Why Every Latter-day Saint Should Cringe When One Says "We're Christians Too!"

By Brian Brumfield

For the past few years, the drum beat of "We're Christians Too!" has been getting louder and louder from the LDS camp. The rest of Christendom is left scratching its collective head a bit, pondering some basic questions: Why are they doing it? What is wrong with this claim? Who can call themselves Christian?



This article is an address to those basic questions.

Who Can Call Themselves Christian?

Who defines what is Christian? Please ponder this, who defines what is a Jew? Who defines what is a Muslim? Who defines what is a Buddhist? Can anyone claim to be so, if they do not follow the tenets of the faith system?

The use of the term "Christian" appears in the Bible some time around the ministry was established in Antioch, as described in Acts 11:26. Before that time Christ's followers were known as following "The Way" as described in John 14:5-6, Luke 3:4, Mark 1:3, Acts 9:2, Acts 19:9. The definition is really pretty simple: Those who follow the teachings of Jesus the Christ.

If you do not follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, if you are not a Christ follower, you by definition, cannot be considered a Christian. The fact of the matter is that you may choose to call yourself whatever you like, a poached egg for all I care, but the declaration of such does not make it so.

So then, how do we come to objective assessment of whether or not someone who professes to be Christian is truly Christian? The early church used a very simple, tribal-like system of profession of faith, that are known as the 'creeds.' So what is up with the creeds, and why are they a big deal? First we'll discuss what they are, and then we'll discuss how they factor in to this complex argument of who is or is not Christian.

Creedal Origins:
After ascending back to Heaven, Jesus' teachings were transmitted by way of oral and written form ("traditions" or "creeds" and letters) up until the canonization of what we call the Bible. Those who conformed to the teachings of Christ and professed faith in Him and were consistent with His teachings, were called Christians (followers of Christ). The "creeds" that the LDS Church dismisses as abominations to God, are simply summaries of the New Testament teachings - and also used as the gauge for whether or not a book/letter or teaching/teacher was fit to be accepted. Did the writing or teaching follow what was being taught by the early church, was it supported by other books, and/or found in the teachings of "early church fathers?"

Now we have a little bit of a stick situation with Mormonism, because Joseph Smith Jr. said that God told him that all the Christian Creeds were an abomination to Him (see Joseph Smith History, chapter 1 in the Book of Mormon -- quoted and hyperlinked below). Make no mistake friends, this statement by Joseph Smith Jr. was not a shot over the bow of Christianity, it is and remains a full frontal assault. The LDS Church has never repudiated this teaching, in fact it embraces it fully.

The derision of the 'creeds' by Joseph Smith Jr. and the LDS Church, is a massive issue. The creeds were and remain simply summaries of the faith held by those people who originally knew Jesus and ultimately transmitted His teaching faithfully.

Think of the acknowledging the creeds as being like holding a certification from Microsoft. By meeting the standards set by the organization, if they are satisfied that you conform to those standards, after you are tested for that basic knowledge, then they allow you to say that you are Microsoft Certified - or in the case of the creeds, you can honestly claim to be Christian. But if you do not conform to the standards set forth -- if you just claim to be or hold that which you do not have, you are either a fraud -- or are deceived. I hold no Microsoft certifications -- so I cannot call myself Microsoft Certified. However, I do agree with the 'creeds' of the early Christian church -- and I call myself Christian. If you reject those creeds, those standards of faith, you cannot morally or ethically call yourself that which you are not.

Why are the creeds considered to be corrupt? Basically because Mormonism denies the Godhead of the BIble and the creeds assert the Biblical perspective on the Godhead. The creeds were simply the oral tradition of the profession of Jesus' teachings linked with Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptural) truths... ultimately ratified by various counsels down the road (Nicene, Athanasian, Chalcedonian, etc). The creeds do not save anyone -- they were simply the way that the early church assured that people were adhering to some basis of the gospel (e.g. Microsoft Certification).

Creedal Content

The core of the early Christian creeds are this:


• God created everything - and is the I AM WHO I AM - the beginning and the end (not one, but THE only God) Exodus 3:6a,13-15, Matthew 22:31-32. I AM WHO/THAT I AM == no other, I AM, THE God. Isaiah 43:8-13, Isaiah 44:6



• Jesus came to earth as God to become 'as a son of man,' 100% man and 100% God. John 8:57-59, John 10:30-33



• Born of the virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit - no flesh relations between humans. Matthew 1:18-25



• Lived a sinless life. 1 Peter 2:22, 1 John 3:5, John 8, foreshadowed by Isaiah 53:9



• Took the sins of the world upon himself as the ultimate, perfect sacrifice for all. 1 Peter 2:24



• Those who profess their belief that they cannot merit favor with God through their own volition, who confess with their mouths and believe with their hearts that Jesus is LORD, they will be saved. Read Romans -- it is laid out beautifully: No works (Romans 4:4,14), Righteousness through faith (Romans 4:23-25, 5:1), We're all sinners (Romans 5:12-13), But the Grace of Jesus saves us (Romans 6:14), not the Law (Romans 7:6, 9:30-32).



• God, The Holy Spirit, and Jesus are God. One God. Three persons of a single being. I don't fully understand it. It's what the Bible reveals. I can walk you through it if you care to. Genesis 1:26-27, John 8:57-59, John 10:30-33, Mark 2:5-12, John 10:36, Matthew 16:15-17, John 14:16, Matthew 28:20, John 14:26, John 15:26, John 16:13. Acts 2. Romans 10.

(you can read the various Christian creeds here: http://www.carm.org/creeds.htm)
Some, such as the Athanatian Creed, go deeper into describing the concept of the tirune nature of God, but that list is the core.

So What Is Wrong With Mormons Claiming To Be Christians Too?

The nucleus of the problem with Mormons calling themselves Christians, has to do with the very foundation of their faith system. Not only does the LDS Church change who Jesus is, what Jesus did, and what Jesus means to mankind, it denounces Christianity outright.

Mormonism crashed through the gate of 'organized Christianity' with some pretty astounding claims, not the least of which were condemning Christendom outright -- see Joseph Smith's first vision. Which 'church' was okay? None! And these creeds -- these basic summaries of our faith system he claimed are an abomination unto God... and those 'professors' were all corrupt. Whoa!

http://scriptures.lds.org/en/js_h/1

"I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: “they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the gpower thereof.”

Continuing in that same tradition, the LDS Church continues to make truth claims about Christianity, which the Christian world declares are in fact false claims:

• The LDS Church claims that Christ removed his church from the earth some time after the death of the last Apostle (Paul) sometime between 90AD - 600AD. a.  But Jesus said that the gates of Hell would not prevail against His Church (Matthew 16:18). Was he wrong? Was he lying? Have we passed the judgment? See the next item...
  
  b.  Jesus said that He would be with us until the end of the age Matthew 28:20 -- when is that? Not when the first Apostle's died (as the LDS Church claims), but until the judgment -- until the harvest of fire at the end of the age. Matthew 13:39-40, Matthew 13:49, Matthew 24:1-3. Was he wrong? Was he lying? Have we passed the judgment? Can you see how these claims of the LDS Church contradict Jesus himself?



• Since we were looking at Matthew 16:18 -- the next verse is another place that the LDS Church (Joseph Smith) have taken vast liberties with the non-Biblical doctrines of eternal marriage, the whole binding and loosing issue. That terminology in the Bible has nothing to do with marriage, it is about forgiveness of sin. This is a constant theme of Jesus' -- Matthew 16:19, Matthew 18:35, John 20:23, Luke 11:4 -- look at the couplets -- if you forgive, you will be forgiven (loosed on earth, loosed in heaven), if you do not forgive, the Father will not forgive you (bound on earth, bound in heaven) -- the burden is for Christians to FORGIVE others, or WE will be held to account. Matthew 16:19 has absolutely nothing to do with "marriage for time and all eternity" -- that is a total fabrication of Joseph Smith. If someone sins against you, you are accountable to God to forgive that person. That is what Jesus was taking about.



• Cheap Grace. A fallacy and the equivalent of spitting on the sacrifice that Jesus made for us. Do some people claim to be Christians and live seemingly unChristian lives? Sure. There are "Jack Mormons" too -- it's human nature to revert to our sinful core. We are all but one decision away from sin at any given moment. The New Testament is clear on salvation by grace; Romans is the apex of clarity on the subject. So what about James, the LDS ask? It is a misapplication of authorial intent to say that James contradicts the rest of the New Testaments preponderance of evidence of salvation by grace - not of works. James says that faith will manifest itself through good "works" -- that a profession of faith with no signs of it is dead. Again Joseph Smith put the cart before the horse and wrote in 2 Nephi that grace is the hopeful end to your life -- if you did all that you can do (an impossible goal, by the way - are you doing all that you can? All the time? How long did you pray today? Could you have prayed longer? It's a vicious circle of unattainable merit), when the Bible makes it clear that Jesus did the work -- He paid the price for us. Please read Romans! Romans 3:21-31 contains a glorious explanation of what salvation by grace through faith means. Romans 4 is a great discussion of how Abram's FAITH was credited to him as righteousness not his acts -- his faith came before he was asked to sacrifice his son. That echoes the Biblical model of following God; faith leads to obedience. Abram had faith, he obeyed, and then his actions backed up his faith. Mormonism inverts this model.... pray (obey) and faith will manifest itself.



• Man does not have a corrupt nature, and the Fall in the Garden was a "fall in the right direction." This contradicts everything in the Bible concerning sin, and God's as well as man's nature. Do some word studies on sin in the Bible Mark and see what God thinks about it. Does he ever look at sin as acceptable or does the Bible ever lead us to believe that God can know, introduce, plan, or plot sins!? How can a perfect God, who is pure and Holy accept sin in the least? The Bible says that he cannot. Jesus absolutely reinforces that teaching, absolutely. There is no grey area. The Bible has hundreds of occurrences of "sin" and they are all abominations unto God. Only in Mormonism can you find any hint that sin is something the God of Christianity can stand.

Further analysis of this issue actually turns this 'We Are Christian's Too!" claim into a very large problem for the LDS Church.

At every turn the LDS Church denigrates the world of Christianity; mocking Southern Baptists, mocking our Biblical concept of Grace, mocking our preachers ('the agents of satan" -- paid with "filthy lucre").

The LDS Church has *itself* set the dynamite and lit the fuse under the very bridge that it is trying to build toward Christendom!

If you want to be really honest with yourself, you will have to ask this of the LDS Church: Is all of Christendom and its professors, as Joseph Smith Jr. claimed, an abomination or not??

This is an absolutely fundamental and monumental issue for Mormonism. If the LDS Church is "Christian too" -- then the implications are manifold:

•   It either means that Christendom is not as bad as Joseph Smith said that it was - which is the VERY foundation of the truth claims of Joseph Smith and hence Mormonism.



•   The LDS Church is now as "corrupt" as the Christian churches were and are.



•   Joseph Smith Jr. was wrong, deceived, or lied about Christianity.


This leads to a dilemma of Biblical proportions for the LDS people.
If Joseph Smith was right -- and if *all* the professors of the Christian creeds are corrupt, why .... *WHY* ... would you want to call yourself Christian!? If you truly believe that you are Christian, then I think you need to seriously consider what your affiliation with the LDS Church means -- because calling yourself Christian is a contradiction of Joseph Smith Jr. that blasts the very foundations of Mormonism. The other option is that you are arbitrarily dismissing the teaching of the "prophet of the restoration" and the revealed truth that he discovered in the woods... in which case, is that a stand that you are willing to take -- to blaspheme Joseph Smith and hence the 'God' that revealed these 'truths' to him?

Joseph Smith wrote (this is in the back of the Book of Mormon):

http://scriptures.lds.org/en/js_h/1

“In the midst of this war of words and tumult of opinions, I often said to myself: What is to be done? Who of all these parties are right; or, are they all wrong together? If any one of them be right, which is it, and how shall I know it?”
“‘My object in going to inquire of the Lord was to know which of all the sects was right, that I might know which to join. No sooner, therefore, did I get possession of myself, so as to be able to speak, than I asked the Personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects was right…and which I should join’”

What was God's response, as recorded by Joseph Smith Jr? You are to join none of them, because they are all wrong. (I paraphrase) According to Joseph Smith, and hence according to "God" Christianity is wrong. Christianity is corrupt. The Trinity doctrines are wrong. The Bible is corrupted. The preachers of Christianity are Satan's helpers, corrupted by 'filthy lucre' -- the Roman Catholic Church is the great whore of Babylon and on, and on, and on. Joseph Smith Jr. made the point very clear, from his perspective, claiming that he was instructed by God himself, Christianity = corruption.

http://scriptures.lds.org/en/js_h/1

19 I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: “they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.”

Why is the LDS Church Doing This?

Can you see and appreciate the magnitude of the problem that calling the LDS Christians poses? Precisely because Joseph Smith was told to reject all that was called Christian, and now the LDS Church is sidling-up to the very believers Joseph Smith was told to avoid, it is either a marriage of convenience to "mainstream" the LDS Church -- which frankly, if you hold the belief that Christianity is corrupt, is basically like sleeping with a prostitute and a total corruption of the LDS values - and the LDS people who believe this are then becoming the very thing that God told Joseph Smith to avoid.

I really like to make complex things as simple as possible, boiling down all the details into something that is easy to digest.

Here is a summary of the modern LDS Church's stand on Christianity...

"All of Christianity's creeds and its professors are wrong and corrupt" and "We are Christians too"

Am I the only one who sees the inherent problem with this concept?

The Bottom Line

If you are LDS and reading this newsletter, know that One Living Truth only wants one thing for you, and that is that you would find the personal, intimate relationship and true spiritual regeneration that Jesus wants you to have. It is not about what we can do, it's not about religion (man trying to reach God), but about what He did -- God reaching down to us! It is *all* about His glory not our own exaltation.