I don’t understand why we can’t just all agree that virgin births occur, wine can turn into water, when you drink wine it turns into blood, dead people rise again and float up into heaven. What’s the matter with you people? Also, Charlton Heston got God to part the Red Sea, but he doesn’t do that anymore.

It’a fascinating how the different sects can’t abide those other crazy people.

Another Mormon defense post.. Can a Catholic hating post be far behind??

Any group that baptizes you after you die is a cult. Mittens is a Bishop of a Cult. Likewise, Rick Warren has a Cult. But Warren’s Cult is that of a Flim Flam Con Man fleecing the flocks of those who believe, Jesus walked with dinosaurs.

President Obama being a con-man himself, recognized a fellow con-artist. So, Obama chose Rick Warren to bless his Inauguration. Reverend Jeremiah Wright would have been a far better choice.

Since, religions are becoming political action committees, they should lose their taxpayer subsidies, and pay taxes as the rest of us do.

I believe in the separation of church and state, but I do not believe in the separation of faith and politics

Um…Huh?

Hey IRS: Would you mind taking a look at this guy’s tax-exempt status? Sounds to me like he (like about 100% of his mega-church, and TV evangelist cronies) is over the line.

Rick Warren. Scumbag, extraordinaire.

Since, religions are becoming political action committees, they should lose their taxpayer subsidies, and pay taxes as the rest of us do.

Yes, please.

Muslims believe Jesus was a Prophet–the deistic equivalent of their beloved Mohammed, a miracle worker and a servant of God. But they’re infidel pagan terrorists, so who cares?

Religion is a wedge, and the wall between ‘church’ and state long ago came a-tumblin’ down.

Call it an un-dorsement: On Easter Sunday, Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback (mega) Church just defined Mormons as not being Christians. Ergo, Mitt Romeny, the most-likely GOP nominee is not a Christian. Today on ABC, Warren told Jake Tapper:

well, he’s not a “christian” unless Muslims are Christians

I don’t think it’s right for pastors to endorse [a political candidate] in the first place. I would never endorse a candidate. I would never campaign for a candidate.

Well that could cause tax problems for Mega-Ricky & his Mega-Flim-Flam-Grift-the-Rubes “Church.” That said: Mega-Ricky ain’t at all shy of treading a very very very fine line in terms of the not-really-endorsing-a-pol-candidate thingy.

Whatever. I could care less. They’re all charlatans in my “good book.” Throw the money-changes outta that temple…

I think that the point that Lisa is making is that there are beliefs stated in Mormonism that are seriously at odds with what Christians have traditionally believed and therefore would preclude Mormons from being defined as Christians by mainstream Christian churches. Mormons are free to claim that they are Christians, but that doesn’t mean that Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists are required to accept them.

To give a related example – Messianic Jews claim to be Jewish while accepting Jesus as the promised Messiah. I doubt that you would find any branch of Judaism accepting their claim to being authentically Jewish.

Take the example the that Jesus and Lucifer are brothers. Traditional Christians believe that Jesus is God and therefore not a created being. Lucifer (the Devil) is believed to be a fallen angel. Angels are not divine (not gods); they are believed to have been created by God as purely spiritual beings. Therefore, the Mormon belief is not compatible with traditional Christian thought. Even without making a judgment as to which could be right or wrong it is clear that they are not the same thing. This is also true concerning Mormon beliefs about the nature of God. Traditional Christians believe that God is a Spirit, Mormons teach that God the Father has a physical body. Thus they believe that Jesus was conceived by the physical union of God the Father and Mary (no virgin birth), a situation more akin to the birth of the classical demigods like Hercules or Perseus than anything that traditional Christians believe.

One of the things that makes dialogue between Mainstream Christians and Mormons so difficult is that often the latter group is not always straightforward in acknowledging the existence of the obvious differences. Believing one thing precludes believing its opposite. “A” cannot be “Not-A” at the same time.

To which post are you referring?

Completely compatible with Santorum’s feeling that the State should be kept out of Church, but that Church should permeate the State. Just another way of saying it.

How is this my post a defense of Mormonism? Just as an FYI I don’t hate any religion at all. What bothers me is when practitioners of any faith attempt to force their belief system onto other groups of people, be the religious in control Christian fundamentalists, militant Orthodox Jews, sharia law adherents, Wiccan hardliners (yes there are those!), etc.

The schism we are seeing herein American faith-based politics, courtesy of Rick Warren, is fascinating and could be a turning point. Will people rise up and say, “Hey religious faith doesn’t matter to me, it’s how a candidate leads his life and the good-for-America progress s/he has made and will continue to make.”? Or will a minority faith be rejected by conservative voters?

There a plenty of religious folks of almost every flavor whose ideals and practice of their faith are truly glorious and a tribute to their beliefs and their concepts of God. There are others–not so much and scary.

Since a particular case of the IRS vs a certain “religion” who I won’t mention by name because its zany space-alien ronbots will hijack this thread, I have thought that perhaps it is time that the IRS re-assesses its views towards tax exempt status for religion. In this “religion”‘s case, their members now receive tax benefits denied to followers of any other faith (see Sklar v IRS), and to me that seems like putting one faith above all others. But the courts disagreed.

Is an un-dorsement telling people how to vote? Warren walks a fine line to not endorse from the pulpit.

And yes, gerryphillyesq, you are totally on the mark.

And in general, since reactions towards and against prevailing faiths and God(s) has been the cornerstone of all cultures throughout the world, and is at the root of art, music, literature, architecture, clothing design, and law–in other words pop culture throughout the ages–I do write about it here.

And just for the record, I am not an atheist and I practice in very minority belief system that is pretty much thought of as more nonsensical than the vast plethora of “mainstream” religions.

To each his own.

I couldn’t care less about Romney’s religion, and don’t have time for those who obsess about it, nearing bigotry.

There are so many other reasons not to vote for him. Why bother?

Or will a minority faith be rejected by conservative voters?

I think the answer to that is “yes”, it’s the details that will be more interesting.

My impression, for what it’s worth, is that moderate/liberal/progressive voters for the most part don’t make electoral decisions on the faith of the candidate, but that a significant portion of the hard right does, even to the point of being single-issue voters.

When faced with the choice of a Mormon or a Muslim (many of these same voters appear to be firmly convinced that Obama is a Muslim), how will they vote? Will they stay home altogether? Will they vote third-party for President and straight Republican on the rest of the ticket? Will they hold their nose and vote for the white guy anyway? This is what remains to be seen, and part of that will be what third party candidates will be available to them.

One of the things that makes dialogue between Mainstream Christians and Mormons so difficult is that often the latter group is not always straightforward in acknowledging the existence of the obvious differences.

Yes, and you cite some of the more well-known differences. I often wonder what else goes on inside the Mormon tabernacles where the non-Mormons are not allowed to tred.

I’ve visited Temple Square in SLC, and you get this nifty tour led by youngsters doing their “missionary” work. At least when I took the tour, these nice young people spent the entire time telling us how the Mormon faith was almost *exactly* like Christianity… only not so much. Most of them were very very good at deflecting honest but “uncomfortable” questions about issues, such as those you present in your comment.

I didn’t press them too much, but mostly their responses could be boiled down to: “Mormons really really DO believe in Jesus.”

Well, yeah, sorta… but…

I don’t really care either way, as I see many religions as being flim-flams out to dominate and control their “flocks” and mostly get money from them. There’s other subtle shades of nuance that could be added to that, but that’s mostly my take most “churches.”

Rick Warren is but one egregious example of a wealthy man ripping off the rubes. Someone said somewhere else that Warren sees the book, “Elmer Gantry,” as an instruction manual. Too true.

I really enjoyed the typoes of Romney’s name in this blog post, but particularly Rmoney. I think that’s how he should always be known.

The fundamental problem

The basic conflict inherent in any sort of Mormon/Christian fundy alliance is not any particular doctrinal incompatilbility — though God knows those are legion. The really basic problem is that Joseph Smith up and added The Book Of Mormon to the Bible.

The whole point of fundamentalism, and the allied concepts of Scriptural literalism and inerrancy, is that we don’t get to add or subtract so much as a jot or a tittle from the received Word. This move is basic to their whole approach, which is to deflect any possible personal responsibiity for stands that would be hard to defend, such as homophobia, with the appeal to eternal and unalterable Truth that requires them to hate gay people. They can’t very well let folks go around adding whole new books. If Mormons can add a book that describes Jesus ministering to people in the Americas, what’t to keep gays from coming up with a new gospel that describes Jesus returned to found a gay minsaty and denounce the homophobes?

All that non-fundamentalists want is an openness to interpretation of the existing text that questions whether homophobia is really there at all, and if it is, whether other parts of the text might supercede an earlier homophobia. That’s quite modest compared to just adding text.

Pastor Rick™ Warren should be in prison.

I once attended a “nondenomination” prayer breakfast, held before the Gridley IL annual festival (“Gridleyfest!”) in which the guest preacher told everyone that Catholics weren’t Christians, either. It’s this schismatic thing that both Toqueville and Weber thought gave America its wonderful, fraternal savor, birthing not just lotsanlotsa churches but businesses and other institutions.

My right-wing Christian inlaws (God love ‘em) definitely get direction from the pulpit of the sort that Warren dispenses. And the pulpit–and they–have been hostile to Rmoney two elections running (they went Gingrich in FL moons ago now). I have little doubt they vote for Romney, but all that enthusiasm the Repubs were counting on. . .

Re: Warren’s notion of “worldview” (which I’d label ideology, get lined up properly), Cockburn has a very good piece at Counterpunch about why discussion of Romney’s faith is absolutely necessary–Mormons pledge themselves to a great many things most US citizens would be uncomfortable with, and both the elitism and mystagogical hoohoo that dominate that faith want careful examining. Everybody get the word out–in addition to torturing dogs this guy subscribes to some very whack sh*t.

‘Nonendorsement’ is the word author’s looking for.

I know it is beside the point nut, as a reasonable drudge with no bias for any organised religion, I must ask: why is Rick Warren an authority in DQing ppl from following Jesus? I mean, b/c of a dispute over ideas about the trinity? Forget that Jesus never taught about that, Christians didn’t even come up with that idea until about 350 years after Christ was executed. And about becoming more than a man after you die not being a Christian idea, uh, I think that is the whole point of
the faith, any faith really, and none noteworthy than Christianity, which worships God who came in man’s form so that we may one day may be with him.

“Un-dorsement” is a neologism, like “unvitation/unvite.”

Torsten: literal much?