Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

ROMAN CATHOLICS AND EVANGELICALS COMPARED SOCIOLOGICALLY

Maggie Gallagher, a serious Catholic thinker and activist, wrote a column yesterday titled, The Catholic Weakness which carries the subtitle, "A large proportion of traditional, Mass-going Catholics don't believe basic Church doctrine. Why not?"

In the course of Gallagher's article she cites statistics from the Austin Institute’s new study, Relationships in America, from which she draws a series of comparisons, including the following:

Fewer than six in ten traditional Catholics who attend Mass regularly believe in the resurrection of the body (58 percent), compared with 75 percent of Evangelicals who attend services at least three times a month.

Catholic teaching says that weekly Sunday Mass attendance is a serious obligation and missing Mass is a mortal sin. Yet just 58 percent of traditional Catholics are at church in a given week, compared with 74 percent of Evangelicals.

When it comes to sexual-behavior measures in this study, traditional Catholics who are regular churchgoers are slightly less likely to use porn than are Evangelicals (29 percent to 21 percent) but also slightly more likely to report having premarital sex with their spouse (64 percent to 57 percent).

As far as attitudes and values, the situation is bleak. Take cohabitation: When asked whether it is a good idea for couples considering marriage to cohabit first, just 48 percent of churchgoing Catholics firmly disagree, compared with 79 percent of Evangelicals. When asked whether it is “okay” for two people to get together for casual sex, 86 percent of churchgoing Evangelicals disagree, compared with just 65 percent of traditional Catholics.

The Catholic Church is unique in teaching that a sacramental Christian marriage is literally impossible to dissolve. Yet when asked whether married couples with children should stay married, just 45 percent of traditional Catholics who attend Mass regularly definitely agree, compared with 58 percent of churchgoing Evangelicals.

These statistics bother Maggie Gallagher greatly.  She writes

If the Catholic Church could learn how to do half as good a job as Evangelicals at passing on basic Christian moral and spiritual teaching to the next generation, not only would much suffering be avoided, but American culture would be transformed.

Speaking as an evangelical, I find these statistics sobering.   The state of evangelical Christianity in America is nothing to boast about, but it seems Roman Catholicism is in even more  desperate shape.  Gallagher wrote a previous article based on the same study in which she compared Catholicism with Mormonism.  

BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR (DR. LYNN K. WILDER) LEAVES MORMONISM FOR BIBLICAL CHRISTIANITY

Last fall Dr. Michael Brown interviewed Dr. Lynn K. Wilder, a former professor at Brigham Young University who left Mormonism for Biblical Christianity, and wrote about her journey in Unveiling Grace: The Story of How We Found Our Way Out of the Mormon Church.   The following provides a riveting, fairly comprehensive phone interview.  In it, Dr. Wilder provides excellent, essential information about Mormonism.

 

Following, I've provided the major portion of an excellent and helpful Amazon review of Wilder's book.

. . .  As I began Lynn's book, I was skeptical of where it might go or what her message might be. Many books about Mormonism tend to land very heavily in the apologetics side of the scale, leaving the reader with a negative, almost sterile feeling in their heart about the way people are saved from Mormonism. In fact, after reading most books concerning Mormonism, all you want to do is just stay away from its deception at all costs! Lynn however has been able to skillfully reveal apologetic differences between Mormonism and Christianity by weaving what she learned into her story of salvation. Instead of pages and pages of information on the differences between Mormonism and Christianity the reader gets the story of a person fully living Mormonism and little by little coming to believe in the God of the Bible. As this story unfolds Lynn teaches about Mormon and Christian belief throughout in a way that is personal and heartfelt. Readers get a great picture of real Mormonism; a culturally enmeshed belief system that leaves little room for critical thought stranding its adherents in Zion, blissfully blind. Readers also get a real picture of the one true God found in Christianity; able to save anyone out of their situation through the truth about Christ found in the Bible as revealed to individuals by the "Dancer of grace" (314).

MIKE ADAMS GIVES HIS VIEWS ON MORMONISM

Mike Adams, professor of criminology at University of North Carolina-Wilmington, published an article/letter two days ago titled ironically "My Apology to Mormon Readers":

Dear Stacey:

You have written demanding an apology for my recent characterization of the Mormon religion as "non-Christian." I am happy to write a public letter of apology to you and to the countless Mormon readers who responded negatively to my characterization.

I am sorry that so many of my Mormon readers have brazenly accused me of ignorance of their religion and suggested that I read the Book of Mormon. I am sorry that they were unaware that I read the Book of Mormon back in 2006.

I am sorry that the science of genetics has refuted claims made in the Book of Mormon concerning the relationship between Native Americans and Semitic people. These refutations undermine the entire historical premise of the Book of Mormon.

I am also sorry that while archeological discovery supports the claims of the Bible it clearly does not support the claims of the Book of Mormon. Battles that were supposed to have occurred in specific locations in North America simply never took place. The archeological evidence just isn't there.

I am sorry about the plagiarism of the Holy Bible that runs through the Book of Mormon. I am sorry that Mormons cannot see that Joseph Smith's refusal to reveal the golden tablets is strong evidence of their nonexistence. The heavy plagiarism in the Book of Mormon puts the lie to the rest of the story of Smith, the former seeker of the lost treasures of Captain Kidd.

MORMONISM'S ERRONEOUS VIEW OF FAITH AND REASON

Wintery Knight has done us all a favor by producing this insightful post.  

Update 3/7/12:  WK followed up today with another important post: "Genetic evidence: another reason to doubt Mormonism."

R. ALBERT MOHLER TALKS ABOUT MORMONISM, CHRISTIANITY, AND THE PRESIDENCY

(Update at end of post)

(Original post) - Dr. Mohler does an excellent job laying out Mormon distinctives that clearly mark it beyond the bounds of historic Biblical Christianity.  His thoughts on how this affects politics and voting strike me as judicious as well. Mohler writes:

Predictably, Mormonism is in the news again. The presence of two members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints among contenders for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination ensured that it was only a matter of time before Evangelicals, along with other Americans, began to talk openly about what this means for the nation, the church, and the stewardship of political responsibility in the voting booth.

There are numerous ways to frame these questions wrongly. Our responsibility as evangelical Christians is to think seriously and biblically about these issues. The first temptation is to reduce all of these issues to one question. We must address the question of Mormonism as a worldview and judge it by the Bible and historic Christian doctrine. But this does not automatically determine the second question - asking how Mormon identity should inform our political decisions. Nevertheless, for evangelical Christians, our concern must start with theology. Is Mormonism just a distinctive denomination of Christianity?

The answer to that question is definitive. Mormonism does not claim to be just another denomination of Christianity. To the contrary, the central claim of Mormonism is that Christianity was corrupt and incomplete until the restoration of the faith with the advent of the Latter-Day Saints and their scripture, The Book of Mormon. Thus, it is just a matter of intellectual honesty to take Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, at his word when he claimed that true Christianity did not exist from the time of the Apostles until the reestablishment of the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods on May 15, 1829.

 

Mark Chapneys, Raised Mormon, Finds Forgiveness and Life in Christ Through Reading the Bible

This testimony  on YouTube of  how Mark Chapneys found forgiveness and release from his sins in Christ which he could not find in Mormonism is well worth watching.  (About 11minutes).  Mark tells his story honestly and straightforwardly and in a low key.  Highly recommended.  (HT:Andrew Jackson)

The Nicene Creed as Mormons Would Amend It

I thought the following a unique and helpful post. It is excerpted from "Grace" at This Side of Glory blog.  She introduces the Nicene Creed and then red-pencils it in a way the LDS (Mormon) church would change it. 

The Nicene Creed is the most widely accepted and used brief statements of the Christian Faith. In liturgical churches, it is said every Sunday as part of the Liturgy. It is Common Ground to East Orthodox, Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Calvinists, and many other Christian groups. Many groups that do not have a tradition of using it in their services nevertheless are committed to the doctrines it teaches.

Grace continues:

"I’ve  marked up the Creed as a Mormon would have to in order to fit their beliefs (as near as I can figure out — see my remarks at the end), and I’ve got footnotes in case you think I’m making this up. I tried to use Mormon sources whenever possible.

There are some other notes of interest that follow the footnotes . . .
*****

We believe in one God, the main God of a number of Gods(1), who acquired His place as Supreme Being over a long period of time by living a righteous life(2), the FatherMaker one of the Makers (3) of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible (and Who is married, by the way) (4); Almighty,

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, one of the spirit children of God (Lucifer being another), (5) the Only-begotten, Begotten of the Father before all worlds, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, Begotten, not made; of one essence with the Father (6) by whom all things were made: Who won God’s favor by agreeing with God’s plan of salvation when Lucifer disagreed,(7) and who was called Jehovah in the Old Testament(8).

Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, of a physical relationship between God the Father and Mary,and was made man, and was married at the wedding in Cana (10);
(9)

And was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered and was buried;

And the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures;

And ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of the Father in the celestial kingdom, the highest of the three kingdoms of heaven;(11) And He and Joseph Smith (12) shall come again with glory to judge the quick and the dead, Whose kingdom shall have no end.

And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, and Giver of Life, Who proceedeth from the Father, Who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, Who spake by the Prophets;

And we believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. in the Mormon Church, which restores Christianity to the form it had in the time of the apostles.(13)

We acknowledge one Baptism – for both living and dead – (14) for the remission of sins as long as that baptism is conducted by the Mormon Church (15)

We look for the Resurrection of the dead which will be presided over by Joseph Smith,(16)

And the Life of the world to come. And Joseph Smith. (17) Amen.

****

Footnotes:

1 - “In the beginning, the head of the Gods called a council of the Gods; and they came together and concocted