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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   25136 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 29, 2025

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On the one hand, Mormons aren't Christians.

One might say that Mormons are Christians in the same sense that Christians are Jews. It captures both important features of self-conception and also important points of disagreement.

No. Mormons are substantially less Christian that Christians are Jewish.

The mormons believe that God was once a man who then became a God, and their version of enlightenment/ascendance/heaven is that they will themselves become God. Christians and Jews believe in the same God. Mormons do not believe in the same God as Christians, Jews, or Muslims.

Here are some mormon redditors trying to figure out how to square this, btw.

I know there are quite a few mormons who post here. Feel free to just ignore all this, btw. I love a good debate about religion, but I love you guys more, and don't want it to come at your expense, or to feel like people are kicking you while you're down - what happened yesterday was horrific.

I feel like this view is complicated by Mormons services being virtually indistinguishable from Protestant ones. They take communion, recite the lords prayer, celebrate Christmas with Christmas trees. The high theology is extremely different but the actual church practices is virtually the same.

Right, well, but can you define Christianity by similarity of vibes? By some standards Silicon Valley Buddhists are more similar to US Protestants than the latter are to Eastern or Oriental Orthodox Christians. Your "American Protestant would know what to do" standard also holds - I fully assume the US Protestant would be less lost at an American Yoga retreat than during Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox liturgy.

By some standards Silicon Valley Buddhists are more similar to US Protestants than the latter are to Eastern or Oriental Orthodox Christians.

To some extent this has been my personal experience: I could not convert to another religion if I chose, I couldn't take any other religion than Catholicism seriously, or I wound up back at Catholicism. Religion is in the blood.

Yes but it's more than vibes. The same prayers the same hymns, the eucharist, and drawing lessons from the Bible and gospels. It's the content too not just the forms.

Because the founder took parts of things that worked and added his own theology? The typical protestant church service was REALLY working during the second great awakening.

I mean isn't that just Protestantism. That's what Martin Luther and John Calvin did and why we have something like 50,000 Protestant denominations.

No. Mormons are substantially less Christian that Christians are Jewish.

...I'm not sure Mormons would agree with the first part, nor Jews with the second. I agree, but then I would, wouldn't I.

I'd agree on the latter part, in any case. Whatever my theological disagreements with Mormons, people who wish them harm are my enemies.

To be fair, Nicene Christians do believe that we will eventually become God in some sense, via theosis, or union with God. It's definitely not the same thing as the Mormon vision, but I could see people getting confused if you squint.

Or in the same sense that Muslims are Christians, no?

I wasn't sure whether to frame them as Christians (new revelation outside the law) or Jews (human prophets, perceive incarnation as blasphemy), so left them out as more confusing than the point was worth, but yes, essentially. "I'm his son, but he claims he's not my father."

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