octopus_inkNot that hypocrisy carries any weight on the right, but for those who *are* keeping score.
Wasn’t he a Mormon? Didn’t he already find Jesus Christ? It didn’t seem to make a difference at all…
Mormons aren’t Christians, at least according to those Christians who hate Mormons. They might believe in Jesus Christ but they didn’t find him. This might seem like a distinction without a difference but only because it is.
They found him at a 7/11 in Missouri, and then they get their own planet when they die. They’re like the Scientologists of Christianity. Which I think was L Ron Hubbard’s point.
There is no authority, no person or group of people, authorized to decide who is a Christian and who is not. That’s just not how such identity markers work.
Yes there absolutely are. If you don’t believe that Christ’s death on the cross redeemed the world of sin you are not Christian as that is the defining belief. There’s literally no point in the faith if you don’t accept this. By this standard LDS are Christians.
I gave a post earlier describing why you can assert that LDS is a different branch of Abrahamic faiths which I will repost below. This is of course ignoring that it is entirely acceptable to view LDS as a fraudulent creation by Joseph Smith.
“Ypu are mistaken as to how that argument goes.
The idea is that Christianity is a separate faith from Judaism because they have an entirely different set of texts and a different view of the relationship with God and what is expected of the faithful.
Islam is a separate faith of Christianity and Judaism as it too has additional texts and a different perspective on God than what Judaism and Christianity has (which again differ themselves).
Thus LDS is a different faith because it has a wholly new set of texts, it has a radically different view of the relationship with God than every other Abrahamic faith, and we have a lot of evidence that suggests Joseph Smith was outright fabricating everything. That’s a critical difference and suggests it should be seen as something else following the same standards applied to all otherAbrahamic faiths.”
Null User ObjectTo summarize, the person you responded to stated
There is no authority, no person or group of people, authorized to decide who is a Christian and who is not.
To which you responded,
Yes there absolutely are.
Followed by a wall of text that presented absolutely zero authority figures authorized to decide who is, and isn’t, christian.
All you gave is YOUR criteria, but there’s no reason anybody needs to follow your criteria. You’re also not authorized to decide. That’s the point.
I never really thought about it but unlike Catholics who have the pope. Christians don’t have a lead authority. So yeah there is arguably an authority to say what is and is not Catholic but not an authority to say what is or isn’t Christianity
Other groups have authorities as well but there is no central authority to all. You can be expelled from a denomination but not from Christianity itself.