On Apr 10, 7:20 pm, B <BGK...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> On Apr 9, 8:58 pm, anti-cult <summeroverwin...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
> > Basic beliefs of Mormons explained
> > By Mike Licona
> > NAMB, Director, Apologetics and Interfaith Evangelism
> > Updated Monday, April 07, 2008
>
> > Mormonism started in 1830 with 24-year-old year old Joseph Smith Jr.
> > According to Smith, he had several experiences, during which God,
> > > D. Evidence for Mormonism? Mormons are convinced that Mormonism is
> > true because the inward testimony of God tells them so.
>
> B - How is this different than what Paul told people? that God told
> him? I'm not so sure what the problem is here.
Now that the subject has come up I want to compare, at least for a
moment, the Mormons and the Muslims. There seems to me to be a great
deal of parallelism between the two faiths. But I cannot bring myself
to believe that Joseph Smith was in any way influenced by Islam. The
two seem to be independent - but very similar - "innovations". I put
the scare quotes on "innovations" because, while I feel sure Smith was
massively innovating, I am less sure about Rasul Allah. In many ways
Islam seems to be an attempt to go back to the origins.
I have a standard question which one might use on Mormon missionaries:
How can you define Christianity so that the Mormons are Christians and
the Muslims are not Christians?
There are at least three ways to answer this question - (1) neither
Mormons nor Muslims are Christians, (2) somehow differentiate better
than the obvious superficial differences (such as the Book of Mormon
versus the Qur'an) (3) both Mormons and Muslims are Christians (but
the Muslims, for historical reasons, do not want to be called
Christians while the Mormons do want to be).
Personally I opt for answer (3) - God is what really matters and all
of us acknowledge the same God. Of course, I add the Jews and the
Bahai and doubtless other religions to the mix. The name
"Christianity" becomes somewhat of a misnomer in this solution - but
both Mormons and Muslims do acknowledge Jesus and give him
approximately the same authority.
There does not seem to be any agreed-upon name for the big religion
including all of us - Jews, Christians, Muslims and so on. I wonder
why.
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