophet has something he takes to the 12 and so one and it had to be voted on by the church. But my question would have to be, “Who would go against the prophet” and “If the church votes ageist the prophet and his inspired words, does that make him a false prophet?”
“Just as the Lord’s prophet is the only person on the earth who holds all of the keys of the priesthood (see D&C 132:7), he also is the only one who is empowered to receive revelation for the whole Church. Neither his counselors nor members of the Quorum of the Twelve nor any person in any position in the Church may declare official doctrine, change policies, or speak as the Lord’s representative for the entire Church, without the prophet’s authorization” (Teachings of the Living Prophets, 1982, p. 13).
It always seems to come back to one man, the living prophet. When I got my copy of “The Teachings of Thomas S. Monson” people told me I was holding the word of God. But is it doctrine?
That always seems to be the question that non-LDS people have for the LDS church, what do you believe? Who do you listen to? If the living prophet says Jump will you say how high?
My question is, What is LDS doctrine?
END OF LINE…
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Can a Christian believe that the Father is a great pumpkin in the sky?
Posted on January 12, 2012 by Aaron Shafovaloff on http://blog.mrm.org
Is a Christian someone who believes in a person named “Christ”, no matter what attributes they think of this person or his Father having? This will sound like a silly and irreverent thought-experiment, but hear me out, as this is intended to draw out a principle:
If someone said they believed in the historical life, death, and resurrection of the person of Jesus Christ, but said that this person’s Father was a great pumpkin in the sky, would that person still legitimately be considered a Christian?
I asked that very question to a panel of Mormon scholars once, and one answered yes (preferring such a person to be called a “heretical Christian”), and another answered no (referring to Jesus’ statement in John 10:30, “I and the Father are one”). Of course, no Mormon believes that the Father is “a great pumpkin in the sky”, but it does seem Mormons tend to believe that the title of “Christian” should be granted to anyone who claims the person of “Christ”, no matter what attributes they think this person (or his Father) have. The conditions are understandably minimal: this person believes in Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, and this person believes in Christ’s “divinity” (however a person chooses to define that).
Traditional Christianity seems to have an unspoken, hidden qualification: such a person lacks what we might call “defeater-beliefs”. Believing that God is a unicorn or is the Xenu of Scientology would be safe examples. Does Mormonism simply deny the idea of “defeater-beliefs” altogether, beliefs which would disqualify someone’s status as “Christian”? Have Mormons primarily done this to make it easier to justify their own status as “Christian”, or are there any compelling reasons they have from scripture and reason? Even those rare Mormons who believe that Jesus was a sinner seem to be embraced as fellow Mormons. Is there simply no limit to what a “Christian” can believe beyond what is considered the minimum requirement?
The heart of my question for Mormons is whether the attributes and identity of Jesus and the Father matter with respect to the theological and spiritual definition of “Christian”. This of course is relevant to evangelical Christians, who don’t recognize as “Christian” those who believe the Father was once perhaps a mere mortal sinful man, or that he is potentially one among many in a larger genealogy of Gods. In fact, we happen to believe that these “defeater-beliefs” compromise the very nature and content of basic Christian beliefs, in an inevitably integrated and interconnected way. Call us bigoted, call us hateful, call us arbitrarily exclusive, but if someone believes that the Father is a great pumpkin in the sky, we don’t recognize them as Christian.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Did Joseph Smith teach that God was once a man as we are now?
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Question of the Day
If the Book of Mormon was first penned between 600BC and AD 421, as claimed, how could it contain such extensive quotations from the AD 1611 KJV (using archaic King James English), which was not written until more than 1000 years later?